ON THIS DAY · 28 JUNE 1914

Assassination of Franz Ferdinand

28 Jun 1914 — The motorcade takes a wrong turn in Sarajevo. Gavrilo Princip, a 19-year-old Bosnian Serb, shoots Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie at point-blank range. Five weeks of diplomacy follow; then the continent is at war.

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Map: Assassination of Franz Ferdinand, 28 June 1914 — 28 JUNE 1914 · THE GREAT WAR, 1871–1923

These maps are reconstructed from published sources · Cliopatria v 0.2.1 · Natural Earth physical geography · Anglo-Russian Convention, 31 August 1907, articles I–II

Source details

Cliopatria contributors / Seshat Global History Databank. Source polygons retained with original identities; geographic selections and corrections by Maps of History.. CC BY 4.0
Made with Natural Earth; geographic reference and physical land only. No modern political boundary is used as a historical boundary.. Public domain
US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States; convention’s named places define the two concession spheres.. Historical treaty facts, independently reconstructed

Annual source features can describe claims, legal territory or military control. Occupied extensions are separated from the prewar Central Power homelands, while the original source names and shapes remain available.

The displayed state is iss 14 jul. Geographic reference dates and reconstruction methods are recorded for each feature.

reconstruction: 1871–1918 · reconstruction: 31 August 1907 · vector: 1815–1937 · vector: 1848–1935 · vector: 1864–1921 · vector: 1871–1914 · vector: 1871–1916 · vector: 1873–1914 · vector: 1890–1914 · vector: 1895–1917 · vector: 1898–1914 · vector: 1900–1918 · vector: 1905–1914 · vector: 1905–1915 · vector: 1905–1921 · vector: 1908–1935 · vector: 1912–1914 · vector: 1912–1915 · vector: 1912–1919 · vector: 1912–1921 · vector: 1912–1955 · vector: 1913–1914 · vector: 1913–1915 · vector: 1914–1914 · vector: 1914–1915 · vector: 1914–1916

Layer records and reconstruction methods

The moment in context

The Austrian heir's murder gave Vienna an opportunity to deal with a danger it had long feared. Austria-Hungary ruled many peoples, including South Slavs whose nationalism had encouragement from Serbia. Some Austrian leaders wanted to break Serbian power before it could further threaten the empire. Germany's unconditional promise of support, the “blank cheque,” made a hard policy more attractive: Vienna could act knowing that its great-power ally stood behind it.

From July Crisis and outbreak of WWI, chapter 3 of The Great War, 1871–1923 (JUL 1914).

The place: Assassination of Franz Ferdinand — map and full story →

Teach this in 5 minutes

Why it happened — The alliance machine. Bismarck had used alliances to isolate crises. By 1914 the opposing alignments could spread one. An Austrian attack on Serbia threatened Russian…
The turn — Sarajevo, 28 June 1914. The assassination nearly failed. A bomb missed the archduke's car that morning; later, the driver took a wrong turn past the café where Princip…
What it changed — The dominoes fall in one week. Austria-Hungary declared war on 28 July, and further declarations followed before Britain entered on 4 August. In the next chapter a German army…

Then ask the room: Was the First World War an accident, a choice — or both? Who, if anyone, was to blame? The argued answer is on the chapter page →

The atlas that shows it

The Great War, 1871–1923

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