Zita of Parma (1892–1989)

Empress of Austria and queen of Hungary, a key participant in the Austrian monarchist movement in both Austria and Hungary until the end of the 1930s, who served for more than two generations as a symbol of the ideals of monarchists and political-cultural traditionalists in Central Europe. Name variations: Zita of Bourbon-Parma; Zita von Bourbon-Parma; Zita von Habsburg; Zita Habsburg; Zita von Parma. Reigned from November 1916 to November 1918. Born Zita Maria Grazia Adelgonda Michela Raffaella Gabriella Giuseppina Antonia Luisa Agnese of Bourbon-Parma in Pianore near Lucca, Italy, on May 9, 1892; died in Zizers, Switzerland, on March 14, 1989, and was buried on April 1, 1989, in the Habsburg crypt in Vienna's Capuchin Church; daughter of Maria Antonia of Portugal (1862–1959) and Robert I, duke of Bourbon-Parma; had 18 brothers and sisters; married Karl von Habsburg-Lothringen or Karl Franz Josef (1887–1922), also known as Charles I of Austria or Carol, Karoly, or Charles IV of Hungary, on October 21, 1911; children: Otto (b. 1912, who married Regina of Saxe-Meinigen); Adelheid or Adelaide (b. 1914); Robert (b. 1915, who married Margarita of Savoy); Felix (b. 1916, who married Anna von Arenberg); Karl Ludwig or Charles Louis (b. 1918, who married Yolande de Ligne); Rudolf (b. 1919, who married Xenia Chernicheva); Charlotte (b. 1921, who married George Alexander, duke of Mecklenburg); Elisabeth or Elizabeth (b. 1922, who married Henry of Liechtenstein).

Born in 1892, almost a decade before the death of Queen Victoria , Zita of Parma died in the momentous year of 1989, only months before the demise of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communist rule in Europe. In her long life, she reigned as empress of Austria-Hungary, a multinational state dating back to the Middle Ages, survived the collapse of monarchical rule in the heart of Europe, witnessed astonishing technological and social changes, and managed to survive all vicissitudes, living as a widow for 67 years and raising eight children. Born in the castle of Lucca near Viareggio, Italy, in 1892, Zita was one of the many children of Robert I, formerly the ruling duke of Parma. Robert was an impoverished descendant of the French dynasty of Bourbon kings, while his second wife Maria Antonia of Portugal was a member of that nation's royal family, the Braganzas. Beautiful and intelligent, Zita grew up in Pianore as well as in a family residence in Schwarzau, Lower Austria. Her private education enabled her to master several languages. Raised in a strict and conservative Roman Catholic environment, she was enrolled in a Konvikt (hostel) in Zangberg, Upper Bavaria, staffed by Salesian teachers, members of the Society of St. Francis de Sales. Here Zita was exposed to assumptions and beliefs that would remain with her for the rest of her life, including her firm conviction in the divine right of families like the Bourbons and Habsburgs to rule their lands and peoples.

Whenever Zita returned to visit with her family at Schwarzau, she would accompany them to the Villa Wartholz, where they socialized with the family of her aunt, Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria . Maria Theresa was a good friend of Zita's mother, and the two looked with favor on the growing friendship between Zita and a member of Maria Theresa's family, Habsburg Archduke Charles I, son of Archduke Otto of Habsburg and Princess Maria Josepha of Saxony . The fondness shown toward one another by Zita and Charles ripened into affection, feelings that met with the approval not only of their respective mothers but of the venerable ruler of the vast Habsburg domains, Emperor Franz Joseph himself. With these blessings, Charles and Zita were married at Schwarzau on October 21, 1911. The wedding ceremonies were immortalized on film, thus preserving for posterity not only images of the young and happy couple but of the aged emperor and his heir, the ill-fated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The marriage would prove to be happy, and eight children would be born to Zita between 1912 and 1922.

Charles' father had died in 1906. His uncle Archduke Franz Ferdinand was heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, occupied since 1848 by the much-beloved Emperor Franz Joseph. But upon his marriage in 1900 to Sophie Chotek , Franz Ferdinand had renounced the right of succession to the throne by any children of this union. Thus, upon Franz Ferdinand's death, which presumably lay a number of decades in the future, Charles would succeed as heir to the throne. On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand and Sophie Chotek were assassinated in Sarajevo, igniting a chain of events that within a few weeks would plunge Europe and eventually the globe into a devastating world conflict.

