0:00:04 > 0:00:10In the spring of 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French,
0:00:10 > 0:00:13lost his empire and his throne.
0:00:14 > 0:00:18Now Europe's most powerful men arrived in Vienna
0:00:18 > 0:00:20for the ultimate summit meeting,
0:00:20 > 0:00:25to rebuild the Europe that Napoleon had almost destroyed.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31But the Congress of Vienna wasn't all diplomacy.
0:00:31 > 0:00:34It turned into the biggest party the continent had ever seen...
0:00:37 > 0:00:39..hosted by the family
0:00:39 > 0:00:42that had dominated middle Europe for centuries -
0:00:42 > 0:00:44the Habsburgs.
0:00:44 > 0:00:49Five years after Napoleon and the French had captured Vienna,
0:00:49 > 0:00:53the city was at its height. We follow it from apogee to decline.
0:00:55 > 0:00:59From the beauty and self obsession of Empress Sisi
0:00:59 > 0:01:03to the suicide pact of Crown Prince Rudolf.
0:01:03 > 0:01:06To the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10I'll follow the Habsburgs to the downfall of the dynasty.
0:01:12 > 0:01:17In this final chapter in the story of Vienna I'll also discover how
0:01:17 > 0:01:22imperial city became the capital of ideas.
0:01:22 > 0:01:27From Klimt's exploration of our sexuality to Freud's voyage into our
0:01:27 > 0:01:31minds, to the angry young artist who hated them both.
0:01:32 > 0:01:36Vienna shaped the modern age for both good and evil.
0:01:38 > 0:01:43These are the streets walked by Hitler and Stalin, who,
0:01:43 > 0:01:4630 years later, tossed Vienna between them
0:01:46 > 0:01:50in history's greatest war of annihilation.
0:01:52 > 0:01:57A city of death and tragedy that change lives, among them,
0:01:57 > 0:01:59my own family.
0:02:00 > 0:02:03Vienna became the academy of civilisation.
0:02:04 > 0:02:08But it was also the battlefield of extremes,
0:02:08 > 0:02:14of monarchy versus revolution, of communism versus fascism,
0:02:14 > 0:02:18and of pious formality against wild decadence.
0:02:18 > 0:02:22And it all happened here, here in Vienna.
0:02:22 > 0:02:24The world's city.
0:02:43 > 0:02:45Autumn, 1814.
0:02:45 > 0:02:49France was vanquished and after ruling most of Europe,
0:02:49 > 0:02:55Napoleon was in exile, emperor of the tiny island of Elba.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00Now that Napoleon was defeated, all the great men of Europe,
0:03:00 > 0:03:03and the great women, in fact, descended on Vienna.
0:03:07 > 0:03:12Emperor Francis invited them all to the ultimate summit meeting,
0:03:12 > 0:03:14and wildly decadent junket,
0:03:14 > 0:03:19in order to put Europe together again after 20 years of
0:03:19 > 0:03:24destructive wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France.
0:03:24 > 0:03:27Francis was the host but he wasn't really in charge.
0:03:27 > 0:03:33The man who was in charge was Prince Klemens von Metternich.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36He was vain, he was boastful, he was playful.
0:03:36 > 0:03:41He also had a clear and brilliant vision of how to run Austria
0:03:41 > 0:03:44and how to position it and how to rule Europe.
0:03:50 > 0:03:53This is the Austrian Chancellery and Prince Metternich
0:03:53 > 0:03:56lived and worked here, and ruled Vienna from here,
0:03:56 > 0:03:59and all of Austria, for 30 years.
0:03:59 > 0:04:00His bedroom is right above us here.
0:04:04 > 0:04:08This grand meeting room was the nerve centre of European political
0:04:08 > 0:04:11activity during the Congress of Vienna.
0:04:11 > 0:04:16As Europe's self appointed puppet master Metternich would be the chief
0:04:16 > 0:04:20arbiter of the new continental system,
0:04:20 > 0:04:23and Habsburg Vienna would be its capital.
0:04:23 > 0:04:25But as well as redesigning Europe,
0:04:25 > 0:04:27Metternich and the Emperor relaunched the
0:04:27 > 0:04:29very look of Vienna itself.
0:04:30 > 0:04:34I've come to see some of the richly embroidered costumes worn by the
0:04:34 > 0:04:36dignitaries at the Congress.
0:04:36 > 0:04:41Dr Monica Kurzel-Runtscheiner is going to tell me how they reveal the
0:04:41 > 0:04:43tawdry state of Vienna.
0:04:46 > 0:04:48One of the problems the Emperor faced
0:04:48 > 0:04:50when he decided to make the Congress in Vienna
0:04:50 > 0:04:53was that his population was completely impoverished after the
0:04:53 > 0:04:57years of war, so he feared that he would organise all these glamorous
0:04:57 > 0:04:59parties and his court wouldn't come,
0:04:59 > 0:05:02because they didn't know how to dress.
0:05:02 > 0:05:06So he decided to give all his dignitaries these beautiful civil
0:05:06 > 0:05:11uniforms, so the richness of the gold embroidery is always
0:05:11 > 0:05:13a symbol of rank.
0:05:13 > 0:05:17And this is easily to recognise this is one of the most important men
0:05:17 > 0:05:21in the Empire, wearing this, like a Lord Chamberlain, for instance.
0:05:21 > 0:05:23And red is a very important colour,
0:05:23 > 0:05:28so red was reserved for the nobility and the children's uniform
0:05:28 > 0:05:31also in red because this is the uniform of a page.
0:05:31 > 0:05:34The pages were young members of the Austrian nobility and they made
0:05:34 > 0:05:36services at the Congress as well.
0:05:40 > 0:05:45These extravagant costumes really mattered in an age when the pomp of
0:05:45 > 0:05:48power was the expression of its plenitude.
0:05:49 > 0:05:53Francis and Metternich were using bling to promote the dynasty.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59Of all the VIPs who attended Europe's greatest summit,
0:05:59 > 0:06:03its biggest star was Tsar Alexander I of Russia.
0:06:03 > 0:06:05The true liberator of Europe,
0:06:05 > 0:06:09he and his army had fought all the way from Moscow to Paris
0:06:09 > 0:06:11to destroy Napoleon.
0:06:11 > 0:06:16Now Alexander wanted Russia, not Austria, to be the dominant power.
0:06:16 > 0:06:19And only one thing stood in their way -
0:06:19 > 0:06:22Metternich and the House of Habsburg.
0:06:31 > 0:06:35"All politics," said the French Prime Minister
0:06:35 > 0:06:38at the Congress of Vienna, "Is women."
0:06:38 > 0:06:41And the struggle between Austria and Russia,
0:06:41 > 0:06:43Metternich versus Tsar Alexander,
0:06:43 > 0:06:47was played out not only in the corridors of power,
0:06:47 > 0:06:49but also in the bedrooms
0:06:49 > 0:06:54of two extraordinary aristocratic mega-vamps,
0:06:54 > 0:06:58and it happened that they lived at the top of the same staircase.
0:07:02 > 0:07:07In one apartment was Princess Katya Bagration,
0:07:07 > 0:07:11beautiful and promiscuous, she had been Metternich's mistress,
0:07:11 > 0:07:13now she was the Tsar's.
0:07:13 > 0:07:17She was known as the Naked Angel for her see-through dresses.
0:07:19 > 0:07:23In another apartment was Wilhemine, Duchesse de Sagan,
0:07:23 > 0:07:26a highly intelligent formidable semi-royal heiress.
0:07:26 > 0:07:30Metternich was passionately in love with her.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34But she took other lovers and her infidelities drove him mad.
0:07:34 > 0:07:40Each day Tsar Alexander visited Katya, and Metternich visited Sagan.
0:07:41 > 0:07:45But there was a problem. Their apartments were on the same landing.
