Holy Roman Emperor Charles V

Emperor Charles V is an historical figure somewhat difficult to approach. His background was so diverse; a Spanish King and German Emperor born in Belgium of an Austrian family with Swiss roots and one could go on. He is a colossal figure in European history and a man with a rather colorful life story. Charles V was reflective of the Renaissance in his knowledge and tastes, he could discuss religion or art with the best of them. Charles V had several mistresses and a few illegitimate children, yet is still seen today as the Catholic champion of Europe. Hailed ever after as the most ardent defender of Christendom, he nonetheless made peace with the Protestants and waged war against the Pope. His was the first empire upon which it was said that “the sun never set”. In World War II he was featured on a special postage stamp by the Nazi SS as a German historical figure who dominated so much of the world and yet, at the end of his life, he willingly gave up his power and saw to it that no one member of the House of Hapsburg would hold such vast territories again. Charles V is a fascinating individual, probably not as well known in the English-speaking world as he should be, but throughout most of his lifetime practically every major event in Europe happened because of or in reaction to him. Emperor Charles V was, and is, a giant figure on the pages of history.

He was the son of Philip the Handsome and Joanna the Mad, born on February 24, 1500 in Ghent, Belgium and, given the rather tragic fate of his parents, he was brought up in the “Low Countries” to a large extent, looked after by his aunt Margaret in Burgundy. It was only 1506 when he inherited the Burgundian lands of his father and this, combined with the upbringing of his aunt, impressed upon him the terrible responsibilities of power. Throughout his life, especially for a man of the Renaissance, he would have a very Medieval view of government and monarchy with limitations on power, important decisions made by councils and keeping power on the local level where possible. He had to grow up very fast as he was still only a youth when he began to inherit his most lofty crowns. On January 23, 1516 he became King of Spain and on June 28 1519 he became Holy Roman Emperor of the German nation. He had his German coronation at Aachen on October 26, 1520; was crowned King of Italy on February 22, 1530 in Bologna and on February 24, 1530 was crowned Emperor of the Romans by the Pope making him the last German Emperor to be crowned by the Pope and thus officially “Holy Roman Emperor” rather than “Holy Roman Emperor-Elect” as most actually were.

Charles V confronts Martin Luther

Religious matters would dominate a great deal of his reign and one of the first problems he had to address was the growing controversy over a certain man named Martin Luther. At the famous Diet of Worms the Emperor met Luther face to face and listened to him make his case. Needless to say, the Emperor was not impressed and gave a quote eloquent response based on history and tradition, saying, “For it is certain that a single monk must err if he stands against the opinion of all Christendom. Otherwise Christendom itself would have erred for more than a thousand years”. Luther, we now know, did not actually say, “Here I stand, I can do no other” but, in any event, he refused to recant his beliefs and the Emperor refused to break his word and have him arrested on the spot. So, Luther was free to go and continued to spread his new religious ideas, which would ultimately lead to the creation of the Lutheran church, the Protestant movement and the further splitting of Christendom. This was, obviously, a major concern for Charles V who, as Emperor, saw himself as the chief guardian of Christendom and while he did not try to rule everyone directly, he would take swift action against any threat to his authority. The spread of Protestantism was definitely such a threat and he wanted the Church to do something about it.

The problem with that was that the Catholic Church, which had been around for a while, had seen or thought they had seen people like Martin Luther before. They would rise up, preaching some novelty but eventually fade away and be forgotten. But Luther could point to very real problems and corruptions in the Church with simony, absentee bishops, the selling of indulgences and so on which were having a real impact. This was particularly true in Germany where nationalism was a useful tool as well. It was often easy to convince people to support a German church founded by a German man rather than to pay tithes to an Italian prince far away in Rome. To head-off this problem, Emperor Charles V wanted the Pope to call a council to sort these problems out. Today it seems obvious, especially in light of what happened later at the Council of Trent, and the Popes seem criminally uncaring or lazy not to heed the advice of the King of Spain and German Emperor. However, to be fair to the Pontiffs, history is always close at hand in Rome and throughout the history of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, when an Emperor started calling for a council of bishops it was usually intended to end in the forced removal of the Pope in favor of a more pliable candidate. After this happened several times, the Popes became rather reluctant to call councils together, especially when a German Emperor was the one pushing for it. It was certainly a mistake for the Catholic Church overall that the Emperor was not listened to but one can see why the Popes would have been inclined to put him off and wait for Lutheranism to fade away.

