# The New York Times/1916/11/22/Emperor Francis Joseph is Dead after 68 Years on Austria’s Throne; Carl Francis Joseph is Now Emperor

EMPEROR FRANCIS JOSEPH IS DEAD AFTER 68 YEARS ON AUSTRIA’S THRONE; CARL FRANCIS JOSEPH IS NOW EMPEROR
AGED RULER STRONG TO END
Refused to Obey Orders of Physicians and Gave Audiences Daily.
WAS UP ALL DAY MONDAY
But Is Reported to Have Received the Last Sacraments on Saturday.
REIGN FULL OF TROUBLE
LONDON, Wednesday, Nov. 22.—Emperor Francis Joseph died last night at 9 o’clock at Schönbrunn Castle, according to a Reuter dispatch from Vienna, by way of Amsterdam.
He had been suffering for some time from lung trouble, which a few days ago became acute.
A Geneva dispatch forwarded to Reuter's by way of Amsterdam yesterday quoted the Katolische Zeitung as saying the sacrament was administered on Saturday.
The Emperor retained his extraordinary vigor to the end, and his disinclination to obey the orders of his physician caused them the greatest anxiety. He insisted on giving audiences daily, and on Sunday conferred with Premier von Koerber for an hour, according to Vienna advices. He was out of bed all day Monday, it is stated, and in the evening received several visitors.
The first intimation received here that his health was again the subject of silicitation was contained in a dispatch dated Nov. 12, emanating from a Vienna news agency, which reported that the Emperor had been suffering for some days with a slight catarrhal affection.
Subsequent reports from various sources, more or less conflicting, represented that his condition was becoming worse, but none indicated that his illness threatened to reach a critical state until the following bulletin was issued in Vienna early last evening:
“The seat of the inflamation in the right lung, established yesterday, has increased. The patient’s temperature early this morning was 38.1 reaumur, at 2 o’clock 39.5, and this evening 39.6. Breaething had accelerated to 30 respirations a minute. Appetite small and vitality visibly lowered.”
What gave credence to the suspicion that his condition was much graver than the official bulletins indicated was the report, which still lacks official confirmation, that it had been decided to associate the heir to the throne Archduke Carl Francis, in the government of the country and that he was to assume the position on Dec. 2, on the sixty-eighth anniversary of the Emperor's ascension to the throne.
Telegraphing from Amsterdam the Central News correspondent says:
“Vienna reports that although the death of the Emperor had been expected, the news, which was printed in special editions of the newspapers, made a deep impression on the public. A special Cabinet meeting was held. The heir to the throne, Archduke Charles Francis, has been for some time in Vienna.
“A meeting of the Hungarian Cabinet has been called at Budapest. Premier Tisza will afterward come to Vienna.”
London Prints Special Editions.
LONDON, Wednesday, Nov. 22.—News of the death of the Austrian Emperor last evening at Schoenbrunn Castle was received in London too late to catch the ordinary editions of the papers, so no editorial opinion is available as to the probable effect, if any, it will have on the course of the war or on the Austrian people.
The Daily Mail in a late special edition publishes a short obituary in which it says:
“Emperor Francis Joseph had been politically defunct for two years. In the present war he played a very insignificant part and it is exceedingly doubtful whether had he been in vigorous health he would ever have consented to become the passive agent of a German plot.
“The initial disasters which befell Austria weighed heavily upon him. The loss of Galicia in the Autumn of 1914 he felt as a crushing blow. From then onwards Germany assumed virtual control of the dominions of the once proud Hapsburg. A reign which began with the abdication of his weak predecessor ended in his own virtual abdication in favor of Emperor William.
“From first to last his reign has been marked by domestic misfortunes and tragedies which recall the fearful doom of the House of Atreus. It has also been politically unfortunate. It opened with civil war and disaster, it witnessed the loss of his Italian provinces and provinces ruled in Italy by mem- ​bers of his family, Venetia, Lombardy, Parma, Modena, and Tuscany. It has closed amid the frightful ruin of the greatest war history ever knew—a war kindled by the folloy of Austrian statesmen who allowed themselves to become German Puppets.”
CAREER OF FRANCIS JOSEPH.
A Military Despot at First, He Afterward Became Just and Popular.
