Aristocratic Redoubt : The Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office on the Eve of the First World War 9781557531407

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Aristocratic Redoubt

cen tr a l e urop ea n st u di es ch a rle s w. i n gra o, e di to r

Aristocratic Redoubt The Austro-Hungarian Foreign Of¤ce on the Eve of the First World War

William D. Godsey, Jr.

purdue uni versit y press west lafayette, indiana

Copyright ©1999 by Purdue Research Foundation. All rights reserved. 03

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The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992. Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Godsey, William D., 1964– Aristocratic redoubt : the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Of¤ce on the eve of the First World War / William D. Godsey, Jr. p. cm. — (Central European studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–55753–140–4 (alk. paper) 1. Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Auswärtiger Dienst. 2. Aristocracy— Austria. 3. Diplomatic and consular service, Austrian. 4. Diplomats— Austria. 5. Elite (Social sciences)—Austria. 6. Austria—Foreign relations— 1867–1918. I. Title. II. Series. DB86.G62 1998 327.436—dc21 98–46374 CIP

In honor of my Father

C o ntents

Acknowledgments viii List of Abbreviations x Foreword xi

Prologue

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chapter one Social Origins 16 chapter two Admission Standards and Education chapter three Wealth and Outside Career Experience chapter four Religion and Marriage

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chapter five Diplomacy in a New Age: Aehrenthal’s Reforms chapter six Ethnicity and the Ausgleich: The Foreign Of¤ce in the Multinational Monarchy 124 chapter seven Careers 165 Epilogue

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Appendix 207 Notes 213 Bibliography 279 Index 293

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A cknowl edg ments

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n preparing this work I have incurred many debts of gratitude that I am happy to acknowledge here. I should most like to thank Baron Niklas Schrenck von Notzing, who graciously placed his magni¤cent library at my disposal and who has otherwise helped me in ways too numerous to mention here. Whatever strengths this work may possess are due in no small way to his assistance. Many living relatives of members of the Austro-Hungarian diplomatic corps, as well as of other contemporaries, were very generous in allowing me access to their private archives or in consenting to be interviewed. They included H.S.H. Prince Albrecht Hohenberg, Count Johann Aehrenthal, Professor Dr. Baron Herbert Mittag-Lenkheym, Baron Konstantin Gagern, Countess Anna Maria Hartig, Dr. Prince Nikolaus Schönburg-Hartenstein, Countess Alice Hoyos, Count Christoph Nostitz-Rieneck, Dr. Countess Éva-Marie Csáky, Count Miklos Szécsen, and Count Leopold Koziebrodzki. Additionally I should like to thank Dr. Erwin Schmidl for his many kindnesses during my stay in Vienna. I am likewise obliged to Carina Starlinger, Baroness Marie-France Mittag-Lenkheym, Ladislaus von Polányi, Dundy Erb-Gagern, Baron Falk Gagern, Peter Hohenbalken, Ellen and the late Nikolaus von Wedekind, Professor Solomon Wank, and Professor Dr. Hanns Jäger-Sunstenau. The friendly staffs of the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, the Kriegsarchiv, the Archiv der Republik, and the National Bibliothek, all in Vienna, and the Moravskÿ zemskÿ Archiv in Brno, Czech Republic, made my research a pleasant experience. I am especially grateful to the late Dr. Horst Brettner-Messler and the late Dr. Christiane Thomas, both of the HHStA, and Dr. Lajos Gecsenyi, formerly Hungarian liaison archivist at the HHStA, and Dr. Christoph Tepperberg and Dr. Rainer Egger of the KA. Grants from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research and the Fulbright Commission made possible my extended research forays in Vienna. The Institut für Europäische Geschichte in Mainz provided welcome ¤nancial assistance during the process of revision and rewriting. Dr. Ralph Melville and Dr. Claus Scharf, both in Mainz, took an especially friendly interest in the work. The librarians of Aldermann Library at the University of Virginia obligingly helped me ¤nd materials even in

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the most problematic locations. I would also like to thank Dean Robert Huskey of the Graduate School at the University of Virginia, as well as Enno Kraehe, Lenard Berlanstein, Stephan Schuker, and Ambassador Adam Watson, all of whom provided support and valuable criticism. It is also a pleasure for me to acknowledge here the assistance of the Institut für personengeschichtliche Forschung in Bensheim. The Bildarchiv der österreichischen Nationalbibliothek kindly provided permission for publication of the pictures.

Ab b r evi at io ns

HHStA

Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (Vienna, Austria)

AR

Administrative Registratur

F

Fach

AdR

Archiv der Republik (Vienna, Austria)

NAR

Neue Administrative Registratur

KA

Kriegsarchiv (Vienna, Austria)

MZA

Moravskÿ zemskÿ archiv (Brno, Czech Republic)

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For e wo rd

O

ne of the distinguishing features of central European history is the prevalence and resilience of the nobility. Like so many other aspects of the region’s past, the endurance of the aristocracy was rooted in immutable geographical structures. Low population densities and limited access to the sea proved less of a handicap to the estate capitalism of large landholders than to bourgeois enterprises like those that ¶ourished in western Europe’s great urban centers. At the same time, the plethora and proximity of neighboring countries gave the region’s monarchs a compelling reason to work with corporate elites that could otherwise make common cause with foreign enemies. Given their virtual monopoly over the sources of production, wealth, and royal revenue, the feudal aristocracies had the leverage they needed to withstand the economic challenge of the towns, the social aspirations of the bourgeoisie, and the political demands of not-so-absolute monarchs. While the aristocracies’ dominance informed much of the distinctiveness of central and east European society, it also contributed to the demise of the aristocratic Habsburg and tsarist empires. Few would disagree that aristocratic economic, political, and cultural hegemony impeded the full development of a modern industrial society empowered by mass politics. The survival of an aristocratic military of¤cer corps also contributed to the fateful mediocrity of Habsburg generalship in the nineteenth century, much as it did to the catastrophic defeats of the tsarist armies in World War I. And, as Professor Godsey points out, its even more pervasive control of the emperor’s foreign of¤ce fostered both an insular worldview that inhibited profound insights and the facile kinship networks that hindered promotion by merit. But the discourse generated by the empire’s subsequent defeat and dissolution should not prevent us from identifying the advantages that aristocratic forms brought to the conduct of public policy. As this most violent of centuries draws to a close, we can appreciate the same supranational identity that motivated so many aristocrats, especially those who toiled in the imperial service. The disruptive role that nationalism has played among and within the post-Habsburg successor states may some day prompt us to reevaluate the apparent folly of Metternich’s efforts to impede its development. It certainly gives new meaning to his wistful observation that he had

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xii • Foreword been born either a century too late or a century too early. Indeed, the premium that today’s leaders place on multiculturalism, multiethnic polities, and the primacy of a “civil society” buttresses Godsey’s suggestion that nation-states, rather than multinational societies like the Habsburg empire, are the true historical anomalies. Notwithstanding the array of Hungarian pretensions that characterized post-Ausgleich politics, the Habsburg foreign service permitted the participation of every ethnic and religious group (and even foreign-born ¤gures, as in the days of Metternich). If top of¤ceholders tended to be German, Hungarian, or Polish, it was because patterns of landholding limited the composition of the aristocracy to roughly half of the monarchy’s dozen nationalities. Indeed, even as we put a century between the old monarchy and modern times, there remains a certain continuity between past and present, whether in the high incidence of noble names and titles among today’s crop of Austrian, German, and other European diplomats, or in the policy struggles between the cosmopolitan internationalism of EU of¤cials in Brussels and the more parochial self-interest of elected politicians in the national capitals. In this sense, a closer examination of the Habsburg experience enjoys a special relevance in today’s world. —Charles W. Ingrao