Charles' relations with Emperor Franz Joseph had not been close, but when Franz Ferdinand's death made him heir, the aged ruler took steps to initiate him in various aspects of affairs of state. The complex Habsburg Empire was now engaged in a war for its very survival, however, and immediate military matters soon took up most of Franz Joseph's time. An amiable man of excellent intentions, Charles was intellectually mediocre and had little preparation to rule a complex and fractious realm. He lacked calmness in crisis, displayed little emotional or physical endurance, and was prone to impetuous, rash and even reckless actions. The personal qualities of the ruler remained important despite the fact that since the 1860s Austria-Hungary had evolved into a viable parliamentary state. The emperor was a stabilizing element in the political system of Austria-Hungary because he retained considerable powers and, even more important, played an important symbolic role as a father figure to many competing nationalities whose only significant state loyalty was to the crown and dynasty. Franz Joseph was revered by many of his subjects and was able to dampen their mutual animosities through his unsophisticated yet convincing personality. With his death on November 21, 1916, Charles succeeded to the throne as Emperor Charles I. At the same time, Zita became empress.

Charles became emperor at a difficult time. His vast nation was war-weary and old national hatreds were once again threatening to destroy the union of peoples that constituted the Habsburg Empire. Charles and Zita experienced some of the miseries of their subjects at the very start of their reign. While in Budapest in December 1916 for their coronation as king and queen of Hungary (they would never be crowned in Vienna as emperor and empress of Austria), the couple was confronted with the horrors of war. Traditionally the new king of Hungary created

new knights of the Order of the Golden Spur, using the venerable sword of St. Stephen to knight a few worthy nobles and, certainly on this occasion, a few military officers for the bravery in the war. But the organizer of the ceremonies, Count Miklós Bánffy, had the idea of bringing men from the front lines to the ceremony, men who were crippled, wounded and even limbless, not dressed in ceremonial attire, so as to "let the battlefield, the muddy, wet nights, the thunder of cannons, and the shell-shock enter with them into the coronation church." The sight was shocking to all present, particularly to Charles and Zita. According to eyewitnesses, it was a miracle that the new king (known as Charles IV in Hungary) was able to get through the ceremony without collapsing. Zita too was deeply affected.

Both Charles and Zita were convinced by early 1917 that their empire could not long survive unless it were able to withdraw from the war. Strongly supported by her mother Maria Antonia, Zita took the initiative for a bringing about separate peace between Austria-Hungary and France. Zita's brothers Prince Sixtus and Prince Xavier of Bourbon-Parma, both of whom were serving at the time as French Army officers, met in Switzerland with their mother, who handed them a secret letter from Zita endorsed by Emperor Charles. The basis for a separate peace treaty between Austria-Hungary and France included the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine to France, the restoration of Belgium, the restoration of Serbia with the addition of Albania, and the cession of Constantinople to Russia. In return for accepting these major territorial changes, mostly at the expense of Vienna's powerful German ally, Austria-Hungary would get a treaty of peace. In late March, Sixtus and Xavier went on a secret mission to Vienna to negotiate with their brother-in-law Emperor Charles. Complex and highly secret talks would drag on for several months in the highest Allied councils of state, but as time passed doubts arose on the details of a separate peace settlement, including the fear that Italy might sign a separate peace with Vienna and thus seriously weaken the Allied side. There was also concern over whether Charles could pressure German allies to accept the terms of such a deal. By late June 1917, the diplomatic effort had collapsed and press reports began to divulge tantalizing parts of the episode.

