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Reviews
Twilight of Empire: The Tragedy at Mayerling and the End of the Habsburgs by Greg King, Penny Wilson
cyberhavok's review
dark
informative
tense
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Adult/minor relationship, Murder, Suicide, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Violence, Classism, Addiction, Drug abuse, Incest, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Chronic illness, Misogyny, Alcoholism, and Gun violence
Minor: Child abuse and Animal cruelty
bunnieslikediamonds's review
3.0
The authors certainly cannot be accused of romanticizing the Mayerling murder-suicide. The main players - Crown Prince Rudolf & Mary Vetsera, Franz Joseph & Elisabeth and other assorted Habsburgs & hangarounds - are so unflatteringly portrayed you can practically hear them turning in their graves. I've no reason to doubt their unpleasantness, but the way the book dissects every shitty thing they did and said to eachother made me shudder a little. That, and all the gonorrhea.
The book dutifully covers every angle of the sordid affair, including the Death By Champagne Bottle theory which I didn't know was a thing. I actually wasn't aware there were so many conspiracy theories (which are all dismissed), or that an idiot furniture salesman in the nineties dug up Mary Vetsera's remains. I was left with no questions, just a renewed aversion to inbreeding and a deep appreciation of penicillin.
The book dutifully covers every angle of the sordid affair, including the Death By Champagne Bottle theory which I didn't know was a thing. I actually wasn't aware there were so many conspiracy theories (which are all dismissed), or that an idiot furniture salesman in the nineties dug up Mary Vetsera's remains. I was left with no questions, just a renewed aversion to inbreeding and a deep appreciation of penicillin.
blueskygreentreesyellowsun's review
3.0
"Absent documentation, history can only speculate about what happened between Rudolf and Mary at that isolated lodge" (p. 249). This is the most important thing to keep in mind about the incident at Mayerling.
The book is arranged so: Part 1 covers Rudolph's life and Mary's life up to January 28th 1889, which gives us the context and background for the incident; Part 2 is about what happened at Mayerling; Part 3 is about all the theories concerning the incident at Mayerling; and Part 4 is a summary of the first three parts stripped down to the essentials and mixed all together. Frankly I was irritated by the fourth part because 98% of it was a repeat of what came before, but at the same time one can't really skip it due to that new, interesting 2%. They would have done better weaving the good into the previous sections, keeping the Epilogue, and eliminating the rest of Part 4.
My other problem with this book concerns source material. The authors make it very clear that primary source material is scarce, due to the Emperor ordering basically everything about the incident destroyed or suppressed. Furthermore, everything that we do have, primary source or not, is of dubious truth because everyone - everyone - had reasons for lying about what happened at Mayerling; even Rudolph and Mary's letters are not to be trusted. And yet these same dubious materials are what the authors use as the basis for their book. It is hard for me to read that the memoir of so-and-so is filled with lies about Mayerling in order to protect their own skin, and then a few pages later read something presented as fact but whose source is that same lie-filled memoir.
Overall I'm conflicted about this book. On the one hand the first two parts were informative and exciting, but that final part was nothing short of tedious and left a bad impression behind.
The book is arranged so: Part 1 covers Rudolph's life and Mary's life up to January 28th 1889, which gives us the context and background for the incident; Part 2 is about what happened at Mayerling; Part 3 is about all the theories concerning the incident at Mayerling; and Part 4 is a summary of the first three parts stripped down to the essentials and mixed all together. Frankly I was irritated by the fourth part because 98% of it was a repeat of what came before, but at the same time one can't really skip it due to that new, interesting 2%. They would have done better weaving the good into the previous sections, keeping the Epilogue, and eliminating the rest of Part 4.
My other problem with this book concerns source material. The authors make it very clear that primary source material is scarce, due to the Emperor ordering basically everything about the incident destroyed or suppressed. Furthermore, everything that we do have, primary source or not, is of dubious truth because everyone - everyone - had reasons for lying about what happened at Mayerling; even Rudolph and Mary's letters are not to be trusted. And yet these same dubious materials are what the authors use as the basis for their book. It is hard for me to read that the memoir of so-and-so is filled with lies about Mayerling in order to protect their own skin, and then a few pages later read something presented as fact but whose source is that same lie-filled memoir.
Overall I'm conflicted about this book. On the one hand the first two parts were informative and exciting, but that final part was nothing short of tedious and left a bad impression behind.
srash's review
4.0
Re-examination of the scandalous murder-suicide of Austro-Hungarian Crown Prince Rudolf and his teenaged mistress. King and Wilson have written one of my all-time favorite historical nonfiction books (The Fate of the Romanovs), and I appreciated their well-written, engrossing deep dive into the tangled web that was the Habsburg imperial family. The Habsburgs tend to get lost in the shuffle of other better known empires of the time period, but they were a pretty eccentric, dysfunctional bunch, as the book amply demonstrates.
The authors do a good job of bringing to life the tragic world of Rudolf Habsburg and Mary Vetsera and make a compelling argument for their own take on the series of events that led to the shocking deaths, though ultimately it will always be speculation that can't be conclusively proven.
The authors do a good job of bringing to life the tragic world of Rudolf Habsburg and Mary Vetsera and make a compelling argument for their own take on the series of events that led to the shocking deaths, though ultimately it will always be speculation that can't be conclusively proven.
hannicogood's review
dark
informative
medium-paced
4.0
I’ve been fascinated by the dual monarchy for a while, so was excited to read this. The Mayerling incident has always seemed so tragic, but it was a little surprising to learn it was much worse than it seems on the surface. The book was fascinating and made a solid case as to the way events likely played out - and those events are weirder and sadder than I thought.
jmslib's review
informative
medium-paced
4.0
This kept my interest and was a fairly quick read. Nothing new or surprising revealed, just a very sad story.