The Emperor and King Francis I

In 1522 pro-Lutheran nobles rose up in the Knights’ War which Charles V had to put down, followed by the even nastier Peasants’ Revolt in 1524 which even Luther was horrified by. To make matters worse, as far as the Emperor was concerned anyway, while Protestant rebellions were becoming a major problem in Germany, the Catholic south was coming under renewed attack by the Ottoman Turks who were never more effective than at that time under the skilled leadership of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. In 1522 they launched a massive attack on the island of Rhodes, defended by the Knights of St John. The island fell and Emperor Charles allowed the Knights to relocate to Malta. On land, by 1526 the Turkish armies had penetrated far into Europe, wiping out the Hungarian army and killing King Louis of Hungary at the battle of Mohacs. And if that was not enough bad news for Charles V, German possessions in northern Italy were attacked by the French under King Francis I in 1524. The Emperor moved to meet this threat in person, aware of the fact that Pope Clement VII had allied with the King of France in an effort to prevent the German domination of Italy. The result was the battle of Pavia which was a smashing success for Emperor Charles V who totally defeated the French army and took Francis I prisoner. He gave up claims to imperial territories while in captivity but, after being released, said he was not bound by agreements signed while he was a prisoner and renewed his campaign against Charles V in alliance with the Pope.

In 1526 Charles married Isabella of Portugal, daughter of King Manuel I, whom he loved and adored and had many children with. He was not a flawless man when it came to women but the illegitimate children he had were born before his marriage or after the death of Isabella who passed away after giving birth to their sixth child. The birth of Don John of Austria notwithstanding, Charles V was greatly saddened by her death and wore black for the rest of his life thereafter. However, all of that would come later. In 1527, only a year after his marriage, Charles V launched the invasion that would result in what must be the one really shameful mark on his reign, a horror almost unsurpassed in history. Gathering a motley force of Spanish and German troops (many of whom were Lutheran Protestants), Charles V launched an invasion of Italy aimed at destroying the alliance arranged by Pope Clement VII and bringing papal Rome firmly under his control. The Pope had counted on the King of France to come to his rescue but that did not happen and soon his other allies abandoned him as well. On the other side, because of the seemingly endless wars and the many rebellions in Germany, the Emperor was cash-strapped and when his troops approached Rome they were tired, hungry, impoverished and angry.

A beaten Pope crowns Charles Emperor of the Romans

The result was the horrific “sack of Rome” in which the Swiss Guard were wiped out, fighting to the last man to defend the Pope, who was himself nearly killed. Clement VII barricaded himself inside Castel Sant Angelo with as many Roman refugees as could be fit in while the imperial troops went on the rampage, committing acts of destruction, pillage, murder and sacrilege that are truly too terrible to repeat. It was worse than anything the barbarian invaders of Imperial Rome had ever done and a witness who was a veteran of the wars against the Muslims remarked that no Muslim was ever so cruel or vicious toward an enemy as the imperial troops were toward the helpless Romans. It was sadism and bloodlust run rampant. Now, to be fair, it must be said that Charles V could not have known that such an infamy would have happened, he certainly did not order it and he was horrified in the aftermath when he learned of the details. However, as it was he who sent the army to conquer Rome in the first place, he must accept the ultimate and theoretic responsibility for that. Still, he was aghast at what happened but still enough of a man of the world to use it to his advantage and in the aftermath of such an atrocity Pope Clement VII agreed to all of his demands and was then released from captivity by the end of the year. His power was unquestioned but, that being so, he was able to be magnanimous and restored the Papal States to Clement VII and Florence to the Medici family. Some may say it was largely symbolic but it was something a vindictive man would never have done and something he did not have to do in light of his victory.

In the aftermath, things continued to go well for Charles V. He worked to make peace with the Protestants in Germany, ending finally in 1532 with the Peace of Nurnberg that granted freedom of religion to the Protestants. In 1535 the Emperor led an attack on the Muslim forces in North Africa, capturing Tunis and the following year defeating French forces in Italy and repelling a French attack on the Low Countries. And, in the meantime, the Emperor reformed the legal system, financed Ferdinand Magellan in his voyage to circumnavigate the globe and saw the Spanish empire in the Americas continue to expand. However, the religious divide in Germany continued to be a problem with war flaring up again in 1547. The Emperor was again victorious but allowed the Protestants to keep what lands they had gained and to continue their religious practices in the peace that followed. It was a short-lived peace though as rebellion broke out again under the leadership of Maurice of Saxony. After more fighting Charles V decided the best way to restore order would be to enact a new law called the Peace of Augsburg which stated that the land and people would adopt the religion of their local noble lord. If he were Catholic, his people would be Catholic and if Protestant the people would be Protestant.

