page_title: Mayerling incident
hierarchical_section_title: Mayerling incident
caption_attribution_description: English: Combined Portrait Photographs of Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria and Baroness Mary Vetsera
context_page_description: The Mayerling incident is the series of events surrounding the apparent murder–suicide of Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, and his lover, Mary Freiin von Vetsera. Rudolf, who was married to Princess Stéphanie of Belgium, was the only son of Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth, and was heir apparent to the Imperial throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
  Rudolf's mistress was the daughter of Albin Freiherr von Vetsera, a diplomat at the Austrian court. Albin had been created a Freiherr in 1870. The bodies of the 30-year-old Kronprinz and the 17-year-old Freiin were discovered in the Imperial hunting lodge at Mayerling in the Vienna Woods, 26.6 kilometres southwest of the capital, on the morning of 30 January 1889.
  The death of the Crown Prince interrupted the security inherent in the direct line of Habsburg dynastic succession. As Rudolf had no son, the succession would pass to Franz Joseph's brother, Archduke Karl Ludwig, and his eldest son, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
  This destabilisation endangered the growing reconciliation between the Austrian and Hungarian factions of the empire.
context_section_description: The Mayerling incident is the series of events surrounding the apparent murder–suicide of Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria (21 August 1858 – 30 January 1889), and his lover, Mary Freiin von Vetsera (19 March 1871 – 30 January 1889). Rudolf, who was married to Princess Stéphanie of Belgium, was the only son of Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth, and was heir apparent to the Imperial throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
  Rudolf's mistress was the daughter of Albin Freiherr von Vetsera, a diplomat at the Austrian court. Albin had been created a Freiherr (Baron) in 1870. The bodies of the 30-year-old Kronprinz and the 17-year-old Freiin (Baroness) were discovered in the Imperial hunting lodge at Mayerling in the Vienna Woods, 26.6 kilometres (16.5 mi) southwest of the capital, on the morning of 30 January 1889.
  The death of the Crown Prince interrupted the security inherent in the direct line of Habsburg dynastic succession. As Rudolf had no son, the succession would pass to Franz Joseph's brother, Archduke Karl Ludwig, and his eldest son, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
  This destabilisation endangered the growing reconciliation between the Austrian and Hungarian factions of the empire.  Succeeding developments led to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie by Gavrilo Princip, a Yugoslav nationalist and ethnic Serb, at Sarajevo in June 1914, and the July Crisis that led to the start of the First World War.
caption: Crown Prince Rudolf and Mary Freiin von Vetsera
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