The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, 1914

General remarks

Every historian who has written on the causes of the First World War has included in his account a description of the assassination of the Austrian heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and of his wife, the Countess Chotek, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. The motive for this double murder has not caused much disagreement. Contemporaries and historians alike have recognized it as the product of a sweltering feud between Serbia and the Habsburg monarchy dating from 1903. What the Austrian vice-consul in Niš reported about the views held among Serbian patriots in his town shortly after the double murder reflected prevailing opinion: Franz Ferdinand had to die because of his imminent succession to the Austro- Hungarian throne. Once becoming emperor, Franz Ferdinand was expected to attack Serbia forthwith because Russia, Serbia's great pan-Slav protector, would not be ready, militarily, to enter a war on its side for another five to six years.

It follows that most historians of 1914 have also mentioned the police problem facing Austria at that time. What they have not examined is whether Austria's police service in 1914 was guilty of negligence and incompetence, or whether the security needs, particularly in the Balkans, were no longer manageable by the police of the European states working only within their own territorial jurisdictions.

The question of an Austrian police failure

Had the security for the Austrian heir and his wife at Sarajevo been sufficiently rigorous, and were the Austrians laying the blame on Serbia to cover the failure of their own police?