Rudolph, age 17, his demons exposed. Early photographs reveal the inner Rudolph before he learned how to project the bland emptiness of the glamorous Prince Charming everyone wanted him to be. These photographs created the reputation in Rudolph’s life and after his death that he was a dangerous child and then a dangerous teenager and then a dangerous man.

People openly expressed their fear of Rudolph and blandly assumed that he was dangerous, deviant, and damaged. But no one in his lifetime bothered to ask themselves what damaged Prince Charming so that he became dangerous and deviant.

 

 

Crown Prince Rudolph’s claim to fame: Demons. Today that is all anyone remembers of Rudolph. Demons. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know. A cowardly hysteric. A morbid depressive. A murderous suicide. No one attempts to dissect the reputation to even see if it is true. Much less does anyone attempt to dissect the nature of the demons or the origin of the demons. The rest of Rudolph’s 30 years are completely ignored. His military career is completely ignored. Any alternative scenario to Mayerling being something other than morbid murderous suicide is completely ignored. Rudolph is judged exclusively for two shots fired from a civilian hand gun which was not even his (which by the way discharged all six chambers and was brought by Mary Vetsera).

Rudolph is judged as defective and hysterical and cowardly and weak because of his mental illness. His mental illness damns him with history.

That Rudolph struggled to persevere despite his mental illness and worked a ten hour job six days a week, and put between 10, 20, 30 ,sometimes 40   meetings and committees and military inspections and pomp events  a week, and sometimes held  up to 200 events a week, all while traveling all over the empire, while helping Baron Hirsch finish the Transcontinental Orient Express Railroad Corridor, while being seen by more citizens of the empire than either one of his parents, while writing half a dozen books and over 40 ornithology articles, while also writing  academic articles and political articles, while presiding over the launching of an ambitious 20 volume history of the empire, all while holding down an incredibly stressful and important job as Inspector General of Infantry overseeing the development of modern gunnery (which with only minor modifications became the gunnery of WW 1) is all entirely  ignored. Rudolph had Anxiety Depression intertwined with PTSD from child abuse  and probable OCD. Therefore Rudolph was defective, a coward, and weakling, a suicide.

 

As a Victorian officer and gentleman Rudolph valued his honor and reputation above all else. So it is a bitter tragedy that he died fighting only to be remembered as a morbid murderous suicide. (Please see Rudolph The Soldier and also Mayerling and Also the Crime Of The Fin De Siecle for more information how  Rudolph really died and why.)

The origins of Rudolph’s demons certainly lay in Rudolph’s’ childhood. Part was certainly genetic. Instead of 16 healthy branches on his family tree Rudolph enjoyed the dubious distinction of only 12 and most of those branches were inbred Habsburg and even more inbred Wittelsbach. As in the Wittelsbach Bane.

Both the Wittelsbachs and Habsburgs were breeding insane specimens before Rudolph was born. Francis Joseph’s own father was all but locked away and Sisi and Ludwig were both flamboyant nutters. Ludwig finally died badly. But Francis Joseph protected and financed Sisi’s carbon copy behavior of Ludwig including extravagant palaces, extravagant living in fantasy worlds, inability to do their job or fulfill their obligations, over the top obsessions with either Wagner or else Heine, running away from responsibility, frigid fear of sex (or else closet homosexuality and lesbianism), fear of being stared at, fear of public speaking, nervosa, anxiety depression, and ironically —- bad teeth. Rudolph was certainly a tragic byproduct of gross inbreeding. But why blame the child instead of the parents?

As you can see, Rudolph’s childhood featured several Risk Factors toward developing PTSD when he sustained child abuse. Wittelsbach Bane Genetics featured Anxiety and Depression. Other family members suffered from  mental illness. Rudolph lived in a Habsburg Hofburg   stressful environment. Rudolph held down  a stressful military job and stressful occupation of Crown Prince. Rudolph was injured by child abuse to the point of a total emotional and physical breakdown nearly to the point of death. And this was all  while suffering from parental neglect from cold and  absentee and excessively demanding parents. Rudolph had little  social or family support throughout his entire life.

Rudolph grow up in acute isolation. Rudolph rarely saw his parents except for Christmas for two hours, a week in the summer when the world came to bow to Francis Joseph during his birthday celebrations, and a few weeks at Godollo in autumn when Francis Joseph and Sisi held court in Hungary before and during the War Games. Rudolph might be displayed during the Victorian version of  ‘photo ops’ and as a prop to display ‘Family Values’ during some  Spanish Etiquette Pomp and Circumstances. Then Rudolph was shoved back into his isolation which amounted to a virtual quarantine.

The quarantine featured  13 hour days toiling away under a tutor and an army of 50 professors and academics. No friends. No childhood. No play unless drilling how to be a little soldier qualifies as ‘play’. After Wowo was fired Rudolph rarely was even allowed to see his beloved sister Gisela. Much less anyone else.

Francis Joseph occasionally conducted an inspection and then wrote long memorandums to Rudolph’s handlers criticizing Rudolph’s sickly body, anxiety ( which he called cowardice), then his anxiety depression (which he ordered Latour to flog out of the boy), then his PTSD  and  OCD symptoms which he considered the Wittelsbach Bane. And not matter how hard Rudolph tried, nothing he could do was ever good enough to be considered worthy of being the son of Francis Joseph.

Rudolph’s relationship with his father was tense. When Francis Joseph first beheld his only son he bellowed what a stout and sturdy and strong little boy he was and pinned a military metal of Colonelcy on his lace draped cradle.

Francis Joseph was quickly disillusioned by the court doctors who told him Rudolph was small and stunted and  sickly. Rudolph remained small and stunted and  sickly through all of his childhood before finally sustaining a slight growth spurt in late adolescence to end up the exact height of his father. In fact Father and Son appeared remarkably alike— at least outwardly.

Both Father and Son were Habsburgs Reds. But the comparison stopped there. Francis Joseph was remarkably strong, determined, self centered, seldom doubting (‘I command to be obeyed!’) —- if seldom right, self absorbed, and obtuse.

Rudolph was imaginative, highly strung, brilliant, sickly, and first a sufferer of Anxiety and after the Brutal Colonel’s tenure a sufferer of Anxiety Depression intertwined with  PTSD and probably OCD. The three mental illnesses tend to converge and intertwine to form a throbbing  knot of psychic pain.One bio of Rudolph compared Rudolph to an elegant greyhound racing against an ugly long distance hound with the temperament of a pit bull. All Francis Joseph had to do was run
Rudolph to death. That he did with brutal ease.

Francis Joseph openly ridiculed Rudolph’s books and asked Rudolph to his face who ghost wrote his forward to his twenty volume History of the Austro Hungarian  Habsburg Monarchy In Words And Pictures. Francis Joseph ridiculed Rudolph’s academic pursuits, his ornithology (bird science), his passion for science and technology, his wish to attend university, his lousy horseback riding, his inability to be the great hunter which Francis Joseph was, and his failure to be worthy of being his son. Francis Joseph never missed an opportunity to undercut his son.

When Rudolph helped to organize a very important world class electric convention in Vienna Francis Joseph did not bother to attend the opening events or indeed any events. That was the cue everyone in the Hofburg needed. No one in the Hofburg attended the electric convention. Prime Minister Taaffe did not attend the electric convention. Sisi did not bother to attend the electric convention. Valerie did not bother to attend the electric convention. The entire  Hasburg Establishment and Government totally ignored an important scientific and technological project with the eyes of the world spotlighted on it because Rudolph was its royal patron and co-organizer. It was the ultimate back handed and deliberate cold shouldering of the Crown Prince as could be conceived or executed. It perfectly summed up how Rudolph was treated by his father and his family and the entire Habsburg Hofburg. Francis Joseph made it perfectly clear that he considered Rudolph a failure in every sense of the word and utterly unworthy of being the next heir to the throne.

Even the most sane of persons would ultimately wither and emotionally bleed under such a weight of verbal abuse and perpetual ridicule and emotional castration. Because of Rudolph’s PTSD Rudolph was especially vulnerable to such belittling —- especially as Anxiety Depression intertwined with PTSD promotes low self worth and excessive guilt. That is why so many bios assume Mayerling was naturally suicide. How could Rudolph possibly survive Francis Joseph?

And in fact Francis Joseph did drive his son into an early grave — just not the sort of early grave everyone assumes. (Please see The Crime Of the Fin De Siecle).

Rudolph’s relationship with his mother was terrible. Books and movies idolized Sisi. But while Sisi might have been one of the most beautiful women of her age, a sort of precursor to Diana, she was a terrible parent.

Sisi sustained a total emotional and mental and physical breakdown shortly after giving birth to Rudolph as well as sustaining a bout of gonorrhea from Francis Joseph. Did the STD occur before or after birthing Rudolph? It  rather hard to tell. Gonorrhea ultimately renders both sexes sterile but initially a woman might show no symptoms whatsoever. And if she gives birth during  a fresh infection she can potentially infect her child at least with gonorrhea eye infections.  While a skillful doctor can save a baby’s eyes from birth  blindness it does have to be asked why Rudolph did suffer from childhood on from  weak eyes and continuous eye infections and  then glaucoma even before he was infected by gonorrhea himself.

And certainly Rudolph’s reaction to gonorrhea is remarkably like his mother’s reaction. Dreadful. Almost near to death. Rather atypical to normal sufferers like Francis Joseph who showed remarkably few symptoms and did not even become impotent until sustaining too many re-infections in his many years of womanizing and string of mistresses.

Sisi certainly also suffered from post birth depression with possible murderous side symptoms. Archduchess Sophie was apparently afraid to leave Sisi alone in the nursery and later Sisi did try to endanger Gisela’s babies. So the tragic death of little Sophie has to be a concern. She certainly blamed Rudolph for her complete mental and physical  breakdown.

Sisi was probably frigid (a Lesbian like Ida Ferenczy?). Sisi  apparently never developed a liking for sex or childbirth  in any way, shape, or form whatsoever. Sisi displayed an abnormal loathing for Gisela and Rudolph and indirectly or directly caused the death of little Sophie. Sisi clearly considered Gisela and Rudolph to be her Mother-in-law’s children and not her children. She was just their stepmother.  Sisi later admitted she simply could not love them  — ever.

Francis Joseph waited three days to finally consummate the marriage bed so basically to procreate Francis Joseph had to rape Sisi. So Sisi probably saw little Sophie, Gisela, and Rudolph as symbols of rape as well as symbols of disgusting sex and hideous pregnancy and loathsome childbirth and profound post birth depression. (Please see the Valerie section for intel on Valerie).

Sisi kept riding recklessly when pregnant with Rudolph to miscarry. Sisi kept starving herself because of her anorexia nervosa so she starved Rudolph in the womb. Rudolph was born sickly and stayed sickly all of his life. Even in the womb Rudolph probably felt rejected by his mother who carried him to term grudgingly as if a little parasitic monster devouring her from inside her womb.

Sisi ignored Rudolph as a child when he almost died of a concussion, then typhoid, and then a total emotional and physical breakdown which brought Rudolph near to death for yet a third time in his childhood  (possibly with a concussion) caused by  child abuse sustained under the psychopathic ‘Brutal Colonel’ Count Gondrecourt.  In fact Sisi never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity to support her son in his tragically short life.

Latour had to emotionally blackmail Sisi into at least writing to Francis Joseph to demand that he  fire the notorious child abuser.  Sisi finally materialized for a week or so but that does not cure child abuse which in Rudolph’s case  evolved into PTSD while turning Anxiety into Anxiety Depression.

The Wittelsbach gene for Depression  was dormant  in little Rudoph before the abuse started. Rudolph in his Wowo days was always described as bright and sunny and precocious, if also  careful, nervy, and highly strung. So little Rudolph always had Anxiety. But the  child abuse ‘turned on’ the Wittelsbach gene of Depression. The little boy showed no sign of Depression before the child abuse. Nervy  and  high strung  translates into Anxiety. Sure. Not Depression.

Ironically, Sisi (as well as Ludwig) displayed the same classic symptoms of Anxiety Depression in her life so she bequeathed her genes to Rudolph. But Sisi never related to Rudolph despite the fact he inherited so much from his mother (excluding only her famous beauty). Despite the fact he was very much his mother’s son she never sympathized with Rudolph when he displayed the Wittelsbach Bane which defined her own  unhappy life. The traumatized child Rudolph and then the adult Rudolph thereafter displayed all of the classic symptoms of first Anxiety, then Anxiety Depression  and also PTSD.

Just as statistically speaking childhood trauma will result in PTSD if Risk Indicators are present, so PTSD and Anxiety Depression will intertwine together. Key symptoms of PTSD are Anxiety Depression. Anxiety Depression and PTSD share most of the same symptoms . And the intrusive thoughts and flashbacks of Anxiety Depression and PTSD  lead to OCD. OCD  features obsessive thoughts which trigger compulsive mechanisms to control the obsessive thoughts which can be PTSD intrusive thoughts and flashbacks.

It is a proven fact that child abuse can and very often will  cause PTSD. Some charts rate the odds close to 50% if there  are Risk Factors. And the Risk Factors of PTSD all but guaranteed that Rudolph would get PTSD from the prolonged and dangerously unmonitored child abuse he sustained. And the cold, remote, and  absentee parents and hired surrogates can only magnify the probable Risk Factors for getting PTSD.

In fact the dominant nervosa in Rudolph was PTSD intertwined with Anxiety and then Depression. PTSD magnifies pre-existing conditions and ‘turns on’ dormant genes as well as triggering the body to over produce the chemicals of fight or flight. This is called hypo vigilance. The body is perpetually on ‘high alert’ in anticipation of being attacked and endangered. It is not even a question of ‘happiness’ vs unhappiness. It is a question of not even being able to relax or calm down or be serene.

So isn’t Depression just Depression just Depression? And if PTSD increases the  odds for  self harm and potential suicide no less than Depression when who cares if PTSD is the dominate neurosis? Well! There is a difference! The mental illness is different. The impact is different.   The full psychic cocktail of symptoms are different. Therefore  the treatment must be different.

Nowadays no good doctor would call a sufferer of PTSD just another morbid depressive. He or she would list PTSD first and prepare a treatment that factors in PTSD intertwined with Anxiety Depression. Just preparing a  treatment for morbid depression would completely fail a person suffering from PTSD intertwined with Anxiety Depression originating in acute trauma.

Most bios simply say Rudolph was morbid and depressive as well as cowardly. They don’t differentiate between Rudolph’s original Anxiety and the emergence of post child abuse Depression. They don’t connect how his Anxiety Depression are connected to PTSD. They  don’t  even acknowledge PTSD. Much less the trauma which was  the trigger.

Only one bio was actually written by a medical doctor in 1988. It predates modern research into PTSD which has only come out of the shadows since the Iraq – Afghanistan Wars.   And most bios predate sophisticated psychology in general despite the fact Rudolph lived in Vienna which was already the capital of nervosa which today is psychoanalysis.

The  recent studies in PTSD have also moved PTSD (originally called Shell Shock in WW 1 and Battle Fatigue in WW 2) from simply a Warrior Disorder into the mainstream. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can be triggered by any number of traumas and especially childhood traumas when the child is especially defenseless and vulnerable. And experts  are only now studying  how PTSD intertwines  with Anxiety Depression  by acting like a magnifier. PTSD  magnifies preexisting conditions and also preexisting risk factors and stressors including environmental stress factors and job  stressors. The latest research into PTSD is  how PTSD originates from trauma and how and why PTSD picks which traumatized person to coil itself around.

