The treaty *he* signed? Charles I did not become Emperor until 1916, and was not even heir apparent until 1914. I assure you, he signed no treaties with anyone. Besides which, no treaty was responsible for the Great War. If you want to pin blame on someone, blame the Serbian terrorists who shot Archduke Francis Ferdinand or the scheming French politicians who kept pushing the Russians to mobilize against Austria and Germany just so they could get their grubby, republican hands on Elsass-Lothringen again.
"nor end the war once it turned into an evil slaughter" you say? Pray sir, you are misinformed. Emperor Charles I was, in fact, the ONLY leader in Europe, with the possible exception of Pope Benedict XV, who truly desired and worked for peace. He is certainly the only ruler to offer to give up some territory if it would mean an end to hostilities. He placed the welfare of his people ahead of personal pride and national ambition.
Charles I is a representation of the finest tradition of Hapsburg princes, following the illustrious example of Empress Maria Theresa, Emperor Ferdinand II, King Philip II or Emperor Charles V. He was a true son of the Church and a worthy successor to Francis Joseph, "the last monarch of the old school".
May God advance his cause and may Blessed Charles I pray for us.
Shooting a head of state who has command and control responsibilities is not an act of terrorism. If it was every time we bombed Saddam could be called an act of terrorism. And it was the Austrians who signed a treaty returning Bosnia to Serbia which they reneged against. As a king he inherits the signature. Responsibilities are hereditary.
Sun 15 Aug 2004
Serbs paid dearly for their freedom
GERALD Warner better go back to school and study history before he freely revises it to suit his own agenda.
In his column ‘Did Britain really have to be in the war to end all wars’ last week he makes several hideous mistakes. Or worse, deliberate omissions.
The truly injured party was the Serbs, not the Austrians. Missing from his article is any mention about the assassination of the Serbian king three years prior to the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand.
It is apparent by this racist slur at the Serbs that the writer believes it appalling to kill an archduke but acceptable to liquidate a Serbian king as Austria and their Croatian vassals were highly implicated in the murder of the Serbian king, especially Ante Pavelich, who headed the first independent state of Croatia (1941), a Nazi puppet state.
Also missing from the facts is that Serbia was internationally recognised at the Congress of Berlin (1876) as an international nation with one exception. Austria would be the protectorate of Bosnia for 44 years. When it came time to return Bosnia to the Serbs, Austria and the archduke refused.
As though this was not insulting enough, the archduke went to Sarajevo on the most sacred holy holiday of the Serbian people, Vidovdan, the commemoration of the Battle of Kosovo when the Serbs lost 77,000 victims and the loss of their nation to Ottoman slavery for 412 years.
If I were alive then I would have assassinated the archduke myself.
It is also insulting that Gerald. Warner makes no mention of the fact that the Serbs lost 52% of their adult male population in the [First] World War and 22 years later lost 1.4 million of their citizens to the Nazi hordes.
The Serbs have paid dearly for their freedom from the Austrian Empire - a corrupt government that deserved to be destroyed.
William Dorich, Los Angeles