Rudolf, the Crown Prince of Austria

abc123

Banned
Completely off-topic, of course, but I think that we need more girlfriends like you, who love alternate history and don't consider their boyfriends geeks because they love AH.

Do you maybe have a sister? :D
 
There's no set format for a "timeline". You can just write the events following the point of divergence as if its a textbook, or actually break it down from year-to-year, or you can write the timeline in the same way historical fiction is written. It's up to you, however you want to illustrate how history proceeds differently. Why don't you check out the Finished Timelines and Scenarios sub-forum for examples?



That sounds way cool. Maybe Helene would be more committed to the marriage than Elisabeth. They might even have a son they would name Rudolf, though he'd be completely different from our timeline's Rudolf. If you pursue this point of divergence, though, you might have to start a new thread since it involves an earlier, different change than what you postulated in the OP.

Helene would have been a MUCH better choice. She wasn't nearly as "crazy" as her sister and would have been better suited for the Imperial Court in Vienna. Plus she was her aunt Sophie's first pick, so a better relationship with her mother-in-law is almost assured.

Personally I always thought that an incredibly interesting marriage would be to have Ludwig II marry Elisabeth. In their later years they were very close, and Sissi even thought that Ludwig drowned trying to reach her (she was staying in a castle opposite of the one the King was imprisoned in when he died). Both were eccentrics the kind of which hadn't been seen since Christina of Sweden, so if nothing else it would be a very entertaining marriage.
 
I quote myself from a post made in last september. It has a differant PoD (point of departure), but you might still find it interesting.

AD Elisabeth Marie (*2nd Sep. 1883) was the only child of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary and his wife Stephanie of Belgium.

Suppose that the child was born a boy, who would be named Leopold Franz Joseph (after his paternal and maternal grandfathers and many important Habsburgs over the centuries).

Assuming that AD Leopold would live to his eighties (like his female counterpart bid), what would his existence change?

Obviously, he would be at the moment of his birth the next in line of succession after Crown Prince Rudolf. If Rudolf still commits murder-suicide in 1889, then Leopold will be the designated imperial and royal successor and can be replaced only by dying.
But note that the death of Rudolf is far from sure: AFAIK, his great disappiontment about the birth of a daughter instead of a son accelerated his enstrangement from his Belgian wife and led to extramarital affairs and his (and his wife's) syphilis.

So we have two possible courses of history:

A) Rudolf survives and stays bodily and mentally healthy. Expect a continuous cold war over the education of AD Leopold: Emperor Franz Joseph as head of the family and the conservative Crown Princess Stephanie will favour a traditional, military upbringing while emphasizing discipline and physical education. Crown Princess Rudolf (and probably his mother, Empress Elisabeth) will prefer a much more modern, liberal way. How Leopold will turn out - a little Wilhelm II or a "Bertie of Wales" is anyone's guess.
But the succession will seem very secure, and Archduke Karl Ludwig and his son Franz Ferdinand remain comparably unknown.

B) Rudolf still is so stressed out by the conflict with his wife and his father that he still commits suicide in or after 1889. According to some, he not only hated the new German ruler Wilhelm II., but was also convinced that the Kaiser [Wilhelm II] would lead Germany and Austria-Hungary into destruction. A male heir Leopold would not change that.
In this case, Leopold will receive a strictly conservative, military education as future officer and huntsman.

In any case, Leopold will probably marry when he is 23 or 24, like his father and grandfather. Who is a suitable, catholic bride of royal ancestry in c.1906? Of course, he might develop a rebellious streak and marry for love, far below his station - but this would copy FF, rather boring in my opinion.

I am fully aware that this PoD must lead to lots of speculation, since little is fixed. Just as Rudolf was liberal and pro-Magyar, Leopold might be a catholic-conservative pro-Pole or even an ardent Anti-Semite and Christian Social sponsor of Karl Lueger. :eek: Just imagine the possible additional success of a CSP that enjoys the protection of "the next Kaiser".
 
I quote myself from a post made in last september. It has a differant PoD (point of departure), but you might still find it interesting.

Sounds very interesting, to me at least. However, couple of things. One, the Crown Prince and Princess seemed to have wanted to name their child, if a boy, Wenceslas after the patron saint of Bohemia. So that name would be somewhere in there. Maybe Josef Wenceslas, to keep the family happy and take the parents feelings into account. Second, I doubt that he would be an anti-Semite, if he takes after his grandfather. During WWI, for example, many Jews fled Galicia for Vienna out of fear of the Russian advance. The Mayor of Vienna wanted to send them to special camps in Moravia, to which the Emperor replied "If Vienna has no more room for refuges, I shall make Schonbrunn available for my Jewish subjects." Kind of a telling quote right there.
 
Sounds very interesting, to me at least. However, couple of things. One, the Crown Prince and Princess seemed to have wanted to name their child, if a boy, Wenceslas after the patron saint of Bohemia. So that name would be somewhere in there. Maybe Josef Wenceslas, to keep the family happy and take the parents feelings into account.

