Habsburg / Hapsburg Dynasty
[Excerpts from the classic
1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica
and Wikipedia, with minor edits]
HABSBURG, or HAPSBURG, the name of the famous
family from which have sprung dukes (1282-1453) and archdukes (1453-1804)
of Austria, kings of Hungary and Bohemia from 1526, and emperors of Austria
(1804-1918). They were also Holy Roman Emperors for several centuries to 1806,
German kings (1438-1806), and kings of Spain (1516-1700), while the minor
dignities held by them at different times are too numerous to mention.
The name Hapsburg has many variations: Hapsburgh,
Habsburg, Habisburch etc. Since the family has been in existence for half a
millenium such variations in spelling are expected (as language evolves and
changes through time and geography). Today, the Austrian descendants, and most
of the academic community, use the 'Habsburg' spelling. Origination from a
castle named 'Habichtsburg' built by Bishop Wener of Strasbourg (which is
located on the Aar river not far from its junction with the Rhine, in
present-day Switzerland) in 1020 A.D., the name translated from medieval German
literally means 'Hawk's Castle.'
The castle was built about 1020 by Werner,
bishop of Strassburg, and his brother, Radbot, the founder of the abbey of Muri.
These men were grandsons of a certain Guntram, who, according to some
authorities, is identical with a Count Guntram who flourished during the reign
of the emperor Otto the Great, and whose ancestry can be traced back to the time
of the Merovingian kings. This conjecture, however, is extremely problematical.
Among Radbot’s sons was one Werner, and Werner and his son Otto were called
counts of Habsburg, Otto being probably made landgrave of upper Alsace late in
the 11th or early in the 12th century. At all events Otto’s son Werner (d.
1167), and the latter’s son Albert (d. 1199), held this dignity, and both
landgraves increased the area of the Habsburg lands. Albert became count of
Zurich and protector of the monastery of Säckingen, and obtained lands in the
cantons of Unterwalden and Lucerne; his son Rudolph, having assisted Frederick
of Hohenstaufen, afterwards the emperor Frederick II, against the emperor Otto
IV, received the county of Aargau. Both counts largely increased their
possessions in the districts now known as Switzerland and Alsace, and Rudolph
held an influential place among the Swabian nobility. After his death in 1232
his two sons, Albert and Rudolph, divided his lands and founded the lines of
Habsburg-Habsburg and Habsburg-Laufenburg. Rudolph’s descendants, counts of
Habsburg-Laufenburg, were soon divided into two branches, one of which became
extinct in 1408 and the other seven years later. Before this date, however,
Laufenburg and some other districts had been sold to the senior branch of the
family, who thus managed to retain the greater part of the Habsburg lands.
Rudolph’s brother Albert (d. 1239), landgrave of
Alsace, married Hedwig of Kyburg (d. 1260), and from this union there was born
in 1218 Rudolph, the founder of the greatness of the house of Habsburg, and the
first of the family to ascend the German throne. Through his mother he inherited
a large part of the lands of the extinct family of Zahringen; he added in other
ways to his possessions, and was chosen German king in September 1273. Acting
vigorously in his new office, he defeated and killed his most formidable
adversary, Ottakar II, king of Bohemia, in 1278, and in December 1282 he
invested his sons, Albert and Rudolph, with the duchies of Austria and Styria,
which with other lands had been ta.ken. from Ottakar. This was an event of
supreme moment in the history of the Habsburgs, and was the first and most
important stage in the process of transferring the centre of their authority
from western to eastern Europe, from the Rhine to the Danube. On Rudolph’s death
in July 1291 the German crown passed for’a time away from the Habsburgs, but in
July 1298 it was secured by his son, Albert, whose reign, however, was short and
uneventful. But before 1308, the year of Albert’s death, the long’ and troubled
connexioii of the Habsburgs with Bohemia had aLready begun. In I3of Wenceslas
III, the last Bohemian king of the Pfemyslide dynasty, was murdered. Seizing the
opportunity and declarini that the vacant kingdom was an imperial fief, King
Albert bestowed it upon his eldest son, Rudolph, and married this prince to
Elizabeth, widow of Wenceslas II and stepmother of Wenceslas III. But Rudolph
died in 1307, and his father’s attempt to keep the country in his own hands was
ended by his murder in 1308.
Albert’s successor as German king was Henry of
Luxemburg (the emperor Henry VII), and this election may be said to initiate the
long rivalry between the houses of Habsburg and Luxemburg. But the immediate
enemy of the Habsburgs was not a Luxemburg but a Wittelsbach. Without making any
definite partition, Albert’s five remaining sons spent their time in governing
their lands until 1314, when one of them, Frederick called the Fair, forsook
this comparatively uneventful occupation and was chosen by a minority of the
electors German king in succession to Henry VII. At the same time the
Wittelsbach duke of Bavaria, Louis, known to history as the emperor Louis the
Bavarian, was also chosen. War was inevitable, and the battle of Muhldorf,
fought in September 1322, sealed the fate of Frederick. Louis was victorious:
his rival went into an honourable captivity, and the rising Habsburg sun
underwent a temporary eclipse.
