Chapter Two Thousand Seventy-Four
17th July 1971
Vienna, Austria
Nella and Nan had wanted to come with Charlotte because Vienna was a sort of magical place in their imaginations. A sort of fairytale city. However, as much as Charlotte would have joyfully explored the city of her birth with her daughters this was not meant to be a pleasurable holiday. Her older sister Adelheid was suffering from failing health and their older brother Otto was more interested in keeping up appearances than the actual crisis that Adelheid’s problems represented. That was why Charlotte had been asked in her capacity as a Social Worker to come to Vienna to see if she couldn’t talk Otto into being sensible for once and not for the first time, Charlotte wished that their father had not died a decade earlier.
As the last Emperor, Charles I had been forced by his circumstances to be pragmatic in order to save what was left of his family’s fortunes after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Otto had rather different perspective. He had grown bitter over what he saw as a lost inheritance and what he saw as the external meddlers who had been happy to allow Austria-Hungary to break apart through inaction at best. He pointed to how the German Empire had absorbed Bohemia, Slovakia, and now Galicia-Ruthenia. Which were all former Provinces of Austria-Hungary.
Though Otto had never said anything to Charlotte, she was certain that if he had had any say in the matter at the time, he would have forbidden her marriage to Louis Ferdinand. Otto was rather outspoken about how Louis’ grandfather, Wilhelm II, had been at the forefront of those he personally considered responsible for the misfortune that had overtaken their family following the end of the First World War. The odd thing was that it was true, Wilhelm II had been everything his detractors claimed he was, and he had profited handsomely off the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Yet that was leaving out some important details, Wilhelm had not been acting alone and there had been reasons why he had not acted to save his former allies. Germany had its own internal problems similar to Austria-Hungary, in the form of revolution and famine. There was also the separate peace that their father had attempted to negotiate with the Triple Entente when he had assumed the throne at the end of 1916, a betrayal that the Germans would have eventually acted upon had it not been forgotten in the rush of events that led up to the White Peace at the end of 1917 and Treaty of Paris a year later that formally ended the war. That peace had come too late for Germany’s allies, both the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Ottoman Empire had collapsed in the months that followed. By the time Charlotte had been born, the Habsburg Empire was just a memory.
Years later, after Charlotte had married Louis, she would learn the Wilhelm had not forgotten, not for an instant. News of Austria-Hungary’s demise had supposedly been met with restrained jubilation and private gloating. That was actually a shocking level of restraint by Wilhelm. If Charlotte had to guess, that was entirely because it was late in his reign, and he had lacked the energy to have it be a public spectacle by that point. Not that Otto needed to know that. It would just drive his desire to further drag out the tricky negotiations for what had been dubbed the European Project in an entirely foolish effort to diminish the Germany.
Silesia
“Why?” Ingrid asked intently.
Manfred had no idea if she understood that was a question much less understand the answer. Still, it made her unique among his children and grandchildren. Beyond the first few words that all children learned with their parent’s encouragement there was always a word that caught their fancy. Memorably, Helene’s had been “No” followed by “Mine.” With Albrecht, Sonje, and Caecilia it had been the other way around. Oddly, Lothar had become obsessed by his own name, repeating in constantly.
Ingrid’s word of choice was “Why?” and Manfred wondered if it said something about her nature. Earlier that day, he had heard in the news that Jacob von Schmidt had died, though after all these years few had been aware that he was even still alive. He had never known the Grand Admiral personally, knowing him only by reputation. He knew that Jacob had been a singular genius of the sort that only came along perhaps once in a generation. Manfred knew that Jacob could have made himself obscenely wealthy. Instead, he had joined the Navy and had served the Empire to the best of his abilities. It was something that Manfred found respectable. As often happened, when Manfred heard about the passing of one of his generation, he tended to read up on them.
Supposedly, Jacob had spoken German, Latin, and Hebrew by the time he was the age of four, having memorized the Torah. That was an extraordinary accomplishment. The question that Manfred was left wondering was at what point did his family know what he was? Were there small differences? Seeing Ingrid this afternoon, Manfred wondered if it was a small difference like asking “Why?” where other children might say “No!”
Then Ingrid walked over to Rust who was laying in his favorite spot by the window and asked the dog “Why?” before snuggling up to him. Rust was tolerant of her, having Ingrid around him since she had learned to walk. Manfred still knew to keep a close eye on them. It was a reminder that Ingrid was an ordinary little girl even if her life up until now had not been ordinary.