Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires

by Justin C. Vovk

  “I have something to say but I must say it quickly as I don’t want your aunt to hear anything of this when she comes down. I shall soon be murdered. In this desk are papers which concern you. When it happens, take them. They are for you.”

  My husband protested: “Surely, you must be joking.” But his uncle replied: “No, I am serious. After all, everything is ready. The crypt in Arstetten is now finished.”

  Before anything more could be said, the Duchess reappeared and we all did our best to pass the rest of the evening as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.743

  Charles and Zita left Belvedere that night speechless. It was only after they returned home that they discussed in greater detail Franz Ferdinand’s disturbing prophecy. In a later interview, Zita shared her thoughts on what had transpired that night.

  Uncle Franz-Ferdinand obviously had reasons for believing what he told us. He had had serious threats from nationalist and anarchist groups. Obviously the police had been informed of them and took them very seriously. To tell the truth, the instigators were known to be inaccessible. They mingled and moved in a half-light, and in the political demi-world, between Turin, Paris, and Scotland. They also haunted Belgrade. It was already known at the time that, if an assassination attempt were committed, the authors of it would only be agents manipulated by a “big brother.”744

  Zita’s statement reflects the general mentality of most members of the Habsburg dynasty at this time. The acts of the Nihilists in Russia, the burgeoning terrorism in the Balkans, and the murder of the Portuguese king and crown prince in 1908 showed that acts of violence against royals were on the rise. But it is doubtful anyone, even someone as politically astute as Archduchess Zita, could have predicted what would take place in just a few weeks.

  In the spring, there were unmistakable signs that instability was sweeping Europe. Over the past decade, the facade of royalty’s immutability had been stripped away, prompting its enemies to strike. In Germany, the growing power of the Socialists and other Leftist parties in the Reichstag were decisive blows against the Hohenzollern monarchy. Although Empress Augusta Victoria remained above reproach in the eyes of her people, the emperor had become an object of scorn, ridicule, and even resentment. It was a similar story in Russia, where the Duma, now nearing its tenth anniversary, was failing in its mission to bring reform to the tsarist empire. Nicholas II had dissolved and reformed the parliamentary body a frustrating four times, stalemating the democratic process. Russia was also paralyzed with thousands of workers’ strikes from Ukraine to Siberia. At the Lena goldfields in northeast Siberia, soldiers shot and killed some five hundred miners who had gone on strike to protest their working conditions: sixteen hour days, an accident rate of seven out of every ten workers, and food that was usually rotten or inadequate. Despite its alliance with Britain, episodes like the Lena Massacre inflamed the British people’s resentment toward the Russian autocracy, embodied by Nicholas II and Alexandra.

  Britain was not immune from the seeds of discontent. The king was dejected that he was being forced to confront separatist causes in his own dominions. In May 1912, the Liberals in the House of Commons struck a blow against the British Empire by putting forth a home rule bill for Ireland. The ebbing Conservatives pressured the king to veto the bill, something not done by an English monarch since 1708. In the end, the indecisive and timid George chose not to interfere. “Whatever I do I shall offend half the population,” he scribbled in a memo. “No Sovereign has even been in such a position.”745 Although he chose not to interfere in the elected process, George was a committed imperialist who, perhaps even more than his father, was determined to preserve the British Empire as it existed during Queen Victoria’s reign. This was something he shared with Wilhelm II and Nicholas II: a commitment to passing onto his son the same empire that was passed on to him. Although the English throne was the most stable in Europe, Britain’s once-great overseas empire was beginning to dwindle. Irish home rule, rising Indian independence movements, and self-determination for Canada and Australia were evidence of this.

  To combat his feelings of vulnerability on the throne, King George followed his father’s example by looking for good international relations to be fostered between monarchs. This proved difficult when it came to Britain’s ally, France. Being a republic for nearly half a century, it was the bastion of democracy in Europe, free from monarchical constraints. “France is, and always will remain, Britain’s greatest danger,” said Lord Salisbury as early as 1867.746 It was also a sore point in French republican pride that almost every deposed French dynasty since 1848 had sought refuge in England. Eighty-eight-year-old Empress Eugénie was still living quietly in the English countryside. With Germany’s growing antagonism toward Britain, it was more imperative than ever that George and Mary strengthen their bonds with France. To that end, in April 1914, they took a much-anticipated trip to Paris. It was the first foreign city that the king and queen visited since their accession.

