Death of an Archduke

The Habsburgs are a ruling family moribund and steeped in the history of old Europe. The royal history of the family goes back to 1273, when Rudolf I was crowned the first king of Germany. In its long and varied history, the family expanded, mostly by marriage, and endured contraction, usually due to rising nationalism, of its holdings all over the continent.

The current Habsburg emperor of the Austo-Hungarian empire, Franz Ferdinand is aging at 66.  In 1899, his only son had committed suicide in a pact with a commoner with whom he had been conducting a tempestuous love affair.  He was the famous Crown Prince Rudolf.

Into the vacuum reluctantly stepped a nephew, Franz Ferdinand.  In yet another eruption of nationalist fervor, he and his wife are assassinated by a Serbian terrorist who is deeply offended by the encroachment of German outsiders into his Slavic country.  The assassination occurs on June 28, 1914.  In weeks to come the dominoes will inevitably fall that lead to a most destructive war, but this event is the trigger that sets is all in motion.

The action fulfilled a prophecy made back in 1888.  The German genius statesman Otto von Bismark had predicted "One day the great European war will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans."  He was a careful and pragmatic architect of modern Europe and his antipathy to the blustering Kaiser Wilhelm II was the undoing of his brilliant political career.