Prologue aristocratic redoubt Prologue

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n the last decade historians have once again turned to the study of the aristocracy in modern Europe. Long banished by Marxist dialectic to the losing side in history’s struggles, the pre-industrial elites were said to have suffered their inevitable defeat at the hands of the triumphant bourgeoisie during the French Revolution. To study the nineteenth- and twentiethcentury remnants of the nobility of the ancien régime therefore appeared at best a waste of valuable time, since we already knew the story, and at worst a snobbish attention to matters more suited to the antiquarian and the genealogist. Even after Marxism ceased to provide the primary theoretical framework for social history, the stridently egalitarian tastes of our age have made struggling workers and oppressed minorities far more sympathetic objects of scholarly attention than lordly grandees, whose allegedly idle lives were supported by the sweat of the laboring classes. And for historians in general, narratives of decay and decline, coupled with the apparent lack of any progressive associations, have rarely held any allure. Even today, despite the almost universal contempt heaped on Whiggish history, the agendas underlying much academic work often create connections between past and present at least as simplistic and perhaps more invidious than those for which Lord Macaulay and G. M. Trevelyan have been attacked. Ironically, then, the revival of interest in aristocracy owes a debt of gratitude to the work of Arno Mayer, a Marxist scholar who in 1981 offered a new interpretation of the role of pre-industrial elites in European affairs down to World War I.1 Mayer presented a wide-ranging interpretive essay that ambitiously sought to depict the experiences of nobles in England, France, Germany, the Habsburg Monarchy, Italy, and Russia roughly from the French Revolution to 1914. He advanced the novel thesis that the aristocracy, rather than passively awaiting its

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2 • aristocratic redoubt preordained fate, proved remarkably tenacious in clinging to the levers of power during the “bourgeois century.” That historians had previously failed to perceive this phenomenon Mayer ascribed partly to our ignorance of this neglected sector of the population, but also to our exaggeration of the effects of the industrial and political revolutions on European life, even in the decades immediately preceding World War I. In broad strokes, he suggested that the enduring primacy of agriculture, the durability of monarchical government, and the spineless deference of the nascent middle classes furnished the old nobility with the means not merely to survive, but to dominate nineteenth-century European political, social, economic, and cultural developments. While Mayer’s book kindled new interest in aristocracy, the very breadth of his argument has left him open to continuous assault. And in the last several years, the contributions of many scholars have not only sharpened our understanding of individual facets of aristocratic experience, but have also led to the revision of Mayer’s broader thesis altogether.2 His monolithic depiction has now given way to one much more nuanced by the many variables that in¶uenced the evolution of European elites. In other words, the nobility manifested itself in remarkably diverse ways depending upon historical circumstance. Rates of change rarely corresponded from one country to another. Whereas the remnants of feudalism were abolished in 1789 in France, serfdom did not disappear until 1861 in Russia. The introduction of universal suffrage in 1848 in France was matched by a longer reform process across the Channel that began in 1832. Great Britain industrialized very early in comparison to central and eastern Europe. Historical factors, in some cases predating the nineteenth century, like legal and constitutional positions and privileges, dictated how the aristocracy would meet the challenges. While the new historiography has thus deepened our knowledge, it has also discredited the idea posited by Mayer that the aristocracy maintained a virtually unchallenged ascendancy down to 1914. Rather, the picture that has emerged is much more complex and actually lends itself more to the notion of decline, albeit gradual and hardly inexorable. The modern world presented obstacles that could not be overcome. The doctrines of the Enlightenment undermined the ideological foundations of the society of estates, while the process of urbanization removed large numbers of people from the authority of the local landlord. On the other hand, some developments that were heretofore seen as detrimental to the survival of the aristocracy actually brought new advantages, at least in the short term and for some segments of the nobility. The introduction of

Prologue •

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parliamentary government with upper houses in both Prussia and Austria provided a forum for organized aristocratic political activity unknown since the emasculation of the estates in the age of absolutism. Similarly, the wealth of enterprising noblemen allowed them to bene¤t from the rise of entrepreneurial agriculture and industrial capitalism, processes that simultaneously presented them with their ¤rst plutocratic rivals. Long after their juridical prerogatives had vanished, age-old patterns of deference buttressed the superior social position enjoyed by the aristocracy. While we now know much about the nineteenth-century nobility in Prussia, Great Britain, and Russia, the same cannot be said for the Habsburg Empire. As have elites, Habsburg history has also languished in relative historiographical obscurity. Nobody likes a loser, and while we can even today point to impecunious aristocrats clinging to their ancestral acreage, the end of World War I brought the complete effacement of the Danubian Monarchy. The deceptive attractions of “national” history, the image of the “prison of nationalities,” and the no less potent myth of a ramshackle structure on the verge of collapse in 1914 have all diverted attention from the Habsburg experience. But however much Austria-Hungary may have appeared an anomaly, both to contemporaries and historians, her multinational character represents a line of development in European history far older than that of the nation-state, stretching from the Roman and Byzantine empires through the Holy Roman, Ottoman, Spanish, and British empires, down through the European Union. In fact, a convincing argument could be made that the nation-state itself, despite its central conceptual place in our understanding, is the real anomaly in European history. The collapse of the Habsburg realm hardly ended the older tradition, as the births of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and even a separate German-Austrian republic indicate. Since the study of the Dual Monarchy has suffered, at least in part, because much of European history is viewed through the lens of the nationstate, it should not be surprising that the Habsburg aristocracy, among the staunchest supporters of the old regime, has received even less attention. The East Elbian Junkers and English peers have to a great extent shared the central place in European history that undeniably belongs to Prussia and Great Britain. Contrarily, the Habsburg grandees, cosmopolitan in their orientation, though often not as detached from their ethnic origins as has been alleged, appear—like the state in which they lived—to have taken the wrong road of historical development. Furthermore, the frequent use of ethnicity in the conceptual approach to Habsburg history excludes a priori the nobility as an object of examination. And such treatment has not only

4 • aristocratic redoubt ignored the role of the aristocracy; accounts of individual national groups have also been cast in an ahistorical context.3 In an age when ethnic identity has unfortunately come to be seen as perhaps the de¤ning human characteristic, the experiences of a set of people whose primary allegiance was political rather than ethnic seem to offer little of interest or value. But the relegation of the Habsburg aristocracy to the sidelines can also be explained by the collective reputation for frivolity and arrogance that they, as we shall see, not undeservedly enjoyed in the closing decades of the monarchy. Contemporaries reproached them for having withdrawn from public life to pursue their own interests, which were said to be primarily horse racing and the hunt. As early as 1878, Crown Prince Rudolf, in an anonymous pamphlet, accused the magnates of being “submerged in a meaningless social swirl” and challenged them to assume responsibilities commensurate with their wealth and position.4 Later commentators reinforced the view that the great nobility, apart from a few exceptions, such as Count Hans Wilczek, contributed virtually nothing to the political, economic, or cultural life of the monarchy. In 1914, both Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Baron Leopold Andrian-Werburg expressed the profoundest skepticism about the role of the magnates in an eventual “regeneration of Austria.”5 A few scholars have nonetheless sought to point out that the stagnant, apathetic image hides much reality. Solomon Wank has so far been the only historian of Austria to make an explicit appeal for a more thorough treatment of the Habsburg nobility.6 He has hinted at the enormous amount of work yet to be done on their heretofore neglected place in the Austrian parliament and legislative process, in the provincial diets and administrations, and at court. The exceedingly sparse literature for the Dualist period has been supplemented by the efforts of Hannes Stekl, who has produced two useful case studies of individual families and a short essay that helpfully sums up what we already know, rather than adding anything fundamentally new.7 Brigitte Hamann and Jean-Paul Bled have contributed brief sketches of the imperial court, a topic which, however, deserves a full-length treatment, both for its role in the consolidation of monarchical authority after 1848 and as a mechanism for regulating the social composition of the court nobility.8 Ernst Rutkowski and Solomon Wank have led the way in the publication of useful primary source materials.9 Still lacking are studies of the economic basis of aristocratic power and in¶uence after 1867; particularly valuable here would be investigations of the territorial class in Lower Austria, Bohemia and Moravia, Galicia, and Hungary. The ¤ne output in cultural history and the

