Franz Joseph, properly Franz Joseph I 1830-1916
Emperor of Austria, and King of Hungary

Born at the Sch�nbrunn Palace, Vienna, he was the son of the Archduke Francis (Emperor Francis I's son), and the nephew of Ferdinand I (1793-1875), whom he succeeded (1848). He reigned longer than any other European monarch. His first task was to subdue the Hungarian revolt and pacify Lombardy. Having accomplished this, the aspirations of the various nationalities of the empire were rigorously suppressed, and a determined effort made to fuse them into one state. The emperor reasserted his claim to rule as an absolute sovereign, he reverted to a policy of bureaucratic centralization, and a close alliance was entered into with the Church to combat liberal progress. In 1859 Lombardy was wrested from Austria by Sardinia. Through the war with Prussia (1866) Austria was ostracized by Germany, and compelled to surrender Venetia to Sardinia, Prussia's ally. Hungary was granted autonomy in the Compromise of 1867, and Franz Joseph took the additional title of King of Hungary. The emperor then adopted a more conciliatory policy towards the various national groups within the empire. His annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (1908) agitated Europe and his attack on Serbia (1914) precipitated World War I. By the suicide at Mayerling of his son Rudolf (1858-89), and the murder at Sarajevo of his heir apparent, Franz Ferdinand, eldest son of the emperor's brother Charles Louis (1833-96), the crown passed to Charles. Elizabeth of Bavaria (1837-98), Franz Joseph's wife, was fatally stabbed in Geneva by an anarchist.