Francis was a son of Emperor Leopold II (1747 – 1792) and his wife Maria Luisa of Spain (1745 – 1792). Francis was born in Florence, the capital of Tuscany where his father reigned as Grand Duke from 1765–90. Though he had a happy childhood surrounded by his many siblings, his family knew Francis was likely to be a future Emperor (his uncle Joseph had no surviving issue from either of his two marriages), and so in 1784 the young Archduke was sent to the Imperial Court in Vienna to educate and prepare him for his future role. To complete his training, Francis was sent to join an army regiment in Hungary and he settled easily into the routine of military life. After the death of Joseph II in 1790, Francis's father became Emperor. He had an early taste of power while acting as Leopold's deputy in Vienna while the incoming Emperor traversed the Empire attempting to win back those alienated by his brother's policies.[7] The strain told on Leopold, and by the winter of 1791 he became ill. He gradually worsened throughout early 1792, and, on the afternoon of 1 March Leopold died, at the relatively young age of 44. Francis, just past his 24th birthday, was now Emperor much sooner than he had expected.

As the leader of the large multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire, Francis felt threatened by Napoleon's call for liberty and equality in Europe. Francis had a fraught relationship with France. His aunt Marie Antoinette died under the guillotine at the beginning of his reign. Later, he led Austria into the French Revolutionary Wars and was defeated by Napoleon. By the Treaty of Campo Formio, he ceded the left bank of the Rhine to France in exchange for Venice and Dalmatia. He again fought against France during the Second Coalition, and, after meeting crushing defeat at Austerlitz, agreed to the Treaty of Pressburg, which effectively dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, weakening the Austrian Empire and reorganizing present-day Germany under a Napoleonic imprint.

In 1809, Francis attacked France again, hoping to take advantage of the Peninsular War embroiling Napoleon in Spain. He was again defeated, and this time forced to ally himself with Napoleon, ceding territory to the Empire, joining the Continental System, and wedding his daughter Marie-Louise to the Emperor. Francis essentially became a vassal of the Emperor of the French. The Napoleonic wars drastically weakened Austria and threatened its preeminence among the states of Germany, a position that it would eventually cede to Prussia.

In 1813, for the fourth and final time, Austria turned against France and joined Great Britain, Russia, and Prussia in their war against Napoleon. Austria played a major role in the final defeat of France—in recognition of this, Francis, represented by Clemens von Metternich, presided over the Congress of Vienna, helping to form the Concert of Europe and the Holy Alliance, ushering in an era of conservatism and reactionism in Europe. The German Confederation, a loose association of Central European states was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to organize the surviving states of the Holy Roman Empire. The Congress was a personal triumph for Francis, where he hosted the assorted dignitaries in comfort, though Francis undermined his allies Tsar Alexander and Frederick William III of Prussia by negotiating a secret treaty with the restored French king Louis XVIII.