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And you didn't even have to wait until 2001.
I promised to support my thesis that a woman was behind the beginning of World War I. After much procrastination, I've devoted time to this subject.
Introducing...our suspect. I suspect you already know her. However, please read carefully, all the way to the bitter end. Sources are listed before the information pertaining to the source. Any candid comments from me are in brackets. The detail at the beginning is necessary to make my point.
http://listproc.cc.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/bio/s/sophie- c.html Sophie, Duchess von Hohenberg. (1868-1914) Born in Stuttgart on March 1st. Wife of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir-apparent to the Austro-Hungarian empire. Shot and killed along with her husband in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. Countess (Gräfin) Sophie Chotek von Chotkova und Wognin was born into a Czech family of the lesser nobility.
The Archduke and the Assassin, Sarajevo, June 28th 1914, by Lavender Cassels [really!], Stein and Day (New York 1985).
[Archduke Albrecht, in an August 1889 letter to Franz Ferdinand, then age 25, wrote,] "When you were younger and there was no prospect of your succeeding to the throne, you of course did not make an intensive study of subjects such as constitutional law and the history of the State. It is going to take you a long time to remedy this." [This was not the first such letter admonishing young Franz.] Pg. 18- 21.
Sophie Chotek was thirty-one, not an outstanding beauty, her best feature being her large dark intelligent eyes. Invariably kind and cheerful, she radiated warmth and charm and was the favourite aunt of all her younger relatives. Her father, a career diplomat, was not well off and she took the post of lady-in-waiting to Archduchess Isabella [Friedrich] after his death in 1896. Franz Ferdinand had known her family for some time. Her elder sister married his friend Count Jaroslav Thun-Hohenstein in 1887, but she was then only nineteen and possibly he did not take much notice of her. Thereafter they saw one another at balls and country house parties, and it is generally believed that he fell in love with her in about 1894. When he became ill [long bout with Tuberculosis] there seems to be little doubt that she was the writer of the letters for the arrival of which he waited so eagerly. But they managed to keep their feelings for one another secret, and although in Vienna society gossiped more than in any other capital in Europe, no rumours linking them together circulated. Pg. 39-40.
It is said that Franz Ferdinand, when changing after a tennis party left his watch behind, and a servant brought it to the Archduchess. She saw there was a locket attached to it, and confident it would provide confirmation of all she wished [she believed that her daughter, Maria Christina, was being courted by Franz], opened it - to find that it contained a portrait of her lady-in-waiting, Countess Sophie Chotek. … Sophie was told to leave the house immediately. Pg. 39.
The Emperor [Franz Joseph] first heard of what was occurring from Archduchess Isabella. … When he received her she was in a black rage, held forth at length about Franz Ferdinand's misdemeanours… . Pg. 40.
When the Emperor summoned the Archduke, he did not anticipate that the audience would be difficult. while he personally did not care for him, he was certain that their dynastic beliefs were identical, nor had he any reason to doubt his heir's obedience to his orders. He accordingly simply told Franz Ferdinand that his behaviour was regrettable because it had caused a rift with his cousins which he must now repair, and that he must break off all contact with Isabella's former lady-in-waiting. … Franz Ferdinand stood his ground and formally asked for permission to maryy Countess Sophie Chotek. The temperature dropped to a good many degrees below zero. Franz Joseph said he forbade the marriage. Franz Ferdinand said he must and would marry Sophie. Pg. 40.
Franz Ferdinand discovered that, with the exception of his stepmother Maria Theresia, the entire Imperial Family were ranged against him. Pg. 42.
[Marschall, the Archduke's former religious advisor, was sent to "appeal to their consciences and try to drive a wedge between them." Marschall reasoned with Sophie.] Sophie replied to this specious reasoning that she trusted in God, and would do whatever Franz Ferdinand wanted; she seemed to be prepared to wait for him for ever. Pg. 42.
