Otto von Habsburg’s Ambiguous Legacy
Archduke Otto von Habsburg, who died on July 4 aged 98, became the heir to the imperial crown of Austria and the royal crown of Hungary when his father Charles ascended the throne of the multinational Dual Monarchy in November 1916. In the final decades of his life (1979-1999) he was an influential figure in the multinational European Parliament as an elected CSU member from Bavaria. It is incorrect, however, to claim—as many obituarists have done—that “his abiding theme was the need to bridge the East-West division of the continent.” He has deepened that division by adopting a hostile attitude to Europe’s Orthodox nations and traditions.
Habsburg was an enthusiastic supporter of the Jihadist side in the Bosnian civil war, visited Sarajevo repeatedly during that war, and had several meetings with Alija Izetbegovic. At his funeral, on Habsburg’s specific instructions, the religious leader of Bosnia’s Muslims, reis-ul-ulema Mustafa effendi Ceric, joined Roman Catholic and Jewish clerics in prayer. No Orthodox Christians were invited. It should be noted that in a 2005 interview Ceric called Britain one of the early “trophies” of Islam in Europe. He counts among his international activities participation in radical Islamic groups and events, as well as links with Muslim activists banned from the U.S. for terrorist funding and phony Islamic “charities” tainted by terrorist links. After 9/11 Ceric was in the forefront of crying discrimination when the U.S. moved to close Bosnan-connected “charities” supporting Muslim terrorists.
Habsburg was a strong supporter of Bill Clinton’s Kosovo war and repeatedly called for the bombing of Belgrade, starting in 1993, six years before it happened in March 1999. His support of the KLA terrorists and of Kosovo’s independence was based on a mix of visceral Serbophobia and outright mendacity, earning him a badge of shame in the form of the morbid quasi-state’s “golden medal of freedom.” As the ruins of Christian Orthodox churches and monasteries were smoldering nearby, he attended ceremonies naming Kosovo’s town squares after him and his family. When he died, Kosovo’s “foreign minister” sent a message of condolence to the family, stressing that “Otto von Habsburg was a great friend of Kosovo [who] conveyed to the citizens of Kosovo the message of freedom… Later on, Von Habsburg became a great defender of the idea of our independence.” Kosovo’s “president” Atifete Jahjaga bewailed the loss of an irreplaceable friend who will be considered and remembered forever.”
Habsburg has recalled as an epiphany the day he first spontaneously answered the nationality question with “I am a European,” but his definition of that term was steeped in a rudely Huntingtonian paradigm vis-à-vis Orthodox Christianity. He supported the destruction of the Njegos Chapel on Mt. Lovćen in Montenegro and Montenegrins’ eventual conversion from Orthodoxy to some form of union with Rome. His attitude to Orthodoxy was in sharp contrast to his conciliatory benevolence to Islam. His oft-repeated response to the issue of Christian-Muslim relations was, “We are made to understand each other.” Having read “the sacred books of Islam” he has claimed to have found “much Christian wisdom there.” While cautiously warning about “unforeseen consequences” of integrating Turkey into the European community, he repeatedly praised the “positive potential” of Turkey’s revived leadership in the Islamic world. The same week when his father Emperor Charles was beatified in Rome in October 2004, his son addressed an academic symposium on an allegedly emerging common Mediterranean civilization that includes both Christian Europe and Muslim nations along its African and Asian shores. On April 9, 2002, he told the Christian Science Monitor (“Europe, Prepare to Greet Islam”) that “all nations bordering the Mediterranean Sea—including those in North Africa and the Middle East—have a place in his broad vision for tomorrow’s Europe.” He had never made a similar declaration about any such place for Russia, let alone Serbia. His flawed concept has come to be known as Eurabia, and represents the greatest threat to Europe’s demographic, cultural and spiritual survival in the decades ahead.
Otto von Habsburg spent four years in the United States during the war but his understanding of this country’s social, political and cultural dynamics was eccentric at best. On April 20, 2005, he told the NPR, “There are many nationalities making up America. There are four states that in twenty years will have a majority of Spanish language [citizens]; and I don't think that's a catastrophe. It’s a very good thing. I’m already well located. I have many children and all my children speak Spanish too.” He went on to indicate his view that North African Muslim states should join the European Union.
The above facts, well documented and presented without malice or rancor, are not an obituary. They are merely a necessary addendum to the many obituaries repeating the mantra about the great and good “European.”
