1/4 Florin Austrian Empire (1804-1867) Silver

1859-B, Austria, Francis Joseph I. Silver 1/4 Florin Coin

Mint Year: 1859

Reference: KM-2214

Mint Place: Kremnitz (B)

Denomination: 1/4 Florin (1/4 Gulden)

Material: Silver (.520)

Diameter: 23mm

Weight: 5.34gm

Obverse: Wreathed head of Franz Josef right.

Legend: FRANC.IOS.I.D.G.AVSTRIAE IMPERATOR / B

Reverse: Imperial double headed eagle with shield with coat of arms at chest, holding sword, imperial scepter and orb.

Legend: HVNG . BOH . LOMB . ET VEN . (1/4 FL) GAL LOD . ILL . REX A . A . 1859

When the Gulden was decimalized in 1857, new coins were issued in denominations of ½ (actually written 5/10), 1, 2 and 4 Kreuzer in copper, with silver coins of 5, 10 and 20 Kreuzer, ¼, 1 and 2 Florin and 1 and 2 Vereinsthaler and gold coins of 4 and 8 Florin or 10 and 20 francs.

Franz Josef I (English: Francis Joseph) Emperor of Austria, king of Hungary, (1830-1916), born in Vienna. The last significant Habsburg monarch.

Franz Josef was the eldest son of Archduke Franz Karl   (Francis Charles), who was brother and heir of Austrian Emperor   Ferdinand I. Because his father renounced his right to the throne, Franz   Josef became emperor when Ferdinand abdicated near the end of the   revolution of 1848.

By the time Franz Josef stepped onto the throne,   Austria’s position as a European “great power” was already in serious   decline. Three external factors furthered Austria’s decline.

1. -- Austria’s “betrayal” of Russia   in the Crimean War (1853-1856) seriously damaged Austro-Russian   relations. Lingering Russian ill will was a factor in the July (1914)   Crisis which led to the outbreak of WWI.

2. -- The unification of Italy   provided a new threat to the empire. In the decade that followed,   Austria lost nearly all of its Italian possessions, such as Lombardy and   Venetia.

3. -- The rise of Prussian dominance   of the German Confederation, and Austria’s loss of the Austro-Prussian   war in 1866. German unification in 1871 made Austria the lesser of the   two German powers.

Austria was weakened by these reverses. Franz Josef   had little choice but to negotiate with Hungary on its demands for   autonomy. Austria and Hungary agreed to create a dual monarchy in which   the two countries would be equal partners. Under the empire of   Austria-Hungary, as it was known after 1867, Hungary had complete   independence in internal affairs, but the two countries acted jointly in   foreign affairs. (This fact contributed to the slowness of A-H’s   response to the murder of Franz Ferdinand).

The same year, Franz Josef and Elizabeth were   formally crowned king and queen of Hungary. (Franz Josef married   Elizabeth, daughter of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, in 1854. They had one   son, Rudolf, and three daughters.) As the dual monarch, Franz Josef   planned to grant some form of self-government to the Austrian Slavs, but   the German and Magyar elites who actually controlled the empire opposed   any sharing of power. The resulting dissatisfaction among Austrian   Czechs and Serbs further weakened the Habsburg realms and caused   increased friction with Russia, which championed the cause of Europe’s   Slavic peoples.

Franz Josef’s later years were marked by a series of   tragedies in his family. In 1894 his only son and heir to the throne,   Archduke Rudolf, committed suicide; Franz Josef’s second younger   brother, Karl Ludwig, had died in 1896 from illness due to bad water he   drank while on a holy lands pilgrimage; in 1898 Elizabeth was   assassinated by an Italian anarchist.

Succession to the Austrian throne was not simple.   Following the suicide of Franz Josef’s only son Rudolf, the next in   succession would have been Franz Josef’s younger brother Maximillian.   Maximillian, however, had been executed by a firing squad in Mexico in   1867 after a 3 year reign as Emperor of Mexico. Karl Ludwig’s oldest   son, Franz Ferdinand replaced Rudolf as heir to the throne. Franz   Ferdinand was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo in June   1914. The assasination precipitated a crisis which led to the outbreak   of World War I.

Franz Josef died on November 21, 1916. He did not   live to see Austria’s defeat in the war. His grand nephew, Karl I   assumed the throne for two years, but was the last Habsburg monarch.

William served in the army from 1814 onward, fought   against Napoleon I of France during the Napoleonic Wars, and was   reportedly a very brave soldier. He fought under Blücher at the Battles   of Waterloo and Ligny. He also became an excellent diplomat by engaging   in diplomatic missions after 1815.

During the Revolutions of 1848, William successfully   crushed a revolt that was aimed at his elder brother King Frederick   William IV. The use of cannons made him unpopular at the time and earned   him the nickname Kartätschenprinz (Prince of Grapeshot).

In 1857 Frederick William IV suffered a stroke and   became mentally disabled for the rest of his life. In January 1858   William became Prince Regent for his brother.

On January 2, 1890 Frederick William died and William   ascended the throne as William I of Prussia. He inherited a conflict   between Frederick William and the liberal parliament. He was considered a   politically neutral person as he intervened less in politics than his   brother. William nevertheless found a conservative solution for the   conflict: he appointed Otto von Bismarck to the office of Prime   Minister. According to the Prussian constitution, the Prime Minister was   responsible solely to the king, not to parliament. Bismarck liked to   see his work relationship with William as that of a vassal to his feudal   superior. Nonetheless it was Bismarck who effectively directed the   politics, interior as well as foreign; on several occasions he gained   William’s assent by threatening to resign.

In the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War William   was proclaimed German Emperor on January 18, 1871 in Versailles Palace.   The title “German Emperor” was carefully chosen by Bismarck after   discussion until (and after) the day of the proclamation. William   accepted this title grudgingly as he would have preferred “Emperor of   Germany” which, however, was unacceptable to the federated monarchs, and   would also have signalled a claim to lands outside of his reign   (Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg etc.). The title “Emperor of the   Germans”, as proposed in 1848, was ruled out from the start anyway, as   he considered himself chosen “by the grace of God”, not by the people as   in a democratic republic.

By this ceremony, the North German Confederation   (1867-1871) was transformed into the German Empire (“Kaiserreich”,   1871-1918). This Empire was a federal state; the emperor was head of   state and president (primus inter pares - first among equals)   of the federated monarchs (the kings of Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony,   the grand dukes of Baden and Hesse, and so on, not to forget the senates   of the free cities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen).

On May 11, 1879, Max Hödel failed in an assassination   attempt on William in Berlin. A second attempt was made on June 2,   1879, by the anarchist Karl Nobiling, who wounded William before   committing suicide. These attempts became the pretext for the   institution of the Anti-Socialist Law, which was introduced by   Bismarck’s government with the support of a majority in the Reichstag in   October 18, 1879, for the purpose of fighting the socialist and working-class movement. The laws deprived the Social Democratic   Party of Germany of its legal status; they prohibited all organizations,   workers' mass organizations and the socialist and workers' press,   decreed confiscation of socialist literature, and subjected   Social-Democrats to reprisals. The laws were extended every 2-3 years.   Despite this policy of reprisals the Social Democratic Party increased   its influence among the masses. Under pressure of the mass working-class   movement the laws were repealed on October 1, 1890.

In his memoirs, Bismarck describes William as an   old-fashioned, courteous, infallibly polite gentleman and a genuine   Prussian officer, whose good common sense was occasionally undermined by   “female influences”.