FRANCIS JOSEPH I

Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, born at Vienna 18th Aug., 1830, died at Schénbrunn 21st Nov., 1916. Revolts had forced his uncle, Ferdinand I, to abdicate, and when his father, Francis Charles, renounced his rights, Francis Joseph succeeded to the throne of the Dual Monarchy in 1848. His reign thus lasted sixty-eight years, exceeding that of Queen Victoria. Francis Joseph was during his long reign above everything a Habsburg, and nearly all his acts were dictated by the interests of his House. Thus he not only refrained from establishing the Constitution which he had proInised to his subjects in 1849, but refused to recognize the Constitution granted by his predece or to Hungary. Nicholas I of Ru ia helped him to quell the Separatist movement in Hungary, whilst his general Radetzki brutally suppre ed the attempt of the Lombardians to shake off the Austrian yoke. In 1854 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Duke Max of Bavaria. During his long reign Francis Joseph not only saw the prestige of his House diminished, and Austria losing many of her po e ions, but he also lived through a series of family tragedies. His only son, Prince Rudolf, met a violent death at Meyer ling; his wife was a a inated at Geneva in 1897; his sister-in-law, the wife of Hmperor Maximilian of Mexico, went mad after her husband’sdeath. The climax came when, in June, 1914, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, nephew of the emperor and heir to the throne, was murdered with his wife at Serajevo in Bosnia. The crime of Serajevo and the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia precipitated the crisis and led to the Huropean War, which, in spite of the promise of politicians and littérateurs that it would be ‘‘the war which will end war,’ has, unfortunately, sown the germs of future conflicts. Francis Joseph was to a great extent personally responsible for the Huropean War, but he did not live to see the end and the downfall of the House of Habsburg. See AUSTRIA; EUROPEAN WAR.—BIBLIOGRAPHY: R. P. Mahaity, Francis Joseph: his Life and his Times; H. de Weindel, The Real Francis Joseph; F. Gribble, Life. of the Emperor of Austria.