The failed diplomatic initiative served to discredit Charles in the eyes of his German allies, who would never again trust him. Equally important was the crucial role assigned to Zita in the Sixtus Affair. In a confidential report to the German Foreign Office, the journalist Dr. Paul Goldmann reported that not only had Empress Zita been able to exert considerable political influence on her husband, she was indeed a partisan sympathizer of the enemy. The empress, noted Goldmann, had forbidden retaliatory air strikes against Italian cities, was in favor of ceding Austrian territories to Italy, and strongly favored pressuring Germany to surrender Alsace-Lorraine to France. Alarmingly, Zita and a circle around her were placing pressure on the irresolute and inexperienced Charles, who was ever more desirous of peace and fearful of Austria-Hungary becoming completely subordinated to a Prussian-German Reich. The Sixtus Affair and Zita's role in it also triggered strong anti-Habsburg sentiments within Austria where segments of the Pan-German press launched a bitter campaign against her. Political enemies of the Habsburgs went so far as to accuse the empress of having betrayed the failed, Austrian offensive against Italy on the Piave River in June 1918. For Austria's Pan-Germans, from this point on Zita was evil personified.

By the late summer of 1918, Austrian armies had been defeated and on the home front millions of civilians were destitute and in a state of nearstarvation. Even at this late date, many in Vienna and the court itself continued to live in a world of self-deception and false illusions, perhaps based on a time-honored Austrian tradition of durchwursteln (muddling through). By October 1918, however, it was clear that a catastrophe was taking place and the dynasty might not survive. Desperately, Charles tried to reform the state, putting in place a federal structure, but it was too late. Starting with the Czechs and Slovaks in late October, the various nationalities of the ancient empire began to declare their independence.

The deteriorating situation on the battlefields and in the streets raised the possibility of abdication, but Zita strongly urged her husband not to renounce his throne, crying out in his presence, "Abdicate, never, never!" To the last minute, she strongly supported him in his belief that he could not renounce duties which had been hereditarily transferred to him by history and sacred dynastic traditions. Hoping to save something for the future, Charles took the advice of one of his ministers, Ignaz Seipel, by signing a document on November 11, 1918, in which he declared his intention to "renounce all participation in the affairs of state." Subtly crafted by the Catholic prelate Seipel, the document appeared to be an instrument of abdication but did not in fact state this, leaving open the possibility for a future return to the throne. In later years, after the politically adroit Seipel became chancellor of Austria, his political realism caused him to virtually ignore Zita's political ambitions for a Habsburg restoration, attitudes for which she never forgave him. At the time of Seipel's funeral in 1932, the former empress very pointedly chose not to send a wreath to adorn his grave.

With Charles' de facto abdication, Austria became a republic. The emperor and empress and their children remained in Austria in Eckartsau Castle, but finally departed for exile in Switzerland on March 24, 1919, where they stayed first at Schloss Gstaad and later at Prangins, in a castle on Lake Geneva. In April 1919, the Republic of Austria passed a Habsburg Exclusion Act which nullified all proprietal and political privileges the dynasty had enjoyed. In Switzerland, Zita and her husband began to dream of a restoration of their throne, not so much in Austria, which had come under Social Democratic influence particularly in "Red Vienna," but in Hungary. Ruled by former Habsburg admiral Nicolas Horthy, Hungary technically remained a kingdom, but under Allied pressure could not invite Charles back to his throne. By 1921, Zita had been able to infuse Charles with sufficient optimism about their prospects for a successful return to the throne. Suddenly and without warning, Charles appeared in Admiral Horthy's chambers in Budapest's Royal Palace on March 27, 1921, informing the regent that he had returned to Hungary to perform his functions as that nation's rightful sovereign. Polite but firm, Horthy informed Charles that he had to leave the country promptly, as the times were not yet ripe for change. The next day Charles was on a car with drawn curtains on the Budapest-Vienna-Zurich express. The episode had been a fiasco.

The next attempt to return to power was much more serious, given the fact that it was largely planned not by Charles but by Zita, who saw the issue clearly as one between a usurper, Horthy, and the anointed king of Hungary, her husband Charles. Zita planned for a coup based on energetic action, one that was carefully conceived and backed by military force in the form of Hungarian legitimists led by Colonel Anton Lehár. Zita had not even informed her children when she and Charles left their castle to fly from Switzerland in a chartered airplane that landed on an improvised landing strip in western Hungary on October 21, 1921. Locals learned of the presence of Charles and Zita, giving them a torchlight parade that night. For the next three days, they marched on Budapest with a steadily growing army of supporters. From Budaörs, on the outskirts of the capital, they could see the Royal Palace on the Danube. Unfortunately, they also saw the trenches that their leisurely overland trip had enabled Regent Horthy's troops to dig. At Torbagy near Budapest, Charles and Zita were surrounded by police and formally arrested two days later.

