Ferdinand I

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FERDINAND I

FERDINAND I (1793–1875), emperor of Austria (1835–1848).

Ferdinand I was born 19 April 1793 in Vienna and died 29 June 1875 in Prague. Ferdinand's significance consists largely of the effect that his poor physical and mental condition (he developed epilepsy early in life) had on the legitimist, divine-right absolutist system by which the Habsburg dynasty and its advisers sought to rule the Austrian Empire. While the principle of legitimacy persuaded Francis I (emperor of Austria, 1804–1835) to designate Ferdinand, his eldest son, as his crown prince and heir, the consequences of Ferdinand's incapacity after his succession in March 1835 were deleterious to the proper functioning of the absolutist regime, and the disarray caused in the Habsburg authorities' ranks played a major role in the initial success of the 1848 revolutions. It was the perceived failure of Ferdinand to resist, or adequately cope with, the revolutionary demands in that year that led to his forced abdication on 2 December 1848, in favor of his nephew, Francis Joseph (r. 1848–1916).

Evident soon after his birth, Ferdinand's medical condition made him a constant embarrassment and problem for a dynasty based on the legitimacy of birthright. Ferdinand was evidently much brighter as a child than his relatives and their advisors gave him credit for. He learned to speak four languages and showed a great interest in the natural sciences. The inadequate contemporary understanding of his ailments, however, led him to receive an education that was inappropriately coercive and hence in many respects unsuccessful. Once Ferdinand had reached his majority, his father, Francis I, still kept him at arm's length from the exercise of power. After 1818 Ferdinand undertook some representative duties, but only in 1829, at the age of thirty-six, was he allowed to sit on the state council.

Married to Maria Anna of Piedmont-Sardinia in 1831, Ferdinand succeeded to his father's empire in 1835, but he never was allowed to exercise the power that his position as absolute monarch suggested. Instead, based on his father's will, Ferdinand's power was in reality wielded by a Privy State Conference that first met in December 1836. Ferdinand was officially president of this body and was occasionally present, but in practice it was headed by Archduke Louis, Ferdinand's brother, and the other permanent members—Archduke Francis Charles (another brother and the father of Francis Joseph), Count Clemens Metternich, and Count Franz Anton Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky—were the major deciders of policy. The rivalry between Metternich and Kolowrat, however, meant that many vital policy decisions were not made, and Austrian policy stagnated, leading to the period of societal unrest known as Vormärz (Before March), to which the authorities reacted with most unimaginative, and inefficient, repression.

Economic distress in the mid-1840s exacerbated unrest in the rural and urban lower classes, and the unwillingness of the authorities to co-opt into the political system the growing numbers in the educated middle-classes led to unrest there as well. The nationalist revolt of the Galician Polish nobility in 1846 was suppressed successfully, with the aid of a revolt by the peasantry against their lords. However the revolts in March 1848, in Vienna and Budapest and elsewhere, saw lower and middle classes in temporary solidarity. The collapse of the Habsburg family's willpower in the face of these revolts transformed them into revolutions. On 13 March 1848, Metternich was sacked on the advice of the most liberal Habsburg, Archduke John, and in the turmoil that followed Ferdinand was forced to accede to many of the demands of the revolutionaries. In April he even acceded to the flying of the German black-red-gold national flag over the Hofburg.

Ferdinand was at all times during the events of 1848 the official embodiment of the Habsburg cause, and his concessions made him a popular figure among the more moderate revolutionaries. Yet he was hardly ever actually in charge of Habsburg decision making, and as over the summer the more reactionary course of Prince Alfred Windischgrätz took hold, Habsburg policymakers came to oppose, and regret, the concessions made in Ferdinand's name. After October, therefore, once the revolution in Vienna was crushed, and the Hungarian revolutionary forces put on the defensive, the Habsburg family and its advisors decided that Ferdinand would have to go. Although he initially resisted, Ferdinand eventually abdicated on 2 December 1848 in favor of his nephew, Francis Joseph.

Ferdinand spent the rest of his life in the Hradschin Palace in Prague.

See alsoCongress of Vienna; French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars; Metternich, Clemens von; Napoleonic Empire; Prussia; Restoration.