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history of mentalités for the aristocracy of early modern Europe regrettably has no counterparts for the nineteenth century, either in the Habsburg Monarchy or elsewhere.10 In general, however, the recent renascence of historical interest in preindustrial elites in modern Europe has all but bypassed Austria-Hungary. This omission may not be explained on the basis of any intrinsic merits, for the Habsburg aristocracy by any scale present problems of more than parochial importance. With their fabulous Viennese palaces and their hundreds of thousands of hectares stretching across Bohemia, Galicia, Lower Austria, and Transleithania, the court nobility were the richest on the continent, far outshining the relatively poor Prussian Junkers and the French noblesse. Only the concentration of wealth in the British peerage topped that found in the Dual Monarchy. Likewise, the elaborate ancestral quali¤cations necessary to penetrate the ranks of the aristocracy possessed no rival in Europe and in that regard made the Habsburg elite in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries what the French elite had been before the Revolution. Although the ability of the court nobility to maintain its supranational bearings amidst the tide of nationalist sentiment at times made them appear disconnected from public life, it nevertheless raises important questions about why the Habsburg Monarchy survived so long. What were the foundations of such cosmopolitan sentiments, and what relevance might they have for a late-twentieth-century Europe stumbling toward ever closer cooperation? How, and to what extent, did the aristocracy avoid the illusory seductions of ethnicity? Finally, the direct impact of the Austro-Hungarian court nobility on the monarchy’s foreign-policy apparatus has received scant attention. But such neglect really only re¶ects the want of any serious examination of the foreign of¤ce qua bureaucracy for any part of Francis Joseph’s reign. The fact that the ¤rst declaration of war in 1914 issued from Vienna has surprisingly aroused little curiosity about that institution among scholars of the origins of the war. We know far more about the personnel in Whitehall, the Wilhelmstraøe, and the Quai d’Orsay, as well as in St. Petersburg, than at the Ballhausplatz.11 This may partly be attributed to the concept of war guilt forced on the Germans in the Treaty of Versailles, which later become enshrined in modern historiography through the work of Fritz Fischer and his students. In their view, the operations of the Habsburg foreign of¤ce were essentially irrelevant to the background of the con¶agration. More recent scholarship has successfully sought to emphasize the autonomy of decision-making in Vienna, without, however, diminishing the responsibility that rightly belongs in Berlin.12

6 • aristocratic redoubt In the domestic context, the foreign of¤ce constituted one of only three common institutions that bound the halves of the Dual Monarchy together, the other two having been the army and a relatively insigni¤cant ¤nance ministry. Much has been written about the retreat of the aristocracy from the leadership of the military after the 1860s.13 Whether their withdrawal from the of¤cer corps was a result of the pressures of modernization remains unanswered, though some believe it to have been connected with the disastrous defeats of the 1860s. On the other hand, as we shall see, developments on the Ballhausplatz by no means paralleled those in the armed forces. And with the aristocracy’s virtually unchallenged position at court right down to 1914, the evidence indicates that it, despite forecasts of its imminent demise, remained alive and well into the twentieth century.14 This study, which concerns diplomats and not diplomacy, falls at the intersection of two debates—one, which really dates from 1914, on the events and personalities in the years before the war; and the other, more recent, about the persistence of powerful elements from pre-industrial Europe down into the twentieth century. The of¤cials who populated the central of¤ce in Vienna and the missions abroad during the prewar tenures of the last two peacetime foreign ministers, Baron (later Count) Alois Aehrenthal (October 24, 1906–February 17, 1912) and Count Leopold Berchtold (February 17, 1912–July 28, 1914), furnish the statistical basis of this work. The great majority of those who served under Aehrenthal and Berchtold entered the service under earlier foreign ministers, so that in following their careers, sometimes brief as well as lengthy, we also learn a great deal about conditions in the Ballhausplatz bureaucracy from as far back as the 1870s. The structure of the enterprise, as it ultimately emerged, has thus still provided the necessary perspective for the period beginning in 1906. Moreover, the Habsburg foreign of¤ce, and the aristocrats who manned it, achieved their maximum impact on modern Europe precisely in 1914, such that a focus on the years leading up to the declaration of war appeared especially appropriate. As was standard in Europe at that time, three distinct, highly individualized branches constituted the Austro-Hungarian foreign service: the diplomatic corps, the functionaries of the central of¤ce, and the consular service. My examination, especially in its statistical scope, has been restricted essentially to the ¤rst two, though the third has not been ignored altogether.15 Assertions to the contrary by contemporaries and historians notwithstanding, rigid divisions separated the three career ladders

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from each other, and moves from one to another remained the exception rather than the rule. My aim therefore has been to draw collective pro¤les of the 163 men who made up the diplomatic corps and the 103 of¤cials who ran the ministry in Vienna during the Aehrenthal and Berchtold eras. Because of a few transfers, the total number for both categories reached only 251. Clerical staff and others not required in theory to produce the quali¤cations for admittance set out in a series of Ballhausplatz decrees regulating education and income levels have been excluded.16 Biographical data was assembled on each diplomat and of¤cial from both archival and published sources, including personnel ¤les and the numerous almanacs of the nobility, which were so popular at the time. In addition to standard personal information like birth date and place, I have assembled the names of parents, paternal and maternal grandparents, wives and their parents, and other relevant kinship connections both inside and outside the service. Without a grasp of such ties, an understanding of the Ballhausplatz and its modus operandi is scarcely conceivable. Additional material includes religious af¤liation and background, education at the secondary and university levels, and indications of wealth, especially with regard to the existence and location of landed property. The home provinces and legal residences (Heimatzuständigkeit) of the of¤cials, as well as the occupations of their fathers, have likewise been taken into account, as has the extremely problematic question of mother tongue. In dealing with the caste-conscious Habsburg Monarchy, the issue of social origins could not be ignored. In order to understand the world of the Austro-Hungarian nobility, about which we know so little, and to place the diplomats accurately within it, a wealth of data had to be brought together. From the perspective of a Viennese streetcar conductor, little may have differentiated the Herr Baron whose title dated from 1850 from the count whose ancestral line emerged from the mists in the Middle Ages. But in reality, the wife of the latter would no more have consented to receive a visit from that of the former than from the spouse of the streetcar conductor. The genealogical exclusiveness of the Habsburg court aristocracy, to which so many diplomats belonged, had no rivals in Europe. Keeping in mind the almost irresistible tendency of families climbing the social scale to embellish their histories, I have noted not only the diplomats’ titles of nobility, but also the antiquity of their legitimate claims to noble status. Even more importantly, an attempt has been made, perhaps for the ¤rst time, to differentiate those who belonged to the court nobility from those who came from the “second society” of

8 • aristocratic redoubt bureaucratic and entrepreneurial nobility, a distinction well understood at the time. Through this methodological lens, the primacy of the great aristocracy appears, as we shall see, most sharply. The socioeconomic and biographical data and accompanying analysis have been arranged in chapters 1–4 and the second part of chapter 6, while chapters 5, 7, and the ¤rst two-thirds of chapter 6 deal with Aehrenthal’s reforms, the impact of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 (Ausgleich) on the modus operandi of the Ballhausplatz, and the career patterns of the diplomats. In putting together a collective socioeconomic relief of the foreign of¤ce, I have striven not to lose sight of those persons who stood at its core. The backgrounds and experiences of individual diplomats naturally deviated somewhat from the statistical norm, and a purely quantitative approach could hardly provide any imaginative understanding of their reality. Wherever possible, anecdotal evidence has been introduced, not only in support of conclusions reached through the use of numbers, but to rescue from the ravages of time the personalities and experiences of particular of¤cials, some of whom deserve more extensive treatment than they can be accorded here. And the general tone of the work, which some may ¤nd too indulgent, has been adopted in the hope that the reader may occasionally catch a faint whiff of the longforgotten air of the Habsburg court. From the second decade of the eighteenth century, an elegantly restrained baroque building designed by the renowned architect Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt, and constructed in 1717–19, served as the seat of the Habsburg Monarchy’s foreign affairs. Situated on an old Viennese square later known as the Ballhausplatz, which took its name from an indoor court for ball games (le jeu royale de la paume) erected by Maria Theresa near the spot, the structure was originally bounded immediately to the west by the city walls. With the urban renewal of the second half of the nineteenth century, which brought about the removal of the medieval defenses and the construction of the famous Ringstrasse, much of the original aspect of the area disappeared. True, the Hofburg, the main residence of the emperor, still lay directly across the cobblestoned Ballhausplatz, while the tower of the Church of the Minorite Friars continued to command the square just to the north. However, the constrictions of the old walls to the west eventually gave way to the spaciousness of the Volksgarten and the wide expanses of the plaza (Heldenplatz) in front of the new wing of the Hofburg. To the east, the sixteenthcentury imperial hospital and Maria Theresa’s “Ballhaus,” as well as the tract