The Hungarian people had not risen to the defense of Charles and Zita. In later years, Zita would argue that the only reason this attempt to restore the Habsburg monarchy had failed was because during that season all Hungarian railroad cars were so full of the sugar beet crop that there was no transportation available to move Habsburg supporters to Budapest. Fearful of a Habsburg regime in Hungary, the governments in Prague and Belgrade ordered military mobilization. Charles and Zita were now "guests," i.e., prisoners of the Hungarian Royal Government, incarcerated in the monastery of Tihany overlooking Lake Balaton. Here they occupied two rooms hardly larger than cells. They spent their time praying and gazing at the enchanting scene at their feet, where precipitous rocks rose out of the lake. The Swiss government, noting that the couple had broken their pledge not to engage in political actions, refused to readmit

them. The British government responded to a request from Budapest, and provided space on a destroyer that took Charles, Zita and their children into a secure exile. The final destination of the imperial family was Funchal, on the Portuguese island of Madeira in the Atlantic. Charles' fragile constitution broke down from the stresses of recent months and the penury he and his family now found themselves living in and he died of pneumonia in Funchal on April 1, 1922. Several months later, already living in Madrid as a guest of Spain's King Alphonso XIII, Zita gave birth to the couple's last child, a daughter she named Elisabeth .

A widow with eight children to support, Zita was fortunate for her royal blood ties. The Spanish king provided lodgings for her family in Lequeito in the Basque region. Later the family moved to Uribarren palace near Madrid. Strongly attached to the traditions of the House of Habsburg, Zita spent the next years in Spain attending to her children's education. Private tutors taught them history, foreign languages and other subjects based on curricula in Austria-Hungary before 1918. The children were raised as devout Roman Catholics, in a context of beliefs centering around the concept of the continuing validity of monarchy as a source of social and political stability. In 1929, Zita moved her family to a château at Steenockerzeel near Brussels, Belgium. She continued to dream of a Habsburg restoration, and carried on countless conversations with those who promised to assist her. In 1930, her oldest son Otto began his studies at the University of Louvain, and within a few years it was Otto who would play an active role in the political activities of the Habsburg family. Many of these schemes amounted to little more than dreams that exploded like soap bubbles, such as a 1933 plan to send Otto to London to help organize an anti-Nazi alliance based on British support of a Habsburg restoration in Austria. The British Foreign Office vetoed the idea.

Throughout the 1930s, as her son Otto became increasingly confident in his ability to represent his own interests and those of his family, Zita continued to involve herself in behind-thescenes political activities on behalf of a Habsburg restoration. She and Otto were also received by the pope in August 1936. An important political upheaval favoring the Habsburgs took place in Austria in 1934 when an ultra-conservative dictatorship was created after a civil war crushed the Social Democrats and ended parliamentary government. Led first by Engelbert Dollfuss, who was assassinated by the Nazis, and then by his successor Kurt von Schuschnigg, at first the New Austria appeared to be receptive to the idea of a restored Habsburg monarchy. Otto and Kurt von Schuschnigg met secretly on two occasions, with von Schuschnigg pledging to Otto that he would resist Hitler by force. But in March 1938, Nazi Germany annexed Austria without firing a shot. In Hungary in 1937, Tibor Eckhardt, leader of the Independent Peasant Party, proclaimed that he favored a Habsburg restoration with Otto as the nation's king. In this instance, it was Zita's intervention that appears to have brought down the plan, given the fact that she insisted on such details as Otto's income and how many castles would be at his disposal. The poor peasants who backed Eckhardt's party feared that they would lose their plots of land, or have higher taxes levied on them, if such a restoration actually took place.

