Saturday, 18 December 2010
Friday, 17 December 2010
Requiem for an Empress and her son, the Crown Prince
Some time ago I wrote an essay about the last independent king of Bavaria, Ludwig II von Wittelsbach, a rather hapless guy. Checking information about his background I found out that his so-called suicide was not the only suspicious and gratuitous decease in the family. Some facts I stumbled across made me simply gag. As soon as I started breathing again, though, the idea of another essay was planted firmly in my head. Be prepared, it will be long. I couldn't help it - sorry.
Do you remember Elizabeth of Bavaria, also known as Sissi, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary who as a sixteen-year-old girlie married the 23-year-old Francis Joseph, then Emperor of Austria? She was poor Ludwig’s half-first cousin once removed and his great friend. Unfortunately she also shared his fate, being murdered in very murky circumstances. But let not put the carriage before the horse – first I must write something about her life, children and most notably about her only son Rudolf, the Crown Prince.
Franz Joseph, the Emperor of Austria, although he was supposed to marry her older sister, Duchess Helene, fell in love with young Sissi and decided: this girl and nobody else. Small wonder – Elizabeth was considered one of the most beautiful European princesses of all times and, to tell you the truth, her life sometimes reminded me of the life of the late Princess Diana. Like Diana, Sissi was very slender and pretty - at a height of 172 cm (5.7 feet) she only weighed 50kg – a woman with truly supermodel figure and way before times when extremely slim girls appeared on catwalks. Like Diana, she married young and her husband was a man who she didn’t love. Like Diana, she paid extreme attention to her appearance - she spent much time preserving her beauty and she was a very active, outdoor type of woman who could ride a horse or hike for several hours a day to stay slim and fit. She followed such a strict exercise regimen combined with a draconian diet to maintain her 20-inch (50 cm) waistline (corseted of course) and 65-cm hips size. As a result, though, she sometimes was simply wasting away to near emaciation. Nowadays the diagnosis would be rather obvious: anorexia nervosa. Our heroine was not a fairy tale Cinderella who lived happily ever after but a bitter, unhappy woman full of self-loathing and various emotional and mental disorders. Happy people don’t suffer from anorexia after all.
Soon after the marriage Sissi bore the emperor three children: Archduchess Sophie of Austria (1855), Archduchess Gisela of Austria (1856), and the hoped-for crown prince, Rudolf (1858). Three kids in four years – it must have been really exhausting for the young mama who wanted to look great all the same. However, in 1857, the first tragedy struck.
Elisabeth, against the advice of the doctors, took her two daughters on a vacation in Hungary, a country she was very fond of. Both girls were ill with diarrhoea, but while Gisela recovered quickly, her older sister Sophie died; she was two. Her firstborn daughter's death haunted Elisabeth for the rest of her life and it was the first serious cause of a rift between her and her husband.
In 1860, Elisabeth left Vienna after contracting a lung disease, later believed to be rather psychosomatic. She spent the winter in Madeira and returned to Vienna only after having visited the Ionian Islands. Soon after that she fell ill again and returned to Corfu. Traveling became a real passion of hers, as building castles and listening to operas were the real passions of Ludwig, her cousin. If you think Elizabeth was visiting one country after another with small kids in her wake you are wrong; I am sure that after the death of the eldest daughter she was afraid of traveling with them or maybe she decided that they didn’t need her so much; perhaps she was also too young to develop maternal instincts – in short imperial children were raised by her mother-in-law and aunt, Princess Sophie of Bavaria, who often referred to Elisabeth as a "silly young mother". Well, she shouldn’t have married and had children so early for sure.
For some time all seemed to go well - in 1867, national unrest within the Habsburg monarchy caused by the rebellious Hungarians led to the founding of the Austro–Hungarian double monarchy. Elisabeth had always sympathized with the Hungarian cause – she loved their language and culture - so she must have enjoyed such a solution very much. She even reconciled and reunited with her husband, joining Francis Joseph in Budapest, where their coronation took place. Following the imperial couple's reconciliation, Elisabeth gave birth to their fourth child, Archduchess Marie Valerie (1868) and the rest of her offspring seemed to grow up just fine. The sad, dark events, although rather remote, seemed to haunt her nevertheless.
In 1867, the same year the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was created, Sissi’s brother-in-law, Emperor Maximilian I. of Mexico, was shot by anti-monarchy insurgents in his own country. His wife, Charlotte, went insane. Then came the mysterious death of Ludwig II and his doctor in June 1886 - that unexplained and totally weird double “suicide by drowning” in Lake Starnberg. On January 30, 1889, so only three years later, came the major blow known also as the Mayerling Incident.
Mary Vetsera via WikipediaOn the morning of January 30, Rudolf, the only son of Elizabeth and Franz Joseph, was found dead at his hunting lodge called Mayerling. People also found the body of one of his lovers, Baroness Mary Vetsera. The initial official explanation for the incident was that Rudolf had suffered heart failure; Vetsera was not mentioned at all and her uncles were later summoned to Mayerling to remove her body. They did it in a very clandestine fashion, straight from a spooky novel – they dressed her, and propping up her body with a broomstick so that she could be placed upright in the carriage, smuggled her out of the estate in the middle of the night, probably in the futile hope of avoiding a bigger scandal. The court later admitted that Rudolf had committed suicide with his lover. Many stories were circulating about the pair’s death; the most widely accepted was that the two had carried out a suicide pact after Franz Joseph demanded they separate. Police investigation suggested that Rudolf shot his mistress in the head, then sat by her body for several hours before shooting himself. Complete rubbish.
Now let me digress to throw more light on the situation of the Crown Prince Rudolf to show you why the official version was such a big pile of rubbish.
Rudolf and Stephanie via Wikipedia
He was born on August 21, 1858. In 1881 he married Princess Stephanie of Belgium. Their marriage, as it happened frequently in the house of Habsburg and in other royal families of that time, was arranged and not very happy – there were little tender feelings between the young couple. Stephanie was very young - not even seventeen at the time of her wedding – and hardly pretty; even her mother-in-law regarded her new daughter-in-law as a "clumsy oaf”. Small wonder Stephanie failed to keep her husband from wandering the streets of Vienna in search of nicer company. Apparently Rudolf needed a wife with a more interesting character. The couple had only one daughter, Archduchess Elisabeth, born in 1883.
The fact that Rudolf had many mistresses and led an “interesting” life was really nothing new or strange. His own father had a long-lasting affair with an actress, Katharina Schratt ; his mother, Elizabeth, tolerated it to some extend; some also believe she didn’t shun the company of different dashing fellows (like George "Bay" Middleton) either . In late 1888, the 30-year-old crown prince met the 17-year-old Baroness Marie Vetsera. From the start, Mary adored him, and was ready to do anything for him, not the other way round. I suppose that childish infatuation was the main reason why it was Mary’s body which was found near the dead prince. She wasn’t the greatest romance of his life, far from it, but she would do whatever he said/asked her to. He happened to ask her to accompany him to Mayerling.
By 1889, many people at the Court, including Rudolf's wife Stéphanie and his father Franz Joseph, knew that Rudolf and Mary were close to each other. It was tolerated. Indeed, Rudolf’s wife, Princess Stéphanie, was carrying on her own affair as well. Why a crown prince with bright future before him would all of a sudden end his life because of one fling? Though Mary has been presented as the woman who was Rudolf’s “great love”, in reality they had not known each other for long. Apart from that Rudolf had proposed the suicide pact already to two women before Mary: to his wife Stephanie (whom he most definitely didn’t love), and to Mizzi Kaspar, with whom he had had a relationship for years. Both women refused. Mizzi, being more cheeky or more distressed (or both), laughed him off, stating that she loves life too much. Afterwards she allegedly tried to help the prince by going to the Prime Minister, pleading that Rudolph should be watched. It must have taken a great deal of courage for a woman in her position and the outcome was painfully predictable: she was told to mind her own business. Even when Rudolf went away to presumably die with Mary, he visited Mizzi on his last night before leaving and wrote her a loving, tender letter of farewell before he died. After his death she got 30.000 Guldens bequeathed by the Prince in his testament.
Wait a moment: a man is going to kill himself because he can’t be with the love of his life and just before that desperate deed he visits a second mistress and then leaves her a tender letter? From a psychological point of view there was something strange in the whole suicide pact, something that sounds very unlikely. Why didn't the Prince want to commit suicide on his own, providing it was indeed his real intention? Why did he need a woman as a suicide companion or any companion at all?
Let’s return to the crime and the official reasons behind it. Apart from the straightforward lover’s pact cited in the official report, a lover’s quarrel has also been postulated. One variant states that Mary was pregnant and died during a botched abortion and the grief-stricken Rudolf killed himself. Why did they carry the abortion in a hunting lodge, for heavens’ sake, not in a remote hospital abroad? Why there was neither a doctor nor a midwife present? I really cannot believe any of these either.
