2 Florin Austria-Hungary (1867-1918) Silver Franz Joseph I (1830 ...

1871, Austria, Francis Joseph I. Silver 2 Florin (Doppelgulden) Coin.

Reference: KM-2232.

Mint Place: Vienna (A)

Denomination: 2 Florin (Doppelgulden)

Material: Silver (.900)

Weight: 24.55gm

Diameter: 36mm

Obverse: Wreathed head of Francis Joseph I, depicted with long whiskers right. Mint initial (A) below.

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

Reverse: Austrian imperial double headed eagle with coat of arms at chest, holding sword, imperial staff and orb.

Legend: HVNGAR . BOHEM . GAL . (2 FL) LOD . ILL . REX A . A . 1871

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. The name florin comes from the city of Florence, Italy where the first florins were minted.

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 1889 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, 1861 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, 1878, Max Hödel failed in an assassination     attempt on William in Berlin. A second attempt was made on June 2,     1878, 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, 1878, 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”.