Uncovering The Cover-up – The Mayerling Incident: From Sin To Sanctuary (Part Two)

Once upon a trip while traveling in Europe, my wife said to me “there is something of interest in every village”. In this case she was referring to Hungary, but the same could be said of almost any other nation on the continent. That certainly includes Austria. Even the tiniest burgs have played host to many centuries of history and been home to thousands of people all with their own unique stories, some more famous than others. Mayerling was one of those places. I left Vienna behind for a hamlet that was not even the size of a village. At a glance it would seem to be a place of no importance. Such an impression would be patently false, for it was in Mayerling where an “Incident” occurred that would have vast ramifications for the 20^th century. The “Incident” had carried me on a journey to the Jagdschloss Karmel Mayerling. I hoped to learn more, but the true value of this place would not be found written on any displays or outlined in the exhibits. Its power lay in an opportunity to stand in the footsteps of history.

Interior of the chapel at Mayerling

Sinister Connotations – The Confines Of History
The reason why anyone visited the Jadgschloss was to see where the scandalous “Mayerling Incident” had taken place. I assumed that visitors like myself had read or been told about it beforehand. Thus, the true value of coming here was to match reality with imagination. To place one of the more infamous historical events within the confines of where it had occurred. Visitors would get to see the actual place where Crown Prince Rudolf forfeited his rights to the Habsburg throne, first by murdering a teenage mistress and then committing suicide. Those actions ensured Mayerling’s place in history. The hunting lodge where this tragedy took place would forever be associated with the death of an heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. The word Mayerling had taken on a sinister connotation in the wake of what happened in the early morning hours of January 30, 1889. Nothing would ever be the same again for this remote settlement and the hunting lodge that dominated the landscape.

The museum at Mayerling was pretty much what I thought it would be, nothing special. It was small, contained the obligatory information displays and a room set up to look as it did back in the hunting lodge’s 19^th century heyday. No one would have paid a single euro to see this stuff. It was in the chapel where intrigue abounded. There was an altar placed in the exact location where the bed had stood that contained the bodies of Rudolf and Mary. The setting for the Mayerling Incident was now surrounded by stained glass windows, Christian symbolism and all the trappings of religion. This was one of the more bizarre re-imaginings of a place marred by tragedy. The fact that an altar with a cross, the most venerated symbol in Christianity, was placed in the same location where adulterers spent their final moments before a murder-suicide pact was carried out managed to shock me. There was something sadistic about placing the altar in such a location. It seemed to mock what had happened. Here was spiritualism in the service of obfuscation. The devil really was in the details of what had happened. The powers that be back then had decided to transform a bloody bedroom into a sanctuary to absolve sin.

An unhappy marriage – Crown Prince Rudolf and Princess Stephanie (Credit: Géruzet Frères – Österreichisches Staatsarchiv)

Open To Conjecture – Disputed Details
What happened at Mayerling on a brutally cold winter night in 1889 is still open to conjecture today. The “Mayerling Incident” was said to be a murder-suicide. Since that time, countless journalists along with professional and amateur historians have weighed in with an assortment of articles and books on what might or might not have occurred. The evidence is vague and ambiguous. It is also obscured by cover-ups. A short explanation goes something like this, Crown Prince Rudolf, next in line to lead the Austro-Hungarian Empire, supposedly murdered one of his many mistresses and then committed suicide due to a pre-arranged lover’s pact. Austria-Hungary’s version of Romeo and Juliet. Rudolf’s mistress, the 17-year old Mary Vetsera, was found in the bedroom with flowers folded in her hands as she lay dead from a gunshot wound. It is believed she died during the night, but the Crown Prince was seen that morning by one of his servants before going back to his bedchambers and shooting himself. No one knows what really happened, but by morning two dead bodies were discovered. Rumors and speculation were rife from the outset.

The details of this are still disputed today, complicated by imperial secrecy and conspiratorial politics. Some believe that Rudolf arrived at Mayerling utterly distraught following an argument with his father, the Emperor Franz Josef. Father and son were said to have quarreled badly in the preceding days, though there is no first-hand documentation of this happening. The emperor would most certainly have denied Rudolf the right to divorce his wife, Crown Princess Stephanie. Rudolf had already gone behind his father’s back in writing the Vatican to request an annulment of his unhappy marriage. To further exacerbate matters, it was thought that Rudolf had been in contact with Hungarian opposition figures whom the imperial administration loathed. One prominent theory holds that there was a plot to murder Crown Prince Rudolf. This was done to ensure his liberal ideas to arrest the empire’s continual decline could never be enacted. Franz Josef did likely feel that Rudolf was not worthy to succeed him.

Femme Fatale – Mary Vetsera

From Trigger Man To Tragic Figure – Explanatory Evidence
Theories and opinions on the true cause of the Mayerling Incident have been rampant ever since news of it broke. Gossip and hearsay informed opinions as much as truth. This was aided by the suppression of information by the imperial authorities. This vacuum was filled by those with their own theories. Some hypothesized that the incident was really part of a French plot to weaken Austria and the Habsburgs. Then there was the initial conspiracy theory that Mary had poisoned Rudolf or maybe she shot him and then herself. The authorities needed some sort of explanation for what happened. The first “official” version was that Rudolf had died of a heart attack. Unfortunately for the House of Habsburg, Rudolf was almost certainly the trigger man. A trigger man who would soon become a tragic figure.

