Luke Niehaus 

Watch the video please
and THEN read the biography/bibliography
and the "artist's statement."

Biography of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Franz Ferdinand was born on December 18th, 1863, in what would soon become Austria-Hungary (Neidell). Ferdinand became wealthy following the death of one of his many cousins and inherited his estate. Despite being one of 70 archdukes in the Empire, Ferdinand became second in line for the throne in 1889 after another of his cousins, Crown Prince Philip, killed himself and his father became heir to the throne. Then Ferdinand became heir presumptive to the throne when his father decreed that he did not want to inherit power and gave it to Ferdinand (Neidell). However, Ferdinand would never actually become emperor because he would be assassinated on June 28th, 1914, triggering WWI.

Despite Ferdinand being next in line to be the Emperor and having a lot of wealth, almost no one in the Austrian aristocracy liked him (Neidell). Instead of marrying a very wealthy and high status woman like the aristocracy thought he would, Ferdinand married Czech Duchess Sophie Chotek (McMeekin). In contrast to Ferdinand’s wealth and power, Chotek’s family was relatively poorer and was not connected to the Austrian Royalty (Neidell). As a result, the aristocracy started treating Ferdinand and Chotek as badly as they could given his status (Neidell). When Ferdinand married Chotek on June 28th, 1900, Ferdinand was forced by his uncle Emperor Franz Josef I to sign an “Oath of Renunciation” (McMeekin 2) meaning that any children he had with Chotek would not be eligible to inherit the throne and rule Austria (Neidell). Also, Ferdinand was not allowed to talk about Chotek, his own wife, in public and when they were together at public events, she had to stand far away from him and enter last because of her “low” status (McMeekin 3). 

Ferdinand himself was something of a contradiction for the times. He was a devout Catholic and believed that the power of the multi-ethnic Empire needed to be consolidated in the monarchy.  He hated Slavs in general, and Hungarians in particular, calling them “rabble” in a 1904 letter (History of Transylvania). But at the same time, he sympathized with the Slavs of Croatia and Bosnia (including many Serbs) who had been excluded from the division of power in the Compromise of 1867 (Valiani).  He also advocated greater autonomy for those peoples, as long as they were under the ultimate power of the throne, and repeatedly urged a cautious approach to Serbia (Valiani). In fact, in early 1913, he wrote to Austria-Hungary’s Foreign Minister that “irredentism in our country… will cease immediately if our Slavs are given a comfortable, fair, and good life” (Valiani). These positions almost certainly stemmed less from concern for the people involved, and more to preserve the Empire and most importantly, avoid a conflict with Russia.  But they were still virtually unique for his time and, ironically for how his life ended, made him probably the strongest advocate in the high aristocracy for Serbs and other ethnic groups.

On June 25th, 1914, Ferdinand took a three day trip to Ilidža, Bosnia-Herzegovina for strictly political reasons (McMeekin 1). He spent two days observing mountain military exercises from the 15th and 16th Army Corps (Cronan) but he was mainly in Ilidža to improve relations between Austria-Hungary and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Ferdinand met with various leaders and hosted a dinner for the mayor of Ilidža, government officials, and religious leaders who were Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim (McMeekin 1). However, this would be his last ever trip. 

Before his eventual assassination later that day, Ferdinand actually survived an assassination attempt. Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie Chotek, arrived in Sarajevo by train on June 28th, 1914, at around 9:20 am (McMeekin 12). Ferdinand was wearing a cavalry general uniform, which consisted of a blue tunic with a golden collar with three silver stars on it and red-striped black pants (McMeekin 12). Ferdinand and Sophie got into Ferdinand’s 1911 Gräf & Stift convertible (McMeekin 19) and, surrounded by a police brigade, were driven away. 

Due to Ferdinand’s travel route and times being published (McMeekin 11), a group of five people, including Gavrilo Princip, Nedjelko Chabrinovitch, and three other assassins associated with The Black Hand, had a plan to ensure they killed Franz Ferdinand. Waiting right before the Cumurja Bridge, two of the assassins had pistols and Chabrinovitch was nearby with a bomb; Princip had a revolver right before the next bridge; and the last assassin, with both a bomb and a gun, was waiting around the Kaiser Bridge.   

Despite there being five people ready to assassinate Franz Ferdinand, the plan failed for multiple reasons. First, when Ferdinand’s car drove by both of the first two assassins, they did not shoot (McMeekin 14). Second, when Chabrinovitch threw his bomb at Ferdinand’s car, the driver saw and sped up, resulting in the bomb very mildly grazing Ferdinand’s face and then blowing up the car behind him (McMeekin 15). Third, Princip and the other assassin left their positions because they knew they would not be able to murder Ferdinand at the moment following the previous two failures (McMeekin 15). 

Around 11 am, Ferdinand was being driven around with a new police brigade and moving at a faster speed than normal for safety; it seemed impossible that anyone could assassinate Ferdinand now because no one could accurately throw another bomb far enough and no one could get close enough to shoot him. (McMeekin 19). However, Ferdinand changed his schedule to visit the hospital to check in on the people who were severely injured in his assassination attempt. The rest of the police brigade either forgot or were not told about the schedule change, so when Ferdindad’s car turned off of a road called “The Appel Quay,” the other cars did not follow (Neidell). This left Ferdinand unprotected. After Ferdinand realized this, he told his driver to turn around (Neidell). The driver then stopped in front of a spice shop so he could turn the car around (McMeekin 20) because the car was not able to go in reverse (Neidell). By an extreme coincidence, Gavrilo Princip was in front of the same spice shop as Ferdinand and he now had a clear shot. Princip was about 8 feet away from Ferdinand and he shot Ferdinand in the jugular vein (Cronan) and Chotek in the gut at point blank range (McMeekin 20) with a FN Model 1910 Browning semi automatic pistol (McMeekin 18). By 11:30, it was officially confirmed that Princip had successfully assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdindad and his wife Sophie Chotek (McMeekin 20). 