Thank you a lot for reminding me, I totally forgot about Wenceslas/Wenzel/Vencel/Václav/etc.
Wenzel would be perfectly acceptable from a dynastic point of view; but if it was the first given name (and not just one of a long list) there would be crticism among the Austrian german nationalists for picking an "Bohemian" name. But they and Rudolf hated each other's guts anyway.

Second, I doubt that he would be an anti-Semite, if he takes after his grandfather. During WWI, for example, many Jews fled Galicia for Vienna out of fear of the Russian advance. The Mayor of Vienna wanted to send them to special camps in Moravia, to which the Emperor replied "If Vienna has no more room for refuges, I shall make Schonbrunn available for my Jewish subjects." Kind of a telling quote right there.

That is a pretty big "if". basically, we cannot know anything for sure; and I doubt he will be an exact copy of any ancestor. Making young Wenzel into an Christian Social-ist just struck me as the most interesting option (in the alleged Chinese-proverb sense).
 
Helene would have been a MUCH better choice. She wasn't nearly as "crazy" as her sister and would have been better suited for the Imperial Court in Vienna. Plus she was her aunt Sophie's first pick, so a better relationship with her mother-in-law is almost assured.

Personally I always thought that an incredibly interesting marriage would be to have Ludwig II marry Elisabeth. In their later years they were very close, and Sissi even thought that Ludwig drowned trying to reach her (she was staying in a castle opposite of the one the King was imprisoned in when he died). Both were eccentrics the kind of which hadn't been seen since Christina of Sweden, so if nothing else it would be a very entertaining marriage.


BRB, going to do some reading. I hadn't read about this part of history.

You guys, I always figured I was a history nut. Apparently not! Do you have a recommended site or book or something where I can read more about these fascinating people?
 
I quote myself from a post made in last september. It has a differant PoD (point of departure), but you might still find it interesting.

Thank you for sharing - that was really interesting. You know, it makes me wonder why Franz Joseph was so conservative and Rudolf was so liberal, and how having one of them have more involvement in the next generation would effect future kingships.
 
Thank you for sharing - that was really interesting. You know, it makes me wonder why Franz Joseph was so conservative and Rudolf was so liberal, and how having one of them have more involvement in the next generation would effect future kingships.

FJ was conservative, no doubt about it. In my opinion this was based on a conservative upbringing he received as presumtive heir and his own accension to the throne during the perceived chaos of the 1848 revolution. He was only 18 then, after all, and in less than two decades his own errors in judgement and the bad advice of others led to the loss of the wealthy Lombardo-Venetian kingdom (almost one third of the 1850 tax revenue came from there, IIRC) and all political influence in the other states of Italy, the loss of the leading position in German affairs, the loss of much trading power along the lower Danube, the loss of a unitary imperial state and no significant prestigious successes to make up for all that. Plus, avowed reformers and revolutionaries killed his brother in Mexico.
So I can understand why he became rather risk-averse and unwilling to shake up the status quo in the areas left.
Rudolf's liberalism is another thing. heirs to the throne in the 19th century often professed ideas that ran contrary to those of the actual ruler. To me, it seems that there is a strong factor of "the friends, advisors and cronies of the up-and-coming man already have fights of dominance and publicity with the existing court". In other words, it is hard to know how any crown prince will rule before he has actually faced the demands of office.
Don't forget that the liberalism of the 19th century was quite different from what that term usually means in 2014. In catholic nations, conservatism usually was the "internationalist" ideology and liberalism the nationalist one. Fighting with the clerical hierarchy over who got to educate the children (the church or the state) was common. The nobility often supported traditional regional power centers and inside the state, and the liberal party usually fought that, too, in the name of centralization and legal equalization.
In Austria, the "German Liberal Party" was originally in favor of a German union containing all German principalities. Even after 1866, there was a strong anti-slavic component, not necessarily on a ethnicist base but the religious one: Germans were seen as politically, economically and socially progressive while the Slavic people were regarded as rural, religious and backwards. Self-declared "enlightened liberals" believed that minority languages like Czech, Slovenian or Ruthenian were dying out and not worth preserving.

In short, "liberal" can have many aspects and it is far from sure where Rudolf's exact convictions lay.

Oh, and let me add my voice to the welcome on this board. May you have a happy time here.
 
BRB, going to do some reading. I hadn't read about this part of history.

You guys, I always figured I was a history nut. Apparently not! Do you have a recommended site or book or something where I can read more about these fascinating people?

Well most of my info on the late Habsburgs comes from Twilight of the Habsburgs: The Life and Times of Emperor Francis Joseph by Alan Palmer. Its a good read so I'd recommend it. As to Sissi, as far as I'm aware there hasn't been an actual biography on her yet.
 
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