The abdication of Emperor Charles V

With peace again secured in Germany in 1555, by the following year Charles V was weary of his crowns and decided to abdicate. However, rather than leave everything to his heir to carry on as he had done, Charles V decided to divide the responsibilities and left his German crown to his brother Ferdinand and his Spanish crown (including the Low Countries) to his son Philip. In giving up power, he advised his son to trust God, maintain the Catholic faith and to respect the rights of his subjects. That done, the most powerful man in the western world walked away from it all and retired to a palace-monastery in Spain, devoting himself to prayer and reflection, where he lived the rest of his life, passing away a few years later in 1558. To his son and heir King Philip II, he apologized for not being able to do better and handing him a Europe that was torn by division, however, were it not for his stamina and determination, Europe would have looked considerably different. He had faced constant threats on almost every side and while not always totally successfully (especially in Germany) he could at least say that he had never been totally defeated. Through victory on the battlefield or negotiated concessions, he had maintained all he had inherited, even expanded it a little and left behind a Spain that was riding high, expanding in the New World, allied to England and a Germany that, while divided, was still at peace, dominant in Italy and which had seen the Turkish threat driven back from the gates of Vienna. Truly, Emperor Charles V had left a mark on the pages of history that few others, before or since, could hope to match.

Struggle for Monarchy on the U.S.-Mexican Border

Throughout most of the 1860’s war was raging on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. North of the Rio Grande American fought American and south of the Rio Grande Mexican fought Mexican with outside assistance for each. It was inevitable that the two would overlap but few today are aware of the struggle between republicans and monarchists that was going on right in the backyard of Texas. At the end of the American Civil War roughly eight to ten thousand Confederates fled to Mexico (then the [second] Mexican Empire) rather than live under Union rule. The Mexicans called them los Confederados and some of the more notable ones included Texas governors Edward Clark and Pendleton Murrah as well as generals such as Edmund Kirby Smith, Sterling Price, John B. Magruder and Joseph O. Shelby. For some, the war in Mexico was quick to greet them such as when Missouri General Mosley Monroe Parsons along with his officers and their families were robbed and then massacred by republican bandits. Others made the trip safely and offered their support to the embattled Emperor Maximilian.

The welcome given to the Confederates in Mexico did not help the already tense relations between the United States and the Empire of Mexico. General Tomas Mejia of the Imperial Mexican Army was wary of the increasing number of U.S. troops being sent to the south Texas border. The U.S. had been openly antagonistic about the French intervention in Mexico and never recognized the government of Emperor Maximilian. The largely African-American force of U.S. soldiers on the border were sympathetic to the fugitive Mexican president, Benito Juarez, with only some of the more devoutly Catholic Irish-American U.S. soldiers speaking favorably of Maximilian because of his greater respect for the Church compared to the notoriously anti-clerical Juarez. In time, both the Mexican imperial and republican armies on the border would come to include former U.S. and Confederate soldiers. The Confederates naturally took the side of Emperor Maximilian for the most part, due to his closeness with Imperial France which had been somewhat friendly toward the Confederacy. Most of the Union soldiers sided with Juarez and the republicans. Some still serving with the U.S. Army were allowed and even encouraged to “desert”, cross the border and join the forces of Benito Juarez. Despite orders from Washington to the contrary, Union officers provided large amounts of supplies, uniforms, guns and ammunition to the Juaristas.

As always, the conflict on the border had a style all its own. On one side was General Mejia with 3,000 imperial troops, including about 300 French and Austrian soldiers. Their army was harassed constantly by the regular and bandit forces of Benito Juarez as well as the bandits of the local border chieftain Juan Cortina who switched allegiances several times. In the summer of 1865 General Mejia embarked on an offensive toward Camargo that cleared out the republican bandits and Juaristas. Consolidation was able to take place and the city of Matamoros was cleaned up and work even got underway by a Belgian company to build an opera house in anticipation of a visit by the Emperor and Empress.

