Monday, August 9, 2010

A Hohenzollern- Austrian marriage?

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August 9, 1908 

 Today the Marquise de Fontenoy focuses on the announcement of the engagement between Princess Augusta Victoria of Hohenzollern and Archduke Karl of Austria, who will celebrate his 21st birthday next week. 

He reached his legal majority three years ago when he turned eighteen. The archduke is the eldest son of the late Archduke Otto and is seen as the heir to the Austrian throne. His father's elder brother, Archduke Franz Ferdinand's marriage is morganatic and he has pledged to "refrain from any attempt to alter the succession in favor of his morganatic son." 

 Thus, young Archduke Karl is "destined in the ordinary course of events to become emperor of Austria and King of Hungary." Princess Augusta Victoria is the daughter of Prince Wilhelm, the head of the Roman Catholic house of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. 

It is a senior, but a non-reigning branch of the House of Hohenzollern. Wilhelm's younger brother, Ferdinand, is the Crown Prince of Roumania. The relationship between Kaiser Wilhelm II and his Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen cousins is said to be strained. 

A marriage between Karl and Augusta Victoria, a goddaughter of Empress Augusta Victoria, "cannot fail to still further cement the bonds of the triple alliance."

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