(This novel, like most of Sienkiewicz's writings,shows strong pro-Polish and anti-German bias)
Well, some historical fiction is more accurate than others. For instance, The Teutonic Knights is more accurate than Quo Vadis. --MichaelTinkler, who's actually read both.
Of course, he was a writer not a historician, but he was also a Polish nationalist, and one should be prepared to have lot of distance to his "historical" books before reading them if one doesn't want to get false vision of historical events. --Taw
Answer to the question of "what are imperial Habsburg members" : The Habsburg royal and imperial dynasty of Europe ruled many countries and furnished many German kings/ emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. They also lead the "Order of the Golden Fleece" and after 1525 were the Grand Masters of the Teutonic Knights. Outside links showing emperor
The Habsburgs were imperial, royal, ducal, comites? and whatever , in short a ruling dynasty of Europe. From what I can make out in the article on the T. K. by Sinclair, they were not the only ones after 1525, but others were Teutonic Grand Masters too. They were the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire for nearly 500 years collectively. The emperors were always first German king, then emperor. And Maximilian III was the son of emperor Maximilian II and the brother of emperor Mathias and he was from the imperial Habsburg dynasty, even though he was not himself emperor. How would you word this ? H. Jonat