B008AITH44 EBOK (35 page)

Elisabeth asked Falk for Eötvös’s letters, and Falk informed Eötvös to that effect. Eötvös, in turn, began to write accordingly, “and so, in the form of letters directed to me, so many things were expressed to Her Majesty she would hardly have learned about in any other way,” Falk reported.

During the coronation year, Max Falk returned to Hungary. He became editor in chief of the German-language liberal daily
Pester
Lloyd
, where he supported the policies of his friend Andrássy. Before long, he was a leading member of the Hungarian diet and became one of the most powerful men in Hungary.

*

Unexpectedly, disturbing news arrived early in October. Empress
Carlotta
of Mexico had gone to Rome to ask the Pope to aid the Catholic Mexican empire, having been refused by Napoleon III. But the Pope saw no way of helping, and he treated Carlotta with great coolness. She had a mental collapse and fell prey to delusions. An alienist and two attendants took her to Castle Miramar outside Trieste, where she remained in
excellent
physical health and lived to 1927—without ever seeing her Max again or learning of his tragic end. She no longer had any links with the court in Vienna.

After some hesitation, Max decided to remain in Mexico, in spite of the difficulties of his situation. Archduchess Sophie approved of his choice, though she worried about him, her favorite son:

The idea that a member of the House of Habsburg could be put to death was unthinkable to Archduchess Sophie, even in Mexico, a land that seemed so foreign, so eerily strange.

The ladies-in-waiting critically and compassionately observed the many misfortunes that befell the imperial family: “how these poor things here, of whom one is a quasi member, are afflicted by blow after blow and pressed by sorrow after sorrow! and how they
cannot
have true joy because they are unfamiliar with any sort of family life and only their innate elasticity helps them through it, one feels terribly sorry for them! … These are the important figures of our world who, seen close up, are no more than the most piteous unfortunates.”
⁶¹

At this time, however, cares closer to home were still most pressing. In late October, Emperor Franz Joseph visited Bohemia, which had been heavily devastated by the war. Elisabeth did not go with him. She, who had done so much for Hungary in this year, acknowledged no obligation to prove herself, during these unhappy times, a good Queen of Bohemia as well.

The visit to the Bohemian battlefields depressed the Emperor deeply. The villages were destroyed, hundreds of thousands of people were
homeless.
The broad fields around Königgrätz, Trautenau, and Chlum were trampled hard by the combatants—not so much as a blade of grass would grow on them, so that famine was inevitable. On the battlefield itself, no fewer than 23,000 soldiers and 4,000 horses were interred; because of the heat and the danger of epidemic, no proper burial had been possible. Finally, after four months, thorough disinfecting of the entire area removed the stench of corpses.
⁶²

How desolate, as well as politically volatile, the mood in Bohemia was became clear through an assassination attempt on the Emperor in the Czech theater in Prague. Franz Joseph’s position was no longer undisputed. Evil was brewing. Czech nationalism grew in proportion to the preference shown the Magyars. The Empress, too, realized—although not until much later—the significance of the Bohemian anger. “I do not hold it against the Czechs one bit if they revolt against Austrian rule; Slavs belong with Slavs! One day, probably only after many decades, Bohemia will manage to assert her will. But even now, we are sitting on a powderkeg.”
⁶³
That Bohemia, until now relatively peaceful, was turning into a powderkeg was not the least of Elisabeth’s work.

The negotiations with Hungary continued. Gyula Andrássy continued to travel back and forth between Vienna and Budapest, negotiating here and there, in constant communication with the Empress through Ida Ferenczy. Elisabeth’s daily sessions with Max Falk also continued, as did Eötvöss frequent letters to Falk, which Sisi continued to peruse.

Discussions at court about the Hungarians’ demands and their method of winning them through the Empress were heated and angry. The Bohemians felt relegated to the background, although Archduchess Sophie espoused their cause. But Sophie’s influence had waned considerably in recent times, while Sisi’s star had risen in the political as well as the private arena.

The concept of dualism—a large realm with two equally powerful political centers, Budapest and Vienna—was predicated on the elimination of the Slavs. Dualism assigned the political power of the state to two factions: the Hungarians, who were free to dominate all other nationalities in their section of the country (Transleithania); and the Germans, who would hold the same power over the proportionately much larger Slavic population in Cisleithania (the river Leitha being seen as the boundary). This division of power inflicted a great wrong on the Austrian Slavs. The objections of the uniformly pro-Bohemian Viennese Court Party to the Hungarian claims to power were more than justified.

Once again, Archduke Albrecht became the spokesman for the Court Party. He was one of the most important and most influential—and one of the most intelligent—Habsburgs of the nineteenth century. He was older by thirteen years than his great-nephew Franz Joseph, and his huge fortune dwarfed that of the Emperor. Now, after his 1866 victory at Custozza, which was widely and enthusiastically hailed, he possessed quite enough authority to make his voice heard in Austrian politics.

Since his term as military governor of Hungary, the field marshal was one of the most cordially hated men in Hungary. In these critical months, open opposition to the Empress came not from the Emperor or any of the ministers, but from Archduke Albrecht alone. Extremely violent
confrontations
ensued. Rumors were rife in public about vehement scenes between the two. No fewer than six reports on this conflict alone came to the information bureau.
⁶⁴
(No details about the matter are known, however; all the documents dealing with this fundamental political quarrel
concerning
the future of the Danube monarchy were subsequently removed from the bureau and are still missing.)

