Love Is Dead: Newly discovered letters and the royal murder-suicide at Mayerling
It seems to me the only reason to remember the Mayerling incident  is the role it played in the start of WWI and even then how significant that was could be questioned.<p>The death of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, who had no heir, meant that the direct line of succession to the from the then emperor Franz Joseph was broken. The line to Austro-Hungarian throne then fell to the son of Franz Joseph&#x27;s brother, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914 by Gavrilo Princip, a Yugoslav nationalist. The archduke&#x27;s assassination then led to the &#x27;crisis&#x27; that precipitated the First World War.<p>Whilst the chain of events from Prince Rudolf&#x27;s death 25 years earlier to WWI is likely tenuous it nevertheless does highlight the fact that the inbred and largely incompetent European monarchies were incapable of resolving the serious diplomatic issues that arose from the &#x27;crisis&#x27;, this then led to war.<p>If any good could be said to arise from WWI then it seems that the demise of many of these monarchies is one of them albeit that the benefit from losing them wouldn&#x27;t be felt until some 30 years later after WWII.<p>My personal opinion is that monarchy and modern democracy are essentially incompatible.