[pepsionice]

One of the unusual side stories to the Crown Prince....from his teens on...this guy spent a vast amount of his time hunting. The majority of an average year...he was out on hunting trips. There’s probably no one existing in the monarchy that could handle a rifle as well as this guy.

[Antoninus]

There’s probably no one existing in the monarchy that could handle a rifle as well as this guy.

Good addition. I had never heard the part about him throwing himself in front of the duchess when Princip fired. He may have been taciturn, but he proved himself a man when the moment of crisis arrived.

[Reily]

Are you confusing Crown Prince Rudolph with Grand Duke Franz Ferdinand?. After the Crown Prince’s suicide - Mayerling incident

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayerling_incident

Franz Ferdinand became the heir.

He was thoroughly disliked by the Emperor Franz Josef I.

I have seen historians describe Franz Ferdinand as a “liberal”. He would have evolved the Austrian Empire to a sort of United States of Austria under a imperial system. Other historian say that’s myth!

If so one of history’s great “wtah ifs”!