Is it true that Ferdinand's assassination was a conspiracy with a group of people including the driver and Princip was just the one who shot him?

Answer 1

== == Yes and no. Gavrilo Princip was connected to a secret organization in Serbia called the Black Hand (or "Unification or Death") which wanted all the lands populated by South Slavs to be under one government. Most of these places, aside from Serbia, were part of Austria-Hungary before World War I. The Black Hand apparently recruited a number of Bosnian students, including Gavrilo Princip, to assassinate Franz Ferdinand, and provided them with weapons and support. The Archduke was the heir to the Austrian throne and also an important reformer in the Habsburg government who wanted to reorganize the empire to give its Slav subjects more say. Serbia absolutely did not want this to happen, because that would mean that it would be less of an influence on Slavic nationalists in Austria-Hungary.

Franz Ferdinand was inspecting the Austrian army in Sarajevo on an important Serbian holiday, Vidovdan, when he was assassinated. Princip's group had five chances to kill him along his route (they were spread out along it) and they screwed up all five times, although one of them wounded a bunch of people with a bomb. Franz Ferdinand continued to the town hall where there was going to be a reception, but afterwards decided to visit some of the victims of the bombing in a hospital instead of leaving the city as he had planned. Princip was in a shop getting a sandwich when he saw the Archduke's car coming by (it had taken a wrong turn). So he shot him and attempted to shoot the governor of Bosnia but got the Archduke's wife instead.

So yes, there was a conspiracy, but it was a nationalist conspiracy supported by Serbia and didn't involve anyone in Austria-Hungary. The driver was definitely not involved (in fact, he was rewarded by the last emperor Charles I). He was a Czech named Leopold Lojka and he had no reason to want Franz Ferdinand dead (he certainly didn't seem to be a nationalist, but even if he had been, Czech nationalists rather liked Franz Ferdinand at that point), and it's reasonable to think that he just took a wrong turn because he hadn't gotten the change in plans. The Black Hand and other Serbian nationalists wanted to kill Franz Ferdinand purely because of his political beliefs and his status as the heir apparent -- nobody had any idea it would start World War I.