  The Anglo-French relationship was one of the oldest rivalries in Europe. This was unchanged for centuries until Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited France as guests of Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie in 1855. The visit was a lukewarm success at best, but when the gregarious Edward VII returned in 1903, it changed everything. After a series of effusive speeches and official engagements, Edward became a smash hit and was cheered with cries of “Vive le Roi! Vive l’Angleterre!”747 When President Émile Loubet of France visited London a few months later, he was greeted just as enthusiastically. The friendship that Edward VII established with France led to the grand alliance, the Entente Cordiale of 1904, uniting England and France for the first time in history, thanks to the diplomatic efforts of Lord Landsdowne and Paul Cambon.

  When George and Mary arrived in Paris, they were an instant sensation. There were crowds “milling round the carriage.… Wonderful reception & crowds of people.… Crowds in the street in spite of late hour.… Crowds in the streets both coming and going,” were some of the entries Mary made in her diary. She added that all this enthusiasm “shows that the French people wish to be on good terms with us.”748 According to the French people, in the queen’s eyes they saw “the prettiest frankness” and insisted that “her smile was full of a delicate kindness and sincerity.” The Parisians, ever conscious of the latest fashions and styles, were full of praise for her wardrobe: “The whiteness of the aigrettes beneath her hat exactly suited the gracious face beneath.”749 The queen knew “how to wear with grace and dignity the dresses of gold, silver, and silk which Court etiquette insists upon; but her heart is not in vain outward show.”750 For their final night in Paris, a gala party was held at the Elysée Palace topped off by an emotional speech from the French president, Raymond Poincaré.

  Outside her official duties and foreign trips, Queen Mary had a number of hobbies she pursued. One about which she was passionate was decorating. She loved sprucing up Buckingham Palace, Sandringham, Windsor Castle, and Balmoral. Whether personal properties or owned by the Crown, the Georgian architecture and style of these residences greatly appealed to the queen. She set about decorating her homes with gusto, creating interiors that were neatly ordered and well designed. Mary adored antiques, especially ones with a slight German feel to them. Most of her early homes had been furnished with wedding presents, but Windsor Castle was in desperate need of redesign. The queen eagerly went shopping for furniture and artwork. Delighted with her prowess, she took a special interest in each of her homes and the furniture within them. “For then they become somehow so much more interesting,” she once quipped.751 David Duff, one of the queen’s biographers, ascribed several driving forces to Mary’s love of antiques and possessions in general. The most significant, he argued, was financial. “Throughout her childhood, the Tecks had been haunted by poverty,” he wrote. “Presents from rich relations, such as jewelled snuffboxes, meant security—their only way of obtaining it. The more diamonds that sparkled on the bosom of Mary Adelaide, the m
ore credit could she obtain from the tradesmen. Thus events such as birthdays and confirmations were looked forward to. As she grew older this nightmare of poverty reappeared before Queen Mary and her possessions became more important to her.”752

  This compulsive fear of poverty that drove the queen to acquire possessions may have driven her to some extremes. Some authors and historians have claimed her “antiquing” bordered on kleptomania. On more than one occasion, when Mary was a guest somewhere and became enamored with an object, she talked the owner into giving it to her as a gift. In the rare instances when a host was unobliging, the queen reportedly was known to respectfully abscond with the object, which was promptly returned by her ladies-in-waiting with a note of apology for the “misunderstanding.” The queen could not always feign guilelessness. When she saw a clock she adored at Kensington Palace that belonged to George’s aunt the Duchess of Argyll, she “made her way towards … the mantelpiece, her admiration all too transparent.” Louise then placed herself between the clock and the queen and firmly declared, “The clock is here, and here it remains.”753

  The queen’s passions were not limited only to decorating and gardening. She was also interested in the royal genealogy surrounding the previous owners of her homes. When it came to the Georgian era—the reigns of George I, II, and III—she was an incomparable expert. She could tell anyone the stories behind almost every piece of furniture or antique that had belonged to any of the kings George. She once astounded a lady-in-waiting who inquired about a golden cannon on an Italian yacht. Excited by the question, Mary enthusiastically described how King George III had given the pair of golden cannons to the king of the Two Sicilies as a present in 1787.