[The Emporer] may have realised from Franz Ferdinand's letter that, for all his protestations of obedience, he might in desperation marry the Countess without his permission. If this occurred there would be no alternative but to expel him from the Imperial Family and then Otto would become the heir, which in view of Otto's love affairs, now an open scandal, was out of the question. He may also have heard that Franz Ferdinand had declared he was prepared to wait for Sophie until he succeeded to the throne, when nobody could stop him marrying her. This meant that a child of hers would inherit the Habsburg Crown, which must not be allowed to happen. Pg. 44.
…Franz Ferdinand was received by the Emporer. He affirmed that he agreed to marry morganatically, and would sign and swear an act of renunciation debarring his possible children from succeeding to the throne. Franz Joseph said he would confer on Countess Chotek the title of Princess on her wedding day. Pg. 45.
The solemn renunciation ceremony would take place in the Hofburg at noon on June 28th. … The ceremony had taken under half an hour. During it Franz Ferdinand had been compelled to acknowledge that, in the eyes of the Habsburgs, he was marrying a second-class citizen. Pg. 45- 46.
Three days later, on July 1st, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie were married in the chapel of Schloss Reichstadt in Bohemia, a castle given to his stepmother Maria Theresia by the Emperor. She made the wedding arrangements, and she and her two daughters were the only Habsburgs who attended it - to Franz Ferdinand's sorrow his brothers refused to come. … There was no reception… . P. 46-47.
By the autumn of 1904 Franz Ferdinand and Sophie had three children, a daughter Sophie…and two sons, Max and Ernst. … This pattern of family happiness continued. Pg. 47-48.
Sophie was the mainspring of Franz Ferdinand's life. He told his "dearest mama" [Maria Theresia] in 1904 that the best thing he had ever done was to marry her. She was everything to him, 'my wife, my adviser, my doctor…in a word my entire happiness. After four years we still love one another as we did on the first day of our marriage.' Five years later he said that she was the greatest gift that God had bestowed on him, that since he had married her he had been utterly happy, and found in his home consolation for all the trials of life. Pg. 49.
After Marschall failed to pursuade Sophie to give up Franz Ferdinand, the disgruntled prelate spread a story round Vienna that she was devoured by ambition. This smear persisted after her marriage…. Pg. 49.
Nine years [after the marriage], [the Emperor] made her a Duchess which entitled her to be addressed as "Highness". But as the Archduke's morganatic wife, at Court she still ranked after the youngest Archduchess, could not drive in a court carriage with her husband, appear with him in the royal box at the Opera or any theatre, nor at official functions with the Monarchy. … After their marriage the Archduke and his wife therefore withdrew increasingly from the Court and spent a great deal of time away from Vienna… . Franz Ferdinand came to the capital when summoned by the Emperor, in connection with his military duties or for some unavoidable official function, but frequently alone. Whether alone or with Sophie he rarely stayed for more than a week. Pg. 53.
[The Archduke] did not appear to care what people thought about him, and was not prepared to make any effort to court popularity. … In addition to pride the Archduke also had an inordinate amount of another family trait - mistrust. Much of this derived from his embitterment, which he never entirely lost, over the way in which he had been treated during his illness and his struggle to marry. It led him to suspect the motives of those with whom he came in contact, and, as he acknowledged, to expect the worst of people. Pg. 54.
The Archduke began to discover that even in the military sphere his scope was limited. No specific responsibilities had been allocated to him… . In spite of Bolfras' [close military adviser to the Emperor] assurance when he was passed fit for military duties in 1989, the Archduke received little information from the Emperor's Military Chancellery, and even less from the Ministry of War. The overall result was that he was ill informed and, until 1906, relegated to the sidelines during the internal crisis which threatened the cohesion of the Monarchy, the supranational spirit of the army, and the power of the Crown. Pg. 56-57.
