Living History

Yesterday, I read, with a strange sense of loss, that perhaps the most historical man I'd ever met passed away. I am, of course, talking about Otto von Habsburg, who passed away on July 4th at the age of 98.

To give you an idea of what a piece of living history this man was, let me give you some background. He was born November 20th, 1912, the eldest son of Blessed Charles I of Austria (who you may remember, Blessed John Paul the Great beatified in 2004). Charles I was the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and a great Catholic statesman. Austria was the only power that did not engage in chemical warfare during the Great War, mainly because of Charles' abhorrence of it, and warfare in general. So dedicated was Charles to peace that he sought a separate peace with the Allies, apart from Germany (but the French managed to ruin that).

Otto von Habsburg was the last Crown Prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was a pretender to the thrones of about half of central Europe, and—through his family—a link to the once-great Holy Roman Empire. He was a stalwart opponent of both Nazism and Communism, for which the former group sentenced him to death for opposing the Anschluss in 1938. He was instrumental in aiding the Allies during World War II, and played a role in the downfall of Communism in the 80's.

During my Adventures in Austria, circa 2001, I had the great privilege of meeting this man, this living historical figure. The director of the Austrian program had invited him to the Karthause to speak to us students, and graciously, the Archduke agreed. I was interested in his visit, because as a recent graduate of Miss Smyth's Grand History of Western Civilization, I was well versed on House Hapsburg. He spoke to use students at length, one evening, giving a rambling talk about Austria, her history, her people, and his place in it. While the details of the talk have become hazy in the ten years since, I still remember a couple details quite clearly.

His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke and Prince Imperial Otto of Austria, Prince Royal of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, seen here in this 2001 file photo. Photographer, Your Truly.

What struck me most about his talk was the personal, eyewitness accounts he gave of momentous historical events. He told stories about how he personally delivered Hungarian spy reports to FDR, or how, as a representative of Austria during World War II, he was given advanced notice of the Allied bombing raids. Invariably, each week an Austrian church or monastery would be targeted. He would speak with Roosevelt's assistant who, as a good Irish Catholic, would manage to postpone the raids that targeted churches.

One story I remember most clearly was the one he told about when he discovered the Allies' plans to divvy up Austria and give the lion's share (including Vienna) to the Soviet Union, as part of the peace treaty. He immediately rushed to see FDR and said, while he had always admired him and his methods of resisting the Communists, this was a bad idea. FDR agreed and told Otto that if he could get Churchill to agree, he would renegotiate. Otto immediately rushed to Churchill's room to speak with him. The secretary said that Churchill was sleeping, and he wasn't to be awoken, unless it was a matter of life or death. Otto said it was, and met with the sleepy Churchill, and convinced him to side with him and FDR. In the end, the Soviet Union took only a very small part of Austria.

Travelling Europe and seeing the history is interesting for an American such as myself, particularly one from Los Angeles, where anything older than 50 years is considered ancient. Seeing all these great monuments from ancient Rome, or cathedrals of the middle ages, or castles of the Renaissance. It's just something we don't have here. But there was another interesting side to Europe as well, and that was the history of the last hundred years. In that time, Europe had been the battlefield for the two greatest wars mankind has ever waged, and the site of the two most evil regimes the world has ever known. Here was a man who was linked to all of it, and spoke of it off the cuff, off the top of this head, as if this recent history was an old colleague of his.

Truly, the history of the 20th century is now just a little more remote.

Indiana Jones and the Historical Accuracy.

Yay! Now that the bulk of work is finished on my "other project" I can get back to my haphazardly-scheduled blog posting. I plan on writing a lot more, particularly reviews and "my take" bits, since my opinion is vastly more important than yours, because I have a blog. There are several posts which I have in mind that I want to get to over the next few weeks.

Today's topic, children, is The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones. I'll have a complete review of it once the third and final volume is out come April 29th. But I wanted to mention something of interest from volume two: The War Years.

