Gavrilo Princip was a Bosnian Serb student who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 Ju
Princip in his prison cell on 4 July 1914
Princip family home in Obljaj
Gavrilo Princip's parents, Marija and Petar Princip c. 1927
(left to right) Trifko Grabež, Milan Ciganović, and Gavrilo Princip in Kalemegdan Park, Belgrade, c. May 1914.
The July Crisis was a series of interrelated diplomatic and military escalations among the major powers of Europe in mid-1914, which led to the outbreak of World War I. It began on 28 June 1914 when t
Gavrilo Princip
…presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. The assassination set off the July Crisis, a series of events that within one month led to the outbreak of World War I. Princip was born in western Bosnia to a poor Serb family. Aged 13, he was…
Illustration of the assassination in the Italian newspaper La Domenica del Corriere, 12 July 1914
The accused in court. Front row, from left: 1. Trifko Grabež, 2. Nedeljko Čabrinović, 3. Gavrilo Princip, 4. Danilo Ilić, 5. Miško Jovanović.
Austro-Hungarian postcard made after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand depicting an Austrian fist crushing an ape-like caricature of a Serbian holding a bomb and dropping a knife, and stating "Serbia must die!" (Sterben purposefully misspelled as sterbien to make it rhyme with Serbien.)
Emperor Franz Joseph was 84 years old in 1914. Though disturbed by the murder of his heir and nephew, Franz Joseph largely left decision-making during the July Crisis to foreign minister Leopold Berchtold, army chief of staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, and the other ministers.