March 2, 1835: Death of Emperor Franz I of Austria, Last Holy Roman Emperor

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Austrian Hereditary Lands, Bohemia, Croatia, Emperor of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, Holy Roman Empire, House of Austria, House of Habsburg, Hungary, Napoléon of France, Treaty of Pressburg, War of the Third Coalition

Franz II or I (February 12, 1768 – March 2, 1835) was the last Holy Roman Emperor as Franz II (from 1792 to 1806), and the founder and Emperor of the Austrian Empire as Franz I (from 1804 to 1835).

Franz was a son of Emperor Leopold II (1747–1792) and his wife Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain (1745–1792), daughter of King Carlos III of Spain and Maria Amalia of Saxony.

Franz was born in Florence, the capital of Tuscany, where his father reigned as Grand Duke from 1765 to 1790. Though he had a happy childhood surrounded by his many siblings, his family knew Franz was likely to be a future Emperor (his uncle Joseph had no surviving issue from either of his two marriages), and so in 1784 the young Archduke was sent to the Imperial Court in Vienna to educate and prepare him for his future role.

After the death of Emperor Joseph II in 1790, Franz’s father became Emperor. He had an early taste of power while acting as Leopold’s deputy in Vienna while the incoming Emperor traversed the Empire attempting to win back those alienated by his brother’s policies.

The strain took a toll on Leopold and by the winter of 1791, he became ill. He gradually worsened throughout early 1792; on the afternoon of March 1, Emperor Leopold II died, at the relatively young age of 44. Francis, just past his 24th birthday, was now Emperor, much sooner than he had expected.

As the head of the Holy Roman Empire and the ruler of the vast multi-ethnic Habsburg hereditary lands, Franz II felt threatened by the French revolutionaries and later Napoleon’s expansionism as well as their social and political reforms which were being exported throughout Europe in the wake of the conquering French armies.

Emperor Franz II had a fraught relationship with France. His aunt Marie Antoinette, the wife of King Louis XVI and Queen consort of France, was guillotined by the revolutionaries in 1793, at the beginning of his reign, although, on the whole, he was indifferent to her fate.

Later, he led the Holy Roman Empire into the French Revolutionary Wars. He briefly commanded the Allied forces during the Flanders Campaign of 1794 before handing over command to his brother Archduke Charles. He was later defeated by Napoleon. By the Treaty of Campo Formio, he ceded the left bank of the Rhine to France in exchange for Venice and Dalmatia. He again fought against France during the War of the Second Coalition.

In the face of aggressions by Napoleon I, who had been proclaimed “Emperor of the French” by the French constitution on May 18, 1804, Franz II feared for the future of the Holy Roman Empire and wished to maintain his and his family’s Imperial status in case the Holy Roman Empire should be dissolved.

Therefore, on August 11, 1804 he created the new hereditary title of “Emperor of Austria” for himself and his successors as heads of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. For two years, Franz carried two imperial titles: being Holy Roman Emperor Franz II and “by the Grace of God” (Von Gottes Gnaden) Emperor Franz I of Austria.

The move of taking the title Emperor of Austria technically was illegal in terms of imperial law. Yet Napoleon had agreed beforehand and therefore it happened.

The reason Franz’s assuming the Imperial title for Austria was against imperial law was due to the fact the title of Holy Roman Emperor provided the highest prestige among European monarchs. Because at it’s onset the empire was considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be the only successor of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Thus, in theory and diplomacy, the Emperors were considered primus inter pares, regarded as first among equals among other Roman Catholics, and after the Reformation, the monarchs across Europe.

Therefore, the taking of another imperial title when the title of Holy Roman Emperor was considered primus inter pares was deemed taking a lesser title.

For the two years between 1804 and 1806, Francis used the title and style by the Grace of God elected Roman Emperor, ever Augustus, hereditary Emperor of Austria and he was called the Emperor of both the Holy Roman Empire and Austria.

Members of the House of Austria, the Habsburg Dynasty, had been the elected Holy Roman Emperors since 1438 (except for a five-year break from 1740 to 1745) and mostly resided in Vienna. Thus the term “Austrian emperor” may occur in texts dealing with the time before 1804, when no Austrian Empire existed.

In these cases the word Austria means the composite monarchy ruled by the dynasty, not the country. A special case was Maria Theresa; she bore the imperial title Empress as the consort of Emperor Franz I (r. 1745–1765), but she herself was the monarch of the Austrian Hereditary Lands including the Kingdoms of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia.

During the War of the Third Coalition, the Austrian forces met a crushing defeat at Austerlitz, and Emperor Franz II had to agree to the Treaty of Pressburg, which greatly weakened Austria and brought about the final collapse of the Holy Roman Empire.

In July 1806, under massive pressure from France, Bavaria and fifteen other German states ratified the statutes founding the Confederation of the Rhine, with Napoleon designated Protector, and they announced to the Imperial Diet their intention to leave the Empire with immediate effect.

Then, on July 22, Napoleon issued an ultimatum to Francis demanding that he abdicate as Holy Roman Emperor by August 10. Five days later, Emperor Franz II bowed to the inevitable and, without mentioning the ultimatum, affirmed that since the Peace of Pressburg he had tried his best to fulfil his duties as emperor but that circumstances had convinced him that he could no longer rule according to his oath of office, the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine making that impossible.

He added that “we hereby decree that we regard the bond which until now tied us to the states of the Empire as dissolved” in effect dissolving the empire. At the same time he declared the complete and formal withdrawal of his hereditary lands from imperial jurisdiction. After that date, he reigned as Franz I, Emperor of Austria.

On March 2, 1835, 43 years and a day after his father’s death, Franz died in Vienna of a sudden fever aged 67, in the presence of many of his family and with all the religious comforts.

His funeral was magnificent, with his Viennese subjects respectfully filing past his coffin in the chapel of Hofburg Palace for three days. Franz was interred in the traditional resting place of Habsburg monarchs, the Kapuziner Imperial Crypt in Vienna’s Neue Markt Square. He is buried in tomb number 57, surrounded by his four wives.

His eldest son succeeded him as Emperor Ferdinand of Austria and as King Ferdinand V of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia.

January 26, 1873: Death of Amélie of Leuchtenberg, Empress of Brazil

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Amélie of Leuchtenberg, Emperor of the French, Emperor Pedro of Brazil, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, House of Leuchtenberg, House of Wittelsbach, Joséphine de Beauharnais, Napoleon Bonaparte

From the Emperor’s Desk: In addressing the death of Amélie of Leuchtenberg I will focus on the arrangement of her marriage to Emperor Pedro of Brazil.

Amélie of Leuchtenberg (July 31, 1812 – January 26, 1873) was Empress of Brazil as the wife of Pedro I of Brazil. Amélie was the fourth child of General Eugène de Beauharnais, Duke of Leuchtenberg and his wife Princess Augusta of Bavaria.

Her father was the son of Joséphine de Beauharnais and her first husband, Viscount Alexandre de Beauharnais. When Joséphine remarried, to Napoleon Bonaparte, Eugène was adopted by the latter and made viceroy of the Kingdom of Italy.

Amélie of Leuchtenberg

Amélie’s mother was the daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and his first consort, Princess Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Among Amélie’s siblings were Josephine of Leuchtenberg, Queen Consort of King Oscar I of Sweden, and Auguste de Beauharnais, 2nd Duke of Leuchtenberg, prince consort of Queen Maria II of Portugal (stepdaughter of Amélie). French Emperor Napoleon III was Amélie’s first cousin.