0:07:49 > 0:07:55One day, Tsar Alexander decided to hit Metternich where it would hurt.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59That day, instead of turning right to visit Princess Katya,
0:07:59 > 0:08:03he turned left, to visit Duchess Wilhelmine.
0:08:03 > 0:08:07The police agents reported to Metternich
0:08:07 > 0:08:11that the Tsar spent many hours with the Duchess.
0:08:11 > 0:08:13Vienna was fascinated.
0:08:13 > 0:08:17Metternich was distraught and infuriated.
0:08:17 > 0:08:20He even talked of challenging the Tsar to a duel.
0:08:20 > 0:08:24Instead he sobbed that his desk in the Chancellery.
0:08:25 > 0:08:31They could swap mistresses and carve up kingdoms but in the end they had
0:08:31 > 0:08:34to compromise and run Europe together.
0:08:43 > 0:08:47Nine months of political rivalry and social intrigue nearly ripped the
0:08:47 > 0:08:51Congress but finally the treaty was ready to sign.
0:08:52 > 0:08:57I'm sitting in the chair of the Chancellor of Austria and this was,
0:08:57 > 0:09:00and is, his Cabinet Office.
0:09:00 > 0:09:03In June 1815, in this building,
0:09:03 > 0:09:06the Congress of Vienna Treaty was finally signed.
0:09:09 > 0:09:14The map of Europe had been redrawn, legitimate power, Austrian power,
0:09:14 > 0:09:19has been restored in Germany, in the Balkans, in Italy, in Hungary.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23More than that, from now on,
0:09:23 > 0:09:27Metternich and his so-called Concert of Great Powers,
0:09:27 > 0:09:30a sort of early version of the UN Security Council,
0:09:30 > 0:09:32decided everything in Europe.
0:09:35 > 0:09:37Nicknamed the Coachman of Europe,
0:09:37 > 0:09:42Metternich manipulated the continent through a series of mini congresses,
0:09:42 > 0:09:45crushing revolution wherever it reared its head.
0:09:47 > 0:09:50At home he presided over the dreary stability
0:09:50 > 0:09:53enforced by his secret police.
0:09:53 > 0:09:55Shunning coffee-house politics,
0:09:55 > 0:09:58the Viennese turned inwards and retreated into the dull
0:09:58 > 0:10:01and safe privacy of their own homes.
0:10:03 > 0:10:07The Viennese drank, ate and danced away the Metternich years.
0:10:09 > 0:10:14The calm stability and mildly repressive conservatism of Prince
0:10:14 > 0:10:19Metternich's rule, characterised by the regular and reassuring
0:10:19 > 0:10:25waltzes of Johann Strauss and his family of composers,
0:10:25 > 0:10:32couldn't contain the forces of the age, nationalism and liberalism,
0:10:32 > 0:10:36and soon it was clear that they were seething dangerously
0:10:36 > 0:10:38just beneath the surface.
0:10:41 > 0:10:46In 1855, Emperor Francis died and he was succeeded by his eldest son,
0:10:46 > 0:10:51Ferdinand, who unfortunately suffered from a speech impediment,
0:10:51 > 0:10:54epilepsy and water on the brain.
0:10:54 > 0:10:59Metternich remained in charge but now the sovereign was ailing,
0:10:59 > 0:11:04the minister was geriatric, the regime was sclerotic.
0:11:04 > 0:11:06It was all ripe for revolution.
0:11:14 > 0:11:19Across Europe, students and radicals seethed with exciting liberal ideas
0:11:19 > 0:11:23to destroy Metternich's absolutist regime.
0:11:23 > 0:11:27In Vienna, while the old danced, the young dreamed and plotted.
0:11:31 > 0:11:37In February 1848 revolutions broke out in Italy, then in Paris,
0:11:37 > 0:11:40and then they spread to Vienna.
0:11:40 > 0:11:42The Habsburgs panicked.
0:11:42 > 0:11:46They needed a scapegoat and they blamed Prince Metternich.
0:11:48 > 0:11:51After almost 40 years in power,
0:11:51 > 0:11:55Metternich was forced to resign and fled Vienna.
0:12:00 > 0:12:03In October, events took a violent turn.
0:12:03 > 0:12:05After the shooting of some demonstrators,
0:12:05 > 0:12:09the revolutionaries demanded revenge.
0:12:09 > 0:12:11The Minister of War was lynched.
0:12:11 > 0:12:14The mob strung him up from a lamppost.
0:12:20 > 0:12:22The following dawn,
0:12:22 > 0:12:25a fleet of imperial black carriages emerged from
0:12:25 > 0:12:28Habsburgs' main residence, the Hofburg Palace.
0:12:29 > 0:12:30The mob let them pass.
0:12:31 > 0:12:33They fled the capital.
0:12:35 > 0:12:39As soon as the Habsburgs were away from revolution-stricken Vienna,
0:12:39 > 0:12:43they got their courage back and they planned their revenge.
0:12:43 > 0:12:46They ordered their army to take Vienna back.
0:12:46 > 0:12:51And on the 28th of October, a huge Habsburg army,
0:12:51 > 0:12:55fortified by Croatian and Montenegrins from the Balkans,
0:12:55 > 0:12:59attacked the city. First they bombarded it for several hours,
0:12:59 > 0:13:03and then, street by street, barricade by barricade,
0:13:03 > 0:13:05they fought their way in.
0:13:05 > 0:13:08The Croatians and Montenegrins burst into people's houses,
0:13:08 > 0:13:11murdering and torturing and plundering.
0:13:11 > 0:13:16By the end of the day, Vienna was back in the fief of the Habsburgs.
0:13:16 > 0:13:18The revolution was over.
0:13:24 > 0:13:28But it had shaken the dynasty to its core and if it was to have a future,
0:13:28 > 0:13:30young blood was required.
0:13:33 > 0:13:39That future was the Emperor Ferdinand's nephew, Franz Joseph.
0:13:39 > 0:13:41His mother, the Archduchess Sophie,
0:13:41 > 0:13:45described as the only man in the House of Habsburg,
0:13:45 > 0:13:48had dedicated her life to preparing young Franz for power.
0:13:50 > 0:13:53Now she schemed to replace Emperor Ferdinand with her son.
0:13:57 > 0:14:01In December, at a hastily arranged abdication ceremony,
0:14:01 > 0:14:04Ferdinand did go and into his place
0:14:04 > 0:14:08stepped the handsome 18-year-old Franz Joseph.
0:14:12 > 0:14:14From the moment of his accession,
0:14:14 > 0:14:16Franz Joseph always appeared in uniform.
0:14:16 > 0:14:21He saw himself as the supreme warlord and autocrat,
0:14:21 > 0:14:25presiding with military might over a polyglot empire.
0:14:26 > 0:14:30But the empire had almost been torn apart by revolution.
0:14:30 > 0:14:33It had to be re-conquered, province by province.
0:14:35 > 0:14:37This is the Radetzky March,
0:14:37 > 0:14:42that became the anthem of the re-conquest of the Habsburg Empire,
0:14:42 > 0:14:46named after Field Marshal Radetzky who retook Italy.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49But things weren't going well in Hungary.
0:14:49 > 0:14:52There the revolutionaries had defeated the Habsburg Empire.
0:14:52 > 0:14:56In desperation, the young Emperor Franz Joseph
0:14:56 > 0:15:02had to travel to Russia to kneel in front of Tsar Nicholas I,
0:15:02 > 0:15:04the arrogant Russian emperor who, more than anyone else,
0:15:04 > 0:15:08resembles our own President Putin of today.
0:15:08 > 0:15:14He begged him for help and the Tsar sent 200,000 men to retake Hungary.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18Franz Joseph never got over the humiliation.
0:15:18 > 0:15:21He never forgave the Romanov who'd saved him.