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over the Schau¶ergasse connecting these structures to the Hofburg, were demolished in 1903. By the time Aehrenthal became minister in 1906, the district, dominated by historicist monuments of the Ringstrasse style like the Parliament, the Court Theater, and the new Art- and Natural History Museums, had acquired a thoroughly modern air. The physical proximity of the Hofburg to the foreign of¤ce hinted at the close relationship between the emperor and his chief minister that existed throughout Francis Joseph’s reign (1848–1916). The turmoil of 1848 swept away the old House-, Court- and State Chancellery from which Metternich had manipulated the affairs of Europe since the Napoleonic era. In its place appeared a new organization that in 1895 came to be called the “Imperial and Royal Ministry of the Imperial and Royal House and of Foreign Affairs,” though its sphere of activity had been fundamentally de¤ned as early as 1852. Among the new ministry’s prime responsibilities, as the name clearly indicates, were all matters connected with the house of Austria, including its laws, ¤nances, and marriages. Throughout the Aehrenthal-Berchtold years, Department 1 oversaw the daily business associated with that part of the ministry’s mission. If for no other reason, then, Francis Joseph would have had an unusual interest in the Ballhausplatz. The foreign minister’s responsibilities in that regard did not always assume a pleasant or purely ceremonial character, as Count Agenor Go|uchowski, Aehrenthal’s predecessor, learned when Archduke Francis Ferdinand began his campaign to conclude a morganatic alliance with Countess Sophie Chotek. As the bureau charged with conducting foreign policy and, by extension, with shoring up the monarchy’s power, the Ballhausplatz naturally engaged the closest attention of the emperor. The constitutional changes of the 1860s, particularly the Compromise of 1867, certainly created a novel situation for the foreign of¤ce vis-à-vis the now separate Austrian and Hungarian governments. It also became, together with the army and ¤nance ministry, one of only three joint institutions. Additionally, the foreign minister generally assumed the senior position in the joint council of ministers, which also included the minister-presidents of the two halves of the empire. But these provisions did not alter the previous relationship, whereby the head of the Ballhausplatz remained, despite his regular appearances before the delegations of the two parliaments, exclusively responsible to the ruler, who was legally compelled to seek no advice in appointing him. No adequate study exists of Francis Joseph’s involvement in foreign policy-making, but oft-cited anecdotal evidence, like his famous tirade in

10 • aristocratic redoubt late 1911 to the chief of the General Staff, seems to indicate that his closest participation and direction can hardly be doubted.17 Similar clues suggest that his interest in personnel questions at the Ballhausplatz was no less engaged. All advancements in rank from the level of attaché up to, and including, foreign minister required the prior approval of the monarch. While imperial consent did not have to be obtained for the transfers of junior personnel between missions, such was not the case with the ministers plenipotentiary and ambassadors. The choice of the latter in particular, as the personal representatives of the sovereign, demanded special consideration. Berchtold’s memoirs reveal that personnel matters often arose in the course of his frequent audiences at the Hofburg and Schönbrunn. Moreover, court etiquette and the emperor’s sharp eye and memory kept him abreast of developments among the diplomats further down the ladder. Finding the unauthorized signature of a junior counselor on a dispatch from Berlin, Francis Joseph demanded to know the whereabouts of his chargé d’affaires.18 Because new attachés were required to thank him personally for their appointments, the monarch even got to know the youngest members of the corps. As already mentioned brie¶y above, the foreign minister headed an organization divided into three distinct branches: the diplomatic corps, the bureaucracy of the central of¤ce, and the consular service. Between the Compromise of 1867 and the outbreak of war in 1914, seven men ¤lled the top post: Baron (later Count) Friedrich Ferdinand Beust (1866– 71), Count Julius Andrássy (1871–79), Baron Heinrich Haymerle (1879–81), Count Gustav Kálnoky (1881–95), Count Agenor Go|uchowski (1895–1906), Baron (later Count) Alois Aehrenthal (1906–12), and Count Leopold Berchtold (1912–15). The unusual domestic and international circumstances of the late 1860s and early 1870s led Francis Joseph to appoint foreign ministers, namely, Beust and Andrássy, who had not previously served at the Ballhausplatz. Beust had previously been minister-president of Saxony, an ally defeated together with Austria in the war of 1866, while Andrássy, who had been condemned to death for his part in the revolution in 1848, had ironically been appointed to the same position in 1867 in Hungary. Thereafter, Francis Joseph’s remaining peacetime selections all came from the diplomatic corps. Of the seven, only Beust, a Protestant, and Haymerle had no claims to membership in the traditional Habsburg court nobility. In contrast, Andrássy, Kálnoky, Go|uchowski, and Berchtold all came from the great territorial aristocracy, while Aehrenthal’s somewhat more ambiguous social position nevertheless more closely approximated that of a magnate than an offspring of the modern service

Prologue •

11

nobility. As we shall see, the long tenures of Kálnoky and Go|uchowski, together totaling a quarter-century, had a particularly decisive impact on the bureaucracy of the foreign of¤ce under their two immediate successors. The great majority of the personnel at the disposal of both Aehrenthal and Berchtold on the eve of the war, especially those in senior positions, had ¤rst entered the service after 1881. In 1914, some 100 functionaries were stationed in the Vienna of¤ce, although only about two-thirds of them belonged to the permanent internal branch of the service, the rest being diplomatic and consular personnel posted there temporarily for varying lengths of time. Directly beneath the minister in the hierarchy at the Ballhausplatz stood the ¤rst section chief, whose position could be roughly equated with a permanent under-secretary in Whitehall. His primary duties included deputizing for the minister when necessary and overseeing the division that supervised the affairs of the imperial house. The second section chief generally directed the political departments charged with the monarchy’s day-to-day foreign relations. Though technically he ranked beneath the ¤rst section chief, his responsibilities arguably made him the most important of¤cial in the Ballhausplatz after the minister. A third post of section chief was created by Go|uchowski and a fourth by Aehrenthal, bringing the total by 1914 to four. The duties assigned to them varied according to need, although one of them generally handled only economic matters. In 1913, Berchtold gave more permanent character to the organization, creating three distinct sections (political, economic, and juridical-administrative), each headed by a section chief. Together with the ¤rst section chief, who was really only a primus inter pares, those three section chiefs stood immediate to the foreign minister. Despite the prestige that the ¤rst section chief enjoyed as the minister’s general representative, his three colleagues did not report to him but to the minister. Two series of departments—one for political, the other for administrative affairs—dispatched the daily business of the foreign of¤ce. In the Aehrenthal and Berchtold years, most of those divisions in turn fell within one of the larger groupings, called sections. Within the political section, each of ¤ve or six departments—called Referate—managed relations with the countries in a particular geographical region. The allotment of Russia, the Balkan states, and Turkey to Referat I, for instance, made it the most important sphere of operations in the central of¤ce. The other set of departments, numbering in all in this period between thirteen and seventeen, fell either within the bailiwick of the juridical-administrative or of the economic section. The former treated questions connected

12 • aristocratic redoubt with the effects on foreign affairs of the laws and regulations of the two halves of the monarchy. In that regard, they worked closely with the Austrian and Hungarian governments, as well as with the military. The political departments were denoted by roman numerals (Referate I–V), the administrative by arabic (Departements 1–17). In addition to the sections and departments, the personal secretariat of the minister (Kabinett des Ministers), established by Go|uchowski in 1895 in its ¤nal form, played an important role. Among other duties, it dealt with his of¤cial personal correspondence and handled much of the business associated with the minister’s position as head of the joint ministerial council, including the drafting of protocols and memoranda. The Kabinett also collected and organized the daily dispatch of materials sent by the Ballhausplatz to the emperor and arranged the information to be laid before the minister himself. In later years, the head of the secretariat, particularly Count Friedrich Szápáry (1909–12) and then Count Alexander Hoyos (1912–17), came to exercise considerable in¶uence in the diplomatic realm. More concerned as we are here about the bureaucratic rather than the policy-making character of the foreign service, the organization of responsibility for personnel matters deserves some attention. To the ¤rst section chief fell the overall supervision of the employees of the diplomatic corps and of the internal branch.19 Assisting him in that task were the directors of the personnel division (Department 2)—Hermann von Mitscha, whose short term (1906–7) followed the long reign of Wilhelm von Mittag; and Baron Ottokar Schlechta, who served through the remainder of the Aehrenthal-Berchtold years. Both the ¤rst section chief and the personnel director corresponded extensively with diplomats in the ¤eld, informing them of upcoming assignments and transfers, and in return receiving questions, complaints, and requests. They also arranged the periodic general reshuf¶ings (Revirement) of those assigned abroad. The ¤rst section chief supervised the qualifying examinations (Vorprüfungen) taken by candidates for admission and accepted or rejected them, at least in theory, on the basis of the results. Decisions by the ¤rst section chief and the head of Department 2, however, were made only in close collaboration with the foreign minister, who frequently reserved the ¤nal word for himself, especially with respect to senior appointments. Much evidence con¤rms his intervention at the lower levels as well. A measure of in¶uence in personnel affairs also accrued to the head of the minister’s secretariat, to whom diplomats sometimes brought their concerns, perhaps in the hope of circumventing the ¤rst section chief and securing direct intervention from on high.

