#karl i of austria

[diioonysus]

art + hair pieces

[little-candy-store-of-horrors]

"Bella gerunt alii, tu felix Austria nube!"

Day 6 of @spaus-week 's challenge

"Let others wage war, you, happy Austria, marry!" Was the political strategy of the Habsburgs, and marry did the House of Austria! Infamously, scandalously, sensationally. A mangled wreath of a family tree. We all know this horror story. And we all know the bitter end.

After Emperor Charles V&I divided his Spanish and Austrian inheritance ((also gained through his parents' and grandparents' marriages)) to his descendants and those of his younger brother Ferdinand I respectively, the Habsburg dynasty split into two branches. The Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs notoriously intermarried for generations, right up till Charles II of Spain whose heirless death in 1700 sparked the War of the Spanish Succession. The inbreeding and this informal Latin motto behind it has been blamed to hell and back for their implosion, for the physical ugliness that ran in this royal bloodline. But it is not to say the Habsburgs never went to war, nor that dynastic marriage was a political strategy unique to them! But they were, if anything, bloody successful at it seeing how they did rule half of Europe for 200 years, and then a lot of it in the Austrian line for another 200. Before anyone figured out inbreeding was bad it was considered a privilege to marry into the Habsburgs, with Louis XV claiming that Louis XVI's betrothal to Marie Antoinette was marrying the "Daughter of the Caesars", and Napoleon Bonaparte infamously ditching Josephine for Marie Louise. Charles II was a poor sod who took the fall and the mugs were wretched from the same ugly gene being passed around countless times*, but they did wear power and privilege well.

💅✨ Symbolism bc I'm a NERD and this my Category 10 autism event ✨💅 :

Charles V & Ferdinand I's joint portrait based on that propaganda woodcut, behind them the colours of the Habsburg flag.

The Spanish branch, comprising Charles V & I's descendants, is represented with a black background, and the Austrian branch, comprising Ferdinand I's descendants, gold, both colours pulled from their flag, a dynasty intertwined but split in two.

Round frames denote that the individual had no heirs.

Only the most influential ruler on both sides, the King of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor, are represented as framed portraits, explaining Archduke Charles II's unframed depiction.

The unconventional placement of Charles II of Spain and Emperor Rudolf II's nameplates are a nod to their queerness: their intersexuality and bisexuality respectively.

Ferdinand III's portrait is lopsided because of the losses of the 30 Years War.

Cracks in Charles II's portrait: 🙃🙃🙃

[illustratus]

Napoleon accepts the surrender of an Austrian army under General Mack on 20 October 1805 (detail)

by René Théodore Berthon

[archduchessofnowhere]

was there a reason why max didn't adopt an archduke to groom as a successor? not that i imagine any parent would have been happy to be separated from their child a whole ocean away in a shaky monarchy, but it seems like a better idea than showing favour to the previously deposed emperor's family.

He tried to do that too! Quoting Brigitte Hamann in her edition of the diary of Prince Carl Khevenhüller (an Austrian volunteer officer in Mexico):

Besides the Iturbide project there was, by the way, another effort to regulate the matter of the succession. In November of 1865 count Charles Bombelles addressed by order of Maximilian to his younger brother, archduke Karl Ludwig, who had three sons (Franz Ferdinand, Otto and Ferdinand), asking him if he would be willing to “give your approval to adopt one of your sons. The same prince would immediately travel, still in the course of the year 1866, to Mexico, as son and heir of the emperor and the empress of Mexico; and H.I.M the empress Charlotte would go to Vienna to collect him. Her Majesty would bring the necessary court so that from here only a nanny and a doctor should be sent over. In case the emperor Max still has a son, the prince would return to Austria endowed with an income worthy of his position”. Max exposed this wish to his brother “with the justificated hope of not allowing the House of Habsburg to lose the fruits of the gigantic work of an archduke of Austria” (1994, p. 144)

I must correct Hamann here though: in November of 1865 Karl Ludwig only had two sons, the not yet two-years-old Franz Ferdinand and six months-old baby Otto. Unsurprisingly, Karl Luwdig turned down his brother's proposal.

This was around the same time Max made the Iturbide boys princes, which likely means that his plan A was to adopt one of his nephews, and the Iturbides were more of a "backup" plan in case no Habsburg agreed to give his child in adoption. I don't know if he tried again later on; personally I think he may have had more luck had he asked one of his cousins instead.

