The Hapsburg "Hamlet"

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 71, Issue 296, 15 December 1928, Page 17 (Supplement)

The Hapsburg "Hamlet"

Unsolved Mystery of the Crown Prince Rudolph’s Death

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(By G. E. R. GEDYE, in London “Daily Telegraph.”)

OIEbH LIGHT on the character and mind of the Crown I’rincc Rudolph is always welcome. We can never havg too much and, alas, shall probably never have enough, in consequence of Hapsburg shame at the disgrace of his end. Lucus a non lucendo, applicable to so much that has been offered in explanation of his tragedy, does not hold good of the latest contribution to Rudolph literature, the newly published “Das Lcben des Kronprinzen Rudolf” of Oskar, Freiherr von Mitis, former Chief Custodian of the .Austrian State Archives, just published by the Insel Verlag. Von Mitis, while not neglecting the more brilliant, if uncertain, illuminant of anecdote, has based his careful work on a study of the secret and semisecret documents for so long in his care. If in the end it is still open to us, as it was at thq beginning, to form our own estimate of Rudolph’s character and the loss, if any, which Austria sustained through his tragic death, we have at least quite new and most valuable matter on which to base our judgments. Of particular interest to English readers is the way in which Von Mitis develops the picture of Court politics and of the reactions of three Heirs Apparent to the treatment by the ruling monarchs. The Prince of Wales (afterwards Edward ATI.) was drawn towards Rudolph as much by the fact that each of them was excluded by the reigning {Sovereign from any participation in the affairs of their respective countries (in which each of them took a lively interest) as by their common lov’e of the chase. Another common bond was their antipathy to the third Heir Apparent, I’rincc Wilhelm, afterwards the Kaiser Wilhelm lE. “Wilhelm,” wrote Rudolph immediately after the Kaiser’s accession to the throne of Germany, “is likely to bring about great confusion in old Europe. He is the very man to do so. Endowed with God-given stupidity, at the same time as energetic and obstinate as a steer, he believes himself to be the greatest of geniuses. What more could one want? He is likely in the course of a few years to bring lloh’cnzollcrn-Gcrmany to the position that it thoroughly deserves.” KING EDWARD IN VIENNA. Like King Edward, Rudolph had not the traditional avuduii of monarchs for the society of wealthy Jews, and he created great scandal in anti-Semitic circles in Vienna by lunching, together -with King Edward (as Princq of Wales), with the wealthy Viennese Jewish banker-money-lender, Baron Hirsch, in one of the leading Vienna hotels. Berthold Frischaucr, one of the Crown Prince’s friends, related only a few years ago how it was the Prince of Wales himself who introduced Rudolph on the Frcudenau racecourse in the Vienna Prater to the fascinating little Baroness Vetsera. In this book it is the Liberalism, the anti-clericalism, and the generally amazing political foresight of the ill-starred heir to the throne of the Hapsburgs which are brought out, though the author does not spare his vic.es, and produces much evidence suggestive of a final softening of the brain preceding the suicide. One has but to remember the {Spanish etiquette, the subservience to clerical influences, the firm Enthronement of feudalism and reaction at the Court of the Emporer Francis Joseph, to appreciate the daring and originality (whether one finds the standpoint right or wrong) of the Crown Prince, who could write the following—(One has, in fact, constantly to remind oneself that he shot himself so long ago as ISB9) —“The true union of Germany will have to await the dawn of the German Republic. It will never be achieved in a centralised Republic such as France, but in a federal Republican Union of States, on the model of North America.” Again and again Rudolph writes of the “feudal-clerical pest,’’ which he considered to be bating away at the heart of Austria’s existence as a State. CRITICISM OF GERMAN PRINCES. Or hear his verdict on the German Princes as a body. He calls them a highly immoral, unpatriotic, self-socking band of potentates in miniature who for several centuries had forced their various subjects to become accustomed to their shameful opportunist policies. “On the loyalty of German Princes in misfortune,” he writes, “Jet no man reckon.’’ For the Hapsburg Monarchy he foresaw’ nothing but the disaster which finally overwhelmed it, but which many think might have been averted had Rudolph, with his independent habits of thought, come to the throne. “Always I ask myself,” he writes to his old instructor, Count Latour (a. relative of the Minister of War who was assassinated and hanged on a lamppost after the troops had fired on the Vienna mob in 1848), “what will be the end of it all?” and in his private notes lie records: “The Monarchy still stands, a proud ruin, holding together from day to day, yet doomed to final collapse. For centuries it has stood firm, and so long as the people allowed itself to be led blindly things were all right. But to-day its mission is at an "end, all men are free, and in the next storm this ruin will disappear.” The Liberal views of the Crown Prince endeared him to the Jewish Liberals of Vienna and other German-speaking countries—to a class other-

