"The party, dressed as ordinary tourists, seated themselves in two cabs which had been waiting about, and drove off without there having been as much as a cheer or the waving of a single handkerchief."ĭuring the visit, Ferdinand travelled by train to the country town of Narromine for some shooting, stopping at Wentworth Falls, Blackheath and Bathurst in western New South Wales to enjoy the scenery. "There was no ceremony of any kind, the Archduke having expressed his desire to land incognito," reported The Argus. In May 1893 he visited Australia on the cruiser Kaiserin Elizabeth, the pride of the Austro-Hungarian navy.Īfter a 21-gun salute on arrival, the party paid a visit to the Australian Museum before spending the rest of the trip in relative seclusion, The Argus newspaper reported at the time. Groomed to inherit the title of emperor from his uncle, Franz Joseph, Ferdinand began a military career but spent most of his time travelling or hunting.
"Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was a vain, impulsive man, of limited intelligence, given to unrealistic ideas about the future of the empire," wrote Paul Ham in his book about the assassination. His life was one of privilege and self-indulgent pleasure, growing up in the Habsburg royal family which ruled an area once known as the Holy Roman Empire. Archduke Franz Ferdinand is best known as the man whose assassination is believed to have led to the outbreak of World War I.īut behind that figure lies a story of forbidden love, an obsession with hunting, and a near-miss that could have killed the archduke months before he was shot dead with his wife Sophie in Sarajevo 100 years ago.
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