Even a week after Franz Ferdinand's departure his appeal still glows in yet another letter of the Queen's: ". The Archduke was formerly very anti-English but that is quite changed now and her [morganatic Sophie's] influence has been and is good, they say, in every way. All the people staying with us who had known him before said how much he had changed for the better… "
True enough. Franz Ferdinand's earlier encounters with English culture had been collisions. The travel journals of his youth flay the arrogance of the English for "obliging everyone to follow their customs in every respect." But in 1913 it wasn't just his Sophie's "position" which made him honor those customs with such willingness and winningness. It was the darkening of the international horizon. It was the slowly hardening confrontation-over trouble in the Balkans and elsewhere-between the General Conrads in Britain, France, and Russia with the General Conrad in Austria and his colleague in Germany. To mitigate the confrontation, the Archduke mitigated his disposition, at least for a week at Windsor.
To that end he accommodated a habit he had once condemned in his journals as "being against the practice of all civilized countries"-namely the British way of toasting the sovereign of the host before toasting that of the guest of honor. With an especially suave smile Franz Ferdinand drank to the health of King George before he drank to Emperor Franz Joseph. On the chair opposite his at the dining room table of Windsor Castle sat Sir Edward Grey, England's Foreign Secretary, with whom he then chatted about subjects like Serbia and Albania without missing a beat of gemutlichkeit.
"Despite the private character of the visit," wrote the London Times, "it is quite clear that the Archduke's visit expresses good relations between the two ruling houses and that the good will shown by both sides includes the sympathies of the English nation."
The menu of the farewell dinner for the Austrian couple began with Consomme Britannia and ended with Charlotte Viennoise.
In Berlin, at almost the same time, the Tsar's Prime Minister visited his German counterpart, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg. At a banquet the Russian had positive words for his country's ties to Germany; after an indulgent sigh over "Austria's sometime somewhat willful deportment in the Balkans," he raised his glass "to an improved mood between St. Petersburg and Vienna."
Meanwhile London papers estimated that the Windsor shoot had netted over four thousand five hundred pheasants and more than a thousand ducks. An awesome, awful number. Yet as long as Princes slaughtered birds together, their soldiers would not slaughter each other.
It was a fall that soothed various difficult moods in Austria. the Crown Prince returned from England with a face that was almost unrecognizably sunny. Leon Trotsky enjoyed moving with his family from his modest summer quarters in the Sie- vering district to the unheated and therefore almost rent-free villa in Htitteldorf. Its seignorial spaciousness appealed to him; so did its cavalier disregard of the rigors of winter. The house breathed the sort of dash Trotsky liked to cultivate. If that dash was missing among his all too sedate fellowsocialists in Vienna, he found it in the gambits sparking the chessboards of the Cafe Central. He always liked to come back to the capital's intellectual jousts. And to his surprise he discovered himself in agreement with some aspects of Austrian diplomacy.
Part of the summer he had spent covering the latest Balkan war for his Vienna Pravda. The front had given him "a feeling of impotence before fate, a burning compassion for the human locust." But there were some locusts that touched him even more deeply than others. In the 1913 war, he clearly favored Bulgaria, the loser, who was Serbia's enemy and hence Austria's ally. Trotsky's reportage eloquently describes the pillage and torment visited on the Bulgarian countryside.
Vienna shared his sympathy for Bulgaria, though it manifested the feeling differently. Toward the end of November, the King of Bulgaria came to town and was received by Franz Joseph. The Fremdenblatt (which often served as the government mouthpiece) limited its characterization of the meeting to three words: "Brief and cordial." After all, Bulgaria, though defeated, was still Serbia's smoldering enemy. And Serbia, though recently disciplined by Austria's ultimatum, smoldered more hotly than ever against Habsburg. In view of Balkan inflammabilities, official Vienna affected restraint.
Unofficial Vienna, on the other hand, could pull out all the stops for Bulgaria. And if there was one person who incarnated the capital unofficially, it was Frau Schratt.
In her mansion hard by Schonbrunn Palace, the Austrian Emperor's lady gave His Bulgarian Majesty a soiree that stood out among all others of the season. It shone not only with the politically significant but also with the Court Opera's stars, including Maria Jeritza and Selma Kurz. From liverdumpling soup to Sachertorte with raspberry whipped cream, La Schratt's damasked table knew nothing but delicacies. The hostess, obviously the Imperial surrogate, was at her bubbly and playful best; once more she proved why she had been Vienna's foremost comedienne. As for the Bulgarian monarch, the journal of the Court Theater's new director, Hugo Thimig, saw him "blooming, affable, elegant as always with a monocle, a lilac-colored waistcoast, a beautifully cut frock-coat, the Golden Fleece worn on a black cord under a snowy white cravat, the Bulgarian military cross in his buttonhole… in buoyant spirits, with an excellent appetite." Just a few months ago he had lost nearly all of Macedonia to the Greeks and the Serbs. With this superb show of a dinner in Frau Schratt's salon he appeared to have regained it.
In 1913, autumn flattered the city. After some bewilderments earlier in the year, it was recovering its soul, that is, its theatricality. That became evident in the centennial of the triumph over Napoleon-or rather in the difference between Germany's celebration and Austria's.
In Leipzig the Kaiser had screamed glory at a throng of spiked helmets. But in Vienna something of a nostalgic ballet unfolded. On the Schwarzenbergplatz crested palatines on horseback produced a kaleidoscope of the Habsburg past. Around them assembled ninety-seven platoons, each differently arrayed, each from a different regiment of a different crownland, each glowing with the opulence of its particular tradition: Hungarian hussars in leopard skin and silvered bandoliers; Bosnian infantry with fez, dagger, and sash; the Tyrolean Imperial Rifles in their pearl-gray tunic trimmed with pine-green, their caps aflutter with white cockfeathers; the blue and yellow of marines from Trieste, the long sabers of Polish cuirassiers, and the scrolled spurs of Bohemian cavalry.
Above them all waved a forest of flags, pennants, ensigns, as well as ancient, brocaded gonfalons. Heraldic eagles rode the wind. They seemed to peer far beyond anno Domini 1913 into that medieval morning when Rudolf, the first Habsburg king, had arrived in Vienna as a young dynast with halberd and visor to defend the Faith.
But the wizard of the day was the man whose arrival was signalled by a trumpet blow. Like a rococo dream, the coach of state, all white and gold, drawn by six snowy Lippizaners, loomed up and came to a halt. Franz Joseph stepped out: The whole forest of flags sank at his sight, as if leveled by a gale. Eleven bands played the Imperial anthem. Thirty generals drew swords and lowered them to the ground before the Emperor. Cannons boomed their salute, and the bands swung into the "Radetzky March," a polka-like frolic of drum and horn by Johann Strauss Senior.
Franz Joseph proceeded to inspect the rainbow homage of his troops. His white sideburns gleamed, his limbs moved briskly. He had been on the throne for over six decades, a ruler timeless as his ruling house. An adjutant handed him a laurel wreath. He strode toward the statue of Prince Schwarzenberg, the Austrian generalissimo who had led the Allied armies to triumph over Bonaparte at Leipzig.