There are many mysterious stories about the curses that haunted those subjected to them over many years and even decades. One of them is associated with the curse of the island of Lokrum and the Mexican emperor Maximilian Habsburg.
Ancient monastery
In the Adriatic Sea, 700 meters from the coastline of the Croatian city of Dubrovnik, lies a small area of only 0.694 sq. km, but a very picturesque island of Lokrum. There is a belief that for some time now a curse has been imposed on him by the monks of the Benedictine monastery. This monastery and the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary were built on the island by the inhabitants of Dubrovnik in 1023 as a token of gratitude to the heavenly forces for saving them from a monstrous fire. Then the city was almost all wooden, and a terrible fire broke out in it on the day of St. Benedict.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Napoleonic troops came to this region. The French built a fort on the highest point of the island, and decided to remove the monastery. The monks, as expected, accepted the decision of the new authorities with humility. However, this is not entirely true. They held the last divine service in the monastery church, and at night, lined up in a row, three times with a funeral step went around the whole island with burning candles. They held the candles so that the molten wax dripped to the ground, and at the same time loudly uttered the words of the curse. The monks cursed anyone who tried to use the island for their own purposes and pleasures. Then they got into boats and sailed away.
The curse was very effective. All three French noblemen who led the expulsion of the Benedictines were soon killed. One suddenly jumped out of the window, another drowned on the way to the island, the third was killed by his own servant. After the end of the Napoleonic wars, Lokrum was bought by a very rich man - a certain captain Tomashkevich. The purchase, however, did not bring him happiness: he quickly went bankrupt and was forced to sell the island. Its next owner was Archduke Maximilian of Habsburg, whose fate was tragic. He had the imprudence to become the emperor of Mexico, where he was captured by the rebels and executed. The next owner of the island, Doctor of Law Jakopovich from Budapest, was exposed as a fraud, and his only son drowned on his way to Lokrum during a storm.
Romantic and dreamer
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We are primarily interested in Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph von Habsburg - as the most powerful and influential of the victims of the curse. He was born in 1832. Unlike his older brother, the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I, calculating, dry and pragmatic, he was known as a romantic and a dreamer. Maximilian, or Maxl, as his relatives and close friends called him, wrote poetry and prose, wrote travel essays, adored the theater and was fond of botany. He lived for the most part away from Vienna, in the castle of Miramare near Trieste. In his youth, he commanded the Austrian navy. Thanks to his efforts, the Austrian ship made its first round the world voyage.
In 1857, Maximilian married Princess Charlotte, daughter of the Belgian king Leopold I. The Archduke expected to receive a rich dowry, but he miscalculated: the “Belgian people” forked out only 250 thousand francs. Immediately after the wedding, the young people left for Milan - Maximilian was appointed Viceroy of Venice and Lombardy. Charlotte was delighted: the incessant Brussels rains and fogs were replaced by the sunny skies of Italy. However, there they did not stay long. The war started by Napoleon III for the liberation of Italy from Austrian rule deprived the viceroy of power and forced Maximilian and Charlotte to move to the Miramare castle.
Meanwhile, in Paris, Napoleon III and his wife Eugenia, having fallen under the influence of an emigrant from Mexico, Jose Gidalgo, conceived to make this distant country, immersed in the abyss of civil war, happy with the establishment of solid power. Napoleon III dreamed of creating a vast empire in Mexico that would be able to withstand the United States. Evgeniya expressed the idea of offering the Mexican crown to Maximilian Habsburg. The French emperor approved the idea, Maximilian immediately accepted the offer with enthusiasm. For a long time he remained out of work, but here he hoped to turn around and make his new Mexican subjects happy: to become a kind and just ruler.
Madness
The initiative was to be supported by French troops, which were to end the uprising organized by Mexican President Benito Juarez. At first, 7,000 French went over the Atlantic, but they all died in battles near the city of Puebla. Then a corps of 28,000 men was sent to Mexico. They managed to take first Puebla, and then Mexico City.
Now Masimilian and Charlotte could go overseas.
At the port of Veracruz, the new subjects greeted them with cold, unfriendly looks. In Mexico City, the palace where they were housed was disheartening: it had over a thousand rooms and whole hordes of bedbugs. It's funny, but the freshly baked emperor spent the first night there on a billiard table - it was absolutely impossible to sleep on the beds. Charlotte also settled in a country palace.
The bedbugs were eventually defeated. The situation with the rebels was worse. Juarez enlisted the support of the United States, and the war went on with varying degrees of success. Soon, Maximilian began to realize that he did not know Mexico, its people and customs. The money received on credit melted away. The emperor started the construction of a court theater worth 75 thousand dollars, horses, carriages and carriages cost half a million. Not to mention the cost of the war. I had to turn to Napoleon III for support. But he not only did not provide it, but completely recalled the French regiments from Mexico.
“My poor Maxl,” Charlotte repeated over and over again. She ultimately volunteered to travel to Europe and "turn royal palaces and papal chambers" in search of help. Maximilian agreed. In Europe, the Empress first of all met with Napoleon III, but he seemed to have forgotten that he himself had started the whole enterprise. He replied dryly that they had nothing to hope for. Charlotte's breath caught in her throat. She was given a glass of oranjade with ice, but she pushed the drink away with a shout: “Murderers! Leave me! Take away this poisoned potion! " At that time, no one attached much importance to her words, but it was a sign of impending madness.
When Charlotte reached Rome, Pope Pius IX honored her with a solemn audience in the throne room. The Mexican empress began to prove to the pope that he was surrounded by poisoners who were on the payroll of Napoleon III. She did not want to drink anything except the water from the Roman fountains, and ate only the food that was prepared in front of her eyes. She spent the night in the Vatican library, and the next morning the quiet madness turned into violent. A telegram was urgently sent to Belgium, in which it was reported that Charlotte was ill with a mental disorder. Her brother, Count of Flanders, came for her.
On a golden guilder - for shooting
Napoleon III told Charlotte that Maximilian was free to abdicate. Numerous friends suggested this way out of the situation, but Maxl did exactly the opposite. He considered that running away would be an unworthy act and would cover him with shame. Juarez's partisan detachments, meanwhile, approached the capital. The troops remained disastrously small, there was no money at all. Someone advised Maximilian to take refuge in the fortress of Kveretaro and defend himself to the last.
The siege lasted 72 days. It is not known how long it would have lasted, but everything was decided by an ordinary betrayal. The emperor's favorite, Colonel Miguel Lopez, on the night of May 15, 1867, went over to the side of the enemy. He knew all the passwords and easily led the rebels into the fortress. When it was reported to Maximilian that the enemy's detachment had penetrated the fortress, he rushed to meet the enemy with a drawn sword. This noble and somewhat theatrical impulse, of course, could not change anything. The emperor was captured and imprisoned by the victors.
Maximilian had supporters in Mexico who were preparing an escape for him. Since everyone knew the emperor by sight, he had to shave off his beard for conspiracy, but “in order not to seem ridiculous in Europe,” he flatly refused to lose such beauty. And he lost his life. On the verdict of the military court of the rebels, he was shot on the morning of June 19. Before being shot, he was allowed to write a farewell letter to Charlotte. Having written, the debunked emperor calmly declared that he was ready. He was taken in a carriage to the place where he was taken prisoner - the execution was to take place there. It is said that Maximilian asked the soldiers from the firing squad to come up to him and gave each of them a golden guilder.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №11, Andrey Chinaev