General Notes

Francis Joseph I (German Franz Josef) (1830-1916), emperor of Austria
(1848-1916) and king of Hungary (1867-1916), the last important ruler of the
Habsburg dynasty; his policies played a major role in the events that led to
World War I (1914-1918).
Francis Joseph was born in Vienna, the eldest son of Archduke Francis Charles,
who was brother and heir of Austrian Emperor Ferdinand I. Because Francis
Charles renounced his right to the throne, Francis Joseph became emperor when
Ferdinand abdicated during the revolution of 1848. With Russian help, he and
his prime minister, Felix, prince zu Schwarzenberg, restored order in the
empire and reestablished Austrian dominance in the German confederation. In
1854 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, with whom
he had one son and three daughters. Francis Joseph's failure to support Russia
in the Crimean War (1853-1856) permanently damaged Austro-Russian relations.
In the decade that followed, Austria lost most of its Italian possessions, as
well as its position of leadership in Germany. Weakened by these reverses,
Francis Joseph began to negotiate with Hungary on its demands for autonomy. In
1866 Transylvania was reunited with Hungary. In 1867 Austria and Hungary
agreed to create a dual monarchy in which the two countries would be equal
partners. Under the empire of Austria-Hungary, as it was known after 1867,
Hungary had complete independence in internal affairs, but the two countries
acted jointly in foreign affairs. The same year, Francis Joseph and Elizabeth
were formally crowned king and queen of Hungary.
As the dual monarch, Francis Joseph planned to grant some form of
self-government to the Austrian Slavs, but the German and Hungarian elites who
controlled the empire opposed the plan. The resulting dissatisfaction among
Francis Joseph's Czechoslovakian and Serbian subjects further weakened the
Habsburg realms and caused increased friction with Russia, which championed
the cause of Europe's Slavic peoples. Beginning in the 1870s, Austria-Hungary
gradually became subservient to its powerful neighbor and ally, the
Prussian-dominated German Empire.
Francis Joseph's later years were marked by a series of tragedies in his
family. In 1889 his only son and heir to the throne, Archduke Rudolf,
committed suicide; in 1898 his wife was assassinated by an Italian anarchist;
and in 1914 his nephew, Francis Ferdinand, who had replaced Rudolf as heir to
the throne, was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist. The murder of Francis
Ferdinand precipitated the crisis between Austria-Hungary and Germany on the
one hand, and Serbia and Russia on the other, that led to World War I. Francis
Joseph did not live to see Austria's defeat in the war and the extinction of
the Habsburg monarchy.