Birthday Greetings #11

OK this is the big one. Happy birthday to (deep breath) His Imperial and Royal Majesty, Franz Josef I, by the grace of God Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria, Illyria; King of Jerusalem, etc.; Archduke of Austria; Grand Duke of Tuscany, Crakow; Duke of Lorraine, Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, the Bukovina; Grand Prince of Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia; Duke of the Upper & Lower Silesia, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Guastalla, Oswiecin, Zator, Cieszyn, Friuli, Ragusa, Zara; Princely Count of Habsburg, Tyrol, Kyburg, Gorizia, Gradisca; Prince of Trent, Brixen; Margrave of the Upper & Lower Lusatia, in Istria; Count of Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenberg, etc.; Lord of Triest, Kotor, the Wendish March; Grand Voivode of the Voivodship of Serbia and so on for quite a while.

Franz Josef was the second last Habsburg emperor (we looked at his successor yesterday) but to all intents and purposes the empire may be said to end with him. Born in 1830 he took the throne under less than auspicious circumstances in 1848 as revolution tore through Europe. His halfwit uncle Ferdinand was obviously not handling the situation well and in a family conference was persuaded to resign. Franz Josef's father being somewhat of a nonentity it was decided to skip a generation and put young (if not exactly fresh) blood on the throne. From that moment on Franz Josef never deviated. So conservative that he made conservatives look like communists and blessed with a spectacular lack of imagination he presided over the gradual decline of the Habsburg empire.

He came to the throne with unrest in Austria and Bohemia and outright rebellion in Hungary. Fortunately for him that one eternal verity of the empire saved him. The imperial army remained loyal and a trio of military figures came to prominence. In Italy the octogenarian Field Marshal Radetzky beat the crap out of the Italians and then turned his forces inwards to support the emperor. Baron Jellacic, Ban of Croatia (technically a vassal state of Hungary) rallied the Croats in the emperors name and finally Prince Windischgraetz crushed the popular uprisings in both Prague and Vienna with a combination of crazy violence and judicious concessions after the fact.

With everyone dragged into line the imperial troops launched a full scale invasion of rebellious Hungary. It wasn't going to as easy as all that though. Having had a taste of freedom the Hungarians fought and eventually Franz Josef dialled in the assistance of possibly the only monarch more conservative than himself, Tsar Nicholas of Russia. With the assistance of Russian troops the Hungarians were duly crushed and Franz Josef settled down to rule a quiet, if sullen, empire.

For the first decade or so Franz Josef ruled as an absolute autocrat and about the only spark of originality he showed was in his choice of bride. It had been arranged for him to marry one of the daughters of the King of Bavaria but when Franz Josef went on a visit to meet his potential wife he fell madly in love with her younger sister Elizabeth. He duly married her and thus merged Habsburg inbreeding with Wittlesbach insanity. Elizabeth was an excitable, vivacious, life loving young woman and Franz Josef even at the age of twenty four was a dull, conservative, hard working man weighed down by the cares of empire. Strangely their marriage wasn't a success although there is a good deal of evidence that they did in fact love each other. Elizabeth loathed the stultifying court life and escaped it whenever possible. Franz Josef saw it as his duty to fulfill all of the functions of a monarch on all occasions. As time went on it became apparent that they couldn't live together and Elizabeth became a sort of royal gypsy wandering around Europe. Before she did so she introduced him to Katarina Schratt an actress who would be his constant companion for much of the rest of his life (although apparently their relationship was one of simple friendship rather than anything more physical). Schratt was a pleasant, pretty, not too bright woman who would probably have been an ideal match for Franz Josef in the first place. Apart from that entire low birth thing.

Meanwhile things were going badly on the international front. The Piedmontese, looking to unite all of Italy under their rule, had called in assistance from the French emperor Napoleon (no not that one, Napoleon III his genetically dubious nephew) and war broke out with France and Piedmont on one side and the Empire on the other. Due to the Habsburg penchant for promoting incompetents to high command the Empires initially commanding position was thrown away and a severe defeat was suffered at the Battle of Magenta. Taking command himself Franz Josef led his armies in person at the subsequent Battle of Solferino. Again the Habsburg forces were defeated as much because Franz Josef was appalled at the carnage as because of any tactical skill on the part of the French. Somebody else appalled at the carnage was Henri-Jean Dunant who set up the International Red Cross as a consequence.

