Otto von Habsburg died last week. A good Catholic, he left behind 7 children, but nevertheless, he was effectively the last of the Habsburgs – the last, at least, who was born in a palace back in 1912. Otto von Habsburg was the son of the last Austro-Hungarian Emperor, Karl I. He was a nephew of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination at Sarajevo in June 1914 precipitated the First World War.
There have been many obituaries – in The Guardian, The New York Times, the BBC – but my interest was tweaked because, for many years, I taught first year students European history. I spent one week looking at the Habsburg dynasty, and I always ended the lecture by showing them this photo.
The students knew the man on the left was the Pope, Benedict XVI, but not the elderly gentleman on his left, Otto von Habsburg. He was a Member of the European Parliament for many years, a supporter of European unification, and played an important role in the collapse of the Iron Curtain across central Europe in 1989. In the last couple of years of teaching, I would check each year to see whether he was still alive, before showing my slide – it seemed increasingly unlikely, but now I know that yes, Otto von Habsburg WAS still alive, and in the end, he outlasted my lectures. Good for him.
Historians argue with each other about almost anything, but it is probably not in dispute that the Habsburgs were Europe’s most important dynasty – as well as one of the most long lasting (the Danish monarchy is older, and still going strong). At the height of their power, under Charles V and his son Philip II in the 16th century, they ruled an Empire – the first – on which the sun never set, with territory in the Americas, the Philippines and India, as well as very sizeable chunks of Europe.
So who were the Habsburgs? Some time during the 10th century, as various families competed like cats in a sack for power and territory, one family emerged in what is now the Swiss canton of Aargau. They took the name Habsburg, which may come from Habichtsburg, meaning Hawk’s Castle – which gives an inkling into their modus operandi, as one family amongst many petty warlords. In the story of William Tell, the ‘Austrians’ who were his enemies were Habsburg tax collectors.
The Habsburgs prospered, gradually pushing east into Austria, picking up territory in skirmishes with the neighbours, until in 1452, the head of the family was elected Holy Roman Emperor as Frederick III, effectively the overlord of German lands, broadly defined. The title carried a lot of prestige, but the Emperor had no power to tax his subjects, to pay for either an army or a bureaucracy. However Emperor and Pope were generally seen to have a special relationship, with the Emperor expected to defend Christendom (whatever that was).
Bella gerant alii, tu, felix Austria, nube!
Let others wage wars, but you, happy Austria, marry!
The Habsburgs had a talent for marrying heiresses. In an age when rulers led their armies into battle, there was a fairly high mortality rate amongst male rulers. Add the problem of a newly virulent syphilis, which seems to have returned to Europe with Columbus in 1492, and which caused infertility when it didn’t kill, and girls fairly often inherited when their parents failed to produce a male heir.
The Habsburg strategy was most spectacularly successful in the case of Mary of Burgundy. Mary was the only child of the last Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, who died in battle in 1477. Burgundy was a vast inheritance, including some of the richest cities in Europe in what are now Belgium and the Netherlands.
From the various enthusiastic suitors for her hand, Mary chose Frederick III’s son, Maximilian of Austria. They had 2 surviving children, Philip and Margaret, before Mary died in a riding accident, aged 25. Meanwhile in Spain, another heiress, Isabella of Castile, married her cousin Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469. They had 5 surviving children, one son Juan, and daughters Isabella, Juana, Maria, and Catherine.
In a complicated diplomatic arrangement, the two couples arranged a swap: Juan and Juana of Aragon and Castile would marry Margaret and Philip of Habsburg, cementing relations between north and south, and forming an alliance against the French.
But the curse of male mortality intervened. Both husbands died young. Juan was only 19, and it was darkly rumoured that too much sex, too young, had contributed to his early death. Philip’s marriage lasted rather longer, and produced 6 children, including 2 sons, Charles and Ferdinand, before he too died, at 28. So a series of dynastic accidents led to the convergence of vast territories in the hands of a single ruler, his eldest son Charles (1500-1558).
In 1555, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Aragon and Castile, Duke of Burgundy and God alone knows what else, divided his enormous inheritance between his son, Philip II, who took Spain and Burgundy, and his brother Ferdinand, who took the Habsburg heartlands in Austria, and the elective title of Emperor. The two lineages were known as the Spanish Habsburgs and the Austrian Habsburgs.
Both of them continued to play the marriage game. Charles had married his cousin, Isabella of Portugal, and Philip subsequently inherited through his mother when the last king died. Philip also married (amongst others) his cousin Mary Tudor, heiress of England, but she died without issue and the crown passed to her sister Elizabeth. Meanwhile Ferdinand inherited Hungary through his wife, Anna of Bohemia and Hungary, following her brother’s death in battle against the Ottomans.
Marriage, it seemed, was a great strategy. But it had its drawbacks. The Habsburg strategy was to accumulate territory and sovereignty by tracking down foreign heiresses to marry. If no heiress was available, then they kept things in the family by marrying cousins or, at least twice, uncles married nieces – Philip II’s fourth wife was his niece, and they had 5 children.
