Thunder At Twilight: Vienna 1913/1914

by Frederic Morton

  If the asymmetrical reception reflected his Sophie's lessthan-royal birth, the Archduke did not show the slightest annoyance. Usually, as we have seen, he disdained playing the Viennese Prince Charming. He was not in the habit of hiding his temper and took offense energetically. But when necessary, he could turn snarl into purr. Then his jagged mustache and the bright hard blue of his huge eyes conjured a most beguiling Austrian cavalier. Then he modulated bows, handkisses, gallantries, enthusiasms, compliments, to a nuance just right for the occasion.

  Queen Mary-whose nonattendance at the station had been a protocol cause celebre-was smitten. "The Archduke is most amiable," she wrote to her aunt. "He is delighted with everything and very appreciative of the beauties of this place, which of course appeals to me. He is making an excellent impression and is enjoying the informality of the visit. His wife, the Duchess, is very nice, agreeable, and quite easy to get on with, very tactful, which makes the position easier… In the Waterloo Gallery the Archduke was delighted at seeing portraits of his two grandfathers, Kaiser Franz and Archduke Karl, and we could scarcely drag him away. I was amused as I always feel the same way when I see any of the 'ancestors' pictures in a Palace abroad…"

  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.

  11

  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.

  To lean the wreath against the pedestal, the Emperor bent his eighty-three years into the arc of a dragoon lieutenant kissing a countess's hand. He presented one of his best performances at a military ceremonial. It was as if he knew it would be his last.

  And it was as if Vienna knew that the holiday coming up next would be the last All Souls' Day of the dear old Franz Joseph era. Finality brought out the artist in the Viennese. Fittingly the city displayed its mortuary genius that autumn. On All Souls' Day, November 2, Catholic Vienna commemorated its departed. In 1913 the date fell on a Sunday. The Church recommended that observances be postponed to Monday to avoid conflict with Sunday services. Most Viennese paid no heed. On Sunday, neither office nor factory could keep them from forming a city-wide cortege.

  In the morning the streets began to empty into the cemeteries. By the hundreds of thousands, citizens were on the move, dressed in black, black from hat to shoes. The rich came in automobiles whose hoods were draped in black. Black-clad crowds streamed from the tramways. Public as well as private transport was at such premium that many groups hired vans-flagged in black-to take them to outlying graveyards.

  They all carried sprays of asters-white bloom vivid against the darkness of the clothes and the gray of the sky. The flowers added yet more brightness to the graves. The night before, nearly each resting place had been given its own glow. Most mourners had placed simple lanterns or glass-covered candles by their plots. Next to noble mausoleums stood footmen in black garb, holding torches. Honor guards with black trimmings held aloft flares by the arcaded crypts of generals.

  Into this sea of lights and griefs the throngs were pouring. All Souls' Day was as eloquent a pageant of the devout in late fall as May Day had been a parade of workers in the spring. An endless phalanx of black figures and bright blossoms moved to the beat of some soundless dirge. The bereaved laid down bouquets, hung wreaths, affixed festoons. They prayed for the delivery of their loved ones from purgatory. The choir of their murmurs enveloped the hiss of torches, the crunch of countless feet shuffling along gravel. Incense mingled with the asters' fragrance, with perfume from black-veiled women, and with whiffs of roasted chestnuts from vendors waiting by the cemetery gates. When the Viennese were finished with their dramaturgy, they would be ready for a snack.

  The next day, newspapers evaluated graveside accomplishments. What tombs led the field in the most finely nuanced floral designs? At the giant Central Cemetery, Vienna's late and very popular mayor Karl Lueger scored the highest plaudits. Beethoven did very well. Johann Strauss Junior fell a bit short this year: His widow had overdone the garlands. Schubert made a comeback. Some recently deceased industrialists had to be placed at the bottom of the list; they were the victims of vulgar excess.

  The city still mastered the esthetics of death. A good sign. A measure of how well, after Redl, Vienna had recovered its poise as 1913 waned to a close. It was poise elegantly maintained despite, and because of, doubts about the Empire's future. Vienna still considered itself the capital of a sensibility that was all the more finely tuned for its precariousness. The legend of this sunset sensibility attracted talents from all continents. They came to visit, to shine and to be judged, together with local talent, by the stringencies of Viennese sophistication.

  Enrico Caruso arrived for his engagement at the Court Opera as Rodolfo in La Boheme. Ovations greeted his cadenzas. Yet at least one reviewer thought that the ensemble effect would have benefited if the star had taken more time to rehearse with the cast, and that the same problem flawed the marvels of his Don Jose in Carmen.

  Maria Jeritza made an incandescent Minnie in Puccini's The Girl of the Golden West-except for a few instances of overacting.

  A child of twelve electrified the Musikvereinssaal. Brilliantly he sped his violin through the difficulties of Paganini's "Caprices." Critics admired little Jascha Heifetz's virtuosity. They also wondered about his delectable blond locks: Was this a boy or a girl prodigy?