Rudolf left a final letter to Princess Stephanie – it also seems to support the suicide hypothesis but only at first glance. It is short so I quote the original German text along with its English translation:
As you see Rudolf bids farewell to her and his friends, saying that only death can save his good name. Why his good name had become so endangered, though? Certainly not because he drunk or had mistresses. As I proved above it was an open secret and really nothing very shameful or out of order at that time. In any case, how would a double-suicide or “murder-suicide" help him save his “good name"? The fact is it wouldn’t help at all – it would be a total disgrace for the family of Franz Joseph, a devout Catholic, definitely far worse than keeping a legion of mistresses and attending a dozen of drinking parties. This letter raises at least as many questions as answers - Rudolf doesn’t mention of Mary Vetsera as if she was unimportant and, allegedly, that woman was supposed to be the cause of his suicide. Some say it might have been written under duress. I find it very probable. It might also have been written to throw deliberately any investigator out of his/her scent. Plenty of other theories served that cause as well. Here the reasoning seems to be simple: it is known that suicides write final letters; here is the final letter of the Prince, he committed suicide, end of the story. Well, not exactly.
During funeral the corpse of the Crown Prince wore gloves and his mother was not allowed to see his hands. Many have alleged that Rudolf's entire body showed signs of a violent confrontation before death. His hands allegedly showed signs of struggle, which might support the theory that it wasn’t a suicide – if somebody tries desperately to fight off his would-be assassins he can’t be called suicidal after all. It also seems that the revolver used to kill Rudolf was not the one owned by the Crown Prince, and that all six bullets were fired. Why?
Prince Rudolf via Wikipedia
It seems that Marie Vetsera was not the foul victim of a tragic love affair, but the unwilling witness of one of the most daring political assassinations ever achieved. It also appears that Mary had been killed several hours before Rudolf, and perhaps he was forced to watch her brutal, quietly inflicted death, which forensic analysis generally concludes was probably from beating, not gunshots (but I will deal with it later).
Now a bit about the aftermath. Rudolf's death brought ruin to his parents' marriage, changed the imperial succession, and perhaps contributed in a small way to the end of the ancient house of Habsburg in 1918. The removal of the liberal Rudolf made Franz Joseph's conservative policies easier to pursue. Since Rudolf was the only son of Franz Joseph, Emperor Franz Joseph's brother, Karl Ludwig, became heir-presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian Empire but he renounced his succession rights a few days later in favour of his eldest son Franz Ferdinand. After Franz Ferdinand's assassination in 1914 (well, here we go, another one in the family), Franz Ferdinand's nephew, Karl Ludwig's grandson, Karl, became the heir-presumptive. Karl would ultimately succeed his grand-uncle as Emperor Charles I in 1916. Anyway if Rudolf had not met with an untimely demise, Europe's history would have been tremendously different. Mayerling Incident not only meant the death of two young people, it also robbed the Habsburgs of the one person who seemed most capable of keeping the tattered multinational monarchy from its eventual disintegration and collapse. That’s why you really shouldn’t disregard political conspiracy theories concerning the whole case.
One is the story of the last Austrian Empress, Zita, the wife of Karl, who died in 1989. She believed Rudolf had been the victim of an international political conspiracy engineered by Georges Clemenceau, the French Prime Minister. Zita did not believe that with such a promising life ahead of him, Crown Prince Rudolf would have chosen suicide under any circumstances – I happen to support her, the guy loved good life too much. He might have been suicidal from time to time but not to the point of getting serious about it. Anyway Zita alleged that Clemenceau was conspiring to overthrow Franz Joseph and place germanophobe Rudolf on the throne. It was known Rudolf opposed his father on certain issues, including liberalizing voting and allowing more scope for the activities of national groups within the Empire. This was seen in some quarters in France and elsewhere as an opportunity to weaken the Empire by playing son against father. Since Rudolf refused to agree to any suggestions of deposing and/or replacing his father, the theory has it that he had to be killed to maintain the secrecy of the plot (Bogle & Bogle, p 3, citing Erich Feigl's biography of the Emperor Charles, Vienna, 1988). Well, if anybody had found out it would have been a scandal indeed – something definitely more serious than any illicit affair.
The other theory, with a vivid description of the whole event, might be found in The Secrets of the Hohenzollerns by Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves, published in 1915 (Graves claims to have been a German spy who reported directly to Kaiser Wilhelm II). I would like to quote here a large part of it:
"...Prussian diplomacy had gained such an ascendancy over the House of Habsburg and the affairs of Austria, that Austria has been and is a staunch ally and supported by Germany in all its aims and ambitions. This alliance is developed to such an extent that even an heir apparent to the Austrian empire unless acceptable to and identified with Prusso-Germanic interests finds it impossible to ascend the throne.
"Erherzog Rudolph, the archduke, next in succession, was mysteriously killed at Mayerling, an obscure little hunting lodge in upper Austria. Much has been written and many conjectures made about the cirumstance of this lamentable tragedy. The real reason, so vast in its importance, has of necessity never been divulged.
"On a blustery and cold January night in 1889 His Royal Highness and the Baroness Marie Vetzera (Vetchera) were familiarly seated around a plain but daintily spread supper table in the hunting lodge of Mayerling. They were attended by Max and Otto K----, two brothers much trusted in the archducal household. Supper was nearly finished and the Prince, who was very fond of a certain brand of champagne, had just given the order to Otto for another couple of bottles, when the deep baying of the Prince's favorite deerhound gave notice of the approach of strangers. A dull thud and agonized yelp of the dog made the Prince jump up and stride toward the door, which was guarded by Max. Pushing the servant aside, His Royal Highness pulled the door open. Three men muffled up to their eyes in great coats forced their way into the room. In a trice the leader of the trio pinioned Max to the wall. The Archduke, who had jumped back startled and was reseating himself behind the supper table, demanded the reason for this intrusion, when the smallest of the three, supposedly the brother of the Baroness Vetzer, laid hold of a bottle of champagne and brought the weapon down with terrific force on his unprotected head, completely crushing the skull. The Baroness, who apparently had recognized one of the three intruders, was hysterically screaming and uttering dire threats and vengeance against the perpetrators of this foul deed. As she stood there, gripping the edges of the table, the third, standing at the door, raised his Stutzen (a short hunting gun in great favor in the Austrian Alps), and fired point blank at the unfortunate woman, almost blowing her head to pieces.
(…)The next moment Otto received a Hirsch-fanger (a hunting dagger) between his shoulders. Dragging their wounded conspirator with them, the two assassins disappeared into the night. From that day to this there have never been any arrests made or any one held to account for this dastardly deed.
"Otto, who was left for dead, on regaining sufficient strength decently covered the bodies with table cloths and napkins, and left a short pencil written account of the occurrences pinned on to his brother's clothes. He also disappeared in the night; for he well knew the consequences attached to an even entirely innocent witnessing of such a royal family tragedy. Old, gray and bent, Otto is living to this day the quiet life of a hermit and exile not five hundred miles from New York City. Money would never make Otto talk, but some day the upheaval in Europe may provide an occasion when this old retainer of the House of Habsburg may unseal his lips; and then woe to the guilty."
Well, everything would be fine if only this report weren’t so totally wrong. Half a century later, in 1946, the tomb of Marie Vetsera was desecrated by the occupying Soviet forces – the soldiers were looking for jewellery and other such trifles. This profanity was not discovered until 1955 when the Red Army abandoned Austria. In 1959 specialists in funereal preservation, accompanied by a doctor and a member of the Vetsera family, examined the remains. They were all shocked to discover that the body of the young woman in the vault did not present any traces of death by firearm. What they did observe was a large trauma on the crown of the head. In the quoted report it was stated that Mary had been shot in her head and the Prince - bludgeoned to death. It was exactly the other way round. What’s more the report doesn’t explain why the hands of the Prince’s cadaver had to be gloved in the coffin. Another rubbish evidence, perhaps intended to make more meaningless fuss about the whole mystery.
Let’s return to our Empress – we started with her and we will end with her too.
Sisi never recovered from the blow. Increasingly growing lonely, Elizabeth embarked on a life of travel again. The Empress visited countries to which no other northern royal went at the time: Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Malta, Greece, Turkey and Egypt. The endless travels became an escape for the Empress from herself and her misery but I doubt she found a peace of mind she looked for.
On 10 September 1898, in Geneva, Switzerland, Elisabeth, aged 60, was stabbed in the heart with a sharpened file by a young anarchist named Luigi Lucheni. When attacked, she had been walking along the promenade of Lake Geneva about to board the steamship Genève for Montreux with her lady-of-courtesy, Countess Sztaray. She boarded the ship, unaware of the severity of her condition. She died soon afterwards.
I suppose now you won’t be surprised by the fact that the reasons behind her assassination remain murky to say the least of it. Reportedly, her assassin had hoped to kill a prince from the House of Orléans and, failing to find him, turned on Elisabeth instead. A coincidence, bad luck or something more sinister? Lucheni afterwards said, "I wanted to kill a royal. It did not matter which one." Perhaps it didn’t matter to him but I doubt his patrons were so undiscriminating. I do think he had some patrons - he was a perfect tool: mentally deranged, determined to the point of being an extremist, craving fame and glory for his deed.
