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.