The discussions at court turned on the assessments of the Revolution of 1848. At the time, the imperial family had fled from Vienna to Olmütz
and there had found loyalty and devotion, while the Hungarians, with their army of rebels (which included young Andrássy) marched on Vienna and the Emperor.

Now, suddenly, in the context of the Hungarians’ demands and constant political negotiations, 1848 was presented in quite a different light: Now the Hungarians spoke only of the wrong the Emperor had done to them at the time. The former revolutionaries—such as Andrássy—were
celebrated
as martyrs and heroes of the nation, while the Emperor who had pronounced his death sentence was depicted as the villain.

In this situation, too, the Empress, was partisan. Not only in the family circle, but also in conversations with such Hungarians as Bishop Mihály Horváth, she left no doubt whatever in her criticism of Franz Joseph, but at the same time she tried cleverly to bridge the old chasms: “Believe me, if it were in our power, my husband and I would be the first to bring Ludwig Battyany and the blood witnesses of Arad back to life.”
⁶⁵

Archduchess Sophie and Archduke Albrecht took up their old positions: They had no compassion for those who were hanged in 1849. As far as these Habsburgs were concerned, the dead were all of them merely rebels against the rightful rule of the Emperor.

Even the little Crown Prince was drawn into the dispute. Sophie had to tell him about 1848; “he always wanted to hear all the details,” she wrote in her diary.
⁶⁶
The Crown Prince also had a fondness for the romantic stories his adored mother told him about the heroes of the Hungarian revolution. The long stay in Hungary deeply influenced the eight-
year-old’s
intellectual and emotional development. He had an opportunity to witness the enthusiasm of the populace for his beautiful and politically active mother, and he, too, fell under Gyula Andrássy’s spell. Andrássy became his mentor, his political idol—and remained so to the end of Rudolf’s life.

Once again, the Emperor found himself trapped between Sophie and Elisabeth. And this time what was at stake was not family affairs but politics of the highest magnitude. It was a matter of nothing less than the question of Austria’s future—whether Germans and Hungarians alone should really share the power and thus disadvantage all other nationalities, or whether other solutions, which would include Bohemia, would have to be found.

In Vienna, the Empress employed her usual methods: She had toothaches or headaches whenever an official reception was in the offing. She did not appear at the solemn Easter vigil. She did not conceal her utter contempt
for Vienna; but whenever a Hungarian came to the court, she sparkled in her full beauty, in matchless charm.

She kept her distance from her husband. Franz Joseph, for his part, was so much in love with his wife that he felt compelled to show his infinite, even abject gratitude for the slightest favor. And Elisabeth missed no trick to impose her will on the Emperor.

In February 1867, Prime Minister Richard Belcredi handed in his
resignation
(which was accepted). He did not mince words to explain his decision in a letter to the Emperor: “A constitutionalism that is based from the outset on the rule of only the Germans and Hungarians—definitely a minority—will never lead more than a fictive life in Austria.” He
reminded
the Emperor of his promise “that
before
a definite decision is taken concerning the question of conciliation, the countervailing opinions of the other kingdoms and provinces would be solicited. I consider it a point of honor to remain true to this promise and would have to see a great political error in the nonfulfillment of same.”
⁶⁷

As a former governor of Bohemia, Count Belcredi was not free to take any other attitude. His notes accuse the Empress of using the Emperor’s frame of mind during these months of misfortune “to support with renewed vigor the specific and selfish Hungarian endeavors, which she has patronized for a long time but hitherto without success.” Belcredi (and he was only one of many) charged the Empress with having abandoned her husband and pressuring him during the unfortunate months after
Königgrätz.
“To be separated from his family at such moments of heavy testing is to live in torment for anyone, but especially for a monarch, for whom intimate relations with others are made so much more difficult. Whenever I went to see him and found him totally isolated in the vast chambers of the castle, this always made the most painful impression on me.”
⁶⁸

Belcredi was followed as prime minister by Foreign Minister Ferdinand Beust, who thus exercised vast authority. Andrássy’s hopes of at least taking over the Foreign Ministry from Beust came to naught. Self-confident as he was, he told the Empress during one of their many political
conversations
that she should not interpret it as lack of modesty on his part if he harbored the conviction that at this particular moment, he was the only man who could be useful. Elisabeth barely let him finish: “How often I have told the Emperor as much!”
⁶⁹

Having had no luck with the Foreign Ministry, Andrássy now urged Elisabeth to advocate the prompt naming of a Hungarian ministry with extensive responsibility—under his, Andrássy’s, leadership, of course.

Archduchess Sophie resigned herself; early in February, her diary records, “It seems that an arrangement is being made with Hungary and concessions will be granted!”
⁷⁰

In mid-February 1867, the Hungarians pushed through the “
conciliation
.” The old Hungarian constitution was reestablished. The empire of Austria became the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, with two capitals (Vienna and Budapest), two parliaments, two cabinets. Only the minister of war, the foreign minister, and the minister of finance served both sectors (though the last of these acted in the dual capacity only for financial affairs that applied to the total empire). According to the highly complex
governmental
structure, the Hungarians—who, in contrast to the peoples of the western half of the monarchy, represented a comparatively self-contained national bloc—were given excessive power, out of all proportion to their number in the total population. The costs were split in a ratio of 70 percent for Cisleithania and 30 percent for Hungary. This distribution formula, however, was to be renegotiated every ten years (a provision that
eventually
proved a major handicap). Now nothing stood in the way of Franz Joseph’s coronation as King of Hungary.