Emperor of Austria

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The phrase Emperor of Austria describes an hereditary imperial title and position proclaimed in 1804 by the Austrian Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Francis II and continually held by him and his immediate successors until the Habsburg dynasty was finally overthrown in 1918.

Although the Holy Roman Empire (the so-called First Reich) had endured for numerous centuries since the reign of medieval monarch Otto I "The Great", Francis had nonetheless feared for the future of the old grand Reich, which still encompassed Germany, Austria and a significant portion of Eastern Europe, in the face of aggressions by Napoleon. Francis wished to maintain his imperial level status in the event that the Holy Roman Empire should be dissolved, as it indeed was in 1806 when his Austrian-led army suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz and the victorious Napoleon proceeded to dismantle the old Reich by severing a good portion of what is now Germany from the empire and turning it into a separate Confederation of the Rhine. With the size of his imperial realm significantly reduced, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor become Francis I, Emperor of Austria. The new imperial title may have sounded less prestigious than the old one, but Francis' dynasty continued to rule from Austria and a Habsburg monarch was still an emperor (Kaiser), and not just merely a king (König), in name.

The title lasted just a little over one century until 1918, but it was never clear what territory constituted the "Empire of Austria". When Francis took the title in 1804, the Habsburg lands as a whole were dubbed the Kaisertum Österreich. Kaisertum might literally be translated as "emperordom" (on analogy with "kingdom") or "emperor-ship"; the term denotes specifically "the territory ruled by an emperor", and is thus somewhat more general than Reich, which in 1804 carried connotations of universal rule. Austria proper (as opposed to the complex of Habsburg lands as a whole) had been an Archduchy since the 15th century, and most of the other territories of the Empire had their own institutions and territorial history, although there were some attempts at centralization, especially between 1848 and 1859. When Hungary was given self-government in 1867, the non-Hungarian portions, although usually collectively called Austria, were officially known only as the "Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council (Reichsrat)". The title of Emperor of Austria and the associated Empire (if there was such) were both abolished at the end of the First World War in 1918, when German Austria became a republic and the other kingdoms and lands represented in the Imperial Council established their independence or adhesion to other states.

[edit] Full title

The Austrian Emperors had an extensive list of titles and claims that reflected the geographic expanse and diversity of the lands ruled by the Austrian Habsburgs:

Emperor of Austria,
Apostolic King of Hungary,
King of Bohemia, of Dalmatia, of Croatia, of Slavonia, of Galicia, of Lodomeria, and of Illyria,
King of Jerusalem, and so forth,
Archduke of Austria,
Grand Duke of Tuscany and of Cracow,
Duke of Lorraine, of Salzburg, of Styria, of Carinthia, of Carniola and of the Bukovina,
Grand Prince of Transylvania,
Margrave of Moravia,
Duke of Upper Silesia, of Lower Silesia, of Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, of Auschwitz and Zator, of Teschen, Friuli, Ragusa and Zara,
Princely Count of Habsburg and Tyrol, of Kyburg, Goritz and Grandisca,
Prince of Trient and Brixen,
Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and in Istria,
Count of Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenberg, and so forth,
Lord of Trieste, of Cattaro and of the Wendish Mark,
Grand Voyvode of the Voyvodie of Serbia, and so forth,
Sovereign of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

[edit] Emperors of Austria, 1804–1918

Emperor	Acceded	Deceded
Francis I	11 August 1804	2 March 1835
Ferdinand I	2 March 1835	2 December 1848
Franz Joseph I	2 December 1848	21 November 1916
Karl I	21 November 1916	11 November 1918