Luigi Luccheni tried to flee immediately after the deed, but already after a few metres he was captured and arrested. Precisely one month after the assassination, Luccheni appeared before the court. Proudly he confessed to the murder and noticed with satisfaction the great interest in his person. He was sentenced to lifelong imprisonment. Luccheni was disappointed that his trial was held according to the Geneva Convention, and that he therefore could not be given the death penalty. Twelve years later, in October 1910, Luccheni hanged himself on his leather belt in his cell. Perhaps somebody helped him, removing a useless prisoner and an inconvenient witness or maybe he really had had enough – we will never know.
Do you remember Elizabeth of Bavaria, also known as Sissi, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary who as a sixteen-year-old girlie married the 23-year-old Francis Joseph, then Emperor of Austria? She was poor Ludwig’s half-first cousin once removed and his great friend. Unfortunately she also shared his fate, being murdered in very murky circumstances. But let not put the carriage before the horse – first I must write something about her life, children and most notably about her only son Rudolf, the Crown Prince.
Franz Joseph, the Emperor of Austria, although he was supposed to marry her older sister, Duchess Helene, fell in love with young Sissi and decided: this girl and nobody else. Small wonder – Elizabeth was considered one of the most beautiful European princesses of all times and, to tell you the truth, her life sometimes reminded me of the life of the late Princess Diana. Like Diana, Sissi was very slender and pretty - at a height of 172 cm (5.7 feet) she only weighed 50kg – a woman with truly supermodel figure and way before times when extremely slim girls appeared on catwalks. Like Diana, she married young and her husband was a man who she didn’t love. Like Diana, she paid extreme attention to her appearance - she spent much time preserving her beauty and she was a very active, outdoor type of woman who could ride a horse or hike for several hours a day to stay slim and fit. She followed such a strict exercise regimen combined with a draconian diet to maintain her 20-inch (50 cm) waistline (corseted of course) and 65-cm hips size. As a result, though, she sometimes was simply wasting away to near emaciation. Nowadays the diagnosis would be rather obvious: anorexia nervosa. Our heroine was not a fairy tale Cinderella who lived happily ever after but a bitter, unhappy woman full of self-loathing and various emotional and mental disorders. Happy people don’t suffer from anorexia after all.
Soon after the marriage Sissi bore the emperor three children: Archduchess Sophie of Austria (1855), Archduchess Gisela of Austria (1856), and the hoped-for crown prince, Rudolf (1858). Three kids in four years – it must have been really exhausting for the young mama who wanted to look great all the same. However, in 1857, the first tragedy struck.
Elisabeth, against the advice of the doctors, took her two daughters on a vacation in Hungary, a country she was very fond of. Both girls were ill with diarrhoea, but while Gisela recovered quickly, her older sister Sophie died; she was two. Her firstborn daughter's death haunted Elisabeth for the rest of her life and it was the first serious cause of a rift between her and her husband.
In 1860, Elisabeth left Vienna after contracting a lung disease, later believed to be rather psychosomatic. She spent the winter in Madeira and returned to Vienna only after having visited the Ionian Islands. Soon after that she fell ill again and returned to Corfu. Traveling became a real passion of hers, as building castles and listening to operas were the real passions of Ludwig, her cousin. If you think Elizabeth was visiting one country after another with small kids in her wake you are wrong; I am sure that after the death of the eldest daughter she was afraid of traveling with them or maybe she decided that they didn’t need her so much; perhaps she was also too young to develop maternal instincts – in short imperial children were raised by her mother-in-law and aunt, Princess Sophie of Bavaria, who often referred to Elisabeth as a "silly young mother". Well, she shouldn’t have married and had children so early for sure.
For some time all seemed to go well - in 1867, national unrest within the Habsburg monarchy caused by the rebellious Hungarians led to the founding of the Austro–Hungarian double monarchy. Elisabeth had always sympathized with the Hungarian cause – she loved their language and culture - so she must have enjoyed such a solution very much. She even reconciled and reunited with her husband, joining Francis Joseph in Budapest, where their coronation took place. Following the imperial couple's reconciliation, Elisabeth gave birth to their fourth child, Archduchess Marie Valerie (1868) and the rest of her offspring seemed to grow up just fine. The sad, dark events, although rather remote, seemed to haunt her nevertheless.
In 1867, the same year the Austro-Hungarian monarchy was created, Sissi’s brother-in-law, Emperor Maximilian I. of Mexico, was shot by anti-monarchy insurgents in his own country. His wife, Charlotte, went insane. Then came the mysterious death of Ludwig II and his doctor in June 1886 - that unexplained and totally weird double “suicide by drowning” in Lake Starnberg. On January 30, 1889, so only three years later, came the major blow known also as the Mayerling Incident.
Mary Vetsera via WikipediaNow let me digress to throw more light on the situation of the Crown Prince Rudolf to show you why the official version was such a big pile of rubbish.
Rudolf and Stephanie via WikipediaHe was born on August 21, 1858. In 1881 he married Princess Stephanie of Belgium. Their marriage, as it happened frequently in the house of Habsburg and in other royal families of that time, was arranged and not very happy – there were little tender feelings between the young couple. Stephanie was very young - not even seventeen at the time of her wedding – and hardly pretty; even her mother-in-law regarded her new daughter-in-law as a "clumsy oaf”. Small wonder Stephanie failed to keep her husband from wandering the streets of Vienna in search of nicer company. Apparently Rudolf needed a wife with a more interesting character. The couple had only one daughter, Archduchess Elisabeth, born in 1883.
The fact that Rudolf had many mistresses and led an “interesting” life was really nothing new or strange. His own father had a long-lasting affair with an actress, Katharina Schratt ; his mother, Elizabeth, tolerated it to some extend; some also believe she didn’t shun the company of different dashing fellows (like George "Bay" Middleton) either . In late 1888, the 30-year-old crown prince met the 17-year-old Baroness Marie Vetsera. From the start, Mary adored him, and was ready to do anything for him, not the other way round. I suppose that childish infatuation was the main reason why it was Mary’s body which was found near the dead prince. She wasn’t the greatest romance of his life, far from it, but she would do whatever he said/asked her to. He happened to ask her to accompany him to Mayerling.
By 1889, many people at the Court, including Rudolf's wife Stéphanie and his father Franz Joseph, knew that Rudolf and Mary were close to each other. It was tolerated. Indeed, Rudolf’s wife, Princess Stéphanie, was carrying on her own affair as well. Why a crown prince with bright future before him would all of a sudden end his life because of one fling? Though Mary has been presented as the woman who was Rudolf’s “great love”, in reality they had not known each other for long. Apart from that Rudolf had proposed the suicide pact already to two women before Mary: to his wife Stephanie (whom he most definitely didn’t love), and to Mizzi Kaspar, with whom he had had a relationship for years. Both women refused. Mizzi, being more cheeky or more distressed (or both), laughed him off, stating that she loves life too much. Afterwards she allegedly tried to help the prince by going to the Prime Minister, pleading that Rudolph should be watched. It must have taken a great deal of courage for a woman in her position and the outcome was painfully predictable: she was told to mind her own business. Even when Rudolf went away to presumably die with Mary, he visited Mizzi on his last night before leaving and wrote her a loving, tender letter of farewell before he died. After his death she got 30.000 Guldens bequeathed by the Prince in his testament.
Wait a moment: a man is going to kill himself because he can’t be with the love of his life and just before that desperate deed he visits a second mistress and then leaves her a tender letter? From a psychological point of view there was something strange in the whole suicide pact, something that sounds very unlikely. Why didn't the Prince want to commit suicide on his own, providing it was indeed his real intention? Why did he need a woman as a suicide companion or any companion at all?
Let’s return to the crime and the official reasons behind it. Apart from the straightforward lover’s pact cited in the official report, a lover’s quarrel has also been postulated. One variant states that Mary was pregnant and died during a botched abortion and the grief-stricken Rudolf killed himself. Why did they carry the abortion in a hunting lodge, for heavens’ sake, not in a remote hospital abroad? Why there was neither a doctor nor a midwife present? I really cannot believe any of these either.
Rudolf left a final letter to Princess Stephanie – it also seems to support the suicide hypothesis but only at first glance. It is short so I quote the original German text along with its English translation:
Liebe Stephanie! Du bist von meiner Gegenwart und Plage befreit; werde glücklich auf Deine Art. Sei gut für die arme Kleine, die das einzige ist, was von mir übrig leibt.
Allen Bekannten, besonders Bombelles, Spindler, Latour, Wowo, Gisela, Leopold, etc.etc. sage meine letzten Grüße. Ich gehe ruhig in den Tod, der allein meinen guten Namen retten kann. Sei herzlichst umarmt. Dein Dich liebender Rudolph
“Dear Stephanie, you are now rid of my presence and annoyance; be happy in your own way. Take care of the poor wee one, she is all that remains of me. To all acquaintances, especially Bombelles, Spindler, Latour, Wowo (nickname for the barones Von Welden, Ruldolf's nanny), Gisela, Leopold, etc., etc., say my last greetings. I go quietly to my death, which alone can save my good name. I embrace you affectionately. Your loving Rudolph.”
