What?  Wait, what?  Dammit.  You mean to say, I’m supposed to write about the Archduke?  That mustachioed man killed in Sarajevo in 1914?  The heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire gunned down on a side street while touring the provincial capital?  The European leader whose death at the hand Gavrilo Princip—of the radical Serbian nationalist organization, the Black Hand—was the spark that set off the powder keg that was the Balkan Peninsula, that began the chain of events which culminated in the inevitable war every sword-rattling belligerent imperialist in Europe was clamoring for at the dawn of the 20^th century, a war which set a bloody precedent for a hellishly catastrophic hundred years of world history—war, conflict, and suffering at an unprecedented scale?  Him?  That guy in the helmet?  Oh, well, I can do that.

Born several years before his death, Franz never aspired in particular to start a world war, or to become an archduke for that matter.  Unfortunately, history—and his father—had other plans.

With wealth, and the safety of his position as Emperor Franz Joseph’s nephew, Franz seemed destined for a long life, royal to the utmost.  However, events began to thrust him toward prominence.  When his cousin, the heir-apparent to the throne, committed suicide in 1889, the position fell to his elderly father—who promptly shirked this right, and dropped it onto his son’s shoulders.

Perhaps at this time, in accordance with his new status, Franz began to sport an impressive moustache—one bold enough to outgrow a traditional handlebar and assume a walrus-style largesse.  Despite its girth, Franz never rescinded the coifed tips characteristic of a well-groomed handlebar and of a well-groomed European playboy.  For at around this time, he began courting Sophie, a member of a Bohemian royal house.

While the allure of the moustache seems to have been no secret, their relationship was at first.  Although the emperor objected to the girl’s inclusion within the House of Hapsburg, other European heads of state (uncles or cousins or something like that—they were all incestuously related by the point) intervened on Franz’s behalf.  He married Sophie in 1900, on condition their children would have no claim to the Austro-Hungarian throne.

As the Twentieth Century rolled into its second decade, Franz Ferdinand seemed to have it all: wife, children, status, an impressive sense of style…

Politically, he seemed to be the sole proponent of the imperial navy.  Even the commanders and sailors themselves didn’t take the Austro-Hungarian fleet as seriously as Franz.  Though a strange fascination, supporting the military was hardly unorthodox at the time.  Supporting greater autonomy for the ethnic groups within the amalgamated empire, however, did not bode well for the stability and integrity of the bloated kingdom to other royals.  And while Franz keenly advocated delicacy with the Serbians, clamoring for sovereign independence, it seems they would not treat his royal visit at the end of June 1914 with such sensitivity.

On the morning of June 28, two assassins associated with the Black Hand, failed to attack the imperial motorcade.  A third managed to lob a grenade at the car containing the Archduke and his wife, but the grenade bounced off the vehicle and exploded behind it, wounding twenty.  Arriving at the town hall for his schedule appearance, Franz believed to have remarked on being greeted by bombs to the city leaders.  Shaken, he nonetheless delivered his speech, bloodstained from the attack.  Authorities convened a discussion on security in the city.  However, it failed to bring any conclusive measures to protect the Archduke.  Tempting fate, Franz returned to the streets with his wife.

Now the early afternoon, the Archduke’s driver confused by changes to the parade route, took a wrong turn.  As he proceeded to back up, a young man approached the car and fired several pistol shots at the passengers.

It was a lucky day for Gavrilo Princip, who had been noshing on a sandwich, ruing his cohorts’ failures, until he recognized the fastidiously dressed and fabulously mustachioed man in the back seat of the black 1911 Graf & Sift limousine.  And as it turned out, June 28 was an unlucky day for Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife—who would both die minutes after receiving gunshot wounds.  And as events conspired to plunge Europe into the Great War, it was an unlucky day for the world as well.

Young men throughout the empire shaved off their moustaches to mourn their fallen leader and fashion icon.  Soon however, they would be presented with their draft papers—and would be required to re-grow their moustaches for the trenches.

And thus, from trench to royal house, World War I seems to have been the last great moustache war.  And among the prestigious ranks of notable ‘staches—Kaiser Wilhelm, David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, and General John “Black Jack” Pershing—Archduke Franz Ferdinand, famous only in death, still reigns high.