Was the War Caused By a Woman’s Rage?

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 862, 4 January 1930, Page 24

Was the War Caused By a Woman’s Rage?

Sensational Theory Advanced by Historian The vengeance of a woman is declared to have been the real cause of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Serajevo in 1914, and thus indirectly to have brought about European War. / The woman is described as Eleonora of Hapsburg, the illegitimate daughter of the Archduke Rudolf, son of the Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, and his mistress, the beautiful Maria Vetsera. A review of a book shortly to be published by M. t’Serstevens, the historical writer, declares that the author has lifted a corner of the veil which has shrouded the tragedy at Meyerling in 18S9, when Rudolf and Maria were found shot dead. The author, it is stated, learned from a certain Loschek, valet to Rudolf, that some months before the Baroness Maria Vetsera and the Archduke w r ere found dead in the hunting lodge at Meyerling she had given birth to a daughter, who was brought up by the Archduke John and the valet Loschek. ; The girl was given the name of Eleonora of Hapsburg-Vetsera, and grew up inflamed with the idea of avenging her parents. She gained to her cause, it is alleged, several Serbian anarchists, and she organised the plot which culminated in the murder of the Archduke Franz Fernidand and his wife at Serajevo. The Archduke Rudolf did not agree with his father, the aged Emperor Franz Joseph, concerning the future of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Rudolf’s sympathy lay with the Hungarians, Croats and Dalmatians, and he wanted an extended form of federal rule under his own auspices, separating the main part of the territories of the Dual Monarchy from Austria. This view met with bitter hostility in Court circles, and it was stated that the Emperor went so far as to threaten to have him shot if he persisted in his Separatist ideas. Rudolf had handed to his cousin, Countess Larisch, a steel box containing all the documents liable to compromise the plotters. Then came the Meyerling tragedy. After a riotous night, when Rudolf entertained his relatives the Archduke Charles Louis and his son, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Rudolf and Maria Vetsera were found dead in an upper room. Rudolf held a revolver from which two shots had been fired, and it seemed to be a case of murder and suicide. But the valet Loschek declared that the weapon really belonged to the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.