Likewise the dated bios rarely explore the connection of PTSD intertwined with Anxiety  Depression and the probable development of OCD. OCD’s igniting  obsessions (like flashbacks or intrusive thoughts)  which  trigger compulsive copping mechanisms share many symptoms with PTSD like anxiety, depression, low serotonin, excessive generation of the body’s chemicals of fight or flight, and origins in trauma. In all probability Rudolph also had OCD as well.

So simply calling Rudolph a morbid depressive coward is a dated and grossly inaccurate explanation of Rudolph’s mental illnesses. Likewise most bios of Rudolph ignore the child abuse just as they ignore  Rudolph’s job and the Gun Crisis.  These omissions are all grossly unfair to Rudolph and arbitrarily cast Mayerling into the sordid last act  of just another morbid depressive instead of a complex collision of events  including Rudolph’s PTSD -Anxiety-Depression -OCD and the conflicts originating in  his job overseeing modernization of the army and the development into modern gunnery as well as  his collision with Albrecht, Bismarck, Willy, and Francis Joseph with Mary Vetsera (who was a suicidal  erotic maniac and stalker) throwing an additional monkey wrench into  the complex collision of events.

So why does all of this matter? And how does Sisi’ absentee behavior connect? The absentee Sisi stalled for almost  six months before Latour finally blackmailed her into writing to Francis Joseph to demand that a child abuser be fired. And that  was after months of abuse to begin with. At that point Rudolph had sustained a total emotional and physical breakdown and was near to death (through the court doctors had no idea how to label the breakdown of the crown prince’s health and sanity which endangered his  very survival). So both parents are implicated in the result: the trauma of  sustained child abuse.

Sisi’s  continuing absenteeism, emotional rejection, coldness, and irrational rants about evoking the dire spirits to curse Rudolph  all led to the trauma of child abuse as well as the byproduct which became  Anxiety Depression  intertwined with PTSD and probable OCD. So Sisi is  no less than Francis Joseph caused the outcome which she then labeled ‘cowardice’ and  ‘dangerousness’.

Sisi’s normal definition of parenthood was to materialize for a few hours and grandstand as if a Fairy Godmother while talking entirely about her self before vanishing again for months at a time. Beside being narcissist, that reinforced a sense of rejection and abandonment. Gisela and Rudolph grew up feeling abandoned by Sisi with Francis Joseph existing as only a distant, god-like, and remote authority figure. Rudolph grew up an orphan with both  parents living. That reinforced his sense of rejection, of guilt, and of profound unworthiness which was heightened by  Anxiety Depression and PTSD.

Surrogate parents in the form of nannies and tutors and servants and handlers do not replace parents.  One of the risk factors for an abused child developing PTSD is lack of parents and lack of family support and a lack of  any sense of solid, unconditional,  emotional love and trusted caring.

Sisi was entirely derelict in her responsibility as a mother. The last time Sisi saw Rudolph was over Christmas  when he tried to press a gift of priceless letters from Heine into her hands while trying to kiss her while crying.

Sisi responded by brushing him away while raving that she would evoke the dire spirits to curse him for plotting endless fiendish  plots to harm her Einzige Only One Valerie and her nonentity of a part time soldier fiancée .

The later accusation  was truly  ironic. Not only was Sisi projecting her own hysterical hatred of the man conspiring to steal away her Eingize Only One but Rudolph was facing a secret paralegal star chamber court martial which was about to condemn him to death with a military execution set for January 30th at 6:30 AM. All  while Albrecht’s minions were doing everything to undermine Rudolph’s military authority while all but forbidding him from even attending military meetings while impeaching his military competence while libeling his military ability while besmirching his military honor and reputation. How the hell could Rudolph wreak a chocolate soldier’s nonexistent career as Rudolph’s own hard earned career was being smashed to pieces by Albrecht, Bismarck, and Willy? All while Francis Joseph stood  by and did absolutely nothing as Rudolph was crucified? Even during that miserable last Christmas Francis Joseph just smoked a cheap cigar as Rudolph cried while trying to kiss his cold and narcissist mother while Francis Joseph  probably sneering his soon-to-be-condemned  son as a whining and gutless coward.

Sisi never saw Rudolph alive again to make it up to him with any sort of last moment emotional gesture. Her words cursing him rang in Rudolph’s ears as he died brutally at Mayerling. Sisi might have been the most beautiful woman of her age but as a mother she was a criminal failure.

 

Rudolph’s relationship with his sister Gisela remained deep throughout their entire life. But Gisela was forced to marry an nonentity in Munich which was in enemy territory. Then she became  absorbed into her own life and husband and children. So Rudolph could rarely see her. Their support was through letters. Sometimes Rudolph would write a letter offering to give Gisela anything her heart desired, leaving the letter blank for her to fill her heart’s desires. Gisela would write back that her deepest heart’s desire  was simply to see Rudolph.

Both brother and sister grew up victims of child abuse and neglect. Rudolph was abused. Gisela was simply a human afterthought forced to watch the abuse  in fear. Please note in the above Narcissist Chart that ‘triangulation’ is a common ploy to pitch children against each other to earn their mother’s dubious love. The only winner of ‘triangulation’ played by Sisi was the Einzige Only One Valerie —- as long as the Only One served as a mirror to reflect back Sisi (Please see Rudolph The Child for more details).

Both brother and sister grew up wary, defensive, suspicious, and bitterly disappointed in Sisi and aloof Francis Joseph .Oddly, both condemned Sisi far  more than the authority figure Francis Joseph. You don’t expect love from authority figures who are emperors anyway. Emperors and demigods are  not expected to be human. Emperors and demigods don’t care. Emperors and demigods are all powerful . Not all loving. But both brother and sister developed deep affections for their own children and proved to be very devoted hands on parents.

Rudolph’s relationship with Valerie the Einzige Only One of Sisi was naturally appalling. After all, Valerie was the Einzige Only One. Sisi openly told one and all she could not love Gisela or Rudolph. There was only one human being in the entire world who Sisi said she could love with every ounce of her being: The Einzige Only One Valerie. What did that make red haired Rudolph? Chop liver? No! Worse!  Vermin! You know! Like those red foxes which Sisi loved to hunt, always there for the kill when the dogs tore that red furry vermin to pieces before her eyes! That sort of red furry vermin!

Valerie was born ten years after Rudolph under highly suspicious circumstances in Hungary away from the strict protocols of Spanish Etiquette during a stressful time requiring Andrassy to sell the unpopulated duel monarchy. Francis Joseph has just sustained a terrible military defeat of  towering humiliation and Francis Joseph was profoundly hated in Hungary. That forced Francis Joseph to the negotiation  table with Andrassy.  And  the fear of Bismarck’s warmongering  forced Andrassy to the negotiation table with Francis Joseph. Both bitter men agreed to a duel monarchy instead of open Hungarian independence which might leave Hungary  vulnerable to hostile takeovers while losing the Hinterland, Trieste, and Balkans to Russia and/ or Italy .

But the duel monarchy could only be sold if Sisi became the sugar in the spoon full of bitter medicine that was Francis Joseph the most hate man in Hungary. But Sisi’s grasp of reality was as precarious as Ludwig’s.

So Andrassy manufactured a miracle birth of a female —therefore dynastically worthless —- which allowed Sisi to avoid all of the things she hated like sex, Francis Joseph, pregnancy, losing her famous 18 inch waistline, infringing on her anorexia nervosa, or making her ugly. A miracle birth indeed! Valerie the Bed Pan Miracle!

And while Sisi always complained that Sophie prevented her from loving Gisela and Rudolph by preventing her from breast feeding she most oddly declined to breast feed Valerie when she had the opportunity to do so. Instead she hired and fired milk nurses and nannies and governesses endlessly which probably profoundly hurt the first milk nurse Andrassy found to nurse the miracle baby (if you get my drift).

Valerie was given everything Rudolph could not have: unconditional love, spoiling, adoration, encouragement, praise, rich digs, a bathroom. Every luxury. Every golden babble. Sisi’s over the top adoration and smothering, obsessive love. Francis Joseph’s bland acceptance. After all she was dynastically worthless. Francis Joseph could be benevolently bland to dynastically worthless and utterly powerless females trapped in the golden cage called the Hofburg. That is why Rudolph’s will ironically asked Francis Joseph to be Erzsi’ guardian instead  of the murderous Stephanie.  Emperors and demigods don’t feel human emotions but might care enough about some helpless thing to protect it as if a pet.

Heck. Francis Joseph did not even need a son. He intended to rule forever — and Francis Joseph did not share! Well! Not at least until the end when  he knew his empire was imploding in the dark decline and fall of WW 1.  Then  Francis Joseph  named Karl and Zita as his final heirs —- knowing they would inherit nothing because nothing would be left!

So how could Rudolph and Gisela not hate Valerie? Sure! Heck! They hated her guts! But Rudolph by and large restrained his urge to strangle the impossibly spoiled  Einzige Only One who smirked and preened as he was belittled and neglected and insulted and ignored and undermined and  denied and finally brutally murdered.

It is a common sort of child abuse for parents to focus all of their love on one child while  ignoring  another child while abusing   one  targeted  child. Just because Cinderella Rudolph was  the son and crown prince that did not mean his parents treated him well. Quite the contrary. That meant they focused their hatred and feuding  with each other onto  him. Rudolph got all of the drudgery and duties and burdens and obligations and conflicting loyalties  while The Enzige Only One danced the night away . That meant that Rudolph was the target of their their impossible demands. Rudolph was the scapegoat of their clash and stress and unhappiness.   Rudolph was  their battlefield on which Francis Joseph and Sisi emotionally  warred as their fairy tale marriage turned into a nightmare.

Rudolph’s relationship with his wife was likewise dreadful. Please read Rudolph In Marriage for the terrible details. Not only was Sisi a narcissist. Stephanie was. Stephanie married Rudolph to become Empress. She openly said that. She openly said she found Rudolph ugly and repulsive. Rudolph was a means to an end: to be Empress. That made Rudolph expendable when the goal could no longer be achieved. By late in 1888 the goal was no longer achievable.

During his life Stephanie nagged, belittled, harangued, emotionally castrated, heckled, ridiculed, undermined, and symbolically stabbed Rudolph in the back. She ignored his interests and  duties  and job and needs. She gave him absolutely no support whatsoever. Quite the contrary. She was his worse enemy because she attacked him from behind as he tried to fend off attacks of Francis Joseph and Sisi and Valerie and Albrecht and Bismarck and Willy and the Corrupt Camarilla and the snobbish First Estate Hochadel and Prime Minister Taaffe and von Holstein the Spy Master for Bismarck.

Evidence exists that Stephanie tried to poison Rudolph with arsenic. That was Attempt Number One. Attempt Number Two occurred during November/December of 88. Please read the Paramatta Mystery to find out who Stephanie joined the conspiracy   to kill her own husband. Stephanie was a murderess. Her mode of murder: poison.

 

Rudolph’s relationship with Mizzi Caspar was as inspiring as his relationship with his wife was appalling. Gossipy Carl Lonyay confirmed that MC was Rudolph’s significant other from almost the beginning. Rudolph even took MC to Brussels to meet the dreadful Rubber Princess. Rudolph spent the last hours of his last night in Vienna  in the arms of MC. MC was Rudolph’s ‘Camilla’. His anchor. His foundation. His solace. His true love.

Rudolph told people in the last weeks of his life that he loved MC. Who else did he need he replied (referring to rumors of Mary Vetsera). He had MC. He loved MC. He did not need anyone else. And no one else could provide the unconditional love, deep support, compassion for his Anxiety Depression and PTSD and probable OCD, with loyalty and good humor and selfless compassion.

 

Some bios underestimate MC. Other bios agree that MC rather than Mary Vetsera was the love of Rudolph’s life.

No one knows much about MC other than the fact she was some sort of lower middle class something or other and arrived with her mother to  Vienna where she met a very young lieutenant  who probably did not even confess  at the time that he was even a prince . Neither were wealthy or handsome or beautiful. They fell in love before she knew he was a prince. And after falling in love MC never ever exploited Rudolph’s princely connections in any way whatsoever.

Rudolph apparently moved into MC’s flat which she shared with …..her mother. So when Rudolph lived with MC he lived with Mizzi and her mother Mrs. Caspar.

Later Rudolph moved Mrs. and Miss Caspar to a better middle class flat which he paid in installments  along with middle class furnishing which Rudolph paid for in monthly installments as well. Rudolph’s  tiny Hofburg stipend was  the smallest of any archduke or crown prince in Europe . Rudolph likewise bought MC some five middle class pieces of jewelry —- likewise on installment payments. Clearly MC was not profiting off Rudolph. In fact Rudolph’s love would leave her  in a terrible bind when he died.

Rudolph left a tiny slush fund of money in an envelope in his desk to give to MC after his death —- some of it clearly  a desperate last minute charity loan from his friend Baron Hirsch.  On parting for the last time Rudolph atypically drew the sign of the cross on MC’s forehead and whispered ‘It must be so’ as they kissed for the last time.

After Rudolph’s death MC refused to betray Rudolph’s memory while Helen Vetsera built an extravagant tomb to cash in on Mary’s infamy. Today MC’s grave is lost to history and  no one remembers her true blue devotion and loyalty and profound love to Rudolph. But  everyone knows Mary’s name. But infamy is not love. And obsessive love is not love either. Maybe Mizzi was not beautiful or a second rate baroness but Mizzi was Rudolph’s ‘Camilla’. The question is this: was MC’s profound love enough to fill the aching void and emotional pain which Rudolph suffered. Any middle class  wife of any returning soldier with PTSD is probably asking herself the same question.

 

The crushing suffocation of the Hofburg did not make Rudolph’s life any easier. The Hofburg was the largest palace in Europe —-without one functioning bathroom. The last attempt to modernize it was a desperate attempt to add gaslight.

It grow organically over the centuries to become a maze of power and corruption. The Corrupt Camarilla inhabited the maze of power like rats devouring the Hofburg from the inside out. The Hofburg was a hollow shell of absolute power as the empire slowly stumbled blindly off the cliffs of historic doom.

The official policy of the Fin De Siecle was Fortwurschsteln: Muddling Along. It was a slow motion waltz toward disaster which no one seemed able to stop. While the Corrupt Camarilla devoured the Hofburg from the inside  out, Prime Minster Taaffe cynically gave Francis Joseph  ‘busy work’ to sign which was utterly useless. He would slip important documents inside folders of tripe to confuse the aging tyrant. Francis Joseph was encouraged to write long memorandums about how to polish buttons  on tunics  or how to modify gaudy parade uniforms as if that would help soldiers about to face Maxim Machine Guns. Taaffe would cut out newspaper articles and color highlight the important lines to give to Francis Joseph. Francis Joseph entirely relied  on Taaffe and Albecht for all information. Rudolph was deliberately kept out of the loop at all times.

Per Spanish Etiquette no one could speak first to Francis Joseph  (except the defiant Sisi who mostly just ran away). But Francis Joseph was too ignorant/and/or insecure or else oblivious  to talk to anyone.  Isolated by Spanish Etiquette and by Taaffe, Francis Joseph was cocooned and symbolically imprisoned in the Hofburg.   When hunting with Rudolph Francis Joseph would pick the topics which his son was allowed to answer. The topics were hunting, riding, and the military. But the later topic only pertained to Rudolph’s failure to be the soldier and son and heir which Francis Joseph expected. The topic of riding was equally humiliating of course. And even the topic of hunting was bound to be humiliating because no one was as good a hunter as Francis Joseph.

