Kaiser Karl I of Austria – his personal attila as Commander-in-Chief of the 2nd Westphalian Hussars Regiment No. 11 in the 1915 issue Dark green cloth, silver cording, braid, toggles and rosettes, braided shoulder boards for a major general. A tailor’s label of the Viennese court purveyor “Josef Szalley” with the date 24 October 1910 for Archduke Karl Franz Joseph (“Erzh. Karl Frz. Josef”) in the right inside breast pocket. The lining somewhat damaged, otherwise in good condition. The 2nd Westphalian Hussars Regiment was established in the Napoleonic Kingdom of Westphalia in 1807. With the exception of 40 men, the entire army was wiped out in the Russian campaign of 1812, re-established in 1813 and then prevailed in the Napoleonic Wars. The regiment was stationed in Krefeld in 1906, thereby receiving the name Krefeld Hussar Regiment. During its history, it had three honorary commanders-in-chief of royal descent who were appointed by the respective reigning Prussian king: Wilhelm III, King of the Netherlands, from 1855 to 1890, the Austrian Archduke Otto from 1895 to 1906, and, from 1914, the later Kaiser Karl who had been assigned à la suite to the regiment as early as 1905. After Kaiser Franz Joseph I’s death on 21 November 1916 – a delegation of the Hussars no. 11 had attended his funeral – Karl became Kaiser of Austria and King of Hungary. The regiment was given the name of the Kaiser and King as a special distinction in 1917. Kaiser Karl, the last emperor of Austria, was a grand nephew of Franz Joseph I and only acceded to the throne after a series of unfortunate events: Crown Prince Rudolf had committed suicide in 1889 and Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been murdered in Sarajevo in 1914. He married Zita of Bourbon-Parma in 1911. During World War I, he engaged in a number of peace negotiations. Moreover, he was willing to support French demands to recover Alsace-Lorraine (Sixtus Affair). Radical socialist Frenchman Anatole France described him as follows: “He was the only decent man in the entire war, but sadly nobody listened to him”.. In “Die Welt von Gestern”, Stefan Zweig tells how the Kaiser left for Switzerland in March 1919 (tr): “The last emperor of Austria, the heir to the Habsburg dynasty, which had ruled the country for 700 years, left his empire! It was a moment of historical dimensions – the glorious line of Habsburgs, who had passed orb and crown from one generation to the next, all of that was gone in this one instant. All around us felt that in this tragic moment history, world history, was in the making”. Only a few years later Karl died at the age of 34 in his Madeira exile in 1922. He was subsequently beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2004. A uniform of historical significance, worn by the last regent of the illustrious Habsburg dynasty, who tragically failed in his attempt to end the senseless bloodshed of World War I.This attila was the highlight of the 2013 exhibition “Die Tanzhusaren” (The dancing hussars) in Krefeld to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the regiment’s reestablishment in 1813. The expression “Tanzhusaren” is said to date back to Kaiser Wilhelm II, who allegedly sent the regiment from Düsseldorf to Krefeld in 1906 as “dancing partners for daughters of rich citizens”. 310505 II - € 24.500 106 |
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