Empress Zita & Emperor Karl of Austria

[European Royal History Journal]

Archduke Otto is quite alive and kicking...I last spoke with him at the Vatican and took some nice photos of him before all the ceremonies began.

He celebrated his 90th birthday in 2002 with a wonderful gathering of Habsburgs in Vienna...there was a nice service at St. Stephen's, after which all guest walked to the Hofburg for speeches and a reception and then in the  evening we were treated to a marvelous cocktail party and dinner at Schönbrunn.

He studied law and politics and worked for many years as a deputy in the European parliament...not a physician at all, but a politician, one of the founders of modern Europe.

Arturo Beéche

OK--I don't know why I had in my mind he was a physician.  :-/  

[European Royal History Journal]

Nope...neither Ottor nor his four brothers were physicians...they studied law and economics and married late, therefore insuring that children would arrive after they had settled into profitable careers.  Rudolf and Carl Ludwig lived mostly in Belgium, while Felix settled in Mexico, where several of his children continue residing.  Robert spent quite some time managing the estates inherited by his wife, Margherita of Savoy, and also had a successful career as a businessman...he was the most Parma-looking of Zita and karl's boys.

Archduke Otto is a prolific writer in history, economics and politics, and had a tremendously successful political career, both in the European parliament and as president of the Pan-Europa movement.

Arturo Beéche

My Austrian uncle told me he heard that the Austrian government was going to give some of the smaller Habsburg estates, such as Laxenburg, back to the family. Is this true?

[European Royal History Journal]

Not really...the Austrian government are behaving like thieves of the worst kind.  Important properties were expropriated from the descendants of Karl and Zita in the 1930's, this after the family had settled with the government for a fraction of what the republic should have restituted.  

The Austrian government continues to use as an excuse the fact that the expropriation was done by the Hitler-backed government...I wonder what the overall reaction would be if the same ridiculous excuse had been used when dealing with Jewish-owned property...these excuses are sickening...governments should not go about taking private citizens' property, be them former royals, Jews, leftists, rightists, whatever.

I am venting...  

Arturo Beéche

I just got in the mail two beautiful prints of Karl and Zita when they were trying to take back the Hungarian  Throne. Gifts from Budapest.  1922? It said they were passed out to the people.

I just found a Daily Telegraph obituary of Empress Zita (15 March 1989) & some of it I thought was v. interesting:

"...She shared the historic throne of the Holy Roman Empire; she was crowned Queen of Hungary in Budapest with her husband beside her wearing St. Stephen's Crown as Apostolic King....
The distinction frequently attributed to the Empress Zita of being the last European Empress belongs, however, to Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, one-time Empress of India.
....Her links with European historythrough her parentage were as remarkable as those of her own life.
Her father reigned as Duke of Parma from 1854 to 1859 when the Duchy was still an independent state, before the unification of Italy. Her maternal grandfather Dom Miguel, usurped the Portuguese throne in 1828, causing the conflict known as the Miguelite War or the 'war of the brothers' - in which he had the sympathy of the British Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, who had seen him out with the Buckhounds, when staying with George IV at Windsor, taking 'his fences like anyone else.'
Princess Zita's aunt, Dona Maria das Neves, was married to one of the Carlist pretenders to the Spanish throne and fought in the Second Carlist War. Her eldest half-sister, Maria Luisa, was the first wife of 'Foxy Ferdinand' of Blugaria.
The other consort of a reigning monarch among her siblings belongs to much more recent history: her younger brother Prince Felix, who married the Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg.
Princess Zita....grew up to be of exceptional beauty and intelligence; it came as no surprise then when in 1911, at the age of 19, she married Europe's greatest Catholic royal parti, the 24 year old Archduke Karl...It was a love match; in falling in love with an eligible princess, Karl differed from most Hapsburgs of the previous generation....

...The Emperor Karl's peace attempt of 1917, in which the Empress Zita's brother, Prince Sixte of Bourbon Sicily acted as intermediary, was the only serious effort to end the war, made by any of the belligerent powers...Had it succeeded millions of lives would have been saved...At the same time as he worked for peace, the Emperor Karl set about reconstructing his heterogenous empire on federal lines, so that he became known as the 'Peace Emperor' & 'Emperor of the People.'

...[After Karl's death, Zita] travelled frequently; towrads the end of her life she paid her first visit to Austria since the fall of the monarchy & was given a tumultuous reception. She also paid 2 visits to Rome, being on cordial terms with Pope John Paul II, whose father had not only been a subject of the Emperor but had been commissioned by him in the Kaiserlich und Koniglich Army. "

Any one know if the government  of Hungary was a Regency ,why Karl and Zita werent welcomed back? They tried twice.

According to one account, the regent, Admiral Horthy had promised he would re-instate them but he came to love power himself & when Karl returned in 1921 he refused to accept him; when he returned a second time that year he was almost successful until Horthy summoned guards against him and drove him out by force, banishing him to Madeira.

That's very sad. Karl may have helped Hungary, after his Trial during W.W. I.

I agree, Felix, it is sad & I wonder too if Karl perhaps died so young (so soon after his second attempt had failed) because of the stress of what had happened to him & his failure in his attempts to bring about an earlier peace.  

I think it caused his death,such sadness,he knew the way out.  If only  F.J. had died earlier.

 If only  F.J. had died earlier.

(Or Franz Ferdinand hadn't been shot?) It would have been interesting to see how well Karl would have succeeded as Emperor in more peaceful times; from his efforts it sounds as though he would have done a great deal of good....but yet again history is so full of if onlys.

I think Austria-Hungary under Franz Ferdinand or Karl would have progressed into a great country, The United States of Europe. And could have put Hitlers Germany off balance.Another France to the south.

I think Austria-Hungary under Franz Ferdinand or Karl would have progressed into a great country, The United States of Europe. And could have put Hitlers Germany off balance.Another France to the south.

I am not sure about FF.  From what i read, Franz Ferdinand disliked Hungary very much because he had some unhappy experiences.  

Another thing, the Austro-Hungary Empire was way to big and diversed.  It is impossible to keep them all together under a foreigner with their rising nationalism.