During funeral the corpse of the Crown Prince wore gloves and his mother was not allowed to see his hands. Many have alleged that Rudolf's entire body showed signs of a violent confrontation before death. His hands allegedly showed signs of struggle, which might support the theory that it wasn’t a suicide – if somebody tries desperately to fight off his would-be assassins he can’t be called suicidal after all. It also seems that the revolver used to kill Rudolf was not the one owned by the Crown Prince, and that all six bullets were fired. Why?
Prince Rudolf via WikipediaIt seems that Marie Vetsera was not the foul victim of a tragic love affair, but the unwilling witness of one of the most daring political assassinations ever achieved. It also appears that Mary had been killed several hours before Rudolf, and perhaps he was forced to watch her brutal, quietly inflicted death, which forensic analysis generally concludes was probably from beating, not gunshots (but I will deal with it later).
Now a bit about the aftermath. Rudolf's death brought ruin to his parents' marriage, changed the imperial succession, and perhaps contributed in a small way to the end of the ancient house of Habsburg in 1918. The removal of the liberal Rudolf made Franz Joseph's conservative policies easier to pursue. Since Rudolf was the only son of Franz Joseph, Emperor Franz Joseph's brother, Karl Ludwig, became heir-presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian Empire but he renounced his succession rights a few days later in favour of his eldest son Franz Ferdinand. After Franz Ferdinand's assassination in 1914 (well, here we go, another one in the family), Franz Ferdinand's nephew, Karl Ludwig's grandson, Karl, became the heir-presumptive. Karl would ultimately succeed his grand-uncle as Emperor Charles I in 1916. Anyway if Rudolf had not met with an untimely demise, Europe's history would have been tremendously different. Mayerling Incident not only meant the death of two young people, it also robbed the Habsburgs of the one person who seemed most capable of keeping the tattered multinational monarchy from its eventual disintegration and collapse. That’s why you really shouldn’t disregard political conspiracy theories concerning the whole case.
One is the story of the last Austrian Empress, Zita, the wife of Karl, who died in 1989. She believed Rudolf had been the victim of an international political conspiracy engineered by Georges Clemenceau, the French Prime Minister. Zita did not believe that with such a promising life ahead of him, Crown Prince Rudolf would have chosen suicide under any circumstances – I happen to support her, the guy loved good life too much. He might have been suicidal from time to time but not to the point of getting serious about it. Anyway Zita alleged that Clemenceau was conspiring to overthrow Franz Joseph and place germanophobe Rudolf on the throne. It was known Rudolf opposed his father on certain issues, including liberalizing voting and allowing more scope for the activities of national groups within the Empire. This was seen in some quarters in France and elsewhere as an opportunity to weaken the Empire by playing son against father. Since Rudolf refused to agree to any suggestions of deposing and/or replacing his father, the theory has it that he had to be killed to maintain the secrecy of the plot (Bogle & Bogle, p 3, citing Erich Feigl's biography of the Emperor Charles, Vienna, 1988). Well, if anybody had found out it would have been a scandal indeed – something definitely more serious than any illicit affair.
The other theory, with a vivid description of the whole event, might be found in The Secrets of the Hohenzollerns by Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves, published in 1915 (Graves claims to have been a German spy who reported directly to Kaiser Wilhelm II). I would like to quote here a large part of it:
"...Prussian diplomacy had gained such an ascendancy over the House of Habsburg and the affairs of Austria, that Austria has been and is a staunch ally and supported by Germany in all its aims and ambitions. This alliance is developed to such an extent that even an heir apparent to the Austrian empire unless acceptable to and identified with Prusso-Germanic interests finds it impossible to ascend the throne.
"Erherzog Rudolph, the archduke, next in succession, was mysteriously killed at Mayerling, an obscure little hunting lodge in upper Austria. Much has been written and many conjectures made about the cirumstance of this lamentable tragedy. The real reason, so vast in its importance, has of necessity never been divulged.
"On a blustery and cold January night in 1889 His Royal Highness and the Baroness Marie Vetzera (Vetchera) were familiarly seated around a plain but daintily spread supper table in the hunting lodge of Mayerling. They were attended by Max and Otto K----, two brothers much trusted in the archducal household. Supper was nearly finished and the Prince, who was very fond of a certain brand of champagne, had just given the order to Otto for another couple of bottles, when the deep baying of the Prince's favorite deerhound gave notice of the approach of strangers. A dull thud and agonized yelp of the dog made the Prince jump up and stride toward the door, which was guarded by Max. Pushing the servant aside, His Royal Highness pulled the door open. Three men muffled up to their eyes in great coats forced their way into the room. In a trice the leader of the trio pinioned Max to the wall. The Archduke, who had jumped back startled and was reseating himself behind the supper table, demanded the reason for this intrusion, when the smallest of the three, supposedly the brother of the Baroness Vetzer, laid hold of a bottle of champagne and brought the weapon down with terrific force on his unprotected head, completely crushing the skull. The Baroness, who apparently had recognized one of the three intruders, was hysterically screaming and uttering dire threats and vengeance against the perpetrators of this foul deed. As she stood there, gripping the edges of the table, the third, standing at the door, raised his Stutzen (a short hunting gun in great favor in the Austrian Alps), and fired point blank at the unfortunate woman, almost blowing her head to pieces.
(…)The next moment Otto received a Hirsch-fanger (a hunting dagger) between his shoulders. Dragging their wounded conspirator with them, the two assassins disappeared into the night. From that day to this there have never been any arrests made or any one held to account for this dastardly deed.
"Otto, who was left for dead, on regaining sufficient strength decently covered the bodies with table cloths and napkins, and left a short pencil written account of the occurrences pinned on to his brother's clothes. He also disappeared in the night; for he well knew the consequences attached to an even entirely innocent witnessing of such a royal family tragedy. Old, gray and bent, Otto is living to this day the quiet life of a hermit and exile not five hundred miles from New York City. Money would never make Otto talk, but some day the upheaval in Europe may provide an occasion when this old retainer of the House of Habsburg may unseal his lips; and then woe to the guilty."
Well, everything would be fine if only this report weren’t so totally wrong. Half a century later, in 1946, the tomb of Marie Vetsera was desecrated by the occupying Soviet forces – the soldiers were looking for jewellery and other such trifles. This profanity was not discovered until 1955 when the Red Army abandoned Austria. In 1959 specialists in funereal preservation, accompanied by a doctor and a member of the Vetsera family, examined the remains. They were all shocked to discover that the body of the young woman in the vault did not present any traces of death by firearm. What they did observe was a large trauma on the crown of the head. In the quoted report it was stated that Mary had been shot in her head and the Prince - bludgeoned to death. It was exactly the other way round. What’s more the report doesn’t explain why the hands of the Prince’s cadaver had to be gloved in the coffin. Another rubbish evidence, perhaps intended to make more meaningless fuss about the whole mystery.
Let’s return to our Empress – we started with her and we will end with her too.
Sisi never recovered from the blow. Increasingly growing lonely, Elizabeth embarked on a life of travel again. The Empress visited countries to which no other northern royal went at the time: Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Malta, Greece, Turkey and Egypt. The endless travels became an escape for the Empress from herself and her misery but I doubt she found a peace of mind she looked for.
On 10 September 1898, in Geneva, Switzerland, Elisabeth, aged 60, was stabbed in the heart with a sharpened file by a young anarchist named Luigi Lucheni. When attacked, she had been walking along the promenade of Lake Geneva about to board the steamship Genève for Montreux with her lady-of-courtesy, Countess Sztaray. She boarded the ship, unaware of the severity of her condition. She died soon afterwards.
I suppose now you won’t be surprised by the fact that the reasons behind her assassination remain murky to say the least of it. Reportedly, her assassin had hoped to kill a prince from the House of Orléans and, failing to find him, turned on Elisabeth instead. A coincidence, bad luck or something more sinister? Lucheni afterwards said, "I wanted to kill a royal. It did not matter which one." Perhaps it didn’t matter to him but I doubt his patrons were so undiscriminating. I do think he had some patrons - he was a perfect tool: mentally deranged, determined to the point of being an extremist, craving fame and glory for his deed.
Luigi Luccheni tried to flee immediately after the deed, but already after a few metres he was captured and arrested. Precisely one month after the assassination, Luccheni appeared before the court. Proudly he confessed to the murder and noticed with satisfaction the great interest in his person. He was sentenced to lifelong imprisonment. Luccheni was disappointed that his trial was held according to the Geneva Convention, and that he therefore could not be given the death penalty. Twelve years later, in October 1910, Luccheni hanged himself on his leather belt in his cell. Perhaps somebody helped him, removing a useless prisoner and an inconvenient witness or maybe he really had had enough – we will never know.
My sources:
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
Review: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Paperback: 536 pages
Publisher: Harvest Books; 1 Harvest Ed edition (September 28, 1994)
Cover of The Name of the RoseLanguage: English
ISBN-10: 0156001314
genre: historical murder mystery
''I was not surprised that the mystery of the crimes should involve the library. For these men devoted to writing, the library was at once the celestial Jerusalem and an underground world on the border between terra incognita and Hades.''
