1. Assassinations weren’t something new to the Habsburg Royal Family
Interestingly, the Habsburg Royal Family members were targets of assassination attempts, and some were also assassinated. Franz Ferdinand was not the only member of the royal family to be killed by an assassin. In 1989, the longest-serving Empress-consort of Austria, Elisabeth was stabbed to death by an Italian anarchist named Luigi Lucheni. Earlier on, Lucheni had missed his chance to assassinate Prince Philippe, Duke of Orléans, and swore to kill any member of the royalty he saw. Fortunately, Elisabeth had followed an invitation from the Rothschild family to Geneva, and as she left the hotel where she spent a night incognito, to hurry to the steamship “Genève,” she met her death. The event which was well covered in the coeval press was a shock and left the Austria-Hungarian public in deep mourning.
That’s not all! Emperor Franz Josef was also the subject of two failed assassination attempts, one particularly being on 18 February 1853, when János Libényi, a Hungarian nationalist tried to assassinate him.
With this kind of assassination attempt, one would probably agree that the Habsburg Royal Family knew they were always targets and had to be sensitive. In fact, both Franz Ferdinand and Empress Elisabeth were warned of their visits before their assassinations.