For Franz Josef there was no silver lining, his forces had been defeated and the Hungarians who had been beaten into submission were getting restive again. A peace treaty handed over part (although not all) of northern Italy to the Piedmontese and Franz Josef never commanded his troops in the field again. Back home the people were restless and a sort of constitution had to be implemented to calm things down. This would be the way throughout the rest of Franz Josef's reign. Belated, inadequate concessions which never really solved the major issues but somehow stopped the whole powder keg from exploding for a little while longer.

In 1866 a disastrous war with Prussia (with Italy in tow) resulted in not just defeat but humiliation and in the aftermath the dual monarchy was born. With the prestige of the imperial institutions at an all time low Franz Josef could no longer demand Hungarian loyalty he would have to buy it. Their price was high. No longer would Franz Josef be Emperor of Austria. From now on he would be Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary as two discrete realms bound by a handful of common institutions and the person of the monarch. If not independence Hungary had gained what amounted to joint control of the empire.

Slowly the empire wound down as its inherent unlikeliness in a time of nationalities became more and more apparent. Above it all Franz Josef ruled with dull consistency forming one of the few unchanging patterns in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nationality after nationality made demands which the imperial government responded to with incompetent oppression and inadequate reforms. The simple fact of the matter was that fundamental reform was impossible. The empire was well past its use by date and was largely being held together by its own rust.

For Franz Josef, sadly not quite stupid enough to be unaware of these events, his reign was further marred by personal tragedies. His son Rudolf inherited the liveliness and energy of his mother but also her instability and after a career in which he showed flashes of intelligence and energy but also an addiction to morphine he shot himself and his mistress at Mayerling hunting lodge. The peripatetic empress was next, knifed to death by an Italian anarchist on the shores of Lake Geneva and through it all Franz Josef went on, rising at four every morning from his narrow iron cot and spending most of his day at his desk dealing with paperwork.

Years became decades, the world changed but Franz Josef didn't and by not doing so he became unconsciously one of the strongest remaining supports of the monarchy. His reign lasted over sixty years and towards the end nobody could imagine life without him. The old, stern patriarchal man might not have been loved but he was widely respected for his integrity and unwavering service. When Serbian terrorists were looking for somebody to kill to make a big splash the emperor's name was suggested but rejected for fear that killing "the old gentleman of the Hofburg" might be the one thing that could unite the empire against the killers. Instead they decided to kill the heir to the throne whom nobody liked very much, not even Franz Josef.

That assassination triggered World War I although to be fair elements within the empire had been agitating for war with somebody (they didn't seem particularly concerned with who) for years. In the past it had been Franz Josef himself who had slapped them down. He had seen war and in his heart of hearts knew his empire wasn't in any shape to fight one but in 1914 he was past eighty, ill and very tired. With tears in his eyes he signed the declaration of war against Serbia which was his own monarchy's death warrant.

In one last act of mercy at the end of a long, sad life he died before he could see the collapse of his empire and is buried in the Capuchin Crypt in Vienna. In keeping with tradition when his funeral cortege reached the crypt it was closed. The Chamberlain hammered on the door and the priest inside called;"Who knocks?"

The chamberlain replied with the ear bleeding list of titles recited at the beginning of this entry and the priest said, "I know him not"

The chamberlain knocked again and in response to the the question replied, "The Emperor-King requests admission"

Again the response was, "I know him not"

Finally the chamberlain knocked for a third time and when the priest asked "Who knocks" replied, "Franz Josef a miserable sinner begs admission"
Only then was the crypt opened and the emperor's body allowed in.

Franz Josef was not a good man, he was a dull, arrogant, hidebound man who had learnt to hide his emotions behind a mask and demanded that duty occupy the same role in his family's life as it did in his. He was merciless with those who fell down and much of the empire's ingrained conservatism was a reflection of his own attitude. Lacking the genius to remodel the empire he substituted stubbornness and dedication to duty and managed to hold together a disintegrating tapestry probably for decades longer than it should have lasted. His last words were simple and typical. "Wake me tomorrow at four."