SOURCE:

Hamann, Brigitte (1994). Con Maximiliano en México. Del diario del príncipe Carl Khevenhüller, 1864-1867 (translation by Angélica Scherp)

[tiny-librarian]

Marie Valerie of Austria with her parents, husband, and three eldest children. Elisabeth is walking towards her grandfather, Franz is in his mother's lap, and newborn Hubert is held by his grandmother, Sisi.

[jariv4]

Blessed Charles I of Austria.

[dreamconsumer]

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

[walzerjahrhundert]

Madame d’Ora (Dora Kallmus)

Karl I, Kaiser von Österreich in Uniform als Generaloberst

1916

[nichtimhandelerhaeltlich]

Ferdinand Habsburg living THE life

[thatswhywelovegermany]

November 9, the fateful day of the Germans in history

Nov 9, 1313: Battle of Gammelsdorf - Louis IV defeats his cousin Frederick the Fair marking the beginning of a series of disputes over supremacy between the House of Wittelsbach and the House of Habsburg in the Holy Roman Empire

Nov 9, 1848: Execution of Robert Blum (a german politician) - this event is said to mark the beginning of the end of the March Revolution in 1848/49, the first attempt of establishing a democracy in Germany

Nov 9, 1914: Sinking of the SMS Emden, the most successful German ship in world war I in the indo-pacific, its name is still used as a word in Tamil and Sinhala for a cheeky troublemaker

Nov 9, 1918: German Revolution of 1918/19 in Berlin. Chancellor Max von Baden unilaterally announces the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II and entrusts Friedrich Ebert with the official duties. At around 2 p.m., the Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann proclaims the "German Republic" from the Reichstag building. Two hours later, the Spartacist Karl Liebknecht proclaims the "German Soviet Republic" from the Berlin City Palace.

Nov. 9, 1923: The Hitler-Ludendorff Putsch (Munich Beer Hall Putsch) is bloodily suppressed by the Bavarian State Police in front of the Feldherrnhalle in Munich after the Bavarian Prime Minister Gustav Ritter von Kahr announces on the radio that he has withdrawn his support for the putsch and that the NSDAP is being dissolved.

Nov 9, 1925: Hitler imposes the formation of the Schutzstaffel (SS).

Nov 9, 1936: National Socialists remove the memorial of composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy in front of the Gewandhaus concert hall in Leipzig.

Nov 9, 1938: November Pogrom / Pogrom Night ("Night of Broken Glass") organized by the Nazi state against the Jewish population of Germany.

Nov 9, 1939: The abduction of two british officiers from the Secret Intelligence Service by the SS in Venlo, Netherlands, renders the British spy network in continental Europe useless and provides Hitler with the pretext to invade the Netherlands in 1940.

Nov 9, 1948: Berlin Blockade Speech - West Berlin mayor Ernst Reuter delivers a speech with the famous words "Peoples of the world, look at this city and recognize that you cannot, that you must not abandon this city".

Nov 9, 1955: Federal Constitutional Court decision: all Austrians who have acquired german citizenship through annexation in 1938, automatically lost it after Austria became sovereign again.

Nov 9, 1967: Students protest against former Nazi professors still teaching at German universities, showing the banner ”Unter den Talaren – Muff von 1000 Jahren” ("Under the gowns – mustiness of 1000 years", referring to the self-designation of Nazi Germany as the 'Empire of 1000 Years') and it becomes one of the main symbols of the Movement of 1968 (the German Student  Movement).

Nov 9, 1969: Anti-Semitic bomb attack - the radical left-winged pro-palestinian organization “Tupamaros West-Berlin” hides a bomb in the jewish community house in Berlin. It never exploded though.

Nov 9, 1974: death of Holger Meins - the member of the left-radical terrorist group Red Army Faction (RAF) financed in part by the GDR that eventually killed 30 people, dies after 58 days of hunger strike, triggering a second wave of terrorism.

Nov 9, 1989: Fall of the Berlin Wall - After months of unrest, demonstrations and tens of thousands escaping to West Germany, poorly briefed spokesman of the newly formed GDR government Günter Schabowski announces that private trips to non-socialist foreign countries are allowed from now on. Tens of thousands of East Berliners flock to the border crossings and overwhelm the border guards who had not received any instructions yet because the hastily implemented new travel regulations were supposed to be effective only the following day and involved the application for exit visas at a police office. Subsequently, crossing the border between both German states became possible vitrually everywhere.