After the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814, Eugène de Beauharnais, having been granted the title Duke of Leuchtenberg by his father-in-law, settled in Munich. The possibility occurred to Amélie’s mother, Augusta, of marrying Amélie to the Emperor of Brazil, to guarantee the pretensions of the House of Leuchtenberg to royal status.

Marriage

After the death of his first wife, the Austrian Archduchess Maria Leopoldina, in December 1826, Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (former King Pedro IV of Portugal) sent the Marquis of Barbacena to Europe to find him a second wife.

Emperor Pedro ‘s Archduchess Maria Leopoldina of Austria was the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, and his second wife, Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily. Among her many siblings were Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria and Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, the wife of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Amélie of Leuchtenberg

Marquis of Barbacena’s task was not easy; several factors complicated the search. First, Emperor Pedro had stipulated four conditions: a good family background, beauty, virtue and culture. Conversely, the Emperor of Brazil did not have a particularly good image in Europe: his relationship with the Marchioness of Santos was notorious, and few eligible princesses were expected to be eager to leave the courts of Europe to marry a widower who had a tarnished reputation as a husband, becoming step-mother to his five children.

To make matters worse, the former father-in-law of Emperor Dom Pedro, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II had a low opinion of his son-in-law’s political views, and apparently acted to prevent a new marriage to ensure that his grandchildren would inherit the throne of Brazil if they survived infancy.

After refusals by eight princesses turned the ambassador into an object of scorn in the courts of Europe, the Marquis of Barbacena, in agreement with the Emperor, lowered his requirements, seeking for Dom Pedro a wife merely “good and virtuous.”

Amélie now became a good possibility, but their encounter was brought about not by the Marquis of Barbacena, but by Domingos Borges de Barros, Viscount of Pedra Branca, minister in Paris, to whom she had been pointed out.

Emperor Pedro I of Brazil

She came from a distinguished and ancient line on her mother’s side, the Wittelsbachs of Bavaria, but her father, an exile who shared in the disgrace of Napoleon Bonaparte’s deposition as Emperor, was not an optimal marital match. However, that was her sole “defect”. The princess was tall, very beautiful, well proportioned, with a delicate face.

She had blue eyes and brownish-golden hair. António Teles da Silva Caminha e Meneses, Marquis of Resende, sent to verify the beauty of the young lady, praised her highly, saying that she had “a physical air that like that the painter Correggio gave us in his paintings of the Queen of Sheba”. She was also cultured and sensitive.

A contemporary piece in The Times of London affirms that she was one of the best educated and best prepared princesses in the German world.

Amélie of Leuchtenberg

The marriage contract was signed on May 29, 1829 in England, and ratified on June 30 in Munich by Amélie’s mother, the Duchess of Leuchtenberg, who had tutored her daughter personally. On July 30 of that year, in Brazil, a treaty of marriage between Pedro I and Amélie of Leuchtenberg was promulgated.

Upon confirming the marriage, Emperor Pedro definitively broke his links to the Marchioness of Santos and, as evidence of his good intentions, instituted the Order of the Rose, with the motto “Amor e Fidelidade” (“Love and Fidelity”).

Marriage of Amélie of Leuchtenberg and Emperor Pedro I of Brazil

A proxy marriage ceremony on August 2 in the chapel of the Palais Leuchtenberg in Munich was a simple affair with few in attendance, as Amélie insisted on donating to a Munich orphanage the appreciable amount Dom Pedro had sent for a ceremony with full pomp. Dom Pedro was represented by the Marquis of Barbacena. Amélie was barely seventeen years old; Dom Pedro was thirty.

December 2, 1848: Archduke Franz Joseph of Austria Succeeds to the Throne of the Austrian Empire.

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Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, Elisabeth of Bavaria, Emperor Ferdinand of Austria, Emperor Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, Kingdom of Hungary, Revolution of 1848, Sophie of Bavaria

From the Emperor’s Desk: although this blog post is about the accession of Emperor Franz Joseph on the throne of the Austrian Empire during the revolutions of 1848, I will not be addressing the complicated relationship between Franz Joseph and the kingdom of Hungary which was also going through a revolutionary period in 1848. I will deal with the accession of Franz Joseph as king of Hungary in a separate blog post on Monday.

Franz Joseph I (August 18, 1830 – November 21, 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia and the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from December 2, 1848 until his death on November 21, 1916. In the early part of his reign, his realms and territories were referred to as the Austrian Empire, but were reconstituted as the dual monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867. From May 1, 1850 to August 24, 1866, Franz Joseph was also President of the German Confederation.

Franz Joseph was born August 18, 1830 in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna (on the 65th anniversary of the death of his Great-Great-Grandfather Emperor Franz I of Lorraine) as the eldest son of Archduke Franz Charles (the younger son of Holy Roman Emperor Franz II), and his wife Princess Sophie of Bavaria. Archduke Franz Joseph was born during the reign of his grandfather Emperor Franz of Austria, who was the last Holy Roman Emperor Franz II.

Because his uncle, reigning from 1835 as the Emperor Ferdinand, was weak-minded, and his father unambitious and retiring, the mother of the young Archduke “Franzi” brought him up as a future Emperor, with emphasis on devotion, responsibility and diligence.

Since no issue from the marriage of the heir to the throne were expected, Archduke Ferdinand (Emperor from 1835), his next elder brother Archduke Franz Charles was to continue the succession of the Habsburgs, which is why the birth of his son Franz Joseph at the Viennese court was given special importance.

Archduke Franz Charles was physically as well as mentally of weak constitution and was therefore hardly suitable for a reign. For this reason, Franz Joseph was consistently built up as a potential successor to the imperial throne by his politically ambitious mother from early childhood.

Up to the age of seven, little “Franzi” was brought up in the care of the nanny (“Aja”) Louise von Sturmfeder. Then the “state education” began, the central contents of which were “sense of duty”, religiosity and dynastic awareness. The theologian Joseph Othmar von Rauscher conveyed to him the inviolable understanding of rulership of divine origin (divine grace), which is why no participation of the population in rulership in the form of parliaments is required.

During the Revolutions of 1848, the Austrian Chancellor Prince Metternich resigned (March–April 1848). The young Archduke, who (it was widely expected) would soon succeed his uncle on the throne, was appointed Governor of Bohemia on April 6, 1848, but never took up the post. Sent instead to the front in Italy, he joined Field Marshal Radetzky on campaign on April 29, receiving his baptism of fire on May 5 at Santa Lucia.

On December 2, 1848, Franz Joseph’s uncle, Emperor Ferdinand of Austria abdicated the throne at Olomouc, as part of Minister President Felix zu Schwarzenberg’s plan to end the Revolutions of 1848 in Hungary. At this point also came the renunciation of the rights to the throne of his father, the mild-mannered Archduke Franz Charles and Archduke Franz Joseph then acceded to the throne.

At this time, he first became known by his second as well as his first Christian name. The name “Franz Joseph” was chosen to bring back memories of the new Emperor’s great-granduncle, Emperor Joseph II (Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790), remembered as a modernising reformer.

