The assassination of the Archduke : Sarajevo 1914 and the romance that changed the world

Summary/Review: When summer 1914 opened, Europe was dominated by three great empires: Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia. By the end of World War I, all three monarchies had disappeared from the face of the earth. One event precipitated the conflict, and at its heart was a tragic love story. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was heir to an empire with millions of subjects, many of whom resented the central government. When he chose to marry for love against the wishes of the Emperor and the Court, he and his wife were marked for destruction by reactionaries who feared their modernizing influence. King and Woolmans prove that they were deliberately sent to Sarajevo, a city seething with revolutionary violence, in the hope they would be killed.