ABSTRACT
After his death in November of 1916, the new standard-bearer for the House ofHabsburg was Franz Joseph's grandnephew, the twenty-eight-year-old Karl I. If the times had been more ordinary, Karl might have been just what the dynasty required to bridge the absolutist perspective of his great-uncle with the requirements of a modern, popular, and constitutional monarchy. The new emperor had the advantage of comely youth; he was well educated and, moreover, had had his education within a more democratic framework than had ever been possible in the era when the old emperor had been young. In addition, standing by the side of the amiable, darkly handsome, and diffident monarch was his attractive consort, Zita of Bourbon-Parma. But unlike her husband, the young empress carried the strongest of wills behind her smiling visage and personable demeanor. Indeed, perhaps the ignominious fate that awaited the dynasty might have been otherwise if their roles could have been reversed, for where her husband lacked discipline and stamina, Zita displayed purposeful resolve. More significant, she was endowed with considerable natural political savvy, and if somewhat uneducated formally in the ways of modern politics, she was nevertheless in possession of a mind and character that complemented her determined ambition that she and her husband succeed in the task assigned to them by Providence.
