The Children of Adam and Eve

(German Franz Josef) He was the last important ruler of the Habsburg
dynasty; his policies played a major role in the events that led to World
War I.

Francis Charles (his father) having 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 (1800-52), restored order in the empire and
reestablished Austrian dominance in the German confederation (1849-50).
Francis Joseph's failure to support Russia in the Crimean War (1854-56)
permanently damaged Austro-Russian relations, and 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 was forced to agree to Hungarian demands for autonomy in 1867, when
he and Elizabeth were formally crowned in Budapest as king and queen of
Hungary. He also planned to grant some form of self-government to the
Austrian Slavs but backed Down because of opposition from the German and
Hungarian elite that controlled the new monarchy of Austria-Hungary. 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, the empress Elizabeth, 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.