Background
Franz Joseph I of Austria was born at Castle Schönbrunn in Vienna on August 18, 1830, the son of Archduke Franz Karl.
Franz Joseph I of Austria was born at Castle Schönbrunn in Vienna on August 18, 1830, the son of Archduke Franz Karl.
Francis Joseph received a careful education especially from Cardinal Rauscher to prepare him to rule his people.
The events of 1848 proved central to his subsequent career: at first Francis Joseph took part in the campaign in Italy, but on December 2,1848, he replaced his weak and mentally unstable uncle Ferdinand I as ruler of the Habsburg Empire. Thereafter, the young ruler personally took part in the campaign to quell the Hungarian revolt; he viewed the army as the main pillar of his rule. Prince Felix zu Schwarzenberg counseled the emperor to crush the Italian nationalist movement, to reject Prussia's attempts to unite the German states, and, in 1851, to suspend the constitution and to rule in a clerical, absolutist, centralized manner. Unfortunately, his foreign adviser Count Buol-Schauenstein had a more disastrous effect on the monarch: Austria s participation in the Crimean War on the side of England and France cost it Russia's friendship, and the unfortunate defeat at Solferino in 1859 cost it the Lombardy. In fact, from 1850 to 1859, Francis Joseph, under the influence of General Griinne, attempted to gain firm control over the army and to command it in person which no Habsburg other than Joseph II had ever done.
These foreign policy setbacks, in turn, evoked demands for internal reform, especially by the Magyars. Further setbacks came through a series of decrees (1860, 1861, 1865) in which Francis Joseph was forced to abandon his neoabsolutism in favor of constitutional monarchy; in this the emperor was ably assisted by Anton von Schmerling. Later, the crushing defeat at Kóniggrátz at the hands of Prussia in 1866/1867 not only cost him Venetia, but also compelled Francis Joseph through Baron Friedrich von Beust to seek an Ausgleich ("compromise") with Hungary (1867). The monarch was forced to grant self-rule to the Magyars and to have himself crowned king of Hungary at Ofen; in army affairs Francis Joseph remained adamant, however, preserving the armed forces as a single unified entity, and retaining control over it (army order at Chlopy on September 18, 1903).
Francis Joseph was forced to witness the suicide of his only son, Rudolf, in 1889 and, in 1898, the murder of his wife Elizabeth, duchess of Bavaria, whom he had married in 1854; his brother Maximilian had been executed in Mexico in 1867. These personal tragedies drove Francis Joseph into increasing isolation, and he sought comfort only in alpine hunting and, after 1885, with Katharina Schratt.
The assassination of the heir presumptive, Francis Ferdinand, at Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, prompted the monarch to "put my faith in the Austro-Hungarian army, in its bravery and dedicated loyalty." Francis Joseph followed, rather than directed, Foreign Minister Count Leopold von Berchtold to inaugurate hostilities against Serbia; his memories of Solferino and Königgrätz gave him nagging doubts about the fortunes of war. However, the ruler suffered the numerous Austro-Hungarian setbacks stoically "because today's unlucky commander may well be victorious tomorrow." Unfortunately, this prediction went unfulfilled: Francis Joseph died on November 21, 1916, having lost all hope for a military victory and resigned simply to "see if we can last out the winter."
The emperor's death was a mortal blow to the Dual Monarchy. Alive, Francis Joseph had been a strong perhaps the only cohesive force almost by longevity and habit alone; when he passed away, affection for the venerable old man was replaced by the long-pent-up forces of nationalism manifest in the numerous ethnic groups that composed the empire. With military victory apparently out of reach and the loyalty of his diverse subjects suspect, Francis Joseph died knowing that his life's work, the preservation and consolidation of the Dual Monarchy, was seriously in jeopardy. It remained for the new Emperor Charles to initiate the dissolution of the multinational empire.
Francis Joseph redirected his foreign policy toward the southeast. The Dual Monarchy under the leadership of Count Andrássy the Elder in 1873 concluded the Three Emperors' Convention, followed in 1879 by the alliance with Germany, and three years later with Italy (Triple Alliance). At the Congress of Berlin in 1878 Austria-Hungary received the administration of Bosnia-Herzegovina; precisely thirty years later these two territories were annexed under Count A. L. von Aehrenthal. In 1908, 1911, and again in 1912 Francis Joseph firmly rejected the plans of his chief of the General Staff to strike against Serbia in order to solve the South Slav problem.
At home, Francis Joseph opposed all attempts, especially those of the Czechs, to attain equality within the empire and clung to his commitment to Hungary in 1867. Galicia alone managed to acquire special standing within the Dual Monarchy. The emperor in 1907 agreed to the introduction of universal suffrage in the misplaced hope that this would retard the centrifugal forces of nationalism among the thirteen ethnic groups that comprised the empire.
Privately, Francis Joseph was reserved yet warm. He kept family affairs out of the public eye and conducted the court with a rigid, formal etiquette. His self-discipline was remarkable, and his daily work load became legendary. Unfortunately, the last years of his reign were to betray all the optimism that had accompanied his accession to power at Olmiitz in 1848.
It was generally felt in the court that the Emperor should marry and produce heirs as soon as possible. Various potential brides were considered: Princess Elisabeth of Modena, Princess Anna of Prussia and Princess Sidonia of Saxony. Although in public life Franz Joseph was the unquestioned director of affairs, in his private life his formidable mother still wielded crucial influence. Sophie wanted to strengthen the relationship between the Houses of Habsburg and Wittelsbach descending from the latter house herself and hoped to match Franz Joseph with her sister Ludovika's eldest daughter, Helene ("Néné"), who was four years the Emperor's junior. However, Franz Joseph fell deeply in love with Néné's younger sister Elisabeth ("Sisi"), a beautiful girl of fifteen, and insisted on marrying her instead. Sophie acquiesced, despite her misgivings about Sisi's appropriateness as an imperial consort, and the young couple were married on 24 April 1854 in St. Augustine's Church, Vienna.
Their marriage would prove to be an unhappy one; though Franz Joseph was passionately in love with his wife, the feeling was not mutual and Sisi never truly acclimatized to life at court , frequently having disagreements with the imperial family. Their first daughter Sophie died as an infant, and their only son Rudolf died by suicide in 1889 in the infamous Mayerling Incident.
In 1885 Franz Joseph met Katharina Schratt, a leading actress of the Vienna stage, and she became his friend and confidante. This relationship lasted the rest of his life, and was to a certain degree tolerated by Sisi. Franz Joseph built Villa Schratt in Bad Ischl for her, and also provided her with a small palace in Vienna. Though their relationship lasted for thirty-four years, it remained platonic.
The Empress was an inveterate traveller, horsewoman, and fashion maven who was rarely seen in Vienna. Sisi was obsessed about preserving her beauty, carrying out many bizarre routines and strenuous exercise, and as a result suffered from ill health. She was stabbed to death by an Italian anarchist in 1898 while on a visit to Geneva; Franz Joseph never fully recovered from the loss. According to the future empress Zita of Bourbon-Parma he usually told his relatives: "You'll never know how important she was to me" or, according to some sources, "You will never know how much I loved this woman."