Politicians

Franz Joseph I of Austria

Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary (1830-1916, reigned 1848-1916). He took the throne at 18 during the 1848 revolutions and presided over the empire for 68 years, the second-longest reign of any European monarch. Military defeats by Italy in 1859 and Prussia in 1866 cost him substantial territory, yet the 1867 Ausgleich with Hungary created the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy and stabilised the multinational empire for half a century. After his son Crown Prince Rudolf died in apparent murder-suicide at Mayerling and his wife Empress Elisabeth was assassinated in Geneva, he authorised the declaration of war on Serbia in July 1914, the act that triggered World War I. He died in 1916 as the self-styled "last monarch."

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