Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenburg, were being driven through the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the town of Sarajevo. Earlier in the day, before the fateful incident, Nedeljko Čabrinović had actually attempted to get the deed done before anyone else could, throwing a grenade at the vehicle. However, it blew up behind the car, to which Franz Urban, the driver of the car sped up and Ferdinand yelled out to the crowd upon arriving at the Konak's, "So this is how you welcome your guests - with bombs?!"
Later on in the morning, …show more content…
Potiorek was staring right at Princip, and because Ferdinand and Sophie were still sitting upright, Potiorek had reason to believe the shots had missed - but he was wrong. The shots had fatally hit the couple, Ferdinand in the throat and Sophie in the abdomen. Princip was grabbed by onlookers, and Potiorek ordered Urban to drive directly to the Konak's residence, still under the belief that the shots had missed.
While Ferdinand cried to his wife to hold on for their children, Sophie had fainted. Finally, just as they began pulling up to the Konak bersibin, a long wet rattle rumbled out of Ferdinand's throat, slowly dying down as the car engine died itself. Though the doctor's tried their best without success, Ferdinand died on his way up the stairs with his beloved wife, Sophie. They later went on to be buried together.
The archduke's assassination, along with militarism, the arms race, nationalism, imperialism, and the alliance system as a whole were all contributing factors to World War I. The assassination was the most immediate cause of the Great War, which officially began a month after the archduke's death when Austria-Hungary declared war against