Mayerling Incident
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- This article is about the Mayerling incident . For other uses, see Mayerling (disambiguation).
The term Mayerling Incident refers to the series of events leading to the appparent murder-suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria and his lover Baroness Mary Vetsera. The couple's bodies were discovered in a hunting lodge in Lower Austria on January 30, 1889.
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[edit] The Incident
By 1889, it was known by many, including both his wife Stephanie, and his father Franz Joseph, that Rudolf and Mary were having an affair. Rudolf’s marriage to Stephanie was not particularly happy, and Stephanie carried on affairs of her own with Rudolf’s tacit knowledge.[citation needed]
On the morning of January 30 1889, Mary and Rudolf were found dead at Rudolf’s hunting lodge Mayerling. The death of his only son devastated Franz Joseph I, since he had no other male heirs.
The initial official explanation for the incident was that Rudolf had suffered heart failure; Mary was not mentioned and her body was buried secretly. However, the official story did not hold up well, and it later had to be admitted that Rudolf had committed suicide. Many stories were floated about the pair’s death, with the most widely accepted being that the two lovers had carried out a suicide pact after Franz Joseph demanded they separate. Rudolf shot his mistress in the head, then sat by her body for several hours before shooting himself. A special dispensation from the Vatican was obtained, declaring Rudolf to be in a state of “mental imbalance” in order for Rudolf to be buried in the Imperial Crypt.
[edit] Alternate Theories
Mainstream historians generally dismissed the idea that there was more to the Mayerling Incident than a simple murder-suicide. However some have argued that the official story may be incorrect or simply wrong.
[edit] Empress Zita
Notably, Empress Zita, widow of the last Emperor, Karl (r: 1916-1918) and last surviving Imperial to remember the Incident, claimed that the Crown Prince was murdered, and the crime was disguised as a double suicide. The responsible party were Austrian security officials, in response to the Prince’s suspected pro-Hungarian sympathies, or French agents because he refused to participate in the deposition of his pro-German father. No evidence has been discovered to support either of these theories.[citation needed]
[edit] Political Conspiracy
The idea that the Prince was killed for political reasons, with Vetsera’s death used to cover up the crime, is one of more popular theories surrounding Mayerling.[citation needed]
This theory rests in part on the idea that the affair between Vetsera and Prince Rudolf was an open secret in the Imperial Family. Indeed, Rudolf’s wife, Princess Stéphanie was carrying on her own affair. Thus, the Emperor’s demand that the couple separate was not a serious concern for the two, making a lover’s pact unnecessary.
A resulting re-examination of files about the death of the Crown Prince revealed major discrepancies between the claimed manner of the deaths and the factual evidence. At one point it was claimed that that six shots were fired from the weapon, which did not belong to Rudolf. The initial report stated that only one shot was fired, instantly killing the Crown Prince, which raises the question of how the remaining five bullets were fired. This information suggests that Rudolf had engaged in a violent struggle before his death. However, an examination of the papal nuncio issued to allow Rudolf’s Christian burial asserts that only one shot was fired.
However, this theory has one major problem. By ruling Rudolf’s death a suicide, the Imperial Family was required to petition the Pope for permission to bury Rudolf in the family crypt. Critics of the conspiracy theory claim that the Imperial Family would have seized on any shred of evidence that might have indicated Rudolf did not kill himself in order to avoid the scandal of petitioning the Pope.
[edit] Suicide
Apart from the straightforward lover’s pact proposed in the official report, a lover’s quarrel has also been postulated. It has been said that she was murdered by Crown Prince Rudolf, who then killed himself; that they both committed suicide; that they killed or murdered one another, and that she either was or was not pregnant at the time of her death. One variant states that Mary died during a botched abortion and the grief-stricken Rudolf killed himself.
Examination of the bodies indicated that Mary had likely died several hours before Rudolf, implying that he had killed her (or she had killed herself) and sat next to the body until he finally shot himself.
Rudolf's final letter to Princess Stephanie also supports the suicide hypothesis. In it, Rudolf bids farewell to her and his friends, saying that only death can save his good name. This letter raises at least as many questions as answers, since Rudolf does not give a reason why he must kill himself, nor is there any mention of Mary Vetsera.
[edit] Conclusions
Given the age of the case, the delicate nature of the Rudolf and Mary’s deaths (both politically and personally), conflicting initial reports and conflicting official versions, the mystery of the Mayerling Incident will likely never be solved. Much of the evidence was destroyed or concealed at the time, for fear of scandal, hampering later inquiries. All the major players in the Incident have died, most without publicly commenting on the tragedy.
A major obstacle to all of these theories, alternative and official, is the question of why any of these stories would be suppressed. The apparent suicide of the heir to the throne was at least as damaging as any other story, thus it would be illogical to conceal one painful or damaging truth with another.
[edit] After the Incident
In December 1992, the cemetery at Heiligenkreuz was vandalized and Mary Vetsera's remains were stolen. Upon recovery they were examined to ensure that they were the correct remains. The findings again contradicted the official reports that she had been shot; her skull showed no evidence of bullet wounds or shrapnel. Instead, the evidence indicated that she had been beaten to death. However, given the circumstances of the examination, there is room for doubt as to whether it really was Mary Vetsera's body which had been recovered.[citation needed]
[edit] Political Ramifications
Rudolf's death brought ruin to his parents' marriage, uncertainty over the imperial succession, and ultimately contributed to the end of the ancient house of Habsburg in 1918. The tragic and mysterious death of Archduke Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria and Hungary, immediately caused a dynastic crisis. Since he was the only male heir to Franz Joseph, Rudolf’s uncle Archduke Karl Ludwig, became heir-presumptive, a role inherited after his death in 1896 by his son Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and then, after the latter's assassination, by Karl Ludwig's grandson Archduke Karl, who would ultimately succeed his grand-uncle as Emperor in 1916. The removal of the liberal, but unstable, Rudolf made Franz Joseph's conservative policies easier to pursue.
[edit] Gallery
 Grieving emperor and empress at the deathbed |
 Tomb of Mary Vetsera at Heiligenkreuz |
[edit] In the media
The Mayerling affair has been dramatized in:
- the ballet Mayerling choreographed by Sir Kenneth MacMillan
- the movie Mayerling (1936), directed by Anatole Litvak
- the movie De Mayerling à Sarajevo (1940), directed by Max Ophüls
- the movie Le Secret de Mayerling (1949), directed by Jean Delannoy
- Mayerling, a 1957 American television production (released theatrically in Europe) starring Audrey Hepburn and Mel Ferrer.
- the movie Mayerling (1968), directed by Terence Young, starring Omar Sharif, Catherine Deneuve, James Mason, and Ava Gardner.
- the movie Vizi privati, pubbliche virtù (1975), directed by Miklós Jancsó.
- the Japanese manga 'Ave Maria/Tenshi no Hitsugi' (2000), by HIGURI You.
- the German crossover opera Mayerling * Requiem einer Liebe (2006) by Siegfried Carl (lyrics) and Ricardo Urbetsch (composer) [1]
- Steven Millhauser took artistic license with this for his short story Eisenheim the Illusionist
- The film The Illusionist, based on the Steven Millhauser short story, directed by Neil Burger
[edit] See also
- Ludwig II of Bavaria: Another German royal who died under mysterious and disputed circumstances.
