now at rest, free from all care and sorrow; he saw his wife, his
son, his friends all die, but Fate spared him the sight of his
expiring Empire.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND _Photo: Pietzner, Vienna._]

Franz Ferdinand's character held many sharply defined corners and
edges; judging him objectively, no one can deny his great faults.
Though the circumstances of his death were so tragic, it may well be
that for him it was a blessing. It is hardly conceivable that, once on
the throne, the Archduke would have been able to carry out his plans.
The structure of the Monarchy which he was so anxious to strengthen
and support was already so rotten that it could not have stood any
great innovations, and if not the war, then probably the Revolution,
would have shattered it. On the other hand, there seems to be no doubt
that the Archduke, with all the vehemence and impulsiveness of his
character, would have made the attempt to rebuild the entire structure
of the Monarchy. It is futile to comment on the chances of his
success, but according to human foresight the experiment would not
have succeeded, and he would have succumbed beneath the ruins of the
falling Monarchy.

It is also futile to conjecture how the Archduke would have acted had
he lived to see the war and the upheaval. I think that in two respects
his attitude would have differed from that taken. In the first place,
he never would have agreed to our army being under German control. It
would not have been consistent with his strongly developed autocratic
tendencies, and he was too clever politically not to see that we
should thereby lose all political freedom of action. In the second
place, he would not, like the Emperor Charles, have yielded to
revolution. He would have gathered his faithful followers round him
and would have fallen fighting, sword in hand. He would have fallen as
did his greatest and most dangerous enemy, Stephen Tisza.

But he died the death of a hero on the field of honour, valiantly and
in harness. The golden rays of the martyr's crown surrounded his dying
head. Many there were who breathed more freely on hearing the news of
his death. At the court in Vienna and in society at Budapest there was
more joy than sorrow, the former having rightly foreseen that he would
have dealt hardly with them. None of them could guess that the fall of
the strong man would carry them all with it and engulf