Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ---George Santayana
This is the first in a three part series about three tragic members of the imperial family of Austria-Hungary, or the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine. The Hapsburgs ruled over portions of Europe from Spain to the Balkans for centuries. The assassination of one of their family members, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, led to World War I. Here I will present Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph or Maximilian for short. He was the archduke’s uncle and was executed years before in a foreign land where he had journeyed to rule with the best of intentions.
On June 19, 1867 under the Mexican sky a tall, blonde Austrian of 35 faced a firing squad along with two Mexicans who had been his loyal generals. Far away in Europe, his wife was descending into madness after fleeing Mexico to unsuccessfully plead her husband’s case to the heads of France and Austria, and the pope. The Austrian who stood ready to die that day was the former emperor of Mexico, Maximilian or Maximiliano I. Who was Maximilian and how did he who was Austrian and who grew up along the Danube end up in Mexico?
Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph, the future Emperor Maximilian I, was born in Vienna, Austria on July 6, 1832. He was the second son of the Archduke Franz Karl and his wife Sophie. From the beginning there were contradictions about Maximilian. He looked nothing like his father or his brothers. In fact, it was said that he closely resembled Napoleon II, the Duke of Reichstadt who was the son of Napoleon I and the Archduchess Marie Louise. Maximilian’s mother Sophie had developed a tender friendship with the Duke that might have been transformed into passion love. From the time she had arrived in Vienna when she was 19 and the Duke had been 14, they had been extremely close. They had shared similar interests in books, beauty, opera, and liberalism. Napoleon II was the opposite of Sophie’s husband and siblings who were dull and prodding. In contrast to them, the Duke was tall, blonde, and glittering, especially once he became a man. Was Maximilian the product of this intense friendship? No one will ever know. When the Duke died at 21 of tuberculosis or as some have suggested, poisoning, Sophie never recovered from the loss of her best friend.
Maximilian would grow up to have a sparkle and a contradictory uniqueness about him. His dabbling in liberal politics would cause his elder brother Franz Joseph, the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, fits. Maximilian was an eager learner showing early on a love for the arts and science. He also loved the military, and rose quickly to become a high ranking officer in the Austrian navy. His first stint as a ruler was as viceroy of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia.
In 1857, he married Princess Charlotte of Belgium. The two were opposites in looks and temperaments. Where Maximilian was tall and fair, Charlotte was short and dark. Maximilian could be lively and frivolous, while Charlotte was quiet, serious, loved the music of Bach and books on history. In their case, which is often the case, opposites did attract.
Maximilian’s half brother, the Emperor Franz Joseph finally got fed up with his younger brother’s progressive policies. So he dismissed him from his position as viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia. Maximilian and Charlotte retired from public life and lived in Milan.
In 1859, Maximilian was faced with a highly unexpected proposal. He was approached by Mexican conservative monarchists to be their candidate as the emperor of Mexico. Maximilian eventually consented to the proposal, since he had a love for adventure and the exotic. His decision also fell in completely with Napoleon III’s desire to have permanent European control of Mexico.
In May of 1864, Maximilian and Charlotte landed in Veracruz, Mexico. Maximilian had spent the time since he had accepted the throne, learning enthusiastically all he could about his new country. Mexico was in turmoil when the couple arrived. French troops had been sent there after Mexico’s president Benito Juarez had been unable to repay foreign loans which Mexico had received from France, Spain, and Britain. Napoleon had used the issue of the loans to intervene militarily in Mexico. Maximilian and Charlotte had unknowingly arrived in the war torn country believing that a plebiscite by the Mexican people had declared him emperor. The plebiscite had been done under the gun with French troops around dictating that the Mexicans vote according to French plan. The majority of the population did not want foreigners running their country. They already had a leader, President Benito Juarez.
Like Maximilian, Benito Juarez was a remarkable individual. Where Maximilian had come from the halls of palaces, Benito Juarez had come from the dust. Juarez was an Amerindian of peasant stock. He said of his parents that they were "Indios de la raza primitiva del país," which in English means, "Indians of the primitive race of the country." He was the first pure blooded Indian to rule a nation in the Americas in over three centuries. Juarez grew up not even speaking Spanish. He spoke an Indian language, Zapotec. Until he was nearly a teenager, he worked as a farmer and a shepherd. A lay Franciscan noticed his high intellect and encouraged him to go into the priesthood. Juarez was a dedicated seminary student for awhile, but eventually his interests turned to law. He graduated from the seminary, but he also went on to earn a law degree.