Elderly but still fit Franciscan friar, William of Baskerville (hmm…The Hound of the Baskervilles by A.C Doyle anyone?) and his secretary cum servant, a Benedictine teen novice Adso of Melk (WadsoN ?) travel to a venerable monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological dispute about the poverty of Christ. As they arrive they find out that the monastery has been disturbed by a mysterious death of a monk. William is known as an intelligent and acute Inquisitor so the abbot asks him to investigate discreetly the case. As the plot unfolds, innocent people are being burned as witches and heretics, several other monks are being murdered as well but for a different reason, following a rather sinister pattern. It is left to William's enormous powers of logic and deduction to solve the mysteries of the abbey as no one seems to be inclined to help him.
On one level, the book is an exposition of the scholastic method which was very popular in the 14th century. William demonstrates the power of deductive reasoning (Sherlock Holmes would be proud), especially syllogisms. He refuses to accept the diagnosis of simple demonic possession despite demonology being the traditional monastic explanation. Because we are viewing events from Adso's point of view (an elderly Adso to add, writing a kind of memories many years later) the young boy serves mostly to bounce questions off William so that the elderly wise brother can solve the various puzzles he faces. The solution is a bit different than William's final theorems but he still manages to discover the horrible truth and the real murderer. At the end nobody gives a fig about his discovery, though – the whole monastery is destroyed in a really apocalyptic fire.
What fascination might the theological and political disputes of the 14th century hold for a contemporary reader – the long-forgotten rivalries between Pope and emperor, bishops and abbots, between reformist friars who preach poverty and wealthy clerics who support the church's claims to mundane riches? A great fascination indeed. I believe every time I read this novel my IQ is raised instantly by a couple of points.
Too many authors, writing books set in medieval times, tend to 'cheat' their readers by either poorly researching the times in which they are writing, or glossing over places and events they know little about. Not Eco. Firstly and foremostly he has an intimate knowledge of the era and he is not afraid to share it with us. Whole chapters of this book are little more than history lessons, as we watch the Catholic churches in the final throes of its great power. In short this is a very good book to learn history from and compared to 99% of the materials published recently, this is still remarkably good stuff.
A suspenseful, riveting plot, strange murders, a long dated historical mystery (the existence/disappearance of the second book of Aristotle poetics, that dealt with comedy), the interesting medieval framework, powerful symbolism - truckloads of erudition. Apart from learning history I enjoyed trying to solve the mystery along with William and Adso. I was also happy to be able to practice my Latin - I usually could figure out the basic meanings and sometimes I even had a complete translation. Very fulfilling!
Well I really liked most of it but I admit this book contained a lot of church history that at times might be hard to follow. I also strongly recommend finding a version with passages in Latin translated into English or your mother tongue (I’ve heard it is possible) unless you know a thing or two about Latin and you are prepared to read this book with a dictionary.
My all-time favourite, a book I would recommend even to those who usually opt for recreational reading of romantic stuff.
Have you wondered about the meaning of the title?
"Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus".
Literaly it can be translated as "The pure rose subsists thanks to its name, we have only bare names". Now you know where Sheakespeare found one of his most famous quotes:
Publisher: Harvest Books; 1 Harvest Ed edition (September 28, 1994)
Cover of The Name of the RoseISBN-10: 0156001314
genre: historical murder mystery
''I was not surprised that the mystery of the crimes should involve the library. For these men devoted to writing, the library was at once the celestial Jerusalem and an underground world on the border between terra incognita and Hades.''
Synopsis
Elderly but still fit Franciscan friar, William of Baskerville (hmm…The Hound of the Baskervilles by A.C Doyle anyone?) and his secretary cum servant, a Benedictine teen novice Adso of Melk (WadsoN ?) travel to a venerable monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological dispute about the poverty of Christ. As they arrive they find out that the monastery has been disturbed by a mysterious death of a monk. William is known as an intelligent and acute Inquisitor so the abbot asks him to investigate discreetly the case. As the plot unfolds, innocent people are being burned as witches and heretics, several other monks are being murdered as well but for a different reason, following a rather sinister pattern. It is left to William's enormous powers of logic and deduction to solve the mysteries of the abbey as no one seems to be inclined to help him.
On one level, the book is an exposition of the scholastic method which was very popular in the 14th century. William demonstrates the power of deductive reasoning (Sherlock Holmes would be proud), especially syllogisms. He refuses to accept the diagnosis of simple demonic possession despite demonology being the traditional monastic explanation. Because we are viewing events from Adso's point of view (an elderly Adso to add, writing a kind of memories many years later) the young boy serves mostly to bounce questions off William so that the elderly wise brother can solve the various puzzles he faces. The solution is a bit different than William's final theorems but he still manages to discover the horrible truth and the real murderer. At the end nobody gives a fig about his discovery, though – the whole monastery is destroyed in a really apocalyptic fire.
What I liked:
What fascination might the theological and political disputes of the 14th century hold for a contemporary reader – the long-forgotten rivalries between Pope and emperor, bishops and abbots, between reformist friars who preach poverty and wealthy clerics who support the church's claims to mundane riches? A great fascination indeed. I believe every time I read this novel my IQ is raised instantly by a couple of points.
Too many authors, writing books set in medieval times, tend to 'cheat' their readers by either poorly researching the times in which they are writing, or glossing over places and events they know little about. Not Eco. Firstly and foremostly he has an intimate knowledge of the era and he is not afraid to share it with us. Whole chapters of this book are little more than history lessons, as we watch the Catholic churches in the final throes of its great power. In short this is a very good book to learn history from and compared to 99% of the materials published recently, this is still remarkably good stuff.
A suspenseful, riveting plot, strange murders, a long dated historical mystery (the existence/disappearance of the second book of Aristotle poetics, that dealt with comedy), the interesting medieval framework, powerful symbolism - truckloads of erudition. Apart from learning history I enjoyed trying to solve the mystery along with William and Adso. I was also happy to be able to practice my Latin - I usually could figure out the basic meanings and sometimes I even had a complete translation. Very fulfilling!
What I didn’t like:
Well I really liked most of it but I admit this book contained a lot of church history that at times might be hard to follow. I also strongly recommend finding a version with passages in Latin translated into English or your mother tongue (I’ve heard it is possible) unless you know a thing or two about Latin and you are prepared to read this book with a dictionary.
The final verdict:
My all-time favourite, a book I would recommend even to those who usually opt for recreational reading of romantic stuff.
A bonus
Have you wondered about the meaning of the title?
"Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus".
Literaly it can be translated as "The pure rose subsists thanks to its name, we have only bare names". Now you know where Sheakespeare found one of his most famous quotes:
Juliet:
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Teaser Tuesday 14 of December
Here are the rules: Grab your current read. Open to a random (or not so random) page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) Share the title & author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
"You may not feel outstandingly robust, but if you are an average-sized adult you will contain within your modest frame no less than 7x10 to 18 th power joules of potential energy - enough to explode with the force of thirty very large hydrogen bombs, assuming you knew how to liberate it and really wished to make a point."
Bill Bryson A Short History
Cover of A Short History of Nearly Everythingof Nearly Everything
Cover of A Short History of Nearly Everything
Sunday, 12 December 2010
New pages - check it out!
I decided to present my reviews and essays in a more organized way and to do so I added some new pages, among them one entitled "A-Z Reviews" - you can see them on the white bar, just under the header with the title of the blog, above the pictures. There are all the reviews, published here, with books sorted by titles in alphabetical order. I hope it will make the navigation easier - enjoy and happy reading!
p.s. if a link doesn't work, please let me know asap!
Saturday, 11 December 2010
Be careful what you wish for...especially if you wish you were a king.
Another bad day at work or at school, not exactly nice news concerning your bank statement or pocket money, another bill to pay, another gray, sad day to face without anything exciting to look forward to…Have you ever wanted to be somebody of importance, a prince or a princess? Perhaps you have even imagined your life as such a person. Your servants would do what they can to keep you happy, arranging plenty of entertainment and nice meals every single day…you could pursue any interest you want to, visit a lot of interesting places regardless of cost…you would enjoy a nice company of kind, intelligent people who would be honoured by your patronage…you could marry whoever you fancy…right? Wrong. Let me confront your dream with reality. Its name is Ludwig II of Bavaria (Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm sometimes rendered as Louis II in English). He was a real prince and the heir to the Bavarian throne. His life was not a bed of roses, though, far from it.
Born in Nymphenburg Palace (today located in suburban Munich), he was the eldest son of Maximilian II of Bavaria and his wife Princess Marie of Prussia. The boy who would later be known by many nicknames, the Swan King, the Mad King of Bavaria, the Dream King, and Mad Ludwig among them, spent much of his youth in a castle named Hohenschwangau (it means “high region of the swan”). Maybe because of that even as a 12-year-old boy Ludwig had already developed a fascination with Wagner’s Lohengrin and its Swan Knight.
