Original subtitles

On this episode of "Expedition Files."

At the height of World War II,

a top-secret US military unit takes on the Nazis

and saves an estimated 30,000 lives

without ever firing a shot.

Armed with inflatable tanks, fake radio transmissions,

and carefully timed sound effects,

they deceive enemy forces with the power of illusion.

For the first time, we declassify the secrets

behind the so-called Ghost Army.

[indistinct chatter]

Then, the Knights Templar were one of the most powerful forces

in the medieval world, until they were accused of

evil, unholy acts and were disbanded in disgrace.

Did the Templars deserve their destruction?

We reveal the shocking truth.

[man groaning]

[Josh] And...

the story of the deadly romance that started a world war.

The heir to the mighty Habsburg royal family is found dead

alongside his young mistress.

An assassination or a suicide pact?

We uncover the truth of the bloody affair

that reshaped the world.

In the corridors of time...

are mysteries that defy explanation.

Now I'm traveling through history itself...

on a search for the truth.

New evidence.

Shocking answers.

I'm Josh Gates...

and these...

are my "Expedition Files."

There's an old expression -- "Three may keep a secret

if two of them are dead."

Founding Father Benjamin Franklin said that.

Of course, he also flew a kite

in a lightning storm.

But hey, Franklin wasn't wrong.

Secrets rarely

stay hidden forever.

And tonight, we squint through ciphers and dust off long

buried documents to expose three stories

that were supposed to stay secret.

But now, decades, even centuries later,

we can finally reveal the truth.

We begin on June 13th, 1944, Normandy, France.

Seven days ago, on these very shores,

150,000 Allied troops invaded.

It's considered the greatest military operation in history,

because this is Omaha Beach,

and that fateful event was D-Day.

We're one week on from the Allied assault.

More than 75,000 Americans led the charge.

But today, a very different group

of US soldiers has arrived.

They wear standard uniforms,

but they don't wage war with bullets.

They do it with fabric,

paint, and a whole lot of deception.

They are a unit so strange, so implausible,

it sounds more like fiction than history.

But they will play a huge part in the conflicts to come,

helping to secure victory, while barely firing a shot.

After the war, their deeds will remain secretive, with

many of the men taking their incredible tale to the grave.

But three-quarters of a century on,

the story will be declassified, and the world will finally

come to know the unlikely heroes of the Ghost Army.

Let's rewind a year and a half to when 21-year-old John Jarvie

and 18-year-olds Bernie Bluestein and Art Kane arrive

at the US Army base

at Fort Meade in Maryland.

Whatcha sketching there?

[Josh] The three men, along with approximately 1,100 others,

are looking to join a new unit soon to be called

the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops.

But the men of the 23rd aren't your garden-variety soldiers.

They're photographers, painters, sound engineers,

even fashion designers, recruited from schools

across the country.

So why are a bunch of artists going to war?

Their skills in visual art, construction, sound,

and fabrication make them uniquely suited for

a new kind of warfare built on illusion and misdirection.

It turns out the 23rd is being trained to carry out

the first mass deception in modern military history.

They'll pretend they're a division 30 times

their actual size, erecting bogus airfields,

fabricating fake planes and tanks,

sending phony radio messages, and so much more.

Their job is to be everything except who they really are.

And because no one, not even their foreign allies,

will know their true identity, the tales that emerge

will remain more hearsay mystery than battlefield history.

One of their most notable missions, Operation Brittany,

takes place here in the forests

of northern France. It's July 1944.

This German unit is on the lookout for American forces.

Fearing an Allied attack, they're trying to decide

if they should move out or hold their position.

[speaking German]

[Josh] Having spotted what looks like a division of American tanks,

the Germans decide to hunker down and stay put.

But the attack they're waiting for never arrives.

The tanks they saw were actually dozens of

large rubber inflatables, painstakingly detailed by

artists like Kane and Bluestein to look like the real thing.

Meanwhile, the actual soldiers, all 11,000 of them,

are already on their way past the German defenses.

The Nazis have been fooled by the Ghost Army.

Over the coming months, their heroic deceits continue.

Kane and Bluestein paint wooden logs

to mimic aircraft parts.

They sew uniforms with fake insignias.

