Franz Joseph I of Austria
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This article is about the Austrian Emperor. For Franz Joseph the artist and author, see Franz Joseph (artist). |
Franz Joseph I. |
Francis Joseph I (in
German Franz Joseph I., in
Hungarian I. Ferenc József (
August 18,
1830 –
November 21,
1916) of the
Habsburg Dynasty was Emperor of
Austria,
Apostolic King of
Hungary and King of
Bohemia from 1848 until 1916. His 68-year reign, the third-longest in the recorded history of Europe (after that of
Louis XIV of France and
Johannes II, Prince of Liechtenstein), made him the longest-serving German-speaking monarch who is known to have at least nominally ruled.
Franz Joseph was born in
Vienna, the oldest son of
Archduke Franz Karl (younger brother and heir of
Emperor Ferdinand I), and his wife
Princess Sophie of Bavaria. Franz Joseph was also the older brother of Emperor
Maximilian I of Mexico. Because his father renounced his claim to the throne, Franz Joseph was brought up by his mother as a future Emperor with emphasis on devoutness, responsibility and diligence. His youth was marked with seclusion and he never experienced an affectionate relationship, even with his brothers and sisters. At the age of 13 he started a career as a colonel in the Austrian army. Since then his fashion was dictated by army style and he wore the uniform for most of his life.
He became Austrian Emperor as Franz Joseph I when Ferdinand abdicated near the end of the
Revolution of 1848, on December 2, 1848. His imperial career was at first connected with the personality of
Felix Schwarzenberg and was targeted to restore absolutism and regain a powerful position in foreign affairs. He abolished the Constitution of 1849 and became a sovereign monarch in 1852. However, the 1850s witnessed several failures of Austrian external policy - the
Crimean War and break-up with Russia,
Austro-Sardinian War of 1859 against armies of the
House of Savoy, and
Napoleon III.
The setbacks continued in the 1860s with
Austro-Prussian War of 1866. It resulted in
Austrian-Hungarian Dualism in 1867.
In
1854 Franz Joseph married
Duchess Elisabeth in Bavaria ("Sisi" or "Sissi"). Contrary to popular myth, their married life was not happy: their first daughter Sophie died as an infant, while the only son,
Crown Prince Rudolf died, allegedly by
suicide, in 1889 in the infamous
Mayerling episode with his young mistress
Baroness Mary Vetsera. The Empress herself was stabbed to death by an anarchist in 1898; Franz Joseph never recovered from the loss and always said to his relatives, "You'll never know how much I loved her."
Franz Joseph built a villa named Villa Schratt in
Bad Ischl for his mistress,
Katharina Schratt, an actress with whom he had a long-standing relationship.
In 1914 the heir to the throne,
Archduke Franz Ferdinand was
assassinated in Sarajevo, leading to
World War I.
Franz Joseph died in 1916, aged 86, in the middle of the war. After the defeat in
World War I, the
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy dissolved into national states.
*
Archduchess Sophie of Austria (1855 - 1857)
*
Archduchess Gisela of Austria (1856 - 1932)
*
Crown Prince Rudolf (1858 - 1889)
*
Archduchess Marie-Valerie of Austria (1868 - 1924).
The
archipelago Franz Josef Land in the
Russian high arctic was named in his honor in 1873.
Franz Josef Glacier in
New Zealand's
South Island also bears his name.
 |
Tomb of Franz Joseph I, flanked by wife Elisabeth and son Rudolf in the crypt beneath the Kapuzinerkirche, in Vienna. |
Franz Joseph founded in
1872 the
Franz Joseph University (
Hungarian:
Ferenc József Tudományegyetem,
Romanian:
Universitatea Francisc Iosif) in the city of
Cluj-Napoca (at that time a part of
Austria-Hungary under the name of Kolozsvár). The university was moved to
Szeged after Cluj rebecame a part of
Romania, becoming the
University of Szeged.
His Imperial and Apostolic Majesty,Franz Joseph I,By the Grace of God,Emperor of Austria,King of Hungary and Bohemia,