For more than a century after Frederick’s death
in 1330 the Habsburgs were exiles from the German throne. But they were not
inactive. In 1335 his two surviving brothers, Albert and Otto, inherited
Carinthia and part of Carniola by right of their mother, Elizabeth; in 1363
Albert’s son Rudolph received Tirol; and during the same century part of Istria,
Trieste and other districts were acquired. All King Albert’s six sons had died
without leaving male issue save Otto, whose family became extinct in 1344, and
Albert, the ancestor of all the later Habsburgs. Of Albert’s four sons two also
left no male heirs, but the remaining two, Albert III and Leopold III, were
responsible for a division of the family which is of some importance. By virtue
of a partition made upon their brother Rudolph’s death in 1365 Albert and his
descendants ruled over Austria, while Leopold and his sons took Styria,
Carinthia and Tirol, Alsace remaining undivided as heretofore.
Towards the middle of the 15th century the German
throne had been occupied for nearly a hundred years by members of the Luxemburg
family. The reigning emperor Sigismund, who was also king of Hungary and
Bohemia, was without sons, and his daughter Elizabeth was the wife of Albert of
Habsburg, the grandson and heir of Duke Albert III, who had died in 1395.
Sigismund died in December 1437, leaving his two kingdoms to his son-in-law, who
was crowned king of Hungary in January 1438 and king of Bohemia in the following
June. Albert was also chosen and crowned German king in succession to Sigismund,
thus beginning the long and uninterrupted connexion of his family with the
imperial throne, a connexion which lasted until the dissolution of the Holy
Roman Empire in 1806. He did not, however, enjoy his new dignities for long, as
he died in October 1439 while engaged in a struggle with the Turks. Albert left
no sons, but soon after his death one was born to him, called Ladislaus, who
became duke of Austria and king of Hungary and Bohemia. Tinder the guardianship
of his kinsman, the emperor Frederick III, the young prince’s reign was a
troubled one, and when he died unmarried in 1457 his branch of the family became
extinct, and Hungary and Bohemia passed away from the Habsburgs, who managed,
however, to retain Austria.
Leopold III, duke of Carinthia and Styria, who
was killed in 1386 at the battle of Sempach, had four sons, of whom two only,
Frederick and Ernest, left male issue. Frederick and his only son, Sigismund,
confined their attention mainly to Tirol and Alsace, leaving the larger
destinies of the family in the hands of Ernest of Carinthia and Styria (d. 1424)
and his sons, Frederi& and Albert and after the death of King Ladislaus in 1457
these two princes and their cousin Sigismund were the only representatives of
the Habsburgs. In February 1440 Frederick of Styria was chosen German king in
succession to his kinsman Albert. He was a weak and incompetent ruler, but a
stronger and abler’ man might have shrunk from the task of administering his
heterogeneous and unruly realm. Although very important in the history of the
house of Habsburg, Frederick’s long reign was a period of misfortune, and the
motto which he assumed, A.E.I.O.U. (Austriae est imperare orbi universo), seemed
at the time a particularly foolish boast. He acted as guardian both to Ladislaus
of Hungary, Bohemia and Austria, and to Sigismund of Tirol, and in all these
countries his difficulties were increased by the hostility of his brother
Albert. Having disgusted the Tirolese he gave up the guardianship of their
prince in 1446, while in Hungary and Bohemia he did absolutely nothing to
establish the authority of his ward; in 1452 the Austrians besieged him in
Vienna Neustadt and compelled him to surrender the person of Ladislaus, thus
ending even his nominal authority. When the young king died in 1457 the
Habsburgs lost Hungary and Bohemia, but they retained Austria, which, after some
disputing, Frederick and Albert divided between themselves, the former taking
lower and the latter upper Austria. This arrangement was of short duration. In
1461 Albert made war upon his brother and forced him to resign lower Austria,
which, however, he recovered after Albert’s death in December 1463. Still more
unfortunate was the German king in Switzerland. For many years the Swiss had
chafed under the rule of the Habsburgs; during the reign of Rudolph I they had
shown signs of resentment as the kingly power increased; and the struggle which
had been carried on for nearly two centuries had been almost uniformly in. their
favour. It was marked by the victory of Morgarten over Duke Leopold I
~fl 1315, and by that of Sempach over Leopold III. In 1386, by the
conquest of Aargau at the instigation of the emperor Sigismund early in the 15th
century, and by the final struggle for freedom against Frederick III and
Sigismund of Tirol. Taking advantage of some dissensions among the Swiss, the
king saw an opportunity to recover his lost lands, and in 1443 war broke out.
But his allies, the men of Zurich, were defeated, and when in August 1444 some
French mercenaries, who had advanced to his aid, suffered the same fate at St
Jakob, he was compelled to give up the struggle. A few years later Sigismund
became involved in a war with the same formidable foemen; he too was worsted,
and the “ Perpetual Peace” of 1474. ended the rule of the Habsburgs in
Switzerland. This humiliation was the second great step in the process of
removing the Habsburgs from western to eastern Europe. In 1453, just after his
coronation as emperor at Rome, Frederick legalized the use of the title
archduke, which had been claimed spasmodically by the Habsburgs since 1361. This
title is now peculiar to the house of Habsburg.
