Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria
gigatos | January 23, 2022
Summary
Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria-Este († June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo) was descended from the Habsburg dynasty and had been heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne since 1896. In the Sarajevo assassination, he and his wife, Duchess Sophie von Hohenberg, died at the hands of the Bosnian Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip. The act triggered the July Crisis, which led to World War I a short time later.
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Childhood and youth
Franz Ferdinand was the eldest son of Archduke Carl Ludwig of Austria, the second oldest of Emperor Franz Joseph”s three brothers, from his second marriage to Princess Maria Annunziata of Naples-Sicily. When he was seven years old, his mother died of a lung disease. Her husband had built for her the Villa Wartholz in Reichenau an der Rax, which later became the family residence beloved by all. Franz Ferdinand spent most of the summer months there and at Artstetten Castle in Lower Austria, which also belonged to his father. Like all his siblings, he developed an intimate relationship with his stepmother Infanta Marie Therese of Braganza, whom his father had married when Franz Ferdinand was nine and a half years old. She was also later to stand by him during the difficult time of his marriage to Countess Sophie Chotek, which was not befitting his status and which he had obtained against the will of his uncle Emperor Franz Joseph.
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Estonian heritage
Archduke Francis V of Austria-Modena, a great-grandson of Archduke Ferdinand (a son of Empress Maria Theresa, who had married the heiress to the Duchy of Modena), was left in possession of the immense family fortune as Duke of Modena, Massa, Carrara and Guastalla, but without descendants. The fact that he no longer ruled in Italy but lived in Austria was related to the fact that in 1859 all non-Italian regents of Italian principalities had to leave the country. Lacking children of his own, he appointed Archduke Carl Ludwig”s eldest son as his universal heir. The conditions were that Franz Ferdinand would have to take the name of Este and improve his Italian (which should not have been too difficult for him, since his Italian-born mother had often spoken Italian with her children) in order – if the course of history allowed it – to be able to take up the office of ruler in Modena. Since all involved were subjects of Emperor Franz Joseph, he had to give permission for this. Of course, he was happy to do so, and Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was far from being heir to the throne, used the name Austria-Este from then on.
After the death of the heir to the throne in 1914, the name Austria-Este passed to Franz Ferdinand”s grandnephew, Archduke Robert, a son of the future Emperor Charles. The archives of the Este family were incorporated into the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv in 1915, and part of them had to be ceded to Italy in 1921. The Este property, like all private property of the Habsburgs, was expropriated by the newly founded Republic of Austria.
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Training
Archduke Franz Ferdinand”s childhood and youth followed the typical paths of a male member of the imperial family. The direction of his education was entrusted to Count Ferdinand Degenfeld-Schonburg (1835-1892). He was assisted by Rittmeister Count Nostitz and Leutnant Count Wallis. Renowned teachers were employed for teaching, such as the later auxiliary bishop Godfried Marschall for religion, the historian Onno Klopp for history, Friedrich Knauer for natural science, Knapp for philology and later Rittner for political science and national economy. Marschall and Klopp gained great influence on the young archduke. Klopp lectured him on Habsburg history, which he presented and interpreted from his own point of view. His religion teacher, Provost Marschall, succeeded in winning Franz Ferdinand”s affection. He was his closest friend and advisor for many years. The relationship of trust later broke down in connection with the morganatic marriage of the heir to the throne. – Following the family tradition, according to which every male Habsburg had to undergo military training, the archduke joined the army very early and, not yet 15 years old, was appointed lieutenant of the 32nd Infantry Regiment.