Juan Cortina

The bandit-chief Cortina continued to be very problematic though. On May 1, 1865 he joined with Juarista General Miguel Negrete for a three-day attack on Matamoros. The Imperial Army of General Mejia defeated them and sent the Juaristas packing but Cortina stayed behind. U.S. forces even allowed the Cortinistas to recruit new men in Brownsville, Texas across the river, to use U.S. Army camps on the Texas side of the border and to buy U.S. guns and ammunition. The French, naturally, protested this blatant violation of American neutrality but the U.S. effectively ignored them. Cortina was even employed in trying to track down the Confederates entering Mexico but with little effectiveness.

Eventually, Cortina drove the imperialistas out of Camargo but he was in turn dealt severe defeats in an attempted raid on an imperial supply train and an imperialista attack on his own encampment. The situation soon degenerated into a no-holds-barred guerilla war. The French and Mexican imperialists decided to fight fire with fire and turned to the flamboyant and vicious Colonel Charles Dupin, leader of the contra-guerillas who struck the republican forces with such ferocity and cruelty that he was nicknamed the “hyena of Tamaulipas” and his men, the “Red Devils”. However, both sides were equally brutal no doubt about it.

Tomas Mejia

The primary goal of the republican forces on the border was to drive the Imperialistas out of Matamoros. Toward this goal, U.S. General Lew Wallace (future author of “Ben-Hur”) and Mexican rebel Jose Maria Jesus Carbajal collected men, money and weapons for an ‘Army of the North’ to attack the city. The effort began in October of 1865 with an attack by Juarista General Mariano Escobedo. General Mejia met the challenge bravely, at one point personally leading a charge with five hundred cavalry to drive out Juaristas who had broken through his defenses. Supporting fire came from the French gunboat “Paisano” on the Rio Grande which shelled the Juaristas from the river. Another French gunboat, the “Antonia”, was actually openly fired upon by U.S. troops on the Texas side of the river. In fact, Escobedo’s republican army included many U.S. soldiers on “leaves of absence” to participate in the battle and help ensure a Juarista victory. Cortina’s men were also involved and harassed the French marines from the safety of U.S. soil. Of course, General Mejia and the local French naval commander in the Gulf of Mexico protested such blatant violations of American neutrality and, of course, it did them no good whatsoever.

The attack on Matamoros went on for sixteen days until an imperial cavalry patrol discovered that the Juaristas had abandoned their lines and retreated on November 9. Total losses for the Juaristas amounted to five hundred dead or wounded and fifty-eight taken prisoner while General Mejia had lost fewer than twelve. Yet, as long as the republicans remained in the area the fight went on with Juarista raiders attacking French and Imperialista detachments. In December, General Escobedo even managed to take Monterrey though it was quickly taken back by only seven hundred imperial cavalry. The town of Bagdad also came under attack, first by American land pirates and again in January of 1866 by forces allied with the scheming U.S. General Lew Wallace. Lt. Colonel J.D. Davis commanding the 118th Colored Troops (the official designation for African-Americans serving in the U.S. Army at the time) at Clarksville, Texas also allowed the invaders to pass and many of his troops even joined the expedition. The raiders overcame the guards at Bagdad on January 5, surprised and captured the guard commander and murdered the imperialist mayor. The town was seized and plundered by the American forces.

Imperial Mexican troops

With all sides taken by surprise, soldiers of the 2nd U.S. Colored Troops entered Mexico and took possession of Bagdad. Pressure from local merchants and leading citizens of the area forced a U.S. investigation but naturally no American officers were punished for what amounted to an unauthorized (presumably) U.S. invasion of a foreign country with which the U.S. was not at war. The Americans naturally allowed the republicans to take over, but these forces evacuated on the 24th and monarchist rule was restored though it took threats of a French blockade of Brazos de Santiago to see even a fraction of what was looted returned to Mexico. In the end, it was of little consequence because, with the U.S. again in control of the Texas side of the border, the Mexican Imperial forces could not hold out for long. Already the U.S. had applied diplomatic pressure to stop Austria-Hungary sending reinforcements to their volunteers in Mexico and equal pressure was being put on Napoleon III to get the French out before a massive American army invaded to push them out. With republican bandits to their south and unfriendly U.S. forces across the river to the north, supplies soon grew scarce for the imperialistas in Matamoros.

