Archduke franz ferdinand and The era of assassination

The error of assassination Author Lisa Traynor Publisher Royal Armouries Price £14.99 Released Out now

At one particularly baffling point during Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the Era of Assassinations, Royal Armouries curator Lisa Traynor explains that a conspiracy theory that the Habsburg heir had been betrayed by his own entourage “served the Serbians well as a means to avoid war with Austro-hungary”. Surely the only criteria for whether or not something “served the Serbians well as a means to avoid war with Austro-hungary” is whether or not they avoided war with Austro-hungary?

It’s a frustrating moment among many. It’s a shame because Traynor is superb on the history of handguns and her quest to recreate the silk body armour of

Polish innovator Casimir Zeglen is fascinating.

She has something to contribute, but this slim volume’s ambition to be more than another book’s citation leads it astray.

Essentially, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the Era of Assassinations reads like a perfectly credible study of the stopping power of long 19th century armour and small arms, that transformed into a far-reaching thought experiment part way through. This is best realised by Traynor’s “thrilling discovery” that if Franz Ferdinand had been wearing a model of armour he might not have owned and was shot four centimetres lower than he actually was, he would have lived.

Rather than show the knife-edge upon which history balances, this shows the silliness of the conclusion: if the victim did something different and the assassin did something different, then the outcome would have been different. Not sure we needed a ballistic test to prove that.