Still not suspecting that they were dupes, Maximilian and Charlotte planned to have a coronation in the Metropolitana Cathedral in Mexico City. The coronation was never held because of constant unrest in the country. Maximilian and Charlotte made their home in Chapultepec Castle which is on a hill which had once been a retreat of the Aztec emperors. Since they were childless, they adopted a young Mexican child named Agustin de Iturbide y Green and his cousin Salvador. Both had been the grandsons of a former emperor of Mexico who had been forced to abdicate and was later executed. Agustin was to be Maximilian’s heir. Maximilian’s decision like so much he did in the beginning was an attempt to pacify the masses. Agustin was of Mexican, Spanish, and American descent. His mother had been an American named Alice Green. Perhaps Maximilian thought that by declaring a child of Mexican, Spanish, and American blood as his heir apparent, the Mexicans, Europeans, and Americans would see in a future ruler of mixed heritage someone who might be less threatening to their interests in the region. America was still engaged in its’ own turmoil with the Civil War. However, even though with it’s plate full, the American government did not feel comfortable with French interference in Mexico. The Monroe Doctrine clearly stated that European countries were not to interfere in any of the newly created states in the Americas. After the Civil War was over, the Doctrine would spell the end of Maximilian’s adventure.
Mexico had two rulers now: the Emperor Maximilian and President Benito Juarez. Maximilian began to steal ideas from the Juarez camp in an attempt to buy the trust of the Mexican people. He copied Juarez’s ideas on religious freedom, land reform, and voting rights which would go beyond the landholding classes. He offered Juarez amnesty if he would only swear allegiance to the crown. Juarez and the people were not about to be pacified by an unwelcomed, usurping foreigner. When pacification did not work, Maximilian ordered that all followers of Juarez be shot. This was in response to the republican (Juarez’s) force’s practice of executing followers of the empire. This draconian measure really turned the tide against Maximilian’s rule.
Once the American Civil War had come to a close, the US government began to ship arms to Juarez’s government. Napoleon III got nervous. With so much unrest in Mexico, being slapped by the Monroe Doctrine, and worries about mounting German power on the European continent, he suddenly withdrew all French forces leaving Maximilian and Charlotte (now Carlota) to fend for themselves. Betrayed and alone except for a few loyal followers, Carlota encouraged Maximilian to never waver in his determination. She reminded him that being a man of honor, it would be better to fight it out and die than to run back to Austria in defeat and disgrace. When they had accepted the throne of Mexico, they had relinquished any titles they had had back home. While Maximilian tried to hang on to power, Carlota went on an odyssey to France, Vienna, and Rome to plead her husband’s cause. When everyone looked the other way, including Napoleon III, who had been Maximilian’s chief supporter, Carlota had a nervous breakdown which turned into insanity. For 50 more years she would live in seclusion dying in 1927 at age 86.
Back in Mexico, Maximilian tried to hold out again the republican forces of Benito Juarez. While trying to escape through enemy lines, he was captured. He was imprisoned, court-martialed and sentenced to death. Many of the crowned heads of Europe including the author Victor Hugo sent letters and telegrams to the Mexican government begging that Maximilian’s life be spared. Benito Juarez refused. He wanted to send a clear message to the world that any government imposed on Mexico by foreigner powers would never again be tolerated. So on June 19, 1867, the former emperor of Mexico, Maximilian I was shot along with two of his generals Tomas Mejia and Miguel Miramon. This is Eduard Monet’s artistic view of the event. Maximilian did not wear a sombrero, and he did not stand in the middle. He asked that his executioners fire at his heart because he wanted his mother’s last view of him to be with a face unmarred by bullets. However, a possible stray bullet hit him in the eye. When his body was embalmed, a glass eye was positioned where the bullet had struck him.
Maximilian’s last words may have been either,
“Mexicans! Today I die for a fair cause: the freedom and independence of Mexico. May God allow my spilling blood to put an end forever to the disgraces of my new homeland. ¡Viva México!"
or
"I forgive everybody. I pray that everybody may also forgive me, and my blood which is about to be shed will bring peace to Mexico. Long live Mexico! Long Live Independence!”