The reverses suffered by the Habsburgs during the
reign of Frederick III were many and serious, but an improvement was at hand.
The emperor died in August 1493, and was followed on the imperial throne by his
son Maximilian I, perhaps the most versatile and interesting member of the
family. Before his father’s death Maximilian had been chosen German king, or
king of the Romans, and had begun to repair the fortunes of his house. He had
married Mary, daughter and heiress of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy [the
Low Countries]; he had driven the Hungarians from Vienna and the Austrian
archduchies, which Frederick had, perforce, allowed them to occupy; and he had
received Tirol on the abdication of Sigismund in 1490. True it is that upon
Mary’s death in 1482 part of her inheritance, the rich and prosperous
Netherlands, held that her husband’s authority was at an end, while another
part, the two Burgundies and Artois, had been seized by the king of France;
nevertheless, after a protracted struggle the German king secured almost the
whole of Charles the Bold’s lands for his son, the archduke Philip, the duchy of
Burgundy alone remaining in the power of France after the conclusion of the
peace of Senlis in 1493. Maximilian completed his work by adding a piece of
Bavaria, Görz and then Gradiska to the Habsburg lands.
[Hungary, nominally under Habsburg kingship
from 1526 but mostly under Ottoman Turkish occupation for 150 years, was
reconquered in 1683-1699, the Habsburgs remaining kings of Hungary under an 1867
autonomy arrangement (see Austria-Hungary) until their deposition in
both Austria and Hungary in 1918 following defeat in World War I.]
After Sigismund’s death in 1496 Maximilian and
Philip were the only living male members of the family. Philip [a.k.a. Philipp
the Fair] married Joanna / Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain
[and she was heiress of the newly-found Spanish empire], and died in 1506
leaving two sons, Charles and Ferdinand. Charles succeeded his father in the
Netherlands; he followed one grandfather, Ferdinand, as king of Spain in 1516,
and when the other, Maximilian, died in 1519 he became the emperor Charles V,
and succeeded to all the hereditary lands of the Habsburgs [an empire where "the
sun does not set"]. But provision had to be made for Ferdinand, and in 1521 this
prince was given the Austrian archduchies, Austria, Styria, Carinthia and
Carniola; in the same year he married Anne, daughter of Wladislaus, king of
Hungary and Bohemia, and when his childless brother-in-law, King Louis, was
killed at the battle of Mohacs in August 1526 he claimed the two kingdoms, both
by right of his wife and by treaty. After a little trouble Bohemia passed under
his rule, but Hungary was more recalcitrant. A long war took place between
Ferdinand and John Zapolya, who was also crowned king of Hungary, but in 1538 a
treaty was made and the country was divided, the Habsburg prince receiving the
western and smaller portion. However, he was soon confronted with a more
formidable foe, and he spent a large part of his subsequent life in defending
his lands from the attacks of the Turks.
The Habsburgs had now reached the summit of their
power. The prestige which belonged to Charles as head of the Holy Roman Empire
was backed by the wealth and commerce of the Netherlands and of Spain, and by
the riches of the Spanish colonies in America. In Italy he ruled over Sardinia,
Naples and Sicily, which had passed to him with Spain, and the duchy of Milan,
which he had annexed in 1535; to the Netherlands he had added Friesland, the
bishopric of Utrecht, Groningen and Gelderland, and he still possessed
Franche-Comté and the fragments of the Habsburg lands in Alsace and the
neighbourhood. Add to this Ferdinand’s inheritance, the Austrian archduchies and
Tirol, Bohemia with her dependent provinces, and a strip of Hungary, and the two
brothers had under their sway a part of Europe the extent of which was great,
but the wealth and importance of which were immeasurably greater. Able to scorn
the rivalry of the other princely houses of Germany, the Habsburgs saw in the
kings of the house of Valois the only foemen worthy of their regard.
|
Flag of the Habsburg Monarchy; also used as the flag of the Austrian
Empire until the Ausgleich of 1867. |
[Upon the abdication of the Emperor Charles
V, also King Charles I of Spain (1516 -1556), the family split into the Austrian
Habsburgs and the Spanish Habsburgs.]
Charles V was succeeded as emperor, not by his
son Philip, but by his brother Ferdinand. Philip became king of Spain, ruling
also the Netherlands, Franche-Comté, Naples, Sicily, Milan and Sardinia, and the
family was definitely divided into the Spanish and Austrian branches. For Spain
and the Spanish Habsburgs the I7th century was a period of loss and decay, the
seeds of which were sown during the reign of Philip II. The northern provinces
of the Netherlands were lost practically in 1609 and definitely by the treaty of
Westphalia in 1648; Roussillon and Artois were annexed to France by the treaty
of the Pyrenees in 1659, while Franche-Comté and a number of towns in the
Spanish Netherlands suffered a similar fate by the treaty of Nijmwegen in 1678.
