By Stephen Yellin
One hundred years ago today a 19-year old terrorist fired the first shots of what ultimately became the First World War. The consequences of his act, taken with other acolytes of the extreme nationalist, paramilitary group called “The Black Hand” are still felt to this day. That Gavrilo Princip’s assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire sparked the world’s most horrific bloodbath to date, and that such a war gave birth to Fascist and Communist totalitarianism as twin menaces of the 20th century, is well known.
What is not as well-known is the story of Princip’s other victim. Most history books and programs note that Franz Ferdinand’s wife was killed with him, but many say little more than that. Yet the remarkable story of Sophie Chotek, Duchess of Hohenberg – and why she was in Sarajevo with her husband that day – is worth telling. It is by equal turns a romantic love story and a tragedy with implications not just for the victims and their family but for the world they lived in.
[Author's note: my sources for this story come from a recently published book, The Assassination of the Archduke by Greg King and Sue Woolmans; all photographs are from Wikipedia entries.]
The Maid and the Heir
Sophie Chotek was born in 1868 to an aristocratic but economically down-on-its-luck family. The Choteks were Bohemian (the core of present-day Czech Republic) nobility but lacked the financial means to live as elegantly as their background suggests. Sophie’s father was a career diplomat for the Austro-Hungarian Empire (which ruled Bohemia at the time) which like most countries of the late 19th century provided meagre salaries to its Foreign Service members. Consequently Sophie, like her sisters were forced to work for a living. While an older sister became a teacher, Sophie and the rest were sent as young women to serve other, more prestigious aristocratic households in the Empire. In Sophie’s case she became a “lady in waiting” to Archduchess Isabella, Duchess of Teschen who was married to the head of a branch of the reigning Hapsburg dynasty. Her job was essentially that of a maid with most of her day spent at the beck and call of the Archduchess. This practice was far from unusual in the aristocratic Europe before 1914 as many families of the lesser nobility farmed their girls out to higher ranked aristocrats to avoid the cost of taking care of them at home.
Pastel of Sophie Chotek before her marriage to Franz Ferdinand
It was while working for the Archduchess that Sophie met the man who’d change her life and ultimately end his days with her. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, nephew of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph was not expected to become heir to the throne but the tragic suicide of his cousin, Crown Prince Rudolf at Meyerling Castle in 1889 put him next in line after his father (who promptly renounced his claims in favor of his son). The then 26-year old army captain was thereafter groomed to succeed his uncle to an empire that had been in the family for over 400 years. Considered cold, arrogant and often ill-tempered by contemporaries, the typical accepted view of Franz Ferdinand leaves little room for a Prince Charming. The story of him and Sophie Chotek shows otherwise.
Franz Ferdinand met Sophie at a masquerade ball held in Vienna in 1894, where families like the House of Teschen would parade their young ladies before some of the most eligible men in the Empire – especially the heir to the Empire itself. The Archduke was indeed smitten on this occasion, and for the next 2 years secretly courted Sophie while often visiting her employer at Halbturn Castle in Bohemia. He later reminded Sophie of "our dervish [ie masquerade] ball, which was really so wonderful." Contemporaries of “Franzi” and “Soph” (their pet names for each other) agreed that the attraction was mutual.
Photograph of Franz Ferdinand, early 1900s
You may ask why the couple courted in secret. The problem was that the Hapsburgs were confined by strict laws, more so than any other European dynasty, as to whom Emperors or heirs to the Empire could marry. In Franz Ferdinand’s case he was required to marry a member of a reigning or formerly reigning dynasty. While the Choteks were longstanding Bohemian nobility and even had a Hapsburg ancestor from the 13th century, Sophie was considered of insufficient rank to be Empress of Austria-Hungary. (These rules explain the hideously interbreeding of the Spanish Hapsburg dynasty in the 16th and 17th century as they had virtually no one else to wed.)
Since the Teschens were Hapsburgs themselves it was presumed that the heir’s frequent visits to Halbturn were for courting the Archduchess’ eldest daughter Marie Christine. When the Archduchess discovered who Franz Ferdinand actually wanted to marry she promptly sacked Sophie. In order to save his love’s reputation (ladies-in-waiting were apparently assumed to have done something immoral to deserve dismissal) the heir to the throne announced the reason for Sophie getting the pink slip. He also declared his love for her and resolved to marry no one else but her.
Dignity in Humiliation
The “scandal” of Franzi and Soph’s romance sparked a public battle between the Emperor and his nephew, one that pit the deeply traditional Hapsburg court and its incredibly rigorous protocols against an increasingly astonished and bemused Europe. Franz Joseph insisted his heir renounce Sophie and marry an acceptable consort or else renounce his claim to the throne; Franz Ferdinand refused to do either. “I have at last found a woman whom I love and who is suited to me,” he complained to a friend, “and now they are making the most unheard of difficulties, because of some trifling defect in her family tree. However I shall overcome that.”
