Archduke Franz Ferdinand's Assassination

One of the world’s most devastating and history-changing wars was caused by the assassination of Austria-Hungary’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand. He was next in line for the throne to govern over the Austria-Hungary empire in the beginning of the 20th century, and he was rising at a very dangerous and tense time. In the early 1900s, Austria-Hungary was in a stressful conflict with the country of Serbia. The Serbians wanted the land of Bosnia, in which the Austria-Hungarian empire had annexed into their country, and Serbia wanted to unite all of the Serb ethnic groups to form a country known as “Greater Serbia,” (Bodden 19). They wanted to send a message to Austria-Hungary, and they wanted to show that they meant business. So, the Serbian government
Although he had been assassinated by the Black Hand, and the Serbian government had a role in making the plans, he wanted to aid the Serbians in many different ways. The Archduke stated that when he rose to the Austria-Hungarian throne, he wanted to give the Serbian ethnic groups located within the empire more political power (Bodden 19). Most of the groups, which included the Bosnians, the Slovenes, the Croats, and other southern slaws, were struggling, for they did not have much political power and they were having economic problems. Ferdinand wanted to fix that, since a broad amount of the Austria-Hungarian empire’s population belonged to Serbian ethnic groups. Also, once the Archduke obtained the throne, he wanted to talk to Serbia about the conflict that was occurring and he wanted to find a solution. He wanted to make a compromise and form an agreement with Serbia, but he never got the chance to. One of the most important factors to the unjustification of the assassination was that Ferdinand did not want to go to war with Serbia (Preston). He also saw conflict arising between Serbia and Austria-Hungary, and he wanted to restrain war and conflict from occurring as soon as he could. Archduke Franz Ferdinand wanted to make treaties and agreements with Serbia, and the fact that he
The Archduke did not want war with Serbia, and he would have done anything to stop it from occurring (Preston). Although it was the spark of the war, there were other issues that helped lead up to the occurrence of World War I. This included the nationalism shown by Bosnia and Austria-Hungary’s signs of imperialism, and this might have sparked the war, but if Ferdinand was not assassinated, it might not have happened (Kelly). With other reasons as well, including how Ferdinand was not to blame for the empire’s actions, this assassination had been unjustified. Also, even when some counterarguments were said, they were pinned down by other facts, making the assassination remain unjust. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand had stunned the world, and with the information that is present, it can be said that this huge event in history was majorly