Rudolph would write long memorandums to Francis Joseph —- which Taaffe tossed into the trash. This use of long impersonal memorandum writing was a trick Rudolph picked up from his father. Francis Joseph preferred to communicate whenever possible by memorandum and non verbal  inspection or else pomp and circumstances where he was not expected to say more than three short sentences.

No one could pierce the sacred  Inner Sanctum of Francis Joseph to warn him that the empire was on autopilot and was flying right into a mountain called the Twentieth Century.

The Hofburg was all but paralyzed by Spanish Etiquette which was a centuries long evolution of antiquated rituals dating back to Ancient Rome. By the Fin De Siecle the Spanish Etiquette was so overgrown it all but obscured the form and function of the Hofburg. Elaborate rituals of social behavior dictated when drums and bugles would blare for baby  buggies  and what sort of carriage boasted what sort of gold gilt with  what sort of wheel for what sort of First Estate or Second Estate member of the elite. There were court balls and balls at court and heaven save you if you confused the two! It was like the Castle of Sleeping Beauty where everyone was paralyzed by enchantment as biers and brambles  grew over one and all.

The Spanish Etiquette required lowly servants to cower and say ‘I prostate myself before——‘ before adding ‘And can I haul out your slops?’. The Telephone Exchange was rationing precious telephone time because the first  ten  minutes required the telephone operators to deliver a five minute verbal groveling before the person on the telephone could  reply with three minutes of polite acknowledgement of their groveling before the telephone line could then be connected to the other person on the line who then had to offer  three minutes of verbal groveling politeness  before the original person on the line finished the the ten minute  exercise of  verbal groveling politeness by acknowledging more  verbal groveling  politeness. All before a genuine conversation could even commence!

Shops. Stores. Businesses. Professional. Medical. Academic. Military. Everyone was paralyzed by the suffocating Spanish Etiquette. This was Victorian gentility  on over drive multiplied ten times over to  the nano-degree of absurdity. Efficiency and productivity were all but impossible.

Like his mother Sisi, Rudolph found all of this absolutely maddening. Stephanie loved it of course! Especially  the groveling! But Rudolph conspired to elude it.

He took back routes into the Hofburg or else jumped out of the carriage before the drums and bugles exercise commenced. He took roof top routes in and out. He deliberately wrote on deceptively generic (but carefully security watermarked) paper to write his hundreds of notes and letters a month everyone. Everyone who attended one of his 10, 20, 20, 30 , 40 meetings plus a week got a gracious thank you note from their Shining Prince. Each note personally hand written and signed by Rudolph. No wonder he suffered from carpal tunnel!

Rudolph likewise tried to avoid the showy garb and preferred wherever possible  to wear very generic Hofburg tunics or military tunics with all extravagance removed to present a simple façade of magnanimous graciousness. Rudolph liked to meet and chat with people one on one and converse sans Spanish Etiquette in their own language. And Rudolph always carefully researched to understand not only the language but the history and culture and needs and yearnings of each of his citizens. No wonder his 20 volume History was intended to explain the organic evolution of the empire while celebrating the language, history, couture, culture, and uniqueness of each race which populated the empire.

The iconic symbol of Spanish Etiquette is the giving of tokens of love. An urban myth evolved about the tokens which the penniless Rudolph  was supposed to have given away to his hundreds of conquests.

Putting aside  for a moment the fact his nervosa flattened his sex drive and created sexual dysfunction and then gonorrhea made him impotent, the reality was  that Rudolph’s  income was only that of four times the income of a professor from which he was expected to pay for all of his Hofburg expenses,  military expenses, military mess clubs, charities, transportation expenses, household expenses, servants, aides , secretaries , horses, dogs, and Mizzi Caspar (and her mother) which translated into Rudolph being the poorest title in Europe. And while Rudolph enjoyed grace and favor as a royal charity at whatever royal palace Francis Joseph owned (or not because Sisi did not like Rudolph anywhere near her)  that still required Rudolph to pay all expenses involved including any modernization like adding gaslight or electricity or functioning bathrooms. Ditto any barracks he was assigned to.

The urban myth is that each romantic conquest would get a gold or silver cigarette case based on Spanish Etiquette of social rank. Ladies  of the First Estate Princely families would expect a case of gold or else a shockingly cheap silver case  engraved with Rudolph’s personal signature. Ladies of the First Estate but not Princely would receive a silver case with an inscription of ‘EH Rudolph GM’. Ladies of the First or Second Estate who were not allowed at court (because ten generations back they were procreated from a commoner) received a silver case with the inscription ‘R’ and an archducal crown. Ladies of Second Estate aristocracy not allowed at court received a case which only boasted an archducal crown. Ladies of lessor aristocracy or else elite commoners received a case with the archducal coat of arms (including gifts to important servants, aides de camp, gamekeepers, and coachmen in the Imperial Service). So in theory  Loschek and Bratfisch got the latter cases but Mary Vetsera got a cheap iron ring and a bangle.

Lets move on over the unspeakable insult Rudolph is supposed to have inflected on poor besotted Mary by violating Spanish Etiquette  to give her a cheap iron ring  and bangle  to point out both the extent of the absurdity of Spanish Etiquette which ruled the empire in the Fin De Siecle and also the fact that Rudolph’s income simply could not have afforded it. 45,000 a year plus 800 a month in military pay does not allow this sort of extravagance.

Likewise I have never seen a bio of Rudolph or a google search produce a photograph of one genuine example of this — at least relating to Rudolph. Other archdukes? Sure! Other princes? Sure! They had the  great estates and palaces and income. But Rudolph only  had 45,000 guilders a year in a Hofburg stipend plus his military pay of 800  guilders a month. No grand estates or palaces or townhouses  except Mayerling which was a rather shabby hunting lodge converted from a farming estate which Rudolph was only able to buy when he was promoted to Inspector General of Infantry in the last years of his life.

And when you try to google Mayerling you need to ignore the towering Nunnery and also  the  bogus drawings and photographs of the extravagant hunting lodge of Franz Ferdinand which pops up in order  to find the one drawing showing a humble middle class bedroom and ten rooms shown in the original floor plan where the only luxury was not central heat or even a modern bathroom but simply a billiard room.

Rudolph paid for some five pieces of middle class jewelry for MC on payments. Rudolph simply could not afford this nonsense . And no photograph of any such case has ever materialized. It was an urban myth invented by Bombelles to show that Rudolph, a geek infamous for not being able to ‘raise to the occasion’ unless drunk on champagne, was a sexy Archduke. The urban myth was probably based on what other rich archdukes and princes did in the Fin De Siecle. But unless one bio or google search can produce one genuine article I will submit that Rudolph’s most expensive gesture of love was buying MC some  five humble middle class pieces of jewelry on payments and also  in the last month of his life asking Baron Hirsch to help him stuff a pathetic envelope full of less than 10,000 guilders as an emergency slush fund for MC knowing that Stephanie would of course try her best to deny MC anything whatsoever if it was listed in his will.

The Burden of being a member of the Habsburgs was crushing on Rudolph. The Habsburg  heir was  not necessarily in direct line of descent. Francis Joseph got the crown by a decided zig zap which disinherited his father. Franz Ferdinand was  a zig zap which Francis Joseph loathed —- but only because that meant one of his loathed kindred was being rewarded. And And Franz Ferdinand was ordered to disinherit his own  children. Francis Joseph did half way like his final heirs Karl and Zita but only because he knew the empire was imploding so the odds were they would not inherit the Habsburg Empire anyway.

Francis Joseph saw the Habsburg Empire as the weight of the world on his titan’s shoulders —- while kicking anyone aside who dared offer to help him bare that weight. Francis Joseph did not share anything Habsburg with anyone except to a limited extent Sisi. Sisi was the rare exception to the general rule that Francis Joseph did not share his burdens or responsibilities or spot light or personal wealth or perks or majesty with anyone!

Supreme Commander Archduke Albrecht was called the Gravedigger of the Habsburgs because of his ruthlessness. That ruthlessness was such that even Francis Joseph dared not directly challenge Albrecht in his command of the Imperial Army — except once.

After Mayerling Francis Joseph demanded that Albrecht either pony up a viable drill manual for the infantry or else use the drill manual which Rudolph drew up a year before which Albrecht deliberately buried on his desk while lying about to Francis Joseph about its existence . Finally the Gravedigger of the Habsburgs was forced to admit that he did not have an alternative  drill manual and indeed had been stalling on using Rudolph’s drill manual. Rudolph’s drill manual was dug out from under mounds of dusty folders on Albrecht’s desk and put into use.

But that was the only time Francis Joseph directly challenged the all but blind and reactionary  Albrecht who was also going senile and therefore was dangerously paranoid. Hardly the sort of man to be leading the Imperial Army! That says something about Francis Joseph’s fear of him.

This one and only deviation from Francis Joseph’s normal behavior of cowering before the Gravedigger of the Habsburgs occurred after Mayerling. Alas, Francis Joseph could not find it in his heart or head to defy Albrecht before Mayerling when Albrecht ordered Rudolph to be shot by Roll Commandos who encircled Mayerling  if Rudolph did not shoot himself by January 30th at 6:30 AM. (Please  read Taaffe’s Metal  Box.)

Rudolph was  trapped as  Archduke and Crown Prince. He even entertained the idea of leaving for America or else  writing for a living. Wales probably offered Rudolph the chance to defect to Britain or one of Britain’s colonies in December of 88 as both men met for one last time   knowing full well that Albrecht was calendaring  a paralegal star chamber court martial over New Years to condemn Rudolph for incompetence, mutiny, and treason.

But Rudolph was trapped by his title and pedigree and duty as Inspector General of Infantry overseeing the development of modern gunnery (the gunnery that ultimately was used in WW1). Why did Rudolph dig in so stubbornly in the final months from the end to the autumn War Games through January until the last week  of his life before  he finally capitulated by kissing the gloved hand of Francis Joseph?

It all came down to guns. Gunnery. The Modern Gunnery which Inspector General of Infantry Archduke Crown Prince Rudolph developed  along with his predecessor  Inspector of Infantry Archduke Leopold. Modern Gunnery which was endangered by Albrecht’s senile incompetence and Francis Joseph’s ignorance and Willy’s bullying and Bismarck’s stone walling of the extent of the Spandau ‘preproduction hiccups’ and ‘preproduction teething problems’.

Before Rudolph’s death Francis Joseph was under intense pressure to not only terminate Rudolph from his job overseeing the development of modern gunnery which the Austro Hungarian Empire would use for its upcoming wars but to also jettison the gunnery which Rudolph and Leopold developed in tandem with the brilliant gun designer  Mannlicher and Steyr Manufacturing. (Steyr was then the largest modern manufacturer of gunnery in the industrial world).

Willy was delivering ultimatums to Francis Joseph to junk all of it, including the Steyr R & D into developing nitro, to buy Spandau off the shelf. Willy would pull this stunt at the start of WW 1 as well.

Because Bismarck’s ‘Veil of Secrecy’ was concealing the pre-production ‘hiccups’ and ‘teething problems’ which soon would be exposed as grossly defective gun and ammo designs, Willy was bellowing that the Imperial Second Reich was Number One in boasting the BEST GUNNERY AND AMMO IN THE WORLD! Self proclaimed of course! Soon to be exposed in 89 as  the Spandau Mirage!

But Francis Joseph ws so ignorant he was willing to believe not only Albrecht’s lies about the 11 mm Debacle and the nonexistence of Rudolph’s  Drill Manual but also about Rudolph’s and Leopold’s supposed incompetence in gunnery which endangered the imperial army and the Prussian Austrian Alliance. Francis Joseph was also ignorant about the Spandau Miracle which soon would be exposed as the Spandau Mirage. And Francis Joseph was as pathologically afraid of Bismarck as he was pathologically afraid of the Gravedigger of the Habsburgs.

So Francis Joseph was perfectly willing from the War Games on through January of 89 to believe that Rudolph no less than his predecessor Leopold was grossly incompetent and that his incompetence was endangering the Imperial Army and the Prussian Austrian Alliance. Inspector of Infantry Archduke Leopold was ordered to resign  for incompetence over the 11 mm  Debacle which was actually caused by  Albrecht and Francis Joseph. It was a repeat of General Benedek’s kangaroo court martial.  Now it was Rudolph’s turn  to be  scapegoated for royal sins.

And much of Rudolph’s  supposed gross incompetence and endangering of the imperial army  concerned  Rudolph’s stubborn refusal to resign in disgrace and allow Spandau to steal the patents of Mannlicher and the copyrights of Steyr and to junk the Mannlicher Repeater Rifle and Steyr 1610 fps Rubin style full metal jacket bullet and also  to junk the Steyr R & D to develop their own nitro powder by 90 (for a hybrid) and 95 (for a full nitro bullet).

And Rudolph was especially digging in his heels at the demands of Willy for Francis Joseph to junk the best repeater rifle in the world and the second best full metal jacket bullet in the world achieved at great expense and fully tested and fully manufactured which now graced every hand of every soldier in the Imperial Army to recklessly adopt an unseen and unproven Spandau repeater gun and ammo which rumors whispered were blowing up and injuring and even killing shooters.

And Rudolph’s nearly five month defiance in the face of ultimatums of Francis Joseph, Albrecht, Bismarck, and Willy to resign in disgrace was amounting to mutiny. Even treason. And Rudolph’s demand for a public court martial and his threat to defend himself against  accusations being leveled against him was definitely endangering Albrecht, Francis Joseph, Bismarck, and Willy.

When Rudolph told friends that ‘I am going to be assassinated. I know too much….’ he meant it. Rudolph knew military gunnery secrets that could acutely embarrass and discredit Albrecht, Francis Joseph, Bismarck, and Willy (including the soon to be exposed Darling Circle Gay Camarilla Homosexual Sex Scandal that Willy would face).

Why didn’t Rudolph flee the country? Defect to Britain? Run away? Resign in disgrace and crawl away to hide which was what Sisi and Ludwig did for their entire lives? If  Rudolph was such a coward which everyone said he was  then why didn’t Rudolph just give up and  run away? Instead, to the end Rudolph stubbornly and tenaciously defied four powerful men.

Rudolph only finally capitulated when a double agent named Florian Meissner who  worked  for both  Vienna’s Secret Service and  Berlin’s Secret Service moved right into the building of MC and started to breathe down the neck of Mizzi Caspar while oily pretending to be her friend as he openly spied on her .

Only then did Rudolph finally surrender and kiss his father’s gloved hand after exacting a quid pro quo which  his father promised him: if he did the right thing and  shot himself as an officer and a gentleman then his death would be labeled a heart attack and his honor and reputation would be saved and MC would not be exposed to danger.

Rudolph died trapped by his title and his pedigree and his job. Roll Commandos encircled Mayerling. Once Rudolph entered the trap in that bedroom suburb community one half hour commuter train from Vienna the trap shut tight. Roll Commandos moved in for the kill. Two entered the courtyard and also contacted the insider agent: a greedy cook. Five Prussians poising as hunters prowled right outside as they contacted Coburg who was the man picked by the Hofburg to oversee the hit — a hit which von Holstein planned to highjack and which Willy wanted upped to destroy Rudolph utterly.

