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From:
Subject: [CZ] Emperor's stables
Date: Mon, 1 Jan 2001 15:09:19 EST

<< It is said that my husband's ggrandfather worked in the stables for King
Franz
Ferdinand before coming to Texas. Any idea how to go about checking this
out.
Would this have been a military position???
>>

There was an Austrian Emperor Ferdinand who abdicated in 1848 or so in favor
of his nephew, Franz Josef. Ferdinand was said to be "slow witted" to put
it politely. Franz Josef was only about 18 years old when he took the
throne. He ruled until 1917 when he died.

Since the Austrian Emperor was also the King of Bohemia and the King of
Hungary I assume you might mean one of those two depending on when your
ancestor was employed in the stables.

Working in the Imperial Stables probably had different levels of job
importance. There were probably stable boys who shoveled the manure and
carried the feed, grooms who tended to the horses appearance and kept the
tack in order and saddled and harnessed the horses, trainers who worked with
the horses and maybe acted as drivers and footmen for carriages, etc. and
then there was probably a veterinarian, some farriers and blacksmiths and a
couple of stable overseers to manage all of that crew.

The only imperial stables I have seen are at Schonbrun in Vienna -- along
with the carriage museum there. (Did you know that the imperial coach had a
chamberpot under the imperial seat cushion? That evokes images of an emperor
waving to the cheering public from his coach with a big smile on his face
while he was literally "on the throne"..... (:-))).

There had to be stables at the Hofburg in Vienna, too, and at all of the
other places that the Habsburgs had residences. I have no idea where they
were or if there were any such places in Bohemia or old Hungary (Slovakia).

Then there are the still-famous Vienna stables of the Lippizaners that are
virtually at the Hofburg.

If I were going to research this I would start with a simple query to the
Staatsarchiv asking if there are any records of the men employed in the
imperial stables during XXXX period. Also ask if the men who worked in the
Kaiser's stables were civilians or military. If they say there ARE records
and whether they are civil or military then send them another letter with
exact information about when the man may have worked there and enclose some
international payment coupons. If they say the men were military send the
second query to the war archive and enclose a copy of the first letter.

If you do this, please post any response you get on the list.

Karen

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