Thunder At Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914

by Frederic Morton

  The Emperor had to give in. But he gave in with a crushing proviso, formulated by Montenuovo. Franz Ferdinand must perform a permanent and irrevocable renunciation for his wife as well as for any children issuing from their marriage of all rights to succession as well as all archducal privileges. This solemn humbling took place in the Imperial Palace before the Emperor, the Cardinal, the principal ministers of His Majesty's Government, and every adult male Habsburg, on June 28, 1900. Neither the Emperor nor the Cardinal nor any minister nor any archduke (not even Franz Ferdinand's two brothers) attended the Crown Prince's wedding three days later at Reichstadt, an out-of-the-way castle in Bohemia. A common parish priest officiated.

  The couple spent their honeymoon at the groom's estate in Konopiste. Here he bitterly named their favorite garden walk "Oberer Kreuzweg"-the Upper Stations of the Cross. It was to remind them that the road to fulfillment had been paved with sufferings.

  But the sufferings continued into an otherwise happy marriage. By way of a wedding gift, Franz Joseph had raised Sophie from Countess Chotek to Princess Hohenberg (Hohenberg being one of the seventy-two ancillary Habsburg titles). But she was still an abysmally morganatic wife, unable to share the perquisites and precedence not just of her husband but of a number of his inferiors. At all court functions the Crown Prince entered immediately after the Emperorwifeless, alone. The Princess Hohenberg must lead the backstairs existence of a nonperson while her husband, who doted on her doubly, must nurse his fury amidst pomp.

  The fury did not dissipate with time. Years later, after the last of three Hohenberg children had been born, Franz Joseph advanced Sophie's rank to Duchess of Hohenberg. No longer merely "Your Princely Grace," she was addressed henceforth as "Your Most Serene Highness." Yet the limitations imposed on her even now, in 1913, must have taxed anybody's serenity, high or low. Sophie's husband still entered events of state alone, immediately after the Emperor; other members of the Imperial family followed. At last, behind the most junior archduchess, the wife of the Crown Prince was permitted to set foot on the parquet of the Court.

  Nor was that all. Prince Montenuovo's jealous, zealous eye saw to it that Sophie continued to suffer other indignities of protocol. She could not sit with her husband in the Habsburg boxes at the Court Opera and the Court Theater. When riding by herself in Vienna, she must not use any of the Court carriages with their gold-threaded spokes. If she stayed in Franz Ferdinand's Vienna residence after he had left, all sentries were promptly withdrawn as if nobody worth guarding were left behind. And whenever Franz Ferdinand entertained a visiting sovereign there, she must remain invisible; Prince Montenuovo, the First Lord Chamberlain, decreed that on such occasions the existence of a hostess could be acknowledged-as a ghost: An extra place setting would be laid which would remain unoccupied.

  The Crown Prince's first major anger, then, burned at the inflictor of high-altitude humiliations, far above the common ruck. His second major anger, however, involved an issue so down to earth that it would bloody fields across the continent.

  The issue, of course, was Serbia. And the target of the Archduke's second major anger, the great foe of all Serbians, occupied the enormous desk of the Chief of Staff in Vienna's Ministry of War. General Franz Conrad von Hotzendorf stood out in the Austrian officer corps as its ablest military technician, unmatched in his flair for organizing and deploying army units. Franz Ferdinand stood out as the keenest mind by far among archdukes. An affinity linked the two men, cordial at first, livid in the end.

  The Crown Prince had quickly discerned the General's talent. As early as 1906 he had persuaded the Emperor to leapfrog Baron Conrad beyond the seniority of other generals. That year His Majesty appointed Conrad head of the General Staff at the relatively tender age of fifty-three. Slim, blond, strikingly mustached, he had a facial tic flavoring his handsomeness. He also had a personality as hard-edged as Franz Ferdinand's. In 1911 a clash with the then Foreign Minister led to his dismissal. Again the Crown Prince championed him. After the advent of the new Foreign Minister, Count von Berchtold, the Crown Prince had Conrad reappointed. Almost simultaneously, toward the end of 1912, friendship changed to conflict. To the degree that the Archduke had once supported the General, the General now vexed, disturbed, outraged the Archduke.

