Charles I, the last Emperor of Austria

wedding-of-carlos-i and-zita-de-parma

Although today Austria is a tiny country that hardly appears in the news (these days it does and a lot due to the migration crisis in Europe), there was a time when it was the head of a huge empire: Austro-Hungarian Empire which disappeared after the end of the First World War.

Just as the Chinese Revolution ended centuries of kings and emperors and today Pu Yi is known as the last chin emperoror who was the last emperor of Austria? It was Charles I of Austria, also known as Charles IV of Hungary, a man born in 1887 who died in 1922. In addition to being the last Emperor of Austria and the last King of Hungary he was also the last monarch of a family that gave many kings to the world, the House of the Habsburg-Lorraine.

Charles I of Austria He really reigned for a very short time: from 1916 to 1919 when he left the government without abdicating. The monarchy was dying, although he tried not to make that happen until the day of his own death in 1922. He was born on August 17, 1887 in Persenbeug Castle, in Lower Austria, when the Emperor and King of Hungary was his great uncle Francisco Jose, a man with whom she would never get along.

He married Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma and when the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo occurred he became heir. Only then did the emperor begin to take him more seriously and was inclined to introduce him to matters of state. When Francisco José died he finally acceded to the throne, in 1916. Shortly after, the Poles would declare their independence and Austria would become a confederation of states, which would mean the beginning of the end of the Empire. That happened in 1918 when it moved away from the state and left it to the Austrians and Hungarians to decide on its form of government.

Charles I of AustriaAlthough he tried to keep the monarchy in Austria and later in Hungary, he did not succeed. He went into exile with his wife to the island of Madeira. In 1922 he caught cold while walking in the city, it was complicated in bronchitis and later in pneumonia. With no antibiotics in sight, they hadn't been invented yet, he had a couple of heart attacks and died on April 1 in front of his wife who was pregnant with their eighth child. His remains are still buried on the island of Madeira, except for his heart, which along with his wife are buried in Switzerland.

In 2004 he was beatified by the Catholic Church.


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