Welcome to the second issue of Books & Victorians. This edition features a forgotten 19th century Viennese love story along with optional reading and playlist recommendations.
The love story of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie
It’s common knowledge that the assassination of Franz Ferdinand sparked the powder keg that became World War I. But what’s not well known is who Franz Ferdinand was as a person. What about his wife, Sophie? She was married to a future emperor and died next to him, yet no one seems to know much about her.
Put on your finest gown and polish your tiara. We are about to waltz into a haunting 19th century Viennese love story.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria wasn’t born to be heir to the crown. He was born in 1863 as the eldest son of Archduke Karl Ludwig Josef Maria of Austria. Karl Ludwig was a younger brother of Emperor Franz Josef I. When Crown Prince Rudolf (Franz Josef’s only son) committed suicide in 1889, Karl Ludwig became the next heir. However, he died in 1896 and his son, Franz Ferdinand, became next in line to the throne.
Unfortunately for Franz Ferdinand, Emperor Franz Josef I wasn’t very fond of him. In fact, history hasn’t been kind to Franz Ferdinand. He is often written off as a boor. But history isn’t black and white and most humans aren’t one-dimensional.
Franz Ferdinand loved to travel and explore new places. He was able to live an independent life thanks to a cousin who left him a fortune. When he was eleven years old, his cousin, the Duke of Modena, left him an inheritance. When Franz Ferdinand came of age to inherit the money, he became the most desirable bachelor in the land. But he seemed immune to the charms of most women within the empire. His wealth gave him the freedom to pursue his own interests, such as hunting and traveling. Some of the countries he visited were India, Japan, the United States and Australia.
Speaking of hunting, it became Franz Ferdinand’s obsession. During his lifetime he killed an estimated 300,000 animals. His interest in hunting was considered excessive, even within European nobility standards.
As is common of the era, he may have had children out of wedlock. He paid off several women to not go public with their claims. There has never been any evidence that he had children with these women, but it’s possible that he paid them off to avoid the scandal that such accusations could bring. But this is something we may never be sure of.
His status as heir to the throne made him fodder for gossip. Periodicals of his day were beside themselves trying to figure out who he was going to marry; some went as far as to publish unfounded rumors about his upcoming engagements to various European princesses.
What were his political views? That depends on which historian you read. Some argue that he was quite liberal, but others say that his Catholic beliefs made him a conservative. Others believe he was a dynastic centrist. He believed in giving autonomy to some ethnic groups within the empire. Even so, he seemed unkind to the Hungarians, believing that Hungarian nationalism was a threat to the Habsburg dynasty.
Our heroine in this story is Sophie Maria Josephine Albina, Countess Chotek von Chotkowa and Wognin. Sophie was born in 1868 in Stuttgart into a kind and loving Bohemian noble family. She had nine siblings. Her father was a Bohemian diplomat in the service of Emperor Franz Josef I. As a diplomat’s daughter, Sophie was well-traveled. She and her sisters watched their parents from afar as they mingled with royalty and distinguished Europeans. Sophie was well-educated and a talented pianist.
The family, though noble, was not financially secure. Sophie had to provide for her own livelihood by working. Since women had few career options, in 1888 Sophie took a position as lady-in-waiting to Archduchess Isabella. Isabella was the wife of Archduke Friedrich, a member of the House of Habsburg. She was a demanding and unkind employer. It was a hostile work and home environment for Sophie. Isabella often reminded Sophie that she was a servant and not equal to a Habsburg. Isabella was frugal with her money; from time to time, instead of employing maids for menial tasks, she forced her ladies-in-waiting to handle even the most unpleasant ones, such as emptying the chamber pots.
Isabella had eight daughters. She set her eyes on the most eligible bachelor, Franz Ferdinand, for her eldest daughter, and began to send him invitations. Isabella is probably the link in how Sophie and Franz Ferdinand met, but the records aren’t clear.
Sophie and Franz Ferdinand may have met in April 1894 when Franz Ferdinand was invited by Isabella to attend a glittering Viennese masquerade ball, but other sources say they met in Prague during the same year. — We may never know the exact date because their eldest son, Max, destroyed his parents’ correspondence many years later. We don’t know why this was done, but in a world where newspapers continued to print unkind and untruthful words about his parents, perhaps he destroyed the letters to end yet another painful invasion of privacy. — Regardless of their initial meeting, it appeared to be love at first sight for Franz Ferdinand. How could it not be? Franz Ferdinand was smitten with Sophie’s gentle demeanor, her kind, brown eyes and her grasp of politics and history.
Their conversations continued through letters. And through letters, they began a secret relationship.
Franz Ferdinand continued to pay visits to Isabella to covertly see his Sophie.
