On 28 June 1914, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian thrones was assassinated on a visit to Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist called Gavrilo Princip. 

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The assassination set in motion the events that led to the outbreak of the First World War, one of the bloodiest conflicts in human history. 

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By the end of that conflict, not only had the Austro-Hungarian Empire crumbled but the other two imperial rulers of Europe, Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, had lost their grip on power. 

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Gareth Russell tells the story of the Austrian, German, and Russian imperial families during the four years of the First World War, through the political – and personal – struggles that brought about their ruin.