Eventually other members of the monarchial fraternity intervened on Franz Ferdinand’s side. Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II, Russia’s Tsar Nicholas II and even Pope Leo XIII called on the Emperor to let his nephew marry the woman he loved. Franz Ferdinand’s stepmother (who in another example of Hapsburg intermarriage was also Franz Joseph’s sister-in-law) also took her son’s part.
Emperor Franz Joseph, photograph taken in 1898
Finally the Emperor gave way – but on condition. In order to marry Sophie Franz Ferdinand was forced to accept a “morganatic” marriage; his wife could never be raised to the level of royalty (archduchess or higher), nor could any of their children succeed him as Emperor.
This meant Sophie could not attend any public events by her husband’s side, ride in a royal carriage or sit in the royal box at any theatre or opera (attended regularly by Viennese society). Yet “Franzi” and “Soph” were willing to accept such humiliating terms in order to marry. To ensure his nephew did not take back the agreement upon succeeding to the throne the Emperor forced his heir to publicly swear an oath to that effect before the Cardinal-Archbishop of Vienna and the assembled Hapsburg court.
The date was June 28th 1900, exactly 14 years before Sarajevo.
The Emperor expressed his disapproval by not attending his heir’s wedding, as did Franz Ferdinand’s brothers and nearly every member of his family. The Imperial court, led by its chief overseer the Prince of Montenuovo (who was the child of a morganatic marriage himself) continued to humiliate the new “Princess of Hohenberg” at every opportunity. If for example the Imperial family were to hold a ball then Sophie would not only have to sit apart from her husband but be last in line to enter behind every other Hapsburg relation no matter how obscure. All contemporary reports state that Sophie never complained or even show displeasure at this treatment in public, earning the sympathy of many outside the court for her dignified response. Less inclined to forgiveness than his wife, Franz Ferdinand allegedly drew up a list of particularly obnoxious aristocrats for whom he intended payback when he became Emperor.
Understandably this treatment led Franz Ferdinand and Sophie to spend as much of their time away from court as possible. They raised their children (2 sons, Max and Ernst and a daughter, Sophie) primarily at Konopiste in modern-day Czech Republic; by all accounts the couple was devoted to their children and spent much time with them. Much of the consensus on Franz Ferdinand’s personality – cold, reserved, difficult to befriend – stems from the couple’s desire for privacy from the early 20th century equivalent of the paparazzi.
Franz Ferdinand, Sophie and their children, 1910 photograph
As the years went by the court’s animosity towards Sophie began to dwindle. Franz Joseph was aging rapidly and the next Emperor was not someone you wanted to get on the wrong side of. By 1909 Sophie had been raised to the rank of Duchess (2 steps above princess in the Austrian hierarchy) and began receiving occasional greetings in letters from Hapsburg family members. The couple was still prohibited from appearing together at state functions, however and traveling abroad for state occasions was equally limited by the difficulties with protocol. Some monarchs simply ignored protocol and welcomed the couple as equals. One of the few good things that can be said about Kaiser Wilhelm II is that he treated Sophie as such from the beginning and as such earned the friendship of her husband.
As heir to the throne of one of the “Great Powers” of Europe Franz Ferdinand was naturally of great importance to many more than Kaiser Wilhelm. It also made him a target of Serbian nationalists dedicated to destroying the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
A Fatal Trip
The tragic irony of Sarajevo, as several recent books on the outbreak of World War I have pointed out is that Princip killed the one man in Austria-Hungary’s government who was staunchly opposed to war. While Franz Ferdinand was publicly regarded as an aggressive “hawk” prepared to wage preemptive war in the Balkans, all written evidence shows the exact opposite. While he shared the Austrian elite’s contempt of Serbia’s military and their loathing of Serbian propaganda, he considered going to war “lunacy” because it would drag Austria into a wider war with Russia, Serbia’s public protector and thus plunge the Empire into a war that would destroy it. In 1908, 1912 and 1913 the future Emperor successfully blocked a preemptive military strike as urged by the Austro-Hungarian military Chief of Staff, General Conrad while publicly announcing his request that the latter resign (Franz Joseph refused).
All evidence indicates the Archduke was leery of visiting Sarajevo, a hotbed of nationalist discontent and where massive security precautions had been needed to protect Franz Joseph during his 1910 visit. These precautions were shockingly relaxed for Franz Ferdinand’s visit even though numerous warnings of terrorist activity were passed on but ignored by the region’s Governor, General Potiorek. Whether Potiorek was simply incompetent or (as one member of the Imperial family claimed afterwards) in cahoots with Conrad to remove the one obstacle to war with Serbia is irrelevant. What matters is that Franz Ferdinand was sufficiently concerned for his own safety that shortly before departing for Sarajevo he asked an aide to look after his children should he not return.