Entries(RSS)
They just don't make royal's like they used to.
Oops... no need for apostrophe in royals.
Lest I forget, and should have mentioned in the article: in the summer of 2001 Otto von Habsburg signed an "international appeal" on behalf of Chechen Jihadists and their leader Aslan Mashkadov -- there's hardly a nastier piece of work in the Muslim universe -- which was initiated by a bunch of West European Russophobe far-leftists. "Chechnya: Enough!" was launched by the Transnational Radical Party and adressed to the authorities of the European Union which it accused of being "partners in crime... conscious allies of those who are perpetrating massacres," i.e. "a Russia that is losing itself while torturing Chechnya." "Chechnya: Enough!" called on the EU to oblige then-President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, "to negotiate immediatly with the legitimate President of the Chechen Republic, Mr. Aslan Mashkadov" and demanded that the EU and its member states "internationally recognize Chechnya" as a sovereign state.
Mashkadov was killed by the Rusians in 2005, thank God. Otto von Habsburg is now keeping him company.
I have been curious about his pro-European Union vision, and how he upheld Europe's "Christian identity."
His was the bigoted, schwarzgelb pseudo-Christianity that cost real Europe dearly in 1914. Like a Spanish Bourbon that he wasn't, he had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. No wonder he was such an Euro-integrationist as well as an Eurabian dhimmi to boot -- the two go well together.
They just don’t make royal’s like they used to.
Like a Spanish Bourbon that he wasn’t, he had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
Dr. T. gives us the subtle hint, Dr. Phillips. And thank you, Dr. T., for not repeating this line in opposition to the French Bourbons (as so many have libelously done). Louis Alphonse d'Anjou and Marine Le Pen will be the salvation of Europe (if there is a salvation to be had...).
Dr. Trifkovic, could you explain this a little bit more: "His was the bigoted, schwarzgelb pseudo-Christianity that cost real Europe dearly in 1914." I'm afraid I'm still in the process of relearning history.
Check out my "Sarajevo Revisited," originally posted here in July 2004 but now apparently available only on
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sorabia/message/53009
This is interesting. I did not know of this. I knew he was very pro-EU. As an Englishmen I find such positions very bad in themselves. I didn't know he was anti-Orthodox though. I'm an Anglican myself, but I'm basically borderline orthodox and as the CoE gets worse and worse I get closer and closer to jumping ship and joining an Orthodox Church, so I find such views confronting.
Thank you for the link Dr. Trifkovic. Have you written anything about his father, Karl von Habsburg? I am curious as to what your opinion is of him.
All of these elitists are internationalists. I read once that a spot in the Illuminati hierarchy was reserved for a Hapsburg, and with these new revelations, I know that the Otto wasn't all that he was made out to be. Lew Rockwell.com was the site I found out he died. They like him since he seemed to be a friend of von Hayek, etc, and thus an Austrian, but I have doubts about that since he was such a pro EU person. The anti Orthodox stance shouldn't be all that surprising though since the Serbs did play a part in the disintegation of the departed Otto's Empire and his inheritance as Kaiser, not to mention the Russians wasted a big chunk of the Austrian-Hungarian Army in WWI. So badly was the Russian mauling, that the Austrians even needed German help against the Italians due to such a lack of manpower. The thing that is rather disappointing is his embrace of Islam. What does this idiot think they are going to do to his beloved Vienna once they take over and Sharia law is the law of the land? Every gothic cathedral will be demolished, etc. I do not agree with our wars of agression against the Muslim world, but I do recognize that the immigration of millions of muslims with their extremely high birth rates is going to kill off Europe.
Sorry, I meant he was a patron of the Austrian School of Economics in the fifth sentence of my response.
This guy comes off as a fool with all of these new revelations. Does he not think that his kids and grandkids are going to keep the same special status in democratic nations that will be majortiy Muslim in what 2-3 generations? I am not too sure Karl I would approve of his son's actions.
Beethoven had it right........ " According to Bettina von Brentano , in 1812 Beethoven and Goethe were walking together in the park at the Bohemian spa Bad Teplitz when they encountered the Emperor Francis I and his family, including Archduke Rudolf. Ever the suave courtier, Goethe stepped to one side, bowing deeply, whereas Beethoven stayed defiantly upright, saying, 'Keep hold my arm, they must make room for us, not we for them' , and kept on walking, brusquely pushing his way through the imperial party."