They craft rubber tubes into artillery barrels,

using all their artistry to pull off remarkable ruses.

The Ghost Army's daring deceptions will successfully

confuse the enemy across 17 battles.

What makes their success so remarkable is

the risk they take.

Armed with only standard infantry weapons and backed

by a minimal security detail, they operate largely exposed.

One operation will come at a terrible price

when the 23rd find themselves in the crosshairs

in Bouzonville, France.

It's March 1945, and the war is nearing its end.

The Ghost Army impersonates the 80th Infantry Division,

dipping into their bag of tricks, inflatable tanks to

divert German forces away from the real 80th's movements.

The Germans take the bait, and the real 80th report very

light resistance to their new position.

Commanders celebrate another success.

But it turns out the Ghost Army has drawn the Germans

too close to their position.

[bang]

Out of nowhere, a German artillery opens fire,

leaving there the heavily armed 80th Infantry.

The 23rd scrambles in every direction, desperate to escape

the sudden barrage. The cost is heavy.

Kane, Bluestein, and Jarvie escape,

but two men are killed and 15 more are wounded.

For a unit built on a lie,

the consequences have never been more real.

Despite the casualties, Operation Bouzonville is

largely a success.

The real 80th Division escapes detection.

By now, the Allies have the Germans on the run.

But to finish the fight, they need to move

the 30th and 79th divisions, 40,000 troops,

across Germany's Rhine River.

The problem?

That kind of movement is hard to hide.

And after Operation Bouzonville, there's real risk

the Germans have figured out the 23rd isn't a true

combat unit.

And if so, the Allied forces are walking into

a deadly fight.

Victory or defeat could all depend on the Ghost Army.

In World War II, the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops,

a secret American unit nicknamed the Ghost Army,

has been thwarting the Nazis

with theatrical military illusions.

Now, after surviving an actual enemy attack,

they face their most daunting mission yet,

deceive the Germans while 40,000 Allied troops

slip across the Rhine River.

The Ghost Army attempts the impossible,

simulating a force of 40,000 using diversion tactics

first honed during Operation Bouzonville,

now deployed in a new mission known as Operation Viersen.

It's a highly sophisticated ruse, carefully designed to

convince the Germans that the real 30th and 79th Divisions

aren't going anywhere.

On the front lines, artists like Bernie Bluestein

and Art Kane set up their usual inflatable tanks

and fake artillery.

Nearby, sound effects artists get to work blasting

fake infantry noises

from specially designed speakers.

Meanwhile, radio operators establish

fake communication networks, known as spoof radio,

designed to mimic the equipment and broadcast frequencies

used by the real 30th and 79th Divisions.

Amazingly, it works.

Thanks to the efforts of Bluestein, Kane,

Jarvie, and many others, the Germans take the bait.

[speaking German]

[Josh] Thinking they are a much bigger division,

the Germans attack the 23rd.

-Oh. -[gunshots blasting]

[Josh] And while the Germans are distracted,

the real 30th and 79th Allied divisions

cross the Rhine River 10 miles north with almost no resistance.

The Ghost Army has helped win a critical victory,

but at enormous personal risk.

German artillery directed at the 23rd crashes dangerously

close, damaging equipment as shells land within 400 yards.

Miraculously, no one is killed, a narrow escape that

underscores just how exposed the Ghost Army truly was

and how much they risked to protect others.

Two months later, the Germans surrender.

The war in Europe is over.

But then the mystery really begins, because, seemingly

living up to its name, the Ghost Army vanishes.

They didn't march home to medals, ticker tape parades,

or cheering crowds, just a quiet return to

civilian life, their wartime exploits kept under wraps.

In fact, the unit wasn't technically declassified until 1996.

But even then, their stories remained buried

in the archives.

In 2005, historian Rick Beyer learns of the Ghost Army

and their stunning successes, and makes it his mission to

share their heroics with the world.

I came to the Ghost Army story 20 years ago.

When I started digging into this, I thought, oh, my god,

this might be one of the best stories of all time.

I said, "Well, wait a minute. You're saying that

"the U.S. Army had a unit that had blow-up tanks,

"that they went out and used them on the front lines against

"the Germans multiple times, fooled the enemy,

"they were never found out, and then it was all hushed up

after the war?"