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Hunting
Like most of his peers, Franz Ferdinand was sent hunting as a child. At the age of nine he shot his first game, and by the time he was 17 he had shot 105 small game. In adulthood, the desire to aim and kill by numbers awakened in him. Unlike his father, Archduke Carl Ludwig, who hardly ever took part in a hunt and did not enjoy it, Franz Ferdinand became a fanatical hunter. He maintained several large hunting grounds and shot 274,889 game in the course of his life – according to preserved shot lists. He shot tigers, lions and elephants on big game hunts in which he participated during his world travels. In 1911 alone he shot 18,799 pieces of game, “daily record” was in 1908, on a June day, 2763 laughing gulls. He was considered one of the best shooters in the world since the early 1890s. His huge collection of trophies can still be found at Konopiště Castle. In Artstetten Castle you can see coins with which he won a bet. In India he competed with an excellent marksman in hitting coins thrown into the air. While his opponent bent only one coin, he hit three coins with the ball.
The “passion bordering on addiction” is unanimously perceived as one of the darkest sides of Franz Ferdinand”s personality picture and has been described by historians as “feudal mass butchery,” as “game slaughter, aaseness, mass murder,” or as “pathological shooting mania,” in which he proceeded with “ruthless energy.” Paul Sethe analyzed that in this Franz Ferdinand was “a child of the decadence of his time,” “that numbers, the massed, are more important to him than the joy of stalking …”
It should be noted, however, that the heir to the throne was usually the guest of honor at hunts, and the beaters directed the game to his shooting range. Despite this hunting fanaticism, which was unusual even for the 19th century, Franz Ferdinand was already interested in the environment at that time, promoted ecological projects on his estates, which he ran as model farms, and was intensively involved in the area of monument protection and the preservation of old, valuable buildings.
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Before the succession
From 1878 Franz Ferdinand received military training that took him throughout the Monarchy: he was with the infantry in Bohemia, the Hussars in Hungary and the Dragoons in Upper Austria. In 1889, his father gave him Artstetten Castle in Lower Austria, which today houses the Franz Ferdinand Museum. In 1899 he was promoted to General of Cavalry; he also held the rank of Admiral. During his military service he fell ill several times with pulmonary tuberculosis, from which his mother had died, and in the fall of 1895 he even had to temporarily retire from active service because of it.
1892
After the death of his father Archduke Carl Ludwig in 1896, Franz Ferdinand became heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary and thus the highest-ranking archduke after his reigning uncle Emperor Franz Joseph. Several attempts to marry him in a manner befitting his rank, including to the widowed Crown Princess Stephanie or to Princess Mathilde of Saxony, failed.
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Marriage to Countess Sophie Chotek
On July 1, 1900, Archduke Franz Ferdinand married Countess Sophie Chotek, a former lady-in-waiting to Archduchess Isabella, against the rules of the Habsburg House Law. According to the Family Law, a member of the imperial family was only allowed to marry a member of a ruling or former ruling family. Incidentally, the Habsburg House Law made no distinction between a countess, a baroness or a commoner. The future wife was not allowed to be a subject. However, this rule only applied to the Austrian imperial family. As king of Bohemia and Hungary, Sophie would have been allowed to bear the corresponding titles and their joint children could have become heirs to the throne. However, Franz Ferdinand renounced these claims in a declaration in view of the unity of the empire.
In the case of the heir to the archduke throne, however, there would have been another solution to this situation: If he had renounced the succession to the throne, the marriage would also have been immoral, but he could have retired to his estates with the inherited Estonian fortune and led a tranquil life to the end of his days. But he did not want that. He wanted to enter into the morganatic union and later assume the imperial office, and with this stubbornness incurred the wrath of his uncle, the emperor. In order to better justify the marriage to him, Archduke Franz Ferdinand had commissioned a study in which he explained that he wanted to bring “fresh blood” into the family. At that time – and still until 1945 – it was assumed that marriages between close relatives would result in degenerative mental hereditary diseases. This has been scientifically disproved in the meantime, only “hereditary neurological diseases leading to premature destruction of the brain substance” are the exception (see G. Senger
Be that as it may, Emperor Franz Joseph finally permitted the marriage on condition that neither Sophie nor any future children born of the marriage should take over the regency, for which Archduke Franz Ferdinand signed the acknowledgement in an official act on June 28, 1900. In the end, the emperor showed himself generous towards his nephew”s wife and appointed her first as Princess, then in 1909 as Duchess of Hohenberg. The children of this union were also to bear the name Hohenberg. Fateful may have been the choice of the name Hohenberg, which, with Gertrude of Hohenberg, the wife of King Rudolf I, stands at the beginning of the Habsburg monarchy and finally gained historical significance again at the end of the reign of the same family. In the inner circle of the family, the choice of name was and is interpreted as an act of renewal and as a grant from Emperor Franz Joseph.
