Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria shot

Brustbild Franz Ferdinand, Erzherzog von Österreich-Este (1863–1914) in Uniform

Archduke Franz Ferdinand with his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, and their three children (from left), Prince Ernst von Hohenberg, Princess Sophie, and Maximilian, Duke of Hohenberg, in 1910

Franz Ferdinand suffered bouts of tuberculosis during his 20s and early 30s. Many said this was due to his mother, Princess Maria Annunciata, who died of the disease at age 28.

The upside of weak lungs? He was sent all over the world for treatment. A whirlwind tour of the Mediterranean, a voyage to Asia and a sightseeing cruise down the Nile all helped to dampen the disease until his lungs healed for good in the late 1890s.

The coterie who surrounded the emperor — his uncle, Franz Joseph — at one time assumed that Franz Ferdinand would not live to inherit the throne. Cohen says that this readiness to dismiss the vulnerable nephew as a viable heir planted in him a seed of resentment toward the Habsburg Imperial Court (one that would grow).

Franz Ferdinand was trigger-happy.

Tigers in India, kangaroos, emus and wallabies in Australia and stag and deer in the forests of Austria all met their demise at the end of the archduke’s rifle.

“Anything that moved, he was ready to shoot,” said Lebow. His personal record was reportedly 2,140 kills in a day.

Franz Ferdinand shot his first tiger on a six-week trip to India in 1893. “I cannot describe my joy,” he wrote of the kill. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

Franz Ferdinand tallied his kills in a massive journal. The grand sum of pheasant, partridge and ground game that he shot was 272,511, according to calculations published in “Archduke of Sarajevo.”

Emperor Franz Joseph described his nephew’s hobby as mass murder, said Cohen, while others considered it a mania.

Hunting trophies — an estimated 100,000 — cluttered his estate at Konopischt. You had to be careful walking down the halls to avoid getting impaled by antlers, said Cohen.

At the estate, “(t)he foot of a giant elephant, shot by the Archduke in Kalawana in 1893, serves as an ashtray; the foot of another such colossus from Ceylon as a wastepaper basket,” wrote a government official from Prague.

Countess Sophie Chotek of Bohemia — a lady-in-waiting when the two met — was just below the level of princess, and according to Habsburg rule, ineligible to marry the archduke. His uncle, Emperor Franz Joseph, deeply resented Franz Ferdinand’s resolve to break this rule.

Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie Chotek. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

Franz Ferdinand enlisted the support of the pope, the czar and the kaiser, said Lebow, to twist the emperor’s arm until he agreed. However, Sophie could gain no royal rank and their children were stripped of all claims to the throne. Sophie could not appear at most major events by his side, nor could she be buried in Vienna where the Habsburgs were buried.

The arrangement deeply insulted Ferdinand.

Even in death, Sophie didn’t escape reminders of her ranking. Gloves, a symbol of a lady-in-waiting, decorated the bronze of her sarcophagus.

Franz Ferdinand was an ill-tempered, outspoken, headstrong man, said Cohen, and he pressed the emperor to modernize the archaic rules that were slowly killing the empire, as he saw it.

“He was quite prepared to rock lots of boats,” Cohen said.

Emperor Franz Joseph, on the other hand, preferred more tranquil conditions.

“He was old and torpid,” said Wawro. The emperor, nearly 70-years-old at the turn of the century, often spent 14 hours a day at his desk buried in bureaucratic matters.

“The comfortable ways of Franz Joseph were leading (the empire) to the grave,” said Wawro. “Things had to be shaken up.”

The archduke’s demands, like modernizing the navy, retiring long-time military chiefs, and forming alliances with the Russian Empire — in addition to Franz Ferdinand’s pushy personality — irritated Franz Joseph.

But the greatest strain on their relationship? Sophie. Franz Ferdinand never forgave his uncle for trying to stand in the way of their marriage.

Thousands of rose beds stretched out in a maze-like pattern over the grounds of his estate at Konopischt. According to “Archduke of Sarajevo,” guests often lost their way in “the great floral mosaic” of roses.

His daughter Sophie recalled that her father was always studying flowers and pressing them into his books.

Franz Ferdinand wrote in his notes that once he became emperor he would introduce universal suffrage, a.k.a. one-man, one-vote. But not for the reasons you may assume; Franz Ferdinand was no friend to democracy, said Cohen.

He was interested in weakening Hungarian power, said Cohen, which he hated and believed was the barrier to change. Greater rights for south Slavs, Czechs and other subjugated ethnicities on the Hungarian side of the empire would undermine their political sway, and consolidate power in the crown.