02 Belgian Selfloading Pistol FN 1910 Model, Calibre 9 mm Browning Short

Fotogalerie

Belgian Selfloading Pistol FN 1910 Model, Calibre 9 mm Browning Short. With pistol of this type, Gavrilo Princip fired at Franz Ferdinand d'Este's vehicle in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914

Franz Ferdinand Karl Ludwig Joseph Maria Archduke of Austria-Este (18 December 1863, Graz - 28 June 1914, Sarajevo)

The FN 1910 Model is a blowback-operated, semi-automatic pistol designed by John Browning and manufactured by Fabrique Nationale of Belgium.

An FN 1910 Model, serial number 19074, chambered in .380 (9 mm) was the handgun used by Gavrilo Princip to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, the act that precipitated the First World Warku.

Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

On 26 and 27 June 1914, military manoeuvres took place in Bosnia, attended by the heir to the Habsburg throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, and his wife, Sophie. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was there as Inspector General of all the armed forces. On 28 June, their official programme was to be crowned with a visit to the nearby Bosnian capital Sarajevo. As the convoy of vehicles headed along the waterfront to the town hall, where notable local citizens awaited them, the first assassination attempt interrupted the journey. A bomb blast injured two members of the entourage. At the town hall, Franz Ferdinand decided to visit the wounded at the local garrison hospital. However, no one told the convoy drivers about the change of route, and this negligence led the vehicle holding the successor to the throne and his wife in front of Gavrilo Princip, another assassin, who killed both of them with two shots. The assassins belonged to a group of radical Bosnian Serbs who had been armed and trained by the Black Hand, a secret organisation linked to the Serbian General Staff. The murder of the couple ignited the greatest conflict in human history up to that time.