The marriage to Sophie Chotek not only intensified the already tense relationship with Emperor Franz Joseph, but the immediate family also showed little joy at this union. Franz Ferdinand had cut himself off from his family and especially from his siblings since the 1880s. He was the only one of the six siblings who did not attend the frequent family gatherings at the Villa Wartholz, which greatly offended his father, Archduke Carl Ludwig, to which he frequently alluded in letters and diary entries. Had he still been alive at the turn of the century, the connection with Countess Chotek would never have come about. Or he would have advised his son to renounce the succession to the throne. He regarded the family and family rules as the highest ideal. Probably in memory of their father, the brothers Otto and Ferdinand Karl did not attend the wedding, nor did their sister Margarete Sophie. From the family, only Franz Ferdinand”s stepmother, Archduchess Maria Theresa, and her daughters Maria Annunziata and Elisabeth Amalie attended.
The couple never regretted their decision to marry, although court protocol did not really make their lives easier. For example, Sophie was not allowed to appear at her husband”s side on official occasions. While Franz Ferdinand, as heir to the throne, was allowed to walk right behind the emperor, Sophie had to line up behind the youngest archduchess, who was usually still a baby. There was relief when Franz Ferdinand appeared as an officer in his function as Inspector General of the Armed Forces. There, according to protocol, he was allowed to appear together with his wife. The couple took advantage of this loophole in the monarchy”s otherwise strict protocol, tragically also in Sarajevo in 1914, which is why they both died in the assassination attempt.
The marriage of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Duchess Sophie von Hohenberg produced four children who bore their mother”s family name:
Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were the progenitors of the ducal Hohenberg family.The main residences were Belvedere Palace in Vienna and the summer residence Konopiště Palace in Bohemia, expropriated without compensation by the Czechoslovak state at the end of 1918. The children were raised in Austria after the end of the monarchy. A brother-in-law of the heir to the throne, Prince Jaroslav Thun-Hohenstein, became their legal guardian and negotiated their legal withdrawal from the family fund with Emperor Charles on their behalf. The headquarters of the descendants became Artstetten Castle in Lower Austria. The eldest son, Duke Max of Hohenberg, became the legal representative of Archduke Otto in Austria, who lived in Belgium, in America and later in Germany, where he bore the name Otto of Habsburg-Lothringen.
Although Emperor Franz Joseph deliberately kept the heir to the throne away from politics, he was actively involved in politics under the guise of the military. He did so from Belvedere Palace with a staff of advisors – the so-called “Military Chancellery,” whose heads were Alexander von Brosch-Aarenau and his successor Carl von Bardolff. He pushed the military build-up of the armed forces (joint army and navy) and planned the strengthening of central power and the weakening of dualism.
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Trialism – Federalism – Centralism
The reforms would have resulted in the merger of Croatia, Bosnia and Dalmatia into a separate part of the empire (Southern Slavia), which competed with Serbia”s interest in establishing a South Slav kingdom under Serbian leadership. These plans and the fueled public sentiment fueled the Serbs” hatred of the heir to the throne and of Habsburg rule.
Trialism” (Austria-Hungary-Southern Slavia) had Franz Ferdinand as a promoter for a time, in addition to Croatian conservative circles; however, his reform plans soon developed in the direction of comprehensive federalization. His plans directed against Hungary primarily targeted the Hungarian nationalities, not because they were socially and politically disadvantaged, but because he considered them loyal to the state. This goal, however, could hardly be realized by the crown-state federalism initially favored by Franz Ferdinand, which took no account of ethnic relations.