Emperor Maximilian

As spring turned to summer in 1866 the tide of war began to turn irreversibly against the forces of Emperor Maximilian on the northern frontier of Mexico. Throughout the summer of 1866 republican forces re-took Chihuahua, Guadalajara, Tampico, Acapulco, Monterrey, Saltillo and even Matamoros as the French pulled out of Mexico and U.S. aid to the republicans, in men and materials, increased. On the border, Matamoros was the key position and Mejia and his imperial forces were in a precarious position. As a change in the wind was felt by all, Mexican units formerly loyal to the Emperor began to waver and the key battle came on June 14, 1866. A large imperialista column, already brought near to ruin by thirst and lack of supplies, was ambushed by a massive republican army at the battle of Santa Gertrudis, known thereafter as the ‘Waterloo of the Mexican Empire’. During the grueling fight the equivalent of two whole battalions of Mexican troops deserted to the Juarista side, leaving their former comrades to their fate. Much of the cavalry abandoned the fight to save themselves while the Austrian contingent decided to go out in a blaze of glory, fixed their bayonets and launched a last, suicidal charge into the republican lines. The most unfortunate were the contra-guerillas who, whether armed or not, wounded or not, were immediately shot by the republicans. Millions of dollars worth of supplies, equipment and war materials were captured and in the aftermath, after learning of the disaster, General Mejia had no choice but to abandon Matamoros and retreat south. It marked the end of the conflict on the border and the beginning of the end for the cause of the noble Emperor Maximilian.

Story of Monarchy: Austria-Hungary

The story of the monarchy lastly known as Austria-Hungary, previously known as the Austrian Empire, has its roots in that entity known as the Holy Roman Empire or the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The Austrian Empire was the primary successor state of what had long been the Holy Roman Empire, that entity perhaps best remembered today from that line by the perpetually smug and smirking “Enlightenment” writer Voltaire who said, “This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire”. The intention of Voltaire (with whom The Mad Monarchist is certainly not in sympathy) was, of course, to simply pour scorn on a traditional European institution as pouring scorn was the one thing he did best, however, he was, in a sense, correct. Partly because of people like himself. The “Holy” aspect had fallen considerably after the advent of religious divisions within the empire and the so-called “Enlightenment” later, of which Voltaire was a part. The “Roman” aspect had almost always been an empty title, the Empire was German and not Roman or Italian. It was the Popes who actually ruled in Rome and who could be counted on to fiercely resist efforts by the Emperor to control that city. As for being an “Empire” it was more often than not hardly how people today would define one. At times strong monarchs would arise and dominate and centralize things but, for the most part, it was more a confederation of minor states than a united empire.

Truth be told, for quite some time before the Holy Roman Empire was formally abolished, certainly by the time that Prussia claimed royal status and began to rise as a power, what most people meant when they spoke of the Holy Roman Empire (or simply “The Empire”) was actually what would become the Austrian Empire. It was that considerable territory ruled by the House of Hapsburg, later the House of Hapsburg-Lorraine, which had long held the first place in the Holy Roman Empire and which would continue to reign over the Austrian Empire and the subsequent “Dual Monarchy” of Austria-Hungary. The Austrian Empire came into being as a result of the victor of Napoleon of France over the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, resulting in the Treaty of Pressburg in 1805. Most of the German-speaking world then fell under the control or influence of Napoleonic France with the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine. In 1804 Napoleon had already crowned himself Emperor of the French and Francis II suspected that, as there had traditionally been only one emperor in the west and one in the east, that Napoleon was planning on becoming the next Holy Roman Emperor whether in fact or in name. To avoid such an occurrence, in 1806 Francis II abdicated his position (officially that of Emperor-Elect) and dissolved the Holy Roman Empire to become instead Emperor Francis I of Austria.

This did not end Austrian involvement with the rest of the German states, as some might have expected before the downfall of Napoleon, but it did move Austria in that direction. Previous Holy Roman Emperors had tried to solidify Austrian leadership in the German-speaking world; most recently with Emperor Joseph II (who Francis I greatly admired) but he was blocked by the Prussian King Frederick the Great. With the creation of the new Austrian Empire, while Austria joined in subsequent loose unions of the German states, most of the Hapsburg territories (of which Hungary was the largest part) remained on the outside. It was also during this period that the Hapsburg realm became even more diverse which inevitably weakened the position of the German-speaking Austrians. When making peace with Napoleon, Austria lost a sizeable amount of territory (such as Belgium) but was also ceded territory in Italy such as about half of all that remained of the old Republic of Venice. By the time it was all over, much of northern Italy fell under Austrian control as the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, ironically thanks to the success of Napoleon and revolutionary France (the First Republic).

