Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs, Pt. 7: Belvedere Palace

Belvedere Palace

The train ride to Vienna was pleasant enough,and we easily found Zeitgeist, the hip hotel an easy walk from Wiener Hauptbahnhof (Vienna Central Station).

We immediately headed out to find Belvedere Palace, which had been in the middle of nowhere when constructed for Prince Eugene of Savoy as his summer palace following his decisive victory over the Ottomans at the Battle of Zenta in 1697.

We enjoyed wandering through the huge wooded park, Schweizergarten, but somehow we couldn't locate the massive palace museum surrounded by acres of meticulously maintained gardens.

Instead, we found the majestic, historical Arsenal, which certainly is impressive in its own right.

In retrospect, it was a somewhat appropriate place to start, considering that Eugene of Savoy's claim to fame was being one of the greatest military officers in history.

Eugene had been raised in the Parisian royal court of King Louis XIV and sought a military career in France, but Eugene's frail appearance led Louis to reject his service and forced Eugene to find glory serving the Habsburgs of Austria.

Exhausted and realizing Julie might have a stress fracture in her foot after walking well over six miles a day for a week and a half straight, we decided to put off the Belvedere until morning and instead doubled back to a beer garden we'd passed inside the park.




Plopping down at a garden table at Klein Steiermark proved to be a great decision.

Sipping Gösser Dunkel revealed it to be not only the best beer I had on the trip but one of the best I've ever had anywhere.

Surprisingly, it doesn't seem to garner high praise from beer aficionados.  They're missing out on a good thing, just as Louis XIV had overlooked the genius of Prince Eugene.

Learning of Eugene's battlefield accomplishments against the mighty Ottomans undoubtedly gave Louis XIV pause to reflect, but it was just three years later, while the Belvedere was still under construction, that Eugene made Louis truly sorry for his oversight.

When Charles II of Spain, head of the senior branch of the Habsburg family, died childless on November 1, 1700, he declared on his death bed that Duke Philip of Anjou would inherit Spain's vast kingdom, probably the wealthiest in the world at that time.

Philip was the great-grandson of King Louis XIV, so this would surely lead to the eventual union of Spain and France, strengthening the legacy of the greatest King of France, or at least that's how other European governments interpreted it.

This was totally unacceptable to Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, another Habsburg, who felt he had a strong claim to the Spanish kingdom which he wanted to add to his realms of Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia.

The wealthy Dutch Republic also stood against this Spanish imposition.

France's arch nemesis England couldn't let any French power-grab go unchallenged either, fearing dire consequences should French and Spanish power be consolidated permanently.

The Habsburg kingdom of Austria, which had been the junior branch of the family until Charles II's death, sent its greatest general, Prince Eugene of Savoy, across the Alps with 30,000 men in May of 1701.

Prince Eugene of Savoy by Jacob van Schuppen, circa 1718

As often seemed to be the case despite the Austrian Habsburg's lavish displays of wealth in other areas, when it came to supplying the military, the administration in Vienna failed to properly fund its war efforts, but Eugene still managed to win many victories over superior forces by outsmarting his opponents and using unconventional tactics.

Eugene also represented Austria in peace negotiations.

By the end of 1708, it looked like the Allies could force France to surrender, but the terms included forcing Louis XIV to use his own army to oust Philip from the Spanish throne. That was too much to ask.

In April of 1710, a promising treaty was rejected by England.

Finally, in November of 1714, Eugene pushed through a treaty to end the War of Spanish Succession. While Philip V remained King of Spain, the terms were purportedly better than they would have been before years of bloodshed and draining treasuries.

In any case, the Turks were again threatening on Austria's eastern front, so Eugene was needed there, providing further impetus for peace on Austria's western front. Louis XIV died in September of 1715, and Spain and France never had a complete merger as feared.

After defeating the Ottoman Turks once more, Eugene concluded his brilliant career as a skilled diplomat for Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.

Prince Eugene was also a patron of the arts, so it is appropriate that the Belvedere is now a museum.

In 1736, Eugene died in his sleep without a will at the age of 72. Charles VI ruled that Eugene's niece should inherit Belvedere Palace, but she did not wish to live there, despite having no luck selling it for years.

Maria Theresa finally bought the Belvedere in 1752, though she never took up residence there, apparently not finding time away from her other palaces which included Schönbrunn, Prague, Bratislava and, of course, Hofburg in central Vienna.

Maria Theresa took the Belvedere out of mothballs in 1770 for a masked ball celebrating the marriage of her daughter, Marie Antoinette, to the Dauphin of France.

Years later, after the French Revolution raged, Marie Antoinette's only surviving child, Marie Thérèse Charlotte, moved into the Belvedere, along with other royals who escaped France to avoid the guillotine.

Mostly, however, it served as a Habsburg Family art museum, until in 1896, Emperor Franz Joseph I decided it would make a perfect Vienna home for his nephew and heir presumptive, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whom I'll write more about in my next post.

"Better service leads to better trips!"

P.S. I have to add that the enticing, mouthwatering ribs at Klein Steiermark are fit for a king!