  The General kept writing position paper after position paper about Serb aggression against Albania and Serb agitators in Habsburg Bosnia. Every other day he urged a massive preventive strike at Serbia as the one way of restoring Austrian security in the Balkans. The Archduke, on the other hand, knew that only conciliation would serve the Empire in the end.

  The General lobbied for war at the ultimate level of decision through his audiences with Franz Joseph in Vienna's Imperial Palace. It was a venue uncongenial to the Archduke. He did not like the capital because he did not like seeing his wife humbled there; furthermore he could not trust his temper even in an All-Highest confrontation. Therefore much of his peacepleading was done by letters to Franz Joseph.

  By the start of 1913 the contest appeared to tilt in the General's favor. Conrad produced new intelligence of Serb infiltrations into Albanian territory. Though the Emperor still refused to unleash his divisions, he did authorize the strengthening of garrisons along Russian as well as Serb borders with reservists called up for that purpose. Russia, Serbia's protector, countered in kind. Mobilization seemed to replace diplomacy. In early February Franz Ferdinand determined that he'd better go to Vienna after all.

  He went without his Sophie (so that the Court would not have the pleasure of punishing her with etiquette). He also refrained from requesting an audience (to circumvent a very possible, very personal collision with the Emperor). However, he did attend a dinner for his brother-in-law, Duke Albrecht of Wurtemberg. It was a gathering of the crested great during which the Crown Prince dashed the hopes of the haut monde again. At this rare appearance, too, he did not so much enliven Vienna socially as irritate it politically. At the height of the gala he raised his glass to his cause: "To peace! What would we get out of war with Serbia? We'd lose the lives of young men and we'd spend money better used elsewhere. And what would we gain, for heaven's sake? Some plum trees and goat pastures full of droppings, and a bunch of rebellious killers. Long live restraint!"

  Dutiful applause around the table. A headshake on the part of the Emperor after he was informed of his nephew's exclamations. They coincided with news from the Chief of Staff of more misdeeds by Belgrade. Franz Joseph had to agree with his general: Restraint vis-a vis Serbia would look like weakness. Army reserves kept entraining for the borders.

  Returned to Konopiste, Franz Ferdinand tried to sway his uncle via the Foreign Minister. In mid-February he wrote Count von Berchtold, "… God forbid that we annex Serbia. We'd spend millions on keeping these people down and would still have a horrendous insurgent movement. As for the irredentists within our frontiers, the ones to whom hotheads in our government are pointing-all that would stop the moment we give our Slavs something of a comfortable, just and good existence."

  In his letter of reply the Foreign Minister bowed and scraped, and did nothing that might countervail Hothead No. 1, the Chief of Staff.

  The third week of February began with snow and rumors of further mobilization, all swirling thickly. Franz Ferdinand dispatched the head of his Military Chancellery to General Conrad's office in Vienna. "His Imperial Highness," the aide said with the proper stiffness, "wishes Your Excellency to understand that neither he nor any Austrian patriot covets a square meter of Serbian ground. His Imperial Highness is convinced that if we march on Serbia, Russia will march on us. His Imperial Highness is further convinced that war between Austria and Russia would encourage revolution in both countries and thereby cause the Emperor and the Tsar to push each other off their thrones. For these reasons His Imperial Highness considers war lunacy. He considers preludes to war, like constant requests for mobilization, preludes to lunacy. His Imperial Highness trusts that Your Excellency will ponder these thoughts with
the care they deserve."

  The Chief of Staff, handsome blond mustache a-twitch, answered that he humbly and duly noted the Highest sentiments thus conveyed to him. Within twenty-four hours, at an All-Highest audience, he recommended calling more reserves to the colors.

  ***

  Now Franz Ferdinand had no recourse but Franz Joseph's great ally, Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II. It was a desperate move, and the Crown Prince executed it cunningly. What made it a bit easier was his habit of clothing anti-war arguments in vehement rhetoric. It suited his temperament, but in addressing the fustian Wilhelm it was also part of a strategy well calculated in advance. His message to Berlin resounded with carefully crafted bluster. The Crown Prince intoned the mightiness of great realms like Germany, Austria, and Russia; he hurled contempt at scummy little bandits like Serbia who tried to foment trouble between the giants; he vowed to wipe away the poison sprayed by these pygmies by insisting on troop reductions along the Russian-Austrian borders, and to continue insisting regardless of political risks but hopeful of the backing of his powerful great cousin and friend, the German suzerain….

