CAUSE OF GREAT WAR

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 150, 21 December 1929, Page 22

CAUSE OF GREAT WAR

HISTORIAN'S THEORY

The vengeance of a woman is declared to have been the real cause of tho assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Serajevo in 1914 and thus indirectly.: to have brought about the European War, says the "Daily Mail." / „ ■.:•:...::.

The woman is described as Eleonora of Hapsburg, the illegitimate daughter of. the Archduke Budolf, son of the Emperor Franz Josef of Austria, and his mistress, tho beautiful Maria Vetsera.

A review of a' book shortly to be published by M. t'Serstevens, tho historical writer, declares that tho author has lifted a corner of the veil which i has shrouded the tragedy at Moyerlinir in 1889, when Rudolf and Maria were found shot dead.

The author, it is stated, learned from a certain Lbschek, valet to Budolf, that some months before the Baroness Maria Vctsera and the Archduke were found dead in the hunting lodge at Meyerliug she had given birth to a daughter, who was brought up by the Archduke John and the valet Loschek.

The girl was given the name of Eleonora of Hapsburg-Vetsera, and grew up inflamed with the idea of avenging her parents.

She gained to her cause, it is alleged several Serbian anarchists, and she | organised the plot which culminated in [the murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wif^ afc Serajevo The Archduke Euflolf did not agree with his father, the aged Emperor Franz Joseph, concerning the future of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Rudolf's sympathy lay with the Hungarians, Croats, and Dalmatians, and he wanted an extended form of federal rule under his own auspices, separating the main, part of the. territories of the Dual Monarchy from Austria.

This view met with bitter hostility in Court circles and it was stated that the Emperor went so far as.to threaten to have him shot if he persisted in his Separatist ideas. . -

Budolf had handed to . his cousin Countess Larisch, a ateel box containing all the documents liable to compromise the plotters.

Then came the Meyerling tragedy. After a. riotous night, when Budolf entertained his relatives tho Archduke Charles Louis and his son, tho Archduke IVanz Ferdinand,. Rudolf, and Maria Vetsera were found dead in an upper, room. Budolf held a revolver from which two shots had been fired and it seemed to be a ease of murder and suicide. But the valet Loschek declared that the weapon really belonged to the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.