Finally Charles II, the last Habsburg king of Spain, died childless in November
1700, and his lands were the prize of the War of the Spanish Succession. The
Austriab Habsburgs fought long and valiantly for the kingdom of their kinsman,
but Louis XIV was too strong for them, and by the peace of Rastatt Spain passed
from the Habsburgs to the Bourbons. However, the Austrian branch of the family
received in 1714 the Italian possessions of Charles II, except Sicily, which was
given to the duke of Savoy, and also the southern Netherlands, which are thus
often referred to as the Austrian Netherlands; and retained the duchy of Mantua,
which it had seized in 1708.
Ferdinand I, the founder of the line of the
Austrian Habsburgs, arranged a division of his lands among his three sons before
his death in 1564. The eldest, Maximilian II, received Austria, Bohemia and
Hungary, and succeeded his father as emperor; he married Maria, a daughter of
Charles V, and though he had a large family his male line became extinct in
1619. The younger sons were Ferdinand, ruler of Tirol, and Charles, archduke of
Styria. The emperor Maximilian II left five sons, two of whom, Rudolph and
Matthias, succeeded in turn to the imperial throne, but, as all the brothers
were without male issue, the family was early in the i7th century threatened
with a serious crisis. Rudolph died in 1612, the reigning emperor Matthias was
old and ill, and the question of the succession to the Empire, to the kingdoms
of Hungary and Bohemia, and to the hereditary lands of the Habsburgs became
acute. Turning to the collateral branches of the family, the sons of the
archduke Ferdinand were debarred from the succession owing to their father’s
morganatic marriage with Philippine Welser, and the only hope of the house was
in the sons of Charles of Styria. To prevent the Habsburg monarchy from
falling to pieces the emperor’s two surviving brothers renounced their rights,
and it was decided that Ferdinand, a son of Charles of Styria, should succeed
his cousin Matthias. The difficulties which impeded the completion of this
scheme were gradually overcome, and the result was that when Matthias died in
1619 the whole of the lands of the Austrian Habsburgs was united under the rule
of the emperor Ferdinand II [pictured]. Tirol, indeed, a few years later was
separated from the rest of the monarchy and given to the emperor’s brother, the
archduke Leopold, but this separation was ended when Leopold’s son died in 1665.
The
arbitrary measures which followed Ferdinand’s acquisition of the Bohemian crown
contributed to the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, but in a short time the
Bohemians were subdued, and in 1627, following a precedent set in 1547, the
emperor declared the throne hereditary in the house of Habsburg. The treaty of
Westphalia which ended this war took comparatively little from the Habsburgs,
though they ceded Alsace to France; but the Empire was greatly weakened, and its
ruler was more than ever compelled to make his hereditary lands in the east of
Europe the base of his authority, finding that he derived more strength from his
position as archduke of Austria than from that of emperor. Ferdinand III
succeeded his father Ferdinand II, and during the long reign of the former’s
son, Leopold I, the Austrian, like the Spanish, Habsburgs were on the defensive
against the aggressive policy of Louis XIV, and in addition they had to
withstand the assaults of the Turks. In two ways they sought to strengthen their
position. The unity of the Austrian lands was strictly maintained, and several
marriages kept up a close and friendly connexion with Spain. A series of
victories over the sultan during the later part of the 17th century rolled back
the tide of the Turkish advance, and the peace of Karlowitz made in 1699 gave
nearly the whole of Hungary to the Habsburgs. Against France Austria was less
successful, and a number of humiliations culminated in 1714 in the failure to
secure Spain, to which reference has already been made.
The Spanish Habsburgs died out in 1700
(prompting the War of the Spanish Succession), as did the Austrian Habsburgs in
1740 (prompting the War of the Austrian Succession). However, the heiress of the
last Austrian Habsburg, Maria Theresa, had married Francis Stephen Duke of
Lorraine, and their descendants carried on the Habsburg tradition from Vienna
under the dynastic name Habsburg-Lorraine. It is speculated that extensive
intra-family marriages within both lines contributed to their extinctions.
The hostility of Austria and France, or rather of
Habsburg and Bourbon, outlived the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1717 Spain
conquered Sardinia, which was soon exchanged by Austria for Sicily; other
struggles and other groupings of the European powers followed, and in 1735, by
the treaty of Vienna, Austria gave up Naples and Sicily and received the duchies
of Parma and Piacenza. These surrenders were doubtless inevitable, but they
shook the position of the house of Habsburg in Italy. However, a domestic crisis
was approaching which threw Italian affairs into the shade. Charles VI, who had
succeeded his brother, Joseph I, as emperor in 1711, was without sons, and his
prime object in life was to secure the succession of his elder daughter,
Maria Theresa, to the whole of his lands and dignities. But in 1713, four
years before the birth of Maria Theresa, he had first issued the famous
Pragmatic Sanction, which declared that the Habsburg monarchy was indivisible
and that in default of male heirs a female could succeed to it. Then after the
death of his only son and the birth of Maria Theresa the emperor bent all his
energies to securing the acceptance of the Pragmatic Sanction. Promulgated anew
in 1724, it was formally accepted by the estates of the different Habsburg
lands;, in 1731 it was guaranteed by the imperial diet. By subordinating every
other interest to this, Charles at length procured the assent of the various
powers of Europe to the proposed arrangement; he married the young princess to
Francis Stephen, duke of Lorraine, afterwards grand-duke of Tuscany, and when he
died on the 20th of October 1740 he appeared to have realized his great
ambition. With the emperor’s death the house of Habsburg, strictly speaking,
became extinct, its place being taken by the house of Habsburg-Lorraine, which
sprang from the union of Maria Theresa and Francis Stephen; and it is
interesting to note that the present Habsburgs are only descended in the female
line from Rudolph I and Maximilian I.