Eventually, the heir to the throne became the central figure of the Greater Austrian movement, which envisioned the federalization of all the peoples of the empire on an ethnic basis, although he ultimately could not fully agree with its most pronounced ideological prop, Popovici”s federalization concept, either. Franz Ferdinand never technically settled on any of these plans; his intentions sometimes contradicted each other and were often blurred. He pursued a mixture between an ethnic and a historically traditional federalism, at times reverting to trialism and advocating a kind of diluted centralism. Complementing the political archives of the Military Chancellery in the Court and State Archives is extensive documentation of his plans and those of his advisers at Artstetten Palace.
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Strengthening of the military force
On March 29, 1898, the heir to the throne was placed by Emperor Franz Joseph as an officer “at the disposition of My Supreme Command”. The emperor set up a separate military staff for him and announced that Franz Ferdinand would now gain “ample insight into all the conditions of the armed forces on land and at sea, which will one day be to the benefit of the general welfare. From 1906 onward, Alexander Brosch, as Franz Ferdinand”s wing adjutant, expanded the military chancellery into an instrument for observing and influencing the entire politics of the Dual Monarchy. In addition, the heir to the throne was charged with an analysis of the monarchy”s military strength, and in 1906 he secured the dismissal of the 65-year-old War Minister Heinrich von Pitreich and the 76-year-old Chief of General Staff Friedrich von Beck-Rzikowsky (popularly known jokingly as the “Vice-Emperor”), who was a special confidant of the emperor of the same age. Beck was replaced by the then 54-year-old Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf.
When Conrad von Hötzendorf was dismissed by the emperor in 1911 for pursuing preemptive war plans against Serbia, the heir to the throne succeeded in reinstating him in 1912. However, Franz Ferdinand was an opponent of rash military threesomes and wanted to avoid a war with Russia so that “the Tsar and the Emperor of Austria would not topple each other from the throne and open the way for revolution.” With this view, he repeatedly contrasted with Conrad von Hötzendorf, who was an advocate of preventive wars.
Franz Ferdinand also wanted to avoid a war against Serbia, as he emphasized in a letter to Count Leopold Berchtold in 1913: “If we wage a special war with Serbia, we will run her over in no time, but then what? And what do we get out of it? First of all, the whole of Europe will fall upon us (a totally indebted country with regicides, rogues, etc.). And where we can”t even deal with Bosnia (…) And now, in my opinion, there”s only the policy of watching the others bash their skulls in, to set them on each other as much as possible, and for the monarchy to keep the peace.”
The heir to the throne also played a major role in the expansion of the Imperial and Royal Navy. navy. After 1900, he achieved a generous expansion of the shipping fleet and the deployment of submarines from 1908.
On the eve of his 83rd birthday, August 17, 1913, Emperor Franz Joseph appointed his nephew Inspector General of the entire armed forces and decreed that Franz Ferdinand”s Military Chancellery was henceforth to be called the Chancellery of the Inspector General of the entire armed forces.
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Honors and awards
The heir to the throne was decorated with high orders, often for reasons of protocol. Like all male Habsburgs, he was a bearer of the Golden Fleece (the house order that ranked above all other decorations in Austria), a knight of the British Order of the Garter, a bearer of the Grand Commander”s Cross of the Royal House Order of the Hohenzollerns, a holder of the Japanese Order of the Chrysanthemum and various orders of sovereigns from Sweden to Sicily and from Spain to Bulgaria.In addition, he received numerous other domestic and foreign orders.
