We got a bit lost, but after a pause with cappuccino at a sidewalk cafe, we made our way there.
On a whim, we paid to see the Royal Lippizaner Stallions train at the Spanish Riding School. I had vague boyhood memories of a Disney movie about the Lippizaners, but that movie hasn't enjoyed the shelf life of other Disney animal movies. This linked review of "Miracle of the White Stallions" on youtube explains why.
Nonetheless, the horses were beautiful. The full show wasn't scheduled for that evening, and we'd be flying back to America the next morning, so we made the best of what was available, eventually scoring good seats in a better ventilated section when others began filtering out to enjoy the sunny day outside.
To make a long story short, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the worst type of arrogant, entitled aristocrat. Contemporaries described him as cold, dark, strange and short-tempered.
His explosive personality and violent nature led to rumors of his insanity due to Habsburg inbreeding.
An avid hunter, Franz Ferdinand kept extensive records that counted 272,511 kills, with his personal record being 2,140 kills in one day. He displayed over 100,000 hunting trophies at his primary home, Konopischt in the Czech Republic.Yeah, I'd call that a bit over the top.
In 1914, Franz Ferdiand, who had by that year become Heir Presumptive to the Austrian throne, visited Sarajevo, capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia. He had been warned that it was dangerous in Bosnia due to threats from a violent Serbian nationalist group called the "Black Hand."
Throughout the multi-language Empire, different ethnic groups had become fed up with Habsburg rule, desiring greater autonomy and democracy.
When someone in the crowd lobbed a bomb at his car, the bomb failed to find its mark, but Franz Ferdinand blustered at one of his hosts, "So, you welcome your guests with bombs?"Of course, the local official had himself almost been killed as a result of being near the unpopular royal, a reality to which the haughty Habsburg had been totally oblivious.
On the way to the palace, Franz Ferdinand's driver inadvertently made a wrong turn, ending up on a street where a 19 year-old Serbian terrorist with a machine gun happened to be standing around. I'm enough of a conspiracy theorist to question such coordinated coincidences, but regardless of the driver's possible complicity, the Serb assassinated Franz Ferdinand and his wife.
Austro-Hungary had a mutual defense treaty of their own with Germany, and Germany had a secret pact with the Ottoman Empire.
The spark of Franz Ferdinand's assassination ignited World War I , which would rage on for years, resulting in 18 million deaths and 23 million more seriously wounded.
It shattered not only Austro-Hungary but also the Ottoman Empire.
It also turned out to be the final chapter to 742 years of Habsburg rule. Unlike the fall of the Holy Roman Empire at the hands of Napoleon, the Habsburgs would not emerge ruling a smaller empire from which to re-build.
Emperor Franz Joseph I died during World War I at age 86, having ruled his Empire for 68 years, longer than any other Habsburg. Mid-war in 1916, his nephew Charles became the final Austrian Emperor, but Charles I's term lasted just under two years.
When forced to resign, however, Charles I did not abdicate his right to rule but rather simply proclaimed Austrians and Hungarians had a right to choose their own rulers.
In 1921, he attempted twice to reclaim his throne in Hungary, but monarchist efforts failed both times.
Charles I was banished to Madeira, where he died the next year of respiratory failure at the age of 34.
The eldest son of Charles I, Otto von Habsburg, who would have been in line for the throne, passed away at age 98 on July 4, 2011. While not the last Habsburg, he was perhaps the last with Habsburg loyalists realistically pushing to restore the Empire.
However, did you know there was a Habsburg Emperor who ruled a North American country about 150 years ago?
That happened to be Franz Ferdinand's second oldest uncle on his father's side, Maximilian.
In 1862, the United States was embroiled in its own Civil War.
French Emperor Napoleon III acted boldly to take advantage of this distraction to re-establish French imperial power in North America. He sent the French military to overthrow Mexican President Benito Juárez, who had defaulted on loans to France and other European powers after taking power.
The War of French Intervention, however, was far from over.
The French military, after all, was one of the greatest in the world.
By 1864, the French had chased Juárez and his loyalists far north to the Texas border.
To strengthen the legitimacy of this coup, Napoleon III tapped Maximilian von Habsburg, younger brother of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I, to be Emperor of Mexico. They thought Max would be malleable as well as having proper pedigree.