Like his great aunt Queen Marie Antoinette 70 years earlier, Maximilian had been died violently so far from home. This macabre photo is of Maximilian's corpse. In 1939, Warner Brothers Pictures produced the drama Juarez with Brian Aherne as Maximilian, Bette Davis as Carlota, Paul Muni as Benito Juarez, and Claude Rains as Napoleon III. Aherne's Maximilian is almost saintly in his idealism. Also in the movie, Juarez’s hero and role model is President Abraham Lincoln, whose portrait he always keeps with him almost as if it is a religious icon. When Juarez asks one of his spies about the appearance of Maximilian, the man describes him as a “magnifico, who is tall and fair with hair like the summer corn.”
Below are two clips from the movie. In the tragedy of Maximilian and Carlota, the lessons of history have been forgotten by many, especially when we look at some recent events that have occurred on the world stage.
Arif Asci is a Turkish photographer who was born in Adana, Turkey in 1958. I absolutely love this photograph of this little girl somewhere in Istanbul. It is from Asci’s Istanbul Panorama series. With her braids extended and suspended, when I saw the photo I immediately thought of author Astrid Lindgren’s mischievous and outlandish character Pippi Longstocking.
I think the old man in the photo is the little girl’s grandfather. She has his eyes. This is what I imagined them to be saying before Asci took the picture.
Little Girl: Granddaddy, look at my braids.
Granddad: I see them, honey. I see them everyday. I’m trying to look at this camera right now. OK?
This little girl looks far too serious and reserved to be a Pippi, I think.
More of Asci’s photos from Istanbul Panorama can be seen here.
The beauty above is my dream mode of transportation.
Like a German friend once said to me, “Americans are such children.” I did not take offense either when she said it because I know some of us are perpetual whiners like some small children are. We really do need to grow up and stop being so afraid of everything that disrupts our rhythm in life.
One thing that is disrupting our rhythm is gasoline prices. Though prices have never been this high in the history of our nation, we Americans have been paying far less for gasoline to fuel our road hogs than our counterparts, particularly in Europe. Here is an article published in May on CNN Money comparing our prices to other countries. It is a little dated since the average price of gasoline has gone over $4.00 a gallon here since that time. A few years ago when we were spending half of what we are now, many Europeans were paying well over $5.00 per gallon of gas. Now that we are just over $4.00 a gallon, we are crumpling and mourning about the possible loss of our wasteful way of life. I believe the government banked on us being able to grab Iraq’s oil and keep everything cheap for our gas tanks, but c’est la vie. Where our counterparts in other places have not bought the most expensive homes, the most gas guzzling huge cars; have tried to maintain saving accounts, we have wasted gasoline, gotten into astronomical debt, and have generally been irresponsible because this is America and most people want to compete and try to have some of the accoutrements of the stars. We need to face facts and get out of our fairytale world inspired by our favorite television shows. We are not all stars, sports figures, rappers, or multimillionaires. Even they can go bankrupt or foreclose on their homes like the recent examples of Ed McMahonand Evander Holyfieldhas shown.
As for me, I never got into the rat race because the rat race did not inspire or interest me. Cookie cutter lifestyles are for the masses, the empty, and the unimaginative, as far as I am concerned. I do my own thing. Because I do not feel I have to drive a certain type of huge vehicle to be important, I have fell in love with scooters. When I first saw on film young people racing around the streets of Rome on these vibrant vehicles, I wished it was me. There is a romance and sophistication about scooters that cars and trucks do not have. To me, one of the most romantic images to me on the road is a guy with his girlfriend or wife behind him on a scooter. Last summer when I was in Fethiye, Turkey I saw couples on the road zipping along on scooters.
We Americans are so isolated these days. We don’t answer our doors to avoid potential criminals. We don’t bother to get to know our neighbors even though they have lived next door to us for 15 years. We don’t answer our telephones to avoid bill collectors. We don’t take time to do anything but work for all the unnecessary things that put us deeper in debt and destroy the environment often at the same time. We need to get off our dependency on oil. We need to conserve. We need to develop a massive and workable mass transit system that connects all towns and cities of this country so that we do not have to rely always on a car. We need to buy scooters and get out there in nature instead of riding down the streets and highways of this nation in huge air conditioned boxes.
