The role that this beautiful, virtually unknown and completely innocent woman would have in putting into motion the two World Wars of the 20th century.

This is Sophie Chotek. Duchess of Hohenberg.

And I bet that virtually none of you has ever heard of her.

She was the woman that the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, fell in love with and then married.

So what?

She wasn’t royalty. A mere Duchess.

Which meant that in the unbelievably snobbish norms of the day, even the future monarch of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, could not have her, his own wife, accompany him in official royal ceremonies. And he hated that. Can you blame him?

The Archduke was an autocrat, but he had one redeeming quality— he loved his wife deeply.

There was but one exception to that stupid rule. Which is that she could be by his side in public while he was acting in his military capacity as Inspector-General of the Austro-Hungarian Army.

Which was the main reason why the Archduke decided to go inspect the army in Bosnia (an entirely unnecessary and optional choice), so that his wife could ride by his side in public.

And he rode quite foolishly in an open car so that everyone could see the two of them together.

And he then got assassinated by a Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip who literally ran up to the open-top car and shot both of them at point blank range, killing them instantly.

Austria demanded an unconditional apology from Serbia and was determined to humiliate her.

Serbia considered the assassination to be awful, but had no real official hand in it. So she refused to apologize.

Austria then declared war on Serbia.

Russia as Serbia’s biggest ally, then declared war on Austria.

Germany then as Austria’s ally declared war on Russia.

France and Great Britain then as Russia’s allies declared war on Germany.

It is imperative to note here that except for Austria declaring war on tiny Serbia (which she never imagined would spiral completely out of hand in such spectacular fashion!)…

All of these other declarations of war between these nations weren't “choices” — they were bound by security treaties to come to the rescue of each other in the event of an aggression against their allies.

Great Britain, France and Russia on the one hand as the Triple Entente, Germany and Austria-Hungary on the other as the Central Powers.

Talk about a chain reaction!

And then ladies and gentlemen, you had World War 1.

Followed by the collapse of the German economy. (No, the Treaty of Versailles was not as punitive as people think.)

The collapse of the German economy brought that lovely SOB, Adolf Hitler to power.

And the rest as they say, is history.

And it all started with the marriage of an emperor to a relative commoner.

For the sake of love.