In the end, the Austrian Empire emerged from the Napoleonic Wars in what seemed to be a very strong position. Distant territories that were very hard to defend were renounced but new territory was gained so that the Empire of Austria was easily one of the major European powers. Austria was blessed with a monarch like Emperor Francis I who was strong, practical and a man capable of making tough decisions as well as an “elder statesman” in the person of Prince Metternich who helped re-draw the map of Europe to maintain a balance of powers and to encourage traditional monarchial bloc to guard against revolutionary republicanism that, aside from being an inherently bad idea, would disrupt the balance and could plunge the continent into war again. Austria also maintained a leadership position in the new German Confederation with the Austrian Emperor holding the position of President of the Confederation. Initially, with strong leadership in Vienna, allies abroad and a little simple luck, the Austrian Empire had relatively smooth sailing. However, although critics like to pretend Austria was a totally absolute monarchy, the Austrian Empire was a constitutional monarchy and government control of the budget proved to be a dangerous problem. This was primarily felt in terms of the military. With so many ethnic minorities all wanting more political power, a strong imperial army was essential but, all too often, the military was neglected when it came to funding.

These ethnic tensions combined with militant liberalism to boil over in 1848 when revolutions broke out all over Europe. Emperor Francis I was gone and Emperor Ferdinand I, though a perfectly wonderful man, was simply not up to the challenge. It was a moment of terrible crisis with riots in Vienna, rebellions in Italy and in Hungary. This could have very easily been the end of the Austrian Empire with northern Italy and Hungary engulfed in rebellion there was really only enough military strength to suppress one or the other but not both. There were also other uprisings in almost every minority group such as the Slovaks, the Serbs, the Poles and the Czechs. In the end, a new monarch came to the throne, Emperor Francis Joseph I, and the rebellions in Austrian territory were suppressed. In Hungary, the new Emperor asked Tsar Nicholas I of Russia for help and in a show of monarchial solidarity he sent a Russian army into Hungary to aid the Austrians in putting down the rebellion. Even then, the Hungarian rebels might have done better had it not been for the rebellion of minority ethnic groups in their own territory. This caused some to draw back and renew their support for the Hapsburgs, reasoning that they were stronger together than they would be apart and that an independent Hungary might lose considerable territories to ethnic rebellions of their own.

Between the Austrians, Russians and others the rebellion in Hungary was finally crushed. The situation was restored to the way things had been before 1848 but the House of Hapsburg would never be able to sleep quite so peacefully again. They had come dangerously close to the brink and had only narrowly avoided disaster. Dealing with the competing demands of the numerous ethnic groups of the empire would come to dominate almost every national discussion. The situation became even more acute following the Crimean War which resulted in Austria being further isolated on the European stage. After the help Tsar Nicholas I had given Francis Joseph I in Hungary, he expected the Austrians to come to his aid in that conflict and when he did not it helped ensure a lasting enmity between Austria and Russia. The Austrian Empire was thus almost surrounded by hostile or at least unfriendly powers on almost every side save their border with the German states and even there a rivalry was already growing between the Austrians and the most powerful of the German states, the Kingdom of Prussia. While minority groups remained problematic and Hungarian loyalty (because of how close to success the rebellion there had been) became more and more a matter of negotiation, Imperial Austria was also threatened by an alliance between the Second French Empire and the emerging Kingdom of Italy.

In 1859 an ill-advised ultimatum to Piedmont-Sardinia sparked the Second Italian War for Independence between Austria on one side and France and Piedmont-Sardinia on the other. Emperor Francis Joseph I took the field himself and met Emperor Napoleon III in battle but it was a bloody disaster, fairly ruinous for both sides but resulting in Austria losing Lombardy. Frustrated in the south, the Austrian Empire looked north and fought in the coalition against Denmark with Prussia and the rest of the German Confederation but Prussia was soon determined to supplant Austria as the preeminent German-speaking power. In 1866 Prussia (and Italy) went to war against Austria which was totally isolated. Again, due to penny-pinching with the military, Austria was swiftly and decisively defeated, losing her place in the community of German states to Prussia and losing Venice to Italy. However, as long as actual German unification did not take place, there was still hope that Austria might regain her place and it was toward that end that Emperor Francis Joseph finally gave in to the demands for Hungarian autonomy as to be able to focus on the Prussian rival without worrying about another rebellion in Hungary. So it was that the Compromise of 1867 came about, creating the “Dual Monarchy” of Austria-Hungary which saw separate but equal parliaments and prime ministers for both halves of the Hapsburg realm; one in Vienna for the Empire of Austria and one in Budapest for the Kingdom of Hungary.

