Franz I of Austria (12 February 1768-2 March 1835), formerly Franz II, Holy Roman Emperor was the leader of the Holy Roman Empire (1792-1806) and was the first Emperor of the Austrian Empire (1806-1835).
Biography[]
Franz was son of Leopold II of Austria and Maria Luisa of Spain, and was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1792 to 1806. He was King of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia as well as Austria, and he defended this large empire against the First French Republic during the French Revolutionary Wars. He fought in seven coalitions against France from 1792 to 1815, and when the Holy Roman Empire was disavowed in 1806, he became the first king of the Austrian Empire.
Franz I at the Battle of Austerlitz, 1805
Franz reigned during a time of warfare with France, and during the War of the First Coalition he was at first successful in taking over French lands on the Rhine, but from 1796 to 1797 he was defeated in Italy by General Napoleon Bonaparte and on the Rhine by Jean Victor Marie Moreau. Franz I was forced to come to terms, and his second attempt to defeat France in 1799-1800 in the War of the Second Coalition lost the Holy Roman Empire any prospects of victory.
During the early 1800s, Franz formed a Third Coalition and Fifth Coalition to oppose France, allied with other great powers such as Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia. Austria's generals Archduke Charles, Karl Mack von Leiberich, Vincenz Ferrerius Bianchi, and Karl Philip Schwarzenberg scored many victories despite their many defeats, and by 1814 they had pushed France's armies back to the capital of Paris. Franz I's army defeated the French in capturing Paris on 6 April 1814, and Austria gained control of northern Italy (once belonging to France), parts of Poland, and parts of Germany as a result of their victory in the Napoleonic Wars.
In the aftermath of the wars, Austria was at peace with other European powers and Franz put down Italian patriotic revolts in the 1830s. He died in 1835, and was succeeded by Ferdinand IV of Austria.