Karl I
Karl I.
Emperor of Austria · King of Hungary · King of Bohemia
1887 – 1922
Biography
Grandnephew of Franz Joseph and the last of the Habsburg emperors, propelled to the throne in the middle of the war that would destroy his dynasty. He attempted secretly to negotiate a separate peace with the Entente in 1917; the leak of his initiative humiliated him and bound him more tightly to Germany. He renounced participation in state affairs in November 1918, refused to abdicate formally, and was exiled, dying of pneumonia in Madeira at thirty-four. He was beatified by the Catholic Church in 2004.
Events
The collapse of the Habsburg monarchy at the end of the First World War. By October 1918 the constituent nationalities of Austria-Hungary were declaring independent states; on 11 November Emperor Karl I issued a proclamation renouncing participation in state affairs, though he never formally abdicated. The empire dissolved into the new Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and parts of Poland, Italy, and Romania — ending six centuries of Habsburg rule.
Also there: Franz Joseph I
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