Also, the new emperor wanted to be known as Emperor Franz III, however he soon realized that the ordinal number “III” was associated with the old Holy Roman Empire and he would therefore be Emperor Franz II of Austria. However, if he had called himself Emperor Franz II many of his advisors believed that would cause confusion since his grandfather was the last Holy Roman Emperor with the name Franz II and that was 42 years ago but still in the memory of the Austrian people. Therefore he chose to be known as Emperor Franz Joseph.

It was generally felt in the court that the Emperor should marry and produce heirs as soon as possible. Various potential brides were considered, including 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 mother still wielded crucial influence.

The young Empress Elisabeth of Austria 1855.

His mother 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 April 24, 1854 in St. Augustine’s Church, Vienna.

Marriage of Franz Joseph and Elisabeth
Their marriage would eventually prove to be an unhappy one; though Franz Joseph was passionately in love with his wife, the feeling was not mutual. Elisabeth never truly acclimatized to life at court, and was frequently in conflict 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.

Reign

Largely considered to be a reactionary, he spent his early reign resisting constitutionalism in his domains. The Austrian Empire was forced to cede its influence over Tuscany and most of its claim to Lombardy–Venetia to the Kingdom of Sardinia, following the Second Italian War of Independence in 1859 and the Third Italian War of Independence in 1866.

Although Franz Joseph ceded no territory to the Kingdom of Prussia after the Austrian defeat in the Austro-Prussian War, the Peace of Prague (August 23, 1866) settled the German Question in favour of Prussia, which prevented the unification of Germany from occurring under the House of Habsburg.

Franz Joseph was troubled by nationalism during his entire reign. He concluded the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, which granted greater autonomy to Hungary and created the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary.

He ruled peacefully for the next 45 years, but personally suffered the tragedies of the execution of his brother Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico in 1867, the murder-suicide of his son Crown Prince Rudolf and his mistress Mary Vetsara in 1889, the assassination of his wife Empress Elisabeth (“Sisi”) in 1898, and the assassination of his nephew and heir-presumptive, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in 1914.

After the Austro-Prussian War, Austria-Hungary turned its attention to the Balkans, which was a hotspot of international tension because of conflicting interests of Austria with not only the Ottoman but also the Russian Empire.

The Bosnian Crisis was a result of Franz Joseph’s annexation in 1908 of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had already been occupied by his troops since the Congress of Berlin (1878).

On June 28, 1914, the assassination of his nephew Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo resulted in Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war against the Kingdom of Serbia, which was an ally of the Russian Empire. That activated a system of alliances declaring war on each other, which resulted in World War I.

Emperor Franz Joseph died in 1916, after ruling his domains for almost 68 years. He was succeeded by his grandnephew as Emperor Charles I of Austria and as King Charles IV of Hungary. The Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed in 1918 at the end of World War I.

The Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire Part XI: Aftermath

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Bohemia and Croatia, Christian VII of Denmark, Congress of Vienna, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Emperor of Austria, German Confederation, Gustaf IV Adolph of Sweden, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, Holy Roman Empire, King of Hungary

Aftermath

The Holy Roman Empire, an institution which had lasted for just over a thousand years, did not pass unnoticed or unlamented. The dissolution of the empire sent shockwaves through Germany, with most of the reactions within the former imperial boundaries being rage, grief or shame.

Even the signatories of the Confederation of the Rhine were outraged; the Bavarian emissary to the imperial diet, Rechberg, stated that he was “furious” due to having “put his signature to the destruction of the German name”, referring to his state’s involvement in the confederation, which had effectively doomed the empire.

From a legal standpoint, Franz II’s abdication was controversial. Contemporary legal commentators agreed that the abdication itself was perfectly legal but that the emperor did not have the authority to dissolve the empire. As such, several of the empire’s vassals refused to recognize that the empire had ended. As late as October 1806, farmers in Thuringia refused to accept the end of the empire, believing its dissolution to be a plot by the local authorities.

For many of the people within the former empire, its collapse made them uncertain and fearful of their future, and the future of Germany itself. Contemporary reports from Vienna describe the dissolution of the empire as “incomprehensible” and the general public’s reaction as one of horror.

The German Confederation

In contrast to the fears of the general public, many contemporary intellectuals and artists saw Napoleon as a herald of a new age, rather than a destroyer of an old order. The popular idea forwarded by German nationalists was that the final collapse of the Holy Roman Empire freed Germany from the somewhat anachronistic ideas rooted in a fading ideal of universal Christianity and paved the way for the country’s unification as the German Empire, a nation state, 65 years later.

German historian Helmut Rössler has argued that Franz II and the Austrians fought to save the largely ungrateful Germany from the forces of Napoleon, only withdrawing and abandoning the empire when most of Germany betrayed them and joined Napoleon. Indeed, the assumption of a separate Austrian imperial title in 1804 did not mean that Franz II had any intentions to abdicate his prestigious position as the Roman emperor, the idea only began to be considered as circumstances beyond Habsburg control forced decisive actions to be taken.

Compounded with fears of what now guaranteed the safety of many of the smaller German states, the poet Christoph Martin Wieland lamented that Germany had now fallen into an “apocalyptic time” and stating “Who can bear this disgrace, which weighs down upon a nation which was once so glorious?—may God improve things, if it is still possible to improve them!”.

To some, the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire was seen as the final end of the ancient Roman Empire. In the words of Christian Gottlob von Voigt, a minister in Weimar, “if poetry can go hand in hand with politics, then the abdication of the imperial dignity offers a wealth of material.

The Roman Empire now takes its place in the sequence of vanquished empires”. In the words of the English historian James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce in his 1864 work on the Holy Roman Empire, the empire was the “oldest political institution in the world” and the same institution as the one founded by Augustus in 27 BC.

Writing of the empire, Bryce stated that “nothing else so directly linked the old world to the new—nothing else displayed so many strange contrasts of the present and the past, and summed up in those contrasts so much of European history”.

When confronted by the fall and collapse of their empire, many contemporaries employed the catastrophic fall of ancient Troy as a metaphor, due to its association with the notion of total destruction and the end of a culture.

The image of the apocalypse was also frequently used, associating the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire with an impending end of the world (echoing medieval legends of a Last Roman Emperor, a figure prophesized to be active during the end times).

Criticism and protests against the empire’s dissolution were typically censored, especially in the French-administered Confederation of the Rhine. Among the aspects most criticized by the general populace was the removal or replacement of the traditional intercessions for the empire and emperor in the daily church prayers throughout former imperial territory. Suppression from France, combined with examples of excessive retribution against pro-empire advocates, ensured that these protests soon died down.

Official and international reactions

King Gustav IV Adolph of Sweden, who in 1806 issued a proclamation to his German subjects that the dissolution of the empire “would not destroy the German nation.”

In an official capacity, Prussia’s response was only formulaic expressions of regret owing to the “termination of an honourable bond hallowed by time”. Prussia’s representative to the Reichstag, Baron Görtz, reacted with sadness, mixed with gratitude and affection for the House of Habsburg and their former role as emperors.

Görtz had taken part as an electoral emissary of the Electorate of Brandenburg (Prussia’s territory within the formal imperial borders) in 1792, at the election of Franz II as Holy Roman Emperor, and exclaimed that “So the emperor whom I helped elect was the last emperor!—This step was no doubt to be expected, but that does not make its reality any less moving and crushing. It cuts off the last thread of hope to which one tried to cling”.

