Presents a biography of the emperor of Austria as well as a history of Europe during his reign.

In 1848, 28-year-old Francis Joseph became King of Hungary and Emperor of Austria. He would reign for almost 68 years, the longest of any modern European monarch. Focusing on the life of Emperor Francis Joseph and his family, this book examines their personal relationships against the turbulent background of the 19th century.

The life of Emperor Francis Joseph can only be understood in close connection with the political transformation of Europe and the progressive shift in world power that went on during the century between the Congress of Vienna and the Treaty of Versailles. It is from that standpoint that it is here written. At the same time the specific content of this description is his human and political personality. On no other terms can any bounds be set or any form given to the vast mass of interconnected historical events covered by the period of Francis Joseph’s life and reign. Since, however, whether as man or ruler, he falls far short of being an embodiment of human greatness, it is in a somewhat limited sense only that he fills the conception of a historic personality. So comprehensive, on the other hand, is the range of countries and peoples over whom he reigned; so extensive is the period of his governance; so mighty and multifarious are the European issues influenced, and deeply influenced, by his action and his character, that, judged by the test of influence on great events, he must be said to have counted for more than any other European monarch of the nineteenth century. Compared with his, the singular and momentous career of Napoleon III is but an entr’acte in Europe. Guardian of an ancient line, inheritor and defender of rights that date far back into medieval times, natural foe of the modern struggle to transform Europe into a series of closed national states, Francis Joseph assumed and maintained for sixty years a position in the Europe that the war destroyed to which that of no other sovereign affords an analogue. What makes him all the more impressive is that there was in him, as in no other European monarch of the past century, a perfect correspondence between the man and his work. To Francis Joseph and to the Empire that came to an end in 1918 the saying certainly applies which is the veritable title deed of biographical history—History is made by men. Even in a period preoccupied as is our own with research into the development and function of ideas and of institutions, economic, social and political, history cannot omit personality, since it is the instrument through which the will of a nation or a state has to be exercised. Least of all can this be done where, as with Francis Joseph, the idea of the ruler overpowers that of the man and makes his personal individuality its servant.

Rothenberg's work offers the first analytical, full length study of the army of Francis Joseph throughout its history from 1815 to 1918.

In 1848, 28-year-old Francis Joseph became King of Hungary and Emperor of Austria. He would reign for almost 68 years, the longest of any modern European monarch. Focusing on the life of Emperor Francis Joseph and his family, this book examines their personal relationships against the turbulent background of the 19th century.

Recounts the career of the rock music performer.

This is the story of my grandfather, B-24 Liberator Co-Pilot, Flight Officer and later Lieutenant, Francis Joseph Morrissey. This book chronicles his life: from growing up in Dayton, Ohio; becoming a factory worker just out of high school; enlisting in the Army Air Forces in 1942; completing Pilot School in Lubbock, Texas in August 1943; training to fly a B-24 Liberator; forming and training a crew in Clovis and Alamogordo, New Mexico with Pilot Francis S. Rzatkowski and Navigator “Handsome” Harry E. Parr; being assigned to Crew #302-9-59 in one of the four squadrons in the 450th Bombardment Group - the 722nd Bombardment Squadron (H); flying half way around the world from Herington, Kanas to Manduria, Italy in November and December 1943 with Rzatkowski and Parr on B-24H Liberator Serial No.41- 28603 - the “603” - - painted the “Chiquita Mia” around 10 November 1943; flying missions from Manduria Airfield on three ships; being shot down over Krizevci, Yugoslavia on 30 May 1944 on his 27th mission while Co-Pilot of B-24H Liberator Serial No. 42-94901; interrogation and processing at Dulag Luft; internment at Stalag Luft III; “The March” to Stalag XIII-D Nurnberg Langwasser starting on 27 January 1945; internment at Stalag VII-A; liberation by Patton’s Third Army on 30 April 1945; time spent in the Cigarette Camp Lucky Strike near Le Havre, France; the voyage home on Liberty Ship USS Monticello (AP-61) from 23 May to 3 June 1945; marriage to my grandmother on 16 June 1945; the remainder of his active duty service at Wright Field until October 1946; and post-war service in the Reserve and National Guard until 1972.