Immediately after the death of Charles the
Pragmatic Sanction was forgotten. A crowd of claimants called for
various parts of the Habsburg lands; Frederick the Great, talking less
but acting more, invaded and conquered Silesia, and it seemed likely
that the dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy would at no long interval
follow the extinction of the Habsburg race. A Wittelsbach prince,
Charles Albert, elector of Bavaria, the emperor Charles VII, and not
Francis Stephen, was chosen emperor in January 1742, and by the treaty
of Breslau, made later in the same year, nearly all Silesia was formally
surrendered to Prussia. But the worst was now over, and when in 1748 the
peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which practically confirmed the treaty of
Breslau, had cleared away the dust of war, Maria Theresa and her consort
were found to occupy a strong position in Europe. In the first place, in
September 1745, Francis had been chosen emperor; then the imperial pair
ruled Hungary and Bohemia, although the latter kingdom was shorn of
Silesia; in spite of French conquests the Austrian Netherlands remained
in their hands; and in Italy Francis had added Tuscany to his wife’s
heritage, although Parma and Piacenza had been surrendered to Spain and
part of Milan to the king of Sardinia. The diplomatic voile-face and the
futile attempts of Maria Theresa to recover Silesia which followed this
treaty belong to the general history of Europe.
The
emperor Francis I died in 1765 and was succeeded by his son Joseph II
[pictured left], an ambitious and able prince, whose aim was to restore
the Habsburgs and the Empire to their former great positions in Europe,
and whose pride did not prevent him from learning from Frederick the
Great, the despoiler of his house. His projects, however, including one
of uniting Bavaria with Austria, which was especially cherished, failed
completely, and when he died in February 1790 he left his lands in a
state of turbulence which reflected the general condition of Europe. The
Netherlands had risen against the Austrians, and in January 1790 had
declared themselves independent; Hungary, angered by Joseph’s despotic
measures, was in revolt, and the other parts of the monarchy were hardly
more contented. But the 18th century saw a few successes for the
Habsburgs. In 1718 a successful war with Turkey was ended by the peace
of Passarowitz, which advanced the Austrian boundary very considerably
to the east, and although by the treaty of Belgrade, signed twenty-one
years later, a large part of this territory was surrendered, yet a
residuum, the banate of Temesvar, was permanently incorporated with
Hungary. The struggle over the succession to Bavaria, which was
concluded in 1779 by the treaty of Teschen, was responsible for adding
Innviertel, or the quarter of the Inn, to Austria; the first partition
of Poland brought eastern Galicia and Lodomeria, and in 1777 the sultan
ceded Bukovina. Joseph II was followed by his brother, Leopold II, who
restored the Austrian authority in the Netherlands, and the latter by
his son Francis II, who resigned the crown of the Holy Roman Empire in
August 1806, having two years before taken the title of emperor of
Austria as Francis I.
By the turn of the 19th century, Habsburg
power had waned significantly. The Spanish line died out in 1700, and in 1806
the Holy Roman Empire was wound up under the French Emperor Napoleon I's
reorganisation of Germany. In Austria, however, the Habsburgs maintained their
hold, declaring themselves Emperors of Austria two years after Napoleon declared
himself Emperor of France in 1804.
Before the abdication of the emperor Francis in
1806 Austria had met and suffered from the fury of revolutionary France,
but the cessiona of territory made by her at the treaties of Campo
Formio (1797), of Lunéville (1801) and of Pressburg (1805) were of no
enduring importance. This, however, cannot be said for the treaties of
Paris and of Vienna, which in 1814 and 1815 arranged the map of Europe
upon the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars. These were highly favourable
to the Habsburgs. In eastern and central Europe Austria regained her
former position, the lands ceded to Bavaria and also eastern Galicia,
which had been in the hands of Russia since 1809, being restored; she
gave up the Austrian Netherlands, soon to be known as Belgium, to the
new kingdom of the Netherlands, and acquiesced in the arrangement which
had taken. from her the Breisgau and the remnant of the Habsburg lands
upon the Rhine. In return for these losses Austria became the dominant
power in Italy. A mass of northern Italy, including her former
possessions in Milan and the neighbourhood, and also the lands recently
forming the republic of Venice, was made into the kingdom of
Lombardy-Venetia, and this owned the emperor of Austria as king. Across
the Adriatic Dalmatia was added to the Habsburg monarchy, the population
of which, it has been estimated, was increased at this time by over four
millions.
