Review by Kirkus Book Review
Brook-Shepherd's Hapsburg connections and leanings, intrinsic to both his biography of Emperor Charles I, The Last Hapsburg (1969) and his history of the winding-down of WW I, November 1918 (1982), issue now in a sympathetic portrayal of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1863-1914), the heir to the Austrian throne whose assassination by a Serbian nationalist famously touched off the Great War. To Brook-Shepherd, the Archduke's love for non-royal Countess Sophie Chetek, and their devoted morganatic marriage, are worthier of attention than ""the over-sentimentalized death pact of Mayerling."" But regardless of why Crown Prince Rudolph took Maria Vetsera's life and his own (not ""out of love for her""), the happier outcome of Franz Joseph's unsuitable choice--his success at winning the Emperor over, her winning performance as consort--won't displace the Mayerling story in the popular imagination. Brook-Shepherd also wants to raise Franz Ferdinand's general repute--and here he has even harder going. It's not too much to say, indeed, that nothing became the testy, suspicious, overbearing Franz Ferdinand as much as recognizing that he needed dignified, womanly Sophie as a balance wheel. By Brook-Shepherd's own accounting, Franz Ferdinand loathed the Hungarians who made up half the Dual Monarchy, scorned Austria-Hungary's Italian allies, and condemned the British for behaving as imperially as he would have in their place. His major achievement was modernizing Austria-Hungary's small navy. Had he lived, could he have ""cut the Hungarians down to size,"" contained Slav nationalism, preserved the Empire, prolonged the European peace? Not likely: it was ""the fact that he was determined to do anything at all which marked him off from the rest."" The book is thus founded on special pleading, idle speculation, and a little circumscribed revisionism: Franz Ferdinand wasn't a hawk in 1914--though he wasn't a ""compulsive peacemaker"" either (unlike nephew Charles); ""he knew that the Dual Monarchy was not yet ready for war."" This is the first biography of Franz Ferdinand in English, and it may well be the last; anyone curious about the uncelebrated victims of Sarajevo will find Brook-Shepherd informed and informative, and a fluent narrator--though the text gains momentum only as his principals, and their nemesis, approach the moment-of-reckoning. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
