Why was Franz Ferdinand important?

Franz Ferdinand was so important because he was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. When he was killed by Gavrilo Principe, Austria-Hungary declared war against Serbia. The war turned so big because the countries allied with Austria-Hungary (the Triple Alliance) also went into war against Serbia. read more

The discussions with the former were about the harsh treatment that Hotzendorf had with Serbia, to which Franz Ferdinand warned that they should take a more careful approach with the slavic nation, warning and accurately predicting that the bad treatment of Serbia would lead the Austro-Hungarian empire into a war with Russia, which would destroy both empires, which is precisely what happened later in the First World War. read more

In an event that is widely acknowledged to have sparked the outbreak of World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, nephew of Emperor Franz Josef and heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is shot to death along with his wife by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on this day in 1914. read more