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  Ludovika, to be sure, worried that this strange solitary wedding trip would delude her daughter too much about the earnestness of life. “I am only afraid that Marie is having too good a time in Vienna, and I hope she will not compare her future position with Sisi’s, especially her relationship with her dear Emperor; God grant that she, too, will find marital happiness, but anyway it is not easy to withstand comparison with the Emperor. My hope lies in Marie’s gentle, submissive, more kindly nature.”36

  Ludovika was still completely caught up in the old court ways of thinking. An alliance with the Neapolitan royal house meant a brilliant match for a duchess from Bavaria. Ludovika could not help knowing that the throne, supported by a harsh, even cruel, absolutist regime was threatened by revolts of every sort, though she may have been ignorant of the full extent. King Ferdinand II (“King Bomba”) was adamantly set against even the slightest liberalization and insisted on the divine right of his royal position. His reasons for marrying his son to young Marie were entirely political: The marriage turned the future King of the Two Sicilies into the brother-in-law of the Emperor of Austria. Given the threats from Garibaldi’s partisans to the south and the Sardinian troops to the north, support from the leading absolutist power on the Continent was politically advantageous. In these revolutionary times, the princes clustered as close together as possible.

  In spite of her poor health, Elisabeth accompanied her younger sister as far as Trieste. Their older brother Duke Ludwig (“Louis”) also traveled with them. With great astonishment, the three witnessed the medieval ceremonies with which the Neapolitans received their future Queen. A silk ribbon had been stretched across the center of the large hall of the Governor’s Palace in Trieste to symbolize the border between Bavaria and Naples. A large table under the ribbon had two of its legs in “Bavaria” and two in “Naples.” Marie was led to an armchair at the Bavarian end of the table. The two doors, decorated with coats of arms and flags, now opened to admit the two delegations with an honor guard of Neapolitan and Bavarian soldiers respectively. Across the silk ribbon the authorized representatives exchanged the documents, bowed solemnly to each other, and passed the documents on to the attendants. The Bavarian representative now spoke the parting words to Marie. All Bavarians were allowed to kiss Marie’s hand once more. Then the silk ribbon was lowered, and Marie had to move to the “Neapolitan” armchair. The Neapolitan delegation was presented to her, then Marie was taken to the royal yacht, Fulminante.37

  A tearful parting of the sisters followed in the ship’s cabin. Now Maria Sophia, the seventeen-year-old Princess of Calabria, Crown Princess of the Two Sicilies, set sail for Bari with total strangers, people whose language she barely understood. The only living creature from her home that was by her side was her canary. What was waiting for her was an unhappy marriage, revolution, and expulsion from her kingdom.

  Sisi’s brother Ludwig responded to the unhappiness of his two (imperial and royal) sisters in his own way. A few months after the spectacle in Trieste, he broke out of the rigid mold of court life. Against the wishes of the King of Bavaria and the ducal family, he married his love of many years, the bourgeois actress Henriette Mendel, with whom he already had a daughter. For her sake, he even renounced his birthright of primogeniture and considerable sources of income.

  By now, Sisi was rejecting the court mentality so sharply that she made a point of welcoming her brother’s marriage, and she established a pointedly intimate relationship with the sister-in-law who was scorned in aristocratic circles. She maintained these loving ties to the end of her life.

  Matters went far worse for her little sister Marie than Elisabeth had feared. The bridegroom was mentally and physically enfeebled, was a religious fanatic, and was impotent. Since King Ferdinand II died only a few months after Marie’s arrival, the seventeen-year-old became Queen—at the side of a sickly, anxiety-ridden King, in a kingdom threatened by revolution and external enemies. Ludovika soon sent photographs “of Marie and her king. He must be horrible; … Marie looks so pale and haggard.”38

  All Italy was in revolt, the unification movement was unstoppable. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was not the only area threatened; the Habsburg principalities in Tuscany and Modena and the Austrian provinces in Northern Italy—Lombardy and Venetia—were also at risk. Backed by a secret pact with France, Piedmont fanned the political unrest with every means, to provoke Austria into military intervention.

