Bruno Kreisky and Otto Habsburg-Lothringen shaking hands on the occasion of a ceremony to mark 50 years of the Pan-European Movement, 1972

When the Republic was proclaimed the imperial house of Habsburg and all family members had all their privileges withdrawn, members of the bureaucracy and the military were released from their oath of loyalty to the emperor, and the imperial ministries were wound up. However, before he left Austria in March 1919, Emperor Karl still emphasized in a manifesto that for him the measures passed by the new government were ‘null and void’. The newly elected National Assembly reacted to this provocation by expelling the imperial family from the country and confiscating their property. At the same time a law was passed which forbade the use of aristocratic titles and made it a punishable offence.

Otto Habsburg-Lorraine grew up as the figurehead of the legitimist movement. His use of the latter term was deliberately vague: as a politician he interpreted it as giving support to any lawful form of government. However, he must have been aware that in historical discourse legitimism is a synonym for dynastic monarchism.