Blessed Charles of Austria

 Blessed Charles of Austria: A Holy Emperor and His Legacy by Charles Coulombe, 374 pages

The subtitle of this biography of the last of the Habsburg monarchs is certain to raise a few eyebrows.  At best, Charles was helpless as Austria-Hungary went down in defeat in the last years of World War I, ultimately being dissolved by the victorious Allies into a handful of feuding ethno-states.  What kind of legacy could he have?  More generally, how is it possible for an emperor to be "holy"?  Did not the high priests of Enlightenment indelibly write their verdict that "no one can reign innocently" across the pages of history in the blood of Louis XVI and his family?

As Charles Coulombe relates, the life of Blessed Charles was dominated by three great loves - his God, his family, and his people.  These were not competing, but complimentary, just as his love for his wife only reinforced his love of his children, and his children his love of his wife.  These were loves tested, proven, and refined through suffering, yet loves to which Charles remained faithful with his whole heart.  It is for this reason that he has been raised to the altars of the universal Church even as the men who supplanted and persecuted him are increasingly maligned or forgotten.

It is no doubt possible to construct a coherent biography of Charles of Austria, based entirely on his external acts, which portrays him as yet another incompetent Machiavel, interested only in power, badly exercising it when he had it and futilely attempting to regain it after he lost it.  This would seem superficially plausible, but would miss the inner life of the man and the self-sacrificial ideal of rulership he represents.  It would also do nothing to change the disastrous course the world has been on since at least 1914.

Spectacular Rubens

Spectacular Rubens: The Triumph of the Eucharist edited by Alejandro Vergara and Anne T Woollett, 81 pages

This is not, as some might think, a cookbook about constructing the most spectacular Ruben sandwiches, but rather an analysis of a series of tapestries designed by Peter Paul Rubens for the Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, the Poor Clare "Convent of the Barefoot Royals" in Madrid.  It was to this convent that Rubens' patroness, the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia, half-sister of Phillip III of Spain and ruler of the Spanish Netherlands, intended to retire after the death of her husband, although political necessity required that she remain in the Low Countries.

The exhibition which occasioned this book reunited six of Rubens' painted models with four of the finished tapestries.  The tapestries were primarily designed for use as hangings in the convent chapel on the feast of Corpus Christi, the annual celebration of the mystery of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, a feast with great political and devotional significance to the Habsburgs particularly and to the Church in general during the Reformation.  Rubens crafted a masterwork of baroque illusion, integrating a sense of movement mirroring that of the Corpus Christi procession, framing his scenes with exotic pillars suggesting a fantastic architecture within the real chapel walls, and creating fictive tapestries within the real tapestries. implying multiple layers of reality like those of substance and accident.

As with any art book, it is the illustrations that matter most, and these are spectacular.  The text is neither overly dull nor uninformative, detailing the commission, preparation, construction, and arrangement of the tapestries, and it does not sneer at the religious beliefs of the artists and their patron.

Mad Catastrophe

A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire by Geoffrey Wawro, 385 pages

In 1847, the Austrian Empire stood as the foundation of the European order and the arbiter of European destiny.  In 1848 that order was shaken, in 1866 Austria was humiliated in the Austro-Prussian War and excluded from wider German affairs, and a year later power within the Habsburg realms was divided between the German Austrians and the Hungarian Magyars.  By the second decade of the twentieth century Austria-Hungary was a dysfunctional state, a patchwork of rival linguistic and ethnic groups theoretically united by their shared allegiance to the Habsburg dynasty and its octogenarian patriarch, Emperor Franz Joseph.  It was this sick man of Europe that would stumble into beginning the First World War. 

Wawro's unrelenting cynicism occasionally becomes tiring - although there is certainly enough here to warrant cynicism - and at times petty, as when he sneers at Archduke Franz Ferdinand's insistence on visiting a man who had been wounded by an attack aimed at the Archduke, a decision that led him directly into the hands of his assassin.  Unfortunately, his constant denigration of his subjects on all sides of the war creates suspicion about the value of his judgement generally, which is a shame, since his Strangelovian tale of the follies of generals on the Eastern Front is otherwise a compelling examination of a largely forgotten part of World War I.

Metternich

Metternich: The First European by Desmond Seward, 272 pages

Wellington is the name most associated with the defeat of Napoleon, but it was Clemens von Metternich whom Bonaparte said "destroyed me systematically."  Metternich directed the foreign affairs of the Austrian Empire through the end of the Napoleonic Wars and was the chief architect of the Congress System that followed, dominating European affairs until the upheavals of 1848.

Long denigrated as a repressive reactionary, Metternich's achievement can be appreciated by comparing the results of the Congress of Vienna to the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles or the Yalta agreement.  His fear of revolution, far from being baseless paranoia, can only be seen as prophetic after the horrors of the twentieth century.

Seward's popular biography does an excellent job of describing Metternich's career without getting too entangled in political minutia.  Unfortunately, the personality of Metternich is not presented as vividly as his policy.

Cleaving of Christendom

The Cleaving of Christendom by Warren H Carroll, 744 pages

In the fourth part of The History of Christendom, Carroll covers the period from the beginning of the Protestant Reformation to the death of Cardinal Mazarin.  These years of war and struggle saw Muslim battle Catholic, Catholic battle Protestant, and Protestant battle Protestant.  It was an era of armies and armadas.  It was the time of Martin Luther, Henry VIII, John Calvin, Good Queen Mary and Bloody Bess, France's three Henrys, Thomas and Oliver Cromwell, Charles V and Philip II, Gustavus Adolphus and his daughter Christina, Cardinal Richelieu, and two False Dmitrys.

The Cleaving of Christendom follows seamlessly in the steps of The Glory of Christendom, in ways both good and bad.  Carroll deftly interweaves multiple narrative threads to bring unity to the historical record, distilling vast amounts of information into digestible packets.  At the same time, there is a tendency to focus on the purely political elements of history - understandable when discussing Christendom in the age of cuius regio, eius religio - and Carroll's definition of Christendom includes only those areas that kept the Catholic faith.

Grand Strategy of Philip II

The Grand Strategy of Philip II by Geoffrey Parker, 446 pages

In 1556, at the age of 29, Philip II inherited much of the Habsburg patrimony possessed by his father, Emperor Charles V, including the Low Countries, Milan, Naples, Sicily, and Spain with its American possessions.  In 1581 he became King of Portugal as well, which also bought him control over extensive colonial holdings in Brazil, Africa, and India.  His was the first "empire on which the sun never sets".  His reign is often regarded as the golden age of Spanish power and prestige, but the decline had visibly begun well before his death in 1598.

Geoffrey Parker's book is not a biography, but rather a study of how decisions were made, and sometimes not made, in Philip's government.  Such a far-flung empire, even the European parts of which were neither geographically nor linguistically united, did not lend itself to a single "Grand Strategy"; therefore, of necessity, Philip's policies tended to be reactions to crises.  Still, all was pursued in the perceived interests of the whole, united in the person of the sovereign, none more so than the "Enterprise of England" which culminated in the sailing of the Armada.  It is the decision-making surrounding this event that is analyzed most thoroughly, for the excellent reason that it is so well documented on both sides.  Although Parker does not diminish Philip's failures - especially in the Netherlands and England - he also acknowledges his successes - especially in the Mediterranean, Italy, and France.  In his thorough, balanced presentation, Parker manages to simultaneously use modern experience to critique Philip's leadership and analyze Philip's experiences as a lesson for modern leaders, even as he illustrates how structural and personal factors combine to make history.