Von Holstein’s creature Wimpffen delivered Mary to the train station to take the train to Mayerling without luggage or lady’s maid or knickers but carrying a forged invitation and gun and poison. Rudolph worked the final hours of his life trying to salvage a military defense bill a Budapest politician blundered while praying that his father Francis Joseph would change his mind and tell Coburg that the military hit was off. Instead, Coburg arrived back around midnight to preside over a brutal military hit which  became a patent von Holstein/Smutty Petri snuff/ sadism sex scandal/suicide garnished by dead Mary’s bludgeoned au natural corpse and forged suicide notes as well as a civilian handgun with all six chambers discharged leaving only the poison unused. Rudolph died in a trap baited by a promise for a quid pro quo that was a lie.

 

Rudolph was seen as the  Shining Prince  by the people of his empire. Young. Modern. Hopeful. Reforming . Preaching of the ‘Ocean of Light ‘ that not only described  electricity but  the Twentieth  Century.

Mayerling ended Austro Hungary’s hope  for an alternative scenario  than rabid Jew hating Pan Germans like Lueger and the boy  born in  the same  year Rudolph died : Adolf Hitler. Mayerling left Francis Joseph chained to the polar opposite of Rudolph: Kaiser Wilhelm II. Considering Willy’s gross  incompetence  as War  Lord and  embarrassing ignorance about modern gunnery  perhaps Francis Joseph should not have  tossed away his own son as if dross.

 

Crown Prince Rudolph –just because you are  The Shining Prince  that does not mean your life is a golden place.

Much of the tragedy  of Rudolph  was the fact he apparently had so much yet perished so young — apparently from his own hand. But is the  Myth of Mayerling true? Please read Meyerling and  find out  the truth from  the myth.

 

 

The potential of Crown Prince Rudolph was as great as his tragedy. He was brilliant, multi-talented, a polyglot, a writer and scientist with a flare for modern technology. Before Mayerling and before his concussion in late October he was actually quite successful in concealing his demons and flaws to project a shining radiance of Prince Charming.

So few knew of his inner torments other than embarrassing rumors that from his adolescence on that he was unable to ‘raise to the occasion’  sexually unless drunk on champagne which he drank like water to numb his Anxiety and muffle his Depression and conceal his PTSD. So Rudolph was pretty much psychologically impotent even before he even got gonorrhea which left him physically impotent.

Certainly Anxiety and Depression and PTSD all flatten the libido and leads to sexual malfunction while making  sex more iffy and cuddling more erotic. And certainly the lack of provable bastards other than one sent to America with General Longstreet,  and the fact he could not get MC pregnant, and could only birth one child in nearly six years with the admittedly horrible Rubber Princess would all seem to indicate a less than stellar track record than Rudolph’s  mythic playboy image would indicate. Probably a lot of the sexual escapades as well as other stunts and rumors done by other Archdukes stuck to Rudolph like iron to a magnet.

But the Shining Prince’s real achievements in writing, in academics, in the support for the sciences and technology, and his success in replacing Leopold to usher in modern gunnery as well as a modern drill manual  for the antiquated imperial army are genuine.

That leaves Rudolph as this gigantic ‘What If?’ What if Rudolph had lived? Could he have led the moldering empire into a successful Twentieth Century? Could he have prevented the first world war? Could he have prevented the empire imploding into half a dozen countries too small to dominate the map? Could he have turned the moldering country into the United States of the Danube which was what he always said he wanted to do ?

 

The tragic flaws of Rudolph originate in his genetics. The Wittelsbach Bane. And of course the child abuse which turned his childhood Anxiety into Anxiety Depression intertwined with PTSD and probable OCD. Could Rudolph have emerged into adulthood just suffering from Anxiety if the child abuse  had not occurred? Probably not. Like Ludwig and Sisi, Rudolph probably would have manifested Depression in his adolescence just like his mother and uncle. Would  Rudolph have been ok if Sisi was  not been his mother? Iffy. Francis Joseph carried Wittelsbach genes in his makeup as  well. Ditto other Habsburgs. Franz Ferdinand was equally ‘brooding’ and ‘strange’. The Habsburg blood line was just too inbred.

Rudolph was too much his mother’s son to avoid her fate and too much a Habsburg. The Hofburg phobia against anyone with less  than ten generations of pure  blood instead of mongrel blood was fatal. Elite pure bloods  in both dogs and humans end up reaping the fate of inbred purity: sickness, genetic  defects, bad bones,  and worse natures .

But could Rudolph have functioned better with the Anxiety Depression  than his mother and uncle who surrendered to the Wittelsbach Bane? Probably.

Rudolph was tenacious in his refusal to surrender to the Wittelsbach Bane like his mother and uncle. He despised  his mother for running away. He was determined  to work just as hard as his father and his workload proved that despite the Myth of Mayerling he was a workaholic. He was up and at his job by 7:00 AM (after writing for at least one hour) despite acute insomnia so bad he was lucky to get five hours of sleep. He put in ten hour days. His calendar proves he worked every bit as hard as his father did. He traveled the empire more than any other Habsburg.

Rudolph was  proud of his speaking ability and  wrote  his own speeches. He hated the asthmatic panic attacks that prevented him from speaking in public which also afflicted both Sisi and Ludwig (which also featured the shared phobia of being stared at). That is what got Rudolph ensnared in morphine.

Rudolph started to use  morphine on the advice of his court doctor to stop the asthmatic coughing which was actually asthmatic panic attacks from Anxiety.  (Asthma has an unknown and mysterious connection to neurosis.)

Rudolph also used the morphine to fight his acute insomnia from night terrors and nightmares which actually were PTSD. Rudolph also used the morphine to stop his acute migraines which were at least in part PTSD headaches. In sort Rudolph got ensnared in morphine and  also alcohol to stop the symptoms of Anxiety Depression intertwined with PTSD.

Anxiety Depression leads to a drop in the body production of serotonion while increasingly the body’s production  of the chemicals of fight or flight. The body’s chemistry is off. It malfunctions or perhaps more correctly over functions as if the machine is on perpetual fight or flight hypo-drive and can never relax and calm down. That is why sufferers like Rudolph end up self medicating and over medicating.

Could  Rudolph  have learned to manage his symptoms better ? Possible . Today experts stress  that mental illness and  PTSD is  not a death sentence. It does not guarantee suicide or madness  or addiction or failure  or ruination. Many famous people  in history have had anxiety depression and PTSD  and OCD including leaders and soldiers and presidents and founding fathers including the following:

John Adams, Buzz Aldrin, Woody Allen, Isaac Asimov, Christian Bale, Jon Bon Jovi, Barbara Bush, Johnny Carson, Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, Joseph Conrad, Calvin Coolidge, Charles Darwin, Diana, Bob Dylan, Johnny Depp, Harrison Ford, Audrey Hepburn, Billy Joel, Angelina Jolie, Alexander Hamilton, John Lennon, Meriweather Lewis, Abraham Lincoln, Michelangleo, Mozart, Isaac Newton, Rachmaninoff, Anne Rice, J K Rowling, Mark Twain, Leo Tolstoy, Mike Wallace, Oprah Winfrey.

Mental  illness should not be  a  stigma. Just  because Rudolph had  mental  illness  that does  not mean he was automatically doomed just as those people listed above were not doomed. The question should rather be this: could Rudolph have found mechanisms and treatments and created interpersonal support to help  him function despite his handicaps?

Rudolph developed a horse phobia because both of his parents were such famous horse people who judged and condemned Rudolph for having neither the ability or passion to recklessly  race across country pell mell.

Rudolph’s phobia appears to be at least in part a stubborn defiance of doing the one thing his parents demanded he do after they insulted his talent for ten languages living and dead, academic brilliance, flair for public speaking, passion for modern science and technology, and hard work in a military career forced upon him. So mulishly, Rudolph refused to ride a horse passionately. Competent. No more.

The ‘Reds’ of the First Estate Hochadel aristocracy always inhabited the gaudy cavalry and heckled Rudolph and other ‘Blues’ of the Third Estate Infantry and Artillery.  The Reds would give Rudolph (arrived by train for an inspection) a loaner horse and that loaner horse would be the OCD horse. Translation: the horse of the Aide De Camp of the Captain or Colonel or General who is expected to follow exactly behind. So the horse of the OCD would be very well trained to follow exactly behind the commander’s horse come hell or high water no matter how much Rudolph might spur it. The Reds thought that was hysterically funny. Rudolph probably imagined a Maxim Machine Gun blasting away at the Reds.

 

Rudolph’s meeting with Doctor Benedikt who was  an early expert in psychoanalysis was discovered by Doctor Salvendy. There is not much else known. It occurred early in Rudolph’s adulthood and shows that Rudolph was trying to rationalize his symptoms and syndromes with the new Science of Nervosa coming out of Vienna. Today Nervosa is called psychoanalysis. By the time of Rudolph’s death Freud was about to launch his career and Vienna was the self proclaimed capital of Nervosa in the world. The nervous breakdown was fashionable and female hysteria was considered chic. Many doctors were delving into the mystery of the mind. And many French doctors were experimenting with hypnosis to treat mental illness.

Freud later used such hypnosis doctors in a tandem treatment with his ‘Talking Cure’. The ‘Talking Cure’ requires an ‘open personality’ but Rudolph was a ‘closed personality’.

Closed personalities deliberately shut down memories and lock doors in their mind to repress memories. PTSD features such deformed memories that both magnify failure and guilt while burying happiness along with the psychological truths originating in the trauma which the sufferer cannot bare to confront. Psychological wounds form such scabs they become psychic scars. It is too painful to force such ‘closed personalities’ to open up. PTSD especially features abnormal memories and loss of memories and distorted memories and suppressed memories which the ‘Talking Cure’ simply cannot pierce. But hypnosis is surprisingly adapt at tackling ‘closed personalities’ and can be very effective.

So during Rudolph’s lifetime neurosis and mental illness were coming out of the closet and psycho hypnosis therapy was already being experimented with.  There is no reason to believe that Rudolph would not have taken advantage of such therapies —- especially as Rudolph was both a modernist, a scientist, and a Jew lover. If a Jew did it then it was swell with Rudolph. Well! Maybe not Freud’s ‘Talking Cure’ but other Jewish psychologists!

Rudolph suffered from a sickly constitution much like his mother Sisi. Rudolph was  his mother’s son. Francis Joseph  and his iron constitution despised Rudolph for his physical weaknesses  as much as his perceived  emotional weaknesses. Rudolph suffered from migraines, asthma, and arthritis as  well as weak eyes  and endless eye infections from an early age. His many childhood illnesses meant he probably had misidentified allergies. His perpetual gastritis  probably was already leading to early ulcers. His abnormal thinness had another cause  however.

Rudolph ‘s relationship with the Prince of Wales was real and deep. Despite a nearly twenty year age difference they were deep friends. Wales was a continuous support to Rudolph for his entire life. When Rudolph was frantic to try to break his engagement to the dreadful Rubber Princess Wales helped him try to trigger a ‘Intervention’ with his obtuse parents which failed utterly despite Rudolph’s symbolic cry for help.

Both men were crown princes to rulers who were so long lived both men doubted that they would  see the crown. Both men were modernists and sensible reformers. Both men were Jew lovers. It was striking that Wales and Rudolph choose to cut Mary at the race track but invite a shared friend Baron Hirsch to a night club during a visit by Wales to Vienna. Both men were embarrassed when that night club politely asked them to leave when  Baron Hirsch arrived. The elegant night club did not serve Jews.

Both men liked to let their hair (what there was of it) down and mix informally with all sorts of persons from bishops to barons to cockneys to jumble table vendors. Both were charming and magnanimous, the perfect Prince Charmings.

In December of 88 Wales and Rudolph went for one final hunt together because both men knew Albrecht and Bismarck were manufacturing Rudolph’s death in January. Wales later wrote to Victoria that he agreed with  the Prime Minster and  firmly believed that Rudolph was ‘killed’ and did not commit suicide voluntarily.

 

Rudolph’s post traumatic stress disorder originating in child abuse.

PTSD symptoms  include Anxiety, Depression, mistrust, excessive  guilt, low self  esteem, self harm, self  criticism, low self worth, exaggerated  startle  response , hypo vigilance, flashbacks, brittle anger, irritability, separation anxiety, nervousness, nausea, gastritis, ulcers, asthma  in  20% of  all cases including asthmatic  panic attacks, inappropriate  thoughts, ‘flattened’ emotions, headaches, sexual dysfunction, excessive fight or flight responses, crippled  social – interpersonal relationships, over active imagination, OCD, self medicating,  addictions. The Risk Factors include genetics, other family members with anxiety or  depression or PTSD, dysfunctional  families, or high levels of stress.

Rudolph’s Risk Factors and symptoms are score high in the above cocktail of PTSD. Much of this was listed by the callous and murderous Stephanie in her weekly reports of Rudolph’s Decline & Fall which  she  documented with  malicious  glee while signing out poison on the November/December Court Pharmacy Ledger and then badly backdating it in 89 after Mayerling while telling her lover Lonyay that Mayerling was going to be a suicide poisoning six weeks before it happened to Lonyay to gossip about it with a fellow ship passenger one or two days before it occurred  after enjoying a paid holiday in Egypt courtesy of Stephanie. Stephanie is quite a prophetess to predict something six weeks before it happened while signing out poison in Nov/Dec to aid and abet it! Is suicide still suicide if it is predicted and aided and abetted?

. Likewise these symptoms  were  also listed by people playing Monday Morning Quarterbacking as symptoms of insanity, drunkenness, addiction, and suicide to explain Mayerling as drunken  addicted  murder suicide.

There is  just  one problem.  Group Captain Rudolph Taaffe confirmed that the last owner of the infamous metal box told  him that Mayerling was a military hit and that two Roll Commandos executed Rudolph. Albrecht set a date and time and place of death: January 30th at 6:30 AM at Mayerling if Rudolph did not shoot himself. The general staff knew about it up to  the  top: Francis  Joseph. Taaffe was  prepared  to secure the  crime scene as  soon as  it happened. But Albrecht also anticipated Rudolph would not going quietly despite the fact as a Victorian officer and gentleman Rudolph would have been desperate to save his honor and reputation above all things. So Monday Morning Quarterbacking Rudolph’s symptoms to prove he committed suicide at Mayerling is bunkum because Mayerling was a military hit. Please read Taaffe’s Metal Box.

While PTSD can feature abuse of alcohol and drugs and suicidal thoughts simply lumping all of Rudolph’s PTSD together as alcoholism, drug addiction, and morbid suicide is sloppy and unfair — especially if you also throw in all of the concussion symptoms which Stephanie and others did as well. Ditto evidence of possible arsenic poisoning. Rudolph  did not commit suicide  at  Mayering and Mary invited  herself  to the military hit and was  bludgeoned  by a champagne  bottle which likewise stuck (but did not killed) Rudolph who was  then brutally executed. So now  that Mayering  is not a morbid murder suicide we have to view  Rudolph’s PTSD  more  objectively.

PTSD and its chief symptoms of Anxiety Depression can lead to suicide. Sure. But it can also lead to long if troubled lives of people who persist in fighting the demons of PTSD intertwined with Anxiety Depression.

 

Francis Joseph hired Count Gondrecourt to made a man of little Rudolph. Why? The small and runty child suffered from the symptoms of Anxiety which was manifested as nervy, anxious, highly strung precociousness.  That translated into cowardice in the eyes of Francis Joseph.

