Franz Joseph became the Austrian emperor in 1848, when revolutionary events forced his father and uncle to abdicate. The reign of this monarch is a whole era in the life of the peoples of Central Europe, part of the multinational Austro-Hungarian empire. The ascetic monarch, in whose character good nature was combined with love for army discipline, called himself "the senior official of the empire." From his youth, he devoted himself entirely to the affairs of a vast state. Franz Joseph was an erudite person, he knew French, English, Italian, could speak Polish, Hungarian and Czech.
In his personal life, the monarch was a deeply unhappy person. Having fallen in love, Franz Joseph 1 married Elizabeth of Bavaria, daughter of King Maximilian I. Their marriage could have been happy, but the intervention of the imperious Sophia, the emperor’s mother, gradually separated the spouses from each other. The mother-in-law took Sissi's children to her (that was the name of the young empress in her home circle) and limited their meetings with her mother. This could not affect the attitude of Elizabeth to her husband. Sissy never liked palace etiquette, so she preferred to live away from the courtyard. Elizabeth was the first beauty of the empire, her portraits in Austria and Hungary can still be found in the most unexpected places. The empress was engaged in gymnastics, horse riding, hunting, loved to travel, kept diaries and wrote poems. Franz Joseph gave his beloved wife relative freedom, although he often lacked the presence of Elizabeth.
The troubles of the imperial couple began in their young years, when they buried their two-year-old daughter Sofia. In 1889, a new grief came to the family - their son Rudolph settled accounts with life. Since then, Elizabeth has refused clothes of light colors and has become even more enclosed in herself. After 9 years, the empress was gone. The heart of Franz Joseph’s beloved wife stopped beating, pierced by a file - an instrument of the anarchist killer.
The head of the dual monarchy (Emperor of Austria-Hungary since 1867) pursued a successful domestic policy, thanks to which Austria-Hungary in the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries became one of the developed European states. At the same time, in foreign policy, Emperor Franz Joseph sometimes made fatal mistakes that led to very serious consequences. He refused to provide Russian assistance in the Crimean campaign, thereby losing a reliable ally capable of strengthening the position of Austria-Hungary in the international arena. The monarch, who has done a lot for his country, is to some extent responsible for the collapse of the once great power. It is difficult to imagine how the fate of the peoples of the empire would have developed if Franz Joseph had not allowed himself to be drawn into the conflict with Serbia in 1914 that led to the First World War. The emperor, who died in 1916, was not able to see how the power, which he ruled for 68 years, ceased to exist.
In Vienna, Franz Joseph, this great personality, has only one monument. It is located in the Burggarten garden and is made in the form of a lonely figure immersed in painful thoughts of a man walking sadly along the paths of the garden