Prologue •

13

Once a candidate hoping to enter the internal branch of the service had passed the diplomatic examination (Diplomatenprüfung) and been granted de¤nitive admission, he ascended the ¤rst of six major rungs of the central of¤ce-career ladder. Beginning with the rank of court and ministerial clerk (Hof- und Ministerial-Konzipist), he could climb in ascending order to court and ministerial vice-secretary (Hof- und Ministerial-Vize-Sekretär), court and ministerial secretary (Hof- und Ministerial-Sekretär), section counselor (Sektions-Rat), court and ministerial counselor (Hof- und Ministerial-Rat), and ¤nally section chief (Sektions-Chef ).20 At the level of court and ministerial counselor, which generally took at least twenty-¤ve years to reach, a functionary could expect to have become a departmental head. A glass ceiling, however, separated those who belonged to the internal service from the highest reaches of the Ballhausplatz. None ever became foreign minister, and diplomats called in from the ¤eld dominated the positions of ¤rst and second section chiefs, as well as the most prestigious of the political departments. The top layer of Ballhausplatz of¤cialdom in 1914, namely, those sixteen functionaries stationed in Vienna who took precedence over the court and ministerial counselors, included only two, Otto von Weil and Baron Maximilian Biegeleben, who had made their careers exclusively in the capital. No effort was made either by Aehrenthal or Berchtold, or by any of their immediate predecessors, to give the permanent personnel in Vienna the experience abroad that would have more properly quali¤ed them for the leading posts at home. By 1914, few of those who had made their careers primarily at home played any signi¤cant role in policy-making in the Ballhausplatz, a task reserved for diplomats transferred home from the missions abroad. The diplomatic corps, which constituted the second of the three branches of the Austro-Hungarian foreign service, numbered in 1914 approximately 123 members, of whom some 112 manned the monarchy’s thirty-four foreign missions. The Ballhausplatz maintained ten embassies, twenty-two legations, and two diplomatic agencies. Ambassadors were accredited to the Holy See (1856), France (1856), Great Britain (1860), the Ottoman Empire (1867), Germany (1871), Russia (1874), Italy (1877), Spain (1888), the United States (1903), and Japan (1907). (The dates in parenthesis indicate the ¤rst year after the upheavals of 1848 in which the monarchy sent an ambassador, or Botschafter, rather than simply an envoy to the state in question.) Twenty-two ministers plenipotentiary (ausserordentlicher Gesandte und bevollmächtigter Minister) presented Habsburg credentials in thirty-nine countries: Albania; Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay; Bavaria; Belgium; Brazil; Bulgaria; Chile, Bolivia, and Peru; China; Denmark and Norway; Greece; Mexico; Montenegro; the Neth-

14 • aristocratic redoubt erlands and Luxembourg; Persia; Portugal; Rumania; Saxony, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Altenburg, Anhalt, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, and the elder and younger branches of Reuø; Sweden; Switzerland; Serbia; Siam; and Württemberg, Baden, and Hesse.21 As this list indicates, the foreign ministry saved resources by posting one envoy simultaneously to several lesser states, especially in South America, Germany, and northwestern Europe. Finally, the Ballhausplatz sent diplomatic agents/consuls general, drawn from the personnel of the diplomatic corps, to represent the monarchy at the courts of the nonsovereign khedive of Egypt and the sultan of Morocco. A young man newly admitted to the diplomatic corps began his career at the level of attaché. From there his rise through the ranks could lead him to legation secretary, legation counselor second- and then ¤rst-class, minister plenipotentiary, and ¤nally, depending on more extraordinary qualities, to ambassador. In 1909, Aehrenthal altered the ladder slightly, believing that the long period (eight or nine years) that a diplomat typically spent at the lowest rung had drawbacks vis-à-vis advancement possibilities in other services. Such a situation in turn had negative repercussions on questions of precedence in foreign capitals. He therefore added the ranks of legation secretary ¤rst- and second-class and abolished the simple designation of legation secretary. Those who had formerly been senior attachés became legation secretaries second-class.22 For a host of reasons, the rate of promotion in the diplomatic corps ¶uctuated much more than in the central of¤ce. Whereas Berchtold took only twelve years to go from an unpaid attaché in Paris to ambassador in St. Petersburg, Albert von Eperjesy required more than twenty-three years before he was rewarded with the miserable envoyship in Persia. Eperjesy’s experience probably more closely approximated that of the average diplomat, though there was no shortage of cases like Berchtold’s. Additionally, the prospect of a policy-making position in the home of¤ce also existed for those diplomats with proven abilities. Finally, before ending our discussion of the structure of the Ballhausplatz apparatus, we should devote a few words to the third and ¤nal branch, the consular service. In 1914, the Ballhausplatz maintained 108 effective consular establishments around the world, all located in states with which the monarchy also had diplomatic relations. Additionally, there existed 364 honorary consular of¤ces, some headed by a distinguished businessman from the local Austro-Hungarian colony. To pursue a career in the consular service necessitated passing an examination different from that prescribed for diplomats and those in the central of¤ce.

Prologue •

15

Consuls were expected to have a better grasp of trade and other economic issues, as well perhaps as a knowledge of non-Western languages. Many members of the consular corps had attended the prestigious Oriental (later Consular) Academy in Vienna, the foremost European institution for the training of foreign service personnel at the time. Despite their often superior educational backgrounds, relatively few consuls managed to transfer later to diplomacy, where lofty social and income quali¤cations kept the middle class and much of the bureaucratic nobility at a distance. As did the other two branches, the consular service had its own career ladder: consular attaché, vice-consul, consul, consul general second-class, and at the top, consul general ¤rst-class. As with the diplomats, though not in the same measure, the possibility existed that well-quali¤ed consular of¤cers might be posted to the central of¤ce to oversee technical departments or to provide specialized expertise not available from other sources.

1 Social Origins aristocratic redoubt Social Origins

D

espite the pivotal role played by the Austro-Hungarian foreign of¤ce in 1914, we know surprisingly little about the social origins of the functionaries who formulated and carried out policy. Opinions have differed markedly about this question, both at the time and more recently. Contemporary critics reviled the diplomatic corps as the playground of idle members of the high nobility. Rudolf Sieghart, a prominent of¤cial in the prewar monarchy, dismissed the diplomats as coming from a class “born to eat fruit.”1 In 1913, the journalist Heinrich Kanner attributed the disastrous conclusion of the Balkan Wars to the blue-blooded “clique” that, he claimed, dominated the Ballhausplatz.2 He believed foreign minister Berchtold to be nothing more than an “aristocratic dilettante,” more interested in his toilette and the turf than in policy making.3 The sociologist Oscar Jászi later wrote that “[t]he almanac of the foreign service from 1914 on gives the impression of the almanac of Gotha . . . in the higher ranks one will not ¤nd a single member of the middle classes.”4 Other commentators have emphasized the egalitarian character of the Ballhausplatz. Emmanuel Urbas, a consular of¤cial stationed in the central of¤ce for much of the decade before 1914, denied an exaggerated aristocratic presence in the foreign of¤ce and maintained that the service offered opportunities to men of humble background.5 The fame of a few homines novi who rose to in¶uential posts, like Anton Prokesch and Heinrich Calice, reinforces that view.6 Nikolaus von Preradovich, who has made the only systematic attempt to determine the social composition of the bureaucracy of the foreign of¤ce, has argued that the proportion of middle-class diplomats continued generally to rise throughout the later nineteenth century and reached a high point at the end of World War I.7 Emperor Francis Joseph’s alleged indifference to the backgrounds of his bureaucrats, provided that they were hard-working and loyal, as well as