The Emperor Francis Joseph ascended the throne of Austria-Hungary in 1848. The sixty-eight years of his reign have seen the remaking of Europe, while at the present time almost the entire continent is at war.
Other nations have seen greater and more far-reaching changes than Austria in the two-thirds of a century covered by Francis Joseph’s reign, but in no other of the greater powers have there been so many vicissitudes as those through which the aged ruler lived. He was born on Aug. 18 in the revolutionary year of 1830, and ascended the throne in the other revolutionary year 1848. Liberalism and Nationalism were beginning to show their full force when the boy of eighteen came to the throne from which his uncle had withdrawn in dismay at the problems confronting him. Francis Joseph began as the despot of a heterogeneous collection of races, held together by military power and the aristocracy of a favored nation. He was obliged to quell formidable attempts at secession, and was for some years apparently as powerful as any of his predecessors. Then came two disastrous wars, which cost Austria nearly all her Italian possessions, much of her prestige, and her hegemony of the German States. A direct consequence of the second war was the “Ausgleich” of 1867, whereby the Hungarians, who had struck vainly for their liberty eighteen years previously, received nearly everything they had wanted.
At that point the fortunes of Austria were at their lowest ebb. But then came the close and very profitable alliance with Germany, which restored Austria to a strong position among the Powers. There was a Balkan policy which, if failing to reach Salonika, at least won Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Italy, though still at heart an enemy, became, in name at least, a friend. So, two years ago, it seemed as if the long career of Francis Joseph would end with his Empire once more on the upgrade.
The sudden rise of the Balkan League upset Austria’s “Drang nach Osten.” The Dual Monarchy seemed shut off from her chosen and ancient goal, the Aegean, and threatened on the south by a power hostile to herself and friendly to Russia. But clever diplomacy neutralized much of the harm to Austrian interests resulting from the Balkan War, and only the strength of Serbian agitation, brought to a head by the murder of the heir to the Hapsburg throne, led to the final catastrophe.
Through all these vicissitudes the Emperor, whose task it was during most of his reign to keep together an Empire that, most observers predicted, must sooner or later break up, managed to grow out of the inexperience which weighed upon him when he first took up the sceptre, to throw off many of the traditions of absolutism which were incompatible with the duties of a constitutional monarch of the nineteenth century, and to make himself much loved in his own dominions and universally respected abroad. And he did this in spite of perhaps the most appalling series of domestic calamities that has ever befallen a king.
Succeeded in a Year of Revolutions
Francis Joseph succeeded to the throne of Austria in the year of revolutions, 1848. His uncle, the Emperor Ferdinand, was entirely unfit to meet the storm and stress of the rising tide of liberalism. His father, the Archduke Francis Charles, had abdicated his rights of succession in favor of his four sons. His mother, the Princess Sophie, was an ambitious woman and persuaded the Emperor to resign in favor of his eighteen-year-old nephew.
Francis Joseph at that time was far from being the wise statesman his later years proved him. He was a scholar, deeply read in jurisprudence, philosophy, and diplomacy. He was a famous linguist, and was fairly well acquainted with chemistry and natural science, but he could not realize the task before him. Austria has been cursed for centuries with the war of nationalities. Seventeen separate peoples, each with its own language and customs, each with its pride of race and love of freedom, are intermingled in the territories he ruled.
To satisfy them would have been difficult enough if each nationality had had a local habitation and could be allowed some form of autonomy within its own district. But there was none of this, and German and Magyar, Czech and Ruthenian rubbed shoulders on the streets and struggled for their own supremacy in every province and town of the empire.
The Europe the young Emperor had to face was far different from what it is now. Germany was still a congeries of States. Prussia had not yet risen to greatness by the genius of Bismarck and the Emperor William. It was still doubtful whether the Austrian Emperor, the claimant of the historic title of the Emperor, the direct successor of the Caesars, might not become the leader of the German world. Moreover, the Austrian dominions extended beyond the Alps. In the north of Italy Venetia and Lombardy were still under the imperial sway, and, with Italy still divided, constituted a constant temptation to interfere in the politics of that peninsula.
The immediate dangers which confronted Francis Joseph in his accession were revolts in these Italian provinces and in Hungary. The former were put down first. The King of Sardinia met with a heavy check in his attempt to wrest Italian soil from the alien power, and after the defeat of Novara, three months after the Emperor’s reign had begun, was forced to pay a heavy indemnity.
