The Emperor's Coloured Coat
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A prequel to Biggins's A Sailor of Austria (1994), in which Linienschiffsleutnant Ottokar, Ritter von Prohaska, a centenarian inmate in a Welsh nursing home, related his adventures as a WW I submarine captain. The story now deals with Ottokar's time as a naval aviator who joined the staff of Franz Ferdinand, Archduke and Heir-Apparent to the throne of Austria-Hungary, through the intervention of Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany, after crash-landing an airplane on the Archduke's picnic table in 1912. The Austria-Hungarian monarchy is a fossil, still ruled by the dim "Old Gentleman" whose heir, the Archduke, is violently anti-Hungarian, anti-Semitic, and probably certifiable as well. While escaping from an enraged husband (not all of Ottokar's adventures are of a military order), Ottokar gets sucked into the Serbian (and possibly Austrian) conspiracy to assassinate the Archduke in Sarajevo, then tries vainly to extricate himself and get word back to Austrian military intelligence in time to foil the plot. Perhaps his success would have averted world war, though probably not, as Ottokar muses from his perspective in old age: "I think it was merely a matter of the blundering, blinked ineptitude of a dying bureaucracy colliding with the theatrical, self-deceiving murderousness of Balkan politics...." Ottokar's report isn't taken seriously, and he is posted to China, where his hastily commissioned junk is blown off course almost to Borneo. Further to-the-brink adventures - with pirates, Russians, bloodthirsty Turks, flat-earth fanatics - finally take him back to Vienna and the decaying empire he loyally serves. Replete with period detail and the atmosphere of empire's end - along with sufficient references to future events to assure us of more to come in this engaging series. (Kirkus Reviews)
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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This book follows the hapless Lieutenant Otto Prohaska in the waning years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and finds Otto taking an ill-considered break from duties to engage in a mad fling with a Polish actress. After a desperate attempt to elude his lover's husband, he finds himself mistaken by anarchists as one of their own. Otto soon masters their code names and secret handshakes, but when he also learns of their plans to assassinate the Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, his duty is clear. He must alert his superiors--now, if only he can find someone who will believe him!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Otto Prohaska's fictional career deserved to gone on for longer than the four books John Biggins wrote. Apparently these gems did not sell well when they were first published, which is a crying shame - they are well worth the effort, with their gentle yet moving look at life in the last days of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
It is wonderful to see them lovingly re-published by those US specialists in naval fiction McBooks Press.
It is wonderful to see them lovingly re-published by those US specialists in naval fiction McBooks Press.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A wonderful read from a wonderful series: humane, hysterically funny, & run though with brilliant despair.
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
One of the few, if any, adventure stories set in and around the pre-war and World War 1 armed services of Emperor Franz Joseph head of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It's an exciting roller coaster romp through historical events and high adventure of an almost 'Boys Own' nature. it's also quite informative as well regarding this lesser known Supra-National Empire stretching from Austria upto and including many balkan countries and up North as far as Poland and South down to the Adriatic. I enjoyed it immensely.
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