Police capture Gavrilo Pincip just moments after he assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie.

On June 29, 1914, 100 years ago today, a Sarajevo Newspaper reported that the “Hope of Hapsburgs is Assassinated in Bosnian Capital”. The emperor in waiting, along with his beloved wife Sophie, had been killed by Gavrilo Pincip, a member of the nationalist group Miad Bosna. Simultaneously, the Associated Press announced that the “Archduke’s Death Removes Danger of European Conflict” stating that the Archduke’s “friendship for the German emperor also gave his enemies in Europe an opportunity to accuse him of favoring an aggressive policy, and it had been a fetish in the continental capitals that when he came to the throne there would be an end to the peace that had prevailed among great powers”.  In actuality, it was Ferdinand’s death that put an end to peace. Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914. Germany declared war on France on August 3, and then declared war on Belgium on August 4. This prompted Britain to declare war on Germany on August 4, 1914. The stage for WW1 had been set.