Assassination and Investigation
Emperor Franz Joseph ordered Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, to attend military exercises scheduled for Bosnia in the summer of 1914. After the exercises, on 28 June, Franz Ferdinand toured Sarajevo with his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg. Six armed irredentist Serbs coordinated by Danilo Ilić lay in wait along Sarajevo's Appel Quay because it was announced that Franz Ferdinand's motorcade would use that route.
At 10:10 AM, Nedeljko Čabrinović bombed Franz Ferdinand’s motorcade as it approached the Čumuria bridge. Twenty people were wounded, but Franz Ferdinand was unhurt. The bomb thrower had been instructed in Belgrade by Serbian Major Voja Tankosić to take potassium cyanide to prevent his capture. Čabrinović swallowed the cyanide, but it only sickened him. The Sarajevo police arrested Čabrinović and brought him to the police first aid post. Investigating Judge Leo Pfeffer was at the police station and was immediately assigned to investigate. Before the investigation got far, news arrived that Gavrilo Princip had shot and killed Franz Ferdinand and Sophie while they were on their way to visit the wounded in the hospital. Princip took his cyanide, but the cyanide had the same effect on Princip as it had on Čabrinović. The police arrested Princip, and he too was brought to the first aid post. Within 45 minutes of the shooting, Princip began telling his story to Pfeffer.
By the next day, 29 June, based on the interrogations of the two assassins, Oskar Potiorek, Governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina, was able to telegraph to Vienna that Princip and Čabrinović had conspired in Belgrade with the comitaji Milan Ciganović and others to obtain bombs, revolvers, and money to kill Franz Ferdinand. A police dragnet quickly caught most of the conspirators. Twenty-five people went to trial, but nine were acquitted.
Read more about this topic: July Crisis