In Hungary Austria met with a greater difficulty. Kossuth had kindled a fire of liberty which was beyond all the power of the empire to check, and only by calling upon Russia to aid with 100,000 troops were the brave patriots suppressed and their great leader forced to fly.
Dissolved the Reichsrath.
The young man of 20 who thus saw himself victorious after the severest trials was not likely to deny himself the fruits of his victory. Brought up in an absolute régime, surrounded by advisors of the old school, encouraged by his mother to preserve every particle of his prerogative, he proved himself for a time a thoroughgoing reactionary. In spite of his promise at his accession to resuscitate Austria on the basis of “liberty and equality before the law,” within three months he dissolved the Reichsrath, and two years later, on Dec. 31, 1851, he formally abolished the Constitution which had lingered only in name.
Henceforth for some years absolutism and military despotism were the rule in his dominions, and he gave himself up to the sordid amusements which have been the curse of so many monarchs. It is said that his awakening came in a dramatic fashion. On Feb. 15, 1853, as he was reviewing his army on the Schmels, a young Hungarian, Joseph Libenyi, sprang from the crowd and aimed a blow at his throat with a long, sharp butcher’s knife. Only the large buckle worn by Austrian officers saved Francis Joseph’s life, and before the assassin could strike again he was seized by Count O’Donnel, an Irishman in the imperial service.
Francis Joseph, it is said, took the attack deeply to heart, and realized that there was something wrong with a régime which could lead to such an attack. He became more liberal in his views, and his marriage to the Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria in 1854 confirmed him in his altered policy. She was a liberal in every way, and his meeting with her was a happy day for Austria. As a matter of fact, there was something of chance about it. The Emperor’s mother desired him to marry Elizabeth’s elder sister, the Princess Helena, but Francis Joseph met the younger sister of the woman he had agreed to marry, and at once transferred his proposals to her.
Crushed in Two Battles.
At this period Austria was at the height of its power, but was soon to see it begin to decline. The struggle for a “United Italy” was entering upon its final stage, and in 1859 Napoleon III., in the pursuit of his tortuous diplomacy, joined hands with the King of Sardinia. They declared war upon Francis Joseph and crushed him at the battles of Magenta and Solferino. As a consequence he was forced to grant freedom to the rich Province of Lombardy.
Eight years later came another crushing blow. Prussia was strong enough to dispute the supremacy it had allowed to Austria in 1850. The complicated Schleswig-Holstein question gave the excuse, and in the Summer of 1867 Bismarck brought on war. With astonishing celerity, within seven weeks the battle of Königgrätz had been lost and won. Austria was prostrate before the genius of Moltke, and King William could dictate what terms he liked. Austria lost Venetia and was forced back upon itself. Its aspiration to control the destinies of the German-speaking peoples was crushed for ever, and Francis Joseph was left to face the difficult problem of governing his heterogeneous subjects undistracted by the claims of world politics.
His defeat in Italy in 1859 had already made him far more liberal in his policy. In 1860 he had undone the mistake of the first years of his reign and given to Austria a Parliament. In 1867 he opened at Pesth the first Diet of the Kingdom of Hungary. From this has been developed the dual Constitution which allows Austria and Hungary perfect autonomy in all internal affairs, but a common Ministry as far as foreign relations, war, and finance are concerned.
Moreover, in 1867, still further to win the allegiance of his Hungarian subjects, he was crowned their king. To this proud people this was no empty ceremony. Their King must come to Pesth and assume the historic crown of St. Stephen. Then he must ascend on horseback a mound of earth brought from every part of the monarchy and lunge with his sword north, south, east, and west, in token of his determination to defend every portion of his dominions. Then and then only would be be recognized as the true “Apostolic King.”
Popular with Hungarians.
From this dates the surprising popularity of Francis Joseph with the Hungarians. Since that day again and again have Austrian and Hungarian stood at daggers drawn. Again and again has it seemed certain that the Dual Monarchy would be rent in twain, but at every crisis the personal popularity of the aged Emperor somehow prevented an open split. A few years ago, when the Hungarian Parliament denied the right of the crown to call out the reservists when necessary, the old Emperor’s threat to abdicate as King of Hungary carried his point. Part of this feeling toward him he had engendered by his great linguistic gifts. German though he always professed himself in his early life to be, he could speak the tongue of every one of his subjects, and was able to discuss with them their grievances and aspirations.
