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  • Published: 1 June 2014
  • ISBN: 9780857985422
  • Imprint: Random House Australia
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 100
Categories:

1914: The Assassination of Franz Ferdinand



The assassination of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, by a Bosnian-Serb terrorist in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914, precipitated the July crisis that brought war to Europe.

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, by a Bosnian-Serb terrorist in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914, precipitated the July crisis that brought war to Europe.

Yet none of the great powers, in the days following the murder, believed it would lead to war. Extraordinarily, the Austro-Hungarian regime's first reaction to the outrage was relief: the incumbent emperor Franz Joseph loathed the archduke, his nephew, and opposed the accession. In fact, as Paul Ham writes, in this extract from his book 1914: The Year the World Ended, Vienna used the murder to manufacture a case for war on Serbia - with the full support of Germany's famous 'blank cheque' and reckless disregard for the consequences for Europe.

  • Published: 1 June 2014
  • ISBN: 9780857985422
  • Imprint: Random House Australia
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 100
Categories:

About the author

Paul Ham

Paul Ham is the author of 12 books, including Passchendaele: Requiem for Doomed Youth (2016), 1914: The Year the World Ended (2013), Hiroshima Nagasaki (2011), Vietnam: The Australian War (2007) and Kokoda (2004).


Passchendaele won the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction. Hiroshima Nagasaki was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award for History and is being made into a 6-part TV series by an American-British-Australian production team. Vietnam won the New South Wales Premier’s Prize for Australian History and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award (2008). Kokoda was shortlisted for the Walkley Award for Non-Fiction and the New South Wales Premier’s Prize for Non-Fiction.

Sandakan: The Untold Story of the Sandakan Death Marches, was published in 2012 and was also shortlisted for the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for History.


A former Sunday Times correspondent, with a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics, Paul lives in Paris and devotes his time to writing history and (when possible) to teaching Narrative History at Sciences Po, France's preeminent tertiary school for the humanities.

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