This put an end, at least for the moment, to Hungarian demands for separation that had arisen during the crisis with Prussia but in later years it had the detrimental side-effect of encouraging other ethnicities (in both Austria and Hungary) to demand the same concessions. However, if the goal was to stop the Prussian ascendancy, it would prove a futile gesture, though not because of any action on the part of Austria-Hungary. An alliance against Prussia was proposed between French Emperor Napoleon III, King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy and Emperor Francis Joseph I of Austria-Hungary. Had this come about, European history might have unfolded quite differently. However, the proposed alliance fell apart over the presence of French troops in Rome which Bonaparte refused to withdraw for fear of losing Catholic support at home. The Italians would not agree to any alliance with France while French troops remained on the Italian peninsula and Austria-Hungary would not agree to an alliance that did not include Italy (for fear that in any conflict, Italy would come in on the other side against them). In the end, nothing was done, France remained alone, just as Austria had been and in 1870 was defeated by Prussia and her allies which resulted in the creation of the German Empire under Prussian leadership. In the aftermath, with the united Germany an established fact, Austria-Hungary could only look to the east and south for her future and would need allies against Russia which she was sure to collide with in such a move.

A “Triple Alliance” was agreed to by Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary in 1882. For the Austro-Hungarians, the focus remained on the Balkans, particularly with the rise in pan-Slavic nationalism and the breakup of the European territories of the Ottoman Empire. By that time, Austria-Hungary had already occupied and administered the politically sensitive region of Bosnia in 1878. However, in later years, a new regime and a new dynasty came to power in Serbia which wanted to unite all the southern Slavic peoples into a “Greater Serbia”. This posed a threat to Austria-Hungary (given the large Serbian minority in the south) and was a potential block to Austro-Hungarian aspirations for expansions southward. Russia backed Serbia and Germany backed Austria-Hungary but was certainly not enthusiastic about the prospect of going to war on behalf of Austria-Hungary because of a crisis in the Balkans.

Although it might not have seemed so at the time, the countdown to the First World War began in 1908 when the Austrian Foreign Minister, Alois Aehrenthal, succeeded in outmaneuvering Russia and annexing Bosnia outright to Austria-Hungary. There was no immediate crisis over it but the action enraged the Serbians, embarrassed the Russians and caused Britain and France to take a more unfriendly view toward Austria-Hungary. Italy too was upset as, according to their treaty with Austria-Hungary, they were promised the return of Italian populated territories if Austria-Hungary ever made territorial gains elsewhere but these provisions were ignored. Germany remained supportive but was less than pleased with the development. However, they had little choice as worsening relations with France, Britain and Russia left Austria-Hungary as the only major continental ally Germany had. The annexation also dramatically increased the Slavic population of Austria-Hungary and this encouraged the view held by Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg throne, that a new compromise, similar to that made with the Hungarians, should be enacted to give the southern Slavs equal status with the German Austrians and Magyar Hungarians.

This, actually, made the Archduke an even greater potential target for Serbian nationalists as did the fact that Bosnia was generally doing better under Austro-Hungarian rule than it had previously. These groups, such as the “Black Hand” wanted there to be discord and not reconciliation between the Serb/Slav minority and the government of Austria-Hungary. For that very reason the Archduke was targeted for assassination while on a visit to Sarajevo in June 1914. Austria-Hungary was outraged and, once again, an ultimatum was sent and once again it was rejected, ensuring war between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. Also, just as in the past, the military was under funded. However, most would assume that Austria-Hungary could have been victorious in a war simply between themselves and Serbia but, as we all know, that was not to be the case. Russia stood ready to fight on behalf of Serbia and mobilized against Austria-Hungary. In response, Germany mobilized against Russia and when France stood by their Russian ally, against France as well. When German troops invaded Belgium the British declared war and in August of 1914 almost the whole of Europe fell into the abyss. It was not what Emperor Francis Joseph had wanted at all. In fact, his declaration of war on Serbia came only after he was told that Serbian forces had attacked first, which was not true. In effect, the politicians had deceived their monarch into war.