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Preparations for the accession to the throne
Very detailed plans for Franz Ferdinand”s accession to the throne were drawn up by Brosch and his successor Bardolff in the military chancellery of the heir to the throne. They took into account a restructuring of the dual monarchy decreed by the future ruler before he could be bound to the traditional order by coronation oaths and the like. This would have greatly affected the Magyar upper class in particular. Therefore, reliable, loyal people had to be sought in the surrounding area who would support the heir to the throne when the time came. In addition, preparations had to be made as to how to deal with opponents of state restructuring who would override the constitutions previously in force. In this context, reference should once again be made to the diary of Franz Ferdinand”s trip around the world.
In the so-called “Sarajevo Room” of the Vienna Museum of Military History there is a particularly curious oil painting by Wilhelm Vita. The portrait shows the archduke in a white gala tunic with the rank of field marshal and wearing the four Grand Crosses of the Order of Maria Theresa, the Imperial and Royal Order of Saint Stephen and the Order of Leopold, as well as the Order of the Iron Crown. With the exception of the Order of St. Stephen, these were decorations to which Franz Ferdinand was not entitled as Archduke and heir to the throne, but which he would have donned in the event of his accession.
Accordingly, the painting depicts Franz Ferdinand as emperor and may have been intended as a model for official emperor paintings in the event of his accession to the throne. After the assassination of the heir to the throne, the portrait, which had become a utopia, was painted over. In this state, the painting was acquired by the Museum of Military History in 1959, and after removal of the overpaintings, the original condition was restored.
A similar painting can be seen in Artstetten Palace. It was commissioned for the Hofburg from the Czech painter Václav Brožík, who commuted between Prague and Paris, and shows the family members according to their ranks. When Emperor Franz Joseph fell ill, the artist made a sketch with the heir to the throne as emperor. However, the painting could never be executed, as the artist died on April 15, 1901.
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Sarajevo assassination
In June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were in Bosnia-Herzegovina on a maneuver visit. On June 28, 1914, they paid an official visit to its capital Sarajevo. The underground organization “Mlada Bosna” planned an assassination with the help of members of the Serbian secret organization “Black Hand” for this occasion. After an initially unsuccessful assassination attempt with a hand grenade, the 19-year-old student Gavrilo Princip succeeded soon afterwards in striking down the heir to the throne and his wife with two pistol shots, hitting the heir to the throne in the jugular vein and trachea, losing consciousness shortly afterwards and bleeding to death.
The blood-covered uniform that Franz Ferdinand wore that day (it is on loan from the Archduke Franz Ferdinand Museum, Artstetten Castle) and the automobile in which he and his wife were shot can be seen in the Museum of Military History in Vienna. The bullet hole of the bullet that killed Duchess Sophie is clearly visible. The orders and decorations worn by the heir to the throne on the day of his assassination are kept at Konopiště Castle. The blood-stained dress of the Duchess of Hohenberg is also preserved.
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Funeral
The news of the death of the heir to the throne was received in political and court circles with little concealed satisfaction. They were glad to be rid of the powerful and dangerous opponent and did everything they could to make this known at the funeral ceremonies. For this reason, the funeral ceremonies were deliberately kept modest, officially justified by the improper marriage. The press spoke of a “funeral III class”.
A state funeral was out of the question for the heir to the throne anyway; only the monarch himself was entitled to that. Otherwise, Obersthofmeister Prince Alfred Montenuovo, who was not prevented from doing so by the emperor, settled for a minimal program. Since burial in the Capuchin crypt was not possible for the Duchess of Hohenberg, Franz Ferdinand had earlier decreed that she be buried in the crypt built for the family in Artstetten Palace. There was no funeral procession, and the transfer of the coffins to Artstetten was also carried out exclusively by the staff of the Vienna Municipal Funeral Service, without the involvement of (court) authorities. The farewell in the family crypt under the parish church located in Artstetten Castle took place on July 4 in the closest family circle.
Numerous objects from the estate of the heir to the throne are on display in a museum set up by his descendants at Artstetten Palace. The exhibition shows him not only as an official and dignitary, but also as a private person.
