page_title: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria
section_title: Travels
hierarchical_section_title: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria / Travels
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Franz Ferdinand von Österreich-Este auf Elefantenjagd Ceylon: Kalawewa. „Der erste Elefant“ Ehzg Franz Ferdinand allein vor dem Bauch des erlegten Elefanten stehend, erigierter Penis des Elefanten (auf Bild 18 und 19 mit Zweigen verdeckt).
context_page_description: Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria was the heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary. His assassination in Sarajevo is considered the most immediate cause of World War I.
  Franz Ferdinand was the eldest son of Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria, the younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph I. Following the suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf in 1889 and the death of Karl Ludwig in 1896, Franz Ferdinand became the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. His courtship of Sophie Chotek, a lady-in-waiting, caused conflict within the imperial household, and their morganatic marriage in 1900 was only allowed after he renounced his descendants' rights to the throne. Franz Ferdinand held significant influence over the military, and in 1913 he was appointed inspector general of the Austro-Hungarian armed forces.
  On 28 June 1914, Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo by the 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip, a member of Young Bosnia.
context_section_description: Despite this burden, he did manage to find time for travel and personal pursuits, such as his circumnavigation of the world between 1892 and 1893. After visiting India he spent time  hunting kangaroos and emus in Australia in 1893, then travelled on to Nouméa, New Hebrides, Solomon Islands, New Guinea, Sarawak, Hong Kong and Japan. After sailing across the Pacific on the RMS Empress of China from Yokohama to Vancouver he crossed the United States and returned to Europe.
  The Archduke and his wife visited England in the autumn of 1913, spending a week with George V and Queen Mary at Windsor Castle before going to stay for another week with the Duke of Portland at Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire, where they arrived on 22 November.  He attended a service at the local Catholic church in Worksop and the Duke and Archduke went game shooting on the Welbeck estate when, according to the Duke's memoirs, Men, Women and Things:
  One of the loaders fell down. This caused both barrels of the gun he was carrying to be discharged, the shot passing within a few feet of the archduke and myself.  I have often wondered whether the Great War might not have been averted, or at least postponed, had the archduke met his death there and not in Sarajevo the following year.
  Franz Ferdinand had a fondness for trophy hunting that was excessive even by the standards of European nobility of this time. In his diaries he kept track of an estimated 300,000 game kills, 5,000 of which were deer. About 100,000 trophies were on exhibit at his Bohemian castle at Konopiště which he also stuffed with various antiquities, his other great passion.
caption: Franz Ferdinand posing in front of a killed elephant, 1893
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