The illiberal and oppressive character of the
Austrian rule in Italy made it very unpopular; it was hardly less so in
Hungary and Bohemia, and the advent of the year 1848 found the subject
kingdoms eager to throw off the Habsburg yoke. The whole monarchy was
quickly in a state of revolution, in the midst of which the emperor
Ferdinand, who had succeeded his father Francis in 1835, abdicated, and
his place was taken by his young nephew Francis Joseph. The position of
the Habsburg monarchy now seemed desperate. But it was strong in its
immemorial tradition, which was enough to make the efforts of the
Frankfort parliament to establish German unity under Prussian hegemony
abortive; it was strong also in the general loyalty to the throne of the
imperial army; and its counsels were directed by statesmen who knew well
how to exploit in the interests of the central power the national
rivalries within the monarchy. With the crushing of the Hungarian revolt
by the emperor Nicholas I of Russia in 1849 the monarchy was freed from
the most formidable of its internal troubles; in 1850 the convention of
OlmUtz restored its influence in Germany.
Though the status quo was thus outwardly
re-established, the revolutions of 1848 had really unchained forces
which made its maintenance impossible. In Germany Prussia was steadily
preparing for the inevitable struggle with Austria for the mastery; in
France Napoleon III was preparing to pose as the champion of the
oppressed nationalities which had once more settled down sullenly under
the Habsburg yoke. The alliance of the French emperor and the king of
Sardinia, and the Italian war of 1859 ended in the loss of Lombardy to
the Habsburgs. Seven years later the crushing defeat of Koniggratz not
only ended their long rule in Italy, based on the tradition of the
medieval empire, by leading to the cession of Venetia to the new Italian
kingdom, but led to their final exclusion from the German confederation,
soon to become, under the headship of Prussia, the German empire.
By the loss of the predominance in Germany
conceded to it by the treaties of Vienna, and by the shifting of its “
centre of gravity” eastward, the Habsburg monarchy, however, perhaps
gained more than it lost. One necessary result, indeed, was the
composition (Ausgleich) with Hungary in 1867, by which the latter became
an independent state (Francis Joseph being crowned king at Pest in June
1867) bound to the rest of the monarchy only by the machinery necessary
for the carrying out of a common policy in matters of common interest.
This at least restored the loyalty of the Hungarians to the Habsburg
dynasty; it is too soon. yet to say that it secured permanently the
essential unity of the Habsburg monarchy. By the system of the Dual
Monarchy the rest of the Austrian emperor’s dominions (Cis-Leithan) were
consolidated under a single central government, the history of which has
been mainly that of the rival races within the empire struggling for
political predominance. Since the development of the constitution has
been consistently in a democratic direction and the Slays are in a great
majority, the tendency has been for the German element—strong in its
social status and tradition of predominance—to be swamped by what it
regards as an inferior race; and a considerable number of Austrian “
Germans “ have learned to look not to their Habsburg rulers, but to the
power of the German empire for political salvation. The tendency
eastwards of the monarchy was increased when in 1878 the congress of
Berlin placed Bosnia and Herzegovina under Austrian rule. Old ambitions
were now revived at the expense of the Ottoman empire, the goal of which
was the port of Salonica; and not the least menacing aspect of the
question of the near East has been that the rivalry of Italy and the
Habsburg monarchy has been transferred to the Balkan peninsula. Yet, in
spite of internal dissensions arising out of questions fundamentally
insoluble, and in spite of the constant threat of external complications
that may lead to war, the Habsburg monarchy as the result of the changes
in the f9th and 20th centuries is seemingly stronger than ever. The
shadow of universal claims to empire and sonorous but empty titles have
vanished, but so have the manifold rivalries and entanglements which
accompanied the Habsburg rule in Italy and the Netherlands and Habsburg
preponderance in Germany. The monarchy is stronger because its sphere is
more defined; because as preserving the pax Romana among the jostling
races of eastern Europe, it is more than ever recognized as an essential
element in the maintenance of European peace, and is recognized as
necessary and beneficial even by the ambitious and restless
nationalities that chafe under its rule.
A few words must be said about the cadet
branches of the Habsburg family. When, in 1765, Francis I died and Joseph II
became emperor, the grand-duchy of Tuscany passed by special arrangement not
to Joseph, but to his younger brother Leopold. Then in 1791, after Leopold
had succeeded Joseph as emperor, he handed over the grand-duchy to his
second son, Ferdinand (1769—1824). In 1801 this prince was deposed by
Napoleon and Tuscany was seized by France. Restored to the Habsburgs in the
person of Ferdinand in 1814, it remained under his rule, and then under that
of his son Leopold (1797—1870), until the rising of 1859, when the Austrians
were driven out and the grand-duchy was added to the kingdom of Sardinia. A
similar fate attended the duchy of Modena, which had passed to the Habsburgs
through the marriage of its heiress Mary Beatrice of Este (d. 1829) with the
archduke Ferdinand (1754—1806), brother of the emperor Leopold II. From 1814
to 1846 this duchy was governed by Ferdinand’s son, Duke Francis IV, and
from 1846 to 1859 by his grandson, Francis V. This family became extinct on
the death of Francis V in 1875.