Coming soon: Tragic Destiny –The Mysterious Afterlife Of Mayerling: History For The Worse (Part Three)

A Place Touched By Tragedy – Incidental Contact: The Road To Mayerling (Part One)

The trigger that started World War One was pulled on a street corner in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The starting gun for that incident went off much earlier, twenty-five years earlier to be exact. At least that is what some scholars believe. That is because on the night of January 29,1889, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Crown Prince Rudolf committed suicide along with his young lover at a royal hunting lodge in the tiny village of Mayerling, just 25 kilometers from Vienna. The death of the Crown Prince, only son of Emperor Franz Josef and his wife Queen Elisabeth, meant that the succession passed down to Franz Ferdinand. In effect putting him in the direct line of fire to be murdered in Sarajevo a quarter century later. What has become known as the Mayerling Incident is famous both for the geopolitical outcomes that resulted from it and the endless conjecture about what exactly happened at the hunting lodge on that fateful winter night.

Scene of the crime – Mayerling Hunting Lodge of Crown Prince Rudolf in 1889

Anything But Normal – Lone Passenger, Strange Journey
Sopron was a great place to stay for a day trip to Vienna since it was only an 80 minute train ride away. Thus, I availed myself of the opportunity to visit the city for the second time on this trip. After sightseeing in the city center for a few hours I decided that there was still time to visit Mayerling. It interested me for two reasons. The first was because of what had happened there. Second, it was relatively remote for an attraction in the area. There was a reason I had never met anyone who had been to Mayerling. When all the glitter, sparkle and festive atmospherics of central Vienna are in front of you, traveling out to a wooded hinterland in search of a murder-suicide site is less than appealing to most normal people. Well I never wanted to be normal, thus visiting Mayerling appealed to my ego. I would be the first in my family to visit there, as though that meant something to anyone other than me. In addition, I could come home with a story to tell bored relatives, oblivious friends and legions of coworkers who would care less what some Austrian royal light weight had done to himself and his mistress. I told myself that Mayerling would be worth the bother of getting there.

Mayerling was not that far from Vienna, but it might as well have been in another world. To get there I first had to take the metro, then a tram, followed by a bus. It only takes half an hour to drive to Mayerling from central Vienna, but by public transport it took an hour and a half. The final leg by bus was quite scenic as it winded through rolling, forested countryside. Low mountains began to appear in the distance. In these woods I imagined royal hunting parties in the autumn, everything done according to protocol. Habsburg Emperor Franz Josef was especially fond of hunting, keenly interested in all aspects. It was a sad irony that his only son would come to a tragic end in a lodge that was associated with one of the Emperor’s few passions. The former hunting lodge was to be found in a small mountain valley. I was the lone passenger to get off at Mayerling. As the bus departed I suddenly felt abandoned.

Mayerling – A Strange Journey

Pushed Astride – Austrian Manners
The village of Mayerling was more like a settlement or what back home in the States would be called an unincorporated community. There were some scattered residences, a guest house and the centerpiece of this otherwise forgettable hamlet, the Jagdschloss Karmel Mayerling. What had once been an Imperial hunting lodge, then a church and convent of the Discalced Nuns was now a museum. I sensed a feeling of forlorn remoteness about Mayerling. It was a blustery day with a decided bite in the air. It felt like winter had not quite left the area, after what had happened here I wondered if it ever did. Rather than repel, the forlorn nature of the area fascinated me. A fitting prelude to a place touched by tragedy. I quickly made my way toward the museum. There was a handful of others visiting the museum at the same time as me.  An Austrian family nearly ran me over when I was headed into the museum where the “Mayerling Incident” occurred.

This was not the first time I had experienced the pushiness of Austrians. Despite the neat, well ordered world that could be found throughout the country, the Austrians I encountered, while gracious and helpful, were also habitual line jumpers. This came as a complete surprise to me. I assumed, quite wrongly, that since Austrians were ethnic Germans, they would act exactly as Germans do in Germany. I soon learned just how wrong my assumption had been. For instance, while standing in line at Vienna’s central train station waiting to purchase tickets, three older men decided to walk around me and take their place at the head of the line. When I tapped one of them on the shoulder and ordered the group back behind me, the men looked positively shocked. They did not fuss or fight over position, but I could see on their faces a sudden awareness that line breaking was not to everyone’s liking.

Entrance to the chapel area of the former hunting lodge – Inside is the museum of the Mayerling Incident

Childish Distractions – A Rude Awakening
This was not first time I had noticed that the lines in Austria were not straight and narrow like those in Germany. This was one of several things that separate Austrians from Germans, differences of nuance rather than degree. This was never truer than when that family at Mayerling muscled me out of the way. They were going to be first, no matter what rudeness was involved. Of course, this ended up triggering the same impulse in me. I stepped right in front of them again, then made it quite apparent I was holding my place. This bit of childish chicanery distracted me for a moment. Then I turned my attention to the reason I was visiting Mayerling, to see where Crown Prince Rudolf and his teenage lover spent their final moments.

Click here for: Uncovering The Cover-up – The Mayerling Incident: From Sin To Sanctuary (Part Two)