Jean-Paul Bled, a French historian specializing in 19th century Austria and Germany has added a biography about the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand which now has been translated into German. Franz Ferdinand’s notoriety is almost completely due to his being in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of the bitter ironies of history is that the Serb nationalists killed just the man most opposed to a war with Russia. Franz Ferdinand hated modernity and the West with a fiery passion and loved all things reactionary.

The value of Bled’s biography lies less in the presentation of dull Franz Ferdinand but in an outstanding compilation of the history of the Austrian empire during its last fifty years. As he has written the book for a French audience mostly ignorant about the actors and events, Bled offers excellent background information and explanations to what was happening in the wild East. The book would still be a good read if one removed the parts about Franz Ferdinand. It is thus not a classic biography as its protagonist is but a bystander, a man overshadowed by Franz Joseph, Rudolf and the First World War. Recommended. ( )