16

Social Origins

•

17

the widespread presence of bourgeois of¤cers in the army, have contributed to the notion that the middle class and service nobility played a dominant role in the Ballhausplatz.8 Given our general impressions of the character of the world of diplomacy before World War I, it should not be surprising that an unusually high percentage of those of noble birth staffed the foreign of¤ce and its dependencies abroad. Of the 251 men who served at the Ballhausplatz under Aehrenthal and Berchtold, only 26, or roughly 10 percent of the total, were from the middle class at the time they entered the diplomatic corps or the central of¤ce. Of those 26, 10 gained ennoblement at some point after admission. Therefore, only 6.4 percent of the 251 of¤cials under examination remained without a patent of nobility in 1914. However, such simplistic ¤gures unfortunately tell us little about the actual social context of Habsburg diplomacy. The Austro-Hungarian nobility did not constitute the relatively seamless social body that, for instance, the British peerage and gentry in the same period did. Further, the rigid bureaucratic division between the diplomatic corps and the central of¤ce also renders the ¤gures cited above very problematic. Only rarely, and usually in order to take up a senior post in the ministry, did a diplomat formally transfer to permanent service in Vienna. Yet more uncommon was the cooption of a ministerial functionary into the diplomatic corps. Of the 251 of¤cials under examination, only 15 (5.9%), including several of the highest-ranking mandarins, transferred either from abroad to Vienna or vice versa. In addition, two others, including Foreign Minister Aehrenthal and one of his section chiefs, Count Paul Esterházy, served exclusively at the home of¤ce in the period 1906–14 but had prior diplomatic experience. This divide between the two branches of service also mirrored and perpetuated a social gulf between those who served at home and abroad. The majority of those stationed outside the monarchy’s borders shared little in common in terms of background with the rank and ¤le who handled affairs in Vienna. The social division between the diplomatic service and the central of¤ce re¶ected the vague and shifting but nonetheless signi¤cant boundary separating the “court society” (Hofgesellschaft) or aristocracy from the “second society” of bureaucratic and entrepreneurial nobility and the haute bourgeoisie.9 Members of the former occupied a position in the corps unmatched in any other branch of the Austrian bureaucracy. In contrast, the of¤cials in Vienna, while always subordinate to a member of the court nobility in the person of the foreign minister, themselves came

18 • aristocratic redoubt from that section of the upper classes whose origins lay in the modern period, often in connection with the expansion and centralization of the state and the industrial revolution.10 Of the 163 diplomats, nearly half (74) belonged to the court nobility, which justi¤ably enjoyed a reputation as the most exclusive on the continent. A yet wider kinship network drew in other diplomats who, though themselves not from the aristocracy, nevertheless had close familial ties at court, and this buttressed the aristocratic character of the corps. Among the ministerial personnel, less than 10 percent (12 of 103) can be said to have been scions of the aristocracy. Even that ¤gure, however, is in¶ated in that seven of the twelve, including both foreign ministers, made their careers primarily abroad, most transferring back to Vienna only to take leading posts. One other, Section Chief Count Markus Wickenburg, arrived at the foreign of¤ce only after rising to the position of state secretary in the Hungarian commerce ministry. In other words, only four of those who made their careers exclusively in the ministry, Counts Josef Draskovich, Karl Romer, Tibor Szápáry and Ludwig Thürheim, came from the court nobility, and only Szápáry, a department head, occupied a position of any great responsibility. The rest of their colleagues tended to lack any signi¤cant kinship relations with the aristocracy. Four factors in particular evidence the disproportionate place of court nobles in the diplomatic corps. First, a high number of those abroad could boast a pedigree extending at least back into the early modern period. Second, a large percentage bore titles, especially those of count or prince, found primarily, if not exclusively, among the great aristocracy. Third, the landed element occupied a dominant place in the corps, a factor that we shall consider more extensively below in chapter 3. Finally, and most signi¤cantly, numerous diplomats had been awarded the prestigious rank of court chamberlain, which brought admission to rituals and social events at the Habsburg court and which in theory required proof of sixteen nobly born great-great-grandparents. While convenience and clarity dictate that each of these issues be treated separately in the following discussion, social prestige and station nevertheless depended on some, perhaps incongruous combination thereof. The great antiquity of the noble status of many diplomatic families provides the ¤rst indicator of the prominence of preindustrial elites in the foreign of¤ce. Rare¤ed ancestry among the diplomats was particularly striking. Of the 151 noble diplomats (of a total 163), 90 (60%) belonged to families ennobled before the eighteenth century. That is, they were elevated before the beginning of Maria Theresa’s and Joseph II’s reforms,

Social Origins •

19

which laid the foundation for the service nobility, which formed the core of the “second society.” Fully 66 (44%) had paternal ancestors who had already become noble by the year 1500. Nine more (6%) came from sixteenth-century aristocratic families, while the remaining 15 (10%) came from forebears ¤rst found among the nobility in the seventeenth century. In contrast, those noblemen who owed their titles to the modern state constituted a distinct minority among diplomats. Roughly a third of them (34%) could trace their noble lineage no further back than 1700. Among this group were 24 (16%) whose families had ¤rst been elevated in the eighteenth century. The period from 1800 to 1899 contributed only 26 (17%), of whom 21 came from families ennobled between the middle and the end of the century. Finally, 2 diplomats (1%) had twentieth-century patents of nobility. More recent ennoblement did not necessarily exclude a family from the crème de la crème if it possessed other advantages. A number of diplomats whose families ¤rst received hereditary rank in the eighteenth century were, by the early twentieth, fully integrated into the most exclusive social circles. The Aehrenthals provide an example of a family that, despite its recent patent of nobility, had virtually achieved integration with the court nobility by the beginning of the twentieth century. Originally ennobled only in 1790, they had made signi¤cant strides up the social ladder. In addition to the ownership of large estates in Bohemia (Doxan and Gros-Skal), they had concluded numerous alliances with the aristocracy. The foreign minister’s father had married Countess Marie Thun, while his paternal grandmother belonged to the equally illustrious Wilczek clan. Through the Thuns, Aehrenthal counted many celebrated families of the court nobility among his close kinsmen: Kaunitz, Nostitz-Rieneck, Trauttmansdorff, Hohenlohe-Langenburg, and Waldstein. Aehrenthal’s own three sisters made socially advantageous matches, one with Count Anton Bylandt and the other two with Count Franz Colloredo-Mannsfeld.11 Aehrenthal himself married into the Hungarian magnate family Széchényi. For his work during the annexation of Bosnia-Hercegovina, the emperor rewarded him with the title of count, completing the climb up the steps of the nobility. The foreign minister lacked only the requisite sixteen noble quarterings for inclusion in the inner circle of the aristocracy, though he certainly descended on the maternal side from families that had long belonged to court circles. Given what we know about Aehrenthal, there is every reason to believe that he identi¤ed very strongly with his aristocratic maternal connections. The scurrilous rumors of his lowly origins that circulated

20 • aristocratic redoubt throughout his time as minister corresponded in no way to his landed upbringing and patrician outlook.12 The large percentage of rare¤ed titles likewise reinforced the aristocratic character of the corps. An industrialist or banker with the right connections during the reign of Francis Joseph might at the most have hoped to secure a baron’s coronet. There is little evidence to suggest that any received higher titles. Among the diplomats, on the other hand, counts and princes abounded. Of the 151 nobles (93% of the corps), 8 were mediatized princes (5%), 5 were mediatized counts (3%), 60 were counts (40%), 38 were barons (25%), and 40 possessed either simple nobility or the title Ritter (knight) (27%). Habsburg monarchs liberally distributed patents of nobility only for the last two categories, while the title of count more rarely appeared on the honor’s list. Yet, nearly half of the diplomats came from families of the rank of count or above.13 Despite the occasional presence of men with relatively humble or recent antecedents, the diplomatic corps remained until the outbreak of the war primarily a preserve of those with older titles from the higher reaches of the nobility. The most prestigious of the monarchy’s foreign missions were heavily populated by members of the aristocracy. Six of the ten ambassadors in 1913 were counts, and the same number—including Szõgyény in Berlin, Mensdorff in London, Mérey in Rome, Schönburg at the Vatican, Thurn in St. Petersburg, and Pallavicini in Constantinople—had noble rank predating 1500. Schönburg was additionally a mediatized prince. Only two ambassadors, Baron Ladislaus Hengelmüller in Washington and Baron Ladislaus Müller in Tokyo, were products of the nineteenth-century nobility. The lower ranks of the embassy staffs also contained numerous aristocrats with resounding titles of great antiquity. In Germany, ¤ve of the monarchy’s six diplomats had the rank of count or above; in Great Britain, four of six; in France, six of six; at the Holy See, ¤ve of ¤ve; in Russia, ¤ve of six; and in Turkey, three of seven. In that year, no counts made an appearance among those posted in the capitals of the non-European powers, the United States and Japan. The dominant position of rare¤ed noble titles in the diplomatic corps, particularly in the most desirable stations, remained unchallenged down to 1914. The broad social divide separating the diplomatic corps from the of¤cials who worked at the Ballhausplatz nowhere becomes more apparent than with respect to noble pedigree. Nearly half of the diplomats (48.5%) managed to secure the coveted appointment of court chamberlain.14 This regulation for admission to court differed fundamentally from those in place in other European capitals of the period, even in Central