The Habsburgs had been Kings of Spain from 1521 through 1700, and Spain had ruled not only all of Mexico but half of both South America and what eventually became the USA.Maximilian initially rebuffed the opportunity, but he eventually succumbed to some combination of flattery, potential reclaimed Habsburg glory and his own idealism.
On June 10, 1864, Maximilian was crowned Emperor of Mexico, with the blessing of Pope Pius IX who fully expected Maximilian to be a good puppet to his European masters. The Pope primarily wanted Maximilian to reverse Juárez's nationalization of all Catholic Church properties in Mexico.
Instead, Maximilian envisioned himself to be the protector of the native peasants, and in fact he paid for his own living expenses from his personal fortune rather than deplete the bankrupt Mexican treasury further.
European empires, initially seeing Maximilian as the standard-bearer for restoring flagging imperial power, had recognized Maximilian as the legitimate head of state, but the United States never did.
The USA backed the claim of Juárez.
After the Civil War ended with the Union in tact but President Lincoln assassinated, our new President Andrew Johnson invoked the Monroe Doctrine, demanding French troops withdraw from Mexico.
Recognizing the US was serious now that its own Civil War had concluded, and discouraged by Maximilian unexpectedly embracing the liberal policies of Juárez rather than acting as proxy for Napoleon III and the Pope, the French withdrew their military from Mexico.
Without Napoleon III's army to back him, Maximilian's government collapsed, and he was executed shortly thereafter.
On December 18, 1863, at about the same time Napoleon III had finally convinced Maximilian that the Mexican people wanted a Habsburg to rule them again, Franz Ferdinand was born in Austria.
Franz Ferdinand shared some positive attributes with his great, great, great grandmother, Empress Maria Theresa.Strong-willed, he also married for love, rejecting suitable royal matches, but he took it a step further by wedding a mere Duchess with no dynastic claim.
By all accounts, Franz Ferdinand was very happily married, and like Maria Theresa, he said his fondest moments were spent in quiet evenings at home with his family.
While Maria Theresa was not Heir Apparent because of her sex, Franz Ferdinand was not Heir Apparent because his uncle, not his father, was the Emperor of Austria. As mentioned previously, his father had two older brothers, Emperor Franz Joseph I and Maximilian, meaning Franz Ferdinand's father Karl Ludwig was third in line for the throne at birth, and that claim would be diminished as Franz Joseph sired children.
Similar to Maria Theresa, Franz Ferdinand was born into a world of great opulence.
When he was 11, however, Franz Ferdinand inherited the estate of another Habsburg uncle, Francis V of Medina, which made Franz Ferdinand independently one of the richest men in the world, whereas Maria Theresa's father had dissipated much wealth trying to buy her right to inherit his kingdoms, so Franz Ferdinand was actually much wealthier and perhaps felt more entitled than his famous ancestor.
Still, he went into the Austro-Hungarian military shortly thereafter and served honorably, becoming a Lieutenant at age 14 and rising to the rank of Major General by the time he was 31.
In 1894, at about the same time he received his highest rank, Franz Ferdinand met his future wife, Countess Sophie, at a ball in Prague.
They initially kept their "unsuitable" relationship secret, because Franz Ferdinand had become second in line for the throne.
In 1889, his cousin, Crown Prince Rudolf, Heir Apparent and only living child of Emperor Franz Joseph I, committed suicide, and because Maximilian had been executed in Mexico years earlier, that immediately made Franz Ferdinand's father Karl Ludwig the Heir Presumptive.
When Karl Ludwig died in 1896, Franz Ferdinand became first in line to the throne.
The Emperor insisted his nephew, the Heir Presumptive, find a more suitable wife, but Franz Ferdinand refused. Their Austrian compromise resulted in Franz Ferdinand remaining successor to the throne, but with the provision that Sophie would never share his royal rank and that neither she nor their children could ever ascend to the throne.
Franz Ferdinand accepted these terms, perhaps in the same way Maria Theresa's father, Holy Roman Emperor Charles I, accepted terms that meant his daughter could never rise to the throne only to have those terms overturned once he became Emperor through "Pragmatic Sanction."
Regardless of how the world would have unfolded if Franz Ferdinand had not been assassinated, Julie and I returned to Klein Steiermark for our final evening in Vienna for another great meal before flying home in the nonstop comfort of a jumbo jet.
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