For all the royal watching going on right now, its the British Royal Family that’s hugging the spotlight. And, really, how could they not? Liz the Second—who we all thought was destined to live forever—shockingly popped her clogs last year. And now her grandson seems to be taking his turn airing out the dirty laundry, much to people’s delight. But the lives of royals are always ripe for high drama, if you are into that kind of thing. So I’m going to ring in the new year by having a two-fer special on one of Europe’s best and messiest: The Habsburgs
Up first is The Habsburgs: The Rise and Fall of a World Power by Martyn Rady, which gives a broad overview of Habsburg family history. I’ll confess, before settling down to read this book, I didn”t know a huge amount about them; mostly their actions form the 19th century onwards and some details about the unfortunate case of Charles II, the last Habsburg king of Spain. But not too long ago, I got into a conversation about the lesser known parts of Habsburg history with a hiking friend of mine, and not only did I learn that the family roots went way back further than I was aware, I also got the impression that they possessed a certain degree of sneakiness that helped grant them the success they had.
After reading The Habsburgs, I have to say that my initial impression was not entirely wrong. But it turns out the family was more messy and complex than I had thought. One of the earliest points of contention that Rady deals with is the name Habsburg itself, which has a murky history. More often than not, the family was known not as Habsburg, but as The House of Austria. The Habsburgs, as we know them, are still strongly associated with modern Austria. But the bounds of modern Austria are not the same as they were historically, and the name was mostly associated with little germanic duchy for centuries. So it was associated with the centre of Habsburg power, but not the extent of it. Much of what was considered Austria was almost entirely shaped by the Habsburgs—as one and the same. But Hapsburg control frequently spread further than their home-base; the Spanish branch of the family was very well known in its own right, and at one point of time or another in their history, they had their sticky little fingers all over places as far flung as The Philippines, Taiwan (briefly), Brazil and Mexico (Remember this last one). But while they always held ‘Austria’ the Habsburgs never managed to hold everything else together for long.
Then, on top of that, there is the whole business with the Holy Roman Empire. Which wasn’t terribly holy, or Roman, or an empire (To give credit to Voltaire). But they did love the idea that they were the inheritors of Rome and protectors of the Catholic faith, and that’s what the title granted them. So, with one expetion, The Holy Roman Empire was a very Habsburg dominated political entity that shaped a good deal of middle Europe.
Rady has set himself a fair challange with this book. The history that’s being told here dates back centuries and covers a great greographical span to boot. And despite the audiobook clocking in at over 15 hours, I feel that the earlier years still didn’t get as much coverage as I would have liked. But this feeling didn’t last long, as everything zips into tight focus around the we reach the marrige of Joanna of Castille to Phillip of Flanders—whose father was the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. This union meant that their son, Charles V, ended up the King of Spain (Castile and Aragon), the Duke of Burgundy and the Archduke of Austria. Then he was also granted the title of Holy Roman Emperor. This was the Habsburgs at their zenith. But this sea of titles ended up encompassing so much territory and causing poor Charles so much stress that near the end of his life, the man with more honerifics than Daenerys Targaryen ended up splitting the lands between his son and his brother. I guess he thought the choice pragmatic, but it had long running implications for both the familiy and for europe.
This was especially true for the Spanish line, which would eventually expire, triggering a war. During this period and in the following centuries, the Habsburgs had a reputation of marrying for strength and power just as often as conquest by force. ‘While others wage war, you Happy Austria get married’. But there was another noted quirk in their marrige habits that would lead to disaster—incest. While the marrige of Joanna and Phillip had been a powerful one, that did’t make it a wise idea to double them up on your ancestor list. Phillip II’s son, Prince Carlos, had Joanna as the mother of two of his four grandparents, which was a little yikes. And if dating choices had been a limited earlier, after the Reformation the list of eligible wives and husbands for the Habsburgs reduced to a trickle, making the issue of consanguineous relations even worse.
And that, folks, as someone who has taught genetics, is why I knew so much about the sad and sorry story of Charles II of Spain, who was so inbred he had little hope of fathering an heir. In fact its also why I spent so much time reading and re-reading over this section of the book. So why I knew about Charles’ congenital defects and had even heard of a proposed diagnosis of Fragile X syndrome, I wasn’t aware about this snippet:
“Of the thirty-four children born to the Spanish royal line between 1527 and 1661, ten did not survive their first year, and a further seventeen died before the age of ten, yielding an infant mortality rate of 80 per cent, which was four times the average for this time.”
Double yikes! In the words of Eddie Izzard: It’s a bad idea when cousins marry! Not only was Spain lost with the passing of passing of Charles II, but the family’s grasp of the Americas and the Pacific was lost as well, greatly diminishing the extent of their power.
If only they were less picky about their husbands and wives!