The Bavarian royal family with Ludwig on the left and his younger brother, Otto, on the right (via Wikipedia)Did he had a happy, “princely” childhood? To put it in a nutshell, no. Like many young heirs in an age when kings governed most of European countries, Ludwig was continually reminded of his royal status, both extremely indulged and severely controlled by his tutors and subjected to a truly Spartan regimen of study and exercise. There are some who point to these stresses of growing up in a royal family as the causes for much of his odd behavior as an adult. Ludwig was not close with either of his parents. King Maximilian's advisers had suggested that on his daily walks he might like, at times, to be accompanied by his future successor. The King replied, "But what am I to say to him? After all, my son takes no interest in what other people tell him." Later, Ludwig would refer to his mother as "my predecessor's consort" – it sounds sad but he really didn’t have any closer bond with her. He was far closer to his grandfather, the deposed and notorious King Ludwig I, who came from a family of eccentrics. Birds of a feather…
Now about nice company. As an adolescent, Ludwig befriended his aide de camp, Prince Paul, of Bavaria's wealthy Thurn and Taxis family. The two young men rode together, read poetry aloud, and staged scenes from the Romantic operas of Richard Wagner. The friendship ended when Paul became engaged in 1866. During his youth Ludwig also initiated a lifelong friendship with his half-first cousin once removed, Duchess Elisabeth in Bavaria, later Empress of Austria also known as Sissi. They loved nature and poetry; Elisabeth called Ludwig "Eagle" and he called her "Dove." As Elisabeth married very early, as a sixteen-year-old girl, they didn’t have much time together as well.
Crown Prince Ludwig had just turned 18 when his father died and he ascended the Bavarian throne. Although he was not fully prepared for high office, his youth and brooding good looks made him popular in Bavaria and elsewhere. You might think – a perfect opportunity for the young man to take the life in his own hands and show his mettle. Well, easier said than done.
Looking back in 1873, Ludwig described it thus:
"I became king much too early. I had not learned enough. I had made such a good beginning ... with the learning of state laws. Suddenly I was snatched away from my books and set on the throne. Well, I am still trying to learn..."
Ludwig’s first year of reign did not go well, and the already shy young king soon withdrew even more, away from Munich and into his beloved mountains in the Bavarian Alps. He was notably eccentric in ways that made serving as Bavaria’s head of state problematic. He disliked large public functions and avoided formal social events whenever possible, and preferred a life of fantasy that he pursued with various creative projects. The king enjoyed traveling in the Bavarian countryside, pretending to be a medieval feudal lord and chatting with farmers he met along the way. He also delighted in rewarding those who were hospitable to him during his travels with lavish gifts.
In May of that same year Ludwig had his first meeting with his music idol Richard Wagner.
Wagner's operas appealed to the king's fantasy-filled imagination and filled an emotional void. On 4 May 1864, the 51-year-old Wagner was given an unprecedented 1¾ hour audience with Ludwig in the Royal Palace in Munich. Later the composer wrote of his first meeting with Ludwig:
Young king Ludwig II
"Alas, he is so handsome and wise, soulful and lovely, that I fear that his life must melt away in this vulgar world like a fleeting dream of the gods."
He definitely had a point there. The king settled Wagner's considerable debts, and proposed to stage Tristan, Die Meistersinger, the Ring, and other operas Wagner planned. It seemed the king finally found a kindred spirit but the composer’s extravagant and scandalous behaviour in the capital was so unsettling for the conservative people of Bavaria, that Ludwig was forced to ask Wagner to leave the city six months later, in December 1865. The king apparently also toyed with the idea of abdicating in order to follow his hero into exile, but Wagner quickly dissuaded him (it's good to have a royal paying your debts after all). Wagner might be considered a brilliant composer but during his life he also gained the reputation as an exploiter, a womanizer and a crook, constantly on the run from creditors – definitely a controversial figure, not exactly the right company for any young man, let alone a young ruler.
The opportunity arose for poor Ludwig to act also as a knight and a warrior. Relations with Prussia took centre stage starting in 1866. During the Seven Weeks' War, which began in July, Ludwig agreed (as did several other German principalities) to take the side of Austria against Prussia. When the two sides negotiated the war’s settlement, the terms required that Ludwig accept a mutual defense treaty with Prussia. This treaty placed Bavaria back on the firing line three years later, when the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Prussia and her allies prevailed in this conflict, and an emboldened Prussia now finished her campaign to unify all of the minor German kingdoms into one German Empire under the rule of King Wilhelm I of Prussia, who would now be declared Emperor, or Kaiser.At the request of Prussian Minister President Bismarck (and in exchange for certain financial concessions), Ludwig wrote a letter (the so-called Kaiserbrief) in December 1870 endorsing the creation of the German Empire. With the creation of the Empire, however, Bavaria lost its status as an independent kingdom and became just another dependent state. Ludwig attempted to protest by refusing to attend the ceremony where Wilhelm I was proclaimed the first Kaiser but it was too little too late. From then on, Bavaria's foreign policy was dictated by Prussia and the king was only a "vassal" of his Prussian uncle. In fact Ludwig proved to be just another king-puppet (a.k.a. a constitutional monarch with some rights and duties but little actual freedom of action), not a great knight in shiny armour. Small wonder that after the creation of the greater Germany, Ludwig increasingly withdrew from politics, and devoted himself to one of his beloved hobbies - different creative projects, most famously his castles, where he was finally in control of everything, personally approving every detail of the architecture, decoration and furnishing. He built a fantasy world around him in which he could feel he was a real king.
What about the love life of our sweet prince? Unfortunately it was as far from fairy tale standards as possible as well. Ludwig got engaged to Duchess Sophie of Bavaria (in the photograph on the left), his cousin and the youngest sister of his dear friend Empress Elisabeth of Austria, mentioned above. The engagement was publicized on 22 January 1867, but people soon noticed the strange lack of affection between young couple. There were even rumours that Sophie fell in love with a photographer who took her photos as the future queen and didn't care about her fiance. After repeatedly postponing the wedding date, Ludwig finally cancelled it in October. That night he wrote in his diary:
"Sophie is finished with. The gloomy picture vanishes. I longed for freedom, I thirsted for freedom, to wake from this horrible nightmare."
Hmm…strange reaction but maybe not so much if you know that throughout his reign, Ludwig went through a succession of very close friendships with men, including his chief equerry and Master of the Horse, handsome and blond Richard Hornig (1843–1911), Hungarian theatre actor Josef Kainz, and a courtier AlfonsWeber. In a diary the king kept, not unlike a contemporary tormented teenager or a movie star, he recorded some private thoughts considering the attempts to suppress some sexual desires and remain true to his Roman Catholic faith. Ludwig's original diaries from 1869 were lost during World War II, and all that remains today are copies of entries during the 1886 plot to depose him. These transcribed diary entries, along with private letters and other surviving personal documents, suggest that Ludwig was homosexual and struggled with his orientation throughout his life. Homosexuality had not been punishable in Bavaria since 1813 but still it was not perceived the right thing for a royalty or indeed any decent person. Small wonder poor Ludwig used his personal fortune to fund the construction of a series of elaborate castles. I suppose it was his way to compensate for the lack of happy, fulfilling relationship; some people drink, some people eat chocolate, some people build one castle after another…Finally one hobby and pleasure nobody would criticize a king for…or wouldn’t they?
Unfortunately building a big fat fairy-tale style castle can be disastrous for your finances, even if you descend from a family of means; Ludwig built several of them and these constructions weren’t supposed to be self-financing either. Figures for the total costs between 1869 and 1886 for the building and equipping of each castle were published in 1968: Schloß Neuschwanstein 6,180,047 marks; Schloß Linderhof 8,460,937 marks ; Schloß Herrenchiemsee (from 1873) 16,579,674 marks. Guide books of the time give 20 German marks = £1 sterling. Of course he gave employment and revived the economy in the region but you can have too much of a good thing - the king definitely was going over the top with the number of his projects. How many castles are needed in such a small country as Bavaria used to be? Mind you, building castles was not the only passion of Ludwig .
King Ludvig towards the end of his life via Wikipedia
Between 1872 and 1885, the king had 209 private performances (Separatvorstellungen) given for himself alone or with a guest, in the two court theatres, comprising 44 operas (28 by Wagner, including eight of Parsifal), 11 ballets and 154 plays (the principal theme being Bourbon France) at a cost of 97,300 marks. The King complained to the theatre actor-manager Ernst Possart: "I can get no sense of illusion in the theatre so long as people keep staring at me, and follow my every expression through their opera-glasses. I want to look myself, not to be a spectacle for the masses." We can understand such a feeling better nowadays as these performances can be compared with watching TV at home or going to the cinema but at that time it was considered a rather weird attitude. People went to an opera or a theatre not only because they wanted to listen and watch but mostly because they wanted to be seen and heard and they wanted to see and hear the others. Social events were truly social, it was one of their charms.
Although the king had paid for his pet projects out of his Privy Purse and not the state coffers, that did not necessarily spare Bavaria from financial fallout. By 1885, the king was 14 million marks in debt, had borrowed heavily from his family, and, rather than economizing, as his financial ministers advised him, he undertook new opulence and new designs without pause. He demanded that loans be sought from all of Europe's royalty, and remained aloof from matters of state. Feeling harassed and irritated by his ministers, he considered dismissing the entire cabinet and replacing them with fresh faces. The cabinet decided to act first.
Seeking a cause to depose Ludwig by constitutional means, the rebelling ministers decided on the rationale that he was, like his younger brother, Otto, mentally ill, and unable to rule. They asked Ludwig's uncle, Prince Luitpold, to step into the royal vacancy once Ludwig was deposed. Luitpold agreed, so long as the conspirators produced reliable proof that the king was in fact helplessly insane.
Between January and March 1886, the conspirators assembled the Ärztliches Gutachten or Medical Report, on Ludwig's fitness to rule. Most of the details in the report were compiled by Count von Holnstein, who was disillusioned with Ludwig and actively sought his downfall. Holnstein used his high rank to extract a long list of complaints, accounts, and gossip about Ludwig from among the king's servants.
Was Ludwig II of Bavaria insane? Could you believe the accounts of servants, simple people, some of them undoubtedly testifying under pressure, bribed or intimidated or both? These were the main points which made the case:
There are many modern doctors who believe Ludwig II was suffering from Asperger Syndrome - an autism spectrum disorder that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. The king's behavior greatly supports that belief. For people not knowing anything about that illness, though, the king might appear strange or even insane especially if it suited their purposes. In my opinion a major point in favor of King Ludwig II was that he used much of his own money for his eccentricities, including his castles, and not the coffers of Bavaria. He showed a greater understanding of his country's financial needs and a greater responsibility than many contemporary politicians.
The king’s friends and allies urged him to flee, or to show himself in Munich and thus regain the support of the people. Ludwig hesitated, issuing a statement instead:
"The Prince Luitpold intends, against my will, to ascend to the Regency of my land, and my erstwhile ministry has, through false allegations regarding the state of my health, deceived my beloved people, and is preparing to commit acts of high treason. [...] I call upon every loyal Bavarian to rally around my loyal supporters to thwart the planned treason against the King and the fatherland."
The government succeeded in suppressing the statement by seizing most copies of the newspaper and handbills. As the king, unused to solving a domestic crisis or generally a crisis of any kind, dithered, his support waned. Peasants who rallied to his cause were dispersed, and the police who guarded his castle were replaced by a police detachment of 36 men who sealed off all entrances. Now he was trapped inside. In the early hours of 12 June, a second commission arrived. The King was seized just after midnight and at 4 a.m. taken to a waiting carriage. He had asked Dr. von Gudden, who led the assailants, "How can you declare me insane? After all, you have never seen or examined me before." only to be told that "it was unnecessary; the documentary evidence (so the servants' tittle-tattle, nothing more substantial) is very copious and completely substantiated. It is overwhelming." Ludwig was transported to Castle Berg on the shores of Lake Starnberg, south of Munich.
On 13 June 1886, around 6:00 pm, Ludwig asked von Gudden to accompany him on a walk through the Schloß Berg parkland along the shore of Lake Starnberg. Gudden agreed; the walk may even have been his suggestion, and he told the nurses not to accompany them. His words were ambiguous ("Es darf kein Pfleger mitgehen") and whether they were meant to follow at a discreet distance is not clear. The two men were last seen at about 6.30; they were due back at eight but never returned. After searches were made for more than three hours by the entire castle personnel in a gale with heavy rain, at 11:30 that night the bodies of both the King and Gudden were found, floating in the shallow water near the shore. The King's watch had stopped at 6.54. As usual, gendarmes patrolling the park had heard and seen nothing.
Ludwig's death was officially ruled a suicide by drowning, but this has been questioned ever since. Ludwig was known to be a strong swimmer in his youth, the water was less than waist-deep where his body was found; what’s more the official autopsy report indicated that no water was found in his lungs. Ludwig had expressed suicidal feelings during the crisis, but the suicide theory does not fully explain Gudden's death.
Many hold that Ludwig was murdered by his enemies while attempting to escape from Berg. One account even suggests that the king was shot. However, there was no evidence of scars or wounds found on the body of the dead king. Another theory suggests that Ludwig died of natural causes (such as a heart attack or a stroke) brought on by the extreme cold (12°C) water of the lake during an escape attempt. Perhaps after hearing a shot he fell into water and died of shock. Still in such a scenario the death of Gudden would remain a mystery – was he killed as an unwanted witness? Did he drown trying to rescue the king? Was he drowned with the king by unknown criminals? Was it just a bad accident without any witnesses?
The King was succeeded by his brother Otto, but since Otto was genuinely incapacitated by mental illness, the king’s uncle Luitpold remained regent.
One of Ludwig’s most quoted sayings was "I wish to remain an eternal enigma to myself and to others." He certainly managed that much - what really happened to Ludwig II and Dr. von Gudden that night will probably be a mystery forever.
Ludwig II, the Mad King of Bavaria, by Desmond Chapman-Houston, Dorset Press New York, 1990.
Born in Nymphenburg Palace (today located in suburban Munich), he was the eldest son of Maximilian II of Bavaria and his wife Princess Marie of Prussia. The boy who would later be known by many nicknames, the Swan King, the Mad King of Bavaria, the Dream King, and Mad Ludwig among them, spent much of his youth in a castle named Hohenschwangau (it means “high region of the swan”). Maybe because of that even as a 12-year-old boy Ludwig had already developed a fascination with Wagner’s Lohengrin and its Swan Knight.
The Bavarian royal family with Ludwig on the left and his younger brother, Otto, on the right (via Wikipedia)Now about nice company. As an adolescent, Ludwig befriended his aide de camp, Prince Paul, of Bavaria's wealthy Thurn and Taxis family. The two young men rode together, read poetry aloud, and staged scenes from the Romantic operas of Richard Wagner. The friendship ended when Paul became engaged in 1866. During his youth Ludwig also initiated a lifelong friendship with his half-first cousin once removed, Duchess Elisabeth in Bavaria, later Empress of Austria also known as Sissi. They loved nature and poetry; Elisabeth called Ludwig "Eagle" and he called her "Dove." As Elisabeth married very early, as a sixteen-year-old girl, they didn’t have much time together as well.
Crown Prince Ludwig had just turned 18 when his father died and he ascended the Bavarian throne. Although he was not fully prepared for high office, his youth and brooding good looks made him popular in Bavaria and elsewhere. You might think – a perfect opportunity for the young man to take the life in his own hands and show his mettle. Well, easier said than done.
Looking back in 1873, Ludwig described it thus:
"I became king much too early. I had not learned enough. I had made such a good beginning ... with the learning of state laws. Suddenly I was snatched away from my books and set on the throne. Well, I am still trying to learn..."
Ludwig’s first year of reign did not go well, and the already shy young king soon withdrew even more, away from Munich and into his beloved mountains in the Bavarian Alps. He was notably eccentric in ways that made serving as Bavaria’s head of state problematic. He disliked large public functions and avoided formal social events whenever possible, and preferred a life of fantasy that he pursued with various creative projects. The king enjoyed traveling in the Bavarian countryside, pretending to be a medieval feudal lord and chatting with farmers he met along the way. He also delighted in rewarding those who were hospitable to him during his travels with lavish gifts.
In May of that same year Ludwig had his first meeting with his music idol Richard Wagner.
Wagner's operas appealed to the king's fantasy-filled imagination and filled an emotional void. On 4 May 1864, the 51-year-old Wagner was given an unprecedented 1¾ hour audience with Ludwig in the Royal Palace in Munich. Later the composer wrote of his first meeting with Ludwig:
Young king Ludwig II "Alas, he is so handsome and wise, soulful and lovely, that I fear that his life must melt away in this vulgar world like a fleeting dream of the gods."
He definitely had a point there. The king settled Wagner's considerable debts, and proposed to stage Tristan, Die Meistersinger, the Ring, and other operas Wagner planned. It seemed the king finally found a kindred spirit but the composer’s extravagant and scandalous behaviour in the capital was so unsettling for the conservative people of Bavaria, that Ludwig was forced to ask Wagner to leave the city six months later, in December 1865. The king apparently also toyed with the idea of abdicating in order to follow his hero into exile, but Wagner quickly dissuaded him (it's good to have a royal paying your debts after all). Wagner might be considered a brilliant composer but during his life he also gained the reputation as an exploiter, a womanizer and a crook, constantly on the run from creditors – definitely a controversial figure, not exactly the right company for any young man, let alone a young ruler.
The opportunity arose for poor Ludwig to act also as a knight and a warrior. Relations with Prussia took centre stage starting in 1866. During the Seven Weeks' War, which began in July, Ludwig agreed (as did several other German principalities) to take the side of Austria against Prussia. When the two sides negotiated the war’s settlement, the terms required that Ludwig accept a mutual defense treaty with Prussia. This treaty placed Bavaria back on the firing line three years later, when the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Prussia and her allies prevailed in this conflict, and an emboldened Prussia now finished her campaign to unify all of the minor German kingdoms into one German Empire under the rule of King Wilhelm I of Prussia, who would now be declared Emperor, or Kaiser.At the request of Prussian Minister President Bismarck (and in exchange for certain financial concessions), Ludwig wrote a letter (the so-called Kaiserbrief) in December 1870 endorsing the creation of the German Empire. With the creation of the Empire, however, Bavaria lost its status as an independent kingdom and became just another dependent state. Ludwig attempted to protest by refusing to attend the ceremony where Wilhelm I was proclaimed the first Kaiser but it was too little too late. From then on, Bavaria's foreign policy was dictated by Prussia and the king was only a "vassal" of his Prussian uncle. In fact Ludwig proved to be just another king-puppet (a.k.a. a constitutional monarch with some rights and duties but little actual freedom of action), not a great knight in shiny armour. Small wonder that after the creation of the greater Germany, Ludwig increasingly withdrew from politics, and devoted himself to one of his beloved hobbies - different creative projects, most famously his castles, where he was finally in control of everything, personally approving every detail of the architecture, decoration and furnishing. He built a fantasy world around him in which he could feel he was a real king.
