Empress Elisabeth of Austria
—Essay by Jason, read by Chrissie

Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/user/ufpearth/hwts093

Elisabeth Wittelsbach of Bavaria was renowned for her beauty and her love of family, but is also known for her tragic death.  She was born a Duchess of Bavaria and ascended to the heights of imperial power with her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria.  Elisabeth and Joseph were a unique match, and their life story was filled with both joy and sorrow.

Duke Maximilian Joseph and Princess Ludovika were the rulers of Bavaria, one of the largest German states in the nineteenth century.  Their two daughters, Helene, and Elisabeth were well regarded in terms of marriage opportunities.  The Wittelsbachs had close connections to the Prussian, Saxon, and Austrian royal families and this system of intermarriage was expected to continue.

Elisabeth and Helene were raised in a rather informal way: the strict upbringing and education in court protocol expected in families of their position was lacking in the young duchesses. Elizabeth was known to skip out of her lessons so she could horseback ride in the countryside. She took after her father: he regularly left his palace to walk in nature. All of this meant that Elisabeth was introverted and shy and, despite the fact that she was considered one of the most beautiful royal women in Europe, these “flaws” made her less attractive as wife.

In 1853, Sophie, Archduchess of Austria, princess of Bavaria, and the mother of Emperor Franz Joseph, was looking for a German noblewoman to wed her son. At 23, the fact that he was not yet married prompted worries about what might happen should he die without having produced an heir. His mother made arrangements with her sister Ludovika to bring the two girls to Bad Ischl, a resort in Upper Austria, where the plan was for Franz Joseph to propose to Helene. 

Fate intervened in Princess Sophie’s well-laid plans: Franz Joseph found he could not stand Helene.  He and Elisabeth found themselves as a far better match though, at fifteen, Elisabeth was eight years his junior.  Despite his mother’s protests, the young emperor demanded that if he could not marry Elisabeth, he would marry no one!  Five days later, the official announcement of betrothal the of couple was announced to the world and they were married on 24 April 1854.

Despite their devotion to each other, Elisabeth had a very difficult time becoming accustomed to and accepted by the rest of the Habsburg family.  Princess Sophie proved to a be a nightmare mother-in-law for the young archduchess.  Due to her lack of courtly manners, Elisabeth was viewed as being too provincial and “familiar” with her new family.  Elisabeth and Franz Joseph welcomed their first child just ten months after their wedding.  As soon as the girl was born, her grandmother took her and named her after herself without asking permission: Archduchess Sophie of Austria was accepted into the Habsburg royal family even as her mother remained an outsider.  Princess Sophie thereafter took the personal care of her namesake completely over and would not let Elisabeth even breastfeed her own daughter.

Princess Sophie, and many of her other relatives, viewed the birth of a daughter as a failure on Elisabeth’s part.  A male heir was needed to guarantee the line of succession.  A second pregnancy resulted in a second daughter, Archduchess Gisela, and Princess Sophie repeated her cruel treatment against her daughter-in-law.  Tragedy compounded these difficulties in 1857: while the couple was visiting Hungary with their daughters, illness in the form of a high fever and other ailments struck. Gisela survived, but her older sister succumbed.

As the royal couple recovered from the loss of their firstborn, Elisabeth was pregnant once again.  On 21 August 1858, the Emperor and Empress of Austria welcomed their son, Crown Prince Rudolf, into the world.  Rudolf’s birth ensured that a straight line of succession from Franz Joseph forward was established.  With her “royal duty” accomplished, Elisabeth’s status with the Habsburgs finally started to rise.  Her fourth, and last, pregnancy brought another daughter, Archduchess Marie Valarie. This lack of spare male child would eventually prove catastrophic.

Elisabeth and Franz Joseph did enjoy a period of relative peace, until Prince Rudolf reached maturity.  Their son was a moody, thoughtful young man who also enjoyed his mistresses, even after he married Princess Stephanie of Belgium in 1881.  Rudolf did not get along well with his new wife and strayed into a series of affairs.  While this activity was not, in itself, a problem for the family, his choice of the 17-year-old Baroness Marie von Vetsera caused a major scandal.  Rudolf and Marie met at Mayerling, his hunting lodge, in January 1889 where they were discovered to have committed joint suicide.

Elisabeth never recovered from Rudolf’s suicide: she wore either grey or black for the rest of her life.  The pain of the loss prompted her to spend more and more time away from Vienna and away from Franz Joseph.  She took vacations in either Switzerland or Italy and did not take bodyguards with her, an oversight that cost her life.  While traveling with her lady-in-waiting in Geneva, she became the random target of an anarchist.  25-year-old Luigi Lucheni approached the women and stabbed Elisabeth with a sharpened file on 10 September 1898. 

Elisabeth was taken to her hotel room, where she was pronounced dead.  Despite what had appeared a minor injury, the weapon had penetrated her left lung and heart.  The tight corset she wore had applied pressure that prevented the blood from pouring out of the wound.  Once this constriction was gone, she quickly died of internal bleeding.  A telegram was sent to the Austrian Emperor to inform him his wife was dead; he initially feared she had followed their son in a suicide.  Franz Joseph ordered an autopsy to determine the cause of her death, after this was performed, he ordered that the photographs and instruments be destroyed. 

Luigi Lucheni was captured shortly after the attack by two cabdrivers and a sailor, who turned him over to a Swiss gendarme.  Lucheni readily admitted his act by proudly announcing he had been hunting for a royal victim.  Tensions erupted once it was discovered that the assassin was Italian and that the Swiss police had not assigned a protection detail to Elisabeth.  Her murder would have far-reaching consequences: an international meeting of governments met to discuss the suppression of the anarchist movements that were sweeping Europe at the time.  Lucheni himself was tried as a commoner murderer and sentenced to life in prison; he committed suicide in 1910.

Archduchess Elisabeth’s body was sent by train from Geneva to Vienna.  The entire Austro-Hungarian Empire went into mourning for their lost monarch and her funeral was one of the largest in Europe at the end of the nineteenth century.  She was interred on the morning of 17 September 1898 at the Capuchin Church.  Elisabeth was only sixty years old at the time of her death.