Blessed Charles of Austria

Charles Coulombe

Description

October 3, 2004 saw what appeared to many to be a very strange thing: Emperor-King Charles of Austria-Hungary, last Habsburg to rule in Central Europe and wartime foe of the United States, was raised to the altars of the Church as a Blessed by St. John Paul II. But odd as this appeared, the real story of the "Peace Emperor" and his just as remarkable wife reads like a combination of a suspense thriller, Greek tragedy, and hagiography. The inheritor of a tradition of Catholic monarchy dating back to the Roman Empire, Bl. Charles struggled to update it sufficiently to survive in the modern world. A brave soldier coming to the throne during a war whose start he had no part in, he risked everything to bring the bloody conflict to an end. Betrayed on all sides by allies, enemies, and subjects, his deep devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, the Sacred Heart, and the Virgin Mary helped him to avoid hating those who wronged him. Devoted to his wife and children, Charles succeeded, with the help of his loving Empress, in leading a good Catholic family life despite everything. In a life filled with signs and miracles before and after his death, Bl. Charles managed to combine a life of deep piety with intense practicality. After his death, his wife and children continued his work-her cause for beatification is now being considered.In these pages, prolific Catholic author Charles Coulombe brings to bear his vast erudition, affection for Catholic monarchy, and assorted contacts close to the Hapsburg family, through his residence in Austria in the production of a biography of a man whose thrilling and event-filled life story deserves to be better known.

Sujets

• Lettres et linguistique

Informations

• Publié par: TAN Books
• Date de parution: 27 août 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781505113297
• Langue: English