http://www.ukans.edu/~kansite/ww_one/bio/f/franzfrd.html [Franz Ferdinand's] short temper and suspicious nature ensured that truly talented advisors did not last long in his cabinet-in-waiting. He became more reclusive following his morganatic marriage to Sophie Chotek von Chotkova in 1900. Contrary to his public persona, he was a very happy husband and devoted father. Another source of F.F.'s lack of popularity was the reforms he intended to enact when he became Emperor. Recognizing growing the strains and pressures of nationalism among the many ethnic groups within Austria-Hungary, F.F. proposed to replace Austro-Hungarian dualism with 'Trialism,' a triple monarchy in which the empire's slavs would have an equal voice in government with the Germans and Magyars. Another possible variation F.F. was exploring was a form of federalism made up of 16 states. While such radical reforms might have saved the empire, they were not popular among those with vested interests in the existing structure. Serbia was as uncomfortable with F.F.'s potential reforms as any group within the empire. Contented slavs living within the empire would not be likely to agitate for separation and to join with Serbia.
http://www.ukans.edu/~libsite/wwi-www/Gerard2/Kaiserism5.htm When the present Emperor, the Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, married Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma, in 1911, and this marriage was followed by the birth of a son, on November 20, 1912, it was plain to Franz Ferdinand and his wife that the hostility of the old Emperor and the other members of the House of Hapsburg, aided by events, had succeeded in definitely excluding his children by Countess Sophie from the throne. …
These slights to his wife, so marked as to cause the publication of articles inspired by himself in a newspaper devoted to his interests, and the birth of the heir to Carl, must have had a profound influence on melancholy Franz Ferdinand. …
In all Europe there was one monarch clever enough to take advantage of the situation, to win Franz Ferdinand to him by the honours he paid to the Duchess of Hohenberg,---the German Emperor. Kaiser Wilhelm invited the pair to Potsdam. and there both were made to feel that in one court, at least, the honours due to a wife of equal birth were paid to the ex-Countess Sophie. This Potsdam visit was in 1909, and I believe that, thereafter, the German Emperor and Franz Ferdinand met on other occasions. …
In the chapter on Emperor Wilhelm, I have stated the belief prevalent, even in Germany, that he intended as his first step towards his openly expressed ambition for world dominion, to make himself, on the death of Francis Joseph, Emperor of a Great Continental Empire in which the German Princes, his sons, should occupy the thrones of Hungary and Bohemia, the heir of the House of Austria to rule as king or grand duke of Austria with possibly another German ruled kingdom touching the sea on the south. …
There are some who believe that when the Kaiser, accompanied by von Tirpitz, visited Franz Ferdinand at Konopisht in June, 1914, before the Kiel week, that a great conspiracy was entered into, in which it was arranged that a great Central Empire should be created with one of the sons of the Duchess of Hohenberg on the throne of Bohemia and the other provided for by some newly carved out kingdom made from Bosnia, or a portion of Serbia. And it may have been part of this plot that Eitel. Fritz and other sons of the Kaiser should be provided with thrones derived from Balkan territory.
It will be remembered that as Franz Ferdinand and his wife fell under the assassin's bullet at Sarajevo he called out: "Sophie, live for our children!" His devotion to his wife and to their children was extraordinary. He was continually sparing from his income so that on his death his sons would have a large sum of money, saved from the income of estates which they could not inherit.
It is hard to believe that such a crime against the House of Hapsburg and against his own country was contemplated from the inside of royalty. But one event seems a confirmation of this theory. The dead Franz Ferdinand and his wife were buried with such lack of honour, almost with such contempt, as to lead to the belief that the head of the House of Hapsburg, Emperor Francis Joseph himself, without whose directions the Chamberlain, Count Montenuovo, would not have dared to act, discovered his heir in some act against the laws or fortunes of the Imperial House.
For the funeral arrangements were such, that the Austrian and Hungarian aristocracy were moved to protest and as a result a belated order was issued directing that the troops of the Vienna Garrison should take part in the funeral ceremonies. About one hundred and fifty members of the leading families of Hungary and Austria, without invitation, entered the funeral procession and followed the bodies to the railway station. The London Times correspondent called attention to this in cables to his newspaper at the time. …
Undoubtedly the German Emperor used his influence with Franz Ferdinand and his wife in order to secure the former's aid in dragging Austria into the war, ---a war begun to win the dominion of the world. How many in America have heard the name of Sophie Chotek? Yet the ambitions of this woman have done much to send to war the splendid youths who from all the ends of the earth gather in France to fight the fight of freedom.