I believe in earned nobility and not the inherited kind. His father may have been a saint and the blood of Charles V may have flowed dimly through his veins but he was wrong. The EU at its core is godless and secular and as such is doomed to be overcome by a stronger force. The greatest tragedy for Europe has been the divide of Orthodoxy and Catholicism for the past millennium. A united and invigorated Church is the only hope for a political and cultural stand against the onslaught of Islam. I would only hope that people would read history and realize that the ruling Turkish party seeks a return to the Ottoman glory days.
Can I just make a comment on the anti-Islamic feelings of many here. I can understand some of the tense feelings, but I think some perspective is need. The dominance of Islam is probably better than the ultimate dominance of Godless, secularism as a quick read of say C.S Lewis's The Abolition of Man should remind us. The links of the EU with radical secularism is far worse than its links with pro-Islamic feeling, and this is coming from an Englishman.
Only if you trust sarcoma to cure melanoma, and if you believe that Islam is NOT Godless. On the link between secularism and jihadism check out
http://www.balkanstudies.org/articles/imperial-democracy-balkans
I was unaware of Habsburg's request of heterodox prayers and his support of the Bosnian Muslims. The Serbian monks on Mt. Athos know that Christian tradition is one should never have joint prayer with the heterodox and are at odds to a minor degree with the current ecumenism of the Serbian Patriarch. The same divide is found in the West.
Cf: http://teaandpolitics.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/austria-advocate-of-sharia-law-speaks-at-funeral-of-last-crown-prince-of-austria
Advocate of Sharia Law Speaks At Funeral
According to Habsburg’s eldest son and “successor”, Karl Habsburg, Otto Habsburg was intimately involved in the lengthy planning for his own funeral. His provisions included the attendance and involvement in the funeral of representatives of the “three monotheistic religions.” And so it came that along with Austrian cardinal Christoph Schönborn and a rabbi, Reis-el-Ulema Mustafa Ceric from Bosnia and his veiled wife also attended the requiem in St. Stephen’s Cathedral.
More galling, however, Ceric, a proponent of sharia in Europe, was asked by the Habsburg family to recite a funeral prayer at Habsburg’s requiem in Munich, Germany, last week. According to a Catholic website, Ceric’s presence was sign of Otto Habsburg’s advocacy of a free and independent Bosnia-Herzegovina. Since the Bosnian war, Ceric had been a friend of Otto Habsburg and attended the latter’s 95th birthday celebration in 2007.
More on Ceric’s support for Sharia Law (Aug. 2010):
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=3.0.3666977693
Bosnia’s Muslim spiritual leader, Reiss-ul-Ulema Mustafa Ceric, has drawn strong criticism from moderate Muslims and from Bosnian Serbs, after he called for Islamic Sharia law to be incorporated into the Bosnian constitution... Strict Sharia law drastically reduces the rights of women, allows polygamy for men, forbids marrying non-Muslims and sanctions cruel penalties including stoning.
Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik reacted angrily to Ceric’s remarks, saying he was deliberately ignoring the presence of Serbs and Croats in Muslim-majority Bosnia.
Although familiar with globalist Otto von Habsburg, I also must claim ignorance to the “depth” of his diabolical record. Of course, “real” historical dissection and nonconformist analysis are what always set Srdja Trifkovic above his counterparts.
As ST mentioned in his perceptive July 2, 2004 article “Sarajevo Revisited,” I mirror his stance that WWI was the turning point in which the power of evil received a global jump-start. God is the only vaccination for such a disease and Orthodox Christians (particularly the Serbs) inhibit this “so-to-speak” Illuminati European (and globalis) agenda. ST was **spot-on** when he said that “. . . Francis Ferdinand’s trip to Sarajevo was an act of deliberate provocation.” Few people realize this. On second thought, few understand the power WWI had on the entire geopolitical landscape.
@ Robert Bruce:
Actually, Otto knew exactly what he was doing, hence could care less about his kids and grandkids under Muslim rule. It wasn’t about the Habsburg blood/monarchy anymore. He sold out for the convergence of an evil, global empire (as we see being propelled by today’s self-proclaimed elitists). Evil often presents itself as a promoter and defender of liberty, freedom, and equality. Otto’s favorable obituaries were written by members of the same faction.