There are multiple reasons why Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. When Austria-Hungary ignored Ferdinad’s wishes and annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908, Serbians, who were 40% of the population, were predictably infuriated (McMeekin 3). This tension between Austria-Hungary and Bosnia-Herzegovina continued and was responsible for the creation of multiple terrorist resistance groups. This included Narodna Odbrana, which Gavrilo Princip used to be a part of (McMeekin 7), and “The Black Hand”, which was responsible for giving Princip, Nedjelko Chabrinovitch, and the other assassins four guns and six bombs for Ferdinand’s assassination attempt (Neidell). In addition to the annexation tensions, June 28th was a national holiday called “Saint Vitus’s Day,” on which Serbians mourned being defeated by the Turks in 1389, but was also about celebrating a victory where a Serbian killed the Ottoman Sultan (McMeekin 5). Yet, Franz Ferdinand’s tour around Sarajevo was occuring on June 28th, the same day as the 525th anniversary of Saint Vitus’s Day. The heir to the Austrian throne, the same people responsible for the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, was in Sarajevo and it harshly reminded Serbians of the past and provoked many (McMeekin 5-6).

Franz Ferdinand’s assassination directly caused World War I. All of the tensions between Serbia and Austria-Hungary that motivated Gavrilo Princip were exacerbated by him murdering Ferdinand and Sophie Chotek, causing Austria to declare war on July 28th (Bjelajac) and invade Serbia (Strachan 7). As Ferdinand had warned, Russia mobilized extremely quickly and rushed to aid Serbia (Strachan 23). As a result, Germany, allied with Austria-Hungary, declared war on Russia on August 1st, 1914 (Strachan 25). Then, more and more countries and nations kept joining the war until it eventually became world-scale. In spite of all of his attempts to maintain peace and to leave Serbians alone, Franz Ferdinand’s efforts were all rendered useless and to most, he is solely remembered as a man whose death was the most important moment of his life. 

Works Cited

Bjelajac, Mile. “Serbia / 1.0 / Handbook - 1914-1918-Online (WW1) Encyclopedia.” 1914, 1 Oct. 2015. 

Cronan, J. (2014, June 28). Two Bullets That Changed the Course of History. The National Archives blog. 

“Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.” IWM Film Éclair. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024. 

“Franz Josef : Still Portraits Etc [Allocated Title].” IWM Film. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024. 

“History of Transylvania volume III.from 1830 to 1919.” Edited by Zoltán Szász and Béla Köpeczi, HISTORY OF TRANSYLVANIA - Volume III. From 1830 to 1919, 2002. 

McMeekin, Sean. "Prologue: Sarajevo, Sunday, 28 June 1914." July 1914 Countdown to War, Basic Books, 2013, pp. 1-20

Neidell, Indiana. “A Shot That Changed the World - The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand I PRELUDE TO WW1 - Part 3/3.” YouTube, YouTube, 4 Aug. 2014. 

Sopherl. "Did teenage Anarchists Trigger World War I? what were the politics of the assassins of Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914?" Libertarian Communism, 14 Jun. 2014.

Strachan, Hew. "To Arms." The First World War, Penguin Books, 2003.

Valiani, Leo, The End of Austria-Hungary, Alfred A. Knopf, New York (1973), pp. 9–10 translation of: La Dissoluzione dell'Austria-Ungheria, Casa Editrice II Saggiatore, Milano (1966) pp. 19–20.

Artist's Statement

I chose Archduke Franz Ferdinand because I knew he was very important and well known, but I didn’t know a lot about him as a person. However, the most important reason I chose him is because I knew I could make a really funny video about him.

I chose to dramatize the assassination of Franz Ferdinand for three reasons: First, it was the most important part of his life and it triggered World War I. Second, I knew I had a lot of information I could use to write a really good biography. Third I knew I could incorporate a lot of facts and song lyrics into the dialogue to subtly hint to what was actually going on. 

The hardest part of this project (that wasn’t the biography) was the editing because I just had to edit so many clips manually in iMovie and had to make sure everything lined up properly because I played both of the on-screen characters. However, I think it’s worth it and funnier as one person playing two people, specifically for this video. 

What I will remember most is that I was able to use my genuine research from the biography and then apply it to a fun project where I could make a really funny video, both for class and for fun. 

I think that World War I was overall less bad than World War II, and was also kind of absurd; new countries kept joining the war because they were part of an alliance and then Germany got blamed for everything despite not starting it. Also, if Germany wasn’t blamed for everything and the Treaty of Versailles didn’t happen, there is an extremely high chance that World War I wouldn’t have happened.

Many people think the reason World War I started was because Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, and while this is technically true, there were years of tensions building between Austria-Hungary and Bosnia-Herzegovnia and the Serbians. The assassination was just the breaking point and Austria-Hungary responded by invading Serbia which led to everything else in World War I, which are also less well known than World War II.