Rudolf of Habsburg (1218-1291) and Maria Theresa (1717-1780)

Austria, like Germany, France and Hungary, traced its origins back to two founding figures: Rudolf of Habsburg and Maria Theresa. Both are from the House of Habsburg, which the nation was to be bound to in the multinational state.

Rudolf of Habsburg was the progenitor of the ruling dynasty. With the defeat and death of his greatest adversary Ottokar II (Otakar) of Bohemia in the Battle of Dürnkrut (1278), Rudolf, who had been elected German king in 1273, did more than just secure himself the crown. Rather, his victory over Ottokar, who later in 19th century Bohemia was to be highly revered for his politics of expansion and his Christian mission to convert the pagan Prussians, also paved the way for the rise of his dynasty.

The veneration of Rudolf revolves around a legend that had been passed down since the 14th century. While riding through the countryside, the legend went, Rudolf, then Count of Swabia, met a priest who was carrying the Most Holy Sacrament. Rudolf jumped off his horse and gave it to the priest, out of reverence for the Host. Shortly thereafter he was crowned king. Embellished in the following years, the legend provided the divine justification not only for Rudolf’s reign, but also for that of his descendants.

Side by side with Rudolf as a kind of primeval mother of the nation stood Maria Theresa. As the monument in the Emperor’s Forum in Vienna indicates, she can doubtless be called the founder of the state that came to be known since 1804 as the »Austrian Empire«. Above and beyond that, she was acknowledged as the sovereign or »Mother of the Nation« (in the same sense as the absolutistic »Father of the Nation«), moreover as »mater castrorum« (»Mother of the Army«) and in particular a the mother of a whole swarm of children. Nineteenth century illustrations emphasise primarily this »bourgeois« aspect.

War and Faith

The Relief of Vienna, 1683

There are few events whose memory has remained so alive in future generations as the siege of Vienna by the Turkish army under the command of the grand vizier Kara Mustafa and the relief of the imperial city in September 1683. Ever since, the glorious victory over the Ottoman Empire has been appreciated throughout Europe. In the 19th century it was only in Austria and Poland that the breaking of the siege by the combined forces of the emperor, the imperial provinces and Poland became an integral part of their national self-awareness.

For Poland it meant the victory over Islam, but above all it was the defence of the Christian West by the Polish king John III Sobieski that inflamed Polish patriotism. Jan Matejko created a monumental painting of the triumph on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the event in 1683.

For Austria, on the other hand, the glorious repulsion of the Turkish siege of 1683 marked the beginning of the »Heroic Age« and Austria's rise to the status of a great power. This self-identity came to life in the art of the 19th century. Carl von Blaas' depiction of the Viennese commander Rüdiger Graf Starhemberg, who defiantly and determinedly fought on to victory despite his wounds, is seen in the context of the painting of the weapons museum in the Vienna Arsenal, the present museum of military history, the decoration of which was carried out in order to underpin the myth of the Habsburgs through its great military events. In his painting of the Turkish storming of the so-called Löwel Bastion, Leander Russ recalls one of those dramatic moments when it took the greatest efforts and most bitter fighting for the defenders to drive back the enemy.

Freedom

The Battle of Aspern, 1809

From 1792 to 1805 Austria and France faced each other in war almost without interruption. In April 1809 a three-year period of peace came to an end when Austria declared war again. Commander of the Austrian army was Archduke Karl, a younger brother of Emperor Franz I and one of the few important generals under the Habsburgs.

After initial victories in southern Germany the Austrians had to yield to Napoleon, who had quickly brought his troops from Spain, and were forced to surrender Vienna to the French emperor. As they tried to reach the northern bank of the Danube, the French troops were thrown back again in bloody fighting at the Battle of Aspern (21st and 22nd May 1809). Napoleon had to accept his first defeat. But Austria’s fate was sealed shortly thereafter with a defeat at the Battle of Wagram. Archduke Karl resigned his command after the defeat, but the myth of the »vanquisher of the invincible« (Heinrich von Kleist) was nevertheless born and became part of the 19th century Austrian Habsburg myth based on ruler, commander and battles, as displayed in the Emperor’s Forum at the Vienna Hofburg and along Ringstrasse as well as at the Museum of Military History.

With his monument to Archduke Karl, unveiled at the Emperor’s Forum in 1865, Anton Dominik Fernkorn takes up an episode that was first published in 1812: at the decisive moment in the Battle of Aspern the archduke, with the courage of a lion, is supposed to have taken up the flag of an infantry regiment, placed himself at the head of the advancing troops and thus swept the men along with him. The picture by Peter Krafft shows the archduke in his suite. A larger version of this painting is prominently displayed in the Museum of Military History in Vienna.