Archduke Karl Ludwig and Princess Maria Annunciata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies were married on 21 October 1862. Karl Ludwig was the younger son of Emperor Francis II, the brother of Emperor Ferdinand, and the uncle of Emperor Francis Joseph. Maria Annunciata, ten years his junior, descended from Maria Theresa and Francis Stephen on both her father’s and mother’s sides but was not closely related to her husband.
Their marriage was regarded as a happy one, although shadowed by Maria Annunciata’s fragile health. Despite the tuberculosis she suffered from, the couple had four children. The eldest son, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, became heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 triggered the outbreak of the First World War. The second son, Archduke Otto Franz, was the father of the last Emperor of Austria, Karl I.
All these events remained unseen by both parents. Maria Annunciata never recovered from the birth of her fourth child and died at the age of twenty-eight. For Karl Ludwig, it was the second time to endure the same blow of fate, as his first wife had also passed away prematurely. He remarried and had two more daughters but was survived by his third wife.
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