He knelt there beside the emperor’s bed, forehead pressed into palms, as the murmuring of the prayers for the dying filled the stillness of the room. And as his lips moved in supplication for his granduncle, his thoughts drifted to the overwhelming possibility of what could soon be.
As Emperor Franz Joseph I’s worsening condition became clear, the weight of immense responsibility settled on the 29-year-old heir’s shoulders like a shadow. The earnest young archduke wrestled with the reality that he would soon be emperor of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
Charles von Habsburg never expected to rule the Austrian Empire, shown here at his coronation at Holy Trinity Column outside Matthias Church, Budapest, Dec. 30, 1916. (Public Domain)
Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria. Library of Congress. (Public Domain)
When he rose to his feet beside the monarch’s deathbed, he was rising to face a world wracked with woe and seemingly insurmountable challenges: His own country was torn by nationalist and ethnic tensions, while the wider world was engaged in the bloodiest and most destructive war humanity had ever seen, World War I, or, as it was then called, simply, “The Great War.”…