Zita and her children were barely able to escape the advancing German forces when Belgium was invaded in May 1940. Fleeing across France, they arrived at the Spanish border, where a French officer who had decided to join General Charles de Gaulle's Free French movement allowed the endangered foes of Hitler to cross into Spain and safety. Except for her son Robert, who remained in London in order to lobby for the Habsburg cause with Winston Churchill, Zita and her seven remaining children crossed the Atlantic for the United States, arriving there in late July 1940. During World War II, Austrian monarchists were active in exile politics, and Zita had several meetings with President Franklin Roosevelt, who gave her vague assurances of support for her (and Otto's) plans for a postwar Danubian federation, one presumably with a place for the Habsburg family. She emphasized the need to create a stable order in Central Europe that would weaken Communist influences in that strategically important region. Her dreams could not be achieved and although Austria was restored as a sovereign nation in 1945, it was as a republic rather than a monarchy. For the next 45 years, Soviet influence dominated Hungary and virtually all of the rest of Central Europe. Zita could not return to Europe after 1945, and lived in Tuxedo Park, New York, where she would be seen taking lonely walks near her home, "a strange black-veiled figure wearing high-button shoes."

Ex-empress Zita returned to Europe in 1962, settling in Zizers, a village in eastern Switzerland where she lived in a modest tworoom apartment in a home for the elderly run by the Catholic Church. Because of its lingering fear of a Habsburg restoration, Austria forbade members of the family from setting foot on its soil. Things began to change, however, when in 1961 Zita's oldest son Dr. Otto von Habsburg renounced all claims to the throne and became a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany. A noted publicist, he went on to become a highly respected member of the Council of Europe. In 1982, Zita finally was permitted to return to Austria for a visit. (One of her Bourbon relatives, King Juan Carlos of Spain, had interceded on her behalf with Austrian chancellor Bruno Kreisky, who approved the visit.) On her appearance outside Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral, where she attended mass, the elderly Zita received a tumultuous welcome from thousands of cheering Austrians.

Zita, last empress of Austria-Hungary, died in Zizers, Switzerland, on March 14, 1989. Before her burial in the fabled Kapuzinergruft—the Habsburg crypt of Vienna's Capuchin Church—on April 1, the 67th anniversary of Emperor Charles' death on Madeira, Zita lay in state in St. Stephens' Cathedral, her bier festooned with candles. Six black horses drew her hearse through Vienna's narrow, winding streets under overcast skies and intermittent rain, and she was accompanied by a 21-gun salute normally reserved for heads of state. The carriage was the same one that had in 1916 carried the coffin of her fatherin-law, Emperor Franz Joseph, in Vienna's last imperial funeral. In keeping with long-standing Habsburg family traditions, Zita's heart was removed from her body after her death in order to be buried separately. Dating back to the Middle Ages, the tradition reflects the idea that as the center of emotions, the heart deserves a special resting place apart from the rest of the body. Throughout her exile, she carried with her the preserved heart of her husband Charles. The two hearts of the last Habsburg emperor and empress were now to be buried together.

sources:

Albon und St. André, Baron Eugen d'. Prinzessin Zita. Vienna: Verlag Gerlach & Wiedling, 1911.

Bogle, Joanna, and James Bogle. A Heart for Europe: The Lives of Emperor Charles and Empress Zita of Austria-Hungary. Leominster: Gracewing, 1993.

Brook-Shepherd, Gordon. The Last Empress: The Life and Times of Zita of Austria-Hungary, 1892–1989. London: HarperCollins, 1991.

——. The Last Habsburg. NY: Weybright and Talley, 1968.

——. "The Secrets of the Last Empress," in The Sunday Telegraph [London]. November 17, 1991, p. 108.

"Empress Zita," in Deborah Andrews, ed., The Annual Obituary 1989. Chicago, IL: St. James Press, 1990, pp. 203–205.

Feigl, Erich, ed. Kaiser Karl I: Persönliche Aufzeichnungen, Zeugnisse und Dokumente. 2nd rev. ed. Vienna: Amalthea, 1987.

——, ed. Zita, Kaiserin und Königin. 5th rev. ed. Vienna: Amalthea, 1991.

Fichtner, Paula Sutter. "The Habsburg Empire in World War I: A Final Episode in Dynastic History," in East European Quarterly. Vol. 11, no. 4. Winter 1977, pp. 445–461.