  George Bernard Shaw did not come to Vienna, but his Pygmalion had its world premiere here, in German, at the Court Theater, almost six months before the first London production. Reviewers smiled judiciously at Mr. Shaw, the grizzled enfant terrible. They admitted that in this play he did less ranting and more entertaining than usual, even if, as the Neue Freie Presse sighed, the comedian in Mr. Shaw almost succumbed to the ideologue at the end.

  Also at the Court Theater, one of the most unpredictable younger directors, Max Reinhardt, staged the passion play Everyman with touches sometimes breathtaking, sometimes self-consciously ingenious.

  Franz Lehar's new operetta, An Ideal Wife, disappointed not because it was bad but simply because the composer had once more failed to match his Merry Widow.

  The writer Thomas Mann visited to read early chapters of his new novel-in-progress Felix Krull. He aroused anticipation not only as the author of the best-selling Buddenbrooks but also as brother of Heinrich Mann, the pre-eminent name in German fiction. Readers crowded into the Urania lecture hall and found an interesting, taut, slim figure at the lectern. Some literary correspondents, though, felt that the author's voice could not do justice to his prose. It was too stolid, too flat a vehicle for the picaresque handsprings of his Krull; instead of smiling at his excellent villain, Herr Mann seemed always on the point of a sneeze.

  Only one performer met every expectation. For two weeks that fall he was the star attraction at the Apollo Theater, the town's leading variety house. He was so famous that each evening the Apollo arranged the coming of his physical presence in stages, quite as if he were the messiah: At first the hall darkened and there flashed on a screen photographic slides of his earlier career-showing for the most part his bulging arms raised over the sprawled body of an opponent; then came motion picture clips of him pummeling a sandbag or running half a marathon, then newsreels of his most famous triumphs in the ring. Then suddenly the screen was whisked away, and there under a spotlight, standing naked to the waist, in the gleaming, formidable blackness of his fleshthe Heavyweight Champion of the World, Jack Johnson. He bowed, he punched two punching bags at the same time, he juggled bar bells as if they were swagger sticks, he boxed an opponent with one hand tied behind his back… only to be swallowed by darkness in which nothing could be seen but from which surged the recorded sound of a New York fight arena-a mob braying at a knockout count, an ecstasy that roared and faded… and transmuted somehow into music that, in turn, regenerated the spotlight. And here was the champion again, but now in white tie and tails, a gallant arm around his petite white wife in her ball gown. To Johann Strauss's "Tales from the Vienna Woods," athlete and lady waltzed their way into the very hearts of the audience. Night after night they brought the house down. Night after night, said the ArbeiterZeitung, many of the poor came here to spend their bitterly earned kronen on the exploitation of tinseled brutality.

  The Socialists brought to town a world champion of their own, this one from Germany. They invited Emanuel Lasker, the globe's best chess player, to appear at the chess club of the Arbeiterheim Cafe-the coffeehouse of the Workers' Center. Playing twenty-six games at once, he won twenty-two, drew four, and made a speech. The times were over, he said, when laborers had been
poor, dumb, passive pawns. Now the worker was beginning to see himself as the central figure in the economy. He was no longer dumb, he had stopped being passive, and the time would come when he would no longer be poor. All he had to do was to use his mind fearlessly, and chess was a good way of sharpening his faculties.

  England contributed a notable who also enlisted his talent in the cause of the underprivileged. The Volksbiihne (The People's Stage) produced a German translation of John Galsworthy's Justice. In November the author himself traveled to Vienna to supervise rehearsals. The play told of the misfortunes of a junior clerk trapped in a class-biased criminal justice system. When the curtain came down on opening night, cries of "Author! Author!" resounded together with ardent applause. Mr. Galsworthy turned out to be too shy a gentleman to take a bow on stage. However, he was reported to be very pleased by the printed accolade in the Arbeiter Zeitung some days later.

  Emile Zola was not alive to sojourn in Vienna that fall, but through his work he was John Galsworthy's comrade-in-thearts. A film being shown in the working-class districts proved continuously popular. It was based on Germinal, Zola's harrowing, heart-breaking evocation of the coal miner's lot.

  Not that Vienna's proletarians had to learn about wretchedness from a motion picture screen. Nor did they need the nasty Serbs to give them a sense of crisis. The prospect of winter was enough. How would they keep warm? Where find money for fuel? Bad times were getting worse. In Vienna manufacturing was on the decline. The ethnically fragmented Empire, with its many levels and styles of consumer demand, prevented the economies of standardized mass production practiced elsewhere in the West. Despite protective tariffs Austrian industry kept losing markets-inside and outside the borders-to competitors abroad. The machine shops, domi nant employers in the capital's industrial precincts like Hernals and Ottakring, had to shut their doors against thousands seeking work: Nearly a third of the city's metal workers had lost their jobs over the past two years. Most cotton mills were open only four days in the week now. And construction had dropped so drastically that the Developers' Association appealed to the government for subsidies and for the lifting of import duties on certain building materials.