In addition to his successor Francis II, and to
Ferdinand, grand-duke of Tuscany, the emperor Leopold II had eight sons,
five of whom, including the archduke John (1782—1859), who saw a good
deal of service during the Napoleonic Wars and was chosen regent
(Reichsverweser) of Germany in 1848, have now no living male
descendants. Thus the existing branches of the family are descended from
Leopold’s five other sons. The descendants of Leopold, the dispossessed
grand-duke of Tuscany, were in 1909 represented by his son, Ferdinand
(b. 1835), who still claimed the title of grand-duke of Tuscany, and his
son and grandsons; by the numerous descendants of the archduke Charles
Salvator (1839—1892); and by the archduke Louis Salvator (b. 1847), a
great traveller and a voluminous writer. The grand-duke’s fourth son was
the archduke John Nepomuck Salvator, who, after serving in the Austrian
army, resigned all his rights and titles and under the name of Johann
Orth took command of a sailing vessel. He is supposed to have been
drowned off the coast of South America in 1891, but reports of his
continued existence were circulated from time to time after that date.
Of the emperor Leopold’s other sons the archduke Charles, perhaps the
most distinguished soldier of the family, left four sons, including
Albert, duke of Teschen (I 817—1895), who inherited some of his father’s
military ability. Charles’s family was in 1909 represented by his
grandsons, the sons of the archduke Charles Ferdinand (1818—1874). The
archduke Joseph (1776—I 847), palatine of Hungary, was represented by a
grandson, Joseph Augustus (b. 1872), and the archduke Rainer (1783—
1853), viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia, by a son Rainer (b. 1827), and by
several grandsons.
The eldest and reigning branch of the family was in 1909 represented by the
emperor Francis Joseph [pictured], whose father was the archduke Francis
Charles (1802—1878), and whose grandfather was the emperor Francis II.
Francis Joseph’s only son Rudolph died in 1889; consequently the heir to the
Habsburg monarchy was the emperor’s nephew Francis
Ferdinand
(1863-1914), the eldest of the three sons of his brother Karl Ludwig /
Charles Louis (1833—1896). In 1875 Francis (Franz) Ferdinand inherited the
wealth of the Este family and took the title of archduke of Austria-Este; in
1900 be contracted a morganatic marriage with Sophia, countess of Chotek,
renouncing for his sons the succession to the monarchy. Franz Ferdinand and
his wife were murdered on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo, thereby triggering
World War I. Thus, after Francis Ferdinand, the throne this would pass to
the sons of his brother, the archduke Otto (1865—1906). Another of the
emperor’s three brothers was Maximilian [July 6, 1832 - June 19, 1867],
emperor of Mexico from 1863 to 1867 who was executed on June 19, 1867 in
Queretaro, Mexico, by the forces of Benito Juarez.
With the exception of Charles V, the Habsburgs
have produced no statesmen of great ability, while several members of
the family have displayed marked traces of insanity. Nevertheless they
secured, and for over 350 years they kept, the first place among the
potentates of Europe; a dignity in origin and theory elective becoming
in practice hereditary in their house. This position they owe to some
extent to the tenacity with which they have clung to the various lands
and dignities which have passed into their possession, but they owe it
much more to a series of fortunate marriages and opportune deaths. The
union of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, of Philip the Handsome and
Joanna of Spain, of Ferdinand and Anna of Hungary and Bohemia; the death
of Ottakar of Bohemia, of John, the only son of Ferdinand and Isabella
of Spain, of Louis of Hungary and Bohemia—these are the cornerstones
upon which the Habsburg monarchy has been built.
Members of the
Family Born in or Associated with Istria
Born in Pola:
- Leo Karl
Second son of Archduke Karl Stefan and Archduchess Maria Theresia
Born 5/6/1893
Died 28/4/1939 in Bestwina, Poland
- Eleonore
Oldest daughter of Archduke Karl Stephan and the Archduchess Maria Theresia
Born 28/11/1886
Died 26/5/1974 in Baden near Vienna
- Karl Albrecht
Oldest son of Archduke Karl Stefan and Archduchess Maria Theresia
Born 18/12/1888
Died 17/3/1951 in Ostervik, Stockholm
- Renata Maria
Second daughter of Archduke Karl Stefan and Archduchess Maria Theresia
Born 2/1/1888
Died 16/5/1935 in Balice Castle, Poland
- Mechtildis
Third daughter of Archduke Karl Stefan and Archduchess
Maria Theresia
Born 11/10/1891 in Pola
Died 6/2/1966 in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
- Wilhelm
Third son of Archduke Karl Stefan and Archduchess Maria Theresia
Born 10/2/1895
Died 1955 in prison camp in Vladimir-Volynsky, USSR
Born in Volosca:
- Sophie Augusta
Daughter of Archduke Josef August and Princess Auguste of Bavaria
Born 11/3/1899
Died 19/4/1978 in Innsbruck
Ferdinand Maximilian
(known as Max and Maximilian of Trieste's Miramar Castle)
Emperor of Mexico, second son of Archduke Franz Karl and Princess Sophie of
Bavaria
Born 6/7/1832 in Vienna
Executed 19/6/1867 in Queretaro, Mexico
His foolish acceptance of the throne of Mexico led to his abandonment by the
French, defeat and execution by the forces of Benito Juarez
Holy Roman
Emperors of the House of Habsburg
Emperor Francis I of Austria used
the official great title: "We, Francis the First, by the grace of God Emperor of
Austria; King of Jerusalem, Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia,
Galicia, and Lodomiria; Archduke of Austria; Duke of Lorraine, Salzburg,
Würzburg, Franconia, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola; Grand Duke of Cracow;
Prince of Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Sandomir, Masovia, Lublin,
Upper and Lower Silesia, Auschwitz and Zator, Teschen, and Friule; Prince of
Berchtesgaden and Mergentheim; Princely Count of Habsburg, Gorizia, and
Gradisca and of the Tyrol; and Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and
Istria".
