Archduke Friedrich of Austria

Archduke Friedrich Ferdinand Leopold of Austria (14 May 1821 – 5 October 1847) was a member of the House of Habsburg and Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian Navy.

Family Friedrich was the third son of Field Marshal Archduke Charles of Austria (1771–1847) and Princess Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg (1797–1829). He never married and did not leave issue.

Military career in the Navy Born in Vienna, Friedrich joined the Imperial Austrian Navy in 1837 at the age of sixteen. He threw himself into this career with much zeal and quickly rose to command a ship, sailing to the Orient for the first time in 1839.

Oriental Crisis of 1840 During the Oriental Crisis of 1840 between Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, Friedrich fought in the campaign against Muhammad Ali after the Convention of London. He served with the Austrian fleet off the Levantine coast as commander of the ship Guerriera.

In that convention, the United Kingdom, Austria, Prussia, and Russia had offered Muhammad Ali hereditary rule of Egypt as part of the Ottoman Empire if he withdrew from the Syrian hinterland and the coast of Mount Lebanon. Muhammad Ali hesitated until British naval forces moved against Syria and Alexandria.

Friedrich's term as Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Austrian Navy was cut short. He died of jaundice in Venice at the age of twenty-six, only three years after taking office.

The large sailboat SMS Erzherzog Friedrich and the battleship SMS Erzherzog Friedrich (1902) were named after him.

Honours He received the following awards:

Ancestry