Charles I of Austria

1887 – 1922 · Generation XXII · Emperor of Austria (r. 1916–1918) · Habsburg-Lorraine

Charles (1887 – 1922). Emperor of Austria (r. 1916–1918). Married Zita in 1911. Last Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary; died in exile on Madeira; beatified in 2004. The assassination of his uncle Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo made him heir presumptive, and two years later the old emperor’s death handed him a crown in the middle of a world war. He opened secret talks with the Allies in hope of peace, and tried to hold his peoples together by refashioning the empire on federal lines — but Czechoslovak and South Slav states declared themselves in the last weeks of October 1918, Hungary dissolved its union with Austria, and after the Armistice he withdrew from all share in the state’s affairs while never formally abdicating. Dethroned and banished for life in 1919, he twice attempted in 1921 to reclaim the Hungarian throne, thwarted both times by the regent Miklós Horthy, before respiratory failure ended his life in a second exile.

One of 20 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 Otto of Austria (1865 – 1906)
Maria Josepha of Saxony (1867 – 1944)

Partners

Married Zita of Bourbon-Parma (1892 – 1989) in 1911 — one child together

Children

Otto von Habsburg (1912 – 2011)

Life

1887 — Born
1911 — Married Zita
1922 — Died