Prince Francis Joseph of Battenberg

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox royalty Prince Francis Joseph of Battenberg Template:Postnominals (Template:Langx; 24 September 1861 – 31 July 1924) was the fourth and youngest son and child of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and his morganatic wife Julia, Princess of Battenberg.

Biography

Named after the Emperor of Austria, he was known as Franzjos to his parents and siblings. At one time, he was considered for the throne of Bulgaria, which eventually went to his brother Alexander; nonetheless, as Alexander was unmarried and without legitimate heirs at the time, Francis Joseph was considered heir presumptive to the throne. He followed his brother to Bulgaria, where he served as a colonel in the Bulgarian cavalry, seeing action during the Serbo-Bulgarian War. During the coup of 1886, he was arrested and expelled from Bulgaria, along with his brother. His cousin, and later sister-in-law, Victoria described him in her memoirs:

He was a delicate boy and was brought up on strictly ladylike lines by the governess of his sister, Adele Bassing. Our tomboy ways rather distressed him. He was very fond of reading and to prevent us from disturbing him too much, he suggested we should play Robinson Crusoe, he filling the part of Crusoe, Ella and I being two men Fridays, whom he incessantly sent away on important duties, while he remained in the improvised hut, reading in peace. He was good-natured, however, and I remember his helping us to search in the hay for a lost hair ribbon - a fruitless quest on his part, as he was very short sighted.

From an early age Francis Joseph showed great interest in science, and unlike his brothers – who pursued careers in the military – he pursued a career in academics; in 1891 he published an academic study on Bulgarian economic history, which he dedicated to his brother.

At a family reunion in London in 1894 Franz Joseph met Consuelo Vanderbilt, the daughter of an extremely wealthy American railway tycoon William Kissam Vanderbilt. He made a marriage proposal to Consuelo, but she disliked him and turned him down.

In 1897 he married Princess Ana Petrović-Njegoš of Montenegro (1874–1971), the sixth daughter of King Nicholas I of Montenegro; they had no children. He served as a colonel in the Montenegrin Army during the Balkan Wars.

They lived in Prinz Emil Palais, but upon the outbreak of World War I, he and his wife moved to Switzerland, where he lived until his death in 1924. He was a close friend of his brother-in-law King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, whom he visited often; their wives were sisters.

Honours

He received the following orders and decorations: