TO LIVE IN TYROL

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 230, 26 June 1935, Page 9

TO LIVE IN TYROL

Archduke Otto and Mother PRETENDER TO AUSTRIAN THRONE Innsbruck, June 24. The municipality of Hall, the second largest town in the Tyrol, has granted the Archduke Otto and his mother, the ex-Empress Zita, the right of domicile in the town, enabling them to become ordinary Tyrolean citizens. It is believed that this step was taken at the consent of the Government, which thus finds a convenient way of getting rid of the anti-Hapsburg laws, which were never viewed favourably. The Archduke Franz Josef Otto of Austria was born at Villa Wartholz, Lower Austria, on November 20, 1912. He is the eldest son of the Karl I of Austria, who was also King Karl IV of Hungary, and of Princess Zita, of Bourbon-Parma. His father died in exile at Funchal, Madeira, in April, 1922. In November, 1918, the family were expelled from Austria and took up their abode in Switzerland, living first at Schloss Hertenstein on the Lake of Lucerne. When the ex-Emperor and Empress, after their two abortive attempts to regain the throne of Hungary, were banished by the Allies to Madeira in 1921, the children were taken to Schloss Wartegg, Switzerland, the seat of the ducal family of Bourbon-Parma, whose head is the step-brother of the exEmpress Zita. Later, when she was allowed to go to Spain, her eight children •were taken there. In April, 1922, a conference ot the Legitimist parties in Hungary declared that it regarded Otto as King of Hungary and that his coronation, had been prevented merely by vis major. The Queen-Mother, the statement added, was to be the guardian of the King’s interests. But in .November, 1922, the Hungarian Government replied to this declaration by decreeing the abolition of the entire Hapsburg dynasty so far as Hungary was concerned. This decision, however, is not recognised by the Legitimists, on the ground that it was arrived at under pressure from the Entente. As the representative of the Legitimists, Count Josef Karolyi is in, attendance on the ex-Queen and is charged with the supervision of “King Otto’s” education. The Count in February, 1925, stated that the lad was learning the Magyar, German, Croat and French languages. The family, he said, was entirely dependent on the revenue of a Hungarian estate which amounted to 10.000 pesetas a month. Out of this the ex-Queen had to provide for twenty-two persons. Finally he declared that any forcible solution of the dynastic question would not be in the interests of the young “King.” . After a visit in the spring of 1927 to the Grqjid Ducal Court . of Luxembourg, Otto was sent there in the summer to continue his education, receiving lessons in the Benedictine Abbey of Clerf. In the autumn of 1929 it was decided that he should attend Louvain University, and Zita, with her eight children, left Spain and took up her abode in Belgium in order to be near her. eldest son. There was talk from time to time of Otto being chosen King of Hungary on condition that he renounced his right to the Austrian throne to placate the Powers, but on this point his mother was obdurate. Otto came of age in November. 1930. It was reported in that year that Princess Zita and Otto drove into Hungary in a motor-car disguised 'as a nun and a priest, but learning that their identity had been discovered, turned back.