Volume Two contains some of the best Young Indy episodes (including one co-starring both Catherine Zeta-Jones and Daniel Craig; quite the line-up). One of the better episodes, Adventures in the Secret Service has Indy in Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. But that's not the part I want to talk about. The first half of the episode has Indy taking on a secret mission to escort Prince Sixtus to a secret meeting with Emperor Charles I of Austria, to discuss a peace treaty with the allies, separately from Germany.

Ok, I sez to myself. I know World War I pretty well and I don't remember reading about anything like that. I assumed it was a dramatic fabrication in what is otherwise a "mostly" historically accurate show. But I decide to look it up on that oracle of accurate information (snicker snicker), Wikipedia.

Intersting, intersting, I say to myself, reading Charles' wikipedia entry (full name: Karl Franz Josef Ludwig Hubert Georg Maria von Habsburg-Lothringen). He was emperor for just under two years, and was, in fact, the last Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian empire. So they got that right. Child's play. Reading further, I see that Prince Sixtus was, in fact, his brother-in-law, as stated in the episode, as he was the brother of Emperor Charles' wife, Princess Zita of Parma. Ok, they get a point for that. Next up, is that fact that Prince Sixtus is actually an officer in the Belgian army, which explains why Indy (a Belgian officer working French intelligence), escorts him. This is getting eerily accurate. Finally I notice that... What? Charles I entered into secret negotiations with the French, represented by Prince Sixtus? Dude, they didn't make it up. And not only that, but Charles' advisor, Ottokar Czernin, even looks like Christopher Lee, who played him in the episode.

Ok, so cool, they're actually pretty good on the facts. The half-episode ends with Indy escorting Prince Sixtus back to Switzerland, with a letter, secretly written by Charles so Czernin—who was opposed to the separate peace—wouldn't know about it, conceding to the Allies' demands. In real life, the secret peace was broken when the French posted memos written by Charles, hurting Austria's relations with Germany, making them more dependent on their ally. Way to go France.

But there's one fact they left out of the episode.

That's Blessed Charles I to you.

That's right. On October 3, 2004, Pope John Paul the Great beatified Emperor Charles I of Austria, praising him for putting his Christian faith first while making political decisions, and also for his role as a peacemaker while trying to bring about an end to the Great War. His Holiness said of Blessed Charles:

"The decisive task of Christians consists in seeking, recognizing and following God's will in all things. The Christian statesman, Charles of Austria , confronted this challenge every day. To his eyes, war appeared as "something appalling". Amid the tumult of the First World War, he strove to promote the peace initiative of my Predecessor, Benedict XV.

"From the beginning, the Emperor Charles conceived of his office as a holy service to his people. His chief concern was to follow the Christian vocation to holiness also in his political actions. For this reason, his thoughts turned to social assistance. May he be an example for all of us, especially for those who have political responsibilities in Europe today!"

Too bad they left that tidbit out of the episode, but it probably didn't fit with George Lucas' view of religion (more on that when I get around to the full review of the series).

There's also one more interesting thing to note about Emperor Blessed Charles I: I've met his son.

Ok, I knew that I had met an Otto von Hapsburg, Crown Prince of Austria, during my (in?)famous adventures of early 2001. I just didn't realize until after watching this episode and reading about it on Wikipedia that it was that Otto von Hapsburg, Crown Prince of Austria (full name: Archduke Franz Joseph Otto Robert Maria Anton Karl Max Heinrich Sixtus Xaver Felix Renatus Ludwig Gaetan Pius Ignatius of Austria). But it's ultimately cool. I know the son of a beatified emperor. Beat that!

I would also like to point out, for those of you keeping score, that this gives me an Indiana Jones index of 3.

--EDIT--

I guess I should point out that the episode was made before Charles I was beatified, but he was still venerable Charles I, the cause for his canonization was open, and it's not like his faith was unknown.