0:15:24 > 0:15:25But he got his revenge.
0:15:25 > 0:15:31In 1853, Britain and France launched a Crimean War against Russia.
0:15:31 > 0:15:35Franz Joseph betrayed Nicholas and backed Britain and France,
0:15:35 > 0:15:37though he managed to keep out of the war.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40Facing defeat, Nicholas died,
0:15:40 > 0:15:43cursing Franz Joseph for his ingratitude.
0:15:44 > 0:15:48All the while, Franz Joseph's hold on his unruly empire was weakening.
0:15:48 > 0:15:53To the west, the Italians loathed their Habsburg masters
0:15:53 > 0:15:56and in 1859 they rose again.
0:15:56 > 0:15:59The Italians had a big backer,
0:15:59 > 0:16:05France, now ruled by Napoleon III, nephew of the great Emperor.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09When Franz Joseph was provoked into declaring war,
0:16:09 > 0:16:13he found himself facing a modern French army,
0:16:13 > 0:16:17commanded by Napoleon III himself.
0:16:17 > 0:16:19Fancying himself as a military autocrat,
0:16:19 > 0:16:23Franz Joseph insisted on taking command himself.
0:16:23 > 0:16:24It was a disaster.
0:16:24 > 0:16:26The Austrians were defeated.
0:16:26 > 0:16:27Italy was lost.
0:16:27 > 0:16:30And Franz Joseph never took command again.
0:16:34 > 0:16:40Defeat destroyed Franz Joseph's dream of being a military autocrat.
0:16:40 > 0:16:43Austria was now exposed, especially in Germany.
0:16:45 > 0:16:48For centuries the Habsburgs had dominated Germany,
0:16:48 > 0:16:53which was still made up of many small kingdoms and principalities.
0:16:53 > 0:16:56But now he faced a rising power there,
0:16:56 > 0:16:57Prussia.
0:16:57 > 0:17:00And the new Prussian Prime Minister saw an opportunity.
0:17:02 > 0:17:06This is Franz Joseph's office at the Hofburg.
0:17:06 > 0:17:09And it was from here that he was unfortunate enough
0:17:09 > 0:17:13to face the supreme politician of his age -
0:17:13 > 0:17:17Otto von Bismarck, Prime Minister of Prussia,
0:17:17 > 0:17:22who was determined to unify Germany under his own king.
0:17:22 > 0:17:28In 1866, he provoked Franz Joseph into war,
0:17:28 > 0:17:31and the Austrians were soundly defeated
0:17:31 > 0:17:33at the Battle of Koniggratz.
0:17:33 > 0:17:37Within four years Bismarck had got his way.
0:17:37 > 0:17:42The king of Prussia became the Emperor of a new power, Germany.
0:17:42 > 0:17:46But, Bismarck was too clever to destroy Austria.
0:17:46 > 0:17:50Instead he made Franz Joseph into his ally.
0:17:50 > 0:17:55But from now on the Habsburgs were very much the junior partner.
0:17:59 > 0:18:03Franz Joseph had been defeated in Italy and in Germany,
0:18:03 > 0:18:06and now the Hungarians were threatening revolt again.
0:18:08 > 0:18:12The Emperor's family proved as difficult to rule as his empire.
0:18:12 > 0:18:15The problems went back to his marriage in 1854,
0:18:15 > 0:18:17which started like a fairy tale.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22Franz Joseph was the most eligible bachelor in Europe
0:18:22 > 0:18:25and his domineering mother, Archduchess Sophie,
0:18:25 > 0:18:28decided he had to marry and soon.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31She herself was a Bavarian princess,
0:18:31 > 0:18:36and so now she introduced him to two sisters from her own Bavarian royal
0:18:36 > 0:18:40family. He was meant to like the older sister,
0:18:40 > 0:18:44but in fact he fell immediately in love with the younger one.
0:18:44 > 0:18:47She was 15. Her name was Elizabeth.
0:18:47 > 0:18:50But everyone called her Sisi.
0:18:53 > 0:18:56Within two days of meeting, they were engaged.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00The following year, in 1854, they were married.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03The whole of Europe was captivated.
0:19:14 > 0:19:19This is the marital bed chamber of Franz Joseph and Empress Sisi.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22This is where he brought her in 1854.
0:19:22 > 0:19:26It has just been redecorated to be exactly as it was then.
0:19:26 > 0:19:31And one can feel the stuffiness and the formality that she found so
0:19:31 > 0:19:32difficult to bear.
0:19:34 > 0:19:37These two portraits tell you pretty much all you need to know about them
0:19:37 > 0:19:42at this stage. Franz Joseph is dutiful, plodding, dull,
0:19:42 > 0:19:46and lives for duty, Catholicism and the monarchy.
0:19:48 > 0:19:53She's wild, beautiful, fascinating and self-obsessed.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56She grows her hair all the way down to her waist,
0:19:56 > 0:19:57and pleases only herself.
0:19:57 > 0:20:01But she did have to deal with her mother-in-law,
0:20:01 > 0:20:05the domineering and ever-interfering Archduchess Sophie,
0:20:05 > 0:20:08who really was the royal mother-in-law
0:20:08 > 0:20:10from Imperial Habsburg hell.
0:20:13 > 0:20:18Sisi gave birth to a daughter, Gisela, and then a son, the heir,
0:20:18 > 0:20:22Crown Prince Rudolf, seen here sitting on her lap.
0:20:24 > 0:20:27Sisi's mother-in-law, Sophie, on the right,
0:20:27 > 0:20:30forbade Sisi from raising her children.
0:20:30 > 0:20:32She said she was too immature.
0:20:32 > 0:20:34Sophie took charge instead.
0:20:36 > 0:20:38Feeling her life was no longer her own,
0:20:38 > 0:20:42Sisi then turned to the one thing could control, her body.
0:20:44 > 0:20:47Olivia Lichtscheidl has researched Sisi's life,
0:20:47 > 0:20:51and I'm meeting her at Sisi's dressing room at the Hofburg Palace,
0:20:51 > 0:20:55which, unusually for the time, was also her gym.
0:20:56 > 0:21:00So we are here in her dressing and gymnastic room.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04And she made exercises here to stay slim,
0:21:04 > 0:21:06because she was famous for her figure.
0:21:06 > 0:21:09She was very tall, very slim, around her waist she had 51 centimetres.
0:21:09 > 0:21:1251 centimetres, that's amazing.
0:21:12 > 0:21:15It's really extreme. But Sisi was extreme in everything.
0:21:15 > 0:21:19So what kind of exercises did she do on this, on this machine?
0:21:19 > 0:21:22You must imagine that Sisi was completely dressed
0:21:22 > 0:21:25and finished with the hairstyle, with everything.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28And then she was hanging here and doing some exercises,
0:21:28 > 0:21:31taking her legs in front of her, moving them to the left,
0:21:31 > 0:21:37to the right, to make an exercise for her muscles for the abdomen.
0:21:37 > 0:21:39So what did the courtiers think when they came in here and found the
0:21:39 > 0:21:43Empress hanging upside down with her dress on and her hair hanging down?
0:21:43 > 0:21:45They were shocked, they were really shocked.
0:21:45 > 0:21:48And you find lots of sentences in some diaries
0:21:48 > 0:21:52or something where people said, "Oh, my God,
0:21:52 > 0:21:54"I didn't know how to behave when I came in
0:21:54 > 0:21:56"and she was doing exercises."
0:21:56 > 0:21:59Do you think she had physical love affairs
0:21:59 > 0:22:01during her marriage to Franz Joseph?
0:22:01 > 0:22:04I think not. I think she never had a love affair.
0:22:04 > 0:22:07I think that she was not interested really in sex,
0:22:07 > 0:22:09but only in her beauty.
0:22:09 > 0:22:13I would compare her to women who go to the gym everyday and want to be
0:22:13 > 0:22:15looked at, but not to be touched.