Baron von Wiessenberg, the Austrian envoy to the Electorate of Hesse-Cassel, reported that the local elector, Wilhelm I, had teared up and expressed lament at the loss of “a constitution to which Germany had for so long owed its happiness and freedom”.

Internationally, the empire’s demise was met with mixed or indifferent reactions. Emperor Alexander I of Russia offered no response and King Christian VII of Denmark formally incorporated his German lands into his kingdoms a few months after the empire’s dissolution.

Franz I, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia

King Gustav IV Adolph of Sweden (who notably hadn’t recognized the separate imperial title of Austria yet) issued a somewhat provocative proclamation to the denizens of his German lands (Swedish Pomerania and Bremen-Verden) on August 22, 1806, stating that the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire “would not destroy the German nation” and expressed hopes that the empire might be revived.

Possibility of restoration

The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire was constituted by Franz II’s own personal abdication of the title and the release of all vassals and imperial states from their obligations and duties to the emperor. The title of Holy Roman Emperor (theoretically the same title as Roman Emperor) and the Holy Roman Empire itself as an idea and institution (the theoretically universally sovereign imperium) were never technically abolished. Dissolved yes, abolished no.

The continued existence of a universal empire, though without defined territory and lacking an emperor, was sometimes referenced in the titles of other later monarchs. For instance, the Savoyard Kings of Italy continued to claim the title “Prince and Perpetual Vicar of the Holy Roman Empire (in Italy)” (a title originating from a 14th-century imperial grant from Emperor Charles IV to their ancestor Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy) until the abolition of the Italian monarchy in 1946.

In the aftermath of Napoleon’s defeats in 1814 and 1815, there was a widespread sentiment in Germany and elsewhere which called for the revival of the Holy Roman Empire under the leadership of Emperor Franz I of Austria. At the time, there were several factors which prevented the restoration of the empire as it had been in the 18th century, notably the rise of larger, more consolidated kingdoms in Germany, such as Bavaria, Saxony and Württemberg, as well as Prussia’s interest in becoming a great power in Europe (rather than continue being a vassal to the Habsburgs).

Even then, the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire, with a modernized internal political structure, had not been out of reach at the 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna (which decided Europe’s borders in the aftermath of Napoleon’s defeat). However, Emperor Franz had come to the conclusion before the Congress of Vienna convened, that the Holy Roman Empire’s political structure would not have been superior to the new order in Europe and that restoring it was not in the interest of the Habsburg monarchy.

In an official capacity, the papacy considered the fact that the Holy Roman Empire was not restored at the Congress of Vienna (alongside other decisions made during the negotiations) to be “detrimental to the interests of the Catholic religion and the rights of the church”.

In the Holy Roman Empire’s place, the German Confederation was created by the 9th Act of the Congress of Vienna on June 8, 1815 after being alluded to in Article 6 of the 1814 Treaty of Paris, ending the War of the Sixth Coalition. The German Confederation, which was led by the Austrian emperors as “heads of the presiding power” would prove to be ineffective.

The Confederation was weakened by the German revolutions of 1848–1849, where after the Frankfurt Parliament, elected by the people of the Confederation, attempted to proclaim a German Empire and designate Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia as their Emperor.

King Friedrich Wilhelm IV himself did not approve of the idea, instead favoring a restoration of the Holy Roman Empire under the Habsburgs of Austria, though neither the Habsburgs themselves nor the German revolutionaries, still active at the time, would have approved of that idea.

Prussia went to war in 1866 with Austria in an attempt to remove Austria from German politics. With Austria successfully removed from any participation in the affairs of the German states, by 1871 Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck used the war against France (The Franco-Prussian War 1870-71) to unite the German states into a new German Empire under the authority of the Prussian king as the new German Emperor.

The Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire Part X: Abdication of Franz II

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Bishop of Rome, Emperor Franz I of Austria, Emperor of the French, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, Holy Roman Empire, Napoleon Bonaparte, Peace of Pressburg, Pope Pius VII

In the face of Napoleon’s assumption of the title “Emperor of the French” in 1804 and the Austrian defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, the Habsburg monarchy began contemplating whether the imperial title and the empire as a whole were worth defending.

Many of the states nominally serving the Holy Roman Emperor, such as Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria, had openly defied imperial authority and sided with Napoleon. Even then, the significance of the empire was not based on actual control of resources, but on prestige.

The main idea behind Franz II’s actions in 1806 was to lay the groundwork needed to avoid additional future wars with Napoleon and France. One concern held by the Habsburg monarchy was that Napoleon might aspire to claim the title of Holy Roman Emperor.

Franz II-I, The Last Holy Roman Emperor and First Emperor of Austria

Napoleon was attracted to Charlemagne’s legacy; replicas of Charlemagne’s crown and sword had been made for (but not used during) Napoleon’s coronation as Emperor of the French and he consciously revived Roman imperial symbols and aspired to create a new order in Europe, something akin to the universal dominion implicit in the title of Emperor of the Romans.

Napoleon’s vision of Charlemagne was completely different from the German vision of the old emperor, however. Instead of seeing Charlemagne as a German king, Napoleon viewed him as a Frankish conqueror who had extended French rule across Central Europe and Italy, something Napoleon aspired to accomplish as well.

Austria was slow to respond to the fast pace of events. Already on the 17 June, Francis had taken the decision to abdicate at the moment that seemed best for Austria. Klemens von Metternich was sent on a mission to Paris to discern Napoleon’s intentions.

On 22 July, Napoleon made them clear in an ultimatum demanding that Franz II abdicate the Imperial Throne by 10 August. Still, as late as 2 August, Joseph Haas, the head of the principal commission’s secretariat, hoped that the end of the Holy Roman Empire might yet be averted.

The general opinion among the Austrian high command was however that abdication was inevitable and that it should be combined with a dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire through relieving the vassals of the Emperor of their duties and obligations.

A formal dissolution of the empire was perceived as necessary, as it would prevent Napoleon from acquiring the imperial title. During an interregnum, the two imperial vicars Saxony and Bavaria would be entitled to exercise imperial authority and since both were aligned with Napoleon, such an arrangement could cause an abdicated Franz (as only Emperor of Austria) to become a vassal of Napoleon if Napoleon assumed the office of Holy Roman Emperor.

Though there is no concrete evidence that Napoleon actually aspired to become Holy Roman Emperor, it is possible that he entertained the idea, especially after he had formed the Confederation of the Rhine and beaten back Austria in early 1806.

Perhaps Napoleon did not think that the title could be combined with “Emperor of the French” (even though Franz II was emperor of both the Holy Roman Empire and Austria) and because of this he might have abandoned any potential Roman aspirations since he did not wish to relinquish his other imperial title.

The ephemeral Roman aspirations can also be gathered from Napoleon’s correspondence with the papacy; in early 1806, he warned Pope Pius VII that “Your Holiness is sovereign in Rome but I am its Emperor”.

More crucially than fearing Napoleon potentially usurping the title, the abdication was also intended to buy time for Austria to recover from its losses as it was assumed that France would meet it with some concessions.

Although the Roman title and the tradition of a universal Christian monarchy were still considered prestigious and a worthy heritage, they were now also considered things of the past. With the Holy Roman Empire dissolved, Franz II could focus his attention on the continued rise and prosperity of his new hereditary empire, as Emperor Franz I of Austria.