  Austrian politics fell helplessly into the trap of this maneuver. On April 23, 1859, Emperor Franz Joseph sent an ultimatum to Turin, demanding that the Sardinian “army be put on peacetime status and the partisans be dismissed.” The ultimatum was rejected by Cavour and seized on as the welcome occasion for warfare with Austria. This was the first time Emperor Franz Joseph issued an ultimatum that resulted in bloody war for which the country was militarily and politically ill prepared. This demand was not unlike the later ultimatum to Serbia issued in the summer of 1914.

  Austrian troops marched into Piedmont—and were seen as the aggressors by all the world. France came to the aid of the little country. Franz Joseph expressed his outrage at Napoleon III. “Once again we stand on the threshold of a time when total destruction of the existing order is hurled into the world, no longer only by sectarian groups, but now also by thrones.”

  Now, when war had already broken out, he tried to gain help from the German Confederation, and most especially from Prussia—“I speak as a prince in the German Confederation when I point out to you our common danger.”39

  But there could be no thought of Greater German solidarity. Prussian policies had quite other aims. A weakening of the Austrian rivals suited Berlin only too well. Austria was left without help. The situation was hopeless.

  New taxes were levied to finance this war. The Swiss envoy reported to Bern, “This is a harsh blow to the populace of Vienna and the monarchy, and the rise in food costs, as well as increases in ground rents and house rents—which had already spiraled to an unprecedented height, soon exceeding conditions in Paris—are now being increased again by a considerable amount. There is no end in sight, and this will not improve the mood.”40

  “For lack of participation,” for example, the Kunstverein (Art Society) had to close its exhibitions. “Like trade and business, art, too, is on the brink of ruin,” one Viennese correspondent noted.41 Further examples could be cited endlessly.

  The fact that at this very time the Emperor and Empress, surrounded by all the archdukes and archduchesses, went to the horse races in the Prater and graciously allowed themselves to be cheered was not likely to improve morale. Untouched by the war in Italy, by the misery of the people, a wondrously beautiful young Empress appeared and solemnly handed out the state prizes.

  The Habsburg relatives, rulers in Tuscany and Modena, and their families were forced to flee. They sought refuge in Vienna. These numerous Italian Habsburgs were now permanent guests at the family dinner table in the Hofburg. They described their experiences at great length and fanned the anger at the revolution.

  The imperial family clung to its illusions for a long time and formed erroneous opinions on what was happening. As late as May, Franz Joseph prettified the situation, telling Sophie that the French had lost a thousand men to the cold and lack of food. Sophie: “poor people, and in such an unjust cause. In Germany the armies are being rallied.”42

  During these days, Archduchess Sophie sent 85,000 cigars, at a cost of 500 guldens, to the troops in Northern Italy.43 Whether they ever reached their destination is uncertain. Supplies were so poorly controlled that the Austrian soldiers often had to go into battle on an empty stomach, while behind the scenes, profiteers helped themselves to purloined goods. In spite of great bravery among the troops ravaged by hunger and a lack of organization, the generals’ incompetence lost the Battle of Magenta.

  In the elegant Viennese salons, the ladies rolled bandages. Among them were the young Empress, Archduchess Sophie, and all the ladies of the court. Every
day long trains brought countless numbers of the wounded and the sick from the theater of war. “They cursed and damned the generals who commanded them in Italy, and Gyulai in particular was the object of satirical poems and defilement,” Prince Khevenhüller recorded in his diary.44

  After the embarrassing and bloody defeat at Magenta, Count Franz Gyulai, the commanding general and a close friend of Grünne’s, was removed from the supreme command. When the Emperor recognized Austria’s hopeless situation, he traveled to Northern Italy to cheer the soldiers by his presence. He still insisted that Austria was fighting for a “just cause against infamy and treason,” but increasingly he admitted to himself the seriousness of the situation. “We are faced with an enemy who is superior to us in numbers and very brave, who will employ any means, even the most evil, who is allied to the revolution and thus gains reinforcements, we are betrayed on all sides in our own country.”45

  Franz Joseph dealt with this situation entirely as a soldier whose duty it is to go to war. Nevertheless, this decision, born of military romanticism, showed that he “was wanting a deeper insight into the nature of his actual position as a ruler,” his biographer Joseph Redlich noted.46 For the departure of the absolute ruler from Vienna also meant that diplomatic negotiations, especially those with the German princes, were interrupted, thwarting any opportunity for a nonmilitary accord. Just before his departure, Franz Joseph asked the aged Prince Metternich how he was to word his will and what regency was to be provided for in case of his death.