@13 wessexman:
With all due respect, “tense” feelings it is not; rather, it is the logical analysis of the history of Islam that proves such Godless practices.
Once upon a time I attended a meeting at a Bierhaus in Trudering, a community of Kleinbuerger in Munich. Star speaker was Otto v. Habsburg.some wisdoms:
"Angaeblich verlorener Ktieg..."-So cold lost war...
"Der Feind is not Bolschewismus, unser Feind is Russland"
The enemy is not Bolshevizm, our enemy is Russia.
Half an hour Von attacked and smeared the nathion, the Orthodox Church, the cuture of Russia.
Recently I reported to Vienna daily der Standard but they did not publish the piece. I appreciate the readers of der Standard. Their comments were mostly cynical. Jovi
Srdja and S.B; Islam is simply Godless to a very exclusivist Christianity I suppose, if you are going to say there is only orthodox(right belief and not just Eastern Orthodoxy I mean.) Christianity and all else is equally godless, including therefore Plato and Aristotle and in contradiction to the views of certain Church Fathers and important Christian figures.
But in reality, I believe, there is an order of magnitude difference between its 'Godlessness' and that of real secularism and atheism. Traditional Islam, whatever one may think of it in itself, did at least produce the likes of Ibn Arabi, Rumi, Ibn Sina and even Dr.Seyyed Nasr. It did produce art of great beauty and men of great contemplation and wisdom. Western Godlessness has produced none of this. I just cannot imagine that the dominance of Islam would be worse than the inevitable tendencies of secularism and atheism. Again I can oly recommend C.S Lewis' The Abolition of Man(available online.) and his Space Trilogy, based on his insights from the The Abolition of Man.
Islam is not Godless, it is satanic. Essential difference.
So Ibn Arabi is satanic and Bertrand Russell is not? Or are they equally satanic? It seems a very strange position to take as far as I can see;
'When my Beloved appears, With what eye do I see Him? With His eye, not with mine, For none sees Him except Himself.'
Did Hume or Russell or Dawkins or Marx ever write such a verse? Could they?
I'm not saying we should accept Islam as valid or as our equal, but I think it needs to be seen in context.
Look at the core texts (esp. 9:5) and at the career of the Founder. Ibn Arabi is to Muhammad what Enrico Berlinguer is to Lenin.
Regarding #16, is Bosnia a Muslim majority entity, and was it ever? In the early 1990s the Muslim population of Bosnia was usually put at about 43% even by the government-embedded and overwhelmingly pro-Muslim "journalists" of the West. The real cause of the Bosnian Civil War(s) was the forcing of Muslim domination on a predominately non-Muslim (if not Christian, at least by background) population by the policies demanded by American Ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmermann and, even worse, the forcing onto Bosnia of Europe's leading twentieth century Islamist, Alija Izetbegovoc. Of course, Americans and Europeans were told that a pristine state consisting overwhelmingly of tolerant, pure, just, and innocent Muslims (shades of Rousseau!) was being invaded by the Eastern Orthodox Other, intent on genocide--a formulation as intellectually dishonest and totalitarian as it is racist. An incredible array of displaced communist sympathizers (especially Trotskyites), former Nazis and Nazi-collaborators (including George Soros), Christophobes, Islamo-appeasers, bien-pensants, liberal (inclusive of neo-"conserative") imperialists, and those nostalgic for the "good old days" of the Ottoman and Hapsburg Empires pushed this line and, they apparently still do, since there has been minimal questioning of the "official story" of the Balkans even a decade after our Balkan allies attacked New York City!
I think it is generally a good idea to allow a decent interval of mourning before someone's life is exposed to hostile criticism. Otherwise we run the risk of putting ourselves on a level with the Westboro Baptist "church." Few men can endure much sustained scrutiny, certainly few of the Hapsburgs. This man had his agenda and, no, it was not pro-Serb or pro-Orthodox. Why should it have been? I do not share his naive vision of a united Europe and have little taste for anything Austrian--I don't waltz and eat little pastry, but some of the remarks in this discussion smack of an unpleasant and narrow-minded chauvinism that is better kept to one's self. Oh, and for the record, I would rather suffer the smug condescension of liberals than see my children raped and murdered by the worshippers of Mahound.
