On a cold january morning in January 1889, Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf and the beautiful Baroness Marie Visela died in the Meyerin hunting lodge, was it martyrdom or an elaborate political assassination? To this day, this tragedy has been shrouded in a veil of mystery.
Rudolf was the only son of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary and Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Bavaria, and as the only son of the king, he became a key breeding target in the country.
Princess Sissi was a freedom-loving person, but Franz Joseph was an admirer of harsh education.
Franz Joseph, hoping to train his son through military training, hired General Gonlecourt to educate his son
From that time on, Rudolf received extremely harsh and demanding training.
He liked to train his children in rainy days and winter, and Rudolph would be awakened every day by the sound of gunfire, which was the only way for the teacher to wake him up.
In order to strengthen Rudolph's will, the teacher also left Rudolph in the forest and left him alone to find his way home.
The overly harsh education provoked Princess Sisi's displeasure, but she was powerless to change that.
As a teenager, Rudolf often clashed with his father due to differences in personality and political ideas.
For political reasons, Rudolf chose Princess Stephanie of Belgium as her princess.
But this is only a political marriage, the husband and wife do not know each other at all, after the birth of a daughter, Rudolph and his wife's conflict escalated, and soon Rudolph will find comfort from other women.
To escape his family's indifference and complicated politics, Rudolf bought a villa in a small village on the Schwechat River, 15 miles southwest of Vienna.
Since then, it has been turned into a royal hunting lodge, and Rudolf, who is far from the stress of life, likes to walk in the woods and enjoy solitude in the wilderness.
At the end of 1888, Rudolph met the woman who changed his destiny.
By chance, Rudolph spotted a Peugeot 17-year-old girl whom he recognized as Baron Mary Visela.
A few months later, they had their first private meeting, which was rumored to have been facilitated by the crown prince's chauffeur and cousin and the baroness's maid.
This secretive love affair gave Rudolph a taste of pleasure, and after that, Rudolph fell madly in love with Mary.
After all, the paper could not contain the fire, and Franz Joseph I learned of the improper relationship between his son and the baroness and came to another long conversation with his son.
The two men were unable to reach an agreement, and Joseph threatened his son by sending him out of the country, but Rudolf was unmoved and chose to meet with Mary.
After that, Joseph and Rudolf became strangers, and their relationship was completely broken.
On January 29, 1889 (the night before the tragedy), Rudolph had dinner with Mary, and according to the attendants, the couple had a sumptuous dinner.
Dinner included a pheasant, fresh mushrooms, onions, baked potatoes as a side dish, and they drank wine together when they were in high spirits.
The next morning, the attendants woke up Rudolf as usual, but Rudolph asked not to disturb them for half an hour.
Half an hour later, when the attendants returned, he found the Crown Prince's room as dead silent, and when he saw that something was wrong, he immediately asked the Crown Prince's friend, Count Hojos, for help.
After opening the door, people saw a surprising scene.
Rudolf fell motionless in his chair, with a small bullet hole in his head, and Mary had been dead for a long time.
After the reaction, the attendants and the count immediately reported the incident to the police, and soon after the count himself came to the door to inform the emperor and the empress of the matter to Rudolph.
Princess Sissi was devastated to learn the news, and Joseph ordered the truth to be found out.
Although Joseph deliberately concealed the matter, the news of the crown prince's suicide spread widely, and many rumors came out.
Some say it was an elaborate political assassination, while others believe it was the crown prince who killed his lover and then committed suicide, but no one knows what the truth is.
In order to allow his son to be buried in the form of a Roman Catholic funeral, it was officially announced that Rudolf was mentally ill before choosing suicide.
In order to be able to find out the truth, the royal family set up a special commission of inquiry.
First of all, professionals ruled out the possibility of poisoning, because no toxic drug body could be found at the scene, and no traces of poison residue were found.
Moreover, the letters written by Rudolf and Mary before their deaths revealed pessimistic and world-weary sentiments.
In a letter to his mother, Rudolf described to her his love affair with Mary and claimed that Mary was willing to live and die with her.
Mary confessed in a letter to her family that she could not forget Rudolph and hoped that her sister would marry for love in the future.
At the scene, a revolver was found and, according to the final conclusion given by the medical board, the crown prince and Mary died of gunshot wounds.
However, only one shell casing was found at the scene, so why did the remaining shell shell disappear?
In its report, the Commission found that six shots had been made public in the pistol that did not belong to Rudolph, so who fired the remaining five shots except the one on Rudolph's head? Where did the shell casing go?
In the aftermath of the massacre, Mary's body was smuggled out of Meerin by relatives and secretly buried in a rural cemetery in Heiligen Kreuz.
During World War II, the monastery where Mary was buried was destroyed, and looters looted the monastery, including Mary's grave.
A young doctor named Gerd Holler offered to re-examine Mary's regrets to prove her cause of death.
The results of the investigation were surprising, and he did not find a single bullet hole in Mary's body.
The doctor insisted that Mary died of complications caused by a miscarriage, and perhaps unable to accept such an outcome, Rudolf finally chose to commit suicide.
Rudolf's aunt insisted that her nephew had not committed suicide, believing that Rudolph had been assassinated for refusing to participate in the political plot of French Prime Minister Georges.
If Rudolphs were really political victims, then the rationale for their elimination seemed logical.
Nor can we rule out whether the two letters were written under duress, which may also explain why traces of the fight were found on Rudolf's hand.
Either way, it was a tragedy, and Rudolf's death rewrote the history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.