On the morning of August 6, 1806, the imperial herald of the Holy Roman Empire rode from the Hofburg to the Jesuit Church of the Nine Choirs of Angels (both being located in Vienna, the capital of the Habsburg Monarchy), where he delivered Franz II’s official proclamation from a balcony overlooking a large square.

Written copies of the proclamation were dispatched to the diplomats of the Habsburg monarchy on August 11 alongside a note which informed former princes of the empire that Austria would compensate those who had been paid from the imperial treasury.

The abdication did not acknowledge the French ultimatum, but stressed that the interpretation of the Peace of Pressburg by the imperial estates made it l a new emperor, Francis II’s abdication simultaneously dissolved the empire itself so that there were no more electors.

Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Part VI: War With France

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Austrian Netherlands, Duke Charles Wilhelm Ferdinand of Brunswick, French Revolution, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, Holy Roman Empire, Louis XVI of France and Navarre, Protestant Electors, Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, War of the First Coalition

The War of the First Coalition was a set of wars that several European powers fought between 1792 and 1797 initially against the constitutional Kingdom of France and then the French Republic that succeeded it. They were only loosely allied and fought without much apparent coordination or agreement; each power had its eye on a different part of France it wanted to appropriate after a French defeat, which never occurred.

As part of the War of the First Coalition the forces of the French First Republic overran and occupied the Austrian Netherlands in 1792.

Foreign minister Charles François Dumouriez, who sought a war which might restore some popularity and authority to the King. Dumouriez prepared the invasion of the Austrian Netherlands, where he expected the local population to rise against Austrian rule. However, the revolution had thoroughly disorganized the French army, which had insufficient forces for the invasion. Its soldiers fled at the first sign of battle, deserting en masse, in one case murdering General Théobald Dillon.

While the revolutionary government frantically raised fresh troops and reorganized its armies, an allied army under Charles Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick assembled at Koblenz on the Rhine.

The invasion commenced in July 1792. The Duke then issued a declaration on July 25, 1792, which had been written by the brothers of Louis XVI, that declared his [Brunswick’s] intent to restore the King of France to his full powers, and to treat any person or town who opposed him as rebels to be condemned to death by martial law.

This motivated the revolutionary army and government to oppose the Prussian invaders by any means necessary, and led almost immediately to the overthrow of the King by a crowd which stormed the Tuileries Palace.

The Holy Roman Empire was defending itself quite well until Prussia abandoned the war effort to focus its attention on its Polish territories (overseeing the Second and Third Partitions of Poland), taking the resources and military strength of northern Germany with it.

Charles Wilhelm Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick

Despite the empire’s mounting difficulties in the face of the wars with France, there was no large-scale popular unrest within its borders. Instead, the explanation for the end of the Holy Roman Empire lies in the realm of high politics.

The empire’s defeat in the Revolutionary Wars was the most decisive step in the gradual undermining of the empire. The conflict between France and the Holy Roman Empire had begun with the French declaring war on the newly crowned Emperor Franz II of the Habsburg dynasty only in his capacity as the
e King of Hungary.

The fact that much of the wider empire (including influential figures such as the King of Prussia and the Archbishop-Elector of Mainz), however unwilling, joined the conflict on the side of the Habsburgs proves that imperial ideals were still alive by the late 18th century.

The key point in which fortunes shifted was Prussia’s abandonment of the war effort. Prussia had been the only true counterweight to Austria’s influence in the institutions of the empire. Though the western parts of Prussia, such as Brandenburg, remained formal parts of the Holy Roman Empire and the Prussians continued to be represented in the Reichstag, Prussia ceased to compete for influence in imperial affairs.

Austria stood alone as the protector of the states in southern Germany, many of which began considering making their own separate peaces with France. When the Austrians learnt that Württemberg and Baden had opened formal negotiations with France, the armies sent by these two states were disbanded and disarmed in 1796, causing resentment against the emperor and, combined with losses to France, suggesting that the Habsburg emperor was no longer capable of protecting his traditional vassals in Germany.

Franz II, Holy Roman Emperor

In the wake of the wars with France, there was a substantial reorganization of Imperial territory (the so-called Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, supported by Prussia), with the Habsburg monarchy meaning to compensate those princes who had lost territory in the French wars and effectivize the empire’s current semi-feudal structure.

Although there were huge territorial changes, notably the almost complete abolition of any church territory and significant territorial gains for Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt and Nassau, the most important changes were in the empire’s electoral college.

Salzburg was added as a fourth Catholic elector, while Württemberg, Baden and Hesse-Cassel became the fourth, fifth and sixth Protestant electors, giving the Protestants a majority for the first time in history and raising doubts whether Emperor Franz II would be able to work together with his Reichstag.

Although the Austrian regime spent much time and resources attempting to make the new arrangement work, the general verdict at the time was that the reorganization had essentially killed the empire.

The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Part I.

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Austria, Brandenburg-Prussia, French Revolution, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, House of Habsburg-Lorraine, Hungary and Croatia, King of Bohemia, Napoleonic Wars, Peace of Westphalia, Prussia

The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire occurred de facto on August 6, 1806, when the last Holy Roman Emperor, Franz II of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, abdicated his title and released all imperial states and officials from their oaths and obligations to the empire.

Since the Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Empire had been recognized by Western Europeans as the legitimate continuation of the ancient Roman Empire due to its emperors having been proclaimed as Roman emperors by the papacy. Through this Roman legacy, the Holy Roman Emperors claimed to be universal monarchs whose jurisdiction extended beyond their empire’s formal borders to all of Christian Europe and beyond.

The decline of the Holy Roman Empire was a long and drawn-out process lasting centuries. The formation of the first modern sovereign territorial states in the 16th and 17th centuries, which brought with it the idea that jurisdiction corresponded to actual territory governed, threatened the universal nature of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Holy Roman Empire by the time of the 18th century was widely regarded by contemporaries, both inside and outside the empire, as a highly “irregular” monarchy and “sick”, having an “unusual” form of government. The empire lacked both a central standing army and a central treasury and its monarchs, formally elective rather than hereditary, could not exercise effective central control.

Franz II, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia

Even then, most contemporaries believed that the empire could be revived and modernized. The Holy Roman Empire finally began its true terminal decline after the Peace of Westphalia and the rise of Brandenburg-Prussia which saw a rivalry between Austria and Prussia that lasted more than a century.

What is interesting to note is that begining with the rivalry between Austria and Prussia one doesn’t read much in the history books about the Holy Roman Empire itself and the focus is on Austria and Prussia as individual states.

The Empire’s decline was sped up during and after its involvement in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. Again one is more likely to read about Austria’s involvement in the French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars further demonstrating how fragmented the Empire was at this time.

Although the empire defended itself quite well initially, war with France and Napoleon proved catastrophic. In 1804, Napoleon proclaimed himself as the Emperor of the French, which Franz II responded to by proclaiming himself the Emperor of Austria, in addition to already being the Holy Roman Emperor, an attempt at maintaining parity between France and Austria while also illustrating that the Holy Roman title outranked them both.

Austria’s defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz in December 1805 and the secession of a large number of Franz II’s German vassals in July 1806 to form the Confederation of the Rhine, a French satellite state, effectively meant the end of the Holy Roman Empire.

The abdication in August 1806, combined with a dissolution of the entire imperial hierarchy and its institutions, was seen as necessary to prevent the possibility of Napoleon proclaiming himself as Holy Roman Emperor, something which would have reduced Franz II to being Napoleon’s vassal.