Austria-Hungary mobilized a massive army for the conflict but was hampered by many difficulties. Logistical support was woefully inefficient, Russia had all the Austro-Hungarian war plans in advance and the Dual-Monarchy was almost surrounded by enemies. The initial advance in Serbia was a humiliating affair while on the Russian front there was more success but Austria-Hungary suffered horrendous losses that could not be made up. German reinforcements were increasingly necessary to maintain so many fronts. In 1915 Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary and in 1916 the Serbian army returned with French and British support to a new front in Greece. In November of that year Emperor Francis Joseph died and was succeeded by his great-nephew Emperor Charles I. With the war situation deteriorating, in 1917 the new Emperor tried to arrange a peaceful end to the war but was rejected out of hand by the French and British. This also greatly enraged the Germans who thereafter viewed Austria-Hungary with suspicion and for the remainder of the conflict many, not without justification, viewed Austria-Hungary as a prisoner of the Germans.

In 1918 the situation began to fall apart for Austria-Hungary. France and Britain were encouraging the ethnic minorities to declare independence, the United States had joined the Allies, Germany was increasingly unable to provide support and the people at home faced starvation. In late October to early November the Italians launched a massive offensive that proved to be the last straw for Austria-Hungary and the Dual-Monarchy effectively collapsed. The same day the offensive began the government of Hungary ordered its troops to cease hostilities and return home. In the days that followed various other nationalities declared their independence and Austria-Hungary ceased to exist. Emperor Charles I tried to save the situation by enacting a federal system to give all nationalities equal status in a “United States of Greater Austria” but, as with his peace efforts, no one seemed willing to listen. On the last day of October the Hungarian government declared the personal union with Austria dissolved and even in Austria itself there were German nationalists calling for an end to Hapsburg rule and union with the rest of Germany. By the time Emperor Charles bowed to the inevitable and released his ministers from their oath of loyalty, withdrawing from participation in the government (but never abdicating!) Austria-Hungary had already ceased to exist. It was truly the end of an era as it marked the first time in more than six centuries that a Hapsburg had not been ruling over Austria.

Emperor Charles I tried twice to regain his throne in Hungary, where the monarchy was legally restored but under a regent that proved uncooperative. He died in Portugal in 1922 and in 2004 was beatified by Pope John Paul II. Upon his death, the monarchial legacy of Austria-Hungary passed to his son, Archduke Otto, who also had hope of a restoration. Such a thing was discussed by the Federal State of Austria. Engelbert Dollfuss had repealed the ban on members of the House of Hapsburg entering Austria and he had restored the property of the Imperial Family that the first republic had seized. However, he was assassinated by the Nazis in 1934 in a failed coup attempt. His successor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, reserved for himself the right to restore the monarchy and seemed inclined to do so even sounding out Austria’s most powerful ally at the time, Benito Mussolini, on the idea which the Duce said he would not oppose. Once again though outside events worked to block the move. Adolf Hitler (a stridently anti-Hapsburg republican) moved immediately to annex Austria in an operation named “Otto”, presumably because it prevented him from regaining the throne of his father. Few people seem to realize how close this came to reality. Schuschnigg himself actually met with the Archduke (secretly) and told him the restoration would be carried out as soon as possible. Few people also seem to realize how paranoid the Nazis were about this eventuality.

A Hapsburg restoration, it was feared in Berlin, would revive Austrian pride and put them off of the idea of union with Germany. They also feared that the Czechs would embrace the Hapsburg Crown again and that, perhaps, even Hungary would renew the personal union and that these combined forces would move against Germany. But in 1938 the Nazis occupied Austria, annexed it to Germany, threw Schuschnigg in a concentration camp, renewed the anti-Hapsburg laws and forced Archduke Otto to go into exile in the United States, sentencing him to death in absentia. After the war he saw most of what he still considered “his” country, all those places that had once been Austria-Hungary, fall under Soviet control. He outlived the Soviet Union though, entered politics and became a leader in the movement for European unity. He died in 2011 at the age of 98, leaving the family legacy to his son, Archduke Charles, who has also dabbled in politics and resides in Salzburg, Austria.