This incident is known in history as the "Meyerin Massacre", and the "Meyerin Massacre" surrounding the truth of the death of Crown Prince Rudolph is still an unsolved mystery today a hundred years later.
On August 21, 1858, Rudolph was born in Laxenburg and was the only son of Joseph I and Queen Elizabeth, the then Austria-Hungarian Emperor. Queen Elizabeth is the famous " Princess Sissi " in European history. Her beauty and charm conquered the entire Europe. At that time, she was even called "the most beautiful queen in the world".
Unlike his father's rigor and conservatism, Rudolph inherited his mother's melancholy, sentimentality, and aspiration for freedom. Unfortunately, in the eyes of Joseph I, these qualities are not what the heirs of the throne should have. Rudolph was forced to separate from his mother and sisters since he was a child and receive rigorous military training alone, just to exercise his willpower as the "heir of the empire", which also caused him to lack love and security.
▲Rudolph lacked family affection since childhood and was forced to undergo strict military training.
Like other members of the royal family, Rudolph also ushered in an unhappy political marriage. Under the arrangement of his father, he married Princess Stephanie, the second daughter of King Leopold II, who was one of the few Catholic unmarried princesses in Europe at that time. At the beginning of the marriage, Rudolph could still respect his wife, but soon, the liberal Rudolph discovered that he could not only not only not marry the conservative Austria-Hungarian royal family, but also his wife from the conservative Belgian court.
On September 2, 1883, when their only daughter, Mary, was born, the marriage between the two was dead in name only. Prince Rudolph had a constant affair and even transmitted sexually transmitted diseases to his wife who had only occasionally slept with her, causing the latter to lose the ability to reproductive. Due to the misfortune in marriage, Rudolph once wanted to write a letter to the Pope to discuss the divorce, but was severely prohibited by his father and he was not allowed to do anything that would damage the empire's face.
Rudolph’s tense relationship with his father is not just about marriage. Rudolf's political thoughts tend to be liberal, believing that the imperial system is outdated and will eventually be eliminated, so he advocates republicanism, but this is obviously contrary to the interests of the empire, so he is completely unfavorable by his father Joseph I. The political disagreement also makes the rift between father and son more and more obvious. The marriage was not liberated and there was no room for ambitions in politics. All the unsatisfactory things finally led to Rudolf's life reaching an extreme.
▲Rudolph (right), the crown prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was in a tragic life, his marriage with the Belgian princess (left), and his political ambitions were unsatisfactory.
On January 29, 1889, Rudolph invited his friends to the hunting palace in Meyering. At that time, Joseph I and Queen Elizabeth held a dinner. Rudolph also entrusted the nobles who were hunting together to bring a message, saying that he was not in good health and could not attend. After dinner that night, Rudolph returned to the palace to rest. The next morning, Rudolph's servant knocked on the door several times and found no one answered. He then took an axe to split the door open. He found two bodies in the bedroom in horror. It was Prince Rudolph and his mistress Mary Vechera.
▲Rudolph's mistress Vechera, who died together with Rudolph in the Meyerin tragedy.
The message was sent back to Vienna , Queen Elizabeth was heartbroken and wore only black or gray clothes for the rest of her life to express her condolences until she was assassinated by anarchists in Geneva, Switzerland in 1898. There are many different opinions about Rudolph's death. Some people think that this is actually a murder with political motives, but most later generations believe that it was the melancholy Rudolph who chose to end his life.
After the death of Rudolf, the Crown Prince, the hope of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to welcome the enlightened monarchy was shattered. Joseph I continued to helm the empire for nearly 30 years. His nephew Grand Duke Ferdinand also became the first heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, Grand Duke Ferdinand was assassinated during an inspection in Sarajevo in 1914. It is known in history as the " Sarajevo incident ". The Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on the Kingdom of Serbia, and the first World War kicked off.
Joseph I died of pneumonia in 1916. His death was regarded as a harbinger of the collapse of the monarchy. The Austro-Hungarian Empire also collapsed in 1918 due to the defeat of in . The source of this series of events was the death of Crown Prince Rudolph...
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