Druhý dech habsburské monarchie – Drnek Jan (2024)

Another in the series of military-historical mystifications by the Plzeň author Jan Drnek, "The Second Breath of the Habsburg Monarchy," deals with the possibility of preserving the Danube Monarchy after the end of World War I. The story takes place between the autumn of 1916, when Emperor Franz Joseph I dies and the throne is taken by the directly thinking soldier, a convinced Catholic (now beatified by the church) Charles I. A key point of the mystification change becomes Charles's decision to be crowned in Prague with the St. Wenceslas crown, to lead the monarchy out of the war with an honorable peace, and to carry out its overall reform based on a quadrilistic arrangement of four state entities – the Crown of St. Wenceslas, the Crown of St. Stephen, the Kingdom of South Slavs, and the remaining lands represented in the Imperial Council. The Prague coronation and the promise of reconciliation cause a shift in Czech public opinion, weaken T. G. Masaryk's foreign actions, and disrupt the relationship between the throne and the Germans. Charles is forced to increasingly rely on the Slavic nations of the empire, while the Czech National Council must increasingly depend on the activities of the legionary armies. The story unfolds on all battlefields of the war. The reader, along with the heroes of the story, travels with military convoys through Siberia, fights the decisive battle at Piave, and walks through audiences...