The Habsburgs
f the great dynasties of central Europe have one thing in common, it is that they don’t know when they’re beaten. They are history’s great survivors. The German Wittelsbachs ruled Bavaria and the Palatinate from the 12th to the 20th centuries – a 700-year lifecycle that encompassed everything from the High Middle Ages to the First World War.
The Guelphs of Hanover and Brunswick, whose line can be traced with some certainty back to the ninth century, were just as resilient, acquiring the British throne (through King George I) in the 18th century, and subsequently marrying into the Greek, Danish and Spanish royal families.
Yet of all Europe’s dynasties, surely none displayed a greater capacity for self-preservation than the Habsburgs. From inbreeding and infighting to ruinous religious schisms, all manner of calamities threatened to drive this remarkable family into extinction. Yet nothing could stop it dominating swathes of central Europe and beyond from the Middle Ages into the modern era.
We can confidently trace the Habsburgs’ origins to 10th-century Switzerland, where among their earliest possessions was the Castle Habsburg that gave the family its name. Then a part of the Holy Roman Empire, the Aargau region was lush, watered by the Alpine rivers, and it straddled the commercial routes that later joined northern Italy to the great fairs of Champagne and Flanders. Its wealth was the starting-point for the Habsburgs’ rise to power.
Chance played a part in their ascent, too, since the Habsburgs outlived most of their neighbours and, on their expiry, went off with their lands. In the general chaos that attended the collapse of the Hohenstaufen
Iline of emperors in the mid-13th century, Count Rudolf of Habsburg was elected king of Germany. In his own description, an “insatiable man of war”, Rudolf used the opportunity to capture Austria and what is now Slovenia. His successors pushed towards the Adriatic and took the Tyrol in the 14th century. They became Holy Roman Emperors in the mid-15th century, and shortly afterwards took possession of the Low Countries.
Pulled east and west
That wasn’t the end of the Habsburgs’ expansion. In the 16th century, they exploded outwards, obtaining Spain by way of a lucky marriage between Philip the Handsome, son of the future Habsburg emperor Maximilian (ruled 1508–19), and the Spanish princess Juana of Castile in 1496. Along with it came an overseas empire that would eventually include much of the New World, the Philippines, northern Taiwan, Guam and outposts on the Chinese, west African and Indian coasts. The Habsburgs were the first European rulers to found an empire upon which the sun never set or, as was said at the time, where the mass was in continuous celebration. Philip and Juana’s son, Charles V, who became Holy Roman Emperor in 1519, was the first “world monarch”, whose dominions extended across four continents.
But with great power came new threats. Keeping Hungary and Bohemia out of the double clutches of the Turks and Protestants preoccupied the Habsburgs for centuries. The acquisition of their large central European territory pulled the Habsburgs in two directions, westwards and eastwards. Following the abdication of Emperor Charles V in 1555–56, one branch, headed by Charles’s son Philip II, ruled Spain and the Low Countries, while a second, led by Charles’s brother
Riding high
Rudolf of Habsburg routs Ottokar of Bohemia in 1278, as depicted in a 19th-century painting. Victory at the DattNe on the /aTEhHeNd Eon Tmed the Habsburgs’ status as a leading power in central Europe
The Habsburgs were the first European rulers to found an empire upon which the sun never set
1526
Archduke Ferdinand acquires the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary, territories the Habsburgs won’t relinquish until the 20th century.
1555–56
The dynasty splits in two: Spain and the Low Countries in the west; and the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Bohemia and Hungary in the east.
Habsburg troops are defeated at the battle of Denain, 1712. Charles II’s death plunged 'urope into conflict
1700
The death of the Habsburg king of Spain Charles II sparks a succession crisis. Spain now falls to the French Bourbons.
1720
Charles VI’s Pragmatic Sanction
1740
On Charles VI’s death, the Habsburg male line ends but, thanks to Maria Theresa, the Habsburg name endures in a new dynasty: the HabsburgLorraines.
Charles I (pictured of the Habsburgs to wield power
11 November 1918
At the end of the First World War, the last Habsburg ruler, Charles I of Austria, renounces
This is considered the end of the Habsburg dynasty.