This week the main newspaper of my town ran an article and a column about the virtues of scooters. Scooters are said to get from 60 to 100 miles a gallon. They can be easily ridden and controlled by almost anyone, unlike a motorcycle. In my city alone, scooters are being purchased so quickly by consumers that the retailers cannot keep them in stock. I am hoping scooters will become more of a wave of the immediate future here, with people keeping one car to drive around in when it is very cold, but using the remainder of the year to commute to work by scooter.
We have to change our way of thinking. I think the difficult times that this nation faces will make or break us. We will either become real men and women standing up to the challenge or we will remain spineless jellyfish crying and stamping our feet like small children whenever things don’t work out for us.
I think the day of the scooter has arrived in America. Here are three more beauties that I would not complain about owning.
Since I had a little bit of time on my hands, I decided to post these two Romantic music videos from a few years back as a finale to the week...Have a great weekend! Sade's By Your Side (2000)
Tom Tierney is an award winning fashion illustrator who has become a highly recognized creator of paper dolls almost by accident. He was born in Beaumont, Texas in 1928. Tierney began formally studying art when he was six.
Back in 1975 when he was trying to decide what Christmas gift to get for his mother, he remembered a paper doll collection which she had saved from when she was a girl in the early 1900s. This remembrance led him to a decision. He decided to create paper dolls for her that was representations of some of his mother’s favorite movie stars from the 1930s. The paper dolls he presented as a gift for his mother were of Jean Harlow, Greta Garbo, and Clark Gable. His mother was so pleased that she showed them to some of her friends, one of whom was a literary agent. The agent believed enthusiastically that Tierney’s Christmas gift to his mother could be the makings of a book on paper dolls. From that idea was born the book “Thirty from the 30s,” which was published in 1976.
Tom Tierney’s impromptu idea for a Christmas gift led him to create many books of paper dolls for Dover Publications. His subject matter ranges from historical figures (ie. John and Jacqueline Kennedy, Mary Queen of Scots, Martin Luther King, Jr., Pope John Paul II) to common people in the costumes of their region or era. He is the only paper doll artist to have his work featured in The New York Times book review. His work has also been featured in Smithsonian Magazine in an article about Dover. In recent years he has done paper dolls of Catherine Zeta-Jones, Cate Blanchette, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Nicole Kidman.
Tom Tierney says of his work,
"I feel that the most important thing about my paper doll books is that I am using the medium of the paper doll as an art form. To me, paper dolls can be more than just some 'cutsie' bit of fluff to be thrown at the children to perpetuate boredom. They can be artistic, vital, and alive and can tell us much about people, the clothes they wore, the way they lived and something of the times in which they lived. I also feel that the animation of the dolls and the costumes can indicate much about the personality of the subject. In conjunction with drawing the dolls I also write my own text, which I feel is an important adjunct to my books, explaining my `raison d'être' for treating the subject. Of course, I also thoroughly enjoy doing all the other sorts of illustration that I am involved in. The greater the variety, the less opportunity for stagnation to set in!"
I discovered Tom Tierney’s paper dolls accidentally online via Amazon. And what a fascinating discovery it was! I never could have imagined paper dolls that are for an older age group than little girls. These paper dolls are targeted at pre-teens to adults. They are not tear out, but have to be cut carefully with scissors and a utility knife. Cutting them can be a little too intricate for younger hands.
Tom Tierney also has a line of coloring books and books of historical fashions. His work can also be purchased on CD-ROM. The coloring books like the ones with paper dolls are geared to older children and even the occasional adult, like me, who loves to sometimes color. I can draw, but coloring can actually be very relaxing with Tierney’s books and their wonderful detail. Each paper doll, coloring, and costume book on historical and famous figures has an essay about the subject(s) and the outfits.
Limited previews of Tom Tierney’s books can be found on Google Books. These are his paper doll and coloring books that I own.
Another paper doll artist that I discovered yesterday is David Claudon. His fine work can be viewed here. His main site, David’s Gallimauphry, is worth looking at for its’ interesting historical resources.
Well, never say never. Because of responses here, on Blog Catalog, from internet blogger friends, the e-mails of fellow bloggers, and my mother, I have decided to continue with this blog. I will not set any exact days on when to expect posting here. Suffice it to say, I will write from two to four posts per month.
Some of my favorite blogs are because they are positive, inspiring, and open up a vista to the world past and present. These blogs tend to offer posts only a few times a month. I want quality over quantity. Lately I do not feel that I have been providing it here. With the time constraints I now face, it will certainly be less pressure to write on a limited monthly basis. Also the less I post, the more time I will have to do research and plan carefully and clearly the nature and the significance of what I present.