And I have talked to so many people who were in the Army

in World War II and who didn't know anything about this.

Many soldiers were told to keep this secret,

and many, many did.

The government wanted to protect their military intelligence,

so the Ghost Army's successes stayed secret

for over 50 years.

But behind the smoke and mirrors was something

far more lasting.

The Ghost Army's disguises and deception shielded real

soldiers, diverted enemy fire, and saved an estimated

30,000 lives.

I believe that what they did, using creativity

on the battlefield to save lives, was so striking.

If you can avoid the head-on attack and actually make

the enemy think that it's coming from someplace else

and get behind them, you can save lives

in both armies.

I started engaging with a lot of the veterans

who were in the unit.

And the longer I spent on this, the more it started turning

into a quest to see these guys honored the way they should be.

[Josh] Beyer launched a grassroots crusade to secure these men

the recognition they richly deserve.

On March 21st, 2024, history finally caught up with

the Ghost Army. Inside the U.S. Capitol,

the secretive unit was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal,

one of the nation's highest honors.

Only seven were still alive to receive

the long-overdue commendation, including Bernie Bluestein

[Rick] I think for me, the most meaningful,

moment of that day was when the three veterans

who attended the ceremony were there in chairs.

And kneeling in front of them are the Chairman of

the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Commander of the U.S. Army,

the Secretary of the U.S. Army.

And they are kneeling on the ground so that they can be

face to face with these veterans.

And I thought that respect that they showed there was

just extraordinary.

While the methods of the Ghost Army

might sound antiquated today.

The techniques they pioneered are actually still deployed

in modern conflicts.

In Ukraine, inflatable tanks, fake missile launchers,

and decoy radar arrays have been deployed

to trick Russian drones into wasting firepower on phantoms.

The lesson of the 23rd endures.

If you're trying to win a war, make the enemy chase ghosts.

From the story of one secretive organization to another

roughly 650 years earlier. It's 1307.

I'm deep inside a dungeon in Paris.

[screaming in pain]

The man being tortured is Jacques de Molay, the leader of

the Knights Templar, the legendary elite

Christian military order.

But now the king of France himself has leveled a shocking

accusation against God's holy warriors.

He claims they're evil, corrupt, and guilty of

devil worship and obscene acts.

De Molay will confess to it all, and that stunning

pronouncement will prove a death sentence for

him and the Templars. But is the confession genuine?

Are the Knights truly unholy?

Centuries from now, the discovery

of secret documents will finally reveal the truth

behind the violent downfall of the Knights Templar.

[groaning in pain]

Just over 200 years earlier, in the year 1099,

Christian armies from Europe seize the city of Jerusalem

from Muslim control at the end of the First Crusade.

But as faithful Europeans make pilgrimages to visit

sacred sites in the Holy Land, they're easy targets for

bandits, raiders, and hostile armies.

That's where these guys come in.

This fearsome strike force of knights is established in 1119.

Sworn to God,

armed to the teeth, and tasked with one mission,

protecting Christian pilgrims.

That red cross on their cloaks is a symbol of

their willingness to die for the cause.

Their headquarters is the former site of Jerusalem's

Holy Temple of Solomon, giving rise to a name that will

echo through history, the Knights Templar.

[groaning]

[swords clinking]

They quickly earn a reputation for fighting

as hard as they pray, ready to do battle

to protect Christians anytime, anywhere.

The Templars become the Vatican's shock troops,

leading charges in subsequent crusades,

securing territory across the Holy Land,

and amassing incredible wealth along the way.

Over time, the order explodes in size and influence,

controlling land and fortresses

from Ireland to Syria to North Africa.

And with that, they build a sophisticated

financial empire, too.

Think of it as God's ATM service, a banking system that

allows Christian nobles to deposit funds in Paris, France,

and safely withdraw them in the Holy Land,

for a fee, of course.

The Templars also transport gold and issue letters of credit,

heralding in the medieval world's version of

Visa or MasterCard.

Even kings borrow money from them, making the knights

an essential part of commerce and diplomacy.

Their estimated fortune and property holdings

balloon to what would be billions of dollars today.

By the mid 1200s, the Templars are both feared

and envied, but their glory days are numbered.

Muslim armies wage war to claw back the territory lost

in the First Crusade.

