"Sarajevo security, 1914" Topic

I recently saw the 1940 film "Mayerling to Sarajevo", about the ill-fated romance of Archduke Ferdinand and Sophie. She wasn't high enough in rank to please Emperor Franz Joseph, since she was only a contessa and a Czech to boot. Many obstacles were put in their way but Ferdinand married her anyway. She was not considered a member of the royal family and had to put up with a variety of slights. The film goes rather astray when it has Ferdinand wanting to create a "United States of Austria". I rather think his reform scheme was aimed at undercutting Slavic nationalists and clipping the wings of the Hungarians. But that's aside from my question. Hmm, I can hijack my own thread.

The film maintains that security for the couple's visit to Sarajevo was cut back from regular cavalry to local police because the Contessa didn't rate royal treatment. In the film's view, this was Franz Joseph hounding his nephew to doom, just as he hounded his liberal-minded son to suicide over a mistress years earlier at Mayerling.

So, does anyone know if security was down-rated for that visit because of the Contessa's low station? If so, the Great War may have been started by a fit of pique in the old man at the helm of Austria-Hungary.

The decision to rely on the local police was a political/"hearts and minds" calculation. There was concern that a military escort, or even having troops along the route, would a) offend the citizens of Sarajevo and b) play up the threat of Serbian irredentism.

There is a great book called "The Assassination of the Archduke" by Greg King and Sue Woolmans which should be still available on Amazon.

A personal story but very good and very readable account of the event and the lead up to it. Demonstrates the strict structure of society in those day – for royalty at least.