Count Gondrecourt earned his military nickname ‘The Brutal Colonel’ with his flare for flogging everyone from small drummer boys up to Catholic priests. His bible was a cigar case. Away from royal eyes he was profane. He was also a religious hypocrite who would deliberately appear to be going to early mass by way of the gate near to the royal office of Francis Joseph so the drums would drum and the bugles would blare. Francis Joseph would be very impressed. Then the Brutal Colonel would actually go visit his mistress a chorus girl. According to Archduchess Sophie and Francis Joseph that made Gondrecourt a perfect tutor to make a man of a smart but sickly and highly strung little boy.  Gondrecourt went to work!

Gondrecourt turned little Rudolph’s nursery into a little barrack. The little boy was fitted with a tiny uniform as a brand new recruit in the Imperial Army of Francis Joseph. Then the boy’s life was turned into a sadistic exercise of military inspections, pre-dawn drills in the show by lantern, military rations, and military punishments.

The Brutal Colonel would wait until the terrified boy fell into a nervy sleep on  his tiny military cot and then  burst in while  shooting off guns before waving the guns around the face of the cowering boy.

It is one thing for  a  small child to gird his tiny loins to face gunfire in the daylight during a drill when  there  is  time  to  prepare for  the ordeal but it is quite another to gird his tiny loins to face gunfire  while unconscious. How can a small  boy prepare to withstand gunfire when asleep? No little boy can —- especially if he is also threatened with corporeal punishment for wetting his bed in terror on waking violently to gunfire and guns waving around his tiny face and shoved into his terrified face and perhaps even  shoved into his tiny mouth.

Rudolph soon equated beds with terror and became a bed wetter. The sheet was probably hung outside to broadcast his unmanly cowardice to his father and the world. The little boy’s sensitive stomach probably became a knot of  gastritis under the stress and terror and grim military rations. His body was probably soon a mass of floggings as he failed inspection after inspection and drill after drill while wetting the bed night after night.

Francis Joseph inspected and wrote long memorandums complaining that his son was not being turned into a proper little soldier fast enough. Indeed the runty little boy was probably shrinking as his threw up his harsh military rations as he was pummeled and terrorized. Instead of the Soldier Prince, little Rudolph probably looked like the Frog Prince down to black and blue and green bruises all over his spindly and shrinking little body. So the Brutal Colonel ratcheted up the campaign.

The Brutal Colonel hauled the tiny boy to a hunting park which featured wild swine and boar who were small but nasty, violent, and dangerous creatures. No one hunted wild swine and boar without at least a pig stick if not a weapon. Boar hunting was considered one  of the  most dangerous hunts  a man  could dare  to wage.

The Brutal Colonel shoved the boy into the hunting park while describing the wild swine and boar and their ability to gut a man alive before announcing that he was leaving the little boy to fend for himself all night. Then the Brutal Colonel left the boy howling while he left him. Sure. It was just a threat. The Brutal Colonel eventually came back to pick him up and return the boy to the Hofburg. But in the meantime the unarmed boy was expected to prove what a man he was as wild swine and boar raced through the undergrowth around him.

The Brutal Colonel also taught the small boy to hunt to make a man of him. The boy was forced to experience hunting and killing and gutting small animals for the first time with a sadist behind him waving guns at him.

This campaign went on for many months. No one knows exactly what the Brutal Colonel did to the boy. No one was monitoring. No one cared if guns went off in the nursery turned into a barracks or if a small boy was being drilled in deep snow by predawn lanterns as his spindly body shrunk smaller and smaller and smaller as the evidence of his bed wetting was waved like a reverse badge of cowardice.

Latour, who was the tutor of Gisela in another wing of the Hofburg, finally found out and protested to Archduchess Sophie and then the minions of Francis Joseph —- to no avail. So Latour wrote to Sisi who was naturally away fox hunting  in Ireland or else enjoying Corfu. She did not respond. Latour became more frantic as the boy’s emotional and physical health moved toward a total breakdown. Finally Latour wrote to Sisi and threatened to expose her bad parenting to the world if Rudolph should die. One death of one royal  child from gross neglect and self absorbed narcissism was one thing. Two deaths of two royal children was quite another. This time Sisi finally bothered to write to Francis Joseph. Francis Joseph wrote a long memorandum to his mother Archduchess Sophie. Sophie finally fired the Brutal Colonel.

By this time Rudolph’s emotional and physical health was at the point of a total breakdown. The court doctors puzzled over the exact nature of the illness. They listed every sort of illness or sickness or possible concussion as the cause —- everything —- but —– child abuse.

Latour was assigned as Rudolph’s new tutor. Francis Joseph and Sophie and Sisi all ordered him to ‘flog the cowardice’ out of little Rudolph. Clearly three famous  people  did  not  get the  memo about  the  definition  of child  abuse.

Latour found the boy to be a shattered mass of Trauma. Trauma Incarnate. The boy’s crayon scribbles, always featuring red crayon, featured monsters and bogymen and towering authority figures terrorizing a tiny scribble which was an overwhelmed and terrified Rudolph.  Latour spent ten years trying to salvage the damaged boy while Francis Joseph, Sophie, and Sisi each ordered him to educate Rudolph according to impossible demands and conflicting priorities  aided by an army of 50 tutors. Thirteen hours days six days a week. No time off. No games. No friends. In a virtual quarantine.

Rudolph rarely saw his beloved sister Gisela and only expected to see his parents for perhaps two hours at Christmas and perhaps a week during his father’s pomp and circumstance birthday celebrations and perhaps some time at autumn in Godollo. There are casual letters from Francis Joseph suggesting that Rudolph should hunt to console himself for his loneliness as well as to make a man of him. Sisi  was even more cavalier. And after The Einzige Only One Valerie was born Rudolph became the hateful object of her rage.

Apparently little Rudolph was  a dangerous boy and then a dangerous teenager and then a dangerous man threating her beloved Einzigne Only One. Sisi would evoke the dire spirits to curse Rudolph.

No one connected the dots between a psychopath waving a gun into the face and perhaps into the mouth of a screaming little boy and an adult tormented by PTSD who not only equated a bed with terror and sleep with nightmares and night terrors but a gun with violent death.

Most bios sorta kinda admit that the famous Francis Joseph and  beautiful Sisi sort kinda allowed  a  less than an ideal man to sorta kinda inflict a sorta kinda regime that was not exactly appropriate to a small and highly strung child but gosh! It was not child abuse! Rudolph was a sniveling little coward and he had to be toughened up! It was not child abuse! How can anyone accuse the great Francis Joseph and the beautiful Sisi of child abuse? Golly! No! Crown Princes are not victims of child abuse! Of course not!

And Crown Princes cannot get Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from child abuse! Of course not! It is all Rudolph’s fault! If Rudolph had not been such a defective little six year old boy then he would not have had to be toughened up!

 

Evidence of arsenic poisoning is intriguing. For a while in 87 and into part of 88 Rudolph suffered from an odd aggravation of his normal illnesses. His many migraines and PTSD headaches increased. His gastritis and early ulcers drastically increased. His restlessness and fidgetiness (a trademark of Sisi but also a PTSD trademark) drastically increased. He got restless leg syndrome. His general fatigue (another PTSD symptom as well as a sign of overwork) drastically increased. His general achiness from arthritis got worse. His volcanic temper (another PTSD symptom) and irritability (a depression symptom) got decidedly worse. His weakening eyes got very much worse. He lost the weight he had put on since the bout of gonorrhea he suffered from in 86. Well! Everyone said Rudolph was sickly and these were just his usual sickly symptoms!

But then he suffered from odd dizziness, his normal Habsburg Red receding hairline got worse. He felt cold all of the time. He complained of something wrong with his feet. His temper flared up more and more and his mood swings became noticeably extreme. This was atypical of his normal flattened emotions. Rudolph was a lot of things but not bipolar! Then he  started to suffer from lack of concentration (please remember this was  well before  his late 88 concussion). Then there were odd moments of  mental confusion and then memory loss.

Stephanie publicized all of this as part of her ongoing campaign to document Rudolph’s decline and fall. All while she was engaging in a torrent affair with Count Potocki whom Stephanie told her bitter sister she was madly in love with —- until Potocki got some sort of cancer or infection of the tongue which oral sex with Stephanie’s gonorrhea during novel sexual positions could have caused.

Potocki started a long and painful death. Stephanie took Potocki’s long and painful death very badly until Stephanie found a new lover in a chap later called Lonyay. But it is remarkable that during this time that she thought she was madly in love with Potocki and fancied him the great love of her life that Rudolph would sustain such a breakdown of his health. All of these symptoms were used by others to repeat Stephanie’s version of Rudolph’s decline and fall. Everyone lists these symptoms to document the Shining Prince’s sudden decline and fall into suicidal despair forewarning of his morbid death of Mayerling! All of these symptoms  which Rudolph suffered so acutely by chance are also caused by arsenic.

Arsenic was so common in the  Victorian Age people accidentally died of arsenic poisoning all of the time. Green dyes. Fowler’s Patent Medicines. Arsenic Beauty Wash to clear up a woman’s completion. It was amazing how Stephanie’ blotchy completion cleared up so well for instance.

Arsenic in fact was the Victorian Wife’s best friend. Many a Victorian wife poisoned her husband courtesy of arsenic. Arsenic can mimic gastritis beautifully and mimic a very slow but natural illness. The fact Rudolph normally suffered from gastritis and other initial symptoms of classic arsenic poisoning would make arsenic a perfect way to dispatch him. Until his complexion turned yellow and flaccid  and his fingernails ridged with telltale white lines it would be all but impossible to know that he was being poisoned as long as the poisoner did not lose her patience in delivering the poison very slowly.

Ignoring for a moment how Stephanie might mix it into Rudolph’s food or drink when Stephanie was normally living in rich hotels with her lovers the getting of it would be easy enough. This leads to the Paramatta Mystery.

It is a fact that in late November/ December of 88 Stephanie signed out something nasty in anticipation of something bad going down in January which she told Lonyay about. Something about Rudolph. Something about Mayerling. Something about poison. Something about Rudolph committing suicide with poison at Mayerling around January 30th  or else 31th. And Stephanie knew about this to tell Lonyay who some  six weeks later blabbed it to a Catholic missionary priest on a lonely ship mid Mediterranean (pre wireless)  accidentally before the 30th or 31th. (Please read the Paramatta Mystery).

In January Stephanie hastily and crudely backdated  a January 89 pharmacy ledger page back into November/December of 88 while forgetting that she was now signing her name as Crown Princess Widow Stephanie. Opps! A widow in 88? Not possible except in her own guilty imagination as she plotted  to poison Rudolph in  some sort of conspiracy in January of 89 which she knew about in late  88 to get involved in to  tell her lover about to take an all expenses paid trip to Egypt to not be implicated only to come back a tad  early to blab to a Catholic missionary priest about Rudolph committing suicide by poison at Mayerling   one or two days  before it occurred. A Freudian slip by a guilty poisoner clearly!

But the question is not if Stephanie planned to poison Rudolph in November/December of 88 when she signed out the poison for use in January 89 —- which she passed  to Larisch to pass to Mary Vetsera to take to Mayerling along with a civilian revolver. Both the  untraceable gun and poison clearly brought to Mayerling by Mary who could hardly as a suicidal teenager acquire either lawfully but nevertheless acquired both unlawfully to take to Mayerling. No. The question of the moment is why did Stephanie backdate the evidence of her signing out poison so crudely? So carelessly?

Unless Stephanie had been pulling this trick of ripping out pages and pasting in innocent pages before. How many times? So many times to get use to backdating and therefore getting sloppy in her backdating?

A women’s perchant in the Victorian Age was poison. Women poison. Men shoot or strangle. If Stephanie is proven by one backdating to have signed out poison to try to  murder Rudolph then how many times did she try to poison Rudolph before? Arsenic! A disloyal wife’s best friend!

 

 

Rudolph’s anxiety depression as it related to PTSD  are always listed in bios as only morbid depression.  That is not accurate. Lonyay quoted a callous embassy aristocrat in London in 87 double daring Rudolph to take a walk with him through Green Park where there had been a notorious rash of violent assaults. Rudolph was compelled to take the double dare because his father and mother and indeed everyone in the Hofburg thought him a ‘coward’ because of his nervy, wary, anxious nature and hypo vigilance symptoms. The fact Rudolph is never documented as running away from danger and visited the Balkans under a threat to his life and preserved with  his public appearances even after Scotland Yard, Belgium Secret Service, and French Service all reported dangerous rumors off very real  threats of assassination are ignored. So  is the fact he hunted dangerous animals  to  prove he was not a coward. So is the fact Habsburgs whispered that despite what Francis Joseph and Albrecht claimed happened Rudolph actually   died fighting at Mayerling despite sustaining  terrible defense wounds.  This  all proves that when faced by fight or flight Rudolph usually fought.

Sure. He was lousy on horseback and refused to race recklessly across the countryside. But Rudolph never ran away. So why the persistent accusation of ‘cowardice’? The answer: Anxiety symptoms and PTSD which promotes hypo vigilance and excessive generation of the body’s chemicals of fight or flight along  with exaggerated  worry  about  the future and perpetual concern . Anyway! Back  to the story!

The cynical aristocrat reported back to the Hofburg that Rudolph was a coward in his reaction while walking through a dark urban park notorious for a recent outburst of violent assaults! Likewise the Ambassador thought it amusing to deliberately double book events for Rudolph in London so that Rudolph would be one half hour  late arriving at Buckingham Palace while  holding up a meal with Queen Victoria. Rudolph panicked in the carriage as he kept checking his watch while ranting that Queen Victoria and the whole British Royal Family would think him a prick for arriving late. That was likewise documented as evidence that his nerves were shattered and he was a cowering mass of bone jelly. Anxiety. Panic attacks. Over reaction from hypo vigilance.

So Rudolph Depression must be listed as Anxiety Depression. And it must be listed intertwined with Rudolph’s PTSD and probable OCD. Please see the attached ‘Rudolph’s Twin Demons’ for a slide show on Anxiety Depression and PTSD and OCD to get a real feel of what it was like to suffer from Anxiety Depression with PTSD and OCD.

 

 

Symptoms of Anxiety Depression include panic attacks, asthmatic panic attacks (in 20% of all sufferers),  hypo-sensitive  reactions to stress and danger, hypo vigilance, over generation of the  body’s chemicals  of fight or flight when  faced  with stress and danger, wariness, defensive behaviors, excessive guilt, low self esteem, a sense of worthlessness, self harm, cutting, suicidal thoughts,  separation anxiety, nervousness, nausea, gastritis, stomach aches, ulcers,  irritability, sleep disorders, nightmares, night terrors, insomnia, relentless self criticism, self abuse, poor memory of only negative things and failures and flaws, flattening of the emotions to  a perpetual sadness, headaches, fidgety behaviors, low energy, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, phantom pains in the bones and muscles, sexual dysfunction, psychological impotence, crippled social and romantic relationships, over active imagination, pessimism, self medication, abuse of drugs and alcohol, and possible obsessive compulsive behaviors. Risk factors  include genetics, other family members suffering from Anxiety Depression,  trauma, abuse, a highly  stressful environment, no emotional support or love.

Rudolph displayed all of the above symptoms as well as symptoms of PTSD originating from the trauma of child abuse which shares all of the above symptoms and overlaps with Anxiety Depression.

 

OCD? Probably —- which would make Rudolph the most glamorous sufferer of OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is often intertwined with Anxiety Depression and PTSD. Anxiety and Depression are common symptoms of OCD. So is Trauma. So is the low Serotonin. So are a lot of the same Risk Factors and Stressors.