  Within a year of her daughter Sissy’s wedding, another of Dona’s children was making plans to get married, although these nuptials would embroil the Hohenzollerns in controversy, the likes of which the dynasty had not seen since 1853. Prince Oscar fell in love with a commoner—Countess Ina von Bassewitz-Levetzow. Like Eitel-Fritz and Lotte, Oscar and Ina had met after Willy and Cecilie’s wedding. Ina came to Berlin with her father, the premier of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who was the chief minister of Cecilie’s brother, the grand duke. Although the Mecklenburgs were very unpopular in Berlin, Dona took an instant liking to Ina, whom she appointed one of her ladies-in-waiting. Within a few months, the empress had forged a close bond with the countess, who filled the void in Dona’s life that was created when her daughter married and moved away. As a regular fixture at court, Ina was a high-society favorite with her beautiful singing voice. She became well acquainted with all of Dona’s sons but was won over by Oscar’s endearing awkwardness and quiet personality, which stood out all the more next to his more conceited, egotistical brothers. The relationship remained a secret for several years, until one evening when the frequently drunk Eitel-Fritz attacked Ina. Hearing Ina’s scream, Oscar came to her rescue, knocking his brother onto the floor. In the aftermath, as Oscar tried to calm Ina down, he declared to his mother and brothers that he loved her, wanted to marry her, and if he could not, he would go into exile.

  Dona suspected for some time that Oscar and Ina had feelings for one another. Ordinarily, the empress would never have considered allowing a royal prince to marry morganatically. Throughout most of her life, she was obsessive about the sanctity of royal marriages. When her brother Duke Ernest Günther of Schleswig-Holstein announced in 1896 that he wanted to marry the daughter of a German count, she declared that “if he entered into a marriage with a lady who was not of the appropriate rank,” she would “never … receive her.”754 Oscar’s case was different. He was one of Dona’s favorite children, and she decided not to oppose his marriage.

  At the young couple’s request, Dona approached Wilhelm to obtain his permission for them to wed. As expected, he flew into a fit of white-hot rage, yelling at Dona “that she was a fool to think of it,” and that Ina “would be given exactly one hour to clear out of Berlin.” Ina promptly departed, but Dona and Oscar stood resolute against Wilhelm. Every day for the next several weeks, the empress and her husband “went through wordy battle,… urging, pleading, supplicating, and even threatening.”755 After months of haranguing, Wilhelm finally acquiesced. His daughter, the Duchess of Brunswick, had a hand in changing his mind. According to one account, “when William II. arrived at Brunswick for the christening of his daughter’s first-born child, and asked her what present he could give, he received the reply that all she craved was permission for Prince Oscar to marry the lady of his heart.” In the end, “William II. could not resist this appeal.”756 The betrothal was publicly announced on May 26.

  The news that one of the emperor’s sons was marrying morganatically “created a considerable scandal, and led to much talk among those select circles of Court society where the sayings and doings of every member of the Imperial family are watched with keen interest.”757 Even in the far away United States, the wedding generated considerable interest. “The Kaiser at first resolutely opposed his son’s breach of the dynasty’s tradition and a marriage below his rank, but the Kaiserin interceded successfully on Prince Oscar’s behalf,” reported the New York Times. “When the marriage takes place the Kaiser, in accordance with tradition will confer a special name and title upon his daughter-in-law, which will give her higher rank than that which she now enjoys, although she will never be entitled to call herself a Princess of Prussia or enjoy the privileges of a member of the royal family.”758 With the official announcement made, plans went ahead for another Hohenzollern wedding later in the year.

