For more than five centuries the House of Habsburg was the greatest ruling family in European history with their influence stretching into the 20th Century. Ironically Europe’s greatest ever family originates from intensely republican Switzerland. Count Radbot (985 – 1045) constructed Habsburg Castle in his feudal lands of Aargau and for almost four centuries this medieval estate was home to Europe’s most powerful and ambitious dynasty. Through marriage and politics the Habsburgs acquired a growing collection of titles and from 1273 till its end in 1806, the family came to dominate the elected throne of the Holy Roman Empire with its capital in Vienna. In 1477 Archduke Maximilian I married Mary of Burgundy bringing her realms of the Low Countries and parts of France under Hapsburg rule and his son Philip the Handsome married into Spain’s ruling family in 1496 bringing Castile, Aragon and their Italian possessions under Habsburg control.

In 1521 the vast and scattered domains of the Habsburg’s were split between the dynasty’s two eldest brothers, Charles V, ruling Spain, the Low Countries, their Italian territories and briefly Portugal, while his brother Ferdinand I was awarded Austria, their German territories, Bohemia and Hungary. The Austrian branch continued their domination of the Holy Roman Imperial crown. Modern research shows the Habsburg’s suffered genetically from inbreeding and in 1700 the Spanish branch of the family came to a dramatic and sudden end when Charles II died without a male heir. This ignited the War of the Spanish Succession which resulted in the weakening of Spain’s power and the end of Habsburg influence in Spain. The last male Austrian emperor died in 1740 leaving the throne to Empress Maria Therese who proved to be one of the empire’s greatest monarchs. She reinvigorated the Habsburg line, by marrying a relation, the Duke of Lorraine and technically forming a new dynasty, the House of Habsburg Lorraine. However the tradition of the Habsburg’s survived unchanged.

The Maria Theresa Thaler is a silver bullion coin that has been used in world trade continuously since they were first minted in 1741, at that time using the Reichsthaler standard of 9 thalers to the Vienna mark. In 1750 the thaler was debased to 10 thalers to the Vienna Mark [a weight approximating half a pound of fine silver]. The following year the new standard was effectively adopted across the German speaking world. It is owing to the date of the Bavarian Monetary convention that many writers erroneously state that the Maria Theresa Thaler was first struck in 1751. The word thaler gave rise to daalder and daler, which became dollar in English.

At the time there were three competing monetary systems in Germany, in Austria, Prussia and south Germany. The Vienna Conference sought to eliminate the problems from this, and the treaty was the result. Major provisions of the treaty included:

• The pound, with a weight of 500 grams, shall serve as the basis of the coinage system and a single silver standard, but three national coinage systems :

• The Prussian standard of 30 thalers per pound of silver, which replaces the Cologne Mark standard, for use in states, with an aggregate population of 23 m.
• The Austrian standard of 45 guldens per pound of silver, for use in the Empire of Austria and the principality of Liechtenstein with an aggregate population of 35 m.
• The South German standard of 52.5 guldens per pound of silver, for use in states that had an aggregate population of between 9 and 10 million.

Mintage by all states will be limited to silver coins as specified in this treaty, except Austria may continue to coin the “Levantine Thaler” dated 1780 [better known today as the Maria Theresa Thaler]. For the facilitation of international trade among the contracting states, two coins, answering to the specifications of the principal coins, shall be struck under the denomination of Vereinsthaler and each state must coin at least 24 Thaler coins per 100 people by 1862, and at least 16 pieces per 100 people during every four years period beginning in 1863. The number of 2 Thaler coins to be struck is left to the discretion of each individual state.

The Vienna Monetary Treaty failed to accomplish its intended results completely for two principal reasons. First, it ran counter to the monetary theories most widely held at the time, which favored a gold standard. Second, unfavorable political events began soon after its adoption. After the Austro-Prussian War, Austria withdrew from the monetary union, and in 1867 adopted to a gold standard. Since 1780, the coin has always been dated 1780. On 19 September 1857, Emperor Francis Joseph of  Austria declared the Maria Theresa Taler to be an official trade coinage. A little over a year later, on 31 October 1858, the Maria Theresa Taler lost its status as currency in Austria.

In 1806 Napoleon dissolved the Holy Roman Empire and seriously reduced the influence of the Habsburg’s in their traditional German heartland. In 1848 liberal ideas in Europe erupted into revolution throughout the continent with Hungary a particular hotbed of discontent. In 1849 Austria required Russian help to suppress the revolt. In 1866 Austria was defeated by Bismarck’s Prussia and forced to relinquish its last domains in Germany and in 1867 Austria permanently agreed to share power with Hungary as the Austria-Hungarian Empire.

The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary was a family of 11 officially recognized nationalities kept in union by the Habsburg Monarch who functioned as Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary simultaneously. The 19th Century was a time of national and ethnic awakening throughout Europe and tensions within the Empire were intense. Poles yearned for a separate and united homeland, Croats demanded autonomy, Serbs conspired to join the Kingdom of Serbia and ethnic Germans were concerned they were losing influence to liberal and non German forces. As well as the recognized national groups the empire was also home to large populations of Jews, Muslim Bosnian, Gypsies and numerous other groups including Albanians, Turks, Circassians and Aromanians.

The potential for trouble was understood by the authorities who attempted to share power equally with everyone under the Empire’s grandfatherly figure Emperor Franz Josef. The Habsburg monarch held great influence within the Catholic Church, even using its power to veto the election of the Papal Father in the conclave of 1903. The Monarch also held rights to protect Catholics in the non Catholic states of Serbia, Montenegro and Albania. In 1914 the Catholic Church signed a Concordat with Serbia which ended the Hapsburgs rights over Catholics in Serbia. This provoked deep concerns about the empire’s declining power and the intentions of Serbia. A few days later, the heir to the Imperial and Royal thrones, Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated by a Serbian terrorist group, the Black Hand, while touring the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia which they could not agree to and exactly one month later on 28th July 1914 war erupted, triggering World War One. Franz Josef had been reluctant to embark on war. His multinational Army performed poorly in battle, their German allies complaining their alliance was ‘like being shackled to a corpse’.

In 1916 after 68 years as Monarch, Franz Josef died singing the National Anthem and his grand nephew Karl [Charles] was proclaimed Emperor. Karl attempted to negotiate peace with France but the Allies were not willing to stop the bloodshed. He was the only world leader to ban the use of poisonous gas during the war. In October 1918 Austria-Hungary surrendered and the empire broke up; Austria becoming a republic and Hungary even temporarily fell to the Bolsheviks in 1919. Traditional forces regained Hungary restoring the Monarchy and in 1921 Karl twice attempted to reoccupy his throne, which officially remained ‘vacant’ until 1946. In 1922 Karl died in exile in Madeira and the mantle of the Hapsburg Dynasty fell to his 9 year old son, Crown Prince Otto, who finally relinquished all Imperial claims in 1961. Otto von Habsburg served as a Member of the European Union Parliament where his most remarkable achievement was punching the Northern Ireland’s Rev Ian Paisley for calling the Pope an AntiChrist. On 4 July 2011 Crown Prince Otto von Hapsburg died at the age of 98. He is buried in Vienna while his heart is separately interned in Budapest. His son Karl von Hapsburg [born 1961] now heads the Dynasty.