So which comes first? The chicken or the egg? The Anxiety Depression and  PTSD and Trauma/Stress or  the OCD? It is hard to tell. The three mental illnesses tend to converge together in a tight knot of psychological pain. OCD is like a shadow trailing behind, always there, but not always leading the way.

OCD appears to  start with obsessive thoughts. Voices that don’t  go away. Ideas  that don’t go away. Emotions  that  don’t go away. Like for instance PTSD flashbacks  and intrusive thoughts. Repressed memories of trauma. Depressive Guilt. Anxiousness. Panic. To control these obsessive thoughts and feelings  compulsive behaviors  or rituals  start. Rituals  of control. Coping mechanisms. Soon the rituals  and mechanisms take  on a  life  of  their  own.

OCD leads  to chronic  excessive  perfection,  impossible standards, eating disorders, cutting, self harm (not per say suicide), obsessive fixations  on details, rules, organizations, rigidity, micro  managing  fussbudget behaviors, workaholic behaviors, and obsessions with symbols of control.

There are indirect references to Rudolph behaving like this.  Instead of tossing  his  guns to his valet  to  clean Rudolph always painstakingly cleaned  his  guns  for hours. There are  descriptions of his Hofburg rooms and garret office  being remarkably but  oddly cluttered  with books and mineral displays, bird  eggs, machines, and gigantic nature dioramas like something out  of a natural history  museum. Where could  he fit one of his huge dogs in? Much less a bimbo? There are letters  to Stephanie  obsessively micro managing some party occurring  the  day  he was arriving home from some long distance military inspector tour. Micro managing every detail from  the foods  to  the wines to the seating to the horses to the clothes. Of course Stephanie was as incompetent as she was conceited  but still! And Albrecht always fumed  that Rudolph held  up staff meetings with  his fussbudget fetish for details. And when Rudolph became Inspector General of Infantry he went on long tours of inspection to every possible military barrack or hospital or supply depot or sanitation site to inspect and report. Rudolph was PAINSTAKING.

Of course  this  anal fixation on details was crucial when Rudolph’s job as Inspector General  of  Infantry meant he was overseeing the development of modern gunnery or salvaging  the  11 mm Debacle. (Please  read the Gun Crisis).

That  is  why rumors generated  by Stephanie  The Poisoner about Rudolph’s sloppy, incompetent, aimless, dispirited, unfocused, despairing rush toward suicide  with Mary have  to be taken with  a grain of salt — or else  arsenic. It does  not jib with  the  psychology or Rudolph’s insane work schedule. A workaholic schedule so insane Rudolph worked for over two hours in his garret office before even heading out to Mayerling carrying briefcases of work which Bratfisch later recalled he had to help Rudolph carry into the improvised Mayerling office.

I can see Rudolph charging  out  of  that  back room of his garret office   where he had been bellowing at Larisch’s 10,000 pimping /extortion  attempt  to see Mary’s greedy fingers messing  up carefully arranged piles  of military  gunnery files  and top secret dossiers about guns  blowing up at Spandau! I can see  Rudolph  bellowing hysterically at poor Mary who is obsessed with her erotic mania  to  find that special  love  token her Prince Charming has  left just for for her to find. I can see Rudolph bellowing because Mary has messed up his complex arrangement of files and dossiers! I can see Rudolph bellowing from a concussion headache for the painful mess Mary has  made —- bellowing so furiously Mary spills the cocaine eye medicine  for  his glaucoma and  blurry  vision  from  the  concussion. Then  I can see Rudolph picking  up some failed  taxidermy specimen and  waving it hysterically at Mary  as his pet ravens grossly peck  at  raw meat he has  left  in puzzle  boxes  to test their amazing intelligence.

Poor Mary! Her fantasy Prince Charming vanishing before   the reality of OCD! Don’t worry my dear Romantics! Mary’s erotic mania  will soon blot  out  the reality  and recreate  that  historic  first  meeting (all  ten minutes  of  it with  eight minutes of it spent in the back room bellowing at  Larisch) in her demented  imagination into an adolescent Victorian ‘s version  of  a Harlequin novel!

Oh look! One of Rudolph pet ravens! How morbid! Like Rudolph’s  view of death! Well! Actually! Ravens and Crows and Rooks are considered the geniuses of Nature. So as an ornithologist Rudolph  would have pet ravens —- not because he was  morbid about death but rather because they are genius birds which even today scientists study because of their remarkable intelligence.

Rudolph was a scientist and not a romantic. He tended to view the world through the lenses of science and rationality instead of romance or the arts. Quotes of Rudolph reveal an excessively rational viewpoint precisely because he suffered from mental illness. Rudolph over  compensated   by rationalizing and analyzing rather than wallowing in mystic nonsense which his mother embraced or artistic fantasies which his uncle Ludwig embraced or Love & Death which Mary embraced. Rudolph over compensated by being excessively rational and painstaking. So Rudolph would approach death the same way.

Rudolph  would blandly accept a gift of a dissection skull from some of Vienna’s best doctors as a gesture of respect for his support of their groundbreaking work. He  would  see  that dissection skull  given as a token of esteem by the medical elite  as a symbol of Reason triumphing over Emotion and Modernity triumphing over Medievality.

Rudolph dissected life and then plotted it on statistical graphs or else engineering blueprints. He collected specimens. He created incredible  dioramas and complex displays and arrangements. In an era of great art he frankly said art museums bored him and simply let his Jewish friends tell him the difference between kitsch and impressionism.  Likewise Rudolph would not be caught dead sitting  with Ludwig through a private production of Wagner. Well! Maybe there was a reason for that other than his dislike of Wagner! But Rudolph’s concept of music was a popular song at a heurigen outdoor beer garden with MC! (With or without her mother!)

So Rudolph would dissect and graph and analyze death to rationalize his depression and suicidal thoughts. Not imagine some complex Love & Death.

A man who wrote five paragraphs on addiction by equating the human body to a steam engine or else a bank account is a man who would rationalize his urge to either cut his flesh or kill himself. Rudolph  wanted  people  to  help him  find  a  way to survive. Not die.

Rudolph had lots of ‘stupid accident’s while signing off letters ‘And I don’t take care of myself at all!’ or else joking about getting lost while hunting and then being devoured by the beast he arrogantly tried to shoot. Apparently Rudolph had a ‘gallows sense of humor’ or what today we would call ‘black humor’.

And probably some of his ‘stupid accident’s were cutting or self harm. But OCD cutting and self harm is not a straight forward attempt to actually commit suicide. Quite the contrary. It is a perverse ritual of control to not kill oneself by venting the demons rather than giving in to the demons.

I think  we should compare Mary’s approach  to Mayerling  to Rudolph’s. Mary had obsessed herself for months fantasizing about  Love  &  Death while  telling everyone how she  was planning a spectacular  double  suicide with her  (mythic?) lover Crown Prince  Rudolph  her Prince Charming despite never reading  one  of  his many books or being slightly aware  of his job or the gun crisis or anything about the real  man. Mary worshiped   the fantasy  man  the way adolescent fan(atic)s and also stalkers worship movie stars  or rock stars today

Mary arrived  uninvited at Mayerling while waving a forged invitation while clutching a muff  in a  skin tight fashionista dress sans overnight luggage or romantic nightie or knickers or lady’s maid but carrying a bottle of poison and  a civilian  hand gun which soon discharged  all six chambers presumably  at the  object of  her obsession  when  he declined  to join her voluntarily in Love  &  Death.

Then she  ended  up locked  in  the Stephanie Suite per incoherent  gibberings  of Hoyos where she hysterically scribbled suicide notes au natural courtesy  of  the  help  of  the  only female there to serve  as lady’s  maid to get her out of her skin tight couture:  the part time  cook  who as staff had  access to  below stairs keys in exchange for a bribe.

Bradfisch said not only did he not bring Mary, he had to help his boss and friend Rudolph to carry all of his briefcases into the Mayerling office because Rudolph had a big academic article to finish on Godollo for an editor plus military briefcases along with the normal overnight suitcases a gentleman needs even for an  informal  hunting lodge  plus of course his valet Loschek because unlike Mary, Rudolph  was  a  functioning Victorian  gentleman .

Then Rudolph spent his last days on earth frantically trying to salvage a military defense bill in Budapest which set him so far behind he had to write a letter of apology to the editor BEGGING FOR MORE TIME TO FINISH THE GODOLLO ARTICLE. Rudolph’s last telegrams were to this poor politician to train immediately to Vienna so that Rudolph could personally confront him to bellow at him for missing up a military defense bill over the use of German as the Command Language.

Rudolph then tried to unwind while sniffling with a bad head cold plus mild hypothermia while Hoyos played Chopin while pleading with Rudolph to calm down and not rant about the poor Budapest politician and enjoy the …..well. …last hours on earth!

Because Rudolph was about to kill himself in Love & Death with Mary? No. Because both men bloody well knew that Albrecht’s Roll Commandos were encircling Mayerling to execute Rudolph on January 30th at 6:30 AM if Rudolph did not do the right thing as an officer and gentleman and shoot himself first.

So why was Rudolph stalling toward midnight? If Rudolph was at Mayerling he was implied to have agreed to do the right thing as an officer and gentleman. Realistically that could only be done at Mayerling. And Albrecht’s Roll Commandos could  not execute Rudolph if he should decline to  do the right thing anywhere else. Rudolph kissed his father’s gloved hand in agreement to do the right thing and said to MC ‘It must be so’ as he drew the cross on her forehead despite being a hardened agnostic. Such a hardened agnostic he declined to telegram any religious personage during his last days on earth in any proven telegram that can be confirmed and produced. So by going to Mayerling despite a full calendar of events which meant missing a staff meeting (not to mention an engagement dinner) meant that Rudolph was agreed to the death sentence per the condition of a quid pro quo. If Rudolph  shot himself  then  his honor and reputation as an officer and gentleman would  be  preserved.

The fact only Hoyos did not suddenly turn down the invitation meant everyone knew what was happening. Because  other invited guests  did hastily turn down invitations. Likewise Bratfisch came because he was not only Rudolph’s cabbie extraordinaire but also his friend. Ditto Loschek. A Victorian’s valet occupied a special place.  So why was Coburg there? Coburg The Sinister was no friend.

So why was Rudolph stalling toward midnight? Because Coburg of  the  famous  missing alibi  was coming back from Vienna with the last decision of Francis Joseph. Green light? Death. Red light? Reprieve. Rudolph was stalling because he still hoped his father would change his mind and allow him to live. After  all, he had until 6:30 AM per Albrecht the Gravedigger  of  the  Habsburgs.

But when Rudolph realized his father’s promise of a quid pro quo was off and a von Holstein/Smutty Petri snuff/murder/suicide was going down then Rudolph fought back against his executioners so furiously he sustained terrible defense wounds.

Mary just arranged herself in all of her au natural on top of a made bed anticipating a glorious Love & Death. Too bad she was bludgeoned instead. Petri specialized in Victorian snuff murders to ‘justify’  hits created  to  look like suicides. Everyone knew  how  Bismarck’s enemies were thus  dispatched so Bismarck could boast of his amazing good luck to see his enemies vanish at exactly the right time.

Mary  was  obsessed  with Love & Death.  Rudolph’s behavior said  he  wanted   to  live. So you should  ask yourself three questions.  Why have  all of the  ‘suicide’  letters  except the  Stephanie letter (proven to be written  two years previously) been locked  away from inspection or authentication since  the beginning?  And  if  Rudolph was asking everyone to commit suicide with him before Mayerling then  why didn’t  the Secret Police or  military authorities  or   the  Hofburg  or  any  Habsburg or family member try to stop it  or report it to Francis  Joseph  or  Sisi or do anything whatsoever? Pre-Mayerling it was all  bland silence. Zero. Zip. Nil. Nada. Nothing. Post – Mayerling  suddenly it was  all Monday morning quarterbacking as if manufacturing a scenario to explain away a von Holstein/Smutty Petri high-jacking of a  military hit. And  finally if Rudolph was  so  suicidal then why did he duck when Mary discharged all  six chambers  of  her civilian revolver?

 

Rudolph’s gun and taxidermy fetishes –evidence of madness or else evidence of politically incorrect hobbies and his job? The question has to be asked! Rudolph did have fetishes. One now politically incorrect fetish was hunting and taxidermy. Like Teddy Roosevelt, Rudolph both joined  wild life conservation organizations and hunted and did taxidermy. In fact Teddy and Rudolph could have spent hours together enthusiastically gushing on and on and on about the joys of hunting and taxidermy they both enjoyed to the embarrassment of every historian today. Was Teddy a morbid depressive? No. Hunting and taxidermy are today considered somewhat iffy by liberals and romantics. Rudolph was raised in a different era.

Hunting and taxidermy were considered normal back  then. Not hunting and not amassing taxidermy or at least not scoring hunting trophies or rugs would have been considered abnormal. A modern era can’t backdate its values on another era.

Rudolph’s hunting statistics pale compared to Francis Joseph, Franz Ferdinand, Willy, Wales, or other elites in  the Victorian Age or even if compared to Roosevelt or even 1920’s big game hunters like Ernest Hemmingway. Only the word ‘Mayerling’ colors Rudolph’s fetish for taxidermy or the fact he hunted.

Rudolph hunted from tiny childhood because Francis Joseph considered hunting to be machismo, a test of valor, the test of a true  man. Rudolph had  to hunt. His hunting statistics were  inspected and Rudolph was judged harshly by Francis Joseph for any failures.

Rudolph was criticized for his more natural inclination  as a scientist  and botanist and ornithologist to stalk and savor and simply enjoy nature while drawing birds . If Browning cameras had  existed in Rudolph’s time he would have shot with his camera instead of his gun if he had his way.This was not good enough for Francis Joseph. It would have reinforced the belief  that Rudolph was a coward. So  Rudolph hunted  to prove  that he was ‘normal’.

Rudolph tried to hunt or at least stalk every day if possible for one or two hours to at least get exercise and fresh air after a stressful day on the job. The  empire’s highly rural nature allowed it most of the time. But he also unwound by going to outdoor heurigen beer gardens with MC. Today the latter is more politically correct but back in Rudolph’s day the latter would be considered more politically incorrect.

Today Rudolph’s passion for taxidermy is considered morbid but Rudolph and Teddy Roosevelt would have considered it science and not a contradiction with their conservation efforts which both also supported. Only the word ‘Mayerling’ colors the word ‘taxidermy’ just as it colors the word ‘hunting’ If Mayerling was a military hit —- which  in fact it was —( please  read The Crime Of The Fin De Siecle) — and not a morbid murder/suicide then is Rudolph’s distressingly incorrect passion for hunting and taxidermy still considered morbid and murderous?

Now  to the gun fetish. Rudolph’s job had  a fetish:  guns. Infantry means guns. Rudolph was shoved into an infantry regiment because he had no fetish for horses.  So gunnery became his stock and trade. Unless Rudolph was determined to be grossly incompetent at  his job  he was  expected  to  obsess himself  with   the tools  of  his trade: Gunnery.

Rudolph’s probable OCD would have made Rudolph very  anal and hands  on. Obsessed with details, the engineering, the complexity, the need  to  control, to clean, to admire the perfection of the mechanism. So Rudolph’s OCD would naturally come  to  fixate  on the tools  of  his trade: gunnery.