The Holy Roman Empire

Reactions to the empire’s dissolution ranged from indifference to despair. The populace of Vienna, capital of the Habsburg monarchy, were horrified at the loss of the empire. Many of Franz II’s former subjects questioned the legality of his actions; though his abdication was agreed to be perfectly legal, the dissolution of the empire and the release of all its vassals were seen as beyond the emperor’s authority.

As such, many of the empire’s princes and subjects refused to accept that the empire was gone, with some commoners going so far as to believe that news of its dissolution was a plot by their local authorities. In Germany, the dissolution was widely compared to the ancient and semi-legendary Fall of Troy and some associated the end of what they perceived to be the Roman Empire with the end times and the apocalypse.

Franz II, the Last Holy Roman Emperor

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Bohemia, Caroline Charlotte Auguste of Bavaria, Croatia Holy Roman Empire, Elisabeth of Württemberg, Franz I of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, King of Hungry, Maria Ludovika of Austria-Este, Maria Teresa of the Two Sicilies

From the Emperor’s Desk: Tomorrow, August 6th, is the anniversary of the abdication of Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, and also the disillusion of the Holy Roman Empire itself. Today I’m featuring a small biography of Emperor Franz II, and tomorrow I will give a brief telling of the end of the Holy Roman Empire, and starting next week I will do a detailed series on the end of the Holy Roman Empire.

Imperial Standard of the Holy Roman Empire

Franz II (February 12, 1768 – March 2, 1835) was the last Holy Roman Emperor (from 1792 to 1806) and, as Franz I, the first Emperor of Austria, from 1804 to 1835. He also served as the first president of the German Confederation following its establishment in 1815.

Early life

As Archduke Franz of Austria he was a son of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II (1747–1792) and his wife Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain (1745–1792), daughter of Carlos III of Spain (previously King of Naples and Sicily) and Maria Amalia of Saxony. She was the fifth daughter, and second surviving child, of her parents.

Archduke Franz was born in Florence, the capital of Tuscany, where his father reigned as Grand Duke from 1765 to 1790 prior to his becoming Emperor. Though he had a happy childhood surrounded by his many siblings, his family knew Franz was likely to be a future Emperor (his uncle Emperor Joseph II had no surviving issue from either of his two marriages), and so in 1784 the young Archduke was sent to the Imperial Court in Vienna to educate and prepare him for his future role.

Franz II, Holy Roman Emperor

Emperor Joseph II himself took charge of the development of Archduke Franz. His disciplinarian regime was a stark contrast to the indulgent Florentine Court of Leopold. The Emperor wrote that Archduke Franz was “stunted in growth”, “backward in bodily dexterity and deportment”, and “neither more nor less than a spoiled mother’s child.” Emperor Joseph II concluded that “the manner in which he was treated for upwards of sixteen years could not but have confirmed him in the delusion that the preservation of his own person was the only thing of importance.”

Emperor Joseph II martinet method of improving the young Franz was “fear and unpleasantness.” The young Archduke was isolated, the reasoning being that this would make him more self-sufficient as it was felt by Joseph that Franz “failed to lead himself, to do his own thinking.”

Nonetheless, Franz greatly admired his uncle, if rather feared him. To complete his training, Franz was sent to join an army regiment in Hungary and he settled easily into the routine of military life. He was present at the siege of Belgrade which occurred during the Austro-Turkish War.

After the death of Joseph II in 1790, Franz’s father became Emperor Leopold II. He had an early taste of power while acting as Leopold’s deputy in Vienna while the incoming Emperor traversed the Empire attempting to win back those alienated by his brother’s policies.

The strain told on Leopold and by the winter of 1791, he became ill. He gradually worsened throughout early 1792; on the afternoon of March 1 Leopold died, at the relatively young age of 44. Franz, just past his 24th birthday, was now Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, much sooner than he had expected.

Imperial Crown of the Austrian Empire

Emperor

As the head of the Holy Roman Empire and the ruler of the vast multi-ethnic Habsburg hereditary lands, Emperor Franz II felt threatened by the French revolutionaries and later Napoleon’s expansionism as well as their social and political reforms which were being exported throughout Europe in the wake of the conquering French armies.

Emperor Franz II had a fraught relationship with France. His aunt Archduchess Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI and Queen consort of France, was guillotined by the revolutionaries in 1793, at the beginning of his reign, although they were not close and on the whole, he was indifferent to her fate.

Emperor Franz II continued his leading role as an opponent of Napoleonic France in the Napoleonic Wars, and suffered several more defeats after the Battle of Austerlitz. The marriage of his daughter Marie Louise of Austria to Napoleon on March 10, 1810 was arguably his severest personal defeat.

After the abdication of Napoleon following the War of the Sixth Coalition, Austria participated as a leading member of the Holy Alliance at the Congress of Vienna, which was largely dominated by Franz’s chancellor Klemens von Metternich culminating in a new European map and the restoration of most of Franz II’s ancient dominions. Due to the establishment of the Concert of Europe, which largely resisted popular nationalist and liberal tendencies, Franz was viewed as a reactionary later in his reign.

Franz I, Emperor of Austria

Franz II’s grandchildren include Napoleon II (Napoleon’s only legitimate son), Franz Joseph I of Austria, Maximilian I of Mexico, Maria II of Portugal and Pedro II of Brazil.

Marriages

Franz II married four times:

1. On January 6, 1788, to Elisabeth of Württemberg (April 21, 1767 – February 18, 1790).

Elisabeth Wilhelmine Luise was born in Treptow an der Rega, Pomerania, in what today is Poland. She was born as the third daughter and eighth child borne to Friedrich II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg and his wife, Princess Sophia Dorothea of Brandenburg-Schwedt. Her name came from her baptism.

At the age of 15, she was called by the Holy Roman Emperor, Joseph II, to Vienna. There, she was educated in the Salesianerinnenkloster by the nuns, in which she also converted to Catholicism. The purpose of this was to make her the future wife of Archduke Franz, the future Holy Roman Emperor.

In Vienna on January 6, 1788, Elisabeth and Franz were married. At this time, Emperor Joseph was in ill health; the young archduchess was close to the emperor and brightened his last years with her youthful charm.

At the end of 1789, Elisabeth became pregnant; however, her condition was very delicate. After her visitation to the anointing of the sick, held by the emperor, on February 15, 1790, Elisabeth fainted—and on the night of February 18, she prematurely gave birth to Archduchess Ludovika Elisabeth, who lived for only 16 months.

Despite an emergency operation to save her life, Elisabeth did not survive the birth, which lasted more than 24 hours. She is buried in the Imperial Crypt, in Vienna. The Emperor Joseph II died two days after the death of his niece.

2. On September 15, 1790, Emperor Franz II was married to his double first cousin Maria Teresa of the Two Sicilies (June 6, 1772 – April 13, 1807), daughter of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and Archduchess Maria Carolina of Austria (both were grandchildren of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband Emperor Franz I, formerly Duke of Lorraine and they shared all of their other grandparents in common), with whom he had twelve children, of whom only seven reached adulthood.

Born on 6 June 1772 at the Royal Palace of Naples, Maria Theresa Carolina Giuseppina was her mother’s favorite child from birth, and was henceforth named after her maternal grandmother Empress Maria Theresa. Princess Maria Theresa was taught French, mathematics, geography, theology, music, dancing, and drawing.