Isabella discovered Sophie’s secret during an April afternoon in 1899. As Ghislain de Diesbach explains somewhat unkindly in his book, Secrets of the Gotha: Private Lives of Royal Families of Europe, “Although the Archduke Francis-Ferdinand was a cold man with a detestable character and on the whole difficult to get on with, the Archduchess Frederica received him with transports of delight, convinced that one of her daughters would be able to tame this rather repulsive creature. After a stay during which the archduke had given no sign of his matrimonial intentions, the archduchess, feeling somewhat slighted, was already thinking of the means of organizing another interview, when one of her chambermaids brought her a wrist-watch that Francis-Ferdinand had left behind after he had taken it off to play tennis. A locket was attached to the bracelet. An archduchess is a woman after all. She opened the locket and uttered a cry of astonishment, then a second cry of fury: the locket contained the photograph of her maid of honour the Countess Sophie Chotek.”
Soon after this discovery, life became difficult for Sophie. Isabella assembled the entire household to scold and embarrass Sophie in front of everyone. Sophie was banished from the house without being allowed time to pack her belongings. Sophie, now without a home and without an income, was forced to move in with one of her sisters.
Meanwhile, Isabella paid a visit to the Emperor. She convinced him that Sophie was a woman of ill repute who wanted to steal Franz Ferdinand away from one of her daughters. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Franz Ferdinand never made any promises to any of Isabella’s daughters. This didn’t matter as Franz Josef was extremely upset. He considered Sophie unequal to any Habsburg and not fit to marry anyone in his family.
When Franz Ferdinand was summoned by the Emperor, he told him of his plans to marry Sophie. Franz Josef was shocked and immediately forbade it, explaining that such a marriage could harm the country. Franz Ferdinand stayed firm and refused to end his engagement to Sophie. As he explained to his physician, “I have at last found a woman whom I love and who is suited to me and now they are making the most unheard of difficulties, because of some trifling defect in her family tree. However I shall overcome that.”
The court chamberlain also became involved. He penned a letter to Sophie asking her to put the good of the empire above personal happiness. When the letter didn’t persuade Sophie, he threatened her brother’s job with the civil service. When this, too, failed, he spread rumors that Sophie set out to seduce the country’s heir just so she could crown herself as empress. He joined forces with Archduchess Isabella to attempt to ruin her by spreading further gossip of her “promiscuous behavior.” Finally, they found a last resort, religion. They told Sophie (after monetary bribes wouldn’t work) that she was intervening with the divine right of Franz Ferdinand’s future to rule. She would be fulfilling God’s will by not marrying Franz Ferdinand. To sweeten the deal, they promised to make her an abbess at a convent. This must have worked because the very devout Sophie agreed to step aside.
Franz Ferdinand was furious at this turn of evens. As was Pope Leo XIII. After court intrigues and gossip didn’t subside, Pope Leo XIII lost his patience and joined the battle. Simply put, the pope was fed up. Instead of going away, the issue seemed to be ballooning into a mess with a worldwide audience. He said that at this point the marriage must be allowed as the fiery gossip was only hurting the Habsburg throne.
The Emperor, perhaps not left with much choice after the pope’s interference, relented. In June 1900 he gave Franz Ferdinand permission to marry on the understanding that it would be a morganatic marriage. Meaning Sophie would not have any rights. Any children they had would never inherit the throne nor would they hold Habsburg titles.
The joyful couple married less than one month later on July 1, 1900 in Reichstadt, Bohemia (now Zákupy, Czech Republic). Sophie looked beautiful in her white satin gown. She wore a diamond tiara and a halo of orange blossoms. Her bouquet of lilies, myrtle and orange blossoms was created by a florist in Prague.
Franz Josef, an adversary to the end, refused to attend. Instead he went on vacation with his mistress.
Around the same time as the wedding, an elderly and minor Habsburg princess passed away. The royal court decided to implement full mourning. This meant senior Habsburg royals were forbidden from attending weddings and other social events. If this wasn’t enough, the royal court also forbade the town from displaying celebratory signs. But Franz Ferdinand’s stepmother went around this rule by asking the locals to decorate their houses and front doors for the wedding.
Regardless of these impediments, after the wedding, Franz Ferdinand was said to have told an acquaintance that it had been “the most beautiful day of our lives.”
By all accounts, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were happy and content with each other. Sophie loved being his wife. They had four children together, one stillborn. Their daughter Sophie was born in 1901, Max was born in 1902 and their youngest, Ernst, was born in 1904.
The Habsburgs continued their cruel treatment of Sophie. Special rules were created to hinder her happiness. She had no right to use the court carriages. Her servants were not permitted to wear the imperial livery. For official court events, Sophie was not allowed to stand next to her husband and had to walk alone behind the entire family. She was not permitted to sit in the court box at the theatre.