Rudolph’s final  job was Inspector  General  of Infantry. Between 1885  – 1895 the  infantry was fixated  on  the  technological  revolution  occurring  in gunnery and  ammo. (Please  read  the Gun Crisis ). So Rudolph’s modern, scientific , technological mindset and OCD would place him front  and center of  this revolution in gunnery. It was not just a morbid  fetish or else  be prepared  to damn Mauser, Mannlicher, and Browning as well.

 

In 86 Rudolph was infected by gonorrhea. The court pharmacy ledger clearly documents Dr. Widerhofer’s treatment of Rudolph for gonorrhea. There is no other record of Rudolph being treated for any other STD except gonorrhea in 86. So unless Dr. Widerhofer really was as rotten a doctor as he appeared to be when he falsified the autopsy of Rudolph he did not treat Rudolph for syphilis. So  Rudolph did not ever have syphilis —- despite the fact Dr. Widerhofer lied during the autopsy about Rudolph being insane from syphilis to murder poor Mary by shooting her in her left temple despite the fact Mary has been proven to be bludgeoned to death and not shot in either temple as well as not perishing 13 hours before Rudolph which means that Dr. Widerhofer is a damn liar. But Dr. Widerhofer was probably honest enough in 86 even if he proved to be a more loyal courtier than a doctor on February First of 89.

Gonorrhea is a lessor STD which Francis Joseph and almost 30% of the Imperial Army suffered from. Ditto Sisi after Francis Joseph infected her shortly before or shortly after Rudolph was born so sickly and stunted with perpetual eye problems ever afterwards.

Gonorrhea is not syphilis and must not be confused with syphilis. Gonorrhea is called the ‘life preventer’ while syphilis is called the ‘life destroyer’. Gonorrhea ultimately causes sterility in both sexes and impotence in the male sex. There might also be loin pain and pain while pissing. Rudolph reacted to gonorrhea much like Sisi. Both almost died. That that is an abnormal reaction to gonorrhea. Francis Joseph usually suffered few symptoms and did not go sterile or impotent until much later in life after sustaining too many reinfections.

Gonorrhea immediately shows up in men. But women can display no symptoms of gonorrhea for months or even years. So in fact Stephanie could have infected Rudolph because she  was as unfaithful to Rudolph as Rudolph was unfaithful to Stephanie. For instance Rudolph never infected MC. Mary infected herself while deflowering her self in Egypt with a British officer before the age of 16. Then she celebrated her deflowering by poising for a nude painting.

Gonorrhea does not cause insanity. Nor for that matter  arthritis which Rudolph already suffered from along with glaucoma and other eye infections — all well before 86. But Rudolph later sustained an eye infection from gonorrhea requiring a week of quarantine and goggles  which did not help his growing blindness.

Ironically both  migraines  and glaucoma in the Victorian Age were treated with dark glasses and  goggles which today are chic but  back then would have been embarrassing for Rudolph. Rudolph  would  have spent his life whipping off  those embarrassing non-fashion statements before meeting his adoring public.

Gonorrhea also does not cause baldness. Rudolph’s receding hair loss was exactly like his father’s celebrated baldness. Habsburg Reds lost their hair early in life.

Late in October of 88 Rudolph sustained a serious fall from a horse during one of his endless long distance military inspections. He had to be carried painfully back to his train and then transported by train in pain to get medical treatment. Rudolph initially tried to stop anyone telling the Hofburg about his serious accident which caused a concussion. But the symptoms persisted and were serious enough for everyone to notice them.

Stephanie as the official  prophetess of Rudolph’s Decline & Fall reported the concussion symptoms to all and sundry to prove that Rudolph’s brains were so shaken he was going mad. Willy then reported it to everyone who did not get the news from Stephanie. The fact that Stephanie lived separately from Rudolph apparently did not compromise her skill at long distance prophecy. Ditto Willy who was in Berlin when Rudolph sustained his concussion. The fact both ‘reporters’ of Rudolph’s concussion were malicious with glee as they reported the concussion and its symptoms  does not color their report which is taken as fact by every bio on Rudolph today.

The initial symptom of concussion would have been partial  loss of consciousness. Rudolph was  described as apparently recovering awareness quickly enough. But  then his  aides  de camp would have had  to carry him painfully back  to  his train. Then  that  bumpy train had  to transport Rudolph  to the first town with modern  medicine  to treat Rudolph. Today all of that would be considered appalling.

The  other symptoms of a concussion which Rudolph manifested were nausea which aggravated his gastritis, painful reaction to light or strong smells or sensations, prolonged concussion headaches, difference of the size of the pupils. That is the only visual evidence of a concussion but it is classic.

Rudolph then frantically asked everyone to NOT TELL FRANCIS JOSEPH OR ANYONE ABOUT THE BAD FALL AND THE CONCUSSION.

Rudolph continued to suffer the classic symptoms of a concussion however and rumors of the bad fall soon were reported (by Stephanie naturally) to absolutely everyone that Rudolph’s brains were so damaged by the fall from his horse  he was going insane. And indeed concussion symptoms are alarming and Rudolph’s symptoms got worse instead of better.

The extremely painful concussive headaches continued. Rudolph’s infamous flair for bellowing got worse and junior officers were insulted and even quit because Rudolph was bellowing at them because of the concussion headaches. Rudolph also  found it difficult to concentrate especially as he also sustained blurry vision so he could not read or write. Everything had to be read to him and he had to dictate.

This is proven by the fact he found it all but impossible to see to read or write but the reports he continued to produce were lucid, logical, precise, and spot- on brilliant as usual. Even his composition style was the same (though his handwriting style continued to deteriorate). So the difficulty was in his inability to see or focus his eyes. That is typical of concussion.  Rudolph also  suffered from  dizziness, his taste  was off, nausea persisted  along with fatigue and also acute insomnia.  This  is  all documented.

If a concussion does  not improve  in  ten days  it is by definition Post Concussion Syndrome which   in WW 1  was called shell shock. Concussion   is called Walking Wounded because it is a serious injury but is often dangerously ignored or underrated.

Concussion should be treated by complete rest, careful monitoring, and a slow return to work. Rudolph’s going back to work immediately was appalling. And Dr. Widerhofer’s  only action was to sign out a new prescription of morphine from the court pharmacy ledger ‘after a long absence of such entries’. That is appalling as  well. Did Rudolph take the scrip? Unknown but his obvious pain would indicate he was trying to do without painkillers while doing a full time job in great pain which  he should not  have  been  permitted  to do .

Concussions can become Post Concussion Syndrome based on Risk Factors including job stress, environmental stress, recent stress, emotional stress, a preexisting injury or preexisting condition, extreme stress, anxiety, and depression. Rudolph had all of the above Stress Factors.

Why did Dr. Widerhofer allow Rudolph to work? Why did Rudolph’s military superior who was Albrecht? Why did Francis Joseph? Why did Sisi not even bother? Why did Stephanie viciously chronicle Rudolph’s pain and struggle while doing absolutely nothing about it whatsoever except find chances to deliberately engage in ‘singing lessons’ with her piercing ‘foghorn’ voice while Rudolph writhed green with pain and nausea from concussion headaches? Why did everyone just ridicule Rudolph’s suffering or else sneer that his brains were damaged beyond repair? The sheer callousness was incredible.

Why did Rudolph suffer for November and into December before the symptoms slowly started to recede? Because if Rudolph officially admitted he sustained a concussion Francis Joseph would have a reason to fire Rudolph from his job as Inspector General of Infantry overseeing Gunnery. That  is why.

Since the War Games Albrecht, Francis Joseph, Bismarck, and Willy had been pressuring Rudolph to resign in disgrace. This would have allowed Rudolph to resign for causes of health (even if the concussion was temporary and Rudolph was fully able to slowly recover from it). Instead, Rudolph dug in and defied everyone by absolutely refusing to resign for either disgrace, incompetence, treason, or ill health. Why? It call came down to guns! Please read the Gun Crisis to find out!

And for everyone who ever thought that Rudolph was a gutless whiner and weak wrist suicidal depressive ask yourself if you would have had the guts to continue your job with a serious concussion?

 

Rudolph’s fear of getting fat is indirectly documented. His secretary Count Frische recorded that Rudolph told him he had to be careful because he inclined toward fat. But photographs show Rudolph slim, thin, fragile, and gaunt. Fat? If anything Rudolph should have put on a few pounds!

The Victorian Age prized fat. Plumpness was considered beautiful. Fat was considered a sign of success. Young professionals would actually deliberately put on a few pounds to get the paunch of success & authority so people would respect them. Thinness was a sign of poverty, of TD, of sickness, of failure. So no Victorian would not want to be fat or plump or boast a paunch or curvaceous curves inside a corset.

In fact only two famous people famously feared getting fat. Sisi and Rudolph. Mother and Son. Sisi was known to suffer from anorexia nervosa though she sometimes binged ate and then threw up. Her teeth were famously bad and she never opened her mouth except to carefully whisper as if projecting her ghostly voice through all but closed lips.  The Wittelsbach Bane featured bad teeth but so do binge eaters who throw up regularly.

Sisi was famous for her 18 inch waist and manic exercise regimes. She would ride or walk for five hours at a time. She had a gym. She starved herself. She ate only one normal meal and day and then sustained herself on broth and cigarettes while moving food around her plate during family meals and banquets.

One of the reasons why she hate pregnancy was because she was not allowed to starve herself and pregnancy made her ‘fat’. That was why she was always hysterical about pregnancy (along with being frigid and fear of childbirth and post childbirth depression).

Anorexia Nervosa  can be genetic and can run in dysfunctional  families. Anorexia Nervosa  features  low serotonin. Anorexia Nervosa features obsessive compulsive rituals of control over eating or starving as well as the setting of impossible goals of weight loss perfection. That is all OCD. Anorexia Nervosa starts  in  early  adolescence and happens more in middle class and upper class families where  pressures to meet inflated expectations of success often trigger the neurosis. Anorexia nervosa is a reaction to stress and trauma as well. That is all very OCD. Tragically, it was  all very  Sisi as well. It was also very tragically Rudolph.

Rudolph probably had anorexia nervosa just as he probably had OCD.

 

Rudolph was ensnared by morphine because Dr. Widerhofer over prescribed it for Rudolph’s asthma and asthmatic panic attacks and for his migraines and insomnia. That is typical Victorian medication and it is also typical Victorian reckless abuse of  drugs before 1900 when addiction was not understood and everyone grossly over indulged in drugs from babies to old people. Drugs were handed out like candy or served like soft drinks in pharmacy counters. You trust someone in a white coat or in Rudolph’s case, someone in a black frock coat.

John Salvendy MD found court pharmacy entries for a weaning program developed by Dr.  Widerhofer for Rudolph in 87 which featured a tapering off of morphine along with sedatives, port, cognac, and anti diarrhea medicine with a warning that Rudolph would probably ratchet up his alcohol as he ratcheted down his morphine. The question is did Rudolph succeed?

The difficulty is that during part of 87 into 88 there is just as much evidence that Rudolph was being poisoned by arsenic by Stephanie who later was proven to have signed out another poison to aid and abet Mayerling being the site of his death by poison so we know Stephanie was a poisoner. (Please  read  The Paramatta Mystery).

She could very easily sign out arsenic and arsenic poisoning was a common death in the era. In fact one of Scotland’s most famous ‘Not Proved’ cases of murder featured a Victorian lady and her novel use of her arsenic beauty wash. Stephanie’s blotchy complexion did clear up wonderfully for instance which arsenic beauty wash was famous for.

Rudolph’s   symptoms of decline & fall resemble arsenic as much if not more than morphine abuse and  later  in 88  cleared up until his  concussion when  there is a  reference to a fresh prescription being signed  out after a long absence of such entries .

Rudolph even wrote that he regretted being forced to take morphine to stop his paralyzing asthmatic coughing which were panic attacks from public speaking while being stared at. Rudolph knew both his mother Sisi and uncle Ludwig suffered from exactly the same phobias to the point where they ceased to be  able to function in public. Rudolph was determined to not surrender to the Wittelsbach Bane.

But he also acknowledged in the letter to Stephanie that morphine appeared to be a fatal gift drug that had dangerous side effects so he said he planned to wean himself off it once he returned home. So Rudolph was aware of the novel new theory called ‘Addiction’.

Rudolph wrote a short essay to Weilen (for whom he was also writing the article on Godollo on the day of his death while leaving a letter in the Out Box of Mayerling asking for more time to finish the article). This is a short extract:

‘As it has been observed, man may well be described as machine plus a mind. Physically he may be said to be an electrical organism…. a dynamo…..In his normal physical working condition, man may be described as a kind of natural machine the workableness of which depends on the wholesomeness of food and drink taken in proportion to the need for sustained effort or application. What food he eats goes to strengthen the tissue supply and enrich the blood.

….Before the invention of alcoholic liquors, man, when he found himself in that particular condition of body and mind which was term ‘run down’ like a clock for instance recuperated by resting from his labors until he was wound up anew and ready to continue the struggle….. With the invention of alcohol, there came, however, a new condition of affairs. Men found that when the body and the mind were run down or fatigued it was possible artificially to recreate their energies, and that too, almost at once, by drinking spirituous liquors. A new impulse was created by the draught of alcohol —- which impulse lasted for a certain time, during which the energies seemed to be accelerated, and even thought seemed to be promoted.

The new found energies did not endure long, however. When they were expended, an unusual lassitude was experienced, both in the body and the mind, and in order to stimulate them anew, the recourse was again made to the bottle.

Each period of  exhilaration was succeeded by a period of lassitude proportionate to the artificial recreation of energy, and finally intoxication (ie poisoning) of both the physical and mental apparatus forbade further call on the supply of electrical energy. In other words, our drinking man found himself in the position of having metaphorically speaking overdrawn his physical and mental account to a point at which the bank refused to lend any more. This is the simple result of wantonly abusing alcohol. ….. Not only has the drunkard overdrawn  on the electrical supply of his physical makeup but he has overdrawn on his mental ‘balance’ and in the end finds himself a physical and mental bankrupt.

…. The first best remedy against the abuse of alcohol is, therefore, the cultivation  of the reasoning power and the exercise of that faculty of self criticism which teaches one the folly of expending natural gifts or forces in reckless and undirected fashion so as to bring about the inevitable bankruptcy of body and mind by overdrawing on the natural supply…..’

This  is a remarkable description  of addiction. Rudolph could only have   written it from experience.  Rudolph’s rational  and scientific approach  to life would warn him of his self destructive nature.

But Rudolph’s addictive personality related to PTSD and  Anxiety Depression would  war  with his rational  mind. His right brain was  wounded. His  left brain  was  struggling to  control  the man and defeat  the demons which haunted  him.

Rudolph battled abuse of alcohol all of his life and was very susceptible to morphine which his doctor recklessly over prescribed for Rudolph’s  migraines, insomnia, and asthma. There are too many stories of Rudolph’s inability to drink like most soldiers and to get drunk too easily not to connect the dots. His  neurosis   made  him addictive to self  medicating.

Rudolph’s body’s chemistry was off so he reacted to alcohol and drugs more sensitively and more extremely  unlike Francis Joseph or ‘normal’ Victorians who could abuse a lot of drugs and drink bottles of alcohol a day with little or no side effects.

Francis Joseph probably despised Rudolph’s inability to drink as heavily as he did. A man’s man should be able to drink anyone else under the table! So Francis Joseph was the last person to understand that his son should be helped to NOT DRINK AT ALL instead of attend Victorian banquets where ten glasses of different wines would be enjoyed followed by a bottle of port, brandy, and whiskey with cigars after the females left the table.