One by one, Christian strongholds fall,

forcing even the fearsome Knights Templar into retreat.

In 1291, the knights suffer a crushing defeat

in the port city of Acre,

their final stronghold in the Holy Land.

[swords clinking]

[groaning]

[Josh] Despite their setbacks, the Knights Templar remain one

of the wealthiest and most powerful orders in the world,

with overflowing treasuries and an army's worth of

weapons and armor.

Yet they serve no king,

pledging allegiance only to the Pope.

The Templars' power and independence makes Europe's

monarchs uneasy, not to mention their secrecy.

Rumors begin to spread that the Templars fled Jerusalem

carrying sacred relics, perhaps even the Holy Grail

or the Ark of the Covenant.

Before long, critics begin to whisper,

"Have the Knights Templar strayed from serving

God to serving their own ambitions?"

[Josh] In the late 1200s, as Christianity's dominance

in Europe begins to wane, the Knights Templar still wield

immense wealth and influence.

Some start to question where their true loyalties lie

and if the order remains devoted to its sacred Christian mission.

One of their most notable critics just happens to be

among the most powerful men alive,

Philip IV, King of France.

He's known as a religious reformer and a self-styled

defender of the Christian faith.

Philip's relationship with the Templars is complicated.

On one hand, he's indebted to them, having borrowed heavily

to fund wars against England and others.

But on the other, he's deeply suspicious of

their secrecy, their armies, their wealth, and of course,

their allegiance to the Pope instead of him.

The king raises troubling questions about the Templars'

secretive rights, saying they don't behave like

true Christians.

He claims that new recruits are asked to deny Christ

and spit on the cross during their initiation.

The famously tight-lipped Templars fail to deny

the charge, and, before long, suspicion explodes across

medieval France.

The public begins to spread wild rumors that the Templars

worship a severed head and that they engage in obscene

sexual acts.

All of this leads to the most dreaded charge against them...

heresy.

Backed by the power of his own whisper campaign,

Philip makes a move against the order in October of 1307,

on Friday the 13th, a moment later cited in a popular

but unsubstantiated theory about the date's dark origins.

In coordinated raids at dawn, the king's forces arrest

thousands of Templars across France.

Incredibly, many of the knights confess to heresy,

seemingly confirming the king's accusations about corruption

within the Templar ranks.

[screams]

Of course, the admissions usually come

after extreme torture, like that endured

by the Templars leader Jacques de Molay,

stretched on the rack until he breaks and confesses

to betraying his Christian faith.

I confess. Ahh!

King Philip IV even pressures Pope Clement V to endorse

the arrests and torture, claiming a moral duty

to root out heresy.

The growing political intensity forces the Pope to issue

a stunning papal decree, ordering all Christian monarchs

to arrest the Templars and seize their assets.

Let's pause for a second.

Does King Philip really believe the Templars are an evil

organization that worships the devil?

Or does he have a different agenda?

Well, if you're suspicious of Philip, you wouldn't be alone.

At the time, King Edward II of England writes that the charges

against the Templars sound like, quote,

"Detestable slander."

Edward initially refuses to arrest the Templars in England,

but under extreme pressure, he caves in 1308.

Whatever the motive, the consequences are severe.

On May 12, 1310, 54 Templars who had all recanted

their confessions are nevertheless burned at the stake

in Paris, as an unmistakable warning to others.

From Scotland to Sicily, knights are rounded up,

their lands are seized, their orders dissolved.

Some receive life sentences.

A lucky few are quietly pardoned and absorbed

into other religious orders.

But in France in particular, the persecution is unyielding.

Despite his confession having been obtained under torture,

Templar leader Jacques de Molay is burned at the stake

in March 1314.

Did the Templars somehow deserve their terrible fate?

Were they truly heretics?

Or were the French King's motives something far

less righteous?

In his book, "The Knights Templar Absolution,"

historian A. A. Grishin unpacks a history-changing discovery.

[A. A.] In September of 2001,

Barbara Frale, who was working at the Vatican archives,

found a document that was clearly misfiled

and that document had to do directly with

the top officials of the Knights Templar Order.

This document is now known as the Chinon Parchment.

When the document first appeared,

you literally could not find it.