In the February of 1790, Archduke Franz’s wife, Archduchess Elisabeth, died in childbirth, and it was announced that he would marry one of the princesses of Naples. Maria Theresa and her sister Luisa were both considered for the match. In the end, though, Luisa was chosen to marry Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Maria Theresa was to marry Francis. The marriage was in accordance with the traditional Habsburg marriage policy.

Marriage

On September 15, 1790, at the age of 18, Princess Maria Theresa married her double first cousin Archduke Franz. The marriage was described as a happy one based on mutual understanding, despite differences in personality. Franz was described as a melancholic character. He was shy and reserved, and was serious with a preference for a spartan lifestyle and duty. Maria Theresa, on the other hand, was described as a gracious blue-eyed blonde with a vivacious personality, a hot temper and a sensual nature.

Maria Theresa reportedly adapted well to her new home in Vienna and did not suffer from homesickness. She participated with enthusiasm in court life, and it was noted that she enjoyed dancing and partaking in carnival balls—even while pregnant. She particularly enjoyed the Waltz, which had been recently introduced as an innovation and became fashionable during her years in Vienna.

In the winter of 1806, Empress Maria Theresa (pregnant with her 12th child) contracted tuberculous pleurisy, which the imperial physician, Andreas Joseph von Stifft, treated with bloodletting. However, it did not trigger an improvement in health, but a premature birth. When Empress Maria Theresa died after following complications after her last childbirth (the daughter died a few days before the mother) on 13 April 1807 at the age of 34, the Emperor was inconsolable and had to be removed by force from the corpse of his wife. She was buried in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna. The shattered Emperor stayed away from the funeral, instead traveling to Buda with his two eldest children.

3. On January 6, 1808, Emperor Franz of Austria married again to another first cousin, Archduchess Maria Ludovika of Austria-Este (December 14, 1787 – April 7, 1816) with no issue. She was the daughter of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este and Maria Beatrice d’Este, Princess of Modena. She was a member of the House of Austria-Este, a branch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine.

She is not to be confused with Marie-Louise of Austria (who was given the Latin baptismal name of Maria Ludovica Leopoldina Francisca Theresa Josepha Lucia), who married Napoleon in 1810.

She, as leader of the war party in Austria, was a great enemy of the French Emperor Napoleon I of France and therefore also in opposition to the Austrian foreign minister Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich. The French had protested against the marriage because of her political views. She had considerable influence on her husband, and her talent at ruling marvelled many officials, including the Prussian minister who considered her the ruling genius at court.

Maria Ludovika was also immensely popular with her subjects who hailed her a second Maria Theresa. Together with her brother-in-law Archduke Johann, she made the war effort popular. During her coronation in Pressburg, she impressed the Hungarians so much that they declared large financial and military support for the monarchy if needed. But the Emperor hesitated and Archduke Charles who had extensive control over military matters advised caution. Only the effects of the Spanish revolt in 1808 allowed the war party to prevail.

When Napoleon was finally defeated she traveled at the end of the year 1815 to her home country, North Italy, but died of tuberculosis in Verona. She was only 28 years old. She is buried in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna.

4. On October 29, 1816, Franz II married Caroline Charlotte Auguste of Bavaria (8 February 1792 – 9 February 1873) with no issue. She was daughter of Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and had been previously married to Wilhelm I of Württemberg.

First marriage

On June 8, 1808, at Munich, Caroline Augusta married Crown Prince Wilhelm of Württemberg (1781–1864) becoming Crown Princess of Württemberg.

Her first marriage was arranged to avoid a political marriage arranged by Napoleon. After the marriage ceremony, her spouse said to her: We are victims to politics. She spent her time writing letters to her brother Ludwig, and learning Italian and English.

The couple never bonded with each other and the marriage was finally annulled by Pope Pius VII to enable both of them to make remarriages that were valid in the Catholic Church. At the time of the annulment, it was claimed by them that they had lived separately in the palace and that the marriage had never been consummated.

Empress

After the annulment of her marriage, Caroline Augusta was considered as a bride for both the Emperor Franz II and his younger brother, Ferdinand. Later, Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany withdrew his proposal and Caroline Augusta became the Emperor’s bride.

On October 29, 1816, Caroline Augusta married Franz, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia and Croatia. She became the fourth wife of the emperor, who was 24 years older than her and had fathered thirteen children by two of his previous wives. The English diplomat Frederick Lamb called the new empress “ugly, clever and amiable,” and the emperor her husband had this to say of her: “She can stand a push, the other was nothing but air.” The wedding, and indeed their married life, was very simple due to the strict economy favoured by the Emperor. Prior to this marriage, Caroline Augusta had always been known as Charlotte, but now she began using the name Caroline.

This marriage, which lasted until the emperor’s death almost 20 years later, was harmonious but remained childless. She became popular in Austria and was active in social work; she founded several hospitals and residences for the poor. After the death of her spouse in 1835, she moved to Salzburg and lived there in quiet dignity until her own death nearly four decades later. The dowager empress died in February 1873, one day after her 81st birthday.

December 9, 1750: Death of Franz, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

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Duke Franz of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Edward VII, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, Holy Roman Empire, House of Wettin, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, Thuringian Dukes

Franz, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (July 15, 1750 – December 9, 1806), was one of the ruling Thuringian dukes of the House of Wettin.

Biography

Franz was born on July 15, 1750. He is the eldest son of Ernst Friedrich, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and Sophia Antonia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, the tenth of 17 children of Ferdinand Albert II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Antoinette Amalie Brunswick-Lüneburg (1696–1762), youngest daughter of his first cousin Ludwig Rudolph, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and his wife Princess Christine Louise of Oettingen-Oettingen.

Ludwig Rudolph, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg was the maternal grandfather of Empress Maria Theresa I, The Holy Roman Empress, Emperor Peter II of Russia and also Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

Franz received a private, careful and comprehensive education and became an art connoisseur. Franz initiated a major collection of books and illustrations for the duchy in 1775, which eventually expanded to a 300,000-picture collection of copperplate engravings currently housed in the Veste Coburg.

Franz was commissioned into the allied army in 1793 when his country was invaded by the Revolutionary armies of France. The allied forces included Hanoverians, Hessians, and the British. He fought in several actions against the French.

Franz succeeded his father as reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld in 1800. In the discharge of his father’s debts the Schloss Rosenau had passed out of the family but in 1805 he bought back the property as a summer residence for the ducal family.

Emperor Franz II dissolved the Holy Roman Empire on August 6, 1806, after its defeat by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz. Duke Franz died December 9, 1806. On December 15, 1806, Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, along with the other Ernestine duchies, entered the Confederation of the Rhine as the Duke and his ministers planned.

First marriage

In Hildburghausen on March 6, 1776, Franz married Princess Sophie of Saxe-Hildburghausen, a daughter of his Ernestine kinsman, Duke Ernst Friedrich II and Princess Ernestine of Saxe-Weimar. She died on October 28, 1776, only seven months after her wedding. There were no children born from this marriage.

Second marriage and children

In Ebersdorf on June 13, 1777, Franz married Countess Augusta Reuss of Lobenstein-Ebersdorf, daughter of Heinrich XXIV, Count Reuss of Ebersdorf and his wife Countess Karoline Ernestine of Erbach-Schönberg. They had ten children, seven of whom survived to adulthood.