Rudolph abused champagne which he drank like water and later cognac. The pharmacy ledger entries on weaning Rudolph off morphine include additional consumption of port and  cognac with warnings that if Rudolph successfully stopped morphine he would probably then abuse alcohol. It is  the same reason why he smoked heavily.

Clearly Rudolph was self medicating for Anxiety Depression and PTSD. This is to be expected. The question is if Rudolph lived could he have found alternative  treatments for his symptoms and find a way to control his self medicating? We will never know. But we know Rudolph was drinking champagne with Hoyos  around midnight while waiting for Coburg to return to Mayerling  from Vienna because  later Grand Duke ‘Nando’ saw Dr. Widerhofer picking out green champagne glass from the bludgeoning part of Rudolph’s horrific bullet wound which totally shattered the crown front of his skull.

Right Brain Left Brain and its manifestation on the face.

The Right Brain is the   ID. The Right Brain is the primitive brain, the feral brain, the fight- or- flight brain, the emotional brain, the child still inside, the adolescent still inside, the trauma and pain buried inside, the irrational and illogical brain, the intuitive brain, the instinctive brain, the dream brain, the brain of the ancestral memories.

The Right Brain is manifested on the left side of the face. So please note the right side of Rudolph’s face. From Rudolph’s later childhood onward the left eyebrow inclined downward creating a line of classic depression or melancholy.

The Left Brain is the Superego brain. The rational brain. the logical brain. The brain of the conscience. The brain of social values and morality. The brain defined by the external world. The brain of the Will. The brain of determination and authority and values. The brain of science. The brain of technology. The brain of religion.

Please note how Rudolph’s Left Brain is manifested on the right side of his face. His eyebrow is remarkably straight across his eye socket.

As another web site about Rudolph has pointed out, if each side of the face is ‘flipped over’ to fill both sides of the face to intensify the Brain behind the Face then you can see how each brain is behaving as it projects itself on the face of Rudolph.

You can see  Rudolph’s normal face on top. Then the Left Brain projected. Then the Right Brain is projected.  Which brain dominates the face the most? In Rudolph’s case the Left Brain is projected more strongly overall. So Rudolph’s Left Brain is more dominate in Rudolph’s overall personality. His Will and Determination and over compensating rationalizing approach to life is dominating. But his Right Brain does reflect a deep pessimism and lack of joy.  So Rudolph was a man who was very determined and over compensating in his rational approach to life. His Left Brain was determined to control and dominate his volatile Right Brain and not let it take over. Rudolph was determined  to  not surrender  to the Wittelsbach Bane.

Few bios of Rudolph do this experiment which does reveal a determination which few biographers give Rudolph credit for. But in the last violent moments of Rudolph’s life in Mayerling his Left Brain was operating because Rudolph went down fighting instead of surrendering.

 

Rudolph’s Victorian mindset as an  officer and a gentleman would have featured one intense thing: the need to save his honor and reputation at all costs. Especially in the military this mindset is very pronounced. Rudolph would have wanted to preserve his honor and reputation above all. An  officer  and gentleman is not afraid  to  die.   An officer and gentleman is afraid of not being given the option to save his honor and reputation.  A man who defied four powerful  men for months  and risked  his life by going to the Balkans  when his  life was threatened is not a  coward.

Rudolph would have ultimately agreed to ‘do the right thing’ as an officer and gentleman and shoot himself if he thought he could exact a quid pro quo from Francis Joseph. If Rudolph shot himself then Francis Joseph would use the engine of state to declare the death something neutral: a heart attack. There was evidence that the engine of state was ready to do just that when Hoyos stumbled into the Hofburg to report Rudolph’s death.

Francis Joseph was recorded as only being surprised that it was poison? With Mary? Ok! No big deal. Slight change of official declarations! Francis Joseph was on record eating and going to bed per his iron clad routine and blandly asking for Dr. Widerhofer to report during normal business hours to give Francis Joseph the exact details of Rudolph’s last minutes on earth. Only when Francis Joseph heard the exact details of the brutal last minutes on earth which his son endured did Francis Joseph scream out in genuine pain that his son dead like a  ‘tailor’ ie coward or dishonorable cur.

And in fact Rudolph was brutally attacked and went down fighting only to fall badly wounded on his hands  and knees with his bludgeoned and concussed head hanging down dazed as his executioner stood over him to shoot him as if a dirty dog. So yeah! Rudolph died like a dishonorable cur! Rudolph was brutally executed by a Roll Commando as if a dirty dog who was not entitled to die like an officer and a gentleman.

Rudolph died brutally, knowing his honor and reputation would be destroyed by a von Holstein/Smutty Petri smear which the Roll Commandos (plus possibly Lieutenant Vetsera and certainly Coburg) were enthusiastically aiding and abetting around midnight and not anywhere remotely near to the official time to do or die: January 30th at 6:30 AM. Rudolph was not given an opportunity to kill himself as an officer and a gentleman. He was brutally executed as if a traitor or dishonorable cur. A dog. All contrary to the implied promise of a quid pro quo which Francis Joseph offered to Rudolph as Rudolph picked up his gloved hand and kissed it.

Rudolph not only died brutally while denied his honor and reputation as an officer and gentleman and a Hasburg but he also died believing Francis Joseph cynically lied to trick Rudolph into going willingly to the site of his execution: Mayerling.

Francis Joseph’s implication in his son’s brutal murder and his cowardly fear of challenging the architects of that brutal murder: Albrecht and Bismarck and probably Willy, caused Francis Joseph to order his engine of state not to preserve his son’s honor and reputation but rather to destroy it utterly with such foul lies as would break any Victorian father’s heart.

Francis Joseph later told Karl and Zita it was the only way to save the monarchy because the truth was too terrible to admit to. As  the  old man  saw naïve   faces  cringe he hastily added that  evidence existed to exonerate Rudolph.

What truth could be s more terrible than allowing the engine of state to label his son a syphilis- mad, cowardly murderer and suicide?

The truth too terrible to admit was that Rudolph agreed to shoot himself as an officer and gentleman if Francis Joseph promised a quid pro quo to preserve his honor and reputation. And Francis Joseph lied. He  lied to Rudolph. Lied to Sisi. Lied to the Habsburgs. Lied to his country. Tried to lie to the Pope. Concealed a lie to fund the nunnery to pray for a trouble soul and for a man WHO WAS KILLED. Lied to Karl and Zita.   Lied to history. And lied to himself.

Francis Joseph  ordered Taaffe to lock away every shred of exonerating evidence and then ordered all signs of Rudolph’s life to be stripped from the Hofburg. Before the month was out Francis Joseph was jovially out hunting. The ultimate Victorian officer sans honor who sacrificed his son to save his own reputation was Francis Joseph.

 

Rudolph appears to have been a very heavy smoker. Smoking is a form of self medicating. In the Victorian Age it was considered harmless and even helpful for people with asthma.  Today of course we know smoking is disastrous.

Recent studies have indicated that smoking does not even help people with stress which for centuries it was believed to do. Smoking actually aggravates stress and it does not help anxiety depression either. But of course sufferers of Anxiety Depression and PTSD use smoking to self medicate.

As we are on the subject of smoking there is an urban myth that Mary wrote ‘Better gun  than poison’ in an ash tray at Mayerling or some such nonsense. Number One: Taaffe boasted of locking away every single bit of evidence from Mayerling so why would he miss such an obvious piece of evidence? Number Two: would a heavy smoker have a clean ash tray? Number Three: how did Mary write her amazing declaration on a glass tray? ‘Snarpie’ pen? Not  invented yet! Pencil? Charcoal? Ink? Try to write with old fashion pencil or pen and ink on glass! Go on! I double dare you! Oh! Oh! Oh! Engraved by diamond  perhaps? Except Mary  did not have a diamond ring for one thing and for another thing engraving such an amazing message would have required days. Engraving is hard. Ideally it would have required a professional jeweler to engrave the message with Victorian tools of engraving. Number Four. The  amazing ash tray only appeared after WW1.

‘Pawn Stars’ have recorded time and again frauds and fakes of famous people and famous events appearing  at their store. If something happens somewhere at sometime and some place to someone then you can guarantee that a forger is going to produce something to profit off it. And I have not seen one google image of that legendary ash tray! So I bet that Rick Harrison of ‘Pawn Stars’ would say ‘Don’t assume nothing unless an expert can confirm it and it comes with full paper work of provenance!’

Rudolph’s condition at the time of Mayering can be indirectly inferred. Stephanie was not living with him except in name  so her prophecies should be taken with a grain of salt or else arsenic. Some people said he looked grim or poorly. Others  did not notice anything wrong. Francis Joseph just retorted that  Rudolph was ‘working too hard’ without otherwise showing much compassion for his son.

Rudolph maintained his normal busy calendar all of January including calendaring  a visit to Berlin to piss off Bismarck and Willy who were demanding that he resign in disgrace. That was gall! And Rudolph shoved his way into general staff meetings despite Albrecht’s refusal to tell him when the meetings were to prevent Rudolph from attending. More gall! Francis  Joseph was in quasi mourning for  the death of his father so Rudolph was expected to pick up the slack. Sisi was actually in Vienna but hysterical because of the engagement of her Einzige Only One and she was trying to do anything to stop it.

Rudolph spent two hours at his garret office working on military calendars and business with some of his aides de camp until the time came to leave. He wound his watch thoughtfully. Then he visited his daughter one last time. Seeing a servant of his upset he stopped the carriage and asked ‘Is there something I can do for you?’ before departing Vienna forever. This shows a man remarkably self controlled.

He was exasperated about the delay in telegrams from Budapest over a military defense bill controversy but once he reached Mayerling he launched a barrage of telegrams to Budapest despite suffering from a mild case of hypothermia from sweating in his heavy furs while helping Bratfisch get the carriage out of a ditch which then froze to his body. Rudolph also got a running head cold so his last days were miserable from a bad cold and mild hypothermia. Rudolph’s smoking and asthma would have made that cold very bad indeed. So the idea that Rudolph planned a fun two hour wee hours of dawn suicide party with Mary as Bratfisch whistled birdy songs in a cold bedroom in the depths of January  is absurd.

There is evidence that Rudolph could be whiny if sick so Rudolph’s behavior might have been whiny and grumpy from his bad cold and mild hypothermia. It would have meant he would have been trying to smoke despite his cold and not succeeding but still trying anyway. His asthma would have made Rudolph’s sickness much worse. So it is amazing he worked all but non stop through the last days of his life.

Count Fritsche’s memoirs record as fairly healthy Rudolph pre-Mayerling  pretty much recovered from the concussion. Rudolph was back fencing at his mess club apparently and he was no longer suffering from dizzy spells so his riding was ok. The midnight symposium Fritsche records as occurring in Rudolph’s garret office at midnight was all charm and good humor. If Rudolph was quietly indirectly saying goodbye to his friends then he hid it very well. Fritsche later said all of the gentlemen who attended that boys’ night out’ debating academic subjects and ridiculing Wagner insisted Rudolph was not suicidal and could not have committed suicide at Mayerling.

Fritsche met Rudolph a few days before Mayerling and discussed forgeries of Rudolph’s handwriting by Smutty Petri which Fritsche was gathering up. Fritsche  said the  double  agent Koinoff looked to be abandoning ship. Fritsche  also  reported more  threats on Rudolph’s life. Fritsche  then asked Rudolph if the Hofburg knew about these threats. Rudolph, who was writing that academic article on Godollo, replied nonchalantly that his father surely knew all  if he was emperor — a tad ironic.

Then Rudolph changed the subject to ask Frische to bring some more academic books to Mayerling to help Rudolph finish that pesky article. Rudolph apologized for the inconvenience because Fritsche did not like hunting (being a gentleman gambler as well as a gentleman spy) and so found Mayerling boring. Fritsche promised to deliver the books. And  indeed Fritsche was walking toward Mayerling when Dr. Widerhofer’s carriage came by. Fritsche was dangling those books when he heard  the news that Rudolph was  dead. Dr. Widerhofer’s later testimony confirms he gave a secretary of Rudolph a ride to the crime scene.

Why did Rudolph arrange to have Fritsche (and His Man Friday Bratfisch Junior)   come to Mayerling on January 30th? Rudolph wanted someone to come and either see Rudolph alive or else dead. If Rudolph died suspiciously or else  if the Hofburg did not report Rudolph’s death as a heart attack per a quid pro quo then at least one man would know the truth. So that shows that Rudolph was amazingly self controlled.

And insanely, Rudolph did indeed work on that Godollo article between bellowing telegraphically at that poor Hungarian politician in Budapest for the last days of his life. Is  this  how a suicide behaves? Or  else a man facing military execution who still hoped for a reprieve  yet was calm enough to do the right  thing if that was the only way to preserve his honor and reputation?

It was  also confirmed by Bratfisch to Fritsche that  1) Mayerling was not suicide, 2)  Rudolph died before Loschek said he did, 3)Bratfisch helped carry briefcases of work into  Mayering because  Rudolph intended to  work,  4) Rudolph did not expect Mary, 5)  Bratfisch  saw only one letter in the Outbox from Rudolph to Weilen (asking for more time to finish the article) but later  saw more letters magically appear after Coburg arrived to preside over the unveiling of the corpses.

Bratfisch did not explain why he suddenly prepared his carriage around 7:00 AM after strolling into the bedroom to ‘wake’ Rudolph at 6:45 AM (and supposedly seeing noting amiss) before going to the large ground  level window to ‘check for weather’ before suddenly rushing to the stable to prepare the carriage and horses as if anticipating someone needing to rush to the train station after Coburg arrived back to unveil the corpses. But Bratfisch did confirm he told an angry hunter that Rudolph was already dead over ninety minutes before Loschek officially said something was amiss. Fritsche also confirmed people told him that Roll Commandos shot  Rudolph. The question was how and when?

Fritsche’s later unnamed memoirs were published in the dark days of WW 1 with the blessing of Archduke and newly crowned Emperor Karl.  Hamil Grant who was the author of ‘Spies And The Secret Service’ edited the work. So clearly a reason now existed for Military Intelligence  to publish the unpublished and confidential memoirs by an Austrian Gentleman Spy who once worked for Rudolph as a contact  to a double agent called Koinoff inside Berlin’s Spy Headquarters of von Holstein and Petri.

Karl had been assured by Francis Joseph that evidence existed to exonerate Rudolph but all Karl and Zita found were dusty old newspapers. All of the exonerating evidence was locked away in Taaffe’s metal box. This must have been Karl’s way to try to exonerate Rudolph. Karl died firmly believing that Rudolph was murdered.

Mayerling: morbid suicide because of demons or a military hit? Read Taaffe’s Metal Box and the Crime Of The Fin De Siecle. It was a military hit.

Rudolph was killed by two Roll Commandos working with 8 other Commandos, perhaps Lieutenant Vetsera, Coburg The Sinister, and an insider which Fritsche too late was warned by Koinoff worked below stairs but plotted with von Holstein. The  greedy cook. Mary was a pawn . Five  Prussians worked in tandem. Fritsche’s  Man Friday Bratfisch Junior saw them loitering at the front gates at 7:00 AM as if waiting for someone due to arrive: Coburg.

So Rudolph’s demons did not kill him. Therefore we should revaluate the nature of Rudolph’s demons and how well he was controlling them before making any rash decisions if Rudolph could have lived and functioned despite his demons if he had not been executed at Mayerling.