The clever German Emperor, playing upon her ambitions, induced the gloomy, hated Franz Ferdinand to consent to the world war, and matters had gone so far that even the death of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand could not change the situation nor turn the war party of Hungary and Austria from their programme of blood. Eighty-four years of age, the old Francis Joseph could only offer a weak defence to the martial insistence of Tisza, Premier of Hungary, and his able, understrapper, Forgotsch, who represented him in the Foreign Office at Vienna and who undoubtedly is the man who drafted the forty-eight hour ultimatum to Servia.
Ferdinand disliked the Hungarians and in turn was hated by them. If he had attained the throne of the Empire, as his children could not inherit, he would have endeavoured first to remove that obstacle, but if he had not succeeded he intended, as I have said, either to restore the kingdom of Bohemia and place his son, child of a Bohemian mother, on the newly created throne, or create, possibly from conquered lands, another kingdom over which his heir could reign.
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/41apr/west4.htm Franz Ferdinand became day by day less lovable. His knowledge that he could not leave the royal path of his future to his children made him fanatically mean and grasping; and his manner became more and more overbearing and brutal. He roused in small men small resentments, and, in the minds of the really able men, large distrust. They saw that, though he was shrewd enough to realize that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was falling to pieces when most of his kind were wholly blind to its decay, he was fundamentally stupid and cruel and regarded his problem as only one of selecting the proper objects for tyranny. Some of them feared a resort to medieval oppression; some feared the damage to specific interests, particularly in Hungary, which was bound to follow his resettlement of the Empire. Such fears must have gained in intensity when it became evident that Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany was taking more and more interest in Franz Ferdinand, and was visiting him at his country homes and holding long conversations with him on important matters. The last visit of this kind had occurred a fortnight before the Archduke came to Sarajevo. There is a rumor that on that occasion Kaiser Wilhelm laid before Franz Ferdinand a plan for remaking the map of Europe -- that the Austro-Hungarian and German empires should be free, and that Franz Ferdinand's eldest son should become king of a new Poland stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea, while the second son became king of Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia and Serbia, and Franz Ferdinand's official heir, his nephew Charles, should be left as king of German Austria. It is certain that Kaiser Wilhelm must at that moment have had many important things on his mind, and it is hardly likely that he would have paid such a visit unless he had something grave to say. But it is definitely known that on this occasion Franz Ferdinand expressed bitter hostility to the Hungarian aristocracy. It is also known that these remarks were repeated at the time by Kaiser Wilhelm to a third person.
http://victorian.fortunecity.com/wooton/34/horthy/04.html That the heir to the throne had views entirely opposed to his uncle's on certain topics was well known. It was becoming increasingly clear that he disapproved of the Austro-Hungarian dualism. Francis Ferdinand had in mind a reorganization of the state in a threefold, federative form. In this matter, he came into progressive conflict with Hungary and this conflict found expression in his personal dislike of the Magyar nobility. He was perhaps influenced in this by his wife's family and circle, as also by other considerations, the existence of which was widely rumoured.
Even as commanding officer of the 9th Hussars at Sopron (Ödenburg), the Archduke had been involved in a marked clash of opinions when he had complained to the Colonel that he had found his men all speaking Hungarian. The Colonel replied that officer would certainly not speak Hungarian in the presence of people ignorant of that language, but that among themselves they would certainly continue to use their mother tongue.
It was a known fact that the Archduke had frequent conferences with the leaders of the national minorities in the Budapest Parliament such as the Slovak, Hodza(7), and the Rumanians, Vajda Vojvod(8) and Julius Maniu(9).
In my official capacity, I rarely encountered Archduke Francis Ferdinand. At social functions, I frequently met both him and his wife. Our common interest in the Navy gave us much to discuss. We never touched on political questions.
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