Page:The Bohemian Review, vol1, 1917.djvu/68

 excuse for crushing Serbia, were in reality accomplices in the death of the heir whom they cordially hated.

Francis Joseph whose long region of sixty eight years came recently to a close has always been subject to female influences. In his declining years the strongest person around him was archduchess Marie Valerie, his daughter; together with archduchesses Isabella and Marie Josephine she was the real power behind the throne. To obtain the consent of the emperor to any important matter it was necessary to work through his all-powerful daughter. Marie Valerie was swayed by one ruling passion, a deep and all pervading hate of Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the empire, and a still more intensive hate of his morganatic wife, Princess of Hohenberg, former Countess Sophia Chotek. It is difficult to account for this passionate hate; perhaps it was intense personal dislike, perhaps jelousy fed by the thought that on some future day that could not be far distant the Countess Chotek would become the emperor’s wife and take precedence of the emperor’s daughter. It was well known that Francis Ferdinand was completely devoted to his wife and would upon accession to the throne overturn the barriers by which his wife and children were excluded from the throne. Possibly Marie Valerie was swayed by medieval prejudice against persons raised above their rank. Who can sound the depths of a woman’s soul, especially if she be a Hapsburg princess?

No doubt exists on the point that Francis Ferdinand was constantly pursued by the enmity of the archduchess and hated by all her court. It was well known in Vienna that the heir’s mental condition was to say the least abnormal. Both in his castle of Konopiste and in Vienna stories were told of fits resembling insanity to which His Imperial Highness was subject. In his living room all the protraitsportraits [sic] had eyes shot out, for they were the target at which the future emperor exhibited his skill with revolver. His bodyservants, coachmen and gardeners told other stories. One morning three years ago the castle of Konopiste was astounded by an unusual spectacle. The steward of the estate presented himself before the archduke for reports and orders. The heir to the throne exchanged a few words with his servant, and suddenly without any reason picked up his sword and commenced to beat the steward with the flat side of the weapon, careless of where the blows fell. The man turned and ran from the rooms; the archduke ran after him and pursued him with the sword all over the castle grounds to the village below. The attendants were struck with fear and dared not interfere. This was but one instance of the frequent fits of the Archduke who losing all control of himself with his own hand whipped lackeys, coachmen and laborers.

The entourage of Marie Valerie looked upon Francis Ferdinand as insane. Generals, ministers and high officials spoke of him among themselves as “the idiot”. That there was a physical derangement of some sort, producing these violent acts, was proved by autopsy performed after his assassination. The physicians reported that his physical and mental condition had been such that he could not lived longer than one year.

Sophia, too, exhibited peculiar traits of temperament. She beat her maids and servants, even the governess of her children, but her outbursts of temper were accounted for generally by avarice. The story is told of her youngest child, who said, after Princess Hohenberg was buried: “Now I can keep the money that people give me.” The courtiers of Marie Valerie made these traits of the royal pair the butt of their witticisms, and it was well known that the surest way to the favor of the powerful archduchess was to poke fun at and exhibit contempt for the heir to the throne and his family. There was little real mourning in Vienna, when Francis Ferdinand and Sophia were killed, and the scandals connected with their funeral proved that the hate of the archduchess pursued them into the grave.

Both sides, the heir presumptive and the people who had the ear of the reigning emperor, shared the guilt of causing the war. Ferdinand, spurred on by his ambitious wife, lent himself to the far-reaching plans of Kaiser Wilhelm, hoping to make his children’s succession to the Hapsburg throne easier by adding territory to the inherited empire. For some years he had represented the old emperor in foreign and military affairs. He realized that his personality was popular neither with the ministers and generals, nor with the many races of Austria-Hungary. The majority of his future subjects were afraid of his centralizing and germanizing tendencies. The archduke realized that the foundations of