I recall the title of Dr. Fleming's obituary of Richard Holbrooke. It expressed the wish that Holbrooke would "R.I.H." I do not think that "H" stood for Heaven, and I do not recall that the article appeared after a decent interval of mourning. The commoner career diplomat who engineered the triumph of Islam in the Balkans may, I suppose, deserve less pretense to the common decencies than the deluded archduke who cheered it on, but I would not care to attempt the argument.
The big picture is this: The Gramscian march through the institutions has captured not only the financiers, merchants, politicians, journalists, and academicians, but also - more grievously - the royal and noble families who once ruled a Christian Europe, as well as the papacy and the Orthodox patriarchates. They are all One-Worlders - and thus perforce One-Religioners - now. Whether it is the Archduke Otto ordering Islamic prayers read at his funeral or Benedict XVI of Old Rome praying in mosques and synagogues or Patriarch Bartholomew of New Rome congratulating the Mohammadens for "pleasing God" by their keeping the fast of Ramadan, the problem is the same.
Though I am an Orthodox clergyman with a daughter who is a novice in a Serbian monastery, I do not think it profitable at this hour of the day to rehearse all of our grievances against the Dual Monarchy. Dr. Trfkovic himself has rightly pointed out that the EU is far more the prison of the nations than Austro-Hungary ever was.
Two images rise before us: The poignantly heroic and profoundly religious Charles, last of the Western Christian Emperors, dies with the Name of Jesus on his lips. His son Otto dies equating the revelation of the Incarnate Word with the ravings of Mahound. It is an apocalyptic diptych, a grim pictorial epitaph of the 20th century. Let us weep.
Well aside from saying that to characterise Islam, which has produced great sages, great beauty and piety, is quite uncharitable, my point is that smugness is not what we have to fear. I'm talking simply about the assault on all values and virtue, all goodness, all beauty and decency that a triumphant Godless atheism must bring. In the 20th century we saw this spectre loom several times, in Fabianism, in Communism and in Fascism/Nazism. I fear this was only the beginning. We are in a lull at the moment, we have enough residual customs and institutions and enough residual Christianity to hold back the hordes, but this ability weakens all the time. Already scientists, engineers, planners and others treat nature and mankind itself as if it were simply matter, 'genetically engineering here', changing sexes there and approving of perversity and a lack of restraint everywhere. Perhaps there will always be enough conflicting opinions and enough residual goodness to not allow the complete dominance of such men; the move away from essence to substance, quality to quantity, is always a move towards chaos and the lord will provide. But still I fear the dominance of such men, as C.S Lewis described it;
'But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls. It is in Man's power to treat himself as a mere `natural object' and his own judgements of value as raw material for scientific manipulation to alter at will. The objection to his doing so does not lie in the fact that this point of view (like one's first day in a dissecting room) is painful and shocking till we grow used to it. The pain and the shock are at most a warning and a symptom. The real objection is that if man chooses to treat himself as raw material, raw material he will be: not raw material to be manipulated, as he fondly imagined, by himself, but by mere appetite, that is, mere Nature, in the person of his de-humanized Conditioners.'
Compared to that what is there to be scared of in traditional Islam? At least a Muslim fundamentalist oppresses and kills you as a bad man and an infidel, but a man made in the image of God none the less, to the Godless we are just specimen and material.
I have to agree with Wessexman, in that Islam would be the better alternative to the humanist order that is fast approaching. Yes, the moral code is more strict than that of Christianity, but it is a moral code that does support self restraint and does strive to resist gross materialism. The problem is though, as Dr. Trifkovic states, that Islam is satanic, as it keeps people from being saved through Christ. What gauls me though is that Christian Americans are proud of how we are trying to inject the humanist contagion into the Middle East destroying their faith and culture in the process.
Dr Fleming,
The question is when will that smug liberal condescending of anything Christian turn into violent hostility. Check out the MSNBC political comments by readers. Condescendation is turning into an ugly hatred real fast. Also look at the real body count of Christian martyrs and look at the perpetrators. The Reds have the soldiers of the Crescent beat by a mile in terms of sheer bodycount.
@24:
Just so you know, I'm pretty sure most associated with this site are plenty familiar with Lewis, The Abolition of Man, and the perils of advanced liberalism.
Maybe a more useful way of looking at the matter would be to substitute a less controversial religion in place of Islam; while I think Hinduism offers many worthwhile insights, I would still be more than slightly upset to discover that my hometown's identity has been swept away by a massive influx of immigrants from Delhi or wherever. And whether I esteem the Bhagavad-Gita or not has nothing to do with it.