Social Origins

•

21

Europe, where none of the numerous German courts required anything more for presentation than a nobly born father. The blue bloodlines at the Habsburg court justi¤ably lent it the most exclusive reputation on the Continent. While nearly half of the diplomats were drawn from circles close to the throne, only eleven (10.7%) of the functionaries of the central of¤ce gained admittance to court. Even that small ¤gure requires some quali¤cation, as ¤ve of the eleven (Count Leopold Berchtold, Count Paul Esterházy, Count Franz Kinsky, Baron Georg Franckenstein, and Count Friedrich Szápáry) all had made their careers primarily in the diplomatic service before assuming posts in Vienna, while another, Section Chief Count Markus Wickenburg, had been recruited from outside the service late in his career. Only ¤ve of the other ninety-seven of¤cials (5.1%) had been awarded the rank of chamberlain: Baron Rudolf Prandau, Count Heinrich Hoyos, Count Karl Romer, Count Tibor Szápáry, and Baron Ernst von der Wense. Only Szápáry and Wense, both of whom headed departments, occupied relatively important posts. Hoyos and Romer were minor of¤cials in Department 1, as was Prandau in Department 9c.15 Even the high ¤gure of 48.5 percent understates the number of diplomats able to produce an unblemished family tree. Georg von Ottlik and Baron Ivan Rubido-Zichy possessed the necessary ancestry to be awarded the rank of chamberlain during the war.16 Several others undoubtedly had the requisite great-great-grandparents. The suicide of Prince Vincenz Windisch-Grätz in Rome during his tour of duty there as a young attaché is one such case. With a Princess Auersperg as a mother, and a Princess Lobkowitz and a Countess Colloredo as grandmothers, Windisch-Grätz probably possessed no non-noble ancestors for many generations beyond his great-great-grandparents. Likewise, the youth of Prince Johann Lobkowitz, a twenty-eight-year-old attaché in Rome when the war broke out, could easily account for his not having been admitted to court. His ancestors, too, belonged to the core of the court aristocracy: his mother was a Princess Liechtenstein and his grandmothers were a Princess Schwarzenberg and a Countess Kinsky. Kinship ties resoundingly reinforced the aristocratic character of the corps. Among those diplomats who themselves did not belong to court society, an unusual number, especially in comparison with their counterparts in the central of¤ce, possessed immediate familial links with the aristocracy. The fathers of Counts Johann Forgách, Albert Nemes, Alexander Török and Felix Brusselle-Schaubeck all moved in court circles, but their mésalliances with women of inferior standing prejudiced the social positions of their children. Török’s mother, the Burgtheater actress Johanna Buska, allegedly

22 • aristocratic redoubt initiated Crown Prince Rudolf into the mysteries of love.17 Baron Carl Freudenthal’s parents both sprang illegitimately from the Counts Wrbna, a leading family of the court nobility.18 Similarly, Emmerich von P¶ügl was reckoned to be the natural son of General Count Eduard Paar, offspring of a leading Bohemian family of magnates and for many years Francis Joseph’s chief aide-de-camp.19 The peevish envoy in Württemberg, Baron Alfons Pereira-Arnstein, descended through his mother, Countess Henriette Larisch, from the highest and wealthiest nobility of Silesia. Pereira’s lifelong membership in Vienna’s Jockey Club, otherwise a privilege almost unexceptionally reserved for the great names of the aristocracy, indicates his distinguished social position.20 Heinrich von Löwenthal, accredited as envoy in February 1914 to the newly independent principality of Albania, grew up in the home of his stepfather, Count Oskar Grimaud d’Orsay, who belonged to the court nobility. These, together with other such instances, made members of court society and its closest kinship circles form a majority of all Austro-Hungarian diplomats on the eve of the war. The backgrounds of the remainder of those serving abroad, nearly all of whom came from the monarchy’s “second society,” reinforced the conservative, even preindustrial social character of the corps. Few personi¤ed elements among the population connected with modern trends in politics or the economy. The sons of industrialists, merchants, and professionals were notably underrepresented. From 1701 through 1918, approximately one-tenth of all ennoblements in the Habsburg Monarchy went to entrepreneurs,21 but their descendants ¤gure statistically insigni¤cantly among the diplomats. In contrast, the expansion and centralization of government as well as military service ¤gure prominently in the ancestries of diplomats whose families rose into the nobility after 1700. Barons Otto Kuhn and Géza Duka, as well as Aehrenthal’s famous protégé, Alexander von Musulin, a scion of an old family of Croatian soldiers on the military frontier, all had forebears elevated for their army service. Next to descendants of of¤cers, the “second society” included primarily those whose careers had been made in the bureaucracy. The offspring of the high ministerial bureaucracy in Vienna appear regularly among the diplomats, with names like Sommaruga, Hauenschield-Bauer, and Giskra. While old preindustrial elites as embodied in the court nobility tended to dominate the diplomatic corps, the of¤cials stationed permanently at the Ballhausplatz belonged, with few exceptions, to Austria-Hungary’s “second society.” As already noted, a wide social gulf separated the two

Social Origins •

23

branches of service. In every category, the social backgrounds of those posted at home were less rari¤ed, with ennoblement generally more recent and titles far more modest. Almost no aristocrats may be found among them. The percentage of bourgeois was likewise higher: 15.5 percent at the Ballhausplatz as opposed to 6.7 percent in missions abroad. Sixty counts and thirteen mediatized princes and counts entered the diplomatic service. However, only eleven counts (13% of the nobles posted at home) and no mediatized nobles chose to work in Vienna. Even that small number shrinks considerably when one notes that ¤ve of the eleven had made their careers primarily in the diplomatic service and had transferred to Vienna only in order to assume leading posts. Of the eighty-seven noblemen employed in the central of¤ce, only sixteen (18.4%) could trace their lineage back into the feudal age (before 1500). Once again, the ¤gure is somewhat deceptive in that it includes several who had spent most of their careers in the diplomatic service. While less than one-third of those posted abroad had claims to noble status no older than the beginning of the eighteenth century, the majority of those in Vienna (57.5%) had titles no more than two hundred years old. Of that group, nearly 40 percent descended from families ¤rst elevated after 1800. Unlike the diplomats drawn from the “second society,” most of the central-of¤ce personnel came only from the middle ranks of the bureaucratic or military nobility. Their ancestors were typically ennobled for lengthy, rather than particularly distinguished or spectacular, service. Even fewer representatives of rich industrialist or banking circles are to be found among functionaries in the Ballhausplatz, though they were not entirely absent, as the case of Hermann von Mitscha, Aehrenthal’s ¤rst personnel chief, indicates. As we shall see below, the ministerial bureaucracy remained ¤rmly subordinate in in¶uence and prestige to the diplomatic service. The presence in the Ballhausplatz of the foreign minister, who had always made his career abroad, expressed this subordination most visibly. Not only, then, did the old agrarian, court-oriented aristocracy dominate the corps, but, by virtue of ¤lling selected positions in Vienna, they also prevailed in the central of¤ce. Foreign ministers Aehrenthal and Berchtold, both of whom crowned diplomatic careers with the ambassadorship in St. Petersburg and then came home to run the foreign ministry, belonged to court society. And their closest, if not their ranking, advisers—like Count Paul Esterházy, Count Friedrich Szápáry, and Count Alexander Hoyos—often came from the same circles. Despite the frequent allegations of their public irrelevance, the old court nobility main-