0:22:19 > 0:22:21Sisi didn't just her own shape,
0:22:21 > 0:22:25she also changed the shape of the state itself.
0:22:25 > 0:22:28She became a great champion of the Hungarians,
0:22:28 > 0:22:32especially through her close friendship with a dashing former
0:22:32 > 0:22:35revolutionary named Count Andrassy.
0:22:35 > 0:22:40He argued that the Hungarians must become equal partners with the
0:22:40 > 0:22:43Austrians in the Empire.
0:22:43 > 0:22:46And only she could have persuaded Franz Joseph.
0:22:46 > 0:22:52And in 1867 he created the new dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary.
0:22:57 > 0:23:04This new state was to be the 'K und K', the Kaiserlich und Koniglich,
0:23:04 > 0:23:06the Imperial and Royal monarchy.
0:23:07 > 0:23:11The Viennese called it by another name, the empire under notice.
0:23:11 > 0:23:14And the Emperor was under notice, too.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18Two decades after the 1848 revolution,
0:23:18 > 0:23:21he finally caved in to demands for a constitution
0:23:21 > 0:23:23and this, a new parliament.
0:23:24 > 0:23:27In a startling declaration of innovation
0:23:27 > 0:23:29and confidence in the future,
0:23:29 > 0:23:34Franz Joseph then tore down the old city walls which enclosed the
0:23:34 > 0:23:37inner city, and ordered the construction
0:23:37 > 0:23:40of a magnificent new boulevard -
0:23:40 > 0:23:42the Ringstrasse.
0:23:46 > 0:23:51Sit on tram number one or two and you can see the dazzling, grand new
0:23:51 > 0:23:54buildings that were built along the Ringstrasse
0:23:54 > 0:23:55at almost breakneck speed.
0:23:56 > 0:24:00The Rathaus, Vienna's new town hall.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04The Opera House, the home of the world's greatest music,
0:24:04 > 0:24:06played by the world's greatest orchestras.
0:24:07 > 0:24:09And the Burgtheater,
0:24:09 > 0:24:12where the Emperor was often seen alone in the Imperial box.
0:24:12 > 0:24:15Although, it turned out, he had his reasons.
0:24:16 > 0:24:20By now, Sisi had abandoned Franz Joseph.
0:24:20 > 0:24:24Earlier, she had intervened to rescue Crown Prince Rudolf
0:24:24 > 0:24:29from a cruel tutor, but she then concentrated on herself,
0:24:29 > 0:24:31leading the sensitive boy to his own devices.
0:24:34 > 0:24:38She indulged in endless romantic travels,
0:24:38 > 0:24:40but on her occasional visits home,
0:24:40 > 0:24:43Sisi did try to help her husband to find love.
0:24:43 > 0:24:49The Emperor had had mistresses for decades but he craved companionship.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52It was at the Burgtheater that Sisi noticed its young star,
0:24:52 > 0:24:56the beautiful but unhappily married Katharina Schratt.
0:24:56 > 0:25:01Katharina's biggest fan was the Emperor himself, Franz Joseph,
0:25:01 > 0:25:03who attended every performance.
0:25:04 > 0:25:08He was lonely, and his wife, the Empress Sisi,
0:25:08 > 0:25:10now took pity on the poor Emperor
0:25:10 > 0:25:13and tried to provide him with some companionship.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17She went to the theatre, she befriended Katharina,
0:25:17 > 0:25:21she invited her to the Hofburg, and she set up the couple.
0:25:21 > 0:25:25The affair started and lasted for almost 20 years.
0:25:28 > 0:25:31But you couldn't imagine more dysfunctional parents
0:25:31 > 0:25:33than the Imperial couple.
0:25:33 > 0:25:36The glacially detached Franz Joseph
0:25:36 > 0:25:38and the narcissistic absentee Empress.
0:25:40 > 0:25:44No wonder their relationship with their son, Crown Prince Rudolf,
0:25:44 > 0:25:45became so troubled.
0:25:47 > 0:25:51I've come to Mayerling, just outside Vienna,
0:25:51 > 0:25:56the fateful destination for this tormented, yet talented young man.
0:25:58 > 0:26:03As he grew up he became an avowed liberal, and he wrote articles for
0:26:03 > 0:26:05Jewish-owned newspapers.
0:26:05 > 0:26:09His father was appalled by these liberal views,
0:26:09 > 0:26:11and by his private life.
0:26:11 > 0:26:15He'd married a Belgian Princess and had a daughter,
0:26:15 > 0:26:18but the love of his life was a beautiful courtesan,
0:26:18 > 0:26:24and then he embarked on wildly priapic series of sexual escapades
0:26:24 > 0:26:29in which, finally, he contracted syphilis, which was then fatal.
0:26:29 > 0:26:32As he approached his 30th birthday,
0:26:32 > 0:26:38he began to feel that both himself and the Empire were doomed.
0:26:43 > 0:26:46Then, in the autumn of 1888,
0:26:46 > 0:26:52Rudolf was introduced to the 17-year-old Baroness Mary Vetsera.
0:26:52 > 0:26:54She became infatuated with him.
0:26:56 > 0:27:01For months, Rudolf had been asking his many mistresses
0:27:01 > 0:27:04if they would die with him in a suicide pact.
0:27:04 > 0:27:09All had said "Thanks, but no, thanks", until Mary.
0:27:09 > 0:27:11She agreed.
0:27:18 > 0:27:21On the 27th of January 1889,
0:27:21 > 0:27:25Crown Prince Rudolf saw his father, the Emperor, for the last time.
0:27:25 > 0:27:27He was very agitated.
0:27:27 > 0:27:30The next day, a courtier collected the teenage girl,
0:27:30 > 0:27:34Baroness Mary Vetsera, from her mother's house,
0:27:34 > 0:27:36and brought her to Rudolf,
0:27:36 > 0:27:39and the two secretly travelled out to Mayerling,
0:27:39 > 0:27:43Rudolf's hunting lodge outside Vienna.
0:27:43 > 0:27:48On the night of the 29th, they talked in serious tones all night.
0:27:53 > 0:27:58At six in the morning Rudolf shot Mary and laid her out on the bed.
0:27:58 > 0:28:02He then turned the gun on himself and shot himself in the head,
0:28:02 > 0:28:05blowing off the side of his face.
0:28:10 > 0:28:15This altar stands on the side of the bedroom at the hunting lodge,
0:28:15 > 0:28:18built in memory of the lovers' deaths.
0:28:21 > 0:28:24Around noon on that bleak January day,
0:28:24 > 0:28:28the Emperor and Empress were told the tragic news.
0:28:28 > 0:28:31The ruthless Habsburg instinct to survive
0:28:31 > 0:28:33quickly overcame their grief.
0:28:35 > 0:28:38The real victim of Mayerling was Mary.
0:28:38 > 0:28:42The fact that the Crown Prince had seduced and murdered
0:28:42 > 0:28:47a 17-year-old girl was literally unspeakable.
0:28:47 > 0:28:50Franz Joseph ordered it to be expunged from the record.
0:28:53 > 0:28:58In the dead of night, Mary's body was taken by coach down this road,
0:28:58 > 0:29:02fully dressed, and held upright between her two uncles.
0:29:04 > 0:29:08Just a few miles from Mayerling she was buried in a cheap wooden coffin,
0:29:08 > 0:29:11in the corner of this cemetery.
0:29:11 > 0:29:15The official version of Rudolf's death made no mention of Mary.
0:29:15 > 0:29:19Instead, the postmortem stated that his death was not suicide,
0:29:19 > 0:29:23but the result of morbid nervous exhaustion.
0:29:23 > 0:29:24In spring, 1889,
0:29:24 > 0:29:30Mary was discreetly reburied in this growth by her grieving family,
0:29:30 > 0:29:34and then the whole incident was never mentioned again.
