Royal Profile: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria

Today ‘Archduke Ferdinand’ (as he is often incorrectly known) is probably one of the best known yet least understood royal figures of the 20th Century. Most people have heard of him but only because it was his assassination which caused the spark that ignited the powder keg of World War One. He was, however, a much more far-sighted man than he is often given credit for and, in many ways, he seemed to sense the calamity that was approaching Europe and which would overtake it upon his death. However, much of this remained unknown due to his style and personality which often masked how modern-minded a man he was. He was born on December 18, 1863 to Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria (younger brother of Emperor Francis Joseph) and Princess Maria Annunciata of the Two Sicilies. In 1889 HIRH Crown Prince Rudolf died which made Archduke Karl Ludwig heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, however, only a few days later he abdicated his rights making Franz Ferdinand the successor to his uncle the Emperor.

In the years since, many have tried to portray the Archduke as spoiled, aloof and uninformed but that could not be farther from the truth. He was wealthy, having inherited the fortune of his cousin the Duke of Modena and he was more of an avid sportsman than an intellectual but he was also well educated, well traveled and took his position as heir to the throne seriously. He devoted a great deal of his time to studying the problems of Austria-Hungary and how he might one day solve them, looking to examples from history and the world around him for ideas. He traveled extensively across Europe and around the world visiting Australia, Japan and Canada on one trip alone. He served in the army and was found to have a natural talent for organization, eventually becoming inspector general of the Imperial & Royal armed forces in 1913. His personality was such that he could seem a bit authoritarian at times but this was certainly not his character as his private life clearly shows.

To the immense dismay of his uncle the Kaiser he fell in love with the Countess Sophie Chotek after meeting her at a party in Prague in 1895. They kept their romance a secret for two years because of the disapproval of the Emperor. Finally, however, the Archduke made it clear that he would have no other wife but his beloved Sophie. Emperor Francis Joseph was outraged, considering the countess to be of far too low a rank to be wed to the heir to the Hapsburg throne but the Emperor would not budge. The Tsar of Russia, the German Kaiser and even the Pope all wrote to the Emperor urging him to agree to the marriage and finally he relented. The couple were married on July 1, 1900 but the Emperor would never allow the countess any additional privileges. Their children would have no rights to the throne, she would not have the title of her husband and so on. For the rest of his life the Emperor would refer to the countess as the “scullery maid” (she had previously been a lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Teschen) and always regretted allowing the marriage. Nonetheless, despite these difficulties the Archduke adored his wife and wrote in a very touching letter in 1904, “The most intelligent thing I’ve ever done in my life has been the marriage to my Soph. She is everything to me: my wife, my adviser, my doctor, my warner, in a word: my entire happiness. Now, After four years, we love each other as on our first year of marriage, and our happiness has not been marred for a single second.”

Obviously, the true character and personality of the man was not what most assumed it to be based on his reserve in public and his often heated confrontations with the Emperor. However, the misunderstandings regarding the Archduke overlap with the misunderstandings of the Dual-Empire as a whole. It has become fashionable to view Austria-Hungary as a doomed state, government remaining stagnant while the world pushed ahead, ready to bring down the edifice that refused to adapt. However, this was not the case. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, though a very conservative, Catholic prince, could see that problems existed and were growing worse and he worked on a plan to solve them. He was not a man who resisted any change at all on principle nor was he a militaristic expansionist (which often put him at odds with the Chief of the General Staff).

Archduke Franz Ferdinand realized that the greatest threat to Hapsburg stability was the Slavs in the southern part of the empire. To deal with them and to hopefully put to rest all of the ethnic discontent in Austria-Hungary, he proposed a version of the idea of federalism. Some called this the “United States of Greater Austria” (and, indeed, America was an example) in which all ethnic groups in their own regions would have an equal voice in government. Concerning the Slavs in particular, others called the plan of the Archduke “Trialism”; putting the Slavic peoples on an equal footing with the Germans of Austria and the Magyars of Hungary. In fact, most of the southern Slavs fell under the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Hungary and so, not surprisingly, there was little love lost between the Archduke and the Hungarians who were to be his future subjects. Franz Ferdinand thought Hungary needed reform, both in how they treated their own minorities and in how they administered government. In fact, he threatened to refuse being crowned King of Hungary if their government did not pass universal suffrage. Surely this was hardly in keeping with the image of the Archduke as an aloof authoritarian.

However, in a way, it was his foresight that was to be his undoing. When he became the target for assassins while on a visit to Sarajevo it was not because of what he had done wrong to the Serbs but for what the extreme Serb nationalists feared he would do right. The Archduke had actually opposed the annexation of Bosnia from the Ottoman Turks because he feared it would upset the European balance of power. So, he had not even wanted Austria-Hungary to rule Bosnia. Furthermore, it was his plan to create a federal Austria-Hungary with the Slavs being raised to equal status with the Austrians and Hungarians that the violent Serb nationalists saw as a threat. After all, if the Slavs were given political autonomy, if their grievances were all addressed, they might not be so receptive to the idea of risking war to throw off Hapsburg rule in favor of the dream of a “Greater Serbia”. So, again, it was not because of what he had done to mistreat the Slavs but specifically because of what he planned to do on their behalf.

And so, we come to that fateful Sunday, June 28, 1914 when, after surviving a bomb thrown in their direction, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were gunned down while riding in an open car by the Serb terrorist Gavrilo Princip. Even with his last breaths his concern was for his beloved wife and children. He died shortly after reaching the town hall and, taking the side of either Austria-Hungary or Serbia, the rest of Europe and soon the world began marching down the path to the most ruinous war mankind had yet witnessed.