"Sophie is finished with. The gloomy picture vanishes. I longed for freedom, I thirsted for freedom, to wake from this horrible nightmare."
Hmm…strange reaction but maybe not so much if you know that throughout his reign, Ludwig went through a succession of very close friendships with men, including his chief equerry and Master of the Horse, handsome and blond Richard Hornig (1843–1911), Hungarian theatre actor Josef Kainz, and a courtier AlfonsWeber. In a diary the king kept, not unlike a contemporary tormented teenager or a movie star, he recorded some private thoughts considering the attempts to suppress some sexual desires and remain true to his Roman Catholic faith. Ludwig's original diaries from 1869 were lost during World War II, and all that remains today are copies of entries during the 1886 plot to depose him. These transcribed diary entries, along with private letters and other surviving personal documents, suggest that Ludwig was homosexual and struggled with his orientation throughout his life. Homosexuality had not been punishable in Bavaria since 1813 but still it was not perceived the right thing for a royalty or indeed any decent person. Small wonder poor Ludwig used his personal fortune to fund the construction of a series of elaborate castles. I suppose it was his way to compensate for the lack of happy, fulfilling relationship; some people drink, some people eat chocolate, some people build one castle after another…Finally one hobby and pleasure nobody would criticize a king for…or wouldn’t they?
Unfortunately building a big fat fairy-tale style castle can be disastrous for your finances, even if you descend from a family of means; Ludwig built several of them and these constructions weren’t supposed to be self-financing either. Figures for the total costs between 1869 and 1886 for the building and equipping of each castle were published in 1968: Schloß Neuschwanstein 6,180,047 marks; Schloß Linderhof 8,460,937 marks ; Schloß Herrenchiemsee (from 1873) 16,579,674 marks. Guide books of the time give 20 German marks = £1 sterling. Of course he gave employment and revived the economy in the region but you can have too much of a good thing - the king definitely was going over the top with the number of his projects. How many castles are needed in such a small country as Bavaria used to be? Mind you, building castles was not the only passion of Ludwig .
King Ludvig towards the end of his life via WikipediaBetween 1872 and 1885, the king had 209 private performances (Separatvorstellungen) given for himself alone or with a guest, in the two court theatres, comprising 44 operas (28 by Wagner, including eight of Parsifal), 11 ballets and 154 plays (the principal theme being Bourbon France) at a cost of 97,300 marks. The King complained to the theatre actor-manager Ernst Possart: "I can get no sense of illusion in the theatre so long as people keep staring at me, and follow my every expression through their opera-glasses. I want to look myself, not to be a spectacle for the masses." We can understand such a feeling better nowadays as these performances can be compared with watching TV at home or going to the cinema but at that time it was considered a rather weird attitude. People went to an opera or a theatre not only because they wanted to listen and watch but mostly because they wanted to be seen and heard and they wanted to see and hear the others. Social events were truly social, it was one of their charms.
Although the king had paid for his pet projects out of his Privy Purse and not the state coffers, that did not necessarily spare Bavaria from financial fallout. By 1885, the king was 14 million marks in debt, had borrowed heavily from his family, and, rather than economizing, as his financial ministers advised him, he undertook new opulence and new designs without pause. He demanded that loans be sought from all of Europe's royalty, and remained aloof from matters of state. Feeling harassed and irritated by his ministers, he considered dismissing the entire cabinet and replacing them with fresh faces. The cabinet decided to act first.
Seeking a cause to depose Ludwig by constitutional means, the rebelling ministers decided on the rationale that he was, like his younger brother, Otto, mentally ill, and unable to rule. They asked Ludwig's uncle, Prince Luitpold, to step into the royal vacancy once Ludwig was deposed. Luitpold agreed, so long as the conspirators produced reliable proof that the king was in fact helplessly insane.
Between January and March 1886, the conspirators assembled the Ärztliches Gutachten or Medical Report, on Ludwig's fitness to rule. Most of the details in the report were compiled by Count von Holnstein, who was disillusioned with Ludwig and actively sought his downfall. Holnstein used his high rank to extract a long list of complaints, accounts, and gossip about Ludwig from among the king's servants.
Was Ludwig II of Bavaria insane? Could you believe the accounts of servants, simple people, some of them undoubtedly testifying under pressure, bribed or intimidated or both? These were the main points which made the case:
- · Ludwig was known to take moonlit rides in an elaborate sleigh with servants dressed in 18th century livery,
- · the king had bad table manners (sic!),
- · He rowed in a shell shaped boat around Linderhof Palace while listening to operatic performances,
- · He would sit in a mirrored room in Linderhof at night, and enjoy a dazzling display of candlelight and the optical illusion of a room without end,
- · He was holding night-time picnics while his male servants danced naked in the moonlight,
- · From 1875 on he lived at night and slept during the day,
- · He had a penchant for fantasy, and indulged this with too many elaborate building projects,
- · He was rumored to have frequently dined alone in Linderhof, insisting that his servants set a place for his imaginary guests,
There are many modern doctors who believe Ludwig II was suffering from Asperger Syndrome - an autism spectrum disorder that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. The king's behavior greatly supports that belief. For people not knowing anything about that illness, though, the king might appear strange or even insane especially if it suited their purposes. In my opinion a major point in favor of King Ludwig II was that he used much of his own money for his eccentricities, including his castles, and not the coffers of Bavaria. He showed a greater understanding of his country's financial needs and a greater responsibility than many contemporary politicians.
The king’s friends and allies urged him to flee, or to show himself in Munich and thus regain the support of the people. Ludwig hesitated, issuing a statement instead:
"The Prince Luitpold intends, against my will, to ascend to the Regency of my land, and my erstwhile ministry has, through false allegations regarding the state of my health, deceived my beloved people, and is preparing to commit acts of high treason. [...] I call upon every loyal Bavarian to rally around my loyal supporters to thwart the planned treason against the King and the fatherland."
The government succeeded in suppressing the statement by seizing most copies of the newspaper and handbills. As the king, unused to solving a domestic crisis or generally a crisis of any kind, dithered, his support waned. Peasants who rallied to his cause were dispersed, and the police who guarded his castle were replaced by a police detachment of 36 men who sealed off all entrances. Now he was trapped inside. In the early hours of 12 June, a second commission arrived. The King was seized just after midnight and at 4 a.m. taken to a waiting carriage. He had asked Dr. von Gudden, who led the assailants, "How can you declare me insane? After all, you have never seen or examined me before." only to be told that "it was unnecessary; the documentary evidence (so the servants' tittle-tattle, nothing more substantial) is very copious and completely substantiated. It is overwhelming." Ludwig was transported to Castle Berg on the shores of Lake Starnberg, south of Munich.
On 13 June 1886, around 6:00 pm, Ludwig asked von Gudden to accompany him on a walk through the Schloß Berg parkland along the shore of Lake Starnberg. Gudden agreed; the walk may even have been his suggestion, and he told the nurses not to accompany them. His words were ambiguous ("Es darf kein Pfleger mitgehen") and whether they were meant to follow at a discreet distance is not clear. The two men were last seen at about 6.30; they were due back at eight but never returned. After searches were made for more than three hours by the entire castle personnel in a gale with heavy rain, at 11:30 that night the bodies of both the King and Gudden were found, floating in the shallow water near the shore. The King's watch had stopped at 6.54. As usual, gendarmes patrolling the park had heard and seen nothing.
Ludwig's death was officially ruled a suicide by drowning, but this has been questioned ever since. Ludwig was known to be a strong swimmer in his youth, the water was less than waist-deep where his body was found; what’s more the official autopsy report indicated that no water was found in his lungs. Ludwig had expressed suicidal feelings during the crisis, but the suicide theory does not fully explain Gudden's death.
Many hold that Ludwig was murdered by his enemies while attempting to escape from Berg. One account even suggests that the king was shot. However, there was no evidence of scars or wounds found on the body of the dead king. Another theory suggests that Ludwig died of natural causes (such as a heart attack or a stroke) brought on by the extreme cold (12°C) water of the lake during an escape attempt. Perhaps after hearing a shot he fell into water and died of shock. Still in such a scenario the death of Gudden would remain a mystery – was he killed as an unwanted witness? Did he drown trying to rescue the king? Was he drowned with the king by unknown criminals? Was it just a bad accident without any witnesses?
The King was succeeded by his brother Otto, but since Otto was genuinely incapacitated by mental illness, the king’s uncle Luitpold remained regent.
One of Ludwig’s most quoted sayings was "I wish to remain an eternal enigma to myself and to others." He certainly managed that much - what really happened to Ludwig II and Dr. von Gudden that night will probably be a mystery forever.
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