There were already genetic problems in these families. Charles V’s mother is known in Spanish as Juana la Loca – Juana the Mad. Retrospective diagnosis is impossible, but Philip II reacted violently when his son, Don Carlos, showed similar symptoms of insanity. (The opera Don Carlos gives a highly coloured and dubious version of events).
Meanwhile Maximilian of Austria carried a less serious, but more specifically genetic abnormality, a prognathism that is commonly known as the ‘Habsburg Jaw’, where the lower jaw protrudes beyond the upper, and the teeth don’t meet properly. His children and grandchildren showed the same problem, and you can see it in the group portrait above. They seem to have been happy to be painted in profile, highlighting the jaw, but it cannot have been comfortable. In serious cases, people have difficulty chewing and talking, and tend to drool.
Over time, the problems caused by Habsburg inbreeding got worse. In 1700 the last Spanish Habsburg king died. Most of us have 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents. Charles II of Spain had just 9. He was impotent according to his wife, and suffered from various ailments caused by inbreeding. He died without issue, prematurely aged at 35.
The Austrian Habsburg line ended more genteelly, with another heiress. In 1740 the Emperor Charles VI died leaving only a daughter, Maria Theresa. Like Queen Victoria a century later, Maria Theresa’s position was too powerful for any husband to subsume her inheritance. Instead her husband Francis of Lorraine became Emperor, the family name changed to Habsburg-Lorraine, and the dynasty continued more or less unchanged – until World War I.
Otto von Habsburg came from this line. After a tumultuous childhood, he settled in Germany, where he became a Member of the European Parliament for many years. He was a strong supporter of a united Europe – after all, he came from the family that once ruled a good part of it – and he never gave up his claims to his various thrones.
In other ways, he was spared the worst aspects of his inheritance, for he lived to a healthy old age, dying just short of his 99th birthday. Good genes, perhaps.
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In the discussion of the zenith of the Hapsburg empire, why don’t you mention Queen Mary, Charles V’s sister, Queen of Hungary, and Regent of the Holy Roman Empire? Charles may have ruled, but Mary governed. She ran the entire enterprise for several decades, and didn’t even make the family tree! Both Charles and his son begged Mary to be Regent, even when she sought to have herself released from service. Let’s give credit where credit is due!
I didn’t talk about Mary of Hungary in this post because I was talking about inherited ailments. I did talk about her here – / and I agree, she’s very interesting. All Charles’s female relatives were.
“Good Genes, perhaps” Good one. I get the joke. The Habsburgs were completely imbred. Either way, this is a greatly written article by a very knowledgeable person!
I am interested in otto habsurg mother and whete he was born. I was told by a very credible source yhsy his real mother name was juliana elsner.
Can someone please highlight me with more information.
Much appreciated
Vincent
Hi Vincent – I’m afraid I can’t help – but hopefully someone else may know and put up a comment here.
Otto Habsburg’s mother was Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma (1892–1989), who later became Queen/Empress of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia. She was wife to King/Emperor Charles/Karl of Austria.
Here are a couple of links where you can go to find out more-
1) https://www.pinterest.com/pin/68046644341368415/ ( a Pinterest full of Photos/Portraits along with brief biographical sketches of various members of the Habsburg family, particularly Otto, Karl, and Zita…)
2) https://www.pinterest.com/pin/446560119275187723/ (Zita)
3) http://www.geni.com/people/Otto-von-Habsburg/6000000003232532904
Thanks for that. I’d been curious about the Habsburgs – but not sufficiently so to go hunting for the full story 😉
The Emperor of Austria, the Holy Roman Emperor, was also the King of Jerusalem.
I think you’ll find a couple of royal houses used similar defunct titles. King of Jerusalem hadn’t meant anything since the Crusades, but it’s hard to give up a title – a bit like the English kings calling themselves Kings of France well after the Hundred Years War.
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Very interesting summary. Covers just about everything any novous would want to know.
Very interesting article. I have always been fascinated with the Habsburg family. I found the observation that Otto lasted longer than the author’s lectures most amusing and yet rather apropos of that amazing man. Most Europeans know absolutely nothing of the enormous debt of gratitude they owe Dr von Habsburg (as he always preferred to be known and was legally known in Germany where he held citizenship from 1978), not only for his work toward European integration, but also the pivotal role he played in the opening up of the Iron Curtain, not only via political means, through his role as head of Europa Nostra and as a member of the European Parliament, (where he had an empty chair set up for the countries on the other side of the Iron Curtain) etc, but also via extra-official means, such as the famous Pan-European Picnic held on the Austrian-Hungarian border near Sopron, Hungary on 19 August 1989 and sponsored by his organisation Europa Nostra. He worked tirelessly for a free and integrated Europe living in peace and harmony within itself and with her neighbours, and frankly deserves a great deal more recognition than he has been given by the mainstream media and contemporary historians alike. For the record, however, he actually did renounce his claims to the Austrian throne as a necessary legal prerequisite to being allowed to re-enter Austria in 1961. He was still official Head of the Imperial House of Austria-Hungary, however, until he also renounced that position in favour of his son Karl on the first of January 2007. I am most grateful for this wonderful article. I found it purely by accident, but I’m glad I found it.
Thank you Alessandro, that’s very kind.