Their two sons and daughter were not created archdukes and archduchess. It’s difficult to know what would have happened had Franz Ferdinand become emperor. But it is likely, that after the death of Franz Joseph I, Franz Ferdinand would have changed the law to crown his wife empress and create his children archdukes and an archduchess. This might be why Franz Ferdinand remained patient and didn’t grumble too much about the morganatic marriage.
To ease his wife’s stress, Franz Ferdinand made the decision to appear at court as little as possible. The family spent their time at Belvedere Palace. He used his own money to take care of his family. They retreated from court life so they could live in peace and harmony. Franz Ferdinand was upset at what his wife was enduring. Therefore his solution was to attend as few events as possible and only those events that were of utmost importance.
Their home life was ideal. Franz Ferdinand renovated his chateau outside of Prague, Konopischt, with the latest technology and modern home appliances. He wanted his family to have a comfortable and luxurious existence. Though they divided their family time between Austria and Bohemia, the family considered Konopischt their true home. After spending Christmas 1909 at Konopischt, Sophie wrote to one of her sisters, “Christmas Eve will always be one of the greatest joys in life. I cannot really tell anyone how much I enjoyed it.”
Franz Ferdinand confided to his stepmother, “You don’t know how happy I am with my family” and “…I can’t thank God enough for all my happiness.”
But with continuous acrimonious behavior thrown her way, how did Sophie behave? She stayed calm and refused to take her frustrations out on anybody. She remained tactful, no matter how many hostile archduchesses crossed her path.
Perhaps Franz Josef noticed her demeanor because in 1909, nine years after their wedding, he made a small concession. He upgraded Sophie’s status to “Highness.” Though this was a very small concession, it dramatically improved her position at court.
Five years later, in 1914, Franz Ferdinand was invited to Sarajevo. It was an event where Sophie was allowed to attend as an equal to her husband. This was appealing to both of them. Off they went. The rest, as you know, is history.
With their assassination, their three children became the first orphans of World War I.
Because the children didn’t belong to the House of Habsburg, they did not receive protection or support from Franz Josef and his court. Though later, Franz Josef’s successor, Karl I, attempted to remedy this. Unfortunately, with the abolition of the monarchy in 1918, the support didn’t last very long. Luckily, the children still had their home in Konopischt, which generated some income for them. The children grew up, married, had children and lived quiet lives.
Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were forgotten by everyone, except their direct descendants. And with the abolition of the monarchy the Austro-Hungarian empire collapsed. The very people who shunned and bullied Sophie found themselves without their royal titles and faded into obscurity.
No one, least of all the three children, could have ever imagined that twenty years later, the drums of war would beat again.
Hitler invaded Austria in 1938. On Hitler’s direct orders, Max and Ernst were sent to Dachau concentration camp. Later, Ernst was sent to Flossenburg and then to Sachsenhausen. Max was labeled a political prisoner and Ernst was labeled a common criminal. Though they survived the camps, the newly created Czechoslovakia confiscated their beloved home, Konopischt. To this day, the Czech Republic has refused to pay compensation on the grounds that, per law, members of the House of Habsburg are exempt from compensation of their seized properties. The family has made the case, again and again, that per royal decree, Franz Ferdinand’s children were never Habsburgs, nor in line to the throne. This saga continues to haunt the family’s descendants to this day.
Because of their unequal marriage, Sophie and Franz Ferdinand were refused burials in the Habsburg crypt in Vienna. Their final resting place is at Artstetten Castle where their descendant, Princess Anita of Hohenberg, lives. Anita is the granddaughter of Max.
As for Franz Ferdinand and Sophie, though they didn’t have a lifetime together, I’d like to think that their love and memory lives on through their children’s descendants.
If you are interested in reading further about Habsburg history, the below selection of books I consulted for this article is a great place to start.
The Assassination of the Archduke by Greg King and Sue Woolmans
Balkan Ghosts by Robert D. Kaplan
Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe by Simon Winder
The Emperor and the Actress by Joan Haslip
The Habsburgs by Edward Crankshaw
A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888/1889 by Frederic Morton
The Reluctant Empress by Brigitte Hamann
Ring of Stone: Germany and Austria-Hungary at War, 1914-1918 by Alexander Watson
Secrets of the Gotha: Private Lives of Royal Families of Europe by G. De Diesbach
Twilight of Empire: The Tragedy at Mayerling and the End of the Habsburgs by Greg King and Penny Wilson
The playlist to accompany your Habsburg reading is in text format so that you can use your preferred platform.
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by Mozart
Four Seasons (Summer) by Vivaldi
On the Beautiful Blue Danube by Johann Strauss, Jr.
Requiem in D Minor by Mozart
Sleeping Beauty Waltz by Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 9 by Beethoven
Seen this?
https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Empress-Fairy-Tale-Habsburg-Monarchy-ebook/dp/B0BT53M5VY?ref_=ast_author_mpb