His Royal Highness Peter Leopold Josef Anton Joachim Pius Gotthard von
Habsburg-Lothringen, Prince Imperial and Archduke of Austria, Prince of
Hungary and Bohemia, Prince of Tuscany was born in Vienna, Austria on
May 5, 1747 the ninth child and third son of Emperor-Elect Francis
Stephen and Empress Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of
Hungary. When his older brother, Archduke Charles, died of smallpox
early in life in 1761 he became next in line for the Habsburg throne
after his eldest brother who would be Emperor Joseph II. As it was not
expected that he would inherit the numerous thrones of the House of
Habsburg, as a child he was first given an education aimed at his
joining the priesthood. However, even while quite young he did not take
well to his religious education and it soon became clear he was not cut
out to be a priest. Instead, it was decided to ‘farm him out’ to Italy
and as a child he was engaged to marry the heiress of the Duchy of
Modena. This never came to be but Italy was still in his future.
In an effort to keep as much of Italy within the Habsburg family as
possible, an agreement was made to marry him to the Infanta Maria Luisa
of Spain, daughter of His Catholic Majesty King Carlos III, and make him
heir to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany which was then held by his father.
As such, when Francis Stephan died in 1765 and his older brother became
Emperor Joseph II, Archduke Leopold became the Grand Duke of Tuscany,
though even as a young man he had little to do. His formidable mother,
Empress Maria Theresa, appointed most of the officials who actually
administered the country and his brother the Emperor also made sure that
Tuscany stayed in step with the rest of the Habsburg lands. As such he
had little to do in Florence and, unfortunately, occupied much of his
time with a string of extramarital affairs. However, he was not without
ambition and ideas of his own and in 1770 he was able to free himself
from Vienna and take matters in hand himself.
After taking power into his own hands, Grand Duke Leopold lowered taxes,
enacted a public works program, streamlined the bureaucracy, cut
government regulations, abolished the death penalty and tried to
appropriate the property of the Church, which he did not succeed at but
which was illustrative of his problems with the Catholic hierarchy and
the source of considerable tensions between himself and the Pope. He was
not very popular with his Italian subjects, however, as his entire
personality was very much at odds with the culture of Tuscany. He was
austere, private, preferred to live simply and, like his brother, wanted
rationality in all things. His people rather liked displays of
pageantry, grandeur and had become used to the way things had been since
the days of the Medici. There were corruptions, but they were
corruptions the people had become comfortable with and the tension with
the Church also caused problems. All in all, Leopold was simply too
German or Austrian for his very Italian subjects. His improvements of
public health, provision for the mentally ill and abolition of corporal
punishment were things most people approved of, but he simply did not
act like a typical Italian prince was expected to. Where he was expected
to be grand, lavish and vibrant, he was plain, not very sociable and
rather reclusive.
The family life of Leopold II was rather similar. His Spanish Bourbon
wife, Maria Luisa, was rather more devoutly religious than he was but
she was also a devoted, tolerant wife who was very supportive of her
husband, ignored his numerous affairs and seemed genuinely attached to
him despite her being more of the warm and friendly type and he being
more of the cold, silent type. Nonetheless, their marriage, odd as it
looked, seemed to work for them as they had sixteen children together,
securing the future of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty. As far as his
older brother was concerned, Leopold and Joseph were as close as two
siblings of their nature could be. Leopold was supportive of his
brother, approved of his policies and the two were essentially on the
same page on most any issue. He had genuine concern for him, yet was
still cold and calculating enough to keep his distance from Joseph II
over policies which were unpopular, even though Leopold himself approved
of them. At the end of his reign, Joseph II was beset by problems;
unrest in Belgium, unrest in Hungary, tensions with the Church,
opposition to his policy of Germanization, but when he was on his
deathbed and tried to have his younger brother take over as regent,
Leopold refused and it was some time after the death of Emperor Joseph
II that Leopold left Florence for Vienna in 1790.
Once he became Emperor-Elect Leopold II of the Holy Roman Empire/First
German Reich, Leopold became one of those monarchs who falls between the
two larger personalities. Historians tend to give little attention to
his reign, Leopold II serving as little more than a temporary bridge
between the reigns of Emperor Joseph II and Emperor Francis II (later
Francis I of Austria). Yet, Leopold II came along at a critical time in
the history of Europe and western civilization in general. The French
Revolution was building steam, and without France, Austria had no
support against the growing powers of Prussia to the north and Russia to
the east. The Ottoman Turks were also a constant irritant to the south.
Within the empire, there was also unrest among the Hungarians,
Bohemians, Belgians, the clergy and the nobility. Emperor Leopold II
tried to steer a middle course, repealing just enough of the policies of
his autocratic brother to gain support but holding to most of the same
principles.
Leopold II adopted a ‘divide an conquer’ strategy to restore imperial
rule over Belgium, then secured a pact with the King of Prussia to
oppose the revolution in France. However, this was an agreement neither
had any intention of acting on, at least for the time being, but it
served to prevent any moves by Russia in the east while the German
states were engaged in the west. He arranged a truce with the Turks to
put off any trouble on that front and made renewed efforts at friendship
with the British, aided by the fact that his brother Emperor Joseph II
had been the most vociferous European monarch in condemning the recent
rebellion in the British colonies in America. He relented on some of his
brother’s efforts to bring “rationality” to Catholicism but still
maintained state controls over the Church and papal pronouncements. He
maintained many of the public services of his brother but revoked
emancipation and returned some peasants to serfdom in order to win back
the support of the Bohemian nobility. He placated the Hungarians by
having a Hungarian coronation (which his brother had never done) and
granting the Magyar nobles a more prominent voice in national affairs,
seen by some as the first step toward the eventual “dual-monarchy”.
Naturally, the growing French Revolution increasingly occupied the mind
of the crowned heads of Europe. Emperor Leopold II had taken no action
against the revolutionaries, at times seemed to think the situation had
resolved itself with King Louis’ forced acceptance of a constitutional
monarchy, yet later Leopold called for monarchist solidarity in opposing
the Revolution after the arrest of the French King and Queen. However,
again, he took no action, refusing to break his scheduled priorities and
focusing on his peace negotiations with the Turks. The situation in
France was worsening by the day when Emperor Leopold II suddenly dropped
dead in Vienna in March of 1792 after only two years on the imperial
throne, passing the Habsburg dominions to his son who became Emperor
Francis II, later Emperor Francis I of Austria. It would be left to him
to be the primary continental opposition to the forces of the French
Revolution, the empire of Napoleon and to lead the forces of
counterrevolution in Europe in the Nineteenth Century.
All in all, Emperor Leopold II did not make much of an impression during
his reign. Perhaps, had he reigned for more than two years, he would be
viewed differently. However, as it was, he had much the same views as
his brother and predecessor, while being more politically flexible, less
autocratic and more inclined to be pragmatic. This had made him, in
turn, more criticized by both ends of the political spectrum. Still, at a
time when Europe was on the brink of upheavals that would be almost
unprecedented, Emperor Leopold II did secure his countries, ending less
important problems to focus on the growing threat of revolution and took
the first steps towards an alliance of the crowned heads of Europe to
stand opposed to the spread of carnivorous republicanism. He tended not
to be a very likable man but no one could call him an incapable one.