Gehrig, Emmy. Umjubelt, Verkannt, Verbannt: Kaiserin und Königin Zita. Wels: P. Reisinger, 1955.

Hamann, Brigitte, ed. Die Habsburger: Ein biographisches Lexikon. Vienna: Verlag Ueberreuter, 1988.

Harding, Bertita. Imperial Twilight: The Story of Karl and Zita of Hungary. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1939.

Illenyi, Balázs. "The Adventures of the Holy Crown of Hungary," in The Hungarian Quarterly. Vol. 41, no. 158. Summer 2000, pp. 32–41.

Kann, Robert A. A History of the Habsburg Empire 1526–1918. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1974.

Keleher, Edward P. "Emperor Karl and the Sixtus Affair: Politico-Nationalist Repercussions in the Reich German and Austro-German Camps, and the Disintegration of Habsburg Austria, 1916–1918," in East European Quarterly. Vol. 26, no. 2, 1992, pp. 163–184.

Klemperer, Klemens von. Ignaz Seipel: Christian Statesman in a Time of Crisis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972.

"Landesmutter!," in Der Österreicher [Vienna]. Vol. 9, no. 17. April 27, 1934, p. 1.

"Last Empress of Austria-Hungary, Zita, Is Dead in Switzerland at 96," in The New York Times Biographical Service. March 1989, p. 254.

Lehár, Anton. Erinnerungen: Gegenrevolution und Retaurationsversuche in Ungarn 1918–1921. Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1973.

Lengyel, Emil. 1,000 Years of Hungary. NY: John Day, 1958.

Der letzte Kaiser, Karl I von Österreich: Sonderausstellung, 27. April bis 31. Oktober 1996. St. Pölten and Pottenbrunn: Landeshauptstadt St. Pölten-Museumsverein Pottenbrunn, 1996.

Manteyer, Georges de. Austria's Peace Offer, 1916–1917. London: Constable, 1921.

"Memorial Service in Budapest for Empress Zita," in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts. April 6, 1989, Eastern Europe 0427/B/1.

Parker, Robert. Headquarters Budapest. NY: Farrar & Rinehart, 1944.

Polzer-Hoditz und Wolframitz, Graf Arthur von. The Emperor Karl. Trans. by Dorothy Fraser Tait and Frank Stewart Flint. NY: Putnam, 1930.

Redier, Antoine. "L'impératrice Zita et l'offre de paix séparée," in Revue des deux Mondes [Paris]. Vol. 60, 1930, pp. 174–202.

Scheer, Maximilian. "Die Verschwörung um Mindszenty," in Aufbau [Berlin]. Vol. 5, no. 11, 1949, pp. 1032–1034.

Sencourt, Robert. Heirs of Tradition: Tributes of a New Zealander. London: Carroll & Nicholson, 1949.

Thanner, Erich. "Die Odyssee der Kaiserin Zita," in Zeitbühne. Vol. 8, no. 1. January 1979, pp. 35–40.

Várdy, Steven Béla. Historical Dictionary of Hungary. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1997.

Wagemut, Karl. Was ich im Elternhause der Exkaiserin Zita von Österreich erlebte: Bruchstücke aus demLeben eines ehemaligen katholischen Hofgeistlichen. Dresden: A. Köhler, 1920.

Wagner, Renate. Heimat bist Du grosser Töchter: Weitere Portraits. Vienna: Edition S/Verlag der Österreichischen Staatsdruckerei, 1995.

Wheatcroft, Andrew. "Tragic Operetta of the Last Habsburg Queen," in The Guardian [London]. March 20, 1989.

Z., H. Die kaiserliche Familie in Lequeitio: Reiseerinnerungen eines Österreichers. Vienna: Vogelsang-Verlag Ges. m.b.H., 1924.

"Zita, die meist verleumdete Frau der Welt!," in Der Österreicher [Vienna]. Vol. 9, no. 35. August 31, 1934, p. 4.

"Zita of Bourbon-Parma: End of the Habsburg Empire," in The Times [London]. March 15, 1989, p. 22.

John Haag , Associate Professor of History, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia