Karl Pius von Österreich-Toskana

Carlo Pio von Habsburg-Lorraine, known in Spain as Carlos Pio de Habsburgo-Lorena y de Borbón, was born in Vienna on December 4, 1909. He belonged to the Tuscan branch of the House of Habsburg and later became known as a Carlist claimant to the Spanish throne under the name Charles VIII. Carlo Pio was the youngest son of Archduke Leopold Salvator of Austria-Tuscany and his wife, Blanca of Bourbon-Spain. His mother was the eldest daughter of Charles, Duke of Madrid, who had himself claimed the Spanish throne on behalf of the Carlist movement. At his baptism, Carlo Pio received the extensive names Charles Pius Maria Adelgonda Bianca Leopold Ignatius Raphael Michael Salvator Cyrillus Angelus Barbara. His godparents included Pope Pius X and Adelgonde of Braganza, Countess of Bardi. He spent his childhood at the Palais Toskana on Argentinierstraße in Vienna. After the political upheaval in Austria, the republican government confiscated all Habsburg property in 1919. Carlo Pio then moved with his family to Tenuta Reale, a villa belonging to his mother's family near Viareggio. The family later lived in Barcelona, and in 1926 Carlo Pio obtained Spanish citizenship. After completing his secondary education, he began studying at a school of industrial engineering. In the early 1930s, he returned to Austria and joined the Heimwehr, a conservative militia that engaged in street fighting with communists and socialists. In this politically polarized period, his dynastic background also became increasingly important to part of the Carlist movement. In 1932, a group within Carlism known as the Cruzadistas, after the magazine El Cruzado Español, placed its hopes in Blanca's sons. The leading Carlist claimant at the time, Alfonso Charles, Duke of San Jaime and a great-uncle of Carlo Pio, was already over eighty and had no children of his own. The Cruzadistas considered King Alfonso XIII and his sons excluded from the succession because of their liberalism. They likewise regarded other male members of the House of Bourbon as unsuitable for political, dynastic, or national reasons. They therefore promoted the minority view that, after Alfonso Charles's death, the Carlist claim should pass to the sons of his nearest female relative, Blanca. Alfonso Charles himself rejected this position. While Alfonso Charles was still alive, Blanca and her sons hesitated to assert their claims openly. After his death in 1936, Carlo Pio initially supported the regent of the Carlist community, Prince Xavier of Bourbon-Parma, whom Alfonso Charles had appointed. Given the confused circumstances of the Spanish Civil War, he did not initially make a clear personal claim to the throne. On June 29, 1943, Carlo Pio finally published a manifesto declaring himself the legitimate successor to the Spanish throne. At that time, three older brothers were still alive, but none of them wished to claim the Spanish crown for himself. In 1947, his brothers Leopold and Franz Joseph formally renounced their succession rights in New York. In 1948, his brother Anton verbally renounced his claims in Barcelona. After Carlo Pio's death, however, Anton and Franz Joseph again advanced their own claims; Anton's son Dominik later became the current claimant of that line. Carlo Pio's supporters recognized him as Charles VIII, and his movement consequently became known as Carloctavism. He used the title Duke of Madrid, which had previously been held by his maternal grandfather. He received support from some of the most conservative Carlist leaders and, to some extent, from officers of General Franco's Movimiento Nacional. Xavier of Bourbon-Parma's supporters regarded this backing as an attempt by Franco's supporters to divide and weaken the Carlists. Carlo Pio lived for a time in Andorra and subsequently returned to Barcelona. Between 1944 and 1951, he granted fourteen noble titles and appointed members to the Order of the Proscribed Legitimacy and the Order of Santa Maria of the Lily of Navarre. He also established a new order of merit in honor of Saint Charles Borromeo. In 1952, he awarded its collar to General Franco and its Grand Cross to Cardinal Federico Tedeschini, the papal legate to the International Eucharistic Congress in Barcelona. On May 8, 1938, Carlo Pio married Christa Satzger de Bálványos in Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral. She was the daughter of Geza Satzger de Bálványos and Maria Alexandrina Friedmann. The marriage was morganatic, meaning that the children born from it had no dynastic rights. The couple had two daughters: Alessandra Bianca, born on January 20, 1941, and Maria Immaculata Pia, born on July 3, 1945. Both later married and had three children each. In 1990, Archduke Otto granted them the title of Countesses of Habsburg. Christa separated from Carlo Pio in 1949, and their marriage was civilly dissolved in Reno, Nevada, in December 1950. In January 1951, Carlo Pio also initiated canonical proceedings to have the marriage declared null, but the case had not been concluded when he died. Carlo Pio died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Barcelona on December 24, 1953. Numerous memorial services were held in his honor, including a Mass in Madrid on January 16, 1954, attended by many government officials and members of the diplomatic corps. He was buried at the monastery of Santa Maria de Poblet.