The war with Prussia and the establishment of the Triple Alliance with the German Empire and Italy seemed to fix the position of Austria-Hungary in Europe. For years it was at peace, content to play a somewhat secondary, but none the less important, part in European affairs, till in 1908 it took a step which startled the world. In 1878, at the Congress of Berlin, Austria had received the right to administer the Provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They still remained nominally subject to the suzerainty of the Sultan of Turkey, but they were governed entirely from Vienna.
Under the new régime they prospered exceedingly, and the complex nationalities and religions of what had been one of the danger spots of Europe dwelt in harmony side by side. Then came the fall of Abdul Hamid, and the rise of the Young Turk Party. Constitutionality was to be the order of the day in the Turkish Empire, and Austria feared that she might be asked to restore the two provinces. Moreover, she dreaded the rise of the Slavic idea and a movement on the part of Montenegro and Serbia to revive the old Serb Empire. So the aged Emperor, on Oct. 6, 1908, issued a decree formally annexing the two provinces to his empire, and promising them a liberal Constitution. Russia, France, and Great Britain protested, the Kaiser stood grimly behind his old ally, and, in spite of the heartburnings of the Triple Entente, the annexation became at once an accomplished fact.
Austria and the Dreibund.
To Germany’s firm support of her ally on this occasion, when William II., in his own phrase, “Stood forth in shining armor,” may be traced the series of international difficulties which have culminated in the present great war. The attitude of Germany aroused undying resentment in Russia as well as in Serbia, and caused considerable ill-feeling in Italy. Yet it was perhaps the most remarkable triumph of the Triple Alliance, and the most prominent instance in which German support proved invaluable to Austria.
Italy, Austria’s deadly enemy for many years, became, on the establishment of the Triple Alliance, her reluctant friend through the very necessity of the Adriatic situation, which required that the two powers must either be allies or constantly on the verge of war. For thirty years peace has been kept between the two nations, and it is only now, when Italian interests and sympathy are both on the side of the allies against the German powers, that the Government of Italy has shown its hand.
Bismarck, to be sure, foresaw something of the sort from the first. “If a single Italian soldier faces west when the war comes,” he is reported to have said, “I shall be satisfied.” But the fact that the alliance held as long and successfully as it did has brought considerable advantage to both powers and, backed by Italy and Germany, Francis Joseph's empire seemed from 1883 to 1912 on the road to renewed prosperity and power.
The culmination of this era was the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Three years afterward the formation of the Balkan League and its victories over Turkey brought about a great change in the position of the Dual Monarchy. The road to Salonika was suddenly blocked by a young and vigorous confederation, and a tremendous impetus had been given to centrifugal and nationalistic movements among the Slavs of Austria-Hungary. The second Balkan war, which broke up the formidable league that threatened Austria on her southern frontier, has usually been attributed to the “Machiavellian wiles” of Austria. But, though Bulgaria was humbled, there remained a strengthened Rumania, an overgrown Greece, and, most serious of all for the Dual Monarchy, a Serbia which was greatly expanded, flushed with victory, and enthusiastic for union with the Serb peoples of the Hapsburg Empire. And it was the rise of Serbia, which, directly or indirectly, after the murder of the heir to the throne, led the statesmen of the Dual Monarchy to resolve at last to risk the very existence of their empire on an appeal to the sword.
Little that can be considered authentic has been known in this country of the part the aged Emperor played in the war. It was generally believed that it was at a hint from him that the Kaiser determined not to attend the funeral of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but if Francis Joseph had decided to maintain independence of action for his empire, he found it impossible to carry out this policy.
Berlin knew exactly what diplomatic steps Vienna was taking in the last frenzied hours before strife broke out, and, month by month, as the Austrian Army showed itself unable to hold off the Russians, the German influence grew. The Kaiser paid Francis Joseph a visit a few months after the war had begun, and it was followed immediately by rumors that a Zollverein after peace had already been decided upon by the two empires. So in his last days the aged Emperor, weighed down with domestic sorrows and oppressed by the sufferings of his people from the war, saw his authority as a monarch steadily diminished and the prestige of his throne stolen by his ally.