  The Emperor’s parting was heartrending. The children were driven to the railroad station in a six-horse carriage to wave at their father one last time. In her diary, Leopoldine Nischer, the baby nurse, described the dense crowd gathered around the carriage. “Also a number of weeping women thronged to the window, calling, ‘the poor children‚’ so that the little ones began to feel quite frightened.”47

  Gisela was barely three years old, the Crown Prince a mere eight months.

  Elisabeth accompanied her husband as far as Mürzzuschlag; when she left, she implored his retinue, especially Count Grünne, “You will surely always remember your promise to take good care of the Emperor; that is my only comfort in this terrible time, that you will do so always and on every occasion. If I did not have this assurance, I would have to be deathly afraid.” That Sisi, too, was convinced that in these difficult times, the Emperor’s place was properly in Vienna rather than on the field of battle in Italy is revealed in her letter to Grünne. “But you will surely do whatever is in your power to persuade the Emperor to return quickly and remind him at every opportunity that he is so sorely needed in Vienna as well. If you knew how much I worry, you would feel very sorry for me.”48

  “The Empress’s discomposure surpasses imagination,” Leopoldine Nischer wrote. “Since yesterday [after her return from Mürzzuschlag], she has not stopped crying, will not eat, and always remains alone—at best, with the children.” The mother’s despair also affected the children. The nurse worried because “poor Gisela [is] somewhat disconcerted by the unceasing tears. Last night she sat very quietly in a corner, and her eyes were damp. When I asked her what was the matter, she said: ‘Gisela has to cry too for dear Papa.’”

  Like most Austrians, the nurse also had family members in the army in Italy. Her brother-in-law died several days after the Battle of Magenta, her oldest son survived the Battle of Solferino.

  Sisi was in a state of hysterical despondency. Ludovika: “her letters are soaked in tears!”49 She begged the Emperor for permission to follow him to Italy. Franz Joseph: “Unfortunately, I cannot grant your wish for the present, infinitely much as I would like to. There is no place for women in the restless life at headquarters, I cannot head my army with a bad example.”50

  He tried to calm his wife, who was ailing again. “I beg you, my angel, if you love me, do not grieve so much, take care of yourself, distract yourself as much as you can, go riding, drive with caution and care, and preserve for me your dear precious health, so that when I come back, I will find you quite well and we can be quite happy.”51

  Still in Verona, he wrote to Ludovika asking her to be so kind as to travel to Vienna, or at least to send her younger daughter, Mathilde, to cheer Sisi up.

  Once again, Dr. Fischer came from Bavaria, this time at the request of a completely perplexed Sophie. Ludovika was outraged and almost apologized to her sister for her difficult daughter: “if only it were recognized that you do everything, how well disposed you are to others! God grant that things will be different again!”52

  Once again, the Empress went on starvation diets, rode horseback for hours every day, turned inward, and fled the family teas and dinners Archduchess Sophie gave.

  The number of Elisabeth’s critics grew. By now, even the imperial physican, Dr. Seeburger, was among them. He “poured out his reproaches and complaints about the Empress who, according to him, did not meet her obligations either as an empress or as a woman; though she was essentially idle, her contacts with the children were very casual, and though she sorrows and weeps for the absent noble Emperor, she rides horseback for hours, to the detriment of her health; between her and Archduchess Sophy an icy abyss yawns.”53

  The governor of the castle criticized “the Empress’s bearing, because she smoked as she was being driven about, so that I grew truly uneasy at having to hear such things,” wrote the minister of police, Baron Johann Kempen in his diary.54 Even Queen Victoria of England heard of the shocking fact that the young Austrian Empress—like her sister Marie of Naples—smoked. Such tittle-tattle reveals the extent of the gossip.55

