On 30th January 1889 an event occurred that was
to have tragic consequences years later, although the event itself was tragic
enough for those involved.
This was the double suicide of Prince Rudolf, son and heir
of Emperor Franz-Joseph of Austria-Hungary, and his young mistress, Baroness
Maria von Vetsera.
Rudolf was a married man, but it was not a happy marriage
and Rudolf resorted to a string of mistresses, most notably a 16-year-old that
he met at a ball in Vienna. This infuriated Franz-Joseph and caused a deep rift
to open between father and son.
On 28th January Franz-Joseph told Rudolf that
both he and the Pope were completely opposed to a divorce and that Rudolf would
have to fall into line and not cause a royal scandal. Rudolf’s response was to
leave Vienna the next day for his hunting lodge at Mayerling, 15 miles from the
capital. He took Maria with him.
The actual events of the early morning of 30th
January have been the subject of speculation ever since. A double suicide seems
the most likely scenario, with Rudolf killing Maria before shooting himself,
but there are many other theories including murder by agents of Emperor
Franz-Joseph.
The result, however, was clear enough. Franz-Joseph’s only
son was dead, so the succession passed to his nephew, Archduke Franz-Ferdinand.
The second tragedy, therefore, was that on 28th June 1914 it was
Franz-Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, rather than Crown Prince Rudolf, who were
in the firing line when assassins struck in Sarajevo, thus precipitating the
outbreak of World War I.
© John Welford
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