Many Domestic Misfortunes.
Emperor Francis Joseph met with a series of domestic misfortunes which befall few men. The superstitious among his subjects, as again and again they have seen the imperial house plunged into mourning, have called to mind the curse of the Countess Karolyi. Her son was put to death in 1848 for participating in the Kossuth rising, and she called on heaven to blast the happiness of the Emperor, to exterminate his family, to strike him through those he loved, and to wreck his life and ruin his children.
The first in the long roll of Hapsburgs who met a sad fate was the Emperor’s brother Maximilian, whom Napoleon III. sent on his mad expedition to Mexico and there deserted. Then came the mysterious death of his son, the Crown Prince Rudolph, in 1887.
He had been married for six years to the Princess Stéphanie, daughter of the King of Belgium. The marriage had been a loveless one, and the disappointment when, two and a half years after their union, a daughter and not an heir was born to them, was great.
In the Autumn of 1887 the Crown Prince met the Baroness Marie Vetsera. She was a beautiful woman and Rudolph conceived a violent passion for her at first sight. It was whispered that he even intended to resign his rights to the throne in order that he might put away the Princess Stéphanie. The Emperor heard the rumors and sent for his son. A stormy interview followed, but it was announced that the Crown Prince had determined to part from the Baroness.
A last meeting, according to the most reliable of the stories available, was arranged at Rudolph's hunting lodge near Mayerling. Bratfisch, a singer of note, drove them out, and an enjoyable evening was passed with Prince Philip of Coburg, Count Hovos, and Bratfisch. It was noticed that Rudolph, contrary to his usual custom, drank heavily, and it was 2 o’clock before he left his companions.
Next morning at 7 o’clock Bratfisch went to awake him to go hunting. He found, lying on a couch and completely covered with wild flowers, the Baroness dead, and on the floor near her side the Crown Prince, a heavy cavalry pistol in his hand and the back of his head blown off.
The Crown Princess Stéphanie herself a few years later contracted a marriage outside the circle of royalty with Count Elmer Lonyay de Nagy Lonya.
A nephew of the Emperor, the Archduke Johann, has disappeared, and whether he lives or is dead is unknown to this day. As John Orth, skipper of the vessel Santa Margaretha, he is believed to have been wrecked on the voyage to Chile, but many stories have been printed from time to time of his reappearance.
At the terrible fire in Paris which consumed a charity bazaar and burned to death numbers of the most prominent persons of the French capital, the Duchess d’Alençon, the sister-in-law of the Emperor, was one of the victims.
The Empress Elizabeth herself was foully murdered by an Anarchist. She was staying at Geneva in September, 1898, and was taking a walk from her hotel. She was without guards, for it has never been the habit of the Austrian royal family to hide themselves behind the police. A man named Luccheni sprang out upon her and killed her before any one could come to her assistance. When the aged monarch heard the news he exclaimed: “It seems that no sorrow is to be spared me.”
Eight years ago his favorite grandchild, the pretty little Princess Elizabeth, who had married, against Francis Joseph’s wishes, Prince Otto of Windisch-Grätz, shot her husband’s mistress, with whom she surprised him at Prague.
The latest tragedy which afflicted the old Emperor, and the one which directly occasioned the great war in which his reign ended, was the murder on June 28, 1914, at Sarajevo, Bosnia, of his nephew and heir, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and the Duchess of Hohenberg, the Archduke’s consort. This murder, by a band of Serbs who thought they were striking for Bosnian independence, brought on the war between Austria and Serbia, and then the great European war. It left the young Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, grandnephew of the late Emperor, as the heir to the throne.
Chief Servant of His People.
But with all his private griefs Francis Joseph ever bore himself as the chief servant of his people. He mixed freely among them, he received them in public audience, and worked harder at the business of governing than any of his Ministers.
Twice a week, when he was in Vienna, he received in audience any one who had a petition to lay before him. Standing at a table, he would greet the petitioner without formality, and, referring to a paper on which was a list of those to be admitted, he would inquire closely into the complaint in whatever one of the seventeen languages of his dominions the petitioner might happen to speak. On his hunting trips in the mountains he wandered about without ceremony, and many a mountaineer has had the Emperor stop at his cottage for a friendly chat or a few minutes' rest.