But from that point on, Habsburg rule ebbed and flowed, but never again hit the heights of the reign of Charles V. But by the time of Franz Josef I, things once again started to rapidly slide. Some of this was due to outside forces, but Franz Josef’s rigidity, absolutism and tendency to screw around with the central bank certainly did no favours in a politically tumultuous time. By the time the First World War arrives on their doorstep, collapse is unavoidable.
Sometimes history books can be a little difficult to consume in the Audiobook format, as names and dates can be very hard to keep track of. While I will confess I did have a little bit of difficulty in the beginning, I found the later two thirds of the book very easy to follow just by listening alone. The supporting pdf was also a welcome addition, containing all the important maps! And while a good deal of detail was given to big political challenges and wars throughout the time period, I did appreciate that Rady spent time looking at the cultural contributions made as well. I would recommend The Habsburgs to anyone interested in European history as it is a fascinating read about a messy, messy family.
To bring us back to the conversation with one of my hiking mates (Thanks, Ezekial), I was fascinated to learn that despite losing their hold on most of the Americas, one Habsburg did make an attempt to return to the New World. And while this (again, messy) incident does get a chapter dedicated to it in Rady’s The Habsburgs, Edward Shawcross wrote a whole book about it. In The Last Emperor of Mexico: The Dramatic Story of the Habsburg Archduke Who Created a Kingdom in the New World, we are treated to the bonkers train-wreck of a story about how archduke Ferdinand Maximilian did ‘an attempt was made’ on Mexico in the 1860s. And how he paid for it dearly.
The idea that Mexico needed an Emperor in the mid 1800s was not something that Maximilian came up with himself—the credit there goes to a number of other players on the political board. One of these folks was Jose Maria Gutierrez de Estrada, a Mexican monarchist who became convinced that a European prince, rather than a local, would help the country’s stability. Another big player was Napoleon III, who was warily eyeing off US expansionism. The Mexican American war had ended not too long ago, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo meant that Mexico lost a lot of land to the US, which made Europe anxious. Then there was a matter of Mexico’s debts to European powers—which were not being paid. So far from being the brains of the outfit, it turns out Maximilian was more of a pawn; chosen mostly for his very personable nature and the fact that his brother Franz Josef I just wanted to be rid of him, because he made him look bad in comparison.
This is the same Franz Josef I mentioned above, was a bit of prickly prick-head.
It probably didn’t help that Maximilian was a wee bit gullible; he really bought into the idea that Mexico would love to be ruled over by a new monarch, Mexican or not. Both he and his wife Carlota (daughter of King Leopold of Belgium—and another prickhead) really thought they were doing the right thing; marching out to Mexico to handle God’s work. But Max’s support was not as strong as he had been lead to belive, and the Mexico they eventually arrived in was in a precarious state. So the endevor was almost doomed fromt he start.
Maximilian, in his heart of hearts, saw himself as a liberal (well, as much as one as you can when you’re also an emperor) and tried to rule as one. This pissed off both the actual liberals, who were not interested in a constitutional monarchy, as well as the more traditional royalists, who were far more socially conservative. But to make matters worse, Maximilian was, despite his charms, a bit of a ditherer and a spendthrift. His government had no structure, and actions were burying Mexico in even more debt. This didn’t not endear to anyone, inside the country or out. And it certainly upset Napoleon III, who eventually decided he’d had a gutful of the new emperor who seemed more interested in the trappings of empire rather than the meat of it. Simply put: “[Maximilian] was at his happiest ruling over a paper empire.” But paper is fragile. And it burns very rapidly.
The Last Emperor of Mexico is a very engaging and darkly comic account of this historical train-wreck that’s at it’s best when it leans into the absurdities of the story. This does mean though that there’s a lot of focus on the various european monarchs, though and less on what the everyday people in Mexico thought about the situation—an addition I would have gladly welcomed. But as a consequence of ths, we spend a lot of time going over how very out of touch these royals hiding away on a whole other continant actually were. There were many times when reading this book where I should of felt bad for what was happening, but the shear incredulity of it all meant that I could not. It was like I was trying to read history through sardonic lenses. Part of this is Shawcross’ doing I’m sure, but sometimes it had nothing to do with the author—history really is that wild.
Seriously, there was a part of the book where I was almost shouting at ‘Shave your beard, dickhead!’ at the pages in my lap! No joke: history may have played out differently if one man. One Man. Picked up. A RAZOR.
So if anyone is interetsted in the story of the Habsburgs, you can’t go too wrong picking up either of these. Both are very well written and extreamly engaging. You just need to decide what you would like to start with first: the extended hostory orr the one mad tale?
As for myself, I have some new hashtags I would like to start the new year with. And I think I have a big enough pile of history books on my to read list to make good use of them.
Ok, for the passport challenge — I’m going to attempt three from each of the five categories. To start, I want to fill in 3 new-to-me authors, and Rady and Shawcross both fit the bill for two of those there.