In any case, it could be that the kernel of truth possessed by Islam makes it more potent (and hence more dangerous) than liberalism. Muslim mass-immigration is in part a tool being used by the liberal elite to dissolve the West.
The likelihood of some Muslim-Christian alliance working together to defeat the liberal agenda and establish an ecumenically-traditionalist state seems to me more than little dubious.
Hence I see only two possibilities: Either Islam's presence in the West will advance the cause of multicultural dissolution, as the elites hope, or the elites may turn out to be like foolish magicians who have invoked a genie they cannot control.
Neither possibility bodes much fun for those of us little folk on the receiving end.
While I agree with you that the witless and narcissistic magicians are, in many ways, more contemptible than their militant genie -- who at least acknowledges some sort of reality transcending his own individual appetites, the value of self-sacrifice, family, etc. -- that hardly makes the latter a lesser cause for concern.
To the contrary, in fact.
Four days was a rather decent interval we've given old Otto, four times longer than we've granted to "Dick" Holbrooke (RiH) or Susan Sontag, among others. Far from being "hostile" the implied criticism has been entirely empirical. The facts of Otto's folly, on Izetbegovic, Ceric, KosovA, Spanish-speaking American states, etc, speak for themselves. Far from not being pro-Serb or pro-Orthodox, which is unobjectionable, he was murderously anti-Serb and viscerally anti-Orthodox, which is evil. His vision of a united Europe was not "naive" but Illuminated to the 32nd degree. His pandering to Euro-Islam was unforgivable. A bad man.
J.D Salyer, I probably should have been clearer, I do not disagree with much of what you have said. I'm not arguing in favour of multiculturalism, mass immigration or even Islam beyond defending it against what to me are uncharatible and not particularly accurate caricatures(which I'd incidentally do for Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism or Taoism.). In fact I'm quite anti multiculturalism and mass-immigration and I'm not a Muslim but a traditional Anglican.
I agree that Muslim mass-immigration can be partly helpful to the secularists because then, for example in Britain, they can say we can't have any social or government role for Christian values and beliefs because we have a diverse population.
I do disagree that Muslims are not of less concern. I don't think traditional Islam has quite the potentials of evil that secularism and atheism do. That was my main point alongside simply defending Islam somewhat against over-the-top caricatures which seemed to suggest all Islam is or has been is about mindless savages wanting to slaughter their opponents.
Robert Bruce: Is the Christian moral code less strict than Islam's? Christ himself tells us that to look at a woman with lust is to commit adultery with her in our hearts. Now, even if we accept that he was talking about inner virtues and about the ideal and not what should be a universal, enforceable human law, I think this is quite strict. But of course the saviour, as always, is right. True morality, while not necessarily being the sort of rigid and narrow moralistic program of some is not lacking in strictness, it is to be Christ-like in its essence.
Islam and advanced secularism would both keep people from being saved through Christ. One can speculate about whether through Christ who we are saved by is the logos or the incarnation of Jesus the man and all that sort of thing and what are the parameters(if any.) for salvation outside the Church, indefinitely(this has been done since at least St.Clement of Alexandria.). However I do think Islam(and indeed in this respect most of the other great faiths of the world.) can at least encourage spirituality, piety and virtue, which gets one closer to Christ than if an individual lacks these. Advanced secularism and atheism can't do this, they progressively take us away from Christ.
Re. #28 -- Errare humanum est: "Four days was a rather decent interval we’ve given old Otto..." should read "Fourteen days." Von Habsburg died July 4 and my piece was posted on July 18. Two weeks is an eminently decent interval before the accurate, even if unflattering, post mortem notes are made public.
@30:
I thought it was very considerate doc . . .
A small footnote: One of the very few successes for the Habsburgs in the first world war was thanks to the efforts of a Serb general Borojevic, who pushed the Austrian troops close to Milan in Northern Italy, almost completely defeating the Italians.
Dr Trifković’s sources prove none of his claims as anyone checking them will readily find. That Otto Habsburg was always a man of peace is a commonplace to all who knew him.
But Dr Trifković is hardly in a position to criticise anybody.
He was a former consultant to convicted war criminal, Biljana Plavsic, the president of the Serbian Republic for two years from 1996 to 1998. She has since admitted remorse for crimes against humanity.
