LOVE TRAGEDY OF MAYERLING

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 4 November 1933, Page 11

LOVE TRAGEDY OF MAYERLING

TTAS the final curtain fallen on the great iMayerlibg mystery of the the death of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary and Baroness Mary Vetsera? It may well be so, for the opening of the sealed official police records in Vienna has failed to shed any fresh light oh 1 this great sensation of January, says a writer in the “ Daily Mail. ’ ’

For my part, I should have been greatly surprised had they done so. I always understood that Rudolf’s papers and all contemporary documents concerning the tragedy had been handed over to the Emperor Francis Joseph at his peremptory command. What more likely man that the Emperor, when he felt his own end approaching during the Great War, should naye supervised the destruction of all secret evidence (bearing on this, the greatest of the long list of Habsburg tragedies? After all, was there really a mystery? The world has thought so ever since, more than 44 years ago, it was convulsed by the news of the greatest royal love tragedy of modern times; but many of the most highly placed people of Europe have never admitted that there was any Mystery of Mayerling. At the age of 2& the Crown Prince Rudolf, son and heir of the Emperor; Francis Joseph and husband of Prin- i ces Stephanie of Belgium, was carry- 1 irig on a liaison with the 20-year-old Baroness Mary Vetsera, an incomparable beauty in a city of beautiful women. After many unsuccessful attempts had been made to* break up the association, the Emperor, in a scene of great violence, warned Rudolf that he | must break with the young baroness under pain of being disinherited if he refused.

Kudolf, in deep distress, communicated the Imperial commands to Mary, •who pleaded for a last meeting with the. Crown Prince at his shooting-box at Mayerling, in the Wiener Wald. A small party gathered there, consisting (in addition to the lovers) of Rudolf’s friend Prince Philip of Coburg, Count Hoyo3, and a Viennese chorus girl. Dinner Was served, and an orderly, pleasant meal was xollowed by a little music, after which the members of the party dispersed to their rooms.

Next morning Baroness Mary Vetsera was found shot dead on her bed, her body being surrounded by roses. Rudolf lay dead on the floor of the i-ooni with a bullet in his head and a cavalry pistol by his side. Before shooting himself, after a night of anguished watching, Rudolf wrote a long letter to his mother, the Empress Elizabeth, which began: “I ri& longer have the right to live; I have killed.” This was the account of the tragedy related in CouTt circles by the Empress

Austrian Scandal Drenched in Ink

Eugenie ox France, who said it was the result of a despairing lovers’ suicide phet. No less a personage than Prince Bismarck of Germany flatly disbelieved it, and held that the Crown Prince had been assassinated. Crispi, the great Italian statesman, was equally sceptical. He was sufficiently interested in the tragedy to nniKe his own investigation, as the result of which he found that Rudolf was carrying on other love intrigues at the time. Crispi concluded that the Crown Prince was not so madly in love with the baroness that he would have been likely to kill himIself after a suicide j>act. If such great statesmen would not accept the Empress’s version—which jwas also the official one—still .less would the gossips of the Courts, 'salons, and cafes- of the Continent. I The number of “only authentic I stories” of the tragedy that were cir- ■ culated throughout the world became ■ countless. Even to-day some are being [offered for publication. One account was that a rival for Mary’s affections murdered the couple. Another that the baroness’s guardian slew Rudolf and that Mary committed suicide, yet another that the Archduke Johann killed Rudolf i(Johann was stripped of his rank and went into exile as John Orth). Countess Marie Barisch, a niece and confidante of Rudolf’s mother, related in her Memoirs that Mary survived her wound and was still living, terribly disfigured, in a Bavarian 'convent.

Another Hafosburg, the ex-Archduke Leonpold Ferdinand (who adopted the name of Leopold Wilfling), supplied a version in his Memoirs. According to his account, two ‘Greek brothers, Hector and Aristides Baltazzi, attended the Mayerling party. Rudolf, who was under the influence of wine, quarrelled with the brothers, one of whom hurled a; champagne bottle at him. The Crown Prince was struck on the head and fell dead with shattered skull. The baroness entered the room a few minutes later, and one of the enraged brothers shot her.

Even those who were prepared to believe that Rudolf and Mary alone figured in the final scene were ready to disclose details of a drunken orgy at the shooting-box ■ other “authorities” professed to be able to show that Rudolf was unbalanced by a suicidal mania. And so books, pamphlets, and utricles on the tragedy have been showered on the world for more than forty years. Still the mystery, if mystery there is, remains. Who still survives to tell the ‘‘real story”—to •frhat Court memoirs can w T e now look for further ‘ ‘ revelations ’ ’ about a Scandal already drenched in ink?