  The Emperor cautiously reminded his wife of her obligations. “I beg you, for the love you bear me, pull yourself together, show yourself in the city sometimes, visit institutions. You have no idea what a great help you can be to me in this way. It will put heart into the people in Vienna and keep up the good spirit I require so urgently. See to it through Countess Esterházy that the Ladies’ Aid Society sends as much as possible, especially bandages for the many, very many wounded, perhaps also some wine.”56

  Franz Joseph’s reports of military details, as well as the names of the dead and wounded, covered many pages, none of which could comfort the Empress: “The fighting was so bitter that whole piles of the dead lay about. The many officers who lost their lives will be hard to replace.”57

  On June 18, the Emperor issued a directive to the army that caused an enormous sensation. In it, the Emperor “immediately” assumed “supreme command over my armies in the field against the enemy.” He wished “to continue, at the head of my brave troops, the struggle Austria is forced to wage for her honor and rights.”

  The decision by the twenty-nine-year-old strategically inexperienced Emperor in this precarious situation aroused vehement criticism, which was to prove justified only too soon. For the next battle, that of Solferino, was the bloodiest, sustaining the greatest losses, of the whole unfortunate war. It sealed Austria’s final defeat. The horror of the battlefield of Solferino under the burning sun was beyond all imagining. (It was here that, shaken by the helplessness of the wounded, Henri Dunant decided to found what became the Red Cross.)

  The Emperor’s insufficient strategic skills, combined with overly hasty decisions to retreat, were the elements most responsible for the defeat. The ugly phrase “lions led by asses” made the rounds and was applied most especially to the Emperor.58 Since the beginning of his reign, the interest Franz Joseph had shown in the army was unsurpassed. No other department had so much money spent on it (and debts run up for it), and now all ambition was ending in a huge humiliation and a bloodbath.

  Count Alexander Mensdorff-Pouilly wrote to his cousin, Prince Ernst of Coburg, “May the souls of the many fallen, in the form of dream figures, disturb the nocturnal rest of those who, now comfortably ensconced behind their desks, plan political washouts.”59

  The mood in Austria was so despairing that many people, aware of the poor political and military leadership and t
he unbearable burdens on the people, even wished for a defeat. Heinrich Laube, the director of the Burgtheater, who was born in northern Germany, recalled this time. “During all these wars—as well as later, in the year ’66—I saw with astonishment and shock that the mood of the populace had no great objection to our being beaten. Yes, if we were politically in order—they say out loud—it would be a pleasure to see our troops victorious. But as it is, as it is! The year ’48 was confiscated from us, and we gain concessions only when the government meets with difficulties caused by lost battles. I had only just become an Austrian, but this way of thinking was thoroughly repugnant to me.”60

  Emperor Franz Joseph was made to feel the full brunt of the consequences of the defeat. At no other time was the Emperor as unpopular with the people as during these months. The impoverished and angry populace blamed the terrible policies and poor strategy for tens of thousands of the dead, forced to give their lives for a province they considered foreign. Their rage went so far as to be expressed in public appeals for the Emperor’s abdication and for transfer of the government to his younger, more liberal brother, Max. A revolutionary mood thus obtained even in Vienna!

  The strict censorship imposed on the Austrian newspapers kept them from giving free rein to their disapproval. The foreign papers dealt all the more critically with the young Emperor. Friedrich Engels, for example, endowed him with such expressions as “arrogant youngster” and “pitiful weakling”; he wrote that the courageous Austrian soldiers had “been beaten, not by the French, but by the overbearing imbecility of their own emperor.”61

  It was only too easy to ascribe the catastrophe in Lombardy to the military and aristocratic Kamarilla surrounding the inexperienced but all-powerful Emperor. A system that identified to such an extent with the military as that of Emperor Franz Joseph could not survive so massive a military catastrophe without some damage. Franz Joseph, disheartened, wrote to his wife, “I have grown wiser by many experiences and have come to know how it feels to be a beaten general. The serious consequences of our misfortune will set in eventually, but I trust in God and am not aware of any blame, nor any error in judgment.”62