B008AITH44 EBOK (67 page)

In this situation, everyone at court assumed that now, when Andrássy was in trouble, the Empress would abandon her reservations about politics and would intervene. In June 1879, Franz Joseph’s younger brother,
Archduke
Karl Ludwig mentioned to Count Hübner “that the Empress was wholly uninterested in politics and that the riding academy absorbed her wholly. Nevertheless, those around her, all of whom are devoted to Andrássy, continue their efforts to serve him through intervention in his favor by the Empress when the occasion offered.”
¹⁴

Elisabeth showed her opposition to Taaffe’s government by
accompanying
the Emperor when, in 1879, he called on the ailing Andrássy. Hübner: “This is a demonstration on the part of the empress which naturally disheartened Taaffe.” His physicians advised Andrássy to take the cure in Bad Gleichenberg, “but the Empress (!!), his last but powerful support, suggested Bad Ischl, where he intends to go,” Hübner wrote.
¹⁵
The hidden motivation was that in Bad Ischl, a meeting between the Emperor and Andrássy in a relaxed atmosphere could be arranged, and Andrássy would have a chance to withdraw his resignation. Andrássy followed Elisabeth’s advice. A meeting with the Emperor did take place in Bad Ischl, but there was no question of recalling the foreign minister. Andrássy’s term as imperial and royal foreign minister came to an end in late 1879.

To demonstrate his friendship with Andrássy and to sign their joint accomplishment, the Austro-German Alliance, Bismarck came to Vienna in the autumn of 1879. Hübner’s cutting comment on the brilliant success of Bismarck’s visit: “This is the huge fireworks that Andrássy set off at the end of his ministry in the style of a melodrama, or rather, a Franconi
circus.” Nevertheless, even on this friendly occasion, the German
Nationalists
staged demonstrations outside Bismarck’s quarters at the Hotel
Imperial.
Hübner did not forget to mention in his diary “that the Emperor was annoyed by the public ovations offered to Bismarck.”
¹⁶

Baron Heinrich Haymerle, who succeeded Andrássy, died after only a brief period in office. Now that a new foreign minister had to be chosen and Andrássy’s health had improved, the Empress brought his name back into the deliberations. Of course, there had not been enough time to make preparations for winning a new term for Andrássy. The most powerful statesman, the one who could count on the Emperor’s trust, was more than ever Prime Minister Count Eduard Taaffe, and he had no use in his cabinet for Andrássy. The time of liberalism, which Andrássy embodied, was over in Austria. Taaffe ruled with the support of the farmers, the clergy, and the Czechs (the so-called Iron Ring) and neither could nor wanted to put up with a liberal foreign minister—one who was a Hungarian and a Freemason besides.

The nonappointment of Andrássy (Count Gusztáv Kálnoky was named foreign minister) was a defeat for the Empress as well. The imperial family split over Taaffe’s new policy. Emperor Franz Joseph supported Taaffe with the full authority of the crown; Empress Elisabeth and Crown Prince Rudolf—the two liberals—were opposed to him.

Rudolf’s political pamphlets and his private letters are full of statements unfavorable to Taaffe and his policies. “The good Count Taaffe is and remains the same as he always was, a reckless swindler who can still cause great harm,” Rudolf wrote, for example, in October 1879 to his former tutor, Latour.
¹⁷
And over and over he lamented the “anticonstitutionalism” and the reversal of liberal achievements under Taaffe. “In Germany and among us, reaction and ultramontanism are mightily on the move…. What was won in long struggles, the concept of a modern civilized state, is endangered here.” Rudolf was almost as blunt as his mother. “A repellent trend now prevails in central Europe, a time in which parsons and highly placed numbskulls wallow in their own idiocy.”
¹⁸

Elisabeth used similar expressions, even though hers were couched in verse. She accused Taaffe of unscrupulously exploiting the Emperor, who, in her opinion, was too good-natured. Franz Joseph, she thought, was losing his popularity on Taaffe’s account. Elisabeth complained to
Countess
Festetics, “The Emperor was popular as few sovereigns are…. He was irreproachable—standing above everyone in sublime dignity, which was a part of his ‘self’ and now? now—‘He’ stands at the edge of great
complications and is a mere tool in the hands of a reckless acrobat who wants to stay on top and uses him as a balancing rod!” And Elisabeth wished: “If I were a man—I would step forward and tell the truth. He could still do as he wished—but he would have to know what games are being played with his sovereign dignity.”
¹⁹

These statements clearly show how times had changed since 1867. By now, the situation was one in which Elisabeth no longer dared to express her political opinion openly. If even she was so afraid of plain speaking, how much more difficult would it have been for the young Crown Prince to discuss basic questions of Austrian policy with the Emperor!

After Andrássy’s resignation, neither Elisabeth nor Rudolf could find anything positive to say about Austro-Hungarian foreign policy. Rudolf: “Never was Austria as strong, happy, and respected as during the years when Andrássy stood at the helm of politics, and yet this outstanding man had to fall; for the struggle against impalpable, invisible opponents is an impossible one.”
²⁰

At about the same time, without knowing her son’s views, the Empress expressed an even more drastic judgment about “the fat little donkey,” the new imperial and royal foreign minister, Count Kálnoky, and the “noble steed,” Andrássy. 