Even when Barbara published it, it was in a super obscure

Italian book.

What happened then is that she allowed me to use

her transcription, and I made my own translation,

and I published the accessible text.

The document records the outcome of an inquiry

Pope Clement V ordered in 1308 at Chinon Castle in France

regarding the leaders of the Knights Templar,

including Jacques de Molay.

The document proves the Pope launched his own investigation

separate from King Philip's, and it will come to a very

different conclusion.

The Chinon Parchment presents evidence that Pope Clement V

absolved the highly-positioned members

of the Knights Templar Order

in 1308 after they had been arrested in 1307

by the King of France.

The Pope never actually intended for them to be burned

at the stake. That was not his desire at all.

It really shows that the Pope did not believe in the fact

that this actually was a real heresy.

After all, the Pope investigated, interrogated,

and ultimately, he forgave them.

But if King Philip was truly the Church's

great defender, why didn't the Pope's absolution

change his mind?

Thanks to the Chinon Parchment, we now understand.

The persecution of the Templars wasn't spiritual.

It was completely political.

King Philip's motivation for taking down the Knights Templar

was twofold.

As a rather devout king, he would attempt to

root out heresy.

It was also important that the kingdom of France was

in need of money.

The Knights Templar were perhaps the most powerful

and wealthy organization in Europe

outside of the actual Catholic Church.

And the King of France wanted to actually intercept

this wealth and to use it for his purposes to restore

the situation in his kingdom.

So, according to Grishin, the King wanted to steal

the Templars' treasure to bail out his own country

and make himself look like a hero while doing it.

King Philip...

was prepared to use every resource he had

in the Kingdom of France in order to achieve this objective,

to actually get all of the wealth

the Knights Templar in France possessed.

It is said that "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Thanks to the discovery of the Chinon Parchment,

we now know the Knights Templar weren't brought down for

betraying their faith.

They were destroyed by

the absolute corruption of a king.

The date is January 29th, 1889.

I'm at the Mayerling, a secluded hunting lodge deep

in the wilderness of Austria.

And that there is Crown Prince Rudolf,

heir to the Habsburg family,

rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

On the surface, he has everything.

Power, privilege, a throne soon to be his.

But behind closed doors, he's consumed by a dangerous affair

with his 17-year-old mistress, Baroness Mary Vetsera.

In the morning, both Rudolf and Mary will be dead.

Their shocking fate will ignite a royal scandal,

change the line of succession, and ultimately help

light the fuse of World War I.

130 Years from now, remarkable documents will be

discovered that uncover the truth behind a mystery

that reshaped history.

[classical music playing]

This is the story of the end of not just the prince

and his lover's lives, but that of the entire Habsburg dynasty.

First gaining power in the 11th century,

the Habsburgs control much of Central Europe

for the better part of 900 years.

In 1889, their empire stretches from the borders of Switzerland

to Romania, encompassing 50 million people.

And heir to it all is Crown Prince Rudolf.

He's married to Princess Stephanie of Belgium,

but he's also having an affair that will cost him his life.

It's just after 6 AM,

Crown Prince Rudolf has spent the night with his mistress.

He appears dressed in his hunting clothes

and instructs his valet to ready breakfast by 7:30AM.

Then the prince disappears into his bedroom.

Moments later...

[two gunshots blast]

Two gunshots echo through the house.

When the valet goes to investigate,

he finds the prince's bedroom door locked.

He knows Rudolf is inside with his mistress, Mary Vetsera,

and the prince had given strict orders that

they were not to be disturbed under any circumstances.

The valet assumes there must be another explanation,

perhaps a firearm accidentally discharging

as it's being prepared for a later hunt.

By the time breakfast is laid out, the staff become concerned

by the prince's absence.

The valet pounds at the door. Silence.

At 8:30 AM, his unease turns into alarm.

He calls for two members of the royal hunting party

and together they force the door open, bracing for

whatever they might find on the other side.

At the Mayerling hunting lodge in rural Austria, unease grows

as Prince Rudolf fails to answer repeated knocks

on his locked door.

When the servants finally force their way inside...

the room is dark and eerily still.

On one side of the bed, Rudolf's young mistress,

Mary Vetsera, lies lifeless, a single bullet wound visible

at her left temple.