[portraitsofsaints]

Happy Feast Day

Blessed Karl I of Austria (1887 - 1922)

and his spouse, Servant of God Zita of Austria (1892 - 1989)

Emperor and Empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

King and Queen of Hungary

Feast Day: October 21

Blessed Charles I or Karl I and Servant of God Zita were the last reigning monarchs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He married Zita of Bourbon-Parma in 1911. They were happily married for 11 years yet through the turbulent times of WWI and Karl’s exile. They had 8 children. After Karl’s death, Zita raised her children and served as a symbol of unity for the exiled dynasty. Zita’s and Karl’s hearts are buried together at the Loretto Chapel in Switzerland.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase. (website)

[mapsontheweb]

Karl I proposal for Austria-Hungary

by rexetruriae

On 16 October 1918, Emperor Karl I of Austria and IV of Hungary proclaimed the People's Manifesto, which envisaged to turn the Empire into a federal state of five Kingdoms (Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia and Polish-Galicia), in an attempt to take into account the aspirations of the Croats, Czechs, Austrian Germans, Poles, Ukrainians and Romanians without affecting the integrity of the lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen.

[ask19thcentury-doctorgilbert]

"I was always more of a quiet kid, greatly preferring my books and toys, and the company of those that I was familiar with. I suppose that's why Fritz and I got on well -- We were of the same temperament and had more than a couple shared interests. Being a part of such an unconventional family hasn't always been easy... Especially now that I'm more grown and am more aware of tensions brought about by politics and the like. But I wouldn't change it for the world."

Portrait descriptions under the cut!!

Portrait 1: The Berlin Family, painted in more recent times.

(L to R Back) Otto (Order of St. John), Niklot (Reiner's son, Neubrandenburg), Konrad (Berlin), Gilbert (Prussia), Rahela (Gilbert's wife, Romania), Reiner (Brandenburg), Ilse (Potsdam), Johanna (Koenigsberg), (L to R Front) Ludwig (German Empire), Sztefa (Silesia) - Gilbert and Rahela were wed in 1866, after Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen came to the Romanian throne as King Carol I of Romania. The marriage is purely political, but the two maintain a cordial and warm friendship. much to Erzsi's dismay - Niklot is Reiner's son, born from a human lover he had before the 30 Years War. Father and son were only recently reunited in the 1820s. - Sztefa is Gilbert's adopted daughter, taken in during the First Silesian war, and raised in part by Frederick II. Served in the volunteer corps during the Napoleonic era disguised as a man. Is Ludwig's scary lesbian older sister.

Portrait 2: The Vienna family, painted c. 1830s.

(L to R Back) Erzsebet (Hungary), Sztefa, Anneliese (Vienna), Roderich (Austria) (L to R Front) Ludwig, Gilbert - Roderich may be bonded to Austria, but his sister Anneliese, who embodies the capital, takes more of a leading role when it comes to government matters.

[archduchessofnowhere]

Archduke Franz Josef goes to Bavaria

I was some days ago years old when I discovered that Franz Josef I's childhood diary is available in the Projekt Gutenberg. I'd been busy lately studying for upcoming exams and dreading for the future of my country, so I haven't had the time to look much into it, but for the little I've read it isn't that interesting - just short entries summarizing what he did on the day, with little to no personal thoughts. But even so I came across some entries that I thought might be of interest for you so I quickly put this post together, since I feel bad having this blog a bit abandoned as of lately.

At the beginning of September of 1843 the thirteen-years-old Archduke Franz Josef went with his mother to visit their Bavarian family in Munich. While "Franzi" (frustratingly to us) dedicates more words to describe what kind of animals he hunt that day than to his relatives, this somewhat dull entries still contain a very interesting piece of information: the earliest recorded meeting between him and his future wife, Duchess Elisabeth in Bavaria. So without further delay, here are the entries from September 2 and 3, which correspond to the first two days of the Archduke's visit to Munich (as always mandatory disclaimer that these are machine translations and therefore there may be/are some mistakes):

2. From Wasserburg we travelled to Munich, the beautiful dear Munich, where we saw the magnificent Festbau, the Basilica, the Ludwigskirche, the staircase of the library, the huge Bavaria by Stiegelmayer and the All Saints' Chapel.

