The Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand, killed as many as 274,899 animals before his fateful encounter with Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo. How is that number so precise? Franz Ferdinand wrote everything down neatly and kept precise records of his hunting results.
Franz Ferdinand’s personal record was 2,140 animals killed in one day, as incredible as that sounds. The animals would be released into a fenced area, and the heir to the throne would aim and shoot at them, while his entourage would load the weapons with new ammunition.
It is also known that he liked to personally drown with his hands the animals he wounded, i.e. those that accidentally remained alive.
Franz Joseph, Franz Ferdinand’s uncle, described his nephew’s unusual “hobby” as “mass murders.”
It is also known that the heir to the throne considered Serbs to be an inferior human species and called them “pigs”. Moreover, he did not utter the word Serbs, but apostrophized – “those pigs”.
There is an interesting legend about the “curse of the white chamois” which is passed down from generation to generation in the vicinity of Salzburg, and is also associated with the hunting of Franz Ferdinand.
It is believed that anyone who kills a white chamois in that area will die within a year, by natural or violent death.
In 1913, the Austrian heir to the throne killed a white chamois in the vicinity of Salzburg, and the following year he was killed.
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Source: Instagram @otacastvo; Photo: Wikimedia Creative Commons