Extrait

BLESSED CHARLES OF AUSTRIA
BLESSED
CHARLES OF AUSTRIA
A Holy Emperor and His Legacy
CHARLES A. COULOMBE
TAN Books Gastonia, North Carolina
Blessed Charles of Austria: A Holy Emperor and His Legacy © 2020 Charles A. Coulombe
All rights reserved. With the exception of short excerpts used in critical review, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in any form whatsoever, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Cover design by Caroline Green
Cover image: Emperor Charles I of Austria, in uniform, (b/w photo) © SZ Photo / Scherl / Bridgeman Images
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020931190
ISBN: 978-1-5051-1328-0
Kindle ISBN: 978-1-5051-1330-3
EPUB ISBN: 978-1-5051-1329-7
Published in the United States by
TAN Books
PO Box 269
Gastonia, NC 28053
www.TANBooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
To the memory of His Imperial and Royal Highness Archduke Otto von Habsburg, this book is respectfully dedicated
CONTENTS
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Book One: The Inheritance
  1 The Imperial Idea
  2 Sacred Monarchy
  3 A Tale of Two Houses
  4 Pietas Austriaca
Book Two: Imperial Lives in Tandem
  5 Birth and Education of a Prince
  6 To Be a Soldier
  7 A Princess Enters
  8 Heir to a War
  9 A King Is Crowned
10 The Peace Emperor
11 Betrayal and Exile
12 Double Throw
13 Dry Martyrdom
14 The Long Watch
Book Three: The Legacy
15 Uncrowned Emperor
16 Blessings of a Blessed
17 Redux Austriae?
Envoi
Bibliography
Gazetteer
FOREWORD
W hen the Catholic Church elevates somebody to being blessed, he becomes an example to follow for all Christendom. At first glance, the question might arise, what makes Emperor Karl (Charles) 1 an example to copy? I’m very grateful to Charles Coulombe for undertaking a work to get a better understanding of the personality of Blessed Emperor Karl, his character, but also the very complex political situation in and through which he lived.
Having a grandfather who has been designated by the Catholic Church to the status of blessed gives you the possibility, but also the responsibility, to take a very personal look at his personality. Although I did not meet him, I had the good fortune to still have met several persons who knew him personally, and they were wonderful witnesses to give me a very vivid description of his character.
Thinking about Blessed Emperor Karl, three principal roles of the man present themselves: the soldier, the politician, and the family man. The most astounding fact is that Emperor Karl excelled in all three areas. “Excelling” does not mean that he was successful in his endeavors but rather that he approached all of his roles with the best intent and carried out his duties under the influence of and guided by religious values. One of his guidelines was to seek God’s will in all and everything he was undertaking and to strive to fulfill it in the best possible way.
As a soldier, he had vast experience of the front. Actually, he was the only head of state in the First World War who had this firsthand knowledge of what soldiers had to go through when they were sent to war. This definitely had a great impact on his decision-making process, especially his constant search for peace. But it was also influential in his conduct of the war. He was often accused regarding the use of chemical weapons during the war. The archives tell a different story: whenever possible, he stopped the use of that weapon. But since the militarily more dominant German “Bündnispartner” considered the use of gas as essential for success in war, Karl was not able to implement his will on every part of the frontline.
As a politician, he was also definitely much more able than the war propaganda admitted. He did not have the same apparatus at his disposal as did his predecessor as crown prince. Franz Ferdinand had a sizeable staff to plan for the future and prepare policy for the upcoming decades. Archduke Karl did not have this luxury but communicated frequently with Franz Ferdinand to get an understanding of his plans. Furthermore, when Karl came to power, WWI had already proceeded in a way where a victory was almost impossible. Although the German warmongers and their Austrian partners did still believe in a victorious peace, Emperor Karl was realistic enough to understand that, with the United States joining the war effort of the entente, a victory was impossible. He also understood very well that centralization could never be a solution for political problems. His “Manifesto to my peoples” is clear proof that he saw the principle of subsidiarity as a leitmotif for a supranational order—that is, that it should rightfully be an animating principle determining European politics also in our days. On the social side, his efforts for widows and orphans of the war, as well as in healthcare questions, was unique for the time and remained unparalleled in the rest of the world, often for decades.
Regarding the family man Karl, I was able to learn a huge amount from my grandmother, Empress Zita. He used every free moment in his very busy schedule to spend time with his family and to provide them with information into the affairs of state and of the war. It was very moving to hear, that he always said that the happiest time of his life was during his military positioning in Kolomea in today’s Ukraine, since it was there that he had the most time to spend with his young family, just expecting their first child.
On closer examination, Emperor Charles does not match the picture painted of him by the war propaganda. He was definitely not weak; he understood the perils of the situation and was trying to use all political and even family links to find a peaceful solution to the war. When it would have meant to continue the conflict and create more victims, as during the effort to regain power in Hungary, he chose to accept personal losses of power rather than to see more bloodshed. He was a true humanitarian.
From his life, we can learn that it is not necessarily the results or the achievements that count but the will to try to do what is right. And if the rewards don’t come immediately, there is no need to despair; if we live rightly, we can trust in God’s promise that they will come later in the form of heavenly blessings.
Archduke Karl von Habsburg
_____________
1 He is known as both Karl and Charles.
PREFACE
O ctober 3, 2004 saw what appeared to many to be a very strange thing: Emperor-King Charles of Austria-Hungary, last Habsburg to rule in Central Europe and wartime foe of the United States, was raised to the altars of the Church as a blessed by St. John Paul II. But odd as this appeared, the real story of the “Peace Emperor” and his just as remarkable wife reads like a combination of suspense thriller, Greek tragedy, and hagiography. The inheritor of a tradition of Catholic monarchy dating back to the Roman Empire, Blessed Charles struggled to update it sufficiently to survive in the modern world. A brave soldier coming to the throne during a war whose start he had no part in, he risked everything to bring the bloody conflict to an end. Betrayed on all sides by allies, enemies, and subjects, his deep devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, the Sacred Heart, and the Virgin Mary helped him to avoid hating those who wronged him. Devoted to his wife and children, Charles succeeded with the help of his loving empress in leading a good Catholic family life despite everything. In a life filled with signs and miracles before and after, Blessed Charles managed to combine deep piety with intense practicality. After his death, his wife and children continued his work—she is herself a candidate for beatification. The growth of devotion to the couple is a saga in itself—and a strange one given the times in which we are living.
Over one hundred years since the end of World War I, the twentieth century’s rejection of the religious and political values that built Western civilization have brought us to the point where abortion is—for many in public and private life—a sacred right; in more recent years, acceptance of gender confusion has joined freedom of infanticide as a measure of refined behavior. In a word, the formerly Christian world has given itself over to its lowest vices. What has it gained in return? Ever increasing hatred between classes, races, and the sexes; falling standards of every sort, to include personal civility; and the implosion of both family life and the birthrate. Our technology has vastly grown over the past decades and brought us many choice gifts—which we often misuse. Moreover, where once we were able to produce leaders of magnitude—and, love them or hate them, Churchill, de Gaulle, Eisenhower, and the rest who won the Second World War certainly qualified—we seem unable to do so today. What is true of political life is also true of culture, the arts, and all else.
From our vantage point, then, the idea that such a couple as Blessed Emperor Charles and his empress, Servant of God Zita, could have found themselves, however briefly, at the apex of what was still a great power seems utterly fantastic. In their piety, bravery, and good cheer, they seem like figures out of the stories of King Arthur and Charlemagne, characters from the pages of Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia . But they are not; the “Peace Emperor” died a little less than a century ago, and his enchanting consort only in 1988. Rather than the days when knights were bold, the imperial couple found themselves in a world of poison gas and U-boats; their foes were not Saladin or Suleiman the Magnificent but Georges Clemenceau and Woodrow Wilson. They may indeed have had the heroic hearts of crusaders, but they were very much people of our time.
This may well account, among other things, for their increasing popularity—not only in their former realms but in the United States. The inspiration they offe