*17.08.1887 Persenbeug, Lower Austria  -  †01.04.1922 Funchal, Madeira, Portugal

Emperor of Austria

King of Hungary

King of Bohemia

Archduke of Austria

Charles was the son of Archduke Otto and Princess Maria Josepha of Saxony. The great-nephew of Emperor Franz Joseph attempted in 1916, after the death of the old emperor, to hold together the peoples of the Danube Monarchy who were struggling for independence. However, his motto “indivisibiliter et inseparabiliter – indivisible and inseparable” proved to be an illusion.

In accordance with his motto, “With the people for the fatherland,” he initially sought a compromise, and later an Austrian federal state.

Even leading Social Democrats of the First Republic such as Karl Seitz and Viktor Adler attested to his integrity. On November 11, 1918, he signed a document in Schönbrunn in which he renounced his participation in government affairs. On the evening of the same day, two rental cars took the imperial family to the Eckartsau hunting lodge in Marchfeld. This is located in the plain outside Vienna, where Charles´ ancestor Rudolph I of Habsburg had established his power base in the 13th century after a battle against King Ottokar.

The family initially emigrated to Switzerland. When Karl made a second attempt in 1921 to at least save the Hungarian crown by making a surprise return to Budapest, the victorious powers intervened. Charles and Zita were taken to the Black Sea on the British armored ship "Glowworm" and from there transported to Madeira on the cruiser Cardiff, where they arrived on November 19, 1921.

The island had been chosen as a place of forced residence for the imperial family with the consent of the Portuguese government. They initially lived in Villa Victoria, an annex of the famous Reid's Palace Hotel, and in February 1922, after money had run out, they moved to the damp villa of the banker Rocha-Machado in Monte. Weakened both mentally and physically, Charles succumbed to a flu infection combined with pneumonia on April 1, 1922. Even in his delirium, he spoke of his fallen soldiers.

The epitaph of the last Austrian emperor in St. Michael's Church in Vienna bears the inscription: “He sought peace and found it in God.”

In 1971, a new family crypt was built for the members of the House of Habsburg in Muri Abbey in Switzerland. Charles' heart was brought there in 1974. His body is buried in the Church of Nossa Señhora do Monte (Our Lady of the Mountain), which has been venerated as the patron saint of the island since the 17th century, about 1,000 nautical miles from Lisbon.

Emperor Charles was beatified by Pope John Paul II in Rome in 2004.