Why Franz Ferdinand Was Assassinated

 100 years ago on 4 August, Britain declared war against Germany –initiating the heavy British involvement in the Great War. Some people may find it hard to believe that the assassination of the Archduke resulted in a war which cost the lives of 16 million people. However, the event in the current capital of Bosnia & Herzegovina – Sarajevo – is widely though of as the event which sparked World War I.

 The questions that have to be asked are why Franz Ferdinand? And why did Austria-Hungary react by declaring war on Serbia?

Archduke Franz Ferdinand: 1863-1914

 Historically – there have always been tensions between the Serbians and the Austro-Hungarians. A prime example is the Bosnian Crisis of 1908, where Serbia responded with hostility towards the annexation of their neighbours – which had been “occupied and administered” by Austria-Hungary following the demise of the Ottoman rule in Bosnia. The Serbs did not agree the annexation of their Slav brothers thus responded by mobilizing their army. Yet 6 years later and Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pasic did not want war with their them, however his hands were tied once finding out about the Black Hand's plan to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand. Not telling the Austro-Hungarian government would result in immediate blame, telling them would result in his name being tarnished in Serbia. In the end he opted with the former but Jovan Jovanovic's warning to Dr Leon von Bilinski were not taken seriously, allowing the Black Hand to continue it's operation.

Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1914

 Serbia was always an easy target for the Austro-Hungarians. Being a small nation beside their vast empire – alongside the many trouble's it had been attempting to cause in Bosnia. The assassination gave them an excuse to take over their rivals – and gave the Germans an excuse to invade France. The Austro-Hungarian government knew they could beat Serbia on their own – however Russian support was inevitable due to them being “Protector of the Slavic People”. Therefore the help of Kaizer Wilhem II's Germany was successfully requested, resulting in the Schlieffen Plan being written up by the German Army to avoid fighting a war on two fronts. The basis of this was that the Russian army would take 6 weeks to fully mobilize – and in that time they could go through Belgium to outflank the French army thus avoiding this problem. However the British had a 75 year guarantee with Belgium about an invasion as such – and the rest is history.

 On July 28 1914, there were a couple of attempts on Archduke Ferdinand's life which shows clear intent from the Black Hand that they wanted him dead. Of course the actual incident happened because of unfortunate timing – the driver of the car happened to turn into the wrong road which contained Gavrilo Princip – however it is presumable that there were members of the Black Hand stationed throughout Sarajevo. One way of looking at the assassination is that it was a statement of intent against the Austro-Hungarian rule of the Serbs. However with the dire repercussions being fairly obvious I highly doubt that would be their reasoning. In fact the true reasoning was entirely political.

 Ferdinand was due to rule the Austro-Hungarian empire following the death of his Uncle – Franz Joseph I and his plans for the empire conflicted with both Russian and Serbian views. Ferdinand wished to make concessions towards the Slavs, allowing them to have sovereignty and an impact in the empire. Of course that would make unification much harder – which the patriotic Black Hand would not stand by. The assassination would have to take place before he took over the throne.

 There was clearly conflicting objectives between the two largest European countries at the time, and the Serbian actions were clearly applauded by the Russians and detested by the Austro-Hungarians. Russia had no problem turning a blind eye to the incident nor supporting the Serbians who's act undeniably sparked the Great War, prevented a Greater Austria-Hungary and led to the demise of the ever flourishing empire.