In April 1992 she famously appeared in Bijeljina alongside Željko Ražnatovic, the war-lord known as Arkan.
Vojislav Šešelj, the founder of the Serbian Radical Party, at the Miloševic trial, said of her: "She held very extremist positions during the war, insufferably extremist, even for me, and they bothered even me as a declared Serb nationalist.”
Plavsic is reported as saying: “But it was genetically deformed material that embraced Islam. And now, of course, with each successive generation this gene simply becomes concentrated.”
In March 2003, Dr Trifković appeared as a defence witness in the trial of Milomir Stakic at the Hague who was, on 13 July 2003, sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of extermination, murder and illegal deportation.
In February 2011, Canadian authorities refused to allow Dr Trifković to enter Canada to address a meeting at the University of British Columbia at Vancouver because of his associations with a government said to be responsible for war crimes.
If Dr Trifković wishes to find anyone guilty by association, he may have to start with himself.
Srdja: I greatly admire your work, even when I disagree with it, and here I emphatically do. I, too, was unimpressed with Otto Habsburg's (to use his legal name in Austria) political efforts, especially since the 1990s: he took the wrong side on too many issues to count. Having Reis Ceric the "secret" radical at the funeral was the final insult (perhaps we ought not forget that the first Reis ul-ulema in Sarajevo, who got his job on the back of the Habsburg invasion of 1878 with Ottoman permission, declared that Austria-Hungary was dar al-Islam: important).
However, as for the charge of anti-Serbian, much less anti-Orthodox, views, by Otto, one must be more careful. Certainly there was a detectable animus against the general Belgrade view of things in the Habsburg clan: how not? Assassins backed by Belgrade (surely you don't dispute that Apis, et al, were behind the murders?) killed Otto's relatives, who remain in family memory as "the first victims of the Great War" (the inscription on the tombs of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie). So a general distaste for things emanating from Belgrade et environs seems well placed in this case.
Moreover, I am one of those "schwarzgelb" people you seem not to like but I am eminently fair. I concur that 1914 was the going-off-the-cliff for Europe and the West from which we have never recovered. And Vienna had plenty of blame for it, particularly a needlessly hostile policy towards Belgrade that poisoned the waters and set the stage for the tragedy at Sarajevo.
But I cannot believe that you, as a scholar and historian, don't accept that there was plenty of blame in Belgrade too, and that Serbian chauvinism led to terrorism and murder that - really, by mid-1914 - Vienna had no choice to respond to except war. Both sides were stupid and short-sighted, but the Serbian government lit the fuse here. It was like 9/11: what the Bushies did was ultimately stupid and counterproductive, but the US Government had to do something big and violent at that point.
As for the charge of Otto's anti-Orthodoxy, as a Roman Catholic of the old school there was an unquestionably negative general view, but one must not forget that the Habsburgs were nothing more than a "family firm" and they appreciated the loyalty of anyone - Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish - who was loyal to the Hausmacht. A good many Serbs (in 1914 there were more Serbs in Austria-Hungary than in Serbia) were eminently schwarzgelb too, down to the very end of the Empire: something Belgrade has always found horrifying and tried to this very day to downplay and anathematize.
Additionally, I know personally of several Orthodox clerics who were close to Otto and had warm relations with him. Say what you will, Otto was in no way the Catholic bigot that his "sainted" father (who refused to accept the Hungarian crown from that Ptrotestant Tisza) was.
So, Otto was sadly misguided in his later years: many are. But I hope you will concede that this issue is a good deal more complex than your essay made it out to be. Moreover, the Habsburgs did a fine job against the jihad - in their own typically ramshackle way - for many centuries, and it would be good to have those sorts back again. I certainly think Prince Eugene, that great Habsburg terror of the Turk, would be very good to have back right now.
I do not at all see the relevance of comparing Holbrooke with Otto v. Hapbsburg. The former was the lackey of the regime, a known liar and war-monger who eagerly took credit for criminal behavior. He was loathed by virtually all of our friends and readers. He represented nothing but the vicious and degraded principles of total war and neoconservative imperialism. Otto v. Hapbsurg, whatever he may have believed, never had power, he represented the Hapsburg tradition in Europe, and was a beloved figure to many of our readers. If people cannot see the difference, I can only attribute this to the moral blindness that punishes everyone who spends much time on the internet.