The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922

by Edmond Taylor

The Emperor crypt of the Capuchin chapel in the heart of Old Vienna is the family mausoleum of the Habsburgs. The dust of twelve emperors and fifteen empresses lies there in the golden gloom, watched over by four crowned skulls whose sightless eye sockets are turned toward the red and white tomb of Frederick III (d. 1493), the first member of the dynasty to use the title. To the modern eye there seems as much pride as humility in the baroque symbolism; there was a time when the Habsburg realms were second only to the universal monarchy for which the crowned skulls stand. It was Frederick who adopted and carved over a gate of the Hofburg the boastful motto AEIOU, an interchangeable Latin-German anagram (Austriae est imperare orbi universo or Alles Erdreich ist Oesterreich untertkan) signifying that it is Austria’s destiny to rule the world.