See:
Heraldry of Austria-Hungary
Habsburg
- Rudolph I, emperor 1273 - 1291
- Albert I, emperor 1298 - 1308
-
Albert II, emperor 1438 - 1439
- Frederick III, emperor 1440 - 1493
- Maximilian I, emperor 1493 - 1519
- Charles V, emperor 1519 - 1556
- Ferdinand I, emperor 1556 - 1564
- Maximilian II, emperor 1564 - 1576
- Rudolph II, emperor 1576 - 1612
- Matthias, emperor 1612 - 1619
- Ferdinand II, emperor 1619 - 1637
- Ferdinand III, emperor 1637 - 1657
- Leopold I, emperor 1658 - 1705
- Josef I, emperor 1705 - 1711
- Charles VI, emperor 1711 - 1740
NB: Maria Theresa of Austria, Hapsburg heiress
and wife of emperor Francis I Stephen, reigned as Archduchess and Empress of
Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia 1740 - 1780
Habsburg-Lorraine (Lothringen) Emperors
- Francis I Stephen, emperor 1745 - 1765
- Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, emperor 1765 -
1790
- Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, emperor 1790 -
1792
- Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor 1792 - 1806,
Emperor of Austria as Francis I 1804 - 1835
- Ferdinand I of Austria, emperor of Austria
1835 - 1848
- Franz Josef of Austria, emperor of Austria
1848 - 1916; King Francis Joseph of Hungary from 1867 - sometimes referred
to in English as "Francis Joseph"
- Karl of Austria, emperor of Austria 1916 -
1918; King Charles IV of Hungary - sometimes referred to in English as
"Charles". He died in exile in 1922.
Kings of Spain of the House of Habsburg
- Philip I 1506 (only King of Castile)
- Charles I 1516-1556
- Philip II 1556-1598
- Philip III 1598-1621
- Philip IV 1621-1665
- Charles II 1665-1700
Kings of Portugal of the House of
Habsburg
- Filipe I 1580-1598
- Filipe II 1598-1621
- Filipe III 1621-1640
Grand Dukes of Tuscany of the House of
Habsburg-Lorraine
- Francis Stephen 1737-1765
- Leopold I 1765-1790
- Ferdinand III 1790-1800, 1814-1824
- Leopold II 1824-1849, 1849-1859
- Ferdinand IV 1859
Dukes of Modena of the House of
Habsburg-Lorraine
- Francis IV 1814-1831, 1831-1846
- Francis V 1846-1848, 1849-1859
Duchess of Parma of the House of
Habsburg-Lorraine
- Maria Luisa 1814-1847 [widow of Napoleon
Bonaparte]
The current head of the Habsburg family is Otto
von Habsburg, Emperor Karl's eldest son.
Habsburg biographies -
http://www.antiquesatoz.com/habsburg/
- For the origin and early history of the
Habsburgs see:
- C. de Roo, Annales rerum ab Austriacis
Habsburgicae gentis principibus a Rudoipho I. usque ad Carolum V. gestarum
(Innsbruck, 1592, fol.);
- M. Herrgott, Genealogia diplomatica augustae
gentis Habsburgicae (Vienna, 1737—1738); E. M. Ftirst von Lichnowsky,
Geschichte des Ilauses Habthurg (Vienna, 1836—1844);
- A. Schulte, Geschichte der Habsburger iii den
ersten drei Jahrhunderten (Innsbruck, 1887);
- T. von Liebenau, Die Anfange des Ilauses
Habsburg (Vienna, 1883);
- W. Merz, Die Habsburg (Aarau, 1896);
- W. Gisi, Der Ursprung der Häuser Zahringen
und Habsburg (1888);
- F. Weihrich, Stammtafel zur Geschichte des
Hauses Habsburg (Vienna, 1893).
For the history of the Habsburg monarchy see:
- Langl, Die Habsburg und die denkwszrdigen
Statten -ihrer Umgebung (Vienna, 1895);
- E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe
(18Sf).
Two English books on the subject are:
- J. Gilbart-Smith, The Cradle of the Hapsburgs
(1907)
- A. R. and E. Colquhoun, The Whirlpool of
Europe, AustriaHungary and the Hapsburgs (1906).
(A. W. H.*)
Sources:
-
http://13.1911encyclopedia.org/H/HA/HABSBURG.htm
-
The Imperial House of Hapsburg - http://www.hapsburg.com/about.htm
-
Wikipedia - Habsburg -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habsburg
-
Habsburg Dynasty - http://www.antiquesatoz.com/habsburg/
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