Although the Archduke's wife may had birth connections to royalty, she was considered nothing more than a "Lady in Waiting," which was barely more than a commoner in the aristocratic Austria-Hungary society, thus being looked down upon by the court. The couple was not popular with the Hapsburg Vienna Royal Court. With a Catholic priest's blessing, the journey to Vienna commenced. The bodies of the royal couple were embalmed by Army surgeons, placed in metal caskets, and transported to the drawing room of the Governor's Palace in Konak. Although the motorcar drove straight to the Army hospital, the Archduke's wife was dead on arrival from hemorrhaging, and the Archduke died shortly thereafter, before any first-aid could be rendered. The first shot struck Archduke's wife in the abdomen, while the second hit the Archduke's neck. A nineteen-year-old, slim-in-statue lad, Gavrilo Princip, who was a member of the Serbian-Bosnian political organization known as "Mlada Bosna," or Young Bosnians, stepped forward firing two shots with his pistol directly at the royal couple. Disaster struck when the Archduke's motorcade inadvertently drove past a second group of participants of the assassination conspiracy. After that incident, the six-car motorcade proceeded to the City Hall for a scheduled greeting by the Mayor, and then proceeded to the Garrison Hospital where treatment was being given to the Archduke's wounded aide, a victim of the bomb's explosion.
The fatal shooting was a second attempt upon the lives of the couple, as the first attempt failed when a hand-thrown bomb or grenade by Milan Gabrinovics was fended off by the Archduke. Many Bosnian, Serbians, and Croats resented the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, which had occupied Bosnia from 1878 and had annexed the area in 1908. While making a tour of the Austrian-annexed province of Bosnia, representing his uncle, Emperor Francis Joseph, Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophia were assassinated. Historian and critics give different views of the Archduke, with some impressed by his military training from a young age, but concerned with his dislike for some minority secs while other were impressed with him being a zealous game-hunter and his love for his wife and children. His assassination by a Serbian nationalist on June 28, 1914, in the Bosnian capital city of Sarajevo was the trigger that started World War I, a war lasting for over four years involving all of Europe and the United States. He was the Crown Prince and Heir Apparent to the throne of the Austria-Hungary Empire with the title of Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria.
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