The last week of not blogging has actually been fun for me in a quiet way. I did not miss writing one bit despite loving it so. I had time to read an important book, focus on my spiritual side, write and receive some heart warming and loving e-mails, and generally not feel chained or burdened. I refuse to be chained to this blog. I have not finished reading War and Peaceyet which I started last year, however. I had put it aside to read other books and to write. Nor have I started with my guitar yet, but I feel I’ll get there. This week I have felt more at peace for the first time in about a year. Plus I keep discovering something about myself; I am developing a knack and the courage to encourage people. This is an ability that some see reflected in my writing here. This knack is the reason why my mother told me that maybe it was a mistake for me to stop blogging on this particular blog.
Anyway…
I am going to attempt to change my blog’s template over the next few days. Fellow blogger and internet friend Emma Alvarez forwarded a site to me with some wonderful templates for Blogger. Once or if I can change the format here, I will write my next post. Therefore, please check back.
For my readers, thanks for your kind comments which helped me to see that maybe what I am doing here is a little bit inspiring, interesting, or maybe useful for someone.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
In 1857, he married Princess Charlotte of Belgium. The two were opposites in looks and temperaments. Where Maximilian was tall and fair, Charlotte was short and dark. Maximilian could be lively and frivolous, while Charlotte was quiet, serious, loved the music of Bach and books on history. In their case, which is often the case, opposites did attract.
Maximilian was faced with a highly unexpected proposal. He was approached by Mexican conservative monarchists to be their candidate as the emperor of Mexico. Maximilian eventually consented to the proposal, since he had a love for adventure and the exotic. His decision also fell in completely with Napoleon III’s desire to have permanent European control of Mexico.
ike Maximilian, Benito Juarez was a remarkable individual. Where Maximilian had come from the halls of palaces, Benito Juarez had come from the dust. Juarez was an Amerindian of peasant stock. He said of his parents that they were "Indios de la raza primitiva del país," which in English means, "Indians of the primitive race of the country." He was the first pure blooded Indian to rule a nation in the Americas in over three centuries. Juarez grew up not even speaking Spanish. He spoke an Indian language, Zapotec. Until he was nearly a teenager, he worked as a farmer and a shepherd. A lay Franciscan noticed his high intellect and encouraged him to go into the priesthood. Juarez was a dedicated seminary student for awhile, but eventually his interests turned to law. He graduated from the seminary, but he also went on to earn a law degree.
coronation in the Metropolitana Cathedral in Mexico City. The coronation was never held because of constant unrest in the country. Maximilian and Charlotte made their home in Chapultepec Castle which is on a hill which had once been a retreat of the Aztec emperors. Since they were childless, they adopted a young Mexican child named Agustin de Iturbide y Green and his cousin Salvador. Both had been the grandsons of a former emperor of Mexico who had been forced to abdicate and was later executed. Agustin was to be Maximilian’s heir. Maximilian’s decision like so much he did in the beginning was an attempt to pacify the masses. Agustin was of Mexican, Spanish, and American descent. His mother had been an American named Alice Green. Perhaps Maximilian thought that by declaring a child of Mexican, Spanish, and American blood as his heir apparent, the Mexicans, Europeans, and Americans would see in a future ruler of mixed heritage someone who might be less threatening to their interests in the region. America was still engaged in its’ own turmoil with the Civil War. However, even though with it’s plate full, the American government did not feel comfortable with French interference in Mexico. The Monroe Doctrine clearly stated that European countries were not to interfere in any of the newly created states in the Americas. After the Civil War was over, the Doctrine would spell the end of Maximilian’s adventure.
xcept for a few loyal followers, Carlota encouraged Maximilian to never waver in his determination. She reminded him that being a man of honor, it would be better to fight it out and die than to run back to Austria in defeat and disgrace. When they had accepted the throne of Mexico, they had relinquished any titles they had had back home. While Maximilian tried to hang on to power, Carlota went on an odyssey to France, Vienna, and Rome to plead her husband’s cause. When everyone looked the other way, including Napoleon III, who had been Maximilian’s chief supporter, 
Carlota had a nervous breakdown which turned into insanity. For 50 more years she would live in seclusion dying in 1927 at age 86.