But why was Sophie in Sarajevo? While one contemporary insisted she went because it gave her a rare chance to be constantly at her husband’s side – something still denied the couple in Vienna and other official functions – it appears she was more concerned about her husband’s safety and decided it was better for them both if she joined him. “It is a dangerous undertaking, and I will not leave the Archduke to face it alone,” she told a Countess prior to leaving with him on the trip. Those fears at first seemed groundless; Sophie toured a bazaar in Sarajevo and they officiated at several functions without a hitch. When Sophie expressed her pleasure at the public reaction to a Bosnian official he ominously replied “I pray to God that when I have the honor tomorrow night of seeing you [at the end of the trip], you can repeat those words to me.”
The next day was June 28th – St. Vitus’ Day, the Serbian national holiday marking the country’s defeat and conquest at the hands of the Ottomans. On a day when Serbian nationalists vowed revenge against their oppressors, Princip and his 6 co-conspirators lined the Appel Quay, the city’s main artery and where the Archduke’s cavalcade would pass en route to City Hall. Yet June 28th had another, personal significance: it was the 14th anniversary of Franz Ferdinand’s pledge that had allowed him to marry Sophie. That the couple still loved each other dearly is reflected in separate comments they made shortly before. “I wish I could relive every single day again,” said “Soph”. “I have often found,” said “Franzi”, “that there are things in life we would do differently if we had to do them again. But if I had to marry again, I would do what I have done, without change.”
Franz Ferdinand and Sophie leaving Sarajevo Town Hall after the first assassination attempt, June 28th 1914
The rest of the day we know. After surviving a bomb thrown by one of Princip’s cohorts the Archduke decided to skip the day’s program and visit a wounded aide wounded at the local hospital. Sophie again refused to leave his side. Thanks to a communications snafu the chauffer was not informed of the change in plans and began turning down the wrong road. He stopped in front of the delicatessen where Gavrilo Princip stood. As the 1911 car was pushed back to the Appel Quay the assassin stepped forward and fired three times before being knocked to the ground. The second bullet fatally wounded Sophie; the third, Franz Ferdinand. As she collapsed he said,
“Sopherl! Soperhl! Don’t die! Stay alive for our children!” Both were dead by the time the car reached Town Hall a few minutes later.
Aftermath
The maltreatment of Sophie Chotek continued even after her death. When the couple’s bodies were returned to Vienna for burial they were placed in caskets of different size and color (his large and gilt bronze, hers a smaller silver one) which were placed on separate biers, Franz Ferdinand’s being 18 inches higher than hers. Nor was this a coincidence: while Franz Ferdinand’s various imperial and military insignia were placed in front of his coffin, Sophie’s had a black fan and white gloves in front of hers – the symbols of a mere noblewoman. Nor were their children allowed to attend the funeral with the rest of the Imperial family, as the children of a morganatic marriage were not considered of sufficient rank to share the chapel with Franz Joseph and the other Hapsburg mourners. When Prince Montenuovo attempted a final indignity – requesting all courtiers to skip the funeral procession itself – the court openly revolted and marched besides the coffin. Following Franz Joseph’s death in 1916 his grand-nephew and successor Karl sacked Montenuovo.
Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were buried at their estate at Arstetten in present-day Austria. This too was a reflection of their love: the Archduke knew his wife could not be buried with him in the Imperial crypt and so requested they be buried together elsewhere. Their children were expelled from Konopiste after the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed in November 1918 and the new government of Czechoslovakia appropriated all ex-Imperial property. The Hohenbergs (as the children were called) were later persecuted by Hitler as part of anti-Nazi forces in Austria (they favored the restoration of the Hapsburg monarchy under Karl’s son Otto); Max and Ernst were both sent to Dachau concentration camp but survived.
There has always been speculation as to whether Franz Ferdinand would have gone back on his pledge to exclude Sophie and his children from Imperial rank upon his accession to the throne. Yet in 1926 a document was released that should have put such questions to rest. It was the official proclamation that he, as Emperor Franz II, intended to issue as soon as Franz Joseph was dead. In it he announced his plan to grant “equal rights of participation in common affairs of the monarchy” – the creation of a United States of Greater Austria that he had supported since 1906 and that might have saved his Empire had he lived to implement it. In the same proclamation, however Franz Ferdinand kept his promise not to make his children his heirs or Sophie an Empress.
What he did pledge was to make Sophie “first lady of the empire” and his consort; in other words, to be his equal in the eyes of the world. It was what Sophie Chotek deserved, and what she and her “Franzi” had spent 14 years waiting to do. This royal romance is the personal tragedy of Sarajevo, one eclipsed by the far more devastating political tragedy whose convulsions still shake the world a century later.