His male-line descendants established ruling houses in Belgium, United Kingdom, Portugal and Bulgaria, while retaining the duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha until 1918.

His son Leopold ruled as King Leopold I of the Belgians. A grandson reigned jure uxoris as King Ferdinand II of Portugal while a great-grandson named Ferdinand became the first modern king of Bulgaria.

One of his granddaughters was Empress Carlota of Mexico, while another was Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. The latter’s son, Edward VII, a patrilineal as well as matrilineal great-grandson of Franz, inaugurated upon his accession to the British throne in 1901 the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the name of the ruling dynasty of the United Kingdom until the house name was changed to Windsor by King George V in 1917.

Further, as progenitor of a line of Coburg princes who, in the 19th and 20th centuries, ascended the thrones of several European realms, he is a patrilineal ancestor of King Edward VII, King George V, King Edward VIII, King George VI, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Albert, Prince Consort of the United Kingdom, Victoria, German Empress, Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, Queen Maud of Norway, Queen Marie of Romania, Margaret, Crown Princess of Sweden, Queen Marie-José of Italy, King Philippe of Belgium, Empress Carlota of Mexico, King Simeon II of Bulgaria, Grand Duchess Josephine Charlotte of Luxembourg and King Manuel II of Portugal.

December 2, 1848: Abdication of Austrian Emperor Ferdinand and the Accession of Archduke Franz Joseph on the Imperial Throne.

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Archduke Franz Charles of Austria, Archduke Franz Joseph of Austria, Emperor Ferdinand of Austria, Emperor Franz of Austria, Ferdinand of the Two-Sicilies, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, Prince Felix zu Schwarzenberg, Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, Revolutions of 1848, Sophie of Bavaria

On this date Emperor Ferdinand of Austria abdicated the throne in favor of his nephew, Archduke Franz Joseph who ascended the throne and would reign for nearly 68 years.

Ferdinand I (April 19, 1793 – June 29, 1875) was the eldest son of Franz II, Holy Roman Emperor and Maria Theresa de Bourbon of Naples and Sicily. Possibly as a result of his parents’ genetic closeness (they were double first cousins), Ferdinand suffered from hydrocephalus, neurological problems including epilepsy, and a speech impediment. He was educated by Baron Josef Kalasanz von Erberg, and his wife Countess Josephine von Attems.

Ferdinand succeeded to the throne of the Habsburg Empire on the death of his father Emperor Franz of Austria on March 2, 1835. Previously his father was known as Franz II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, who abdicated that throne in August of 1806. As ruler of Austria, Emperor Ferdinand was also President of the German Confederation, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia (as Ferdinand V), King of Lombardy–Venetia and holder of many other lesser titles.

Due to his rocky, passive but well-intentioned character, he gained the sobriquet The Benign or The Benevolent.

Emperor Ferdinand was incapable of ruling his empire because of a mental deficiency, so his father, before he died, made a will promulgating that Ferdinand should consult his uncle Archduke Ludwig on all aspects of internal policy and urged him to be influenced by Prince Metternich, Austria’s Foreign Minister.

Ferdinand’s abdication came as a result of Revolutions of 1848 that swept across most of Europe.

The Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire were a set of revolutions that took place in the Austrian Empire from March 1848 to November 1849. Much of the revolutionary activity had a nationalist character: the Empire, ruled from Vienna, included ethnic Germans, Hungarians, Slovenes, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Ruthenians (Ukrainians), Romanians, Croats, Venetians (Italians) and Serbs; all of whom attempted in the course of the revolution to either achieve autonomy, independence, or even hegemony over other nationalities.

The nationalist picture was further complicated by the simultaneous events in the German states, which moved toward greater German national unity. Besides these nationalists, liberal and even socialist currents resisted the Empire’s longstanding conservatism.

Photo of Emperor Ferdinand of Austria

The early rumblings

The events of 1848 were the product of mounting social and political tensions after the Congress of Vienna of 1815. During the “pre-March” period, the already conservative Austrian Empire moved further away from ideas of the Age of Enlightenment, by restricting freedom of the press, limited many university activities, and banned fraternities.

As the revolutionaries of 1848 were marching on the palace, he is supposed to have asked Metternich for an explanation. When Metternich answered that they were making a revolution, Ferdinand is supposed to have said “But are they allowed to do that?” (Viennese German: Ja, dürfen’s denn des?) He was convinced by Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg to abdicate in favour of his nephew, Archduke Franz Joseph (the next in line was Ferdinand’s younger brother Archduke Franz Charles, but he was persuaded to waive his succession rights in favour of his son)

The reason Archduke Franz Charles was the heir was due to the fact that Emperor Ferdinand didn’t have any children. When Ferdinand married Princess Maria Anna of Savoy, the court physician considered it unlikely that he would be able to consummate the marriage. When he tried to consummate the marriage, he had five seizures.

Therefore the heir to the throne was his brother Archduke Franz Charles of Austria (December 17, 1802 – March 8, 1878). He was the father of two emperors: Franz Joseph I of Austria and Maximilian I of Mexico. Through his third son Charles Ludwig, he was the grandfather of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria – whose assassination sparked the hostilities that led to the outbreak of World War I – and the great-grandfather of the last Habsburg emperor Charles I.

Archduke Franz Charles of Austria

Franz Charles was born in Vienna, the third son of Emperor Franz of Austria by his second marriage with Princess Maria Theresa from the House of Bourbon, daughter of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and Maria Carolina of Austria. Archduchess Maria Carolina was the thirteenth child of Empress Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungry etc and Emperor Franz I. Archduchess Maria Carolina was also a sister to Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, Queen Consort to Louis XVI of France and Navarre.

On November 4, 1824 in Vienna Archduke Franz Charles married Princess Sophie of Bavaria from the House of Wittelsbach, a daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria by his second wife Caroline of Baden. Sophie’s paternal half-sister, Caroline Augusta of Bavaria was by this time Franz Charles’ stepmother, having married his thrice-widowed father, Emperor Franz, in 1816. The Wittelsbachs condoned the unappealing manners of Sophie’s husband in consideration of the incapability of his elder brother Ferdinand and Sophie’s chance to become Austrian Empress.

A young Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria

Franz Charles was an unambitious and generally ineffectual man, although he was, together with his uncle Archduke Ludwig, a member of the Geheime Staatskonferenz council, which after the death of Emperor Franz ruled the Austrian Empire in the place of his mentally ill brother Ferdinand from 1835 to 1848.

The decisions, however, were actually made by the Minister of State Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich and his rival Count Franz Anton von Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky. His wife Sophie had already transferred her ambitions, when she urged Franz Charles to renounce his claims to the throne at the time of his brother’s abdication on December 2, 1848, allowing their eldest son Archduke Franz Joseph to take the Imperia Throne of the vast Austrian Empire.

At this time, he first became known by his second as well as his first Christian name. The name “Franz Joseph” was chosen to bring back memories of the new Emperor’s great-granduncle, Emperor Joseph II (Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790), remembered as a modernising reformer.

Also, the new emperor wanted to be known as Franz III, however he realized that the ordinal number “III” was associated with the old Holy Roman Empire and he would therefore be Emperor Franz II of Austria, but it was believed that would cause confusion since his grandfather was the last Holy Roman Emperorwith the name Franz II.