Franz Joseph was born in the Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, the eldest son of Archduke Franz Karl (the younger son of Holy Roman Emperor Francis II), and his wife Princess Sophie of Bavaria. Because his uncle, from 1835 the Emperor Ferdinand, was weak-minded, and his father unambitious and retiring, the young Archduke "Franzl" was brought up by his mother as a future Emperor with emphasis on devotion, responsibility and diligence. Franzl came to idolise his grandfather, der Gute Kaiser Franz, who had died shortly before the former's fifth birthday, as the ideal monarch. At the age of thirteen, Franzl started a career as a colonel in the Austrian army.
Outbreak of World War I
On 28 June 1914 Franz Joseph's nephew and heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his morganatic wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a Yugoslav nationalist of Serbian ethnicity, during a visit to Sarajevo. When he heard the news of the assassination, Franz Joseph said that "one has not to defy the Almighty. In this manner a superior power has restored that order which I unfortunately was unable to maintain."  While the emperor was shaken, and interrupted his holiday to return to Vienna, he soon resumed his vacation at his imperial villa at Bad Ischl. Initial decision-making during the "July Crisis" fell to Count Leopold Berchtold, the Austrian foreign minister; Count Franz Conrad von Hotzendorf, the chief of staff for the Austro-Hungarian army and the other ministers. The ultimate resolution of deliberations by the Austrian government during the weeks following the assassination of the Archduke was to give Serbia an ultimatum of itemized demands which it was virtually certain Serbia would be unable or unwilling to comply with, thus serving as a "legal basis for war." However, the general movement toward war with Serbia was already in motion prior to assassination of the Archduke as evidenced by a June 14 memo of Berchtold recommending the "elimination of Serbia" as a state, which Franz Josef expressed agreement with in a letter delivered to Kaiser Wilhelm II in Berlin on July 5. In that letter, Franz Josef "...explicitly stated that the decision for war against Serbia had been made before the assassination of the Archduke, and that the events of Sarajevo only confirmed the already pre-existing need for a war."  A week after delivery of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, on 28 July, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Within weeks, the Germans, Russians, French and British had all entered the fray which eventually became known as World War I.
What did he have to do with the outbreak?
On 28 June 1914 Franz Joseph's nephew and heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his morganatic wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated
On 28 June 1914 Franz Joseph's nephew and heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his morganatic wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, were assassinated