  Seldom has pacifism bristled with such militancy. Europe's foremost swaggerer was quite beguiled. "Dear Franzi," Kaiser Wilhelm answered, "Bravo! It can't be easy, that sort of thing. It takes stubbornness and stamina. But success will earn you the enormous credit to have freed Europe from such pressures. Millions of grateful hearts will remember you in their prayers… Even the Tsar will be grateful when he can order some of his divisions back from the border…"

  Franz Ferdinand called the Chief of Staff to Konopiste, thrust at him Wilhelm's words, dismissed him in triumph. At the same time a copy of the Kaiser's letter reached Franz Joseph. It happened that shortly before, the special emissary to the Tsar, sent by Franz Joseph at the Crown Prince's request, returned with a message of "most friendly and fraternal feelings" from Nicholas II. Shortly afterward, Franz Joseph came to a decision. He instructed his diplomats to moderate their anti-Serb stance. And he ordered General Conrad to demobilize some reserves. Recent reinforcements along the Russian border were withdrawn again.

  The problem didn't end there-but February did: a cold and difficult month in which the Crown Prince had done some good work. As March began he was ready to relax for a while in gentler climes.

  His First Lord Chamberlain summoned his private train. With his wife, his daughter, and two sons, he traveled southward to Merano, in the semitropical foothills of the Dolomites, making a detour around Vienna, of course.

  4

  "Schani, trag den Garten ausse!"

  It was a command often heard after winter's end in Vienna. Headwaiters shouted it at busboys: "Johnny, carry the garden outside!" All over town Johnnys carried onto the sidewalk foliage made of green-lacquered cloth leaves, then added tables and chairs to complete "the garden terrace." Spring had come to Vienna's restaurants as it did to the rest of this most theatrical of all cities: It came in the form of a stage set.

  By April most props were in place. Only the mood music seemed still a bit wrong. Perhaps the weather had something to do with it. Not that the temperatures remained wintry; usually the sun drove away the night's chill. But there had been no rain for weeks, and the drought had delayed budding. Only restaurant gardens displayed some leafy green. It was fake and dusty. Dust, sooty, grainy proletarian dust, drifted from the proletarian districts in the West where the sanitation department did not trouble to send many brooms. Uncouth dust mottled the breasts of goddesses whose marmoreal charms supported balconies of the Imperial Palace. But dust could not stop Vienna from play-acting like Vienna. The city kept furbishing the decor and the costumes of Maytime.

  Tailors cut and stitched deep into the night. Now was the moment for the city's fashionables to start fittings for their summer wardrobe, which this year featured slimmer singlebreasted suits. Fiacre drivers used their lunch hour to wield the paint brush; time to refresh the gray-black design of their carriages. On the gothic elegance of the menu card of Demel's, the ultimate patisserie, a herald of the warmer season appeared-iced coffee with a tiara of whipped cream.

  Still, the trees in the Vienna Woods were less than verdant; so, underneath the busyness, was the feeling in town. Even on the day of the Resurrection, a sense of Ash Wednesday weighed on the roofs. Over the Easter weekend, Sunday, March 23 and Monday, March 24, twenty-three people tried to kill themselves, a majority of them in that unswept slum to the West; seventeen of these drank concentrated lye. It was the cheapest poison and therefore the most cost-effective means of suicide. Over six thousand crammed nightly into the municipal Wdrmestuben. These were "warming rooms" where the capital's homeless could sleep sitting up on wooden benches.

  The somberness of Lent, stubborn past its season, extended to the upper reaches. True, the rich could afford to ease their spirit at chic new entertainments like the cinema. A film of Dante's Inferno was the dernier cri in the genre. You could see it at the Graben Kino, a theater with seats of plush and walls of silk and an orchestra of two pianos and three violins to make musical the shadows on the screen. No wonder that the jeunesse doree elected the Graben Kino as a favorite courtship rendez-vous. Perhaps it was no wonder, too, that in the early spring of 1913 one went a-Maying to the Inferno.