  The summer of 1914 was proving to be one of the hottest in recent memory as the sun beat down on the many visitors who had come to Vienna for a holiday. Eager to escape the heat and clamor of the capital, Charles and Zita took their children for an extended holiday to Villa Wartholz. Aside from the usual squabbles between the Great Powers, most of Europe was preparing for “a particularly enjoyable year.”759 After a respite at Wartholz, Charles and Zita planned to visit Saint Cecilia’s, the abbey on the Isle of Wight where Zita had studied and where her sister Francesca was now a nun.

  On the sunny afternoon of June 28, the couple was enjoying lunch outdoors when Zita noticed an exceptionally long pause between the serving of the next course. A moment later, one of the servants came running out with a telegram. It was from Baron Rumerskirch in Sarajevo, Franz Ferdinand’s aide-de-camp. “Deeply regret to report that His Imperial Highness and the Duchess were both assassinated here today,” the telegram stated with surprising indifference. That moment remained forever engrained in Zita’s memory. Decades later, she described her husband’s reaction: “Though it was a beautiful day, I saw his face go white in the sun.”760 Overwhelmed with grief, the couple sat in stunned silence for a while. Eventually, Charles went into the house to contact the emperor to confirm if it were true.

  Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian assassin, gunned down the archduke and duchess in the middle of their tour of the city. Sophie was dead by the time they reached a nearby hospital. The archduke slipped into unconsciousness and died shortly thereafter. In his trial, Princip stated he acted “to kill an enemy of the South Slavs” and that Franz Ferdinand was “an energetic man who as ruler would have carried through ideas and reforms which stood in our way.”761 A number of individuals were involved in the plot to murder the archduke. Princip and all of his accomplices were ethnic Bosnians, making them all Austro-Hungarian subjects. They had been provided with six pistols and six bombs from the Serbian State Arsenal, which were smuggled into Bosnia by Serb accomplices. Although the plot had been devised in Belgrade, it was done so without the involvement of the Serbian government.

  Franz Joseph was at his summer retreat, Bad Ischl, when the terrible news broke. With his usual cold style, he wired back to Charles that the unthinkable had indeed taken place. The truth was that the emperor was actually somewhat relieved to hear his nephew had been shot. It was widely known that the two men did not like one another. Nonetheless, he realized that the assa
ssinations would have far-reaching consequences. He immediately returned to Vienna, where Charles met him at Hietzing, the closest train station to Schönbrunn Palace where Zita had gone on ahead to meet them. That afternoon, as the emperor and his new twenty-six-year-old heir rode in an open carriage to the palace, crowds lined the streets in stunned silence. In England, Queen Mary and King George called the assassination a “great shock” and a “horrible tragedy.”762 When Emperor Wilhelm II was told while aboard the Hohenzollern II, he remarked, “The cowardly detestable crime … has shaken me to the depths of my soul.”763

  The Prussian court immediately went into mourning, led by Dona’s sons, who had been great admirers of Franz Ferdinand. That night, violent mobs formed across Sarajevo. Croatian supporters of the monarchy turned on ethnic Serbians, who were widely blamed for the murders. As buildings were vandalized, Croatians sung out Austria-Hungary’s imperial anthem. In Vienna, an eerie calm prevailed as Franz Ferdinand’s and Sophie’s bodies arrived at the Hofburg Palace to lie in state. Charles and Zita attended a candlelit service in which the cardinal archbishop blessed the coffins with holy water and prayers were sung for the dead. They were later buried in their private crypt at Artstetten Castle in Lower Austria.

  In Russia, Franz Ferdinand’s assassination barely registered with the Romanovs, who were in the throes of their own series of tragedies. Alexandra and her family were on the Standart, cruising down the Baltic coast, when Alexei fell from a ladder, twisting his ankle. Within a few hours, another Spala was taking shape as he cried in agony while the joints in his leg swelled and filled with blood. To make matters worse for the tsarina, her staretz was nowhere to be found. Rasputin was back in Russia, convalescing after being attacked by a knife-wielding woman. Even once Alexei was out of danger and on the mend, the imperial family took little interest in the death of an Austrian archduke and his commoner wife. Although unfortunate, no one realized the significance these murders would have. After all, only a few years earlier, the king of Portugal and his son had been assassinated with nothing close to a total war resulting.