0:29:38 > 0:29:44Franz Joseph soldiered on like the military man he was, driven by duty.
0:29:44 > 0:29:47For once, Sisi rose to the occasion,
0:29:47 > 0:29:50and sustained Franz Joseph in his grief.
0:29:51 > 0:29:53In a little side chapel at Mayerling
0:29:53 > 0:29:55can be found a statue of the Madonna,
0:29:55 > 0:30:01donated by the Empress, her heart pierced by a dagger of anguish.
0:30:02 > 0:30:06This statue was to prove strangely prophetic.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09On the 10th of September 1898,
0:30:09 > 0:30:12Empress Sisi was walking beside Lake Geneva,
0:30:12 > 0:30:17when she was stabbed in the chest by an anarchist with a sharpened file.
0:30:17 > 0:30:21So sharp was it, that she didn't realised she'd been stabbed at all
0:30:21 > 0:30:24and walked on, before she collapsed and died.
0:30:26 > 0:30:30Poor Franz Joseph had lost his son and now his wife.
0:30:37 > 0:30:41By 1900, Franz Joseph was 70 years old,
0:30:41 > 0:30:45to some, he was a beacon of continuity, to others,
0:30:45 > 0:30:48the relic of an obsolescent past.
0:30:53 > 0:30:57But while the Emperor stood still, Vienna moved on.
0:30:57 > 0:30:59The influx of immigrants from around the empire,
0:30:59 > 0:31:06especially Czechs and Jews, combined to create a febrile, if doom-laden,
0:31:06 > 0:31:08explosion of creativity.
0:31:10 > 0:31:15Its crowning achievement was the art and architecture of the so-called
0:31:15 > 0:31:17Secession movement.
0:31:17 > 0:31:22The Secessionists rejected Vienna's dull conservative past
0:31:22 > 0:31:26and proclaimed their mission with this motto -
0:31:26 > 0:31:29"For every age its art.
0:31:29 > 0:31:31"To every art its freedom."
0:31:31 > 0:31:33And it certainly was free.
0:31:35 > 0:31:37Gustav Klimt's The Kiss
0:31:37 > 0:31:41is an uninhibited celebration of eroticism.
0:31:42 > 0:31:47Egon Schiele's The Embrace shocked stuffy Viennese.
0:31:49 > 0:31:53To some, like Franz Joseph and his courtiers,
0:31:53 > 0:31:55this seemed like pornography.
0:31:55 > 0:31:59But to us this is an exciting celebration,
0:31:59 > 0:32:02the beginning of the new modern age.
0:32:06 > 0:32:10No-one so personified the creativity, the freedom,
0:32:10 > 0:32:15the permissiveness of early 1900s Vienna than the amorous life of the
0:32:15 > 0:32:19woman celebrated in this song by Tom Lehrer, Alma Schindler.
0:32:19 > 0:32:23# The loveliest girl in Vienna was Alma
0:32:23 > 0:32:25# The smartest as well
0:32:25 > 0:32:29# Once you picked her up on your antenna
0:32:29 > 0:32:31# You'd never be free of her spell... #
0:32:31 > 0:32:36She was herself a talented artist, and composer and musician.
0:32:36 > 0:32:41But she was also the wife, the mistress, the femme fatale,
0:32:41 > 0:32:46the temptress and the muse of five of the geniuses of this time.
0:32:48 > 0:32:52Her first kiss was with the artist Gustav Klimt.
0:32:52 > 0:32:55She then married the composer Gustav Mahler.
0:32:55 > 0:32:58And on his death she married Walter Gropius,
0:32:58 > 0:33:01the founder of the Bauhaus movement.
0:33:01 > 0:33:04And then, lastly, came Oskar Kokoschka, the artist,
0:33:04 > 0:33:09who often put her in his paintings, and Franz Werfel,
0:33:09 > 0:33:12the novelist and author of The Song of Bernadette.
0:33:12 > 0:33:14What a roster of geniuses.
0:33:14 > 0:33:19She was truly the queen, the muse of an entire age.
0:33:19 > 0:33:22And, of course, of Vienna.
0:33:22 > 0:33:25# And be the swan to get Gustav and Walter
0:33:25 > 0:33:27# You never did falter
0:33:27 > 0:33:30# With Gustav and Walter and Franz. #
0:33:39 > 0:33:42Gustav, Walter and Franz, and many others,
0:33:42 > 0:33:45helped give birth to the Modernist movement.
0:33:45 > 0:33:49Their work was not only a rejection of the past but the quest to explore
0:33:49 > 0:33:53the unconscious and to reveal the primal and sexual drives
0:33:53 > 0:33:57that another immigrant to Vienna was writing about at the time -
0:33:57 > 0:33:58Sigmund Freud.
0:33:59 > 0:34:02Freud was from a Jewish family.
0:34:02 > 0:34:06He married, he had children, and he moved here in 1891.
0:34:06 > 0:34:08After qualifying as a doctor,
0:34:08 > 0:34:11he started to treat men and women who were
0:34:11 > 0:34:15suffering from the anxiety in those days known as hysteria.
0:34:15 > 0:34:21As he did that he started to create a new way of looking at the human
0:34:21 > 0:34:25mind. He called it psychoanalysis.
0:34:31 > 0:34:33This is Dr Freud's waiting room.
0:34:33 > 0:34:36When patients went into the consulting room,
0:34:36 > 0:34:37they lay on a couch.
0:34:37 > 0:34:41He sat chain-smoking cigars and let them talk.
0:34:41 > 0:34:48He believed all human behaviour was partly founded on the subconscious,
0:34:48 > 0:34:53that reservoir of hidden instincts and memories,
0:34:53 > 0:34:57and the drive towards sexuality and death.
0:34:57 > 0:35:01These ideas would change the world
0:35:01 > 0:35:05and our very understanding of ourselves.
0:35:10 > 0:35:14Freud's genius was quintessentially Viennese.
0:35:14 > 0:35:20He was inspired by its obsession with sex and death and art,
0:35:20 > 0:35:24and its combination of the stilted formality
0:35:24 > 0:35:26of the Habsburg monarchy in court,
0:35:26 > 0:35:31his own background of Jewish angst and its unique atmosphere of
0:35:31 > 0:35:35unbridled sexual libertinism.
0:35:35 > 0:35:38Vienna created Freud and his patients.
0:35:41 > 0:35:45Freud in some ways typified the hundreds of thousands of immigrants
0:35:45 > 0:35:48who arrived in Vienna in the late 19th century.
0:35:48 > 0:35:50But as well as transforming the city,
0:35:50 > 0:35:54this bubbling cauldron of ethnicities also brought trouble.
0:35:56 > 0:36:02The backlash against immigrants is personified by one man, Karl Lueger,
0:36:02 > 0:36:08who was mayor of Vienna for 13 years, from 1897 to 1910.
0:36:08 > 0:36:14Lueger created not only modern ultra-German nationalism but also
0:36:14 > 0:36:17modern anti-Semitism with all its vicious tropes.
0:36:17 > 0:36:21He blamed the Jews for all the evils of modernity -
0:36:21 > 0:36:27science, liberalism, decadent art, capitalism itself.
0:36:27 > 0:36:30And all of these things, he said,
0:36:30 > 0:36:34tainted the purity of the German nation.
0:36:37 > 0:36:40Franz Joseph did not like this rabble rousing
0:36:40 > 0:36:42but, naturally, he did nothing about it.
0:36:42 > 0:36:44And for the Jews of Vienna,
0:36:44 > 0:36:48many began to feel that they could never be safe in Europe.
0:36:50 > 0:36:55Lueger unleashed some of the most evil forces that shook
0:36:55 > 0:36:57and shamed the 20th century.