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Political consequences of the assassination
As can be seen from minutes of meetings of the Imperial and Royal Council of Ministers for Common Affairs. As can be seen from minutes of meetings of the Council of Ministers for Common Affairs, Austria-Hungary then wanted to render Serbia harmless forever by means of war and, on July 23, 1914, issued an extremely harsh ultimatum, limited to 48 hours, to the Serbian government, demanding, among other things, the suppression of any actions and propaganda against the territorial integrity of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and calling for a judicial investigation of the assassination with the participation of Austro-Hungarian officials. The ultimatum was deliberately written in such a way that a sovereign state could not accept it. The ultimatum, however, threatened only the severance of diplomatic relations and not (yet) war, a subtlety that the imperial and royal foreign minister, Count Leopold Berchtold, insisted on emphasizing. Foreign Minister Count Leopold Berchtold attached great importance to.
Serbia responded to the ultimatum within the given deadline, but did not accept it unconditionally. Finally, Austria-Hungary, with German backing, declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914. The First World War was thus triggered by the alliance commitments of the great powers of the time.
After the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the future Emperor Charles became heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy according to Salic law of succession.
Despite his reform plans and his unconventional marriage, Franz Ferdinand did not become a popular figure. This was probably due as much to the ill will of all those who resented his marriage, which was not in keeping with his status, and his plans for reform, as to his character, which was described as brusque and uninviting.
The Viennese journalist Karl Kraus, who at times sympathized with him, put it this way in his obituary: “He was not a greeter (…) He was not aiming at that unexplored region which the Viennese calls his heart.
His contempt for all new cultural developments (see the church at Steinhof, opened by Franz Ferdinand in 1907) further contributed to badmouthing. Allegedly, he had expressed the opinion at an exhibition that all the bones in Oskar Kokoschka”s body should be broken.
In 1912, Esteplatz in Vienna”s Landstrasse (3rd district) was named after the heir to the throne. Likewise, the Ferdinand Brewery, moved by Franz Ferdinand from Konopischt (Konopiště) to Beneschau (Benešov), was named after him and still produces beer under this name today.
In 1917, a monument to the murdered couple was unveiled in Sarajevo. It was removed by the SHS state in 1919.
Ludwig Winder published a novel close to the source in Zurich in 1937 entitled Der Thronfolger. It was reprinted in East Berlin in 1984. Marcel Reich-Ranicki had the work presented in the series “Novels of Yesterday – Read Today” in March 1987. A new edition was published by Paul Zsolnay Verlag in 2014.
A well-known figure in Austrian history, Franz Ferdinand also appears in several feature films. In the film Um Thron und Liebe by Fritz Kortner, the Archduke, portrayed by Ewald Balser, even plays the main character. In Colonel Redl by Istvan Szabo (1985), Armin Mueller-Stahl embodies Franz Ferdinand.
In 1989, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand Museum was established in Artstetten Castle.
The Scottish band Franz Ferdinand, formed in 2001, is named after the Archduke.
2014 marked the centenary of the beginning of the First World War, which has been the subject of numerous books, documentaries etc. The journalist Frank Gerbert (* 1955) published a book in 2014 in which he traced in detail the last journey of Franz Ferdinand with the end in Sarajevo.
In 2014, a requiem was performed at Artstetten Palace in the palace church and in the basilica of Maria Taferl, attended by more than 90 members of the former imperial family. The 100th anniversary of the death gave rise to several major commemorative events, which were also attended by numerous politicians.
In the possession of the National Technical Museum (NTM) in Prague is the salon carriage of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, built in 1909 by the Prague Ringhoffer Works. After the Archduke”s death, this carriage was also used by his successor, the later Emperor Charles, and subsequently by members of the Czechoslovak government until the 1960s. In 2009, the salon car underwent extensive renovation and has since been restored to running condition; inside, the vehicle is still largely original.
According to an anecdote, Franz Ferdinand was unable to make his last journey to Sarajevo in this carriage. The vehicle, coupled to the scheduled express train to Vienna, arrived at Chlumetz station with smoking axles and had to be parked.
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