![]() ![]() His second wife, Maria Annunciata of the Two Sicilies, the mother of three sons and one daughter including Franz Ferdinand, died at the age of 28 in 1871 from consumption. It was not all comfort though – his first wife, Margaretha of Saxony, died after only two years of marriage in 1858. He had “none of the Habsburg arrogance” to quote Princess Catherine Radziwill. Karl Ludwig quietly supported the Emperor by living the life of a rich nobleman and creating no scandal. He was not ambitious to be involved in ruling or the military – unlike Maximilian who achieved a leading role in the navy, or their cousin Archduke Albrecht who carved a career in the military and became Inspector General of the Army. Thus Franz Ferdinand was the first son of a third son, low in the pecking order of who would succeed to the throne – pretty insignificant.Īrchduke Karl Ludwig was a loving, pious family man. In 1857 he married Princess Charlotte of Belgium. And then there was Archduke Maximilian, the brother in between Franz Joseph and Karl Ludwig in age. At the time of Franz Ferdinand’s arrival, it was expected that Sissi would give birth to more children, that Rudolf would not be his father’s sole male heir and even if he were, he would go on to have sons himself. He married a beautiful Bavarian Princess, Elizabeth (known as Sissi), who, in 1858, gave birth to an heir, Archduke Rudolf. He was young, he was seen as a fresh, dynamic new start for Austria. Franz Joseph succeeded as Emperor during the revolutionary year of 1848, taking over from his enfeebled Uncle, Ferdinand I, and bypassing his lacklustre father, Franz Karl. ![]() His father was Archduke Karl Ludwig, a younger brother of the Emperor Franz Joseph. When Franz Ferdinand was born in 1863, he was just an average Archduke in terms of rank, and was not expected to amount to much more than a leading member of the Austrian army. ![]()
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