0:36:57 > 0:37:01And that dark influence reached a younger generation,
0:37:01 > 0:37:05and among them was a young Austrian painter of postcards,
0:37:05 > 0:37:11then living in Vienna, who was inspired by Lueger.
0:37:11 > 0:37:13His name was Adolf Hitler.
0:37:26 > 0:37:30In 1908, the 19-year-old Adolf Hitler moved to Vienna
0:37:30 > 0:37:35to pursue his dream of becoming a raffish art student
0:37:35 > 0:37:36in the city of art.
0:37:38 > 0:37:40At first he loved Vienna,
0:37:40 > 0:37:44he walked along the Ringstrasse and painted its grand buildings,
0:37:44 > 0:37:45like the Opera house,
0:37:45 > 0:37:50where he loved to listen not only to the Germanic Wagner,
0:37:50 > 0:37:52but also the Jewish Mahler.
0:37:53 > 0:37:54But above all,
0:37:54 > 0:37:56he admired the German nationalism
0:37:56 > 0:38:01and the strident anti-Semitism of the mayor, Karl Lueger.
0:38:01 > 0:38:05And he disdained the weak obsolescent figure of the Emperor,
0:38:05 > 0:38:09who he saw daily riding through the city in his carriage.
0:38:10 > 0:38:15He loathed his cosmopolitan and shambolic Habsburg Empire.
0:38:15 > 0:38:19Now he was rejected, first by the artists' school,
0:38:19 > 0:38:22and then by the architects' school.
0:38:22 > 0:38:25He became bitter, and his money began to run out.
0:38:34 > 0:38:39Hitler was reduced to living at this homeless men's shelter.
0:38:39 > 0:38:40And he spent three years here,
0:38:40 > 0:38:43which he remembered as the saddest
0:38:43 > 0:38:45and most humiliating time of his life.
0:38:45 > 0:38:51But he spent many hours studying and reading in its library and, despite
0:38:51 > 0:38:53the fact that many of his friends
0:38:53 > 0:38:57and the art dealers who bought his postcards were Jewish,
0:38:57 > 0:39:00he began to ask himself, why was it that he,
0:39:00 > 0:39:04as a young German artist in a great German city,
0:39:04 > 0:39:09had failed so miserably, while so many Jews and Czechs
0:39:09 > 0:39:14and Slavs and their filthy decadent art were thriving?
0:39:14 > 0:39:20It took the trauma of World War I to make Hitler into Hitler,
0:39:20 > 0:39:22but he never forgave Vienna.
0:39:27 > 0:39:30Adolf Hitler wasn't the only future dictator
0:39:30 > 0:39:32who stalked Vienna's streets.
0:39:38 > 0:39:41While Hitler was in Vienna, a 30-something
0:39:41 > 0:39:47Revolutionary Communist arrived from the Russian Empire to study here.
0:39:48 > 0:39:51He was Georgian, his name was Joseph Jughashvili.
0:39:51 > 0:39:55His friends called him Koba, and while he was here in Vienna,
0:39:55 > 0:39:59he adopted a new name, Man of Steel.
0:39:59 > 0:40:00Stalin.
0:40:01 > 0:40:05Stalin's factional leader, Vladimir Lenin,
0:40:05 > 0:40:09had sent him to Vienna to study the big question here,
0:40:09 > 0:40:12the issue of nationalities.
0:40:12 > 0:40:15And he arranged for him to stay right here
0:40:15 > 0:40:18with some noble friends of Lenin's.
0:40:18 > 0:40:22"They're rich people," said Lenin. "That's good."
0:40:22 > 0:40:27When Stalin had written his article Marxism And The National Question,
0:40:27 > 0:40:32it helped him design the structure of the multinational Soviet Union.
0:40:41 > 0:40:44Stalin's apartment was right round the corner
0:40:44 > 0:40:46from the Schonbrunn Palace,
0:40:46 > 0:40:49and every day, in between working on his new article,
0:40:49 > 0:40:52and flirting with pretty young revolutionaries,
0:40:52 > 0:40:55he would come and walk around these gardens.
0:40:55 > 0:41:00Each day, both Hitler and Stalin would see Franz Joseph the Emperor
0:41:00 > 0:41:04driving his carriage from his home here at Schonbrunn to his office in
0:41:04 > 0:41:08the Hofburg. Both were fascinated by Habsburg history,
0:41:08 > 0:41:11both disdained its obsolescence.
0:41:11 > 0:41:16Sadly for Europe, they were the future, Hitler and Stalin, and,
0:41:16 > 0:41:2030 years later, both would take Vienna,
0:41:20 > 0:41:24and together they would fight the most savage conflict
0:41:24 > 0:41:26in all of human history.
0:41:31 > 0:41:341908, the year Hitler moved to Vienna,
0:41:34 > 0:41:36was the Diamond Jubilee year.
0:41:36 > 0:41:40Franz Joseph had ruled for 60 long years.
0:41:42 > 0:41:46Emperor Franz Joseph just lived on and on and on,
0:41:46 > 0:41:48but the impatient heir to the throne
0:41:48 > 0:41:51was the Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand,
0:41:51 > 0:41:54who lived here at the Belvedere Palace,
0:41:54 > 0:41:58where he set up a sort of shadow government in waiting.
0:41:58 > 0:42:01His relations with Franz Joseph were frosty,
0:42:01 > 0:42:06because he'd married a commoner, Sophie Chotek, for love,
0:42:06 > 0:42:09and the Emperor refused to give her the title archduchess
0:42:09 > 0:42:12or to let their children succeed to the throne.
0:42:12 > 0:42:17Yet Franz Ferdinand was intelligent and imaginative.
0:42:17 > 0:42:22Instead of fighting wars against the Slavs, the Russians or the Serbs,
0:42:22 > 0:42:26he wanted to set up a Slavic kingdom within the monarchy,
0:42:26 > 0:42:29a sort of United States of Austria.
0:42:30 > 0:42:34But while Franz Ferdinand dreamed of reforming the monarchy,
0:42:34 > 0:42:38the little kingdom of Serbia had big ideas of its own.
0:42:38 > 0:42:42Its government was infiltrated by a secret organisation of
0:42:42 > 0:42:45ultranationalists called the Black Hand,
0:42:45 > 0:42:51hell-bent on creating a greater Serbia through war with Austria.
0:42:51 > 0:42:52In the summer of 1914,
0:42:52 > 0:42:56the Black Hand dispatched a cell of nationalist
0:42:56 > 0:42:59teenaged terrorists into the province of Bosnia,
0:42:59 > 0:43:02which had recently been annexed by the Habsburgs.
0:43:02 > 0:43:07They had a mission and a target in the capital, Sarajevo.
0:43:07 > 0:43:11On the 28th of June, Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie,
0:43:11 > 0:43:14arrived in the city for an official visit.
0:43:14 > 0:43:16Despite warnings of terrorism,
0:43:16 > 0:43:20the Archduke insisted on riding in an open topped car
0:43:20 > 0:43:23so he could wave to the crowds that lined the streets.
0:43:23 > 0:43:26The car is on display at Vienna's military museum,
0:43:26 > 0:43:30and I'm here to talk to its director, Doctor Christian Ortner,
0:43:30 > 0:43:32about what happened on that fateful day.
0:43:32 > 0:43:37From the train station they took a car, they were driving in a convoy,
0:43:37 > 0:43:40and heading to the town hall of Sarajevo.
0:43:40 > 0:43:44And on their way somebody tried to kill them with a hand grenade.
0:43:44 > 0:43:48But the hand grenade did not hit the original car we can see here,
0:43:48 > 0:43:49but it hit the next car.
0:43:52 > 0:43:56After the failed bomb attack, the Archduke's driver took a wrong turn
0:43:56 > 0:43:58and stalled the engine,
0:43:58 > 0:44:02at the very spot where another Black Hand assassin,
0:44:02 > 0:44:0519-year-old Gavrilo Princip, was waiting.