Beside her, Crown Prince Rudolf is slumped forward dead.

Between them rests a revolver.

As the valet studies the scene,

two unsettling details catch his eye.

Blood at the prince's mouth and an empty water glass

on the nightstand.

To him, it suggests a chilling possibility...

Poison.

So, what was this? Murder?

Suicide?

The truth is difficult to discern.

But would the heir to the throne dead under

suspicious circumstances, you better believe fingers are

about to start pointing in all directions.

When the royal doctor conducts a brief autopsy,

the truth finally comes into focus.

Rudolf was not poisoned at all.

He had been shot in the head, a fatal wound the valet failed

to notice because of the darkness in the room

and the position of the body.

The prince's head wound is then wrapped in a bandage and his

body is taken to Vienna.

Mary, however, receives no autopsy.

Though her relationship with the prince was an open secret

among the nobility, it was carefully shielded

from the public.

Her body is quietly smuggled out of the lodge and buried

in haste before questions can be asked.

So did Mary shoot and kill the Crown Prince before taking

her own life? If so, why?

At the time, the story was easy to accept.

Rumors swirled that the teenage Baroness had been infatuated

with Rudolf long before they ever met.

She collected postcards of him like treasures and would stroll

the paths of the Prater, Vienna's grand public park,

hoping to catch a glimpse of his carriage passing by.

Mary's mother, a wealthy widow

from an influential merchant family, supposedly had

grand ambitions for her daughter.

With both money and social clout, she made sure Mary moved

effortlessly through the upper echelons of Viennese

high society.

It was at one of these glittering court functions

in the autumn of 1888 that Mary first met the prince.

Rudolf, whose marriage was reportedly rocky,

was more than willing to make

the acquaintance of the young Baroness.

Some royal insiders see Mary as little more than a temptress

trying to lead the crown prince astray.

By January 13, 1889, Mary was all in, writing to a friend

that she and the prince had, quote, "Lost their heads and now

belonged to each other, body and soul."

That's only about two weeks before they both wind up dead.

As news of their demise spreads, even Mary's mother

wonders if her daughter's obsession had spiraled

into a murder-suicide.

Did Rudolf try to end the affair, only for Mary to

shoot him and then herself?

[gunshot blasts]

Rumors circulate of suicide notes left behind the scene,

yet the royal family remains tight-lipped.

The truth of what happened in that room is murky,

but one thing is clear.

The palace is determined to protect the prince's reputation

at all costs.

And that begins with writing Mary out of the story.

An imperial cover-up is in full swing,

clumsy and rushed.

First, they say the prince had a heart attack.

Then it was a hunting accident.

Finally, changing their story for the third time

in just two days, the palace settles on this.

Rudolf died by suicide alone,

the result of temporary insanity,

a version seemingly crafted to secure him

a proper church burial.

But whispers spread of something far more sinister --

assassination.

Tensions across Europe are running high.

Nationalism is on the rise.

And plenty of players are looking for an edge to tilt

the balance of power.

Did a foreign government murder Rudolf?

Suspicion turns toward Germany, then France.

But the most chilling theory of all?

That someone within Rudolf's own family

wanted him out of the picture.

Rudolf had allegedly butted heads with his father,

Emperor Franz Joseph, a strict conservative

who prized loyalty and order above all else.

In contrast, Rudolf was outspoken in his support

for liberal reform, even voicing sympathy for

Hungarian independence, and at times questioning

the very power of the monarchy he was born into.

Had he lived to become emperor, he could have upended

the entire Habsburg order.

And it wasn't just his political leanings.

Rudolf's personal life also presented big problems

for the imperial dynasty.

Rudolf had been married to his wife, Princess Stephanie,

for seven years, but he was cold and distant.

He drank heavily, cheated openly with prostitutes and mistresses,

and suffered from chronic illness,

including gonorrhea, which he passed to his wife.

The infection left her infertile and destroyed

any hope of producing a male heir.

Add it all up, and one theory begins to take shape.

Was the Habsburg Empire looking to protect its future

by killing one of their own?

What led to the gruesome deaths of Crown Prince Rudolf

and his mistress Mary?

Some believe Rudolf's own family, threatened by

his personal problems and political leanings,

had him killed.

