“Chronicling the months leading up to and just after Crown Prince Rudolph Habsburg's suicide with a young lover in Mayerling, just outside Vienna. Morton paints a portrait of the city and the imperial sham that the Austro-Hungarian Empire had become, centered on this frustrated young man who was sharp, educated, sensitive, and utterly impotent to do anything constructive under the show-piece reign of his father, who seemed to believe that as long as the forms of empire were managed properly, the actual substance would take care of itself.
Reading several books about the period 1880 to 1914 seems essential to get a true grasp of the rot at the center of Old Europe that ultimately collapsed into the chaos of WWI. This would be a good one to add to any such reading list.”
