Archduke Otto of Austria

1865 – 1906 · Generation XXI · Archduke · Habsburg-Lorraine

Otto (1865 – 1906). Archduke. Married Maria Josepha in 1886. Younger brother of Franz Ferdinand; father of the future Emperor Charles I. He lost his mother at six. Tutored alongside Franz Ferdinand, he was an idle pupil given to pranks, yet his teachers — and his father — preferred the cheerful younger boy, which strained relations between the brothers. The court pressed him into his 1886 marriage with Maria Josepha of Saxony to mend relations with Saxony, after Rudolf and Franz Ferdinand had both turned down her elder sister Mathilde. The union was unhappy: he was often unfaithful, fathered children by mistresses, and became notorious for scandals at Vienna’s Hotel Sacher. When Franz Ferdinand’s health was in doubt, there was speculation that Otto might be preferred in the succession, though he assured his brother he had no designs on the throne. Stricken with syphilis around 1900, he withdrew from public life, found brief relief in Egypt, and died in 1906 at a villa in Währing, nursed by his stepmother and his last mistress.

Place in the family

Archduke Otto of Austria was a nephew of Franz Joseph I of Austria.
Archduke Otto of Austria was the younger of 2 children of Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria and Princess Maria Annunciata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies recorded in this archive.
The archive records 4 of his descendants, across 4 generations.

One of 24 people of Habsburg-Lorraine (from 1736) in this archive. Maria Theresa’s marriage carried the inheritance into a new name, which its heirs still bear.

Parents

Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria (1833 – 1896)
Princess Maria Annunciata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1843 – 1871)

Siblings

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria (1863 – 1914)

Partners

Married Maria Josepha of Saxony (1867 – 1944) in 1886 — one child together

Children

Charles I of Austria (1887 – 1922)

Life

1865 — Born
1886 — Married Maria Josepha
1906 — Died