The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke

About this book

Wilhelm Von Habsburg wore the uniform of the Austrian officer the court regalia of a Habsburg archduke the simple suit of a Parisian exile the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece and every so often a dress. He could handle a saber a pistol a rudder or a golf club; he handled women by necessity and men for pleasure. He spoke the Italian of his archduchess mother the German of his archduke father the English of his British royal friends the Polish of the country his father wished to rule and the Ukrainian of the land Wilhelm wished to rule himself. In this exhilarating narrative history prize-winning historian Timothy D. Snyder offers an indelible portrait of an aristocrat whose life personifies the wrenching upheavals of the first half of the twentieth century as the rule of empire gave way to the new politics of nationalism. Coming of age during the First World War Wilhelm repudiated his family to fight alongside Ukrainian peasants in hopes that he would become their king. When this dream collapsed he became by turns an ally of German imperialists a notorious French lover an angry Austrian monarchist a calm opponent of Hitler and a British spy against Stalin. Played out in Europes glittering capitals and bloody battlefields in extravagant ski resorts and dank prison cells The Red Prince captures an extraordinary moment in the history of Europe in which the old order of the past was giving way to an undefined future-and in which everything including identity itself seemed up for grabs.