THE NEW EMPEROR.
Carl Francis Joseph a Good Linguist—Popular in Vienna
The new Emperor, Carl Francis Joseph, is only twenty-nine years old. He has as yet had little opportunity to make himself known, for until the tragedy at Serajevo the personality of the late Archduke Francis Ferdinand occupied all those who speculated on what would follow the death of Francis Joseph.
Nevertheless, the new Emperor is very popular personally, as he embodies many of the traits generally considered typical of the Viennese character.
He is the grand-nephew of Francis Joseph, and the eldest sone of the Archduke Otto, younger brother of the murdered Francis Ferdinand. The mother of the new Kaiser, who is still living, was the Princess Maria Josepha of Saxony. He has a younger brother, Maximilian Eugen Ludwig, who is nineteen years old, and was studying law when the European war began.
Carl Francis Joseph was born at Persenbeug on Aug. 17, 1887. He attended the public schools of Vienna, this being a great shock to sticklers for etiquette about the court; but much of his popularity dates from this early association with the sons of workingmen. He is a Major in the Thirty-ninth Austrian Infantry, and holds honorary commissions in various Prussian, Saxon, and Bavarian regiments. Among his honorary orders are those of the Golden Fleece, the Black Eagle, and St. Hubert.
He has been widely known as a sportsman, though not so much as the late Francis Ferdinand. He is an excellent shot and an enthusiastic motorist, and was an admirable dancer until a skating accident a few years ago put an end to his ballroom activities. Opera and the theatre have been among his chief enthusiasms, but, as befits a true Viennese, his preference, according to rumor, is for operettas of home manufacture. He speaks English, French, German, Hungarian, and some Slavic languages, and is said to have made a close study of the various national problems of the Slavic races of the empire.
The new Empress was Princess Zita of the Bourbon house of Parma. This Duchy was made a part of the Kingdom of Italy after 1859, since which time the principal residence of the ducal family has been at the Castle of Schwarzau near Vienna. It was here that the Princess Zita was married on Oct. 21, 1911. Her father, Duke Robert of Parma, who died in 1907, was married first to Princes Maria Pia of the Two Sicilies, and secondly to Princess Maria Antonia of Schwarzau. Duke Henry, the present head of the House, is an offspring of the first marriage, the Princess Zita of the second. She was born at the Villa Pianore, near Viareggio, on May 9, 1892.
The new Emperor has always been devoted to his wife. Their union is said to have been the result of a pure love match. The alliance is said to have been looked on unfavorably by the old Emperor—the more particularly as he had hoped, according to persistent rumor, that Carl Francis Joseph would marry a daughter of the Archduchess Marie Valeria, his own daughter, who was married in 1890 to the Archduke Francis Salvator of Hapsburg-Tuscany.
Upon making the acquaintance of the Princess Zita, however, the old Emperor relented, and soon gave his consent to her marriage to the Archduke. It is even said that she so strongly reminded him of his dead wife that he exclaimed that she would make a second Elizabeth.
The new Empress has two sons, the elder of whom, the Archduke Francis Joseph Otto, was born at the Villa Wartholz, near Reichenau, on Nov. 30, 1912. The younger, Louis, was born on Feb. 8, 1915. There is also a daughter, Archduchess Adelaide, who was born Jan. 3, 1914.
The new Emperor is said to be devoted to his family, and while an Archduke could often be seen on the Vienna Ring wheeling his first son and her in a perambulator. A model family man, a handsome officer, a linguist, a sportsman, a good soldier, and a patron of musical comedy, he has been so far in the minds of the populace very much what a Prince ought to be.
GERARD REGRETS HIS DEATH.
But Will Not Discuss Probable Effect of Emperor’s Passing.
Ambassador Gerard, when told last night that Emperor Joseph was dead, said:
“I am very sorry to hear of it.”
He said that he could not comment on any possible effect the Emperor’s death might have on the war.
No Word Yet to Washington Embassy.
Special to The New York Times.
WASHINGTON, Wednesday, Nov. 22—Up to an early hour this morning the Austro-Hungarian Embassy had not received official notification of the death of the Emperor.
It was said there that the Embassy had heard that the Emperor was ill with a bronchial affection.