Mayerling incident
The Mayerling incident is the series of events surrounding the apparent murder–suicide pact of Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, and his lover, baroness Mary Vetsera.
Rudolf, who was married to Princess Stéphanie of Belgium, was the only son of Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth, and was heir apparent to the throne of Austria-Hungary.
The bodies of the 30-year-old Rudolf and the 17-year-old Mary were discovered in the Imperial hunting lodge at Mayerling in the Vienna Woods, 26.6 kilometres (16.5 mi) southwest of the capital, on the morning of 30 January 1889.
He had arranged for a day's shooting at Mayerling hunting lodge early on the morning of the 30th, but when his valet Loschek went to call him, there was no answer.
Rudolf was found sitting (by some accounts, lying) motionless by the side of the bed, leaning forward and bleeding from the mouth.
Without closer examination in the poor light, Loschek assumed that the Crown Prince had drunk poison from the glass since he knew strychnine caused bleeding.
Eduard von Taaffe, Ministerpräsident (Minister-President) of Cisleithania, issued a statement at noon on behalf of the Emperor that Rudolf had died "due to a rupture of an aneurysm of the heart".
The Imperial Court medical commission, headed by Dr. Widerhofer, arrived in Mayerling that afternoon and established a more accurate cause of death.
The official gazette of Vienna still reported the original story that day: "His Royal and Imperial Highness, Crown Prince Archduke Rudolf, died yesterday at his hunting lodge of Mayerling, near Baden, from the rupture of an aneurysm of the heart.
"[6] They attempted to state that Vetsera had died on her way to Venice, having her uncles prop up her body with a broomstick to cover up the double suicide as they left the lodge.
Rudolf and the Emperor were known to have recently had a violent argument, with Franz Joseph demanding that his son end the liaison with his teenage mistress.
The Vatican issued a special dispensation declaring that Rudolf had been in a state of "mental imbalance", and he now lies with 137 other Habsburgs in the Imperial Crypt at the Church of the Capuchins in Vienna.
I did not say what I thought, which is that for thirty years I have had the experience of how many lies Prince Bismarck's diplomatic agents (with some exceptions) have written him, and therefore I usually disbelieve what they write completely, unless I know them to be honest and trustworthy men.
but that the young lady had destroyed herself and, seeing that, Rudolf thought there was nothing else left to him, and that he had killed himself with a Förster Gewehr [hunting rifle] which he stood on the ground and then trod on the trigger.
In a series of interviews with the Viennese tabloid newspaper Kronen Zeitung, the Empress Zita, who was not born until three years after the incident, expressed her belief that the deaths of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria and his mistress were not a double suicide, but rather a murder by French agents sent by Georges Clemenceau.
The letters—written in Mayerling shortly before the deaths—state clearly and unambiguously that Vetsera was preparing to die by suicide alongside Rudolf: Dear Mother Please forgive me for what I've done I could not resist love In accordance with Him, I want to be buried next to Him in the Cemetery of Alland I am happier in death than life.
[7] Gerd Holler argues in his book Mayerling--New Documents on the Tragedy 100 Years Afterward that Mary was three months pregnant with Rudolf's child.
"[19] Clemens M. Gruber, in a piece called The Fateful Days of Mayerling, argues Rudolf died in a drinking brawl.
In Gruber's story, Vetsera's relatives forced their way into the lodge and Rudolf drew a revolver, accidentally shooting the baroness.
In 1946, occupying Soviet troops dislodged the granite plate covering the grave and broke into Vetsera's coffin in the graveyard, perhaps hoping to loot it of jewels.
In 1959, a young physician named Gerd Holler, stationed in the area, accompanied by a member of the Vetsera family and specialists in funereal preservation, inspected her remains.
Intrigued, Holler claimed he petitioned the Vatican to inspect their 1889 archives of the affair, where the papal nuncio's investigation had concluded that only one bullet was fired.
Lacking forensic evidence of a second bullet, Holler advanced the theory that Vetsera died accidentally, probably as the result of an abortion, and it was Rudolf who consequently shot himself.
In 1991, Vetsera's remains were disturbed again, this time by Helmut Flatzelsteiner, a Linz furniture dealer who was obsessed with the Mayerling affair.