Elisabeth’s and Rudolf’s opinion of the imperial and royal foreign policy was also expressed in 1885, at Kremsier, at the friendly conference between Emperor Franz Joseph and the Russian Czar Alexander III on the subject of Balkan policies. Both Empress Elisabeth and Crown Prince Rudolf were present, and both had nothing but scorn for the
demonstrations
of Austro-Russian friendship—behaving not at all unlike that
traditional
Russophobe, Andrássy.

Elisabeth depicted the Czar’s family in one of her poems as monkeys.
²²
Rudolf gained a similarly poor impression. From Kremsier he wrote Stephanie, his wife, “The Emperor of Russia has grown colossally fat, Grand Duke Vladimir and his wife as well as the Empress look old and feeble. The entourages, and especially the servants, are awful; the new uniforms have made them quite Asian again. At the time of the late Emperor [Czar Alexander II], the Russians were at least elegant, and a few of the gentlemen of the retinue looked quite refined. Now it is an awfully common company.”
²³

But most of all, the Empress and the Crown Prince mistrusted the Russian assurances of peace and friendship (in contrast to the Emperor and Foreign Minister Kálnoky). Rudolf wrote Latour, “In the Balkans, matters are once again on the boil; … at the Ballplatz, little is known about all this, and matters are being handled with sovereign stupidity. Russia
exploits
Kálnoky’s shortsighted ministry and the so-called rapprochement with Austria to form committees, send money, arms, etc., etc. to Bulgaria, Rumelia, Macedonia, Serbia, and even Bosnia with the greatest aplomb.”
²⁴

The skepticism the Empress and the Crown Prince felt about the
Russian
assurances of peace soon proved only too well founded. In the
Bulgarian
crisis of the subsequent years, Russia and Austria faced each other as enemies.

The Empress and the Crown Prince accused Foreign Minister Kálnoky of having acted with too little assurance, of having been almost humble toward both Russia and the German Reich and, all unsuspecting, of having fallen into the traps set by Bismarck and the Czar. (The fact that in 1887, Austria’s supposed ally Germany made common cause with the Czar behind Austria’s back through the most secret Reinsurance Treaty in retrospect confirmed Elisabeth and Rudolf’s suspicions.)

Even Gyula Andrássy, the creator of the Austro-German Alliance and a well-known admirer of Bismarck, clearly moved away from Bismarck’s policies during the Balkan crisis and began quite sharply to criticize Austria-Hungary’s concessions to the German Reich, which he felt had gone much too far.

*

Elisabeth and Rudolf (as well as Andrássy) were also unanimous in their attitude toward the third partner in the Triple Alliance, Italy.

*

In some situations, even Crown Prince Rudolf expressed criticism of his mother. He especially resented her idleness. As early as 1881, Rudolf wrote to Latour, his former tutor and a fervent admirer of Elisabeth, “there was a time when the Empress often—whether successfully, I leave as an open question—concerned herself with politics and had serious discussions with the Emperor based on views diametrically opposed to his. Those times are past. The sovereign lady only concerns herself with sports; now even this opening to the outside world and to her … rather liberal views is closed off.”
²⁵

The Crown Prince reacted with disappointment, anger, and jealousy to Elisabeth’s excessive enthusiasm for riding. Several times he expressed this anger, causing serious conflicts with his mother, and especially when the quarrel centered on Bay Middleton (
see here
). Rudolf also
criticized
Elisabeth’s tendency to spiritualism. One of the anonymous
pamphlets
he wrote and published was the antispiritualist polemic
Einige
Worte
über
den
Spiritismus
(A Few Words About Spiritualism) of 1882. In it, he used the methodology of the natural sciences to refute the spectral apparitions, the table rapping, clairvoyance, and similar spiritual enterprises very much the fashion in aristocratic society of the day. In 1884, the Austrian press printed reports that it was Crown Prince Rudolf himself who, in the course of a séance, had unmasked and exposed to ridicule one of the most famous mediums of the day, Bastian.
²⁶

This very circumspect opposition, of which Elisabeth was probably unaware, grew out of Rudolf’s disappointed love for his mother.
Especially
during the 1880s—the time of the Taaffe government and a growing
new conservatism—he was driven into increasing isolation both personally and politically. By this time, Emperor Franz Joseph was limiting his conversations with his increasingly self-confident son to the specific topics of hunting, the military, and family matters. Politics was never mentioned—a circumstance that caused Rudolf to complain repeatedly. Never once did Elisabeth mediate between the Emperor, over whom she continued to wield a great influence, and the heir to the throne, who was so extremely close to her in political questions. There are no documents to indicate that she ever spoke with Rudolf about his problems.

The tense family relations were common knowledge in diplomatic circles as well. According to a confidential report, “the personal relations between the monarch and his son lack that trait of cordiality which normally prevails in sovereign families. His Majesty Emperor Franz
Joseph,
unlike his usual custom, observes a certain outward sternness toward the Crown Prince, in order always to keep before his eyes the limits which the Archduke is inclined to overstep in word and judgment. It is significant that both Their Majesties are agreed in their judgment of their only son.”
²⁷