  Dust thickened as the rains held off. Fires increased. Cinders sprinkled the time of rejuvenation. A touch of hell at the edge of heaven: that seemed to be the motto of the weather, of politics, and of the social scene as exemplified by the dinner party of Herr Hermann von Passavant, Consul General of the German Reich in Vienna.

  On Monday, March 31, his table saw a cross-section of the powerful: Baron Conrad, the Chief of Staff; Hermann von Reininghaus, the beer magnate of the Habsburg Empire, with his lush, dusky-eyed wife; Baron Leo von Chlumetzky, influential publisher of the Oesterreichische Rundschau; and Joseph Redlich, a key member of Parliament as well as a political scientist and assiduous journal keeper who often recorded in detail his experiences as intellectual-in-residence of the Vienna establishment.

  Delicious was the Tafelspitz that evening; delicate, the juxtaposition of personalities. Everyone in the know (and everyone here was) knew of the capital's foremost triangle: Herr von Reininghaus, Frau von Reininghaus, and the Chief of Staff. The last two were seated next to each other.

  Alas, the piquancy could not be fully savored. Just as the General looked deeply into his neighbor's eyes, history interrupted him with a knock at the door. It was his adjutant with a bulletin concerning the latest Serb aggression. During the last few weeks the Serbs and their Montenegrin henchmen had reopened hostilities with Turkey, driving the Sultan's troops south on Albanian territory until they reached a critical zone, the town of Scutari, near the coast. Vienna had stated publicly that extension of Serb control into Scutari would jeopardize Austria's security and undermine all hope of Balkan stability. The news which had just reached the General indicated that Scutari might fall at any moment.

  The General's facial tic had accelerated. His irritation dominated what was left of dinner. He should get up right now, he said, and walk to the telephone and call the Military Chancellery at the Imperial Palace and request permission through the Duty Officer to bring the Adriatic fleet into action. Before dawn he could dispatch a battleship and two cruisers with marines ready to land. They would make short work of Belgrade's provocations in that area. It would be the logical thing to do. But there was no point calling the Palace. Lately he was not allowed to apply logic when it came to Serbia. Never! Not once. Each time he tried, the Palace said No, pressured by the Crown Prince. It was always the bugbear of Russian intervention. Why, just recently His Majesty had said that war with Russia would be the end of His monarchy. Actually it would be the end of the Tsar. Conrad himself, with his own hands, had placed on the Emperor's desk intelligence that proved the illogic of any Russia-panic. This intelligence came from a source so high he could name its identity only to the Emperor (it was Count Sergius Witte, former Prime Minister at St. Peters
burg), and the information proved that thirty million non-Russians would revolt against the Tsar-including Finland and Poland. The time to strike Serbia was now, before Russia could get organized. But that was out of the questionjust because it would be the logical thing!

  An excellent chocolate mousse could not mellow the General's frustration. Nor did mocha end it. The dinner party was eventful, though not as personally piquant as one had hoped. Before the night was out, however, Frau von Reininghaus took our diarist, Herr Redlich, aside. It was so valorous of the General, she breathed in Redlich's ear, to press for action, since the General had three sons of military age; in fact, he had confided to her his premonition that his eldest, Herbert, would fall before the enemy….

  As April ended, rain came to Vienna at last. Then the sun broke through, and the flowers burst forth. Suddenly spring swept through the streets like a galloping pageant. Suddenly the Vienna Woods interlaced so closely with the pavement that cobbles became fragrant. In the West and the South where the vineyards touched the sidewalks, they touched them with the pearly blossoms of the grapevine. The hills looming so closely above the roofs-those "house mountains" beloved of the Viennese like Kahlenberg, Cobenzl, Leo- poldsberg-turned into waves of vivid hue: crocuses, cyclamens, primroses, daisies, lilacs, all blessed with the songs of blackbird and thrush. Along the banks of the Danube cherry orchards flamed into color.

  In the city itself blossoms swamped bricks. Violet vendors surrounded the Opera and scented the piazzas. In parks like the Stadtpark and Volksgarten peacocks jaunted under festive trees. White roses garlanded the fiacres that brought children to their First Communion: the girls like buds unfolding in their snowy lace, the boys with white carnations glowing from their buttonholes.