We dined at Palais Leuchtenberg at half past four. Sad memories when we saw the lords, ladies and servants of poor Grandmama [Queen Caroline of Bavaria, who passed away in 1841]. I met the Crown Prince [Oscar] and Crown Princess [Josephine] of Sweden there.

We left Munich at 7 o'clock and arrived at Possenhofen at quarter past ten. We found there the Duke Max and all his children except Louis [Duke Ludwig Wilhelm], who is in Switzerland.

3 Sunday. We breakfasted with Aunt Louise [Duchess Ludovika], Helene, Elise [Elisabeth] and the very nice but almost spoilt Karl [Theodor]. At 10 o'clock we went into the dull chapel to hear mass, where I felt so sick that I had to be carried out of the chapel to an open window, where I got well again; then I lay down on the bed. At 12 o'clock I and Count Bombelles fished with Duke Max, where we caught 20 birch and white fish. I dined at my place with Count Bombelles and, because of my earlier habits, I only ate a plate of bouillons and an artichoke. In the afternoon we all went, even little Karl, to the king's castle on the opposite shore of the lake, where we had a snack. When we got home, I went straight to my room where I ate soup and then went to bed.

The Palais Leuchtenberg was the residence of Franz Josef's aunt Princess Auguste of Bavaria, the widow of Eugène de Beauharnais. Crown Princess Josephine was Auguste's and Eugène's eldest child, and therefore the future emperor's first cousin. I found this mention interesting because, even though they were closely related, the meetings between Franz Josef and the Bernadottes seem to have been rare, and I don't even know if he ever saw Josephine again when they were monarchs.

Meanwhile, Possenhofen was the summer residence of Duke Max in Bavaria's family (the Duke also had his own bachelor residence in which he spent most of his time, away from his family). Curiously FJ doesn't call him "uncle", though I don't know if this was for a particular reason or if he just didn't refer to the husbands of his aunts as uncles in general. At the time of this visit "Aunt Louise" was heavily pregnant with her seventh child, Mathilde, who would be born the 30th of that same month. His cousins Helene, Elisabeth (still called "Elise" by her relatives, the nickname "Sisi" would only appear in 1853) and Karl (whom apparently hadn't earned his nickname "Gackl" yet) were nine, five and four-years-old respectively. I have no idea why the twelve-years-old Louis, the eldest son the Ducal couple that FJ notes was missing, was in Switzerland. As for the youngest child of the couple - the still not two-years-old Marie - I suppose she was in the nursery, busy being a toddler, and that's why her cousin didn't saw her. Also it seems that passing out during Mass was really just A Thing That Happened, the place being so crowded and the incense being so strong, which may explain why Franz Josef is so casual about it in his writing.

Franz Josef and his mother stayed in Munich until September 6, so this was really a brief visit. The rest of the entries are just as exciting as the first two (ha!): visits to Possenhofen, the Palais Leuchtenberg and the Palais Max (the Ducal family's main residence in Munich), tea with Aunt Louise, family dinners, fishing and hunting (FJ feels the need to tells us exactly how many and what kind of birds did he shot, because obviously he knew the future historian would be dying to know that and not what he thought of his Bavarian relatives). There are two more things, however, that I would like to highlight from his entries. First, that despite having a reputation as a man uninterested in art, FJ deemed important to mention the many paintings and sculptures he saw in Munich; and second, this surprisingly poetic description of the lake Starnberg:

The wind whistled coldly across the lake, and the boat danced on the rolling waves of foam; it was a very beautiful sight; I thought I was on the sea, for towards the end of the lake the mountains were covered with clouds, and on this side one saw nothing but water, sky and a church tower illuminated by the sun.

And I have to give it to him, if he wanted, he could write more than short and dry descriptions.

[tiny-librarian]

Royal Birthday for today, September 7th:

Suzaku, Emperor of Japan, 923

Elizabeth I, Queen of England, 1533

Maria Anna of Austria, Queen of Portugal, 1683

Karl Anton, Prince of Hohenzollern, 1811

Louise of Hesse-Kassel, Queen of Denmark, 1817

Rudolf Ferdinand of Liechtenstein, Count of Rietberg, 1975

[jariv4]

Blessed Charles of Austria. Last Emperor of Austria and last King of Hungry.