wise rigidly excluded from anything but purely business contact with tho Courts. His delightful personality won him as many friends, however, in courtly circles. Of his friendship for Edward VII. I have already spoken. In other directions he earned universal affection on his first journey abroad. After his visit to London Princess Mary of Cambridge wrote to Bjjust: “The Queen (Victoria) has fallen in love with your Crown Prince. But you may keep calm—she is not going to marry him!” Relations between him and Francis Joseph were usually bad, as a result of thq diametrically opposing views in politics of the two men, but the great breach, of course, was closely connected with Rudolph’s final tragedy. In his diary Rudolph makes an entry, dated “Brussels, March 7, .ISSO,” show’ing that the marriage which brought so much misery to both partners began happily enough. “A PATRIOTIC DUTY.” It is clear that at thq end, both he and Stephanie, ardently desired the divorce for which Rudolph secretly petitioned the Pope. The latter informed the Emperor, and this led directly to the certainly terrible but still undescribed last scene between Monarch and Heir Apparent. From this interview, Rudolph went straight to Mayerling and the end. The bitter thoughts of the Emperor which filled his mind at the last are evident in tho fact that among the many farewell letters which he wrote on the fateful night, there was not one fur his father. “Very well, then; now I know all that there is left for me to do,” .'■aid Rudolph (according to Count Lamsdorf’s record of Baron Szogycny’s account of the end of this fatal interview). “Do what you will,” answered the Emperor. “I -will never consent to your divorce.” Many statesmen, continues Szogyeny, now incline to the belief that Rudolph considered, owing to his bitter political differences with his father, and with the German Kaiser, that his own continued existence was a peril to Austria, and that it was his patriotic duty to make away with himself. Such a version would make the simultaneous death of Mary Vatsera little morij than a coincidence, but one suspects that the natural wish to lighten tho scandal of a Crown Prince killing himself and his mistress after—in all probability—a drinking bout—was father to this thought. Count Hoyos writes that Rudolph and Baroness Vetsera had often played in a spirit of morbidity with the idea of .suicide. “Are you afraid of dying?” Rudolph often inquired of members of hi s family. While hunting in Hungary once he remarked, says Count Hoyos, “Not I, but ho (indicating Franz Ferdinand, who was murdered at Sarajevo) will be Emperor of Austria.” "We are both frightfully curious,” wrote the little Baroness lo her mother at the enJ, “how the next world is going to turn out.” “FANTASTIC THEORY.” On the note of insoluble mystery this book, like all its predecessors dealing with Rudolph and his death, comes to an end. On the actual tragedy of Mayerling practically no fresh light is shed. Though he makes it clear that Rudolph was most intimate—had perhaps compromised himself with Hungarian Liberal circles, the author brings nothing to support the fantastic theory put forward by Countess Larisch in her book, “Aly Past” (and doubtingjy recorded by Eugen Bagger in his ‘‘Francis Joseph”) that Rudolph’s suicide was due to the Emperor’s discovery of a plot to put Rudolph, with his connivance, on the throne of Hungary, or the melodramatic story of the Archduke Johann’s complicity in the sanfq plot and the mysterious sealed casket, which the Countess claims to have handed to the Archduke Johann (who renounced his birthright, became plain “John Orth,” ami was drowned at sea) at midnight on the Schwarzenberg Platz in Vienna. Certain only i s it that Rudolph and Alary Vetsera were found dead together in the former’s bedroom in his shooting box at Alaycrling in the early hours of January 30, 1889. While I was writing this notice an acquaintance, who claims to have known all those who knew what was to be known of the secret at the time, sought to upset such vague conclusions as I have reached on the matter by darkly hinting that in reality twenty-one persons, including the Archduke Johann, dined and wined at Mayerling on the night of January 29, that in the small hours a revolver went off after drunken horseplay, and that Rudolph, in remorse, took his own life. By the removal of all hope of ever reaching certainty in the matter, Hapsburg prestige suffered more from the undying interest of rumour and speculation which was aroused for all time than it could have done, from the most shameful of recitals of fact. Rudolph, concludes Von Alitis, was the Hamlet of the Hapsburgs. His death brought about something like collapse on the part of hi* Imperial father, who, despite their differences and dislike of one another, felt that with Rudolph disappeared the last hope of a happy future for the possessions of his House. The Emperor was seized with a pessimistic assurance that now nothing could be done to save his 111-fated House—an assurance which was with him until the end.