House of Habsburg-Lorraine

The first member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine to rule over the Holy Roman Empire was Joseph II, a sovereign raised during the Enlightenment. By the new ideals he brought, he implemented many reforms, most of which were to the detriment of the clergy. Upon his death in 1790, he was succeeded by his brother Leopold II, who in 1791 invited Europe's powers to help the French royal family stifle the ideals of the revolution without military intervention. He died a few days before France declared war on Austria.

In 1792, Leopold II's son Francis II was crowned emperor in Frankfurt. After the beheading of the French sovereigns, he – along with the other European sovereigns – created the First Coalition against Revolutionary France. The coalition initially recorded some success but soon began to withdraw, especially in Italy, where the Austrians were repeatedly defeated by the Corsican general Napoleon Bonaparte.

With the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797, the Duchy of Milan was handed over to France, while the Austrians gained Veneto, Istria and Dalmatia. This pact was followed by others that reduced the dominion of the Habsburgs to Austria, Bohemia and Hungary. Francis II was also forced to dissolve the Holy Roman Empire, but he had already proclaimed himself Emperor of Austria, in order to retain his imperial status.

After the defeats at Leipzig (1813) and Waterloo (1815), Napoleon was exiled to the island of Saint Helena, where he died. In the same year as Waterloo, the Congress of Vienna was established, with which the Restoration began. The Congress demanded the restoration of the old regimes. Austria recovered all the Italian, Slavic and German territories that it had lost during the Napoleonic Wars, and the Holy Alliance was also established between Austria, Russia and Prussia, which had the task of suppressing all the pro-French or independence revolutionary movements that would have erupted in Europe.

In the years that followed, Francis II pursued a centralization policy on the advice of Chancellor Metternich; but precisely because of it, and emerging ideals of independence, the Revolutions of 1848 broke out, which wracked all of Europe. This led to the expulsion of Metternich from the Imperial Chancellery and the rise of Franz Joseph, replacing Ferdinand I, who was forced to abdicate in favour of the 18-year-old man.

Franz Joseph (1830–1916) was the last member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine to hold any significant political or military authority in Europe. At the beginning of his reign (1848–1916), Austria was the dominant power in Central Europe, whilst Vienna emerged as one of the greatest metropolitan cities on the continent. The emperor, however, waged the Second Italian War of Independence and the Austro-Prussian War. Both ended in defeats, which put an end to Austrian supremacy in Italy and Germany, as well as accelerating the gradual decline of the dynasty.

In 1867, Franz Joseph granted effective autonomy to the Kingdom of Hungary within the Austrian Empire under the terms of the Ausgleich; politically and militarily they were united, but in terms of internal policy and administration, they became separate entities. The title of the head of state became "Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary", although he was also referred to as "Emperor of Austria-Hungary".

With the growing interest of Austria-Hungary and Russia in the Balkans, strong tensions were created between the Habsburgs and Russia, eventually leading Austria-Hungary to enter into an alliance with Germany and Italy.

In 1914, with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the First World War broke out between the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire) and the Entente Powers (the British Empire, France, Russia and others).

In 1916, Franz Joseph died and was succeeded by his grandnephew, Charles I. Charles (the last sovereign), upon losing the war, renounced the exercise of power but did not abdicate. He was forced into exile on April 3, 1919. The Habsburg dominions were subsequently divided into independent republics.

The House of Habsburg-Lorraine refused to swear its allegiance to the new Republic of Austria, therefore family members were forced into exile and their property was confiscated. The law of exile still applies to the descendants of Emperor Charles under the same conditions. In 1961, Otto von Habsburg, the late head of the house and formerly a member of the European Parliament, relinquished the monarchy and the succession rights of his descendants in exchange for an end to exile. He was known in the Republic of Austria as Dr. Otto Habsburg-Lothringen, since the Republic does not officially recognise titles of nobility.^{[citation needed]}

The current leader of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine is Karl von Habsburg, who succeeded his father Otto as head of the imperial house after his father renounced the role in 2007. Karl is the eldest grandson of the last emperor of Austria-Hungary, Charles I.

• House of Habsburg
• House of Lorraine

• C. A. Macartney, The Habsburg Empire, 1790–1918, Faber & Faber, 2014, 900 pages. ISBN 0571306292
• Jean Bérenger, Histoire de l'empire des Habsbourg, 1273–1918, Fayard, 1990, 810 pages. ISBN 978-2-213-02297-0
• Hans Bankl, Mal d'Asburgo. Vizi, vezzi, malanni e manie della Casa Imperiale d'Austria , traduzione di Flavia Foradini, Trieste, mgs press, 1998, pp. 202
• Flavia Foradini, "Otto d'Asburgo. L'ultimo atto di una dinastia", mgs press, Trieste, 2004. ISBN 88-89219-04-1
• Martha e Horst Schad, La prediletta. Il diario della figlia di Sissi, traduzione di Flavia Foradini, Trieste, mgs Press 2001, ISBN 88-86424-78-7
• Sigrid-Maria Größing, Rodolfo d'Asburgo. Libero pensatore, rubacuori, psicopatico, traduzione di Flavia Foradini, Trieste, mgs Press 2006, ISBN 88-89219-17-3

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to House of Habsburg-Lorraine.

• Adjutant General of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine (in German)