June 1914: Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg dies alongside husband in Sarajevo
Some 110 years ago, on 28 June 1914, Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo. His wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg was killed alongside him.
Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg was the daughter of Countess Wilhelmine Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau and her husband Count Bohuslav Chotek, who was from Bohemia.
It is not known where Sophie first met Archduke Franz Ferdinand, although it may have been at a ball in Prague, where he was stationed at a military garrison, in 1894.
Despite objections from the imperial family, Sophie and Franz Ferdinand were married on July 1, 1900 at Reichstadt (Zákupy) in Bohemia.
The pair lived most of the time at Konopiště Castle near Prague and the archduke also set up the Ferdinand brewery in Benešov.
Because she was not from one of the reigning or formerly reigning dynasties of Europe Sophie was barred for many years from officially accompanying Ferdinand on trips.
Indeed her first and last trip with him was to Sarajevo, where both were shot dead by Serbian student Gavrilo Princip, who – having sparked the Great War – later died in jail in Terezín in Central Bohemia.e
