# Could Franz Ferdinand (heir apparent), despite his morganatic marriage, sill have become emperor?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-franz-ferdinand-heir-apparent-despite-his-morganatic-marriage-sill-have-become-emperor/699587
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 26, 2014, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-franz-ferdinand-heir-apparent-despite-his-morganatic-marriage-sill-have-become-emperor/699587 "2014-09-26T02:03:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2014, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-franz-ferdinand-heir-apparent-despite-his-morganatic-marriage-sill-have-become-emperor/699587/1 "2014-09-26T02:03:25Z")
Hi,
I would like to know of Franz Ferdinand Karl Ludwig Josef Von Habsburg-Lothringen, heir apparent could, despite his morganatic marriage, have become emperor. I thought that the marriage would have disqualified him from becoming emperor. I look forward to your feedback.
davidmich
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2014, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-franz-ferdinand-heir-apparent-despite-his-morganatic-marriage-sill-have-become-emperor/699587/2 "2014-09-26T02:12:51Z")
Absolutely. It disqualified his sons, however, and his wife could not only not be empress but would not be the highest ranking woman at court and could not be seated at his side on state occasions. She was only slightly higher in rank than an official mistress.
His daughters could not inherit regardless of their birth, and in fact the emperor Franz Joseph had several daughters.
Trivia: FF was a fanatical hunter who killed tens of thousands of animals during his lifetime, many of them driven before him by servants.
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### Author:  [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2014, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-franz-ferdinand-heir-apparent-despite-his-morganatic-marriage-sill-have-become-emperor/699587/3 "2014-09-26T02:17:12Z")
Thanks Sampiro.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2014, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-franz-ferdinand-heir-apparent-despite-his-morganatic-marriage-sill-have-become-emperor/699587/4 "2014-09-26T02:37:42Z")
Would the situation have been likely to have remained the same? Emperor Franz Joseph hated Franz Ferdinand and Sophie and everyone in the Viennese court followed his lead. The monorganic marriage was not some ancient tradition. It was a condition for the marriage that Franz Joseph insisted on in order to agree to the marriage.
But if the couple had lived and Franz Joseph had died on schedule in 1916, then Franz Ferdinand would have become Emperor. He would presumably have been free to repeal the monorganic marriage decree. And the courtiers and politicians would have been falling all over themselves to agree that it had been a bad idea.
At that point, Franz Ferdinand’s eldest son Maximilian would presumably have been named heir apparent with his younger brother Ernst on stand-by.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2014, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-franz-ferdinand-heir-apparent-despite-his-morganatic-marriage-sill-have-become-emperor/699587/5 "2014-09-26T02:48:37Z")
The last night of their life" coffee. They attended a ball in their honor in Sarajevo at which, because it was not an official court function and it ws quite a big deal for Sarajevo, Sophie Rose treated as his full-fledged wife instead of the (not really) commoner he married.
FF was despicable in many ways, but he truly loved that woman. His last words were begging her to live.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2014, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-franz-ferdinand-heir-apparent-despite-his-morganatic-marriage-sill-have-become-emperor/699587/6 "2014-09-26T02:51:44Z")
Franz Ferdinand’s nephew, Charles, who bypassed FF’s sons and became heir apparent and later emperor, has been beatified and may become a saint.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2014, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-franz-ferdinand-heir-apparent-despite-his-morganatic-marriage-sill-have-become-emperor/699587/7 "2014-09-26T03:04:40Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> But if the couple had lived and Franz Joseph had died on schedule in 1916, then Franz Ferdinand would have become Emperor. He would presumably have been free to repeal the monorganic marriage decree. And the courtiers and politicians would have been falling all over themselves to agree that it had been a bad idea.
In theory, maybe, but it would have caused a bunch of problems for him and a constitutional crisis. It wasn’t just that the marriage was morgantic (because Austrian law allowed morgantic marriages, Hungarian law didn’t), but that Franz Ferdinand signed an official document renouncing his children’s claims on any honors, and also stating that he’d never seek to reverse that, and that document was ratified by the Hungarian Diet.
So if he had tried to reverse it, he would have faced opposition, and it’s quite possible that neither the Imperial Council or the Hungarian Diet would have recognized it. I don’t think the courtiers and politicians would have been falling all over themselves. He would have faced opposition from conservative politicians, the Church, and a lot of people who would have, under normal circumstances, been ok with a non-morgantic marriage, because it would have meant he was violating a sworn oath.
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### Author:  [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2014, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-franz-ferdinand-heir-apparent-despite-his-morganatic-marriage-sill-have-become-emperor/699587/8 "2014-09-26T07:25:29Z")
Thank you all. Very helpful.
davidmich
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### Author:  [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2014, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-franz-ferdinand-heir-apparent-despite-his-morganatic-marriage-sill-have-become-emperor/699587/9 "2014-09-26T11:28:55Z")
I wonder if Franz Ferdinand Karl Ludwig Josef Von Habsburg-Lothringen was just an abbreviation of a lengthier name.
> **[Otto von Habsburg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Habsburg)**
>
> Otto von Habsburg (German: Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius, Hungarian: Ferenc József Ottó Róbert Mária Antal Károly Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Lajos Gaetan Pius Ignác; 20 November 1912 – 4 July 2011), was the last crown prince of Austria-Hungary from 1916 until the dissolution of the empire in November 1918. In 1922, he became the pretender to the former thrones, head of the House of Habsburg-L The eldes...
Otto von Habsburg’s full baptismal name was :
Otto was born at Villa Wartholz in Reichenau an der Rax, Austria-Hungary.
He was baptised Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xavier Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius
on 25 November 1912 at Villa Wartholz by the Prince-Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Franz Xaver Nagl. His godfather was the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria (represented by Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria); his godmother was his grandmother Infanta Maria Antonia of Portugal.[11]
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2014, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-franz-ferdinand-heir-apparent-despite-his-morganatic-marriage-sill-have-become-emperor/699587/10 "2014-09-26T14:56:52Z")
Five firstnames aren’t enough for you? The usual “short version” is Franz Ferdinand.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2014, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-franz-ferdinand-heir-apparent-despite-his-morganatic-marriage-sill-have-become-emperor/699587/11 "2014-09-26T16:22:52Z")
[QUOTE=davidmich]
He was baptised Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xavier Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius
[/QUOTE]
His name is my name too, except I spell Karl with a C and use Henrik instead of Heinrich, and changed Pius to Deborah.
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### Author:  [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2014, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-franz-ferdinand-heir-apparent-despite-his-morganatic-marriage-sill-have-become-emperor/699587/12 "2014-09-27T10:28:16Z")
> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> The last night of their life" coffee. They attended a ball in their honor in Sarajevo at which, because it was not an official court function and it ws quite a big deal for Sarajevo, Sophie Rose treated as his full-fledged wife instead of the (not really) commoner he married.
> FF was despicable in many ways, but he truly loved that woman. His last words were begging her to live.
One other thing about FF is that he didn’t a war with Russia. He felt such a war would end at least one of the dynasties ruling the two empires. In fact, it ended both the Romanovs and Hapsburgs.