alternatehistory.com

Hello, all!

I'm sorry if I am doing this wrong. I have never read alternate history (or even heard of it) until I met my boyfriend (user: Hnau), so I am not sure how this all works or what the rules are. I am mostly interested in individual people in history and how they effected their era, especially European royalty. In any case, I wanted to make a post about Princess Sissi of Austria, since I think she's fascinating. Instead, I decided to post about her son, the Crown Prince of Austria, Rudolf.

ACTUAL HISTORY:

In a nutshell, Rudolf was the crown prince of Austria and the only son of Empress Elisabeth and her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph I. He was married in 1881 at age 22 and had a child, but the marriage was strained. Therefore, he began having many affairs throughout their marriage. In 1887, Rudolf bought the Mayerling Hunting Lodge. In 1888, he met the 17 year old Baroness Marie Vetsera and began an affair with her. In an 1889 event now called the Mayerling Incident, Rudolf killed Marie and then himself. There are many theories as to why he did this (a murder-suicide spurred by a quarrel with his father over his affair, varying political plots), but the exact cause is unknown because much of the evidence gathered at the time was destroyed for fear of a political scandal.

As a result, Emperor Franz Joseph's brother, Karl Ludwig, became the next heir, but Karl Ludwig renounced his succession rights in favor of his eldest son, Franz Ferdinand.

ALTERNATE HISTORY

I'm working under the assumption that the murder-suicide was not a political plot, but it was committed because of the relationship between Rudolf and Marie, whether for issues between themselves or issues between Rudolf and his family.

What if Rudolf never met Marie Vetsera? He had had many affairs before, and none of them had taken such a terrible hold on him as this one. None of them had had such negative impacts on him or his family besides social embarrassment. Had Rudolf never met Marie, he never would have killed himself. Had he never died, he would have been the next in line, not Franz Ferdinand. Thus Franz Ferdinand would have been a less valuable target in the plot that actually took his life in 1914, and he perhaps would not have died at all, stalling (but not preventing) World War I. Additionally, the house of Habsburg would still exist today as a royal house because when Emperor Franz Joseph died in 1916, his throne would have gone on to Rudolf instead of Franz Joseph's grandnephew Charles, who abdicated in 1918, ending the Habsburgs.

Thoughts?

Sorry if this isn't the usual alternate history. I don't know how this all works.
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