Others believe a foreign power plotted their deaths.

No matter who pulled the trigger, though,

one thing is clear.

The fallout was immediate and far-reaching.

Rudolf's death shatters the Habsburg succession line.

With no direct heir, the crown passes first to

his uncle, Archduke Karl Ludwig, and then to Karl's son,

Rudolf's cousin, Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

But Franz is no Rudolf.

Where Rudolf favored reform, Franz is rigid,

autocratic, and determined to preserve imperial power

at all costs.

Then, in 1914, history takes a dramatic turn.

Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo by

a Serbian nationalist.

Austrians and Hungarians demand blood for such a dastardly

royal murder and declare war on Serbia.

The declaration forces many European nations to take sides.

Within months, the tangled web of alliances sparks the inferno,

which becomes World War I.

It also ultimately spells the end of the entire

Habsburg dynasty.

After the war, the family loses its empire and falls into ruin.

So, who pushed the domino that started it all?

Who was ultimately responsible for Rudolf and Mary's deaths.

In the 1930s, Rudolf's wife, Princess Stephanie,

publishes her memoirs.

She points the finger at her husband,

citing an undated letter he left for her before he died,

which read like a suicide note.

If true, was Mary a willing participant

or a hapless victim?

Historian Lucy Coatman, who has spent years

investigating the case, is writing a new book

on Mary Vetsera, driven by a shocking discovery --

a bundle of 125-year-old letters written by Mary herself,

hidden away in a Vienna bank vault.

[Lucy] Mary's letters were discovered in 2015 in the Schüller Bank

in Vienna.

We do know that Mary's mother had an account at this

specific bank.

What they found in this box was Mary's letters to her mother,

her sister, and her brother just before her death.

When we look at the letters, there's no doubt about the fact

that this is Mary's handwriting.

And so with the finding of these letters, we really get

the full picture of everything that she said to her family.

[Josh] For the first time in well over a century,

historians can understand what happened behind closed doors

at the Mayerling Lodge, in the words of Mary herself.

The letter addressed to her mother reads, "Dear Mother,

"forgive me for what I have done.

"I could not resist love.

"In agreement with him, I wish to be buried next to him

"in the Allen Cemetery.

"I am happier in death than in life.

Your Mary."

In Mary's farewell notes, where she repeatedly states

that she's dying out of love for him in this very childlike

manner, we can really clearly see that she was just

a young girl who had great emotions, felt a great love,

if we can put it like that, and that she was manipulated

by Rudolf to her untimely death.

Lucy believes that Crown Prince Rudolf pushed Mary

into dying alongside him.

Indeed, it seems he even pulled the trigger.

The bullet that killed Mary entered behind her left temple,

but she was right-handed, making it unlikely that

she positioned the gun that way.

The conclusion?

In the early hours of January 30th at the Mayerling Lodge,

Rudolf shot Mary, then sometime later turned

the gun on himself.

If that's the case, then what drove the Crown Prince to suicide?

[Lucy] We know from contemporaries that he was always

very anxious.

He was quite interested in death, for example.

And then I think his psychology was impacted later on by

various other things, such as the disintegration of

his marriage, the fact that he couldn't produce an heir

to the throne.

And he just became more and more erratic and restless.

So Rudolf had already approached another woman,

his long-term mistress,

to offer the suicide pact to her.

She thought it was a joke at first, realized he was serious,

went to the police.

They said, "We can't get involved in imperial affairs."

When no one intervened, Rudolf turned his attention

to the impressionable, lovesick 17-year-old Mary.

It wasn't out of love on his part.

He was just too scared to die alone and he manipulated

a young girl to die alongside him.

Mary absolutely didn't commit suicide and the record should

be corrected and we need to tell people that Rudolf was

the one who committed this act, that he murdered Mary.

He was the one that pulled the trigger.

She did not do this herself.

It's a breathtaking conclusion.

Analysis of the prince's mental state,

combined with Mary's own words,

have reached out across time to answer the question of

what happened to these star-crossed lovers.

But the legacy of this story isn't just a tragic tale

of two lives cut short.

It's the first tremor in an earthquake that

would topple crowns, redraw borders,

and reshape the world as we know it.

I'm Josh Gates, and I'll see you on the next expedition.