Franz Joseph von Battenberg

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Portrait of Prince Franz Joseph von Battenberg, around 1900

Prince Franz Joseph von Battenberg (born September 24, 1861 in Padua ; † July 31, 1924 in Schaffhausen ) was a member of the Battenberg family , a branch of the Hessian ruling house .

Life

Franz Joseph was the fourth son of five children of Prince Alexander von Hessen-Darmstadt (1823–1888), founder of the House of Battenberg, and his morganatic wife, the Countess or Princess Julia von Battenberg (1825–1895), daughter of the Polish Russian Count Hans Moritz Hauke and his wife Sophie Lafontaine, daughter of the military doctor Franz Leopold Lafontaine . Due to the improper marriage of his parents, he and his siblings could not bear the title of Prince or Princess of Hesse ; he carried the title of Prince of Battenberg after the family of the Counts of Battenberg, which died out in 1314.

After his school education, he received military training in Potsdam . After his older brother, Prince Alexander Joseph , was elected Bulgarian prince on April 17, 1879 and had no legitimate descendants, he was considered his successor. In 1886 Prince Alexander I was overthrown by Russian- minded officers and forced to abdicate on August 26 of the same year .

At a family reunion in London in 1894, Prince Franz Joseph met the heiress of the American railroad magnate , Consuelo Vanderbilt (1877–1964), a member of the prominent Vanderbilt family and cousin of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney . But her mother Alva Vanderbilt Belmont , a well-known suffragette , had chosen the British politician Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough , as the husband of her daughter . Franz Joseph left disappointed. On May 18, 1897 married Prince Franz Joseph in Cetinje the Princess Anna of Montenegro (1874-1971), the sixth daughter of Prince and King Nikola I Petrović Njegoš and his wife Milena Vukotić . The marriage, which all reports said was a happy one, remained childless.

Fonts

  • Franz Joseph von Battenberg: The economic development of Bulgaria from 1879 to the present . Veit, Leipzig 1891 ( digitized version )

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Franz Joseph von Battenberg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Member of the House of Battenberg, a branch of the Hessian ruling house
DATE OF BIRTH September 24, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH Padua
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 1924
Place of death Schaffhausen