0:44:07 > 0:44:08He fired two shots.
0:44:09 > 0:44:13The first shot, we can see it here, directly hit Sophie and she became
0:44:13 > 0:44:15unconscious immediately.
0:44:15 > 0:44:20And by falling down, she gave clear way to the throat of Franz Ferdinand
0:44:20 > 0:44:23and Gavrilo Princip shot his second shot.
0:44:23 > 0:44:27The second shot hit the Crown Prince here in the artery.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30The car was heading immediately to the palace
0:44:30 > 0:44:32because they knew there was a doctor
0:44:32 > 0:44:35and Franz Ferdinand's uniform was very, very tight
0:44:35 > 0:44:37so the blood did not go out like this,
0:44:37 > 0:44:39it went down to the stomach area.
0:44:39 > 0:44:42And the doctor cut off the uniform in the wrong place.
0:44:42 > 0:44:45And exactly at this time the Duchess was already dead,
0:44:45 > 0:44:50she died of internal bleedings, and Franz Ferdinand exactly died by
0:44:50 > 0:44:52drowning by his own blood.
0:44:59 > 0:45:02The moment the news of the murder reached Vienna,
0:45:02 > 0:45:04the Austrian leadership,
0:45:04 > 0:45:07particularly the war-crazed, trigger-happy chief of staff,
0:45:07 > 0:45:11were convinced the Serbian government was behind it
0:45:11 > 0:45:14and that Serbia must be crushed by war.
0:45:14 > 0:45:18And it was decided to send an extremely harsh ultimatum
0:45:18 > 0:45:20that would provide a pretext.
0:45:23 > 0:45:26After Germany agreed to give Franz Joseph
0:45:26 > 0:45:29their unquestioning support, Austria could do what it liked.
0:45:29 > 0:45:33And this was an extremely reckless move,
0:45:33 > 0:45:37because Serbia was allied to Russia, and Russia was allied to France,
0:45:37 > 0:45:39and France to Britain.
0:45:40 > 0:45:44After Serbia's reply to the ultimatum was of course deemed
0:45:44 > 0:45:49unsatisfactory, Austria drafted this telegram.
0:45:49 > 0:45:52"The Royal Serbian government, not having answered
0:45:52 > 0:45:57"in a satisfactory manner the note of July 23rd 1914..."
0:45:57 > 0:46:01"..considers herself henceforward in a state of war with Serbia."
0:46:04 > 0:46:10Now, this had no legal power without the signature of one little old man,
0:46:10 > 0:46:15and there it is, a little spidery signature of a man of 84,
0:46:15 > 0:46:18is the signature that launched the First World War,
0:46:18 > 0:46:21in which something like 20 million people perished.
0:46:30 > 0:46:31At the start of the Great War,
0:46:31 > 0:46:35the daily commute to the Hofburg proved too much,
0:46:35 > 0:46:36particularly during the winter,
0:46:36 > 0:46:39so the old Emperor decided to work from here,
0:46:39 > 0:46:42at the Schonbrunn Palace instead.
0:46:44 > 0:46:48In the winter of 1916, the old Emperor started to fail.
0:46:48 > 0:46:52He was now 86, and yet he still got up every day
0:46:52 > 0:46:55and went the small distance to his desk to work.
0:46:55 > 0:46:58On the 20th of November, he started to get worse.
0:46:58 > 0:47:01He went to bed and said his prayers
0:47:01 > 0:47:06and insisted on being awoken at 3.30am to start work again.
0:47:06 > 0:47:09There was plenty to be done, he said.
0:47:09 > 0:47:13In the early hours, Franz Joseph died.
0:47:18 > 0:47:21As Franz Joseph's body was laid to rest,
0:47:21 > 0:47:25millions of Austrian soldiers were being slaughtered by the Russians
0:47:25 > 0:47:26on the Eastern front.
0:47:28 > 0:47:31Among the funeral entourage walked the next Emperor,
0:47:31 > 0:47:35Franz Joseph's great-nephew, Karl, or Charles.
0:47:35 > 0:47:38He came to power at the moment of crisis.
0:47:38 > 0:47:42Austria was losing control of the war it had started.
0:47:42 > 0:47:44Karl attempted to broker peace
0:47:44 > 0:47:47but ended up alienating his German allies.
0:47:49 > 0:47:53While the Emperor and his wife sat out the rest of the war redecorating
0:47:53 > 0:47:55Schonbrunn Palace, the liberals,
0:47:55 > 0:47:58socialists and nationalists planned revolution.
0:48:00 > 0:48:03When the Germans collapsed in November 1918,
0:48:03 > 0:48:06the Habsburg monarchy went down with them.
0:48:06 > 0:48:09Karl and his family were driven out of Vienna.
0:48:11 > 0:48:12In exile in Switzerland,
0:48:12 > 0:48:17Karl plotted his return until his early death in 1922.
0:48:20 > 0:48:21In the Treaty of Versailles,
0:48:21 > 0:48:26the victorious Western Allies carved up the Austro-Hungarian Empire into
0:48:26 > 0:48:29five new independent countries.
0:48:29 > 0:48:32Vienna became the monumental
0:48:32 > 0:48:33and palatial capital
0:48:33 > 0:48:37of a tiny republic named Austria.
0:48:38 > 0:48:42German pride had been deeply dented by the defeat in the Great War,
0:48:42 > 0:48:45but from the ashes, a new leader emerged,
0:48:45 > 0:48:49promising to make the German people great once again.
0:48:51 > 0:48:55Adolf Hitler rose to power at least partly fuelled by his experiences of
0:48:55 > 0:48:58Vienna and the ideology of Karl Lueger,
0:48:58 > 0:49:02but also by shameless pseudo-history,
0:49:02 > 0:49:06vicious anti-Semitism and intolerant ultra-nationalism, that,
0:49:06 > 0:49:11together with violence and thuggery, formed his own brand of fascism.
0:49:14 > 0:49:18Prince Metternich had directed the affairs of Europe from this office.
0:49:18 > 0:49:24But now in the 1930s, the Austrian Chancellor ran a tiny insignificant
0:49:24 > 0:49:27country with a terrifying threat to the north-west.
0:49:27 > 0:49:33In 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis had come to power in Germany
0:49:33 > 0:49:36and from the very beginning of his career, Hitler,
0:49:36 > 0:49:39who had spent so much time in Vienna and was Austrian,
0:49:39 > 0:49:44had insisted that Germany must swallow Austria.
0:49:44 > 0:49:48And if the Austrian Chancellors wouldn't give it to him,
0:49:48 > 0:49:49then he would take it.
0:49:52 > 0:49:56The Chancellor was an authoritarian Catholic Conservative
0:49:56 > 0:49:58named Doctor Kurt von Schuschnigg.
0:49:59 > 0:50:02On the 12th of February 1938,
0:50:02 > 0:50:07Schuschnigg arrived at Hitler's mountain lair in Bavaria.
0:50:07 > 0:50:12For five hours he received a spittle-flecked tirade from Hitler,
0:50:12 > 0:50:16demanding that he undermined Austrian independence.
0:50:16 > 0:50:18Schuschnigg tried to resist.
0:50:18 > 0:50:20Hitler threatened him,
0:50:20 > 0:50:23"Don't you realise that in half an hour I could blow your defences to
0:50:23 > 0:50:28"smithereens, there'd be blood and that would be on your shoulders?"
0:50:28 > 0:50:31Schuschnigg almost wept.
0:50:31 > 0:50:34By the time he returned to the chancellery here,
0:50:34 > 0:50:39he was a broken man and, in effect, Austria was doomed.
