1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Francis Joseph I.

FRANCIS JOSEPH I. (1830-1916), Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary (see ). &mdash; In the last years of his reign Francis Joseph continued to strive to preserve peace for his realm, while maintaining the prestige of Austria-Hungary and her position as a Great Power. Perceiving that this aim was threatened by the confusion reigning in the Balkans, he agreed to the plan of his Foreign Minister, Aehrenthal, to take advantage of the Young Turk movement to annex the territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina occupied in 1878, and to embody them permanently in the monarchy. During the serious crisis following on the annexation Francis Joseph backed Aehrenthal with the whole weight of his influence, and subsequently supported him in his endeavours to restore friendly relations with the Great Powers which had been signally disturbed by the annexation, and to put an end to the risk of international conflicts. By his personal intervention he in fact repeatedly succeeded during the years 1908 to 1914 in averting dangers threatening the peace of Europe. When in 1912 the Balkan wars, which he had untiringly but unsuccessfully striven to avert, began, he thought they were the gale before the hurricane, and when, in Aug. 1913, the Peace of Bucharest provided a provisional settlement he expressed the opinion that this peace was only the breathing space before a fresh war. The behaviour of the Serbs filled him with the greatest anxiety. When the murder of the heir to the throne, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, led the Vienna Government to take energetic measures against Serbia, Francis Joseph hesitated to follow, and it was with a heavy heart that he gave his consent to the dispatch of the severe ultimatum to Serbia, and, after its rejection, to the declaration of war. He did not believe that the war could be localized, as he would have wished it to be, and was pessimistic about the chances of a world war. Even then he was of the opinion that &ldquo;war is beyond our strength,&rdquo; and said he would be glad if the monarchy escaped &ldquo;with a black eye.&rdquo; The attitude of the rulers of Italy and Rumania offended him deeply, and strengthened his doubt of a favourable outcome of a war against an ever-increasing number of adversaries. Francis Joseph stood immovably by the alliance with Germany, to whose ruler he was bound by a friendship based on reciprocal liking; it never occurred to him to separate from his ally. He would never have agreed to a separate peace; yet he favoured and supported every endeavour to put an end to the war by a peace which should safeguard the interests of all his allies and the position of Austria-Hungary as a Great Power.

In all questions affecting the constitution of the monarchy, and in particular the relations between Austria and Hungary, Francis Joseph continued in the later years of his reign to stand by the principles of the Ausgleich of 1867. He would not consider the federalization of the Empire, but stood unmoved on the basis of dualism. He went a long way to meet the efforts of the Hungarian Government for independence, but refused energetically during this period demands tending towards the severing of the remaining bonds between the two halves of the monarchy, especially that of the united army. In the increasingly violent conflicts between the different nationalities inhabiting the Cis-Leithan territories Francis Joseph stood above party. This was all the easier for him on account of his indifference towards all the nationalities of his vast realm, even towards the Germans, although to the end of his life he felt himself to be a German prince. As in the earlier part of his reign, so in the last decade, the separate nationalities were favoured or neglected, but always played off one against the other. The meaning of viribus unitis for Francis Joseph was to use all in the interests of the dynasty. But national consciousness had grown so strong that this policy had no success. The concessions which he granted in the years just before the war to the Slav peoples increased their self-confidence, and led them to make ever greater demands, the non-fulfilment of which caused a weakening of

their sentiment for the dynasty. As the differences between the national parties represented in the Austrian Parliament became in the course of years so great that there was no prospect of effective coöperation, Francis Joseph ignored parliamentary activity from 1914 onwards. Experience of the World War led the old Emperor to recognize that he had done the Austrian-Germans an injustice; but isolated attempts to alter the trend of affairs had no lasting effect, and in the end he let things take their course. When he died, severe inroads had been made on the affection of the Austrian peoples; what remained was only just sufficient to disguise the disappearance of loyalty to the dynasty.

As years went on the Emperor became more and more lonely. His son had committed suicide in 1889, his wife had been murdered in 1898; of his brothers only the youngest was still alive, and he resided at a distance and in the strictest seclusion. There had never been any cordial relationship with the heir to the throne, Francis Ferdinand; and with the years, especially after Francis Ferdinand had married Countess Sophie Chotek, the estrangement between the two men increased, so that personal intercourse became rare. Among the remaining members of the Imperial House Francis Joseph only cared to frequent the circles of his two daughters, Gisela and Marie Valerie, and their children. He was bound by ties of true friendship to Katherina Schratt, formerly an actress at the Burgtheater, and in her society he spent his sparingly measured hours of recreation. The summer he usually spent at the watering place of Ischl, and there he devoted himself to the chase, the only pleasure for which he cared passionately to the end of his life.

The Emperor had long enjoyed excellent health. It was not until he had passed his 75th year that disease of the respiratory organs began. In 1911 this became so serious that a catastrophe was feared. All the preparations for Francis Ferdinand's accession were made. But the old Emperor recovered; and his physical as well as his mental energy improved from year to year, so that he was able in the first two years of the World War to transact fully all the business of government. It was only in the year 1916 that his faculties began to fail. He died peacefully of a fresh attack of his old malady on Nov. 21 1916.

Francis Joseph was not one of those of whom contemporaries, especially those at a distance, form any definite impression. The reserve which he observed even towards the great majority of his advisers made it more difficult to penetrate his real nature. He had a deep sense of his exalted position as a ruler. To the end of his days he remained profoundly convinced that the Empire over which he ruled was his empire, and the peoples his peoples. This conception of the majesty of the office bestowed on him by God found expression in his bearing. He always maintained a regal attitude. He showed kindliness and winning courtesy to everyone. Nothing was farther from him than posing, and no one ever heard him utter sonorous phrases; but he avoided any kind of intimacy even in his intercourse with members of the Imperial House, and, even with them, knew how to maintain his distance. His intellectual gifts were not remarkable, but he possessed sound common-sense and wit. He had a strikingly good memory for persons and events. As a ruler he was a model of the sense of duty. From early morning to evening he attended to business with clock-like regularity, and dealt with all the documents laid before him with the greatest punctuality. This industry and his exact memory made him one of the best authorities in all Government affairs. He sometimes startled his ministers by his intimate knowledge of the details of the business in hand, and occasionally embarrassed them. But he went no further than the details, and lacked the power of surveying the whole. He also lacked, especially in his later years, the ability to take the initiative in important questions, to form independent resolutions and to carry them to their logical conclusions. In an ever-increasing degree he left the decision to his responsible ministers. He was not without skill in the choice of his advisers, but had an instinctive dislike for men whom he felt to be his intellectual superiors. He also disliked people of proud and upright character, and even within the family circle he preferred those who were more subservient. He was essentially cold in

with great self-control increased by practice. Among the European rulers he enjoyed, during the last decades of his reign, great respect, which he owed to his age, experience, personal amiability, blameless conduct, and above all the fact that his word could always be relied upon. He was a faithful son of the Catholic Church, and looked up with reverence to the Holy Father; but, quite in the spirit of the traditions of his House, he guarded the rights of the dynasty and of the State with the utmost tenacity, even against the Pope. He took no interest in the arts and sciences, being in this respect more of a Lorrainer than a Habsburg; but whenever he expressed an opinion on these subjects, he showed a decided aversion from the modern tendencies.

(Author:Alfred Francis Pribram)