0:50:44 > 0:50:49In a final act of desperation, on the 9th of March 1938,
0:50:49 > 0:50:53Schuschnigg announced a referendum to let the Austrian people decide
0:50:53 > 0:50:56if they wanted to be a part of Hitler's Germany.
0:50:57 > 0:50:59Hitler was incensed.
0:50:59 > 0:51:00If the Austrians voted no,
0:51:00 > 0:51:04his justification for invasion would be blown apart.
0:51:06 > 0:51:09On the 12th of March 1938,
0:51:09 > 0:51:12he ordered German troops to cross the border into Austria.
0:51:13 > 0:51:17This was frightening news for the Jews of Vienna.
0:51:17 > 0:51:22Their leading family was the banking dynasty the Rothschilds,
0:51:22 > 0:51:25who had been made barons of the Austrian Empire
0:51:25 > 0:51:26as long ago as the 1820s.
0:51:28 > 0:51:30This is one of their many palaces in the city,
0:51:30 > 0:51:33now it's the Brazilian embassy.
0:51:34 > 0:51:37They felt they were Viennese, they felt they belonged,
0:51:37 > 0:51:40and now they were about to discover that they didn't.
0:51:46 > 0:51:49One of the Austrian Rothschilds was a relative of mine.
0:51:49 > 0:51:55Clarice Sebag-Montefiore was married to Baron Alphonse de Rothschild.
0:51:55 > 0:51:58And, as the German troops crossed the borders,
0:51:58 > 0:52:00they learned from a friend in the government
0:52:00 > 0:52:05that the Nazis had collected a list of eminent Jews to be arrested.
0:52:05 > 0:52:10Quickly, they piled their belongings into a fleet of cars and escaped
0:52:10 > 0:52:13across the border. They weren't the only ones.
0:52:13 > 0:52:17Sigmund Freud also got out of Vienna.
0:52:17 > 0:52:20He wrote in his diary, "Austria is finished."
0:52:20 > 0:52:26And he was right, this was the death of cosmopolitan Vienna.
0:52:39 > 0:52:41Three days after entering the country,
0:52:41 > 0:52:47Adolf Hitler drove to the seat of Habsburg power, the Neue Hofburg.
0:52:47 > 0:52:49Received by delirious crowds,
0:52:49 > 0:52:53he addressed the Viennese from the balcony.
0:52:53 > 0:52:55IN GERMAN:
0:53:06 > 0:53:08CHEERING
0:53:12 > 0:53:18As the Nazis terrorised Vienna's Jews, the better off tried to leave.
0:53:18 > 0:53:20But it would cost them everything they had.
0:53:20 > 0:53:25Hitler sent down to Vienna his SS Jewish expert,
0:53:25 > 0:53:28his name was Adolf Eichmann,
0:53:28 > 0:53:32and he came to extort the wealth of departing Jews.
0:53:32 > 0:53:35Perversely, he set up his headquarters
0:53:35 > 0:53:38in the biggest of the Rothschild palaces in the city.
0:53:39 > 0:53:43But he didn't stay long in Vienna.
0:53:43 > 0:53:47He was recalled when World War II began to Berlin,
0:53:47 > 0:53:51to mastermind a much bigger operation -
0:53:51 > 0:53:55the extermination of the Jews of Europe.
0:54:11 > 0:54:16Starting in 1941, the Jews of Vienna were deported to the ghettos
0:54:16 > 0:54:20and death camps set up by the Nazis in the East.
0:54:22 > 0:54:26Around 65,000 of them were murdered.
0:54:26 > 0:54:31And their fates are marked by these plaques around the city.
0:54:31 > 0:54:36And it just seems amazing that this terrible thing ever happened in the
0:54:36 > 0:54:39most civilised city in Europe.
0:54:48 > 0:54:511945, the Allies were pushing the Nazis back
0:54:51 > 0:54:54on the western and eastern fronts.
0:54:54 > 0:54:57Stalin's Russia had seen the harshest fighting
0:54:57 > 0:54:59and now they marched on Vienna.
0:55:01 > 0:55:05The street fighting for Vienna was ferocious.
0:55:05 > 0:55:07The climax of the battle for the city
0:55:07 > 0:55:09was the storming of the Hofburg.
0:55:10 > 0:55:15Joseph Stalin first came to Vienna as a penniless revolutionary.
0:55:15 > 0:55:20Now he was the most powerful man in the world, the supreme warlord,
0:55:20 > 0:55:24who liberated the city in April 1945.
0:55:25 > 0:55:28This monument is dedicated to the Unknown Soldier.
0:55:28 > 0:55:32It congratulates the Soviet Army for the liberation of Vienna
0:55:32 > 0:55:36and it's signed by their triumphant dictator, Stalin.
0:55:37 > 0:55:40Stalin was familiar with many of the city's treasures
0:55:40 > 0:55:44and now he set about looting Vienna for war reparations.
0:55:45 > 0:55:50Its once cosmopolitan culture was pillaged and devastated.
0:55:50 > 0:55:54But within weeks, the French, Americans and British arrived
0:55:54 > 0:55:57and placed Vienna under four-power control.
0:56:04 > 0:56:05After the war,
0:56:05 > 0:56:08Stalin wanted to grab as much of Eastern Europe as he could.
0:56:08 > 0:56:11An empire bigger than the Tsars had ever dreamed of.
0:56:12 > 0:56:14He partitioned Germany,
0:56:14 > 0:56:18but that was because Germany had been a threat in two world wars.
0:56:19 > 0:56:22Provided Austria was separate from Germany,
0:56:22 > 0:56:24he was happy to let Vienna go.
0:56:24 > 0:56:26He didn't try and keep it.
0:56:26 > 0:56:29Even though he'd been here as a young revolutionary,
0:56:29 > 0:56:31it meant nothing to him.
0:56:39 > 0:56:42In 1955, two years after Stalin's death,
0:56:42 > 0:56:45the four powers agreed to finally withdraw from Austria.
0:56:47 > 0:56:51The Austrian State Treaty was signed at the Belvedere Palace,
0:56:51 > 0:56:54once the home of Archduke Franz Ferdinand,
0:56:54 > 0:56:58and announced to cheering crowds from this balcony.
0:57:04 > 0:57:08After centuries of Habsburg absolutism,
0:57:08 > 0:57:10seven years of Hitler's dictatorship,
0:57:10 > 0:57:12ten years of Allied rule,
0:57:12 > 0:57:16Austria became an independent democratic republic
0:57:16 > 0:57:19and, for decades, a member of the European Community.
0:57:20 > 0:57:24But the family who ruled Austria for almost a millennia
0:57:24 > 0:57:27remained politically active.
0:57:27 > 0:57:28Otto Habsburg,
0:57:28 > 0:57:30the boy who walked beside the last
0:57:30 > 0:57:33Emperor at Franz Joseph's funeral,
0:57:33 > 0:57:36became a European MP.
0:57:36 > 0:57:39The Habsburgs, through the Holy Roman Empire
0:57:39 > 0:57:40and then their monarchy,
0:57:40 > 0:57:44had struggled and failed to rule a multinational state.
0:57:45 > 0:57:49Today, the European Community shares some of those aspirations.
0:57:51 > 0:57:54But the Habsburgs' real legacy was their capital.
0:57:54 > 0:57:57Vienna helped give birth to the modern age,
0:57:57 > 0:58:01but also became the laboratory of its destruction.
0:58:02 > 0:58:08Today, Vienna is the magnificent capital of a small country.
0:58:09 > 0:58:11Imperial city no more,
0:58:11 > 0:58:16it will always be the capital of the Empire of the mind.
0:58:22 > 0:58:27What happened to Austria's Imperial city next?
0:58:27 > 0:58:33Find out more about the life, times and language of Vienna
0:58:33 > 0:58:38by heading to...
0:58:40 > 0:58:41..and follow the links
0:58:41 > 0:58:43to the Open University.