24 • aristocratic redoubt tained a central role in the monarchy’s foreign-policy apparatus down to World War I. What advantages, if any, did these diplomats’ backgrounds bring them in the execution of their duties? Baron Alexander Musulin later recalled that some of his high-born colleagues, who were criticized for having little more than a distinguished name and a large fortune, actually proved more effective than their more industrious, if less blue-blooded, associates.22 In diplomatic life, the cultivation of local contacts and the collection of information to be relayed to the home of¤ce remained a primary responsibility of an emissary. According to Musulin, Habsburg aristocrats in foreign capitals frequently were greeted by open doors, which he himself had ¤rst to push open, and enjoyed effortless acceptance into circles to which he achieved admittance only after much effort.23 Part of the reason for this may have been that the upper echelons of the Habsburg Monarchy’s nobility formed an integral part of a cosmopolitan European aristocracy, whose members shared more in common with one another with respect to background, upbringing, style of life, and ways of thinking than with their fellow countrymen. Moreover, through intermarriage, they had established a bewildering variety of familial relationships that smoothed the path for many a newly assigned diplomat. Several diplomats even possessed close connections to reigning houses. Through his grandmother, Sophie of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Count Albert Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein, ambassador to the Court of St. James, claimed Queen Victoria and her son, Edward VII, as close cousins. Throughout his many years in London, both before and during his ambassadorship, Mensdorff enjoyed an entrée to the English court unrivaled by any other diplomat. Count Karl Almeida, a young attaché assigned to the Holy See in 1914, included the house of Wittelsbach among his close relations, his grandmother having been the morganatic daughter of Prince Karl of Bavaria. Three diplomats, Princes Emil and Karl Emil Fürstenberg and Count George Festetics, counted a princess of Baden as their grandmother. Festetics’s English mother, Lady Mary Douglas-Hamilton, daughter of the duke of Hamilton and Brandon and granddaughter of Napoleon’s stepdaughter, Stephanie de Beauharnais, had been the ¤rst wife of Prince Albert of Monaco. Festetics’s maternal connections to the highest British and French aristocracies served him well during his tours as attaché and then as legation secretary in Paris and London. Count Friedrich Larisch, stationed at one point for more than four years in Rumania, descended in the third generation from

Social Origins •

25

Barbo Stirbey, who had ruled as Hospodar of Wallachia in the middle of the nineteenth century. Sorting out the complex familial web supplied a natural, mutually accessible topic of conversation at diplomatic receptions, and at the same time established a sense of ease and rapport possible only among relations. Berchtold recalled one such instance during his tenure as ambassador in Russia. During a visit paid by Ferdinand of Bulgaria to St. Petersburg, the king received the diplomatic corps in audience at the Winter Palace. During their conversation, Ferdinand asked Berchtold if he knew their degree of relation to one another. The ambassador replied that his great-grandmother, Countess Elisabeth Károlyi-Waldstein, had a sister who had married the Hungarian Prince Koháry. The daughter of that union had later married a prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who became the grandfather of the Bulgarian king. Berchtold and Ferdinand had worked out that they were third cousins.24 Even more prevalent than the diplomats’ royal or princely connections were their numerous ties to foreign nobilities. Count Heinrich Lützow, who ¤nished his diplomatic career as ambassador in Italy, remembered that his ¤rst posting as a young attaché in Stuttgart had passed particularly pleasantly thanks to frequent invitations from a nearby cousin.25 Prince Rudolf Esterházy’s connections through his grandmother, Lady Sarah Villiers, daughter of the ¤fth earl of Jersey and granddaughter of the tenth earl of Westmoreland, eased his transition into British high society during his service there as attaché. He likewise possessed illustrious ties in Belgium through his maternal grandparents, the duke and duchess of Croy, which made him persona grata during his short posting in Brussels. Prince Gottfried Hohenlohe’s uncle Chlodwig happened to have served as German chancellor a few years before the diplomat took up the posts of legation counselor and later ambassador in Berlin. Emperor William II evinced a marked fondness for the attaché Count Heinrich Apponyi, whose mother, a Countess Seherr-Thoø, came from Prussian Silesia. William therefore looked upon the young diplomat as half-Prussian, used the du form of address with him, and sought his advice in hunting matters.26 Other diplomats, like Count Duglas Thurn and Count Rudolf Coronini, numbered Italian aristocrats among their closer relations. International connections also worked in a few cases to the disadvantage of a diplomat. That Count Agenor Go|uchowski never received the post of ambassador in Paris has been ascribed to the origins of his wife, who inconveniently belonged to one of the most prominent families of

26 • aristocratic redoubt the Napoleonic nobility. Similarly, the German emperor vetoed the choice of Baron Erich Diller as Austro-Hungarian military attaché in Berlin. One observer believed that Prince Philipp Eulenburg’s fall from favor hurt Diller, who was related to William’s friend and con¤dant.27 Count Paul Esterházy occupied an unpleasant position in France, where he served as legation counselor during the Dreyfus affair. His distant cousin, the French major Marie-Charles-Ferdinand Walsin-Esterházy, whose handwriting matched that on the famous bordereau passed to the German military attaché and used as evidence against Dreyfus, ¤gured as an unsavory character in the spy scandal. In early 1898, Walsin-Esterházy, whose grandfather had been the illegitimate son of a French marquis and a Countess Esterházy, actually faced a military tribunal. Throughout the proceedings, Paul Esterházy experienced the disagreeable sensation of having his name linked, however indirectly, to a national con¶ict in the country to which he was accredited. Nobles were also thought to possess the polished manners and elegant bearing necessary to hold one’s own in Europe’s grandest salons, where so much diplomatic footwork transpired. From childhood, the sons of the nobility, especially those from the magnate class, absorbed the rare¤ed social graces that allowed them to move with ease among their equals in foreign capitals. The marks of a re¤ned upbringing often remained evident, even in the presence of the most regrettable eccentricities, as Count Emerich Csáky noted about one of his colleagues in Berlin, whose antics included sporting stark naked in a fountain in front of the French embassy.28 Berchtold himself perhaps best exempli¤ed the image of a Habsburg grand seigneur. Highly cultivated, courtly, and self-possessed, Berchtold concealed his inner feelings and thinking beneath a reserved and serene exterior. During Berchtold’s tenure as ambassador in St. Petersburg, Aehrenthal hoped that the artless charm of this grandee would make the Bosnian annexation more palatable to the Russian aristocracy.29 Social arts like dancing, perfected by years of practice, could also raise a diplomat in the estimation of local hostesses. Furthermore, an invitation to a ball provided a diplomat the opportunity to glean useful information to be sent to Vienna in the following morning’s dispatch. During Count Heinrich Lützow’s ¤rst interview at the Ballhausplatz at the beginning of his career, Section Chief Baron Hofmann, a man of considerable Viennese bonhomie, asked him, “Können S’ vortanzen?” (“Can you lead off at a ball?”). Receiving an af¤rmative reply, Hofmann laughed, “Dann ist es ja gut, denn das ist dorten eine Hauptsach’!” (“Perfect, because that’s the main thing!”)30 After Lützow became ambassador

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in Rome in 1904, he insisted upon having a good dancer among the diplomats stationed at his embassy. At one point, Lützow protested the transfer from Rome before the end of carnival of Baron Georg Franckenstein, his best Vortänzer (leading dancer) for the numerous social events scheduled at the Palazzo Chigi.31 Conceding the inevitability of Franckenstein’s eventual departure, the ambassador asked for a replacement, Count Ferdinand Colloredo, also known for his skill on the parquet.32 Likewise, Count Ivan Csekonics’s fame as the best dancer in St. Petersburg society during his tour there as legation secretary enhanced his other brilliant social attributes.33 Boorish conduct and bad manners did not, alas, remain the exclusive preserve of the lower orders. Count Leopold Koziebrodzki’s violent outbursts of temper repeatedly resulted in embarrassing confrontations. In Denmark, he boxed the ears of a passenger sharing his train compartment; in Bucharest he fought with a porter; and in Rio de Janeiro, with an elevator boy. In another incident, he assaulted a Serbian of¤cial with his umbrella, prompting the foreign of¤ce to transfer him.34 One of his colleagues ascribed his behavior, however, to his father’s legacy, explaining that the elder Koziebrodzki had been dubbed “Kotzengrobski” during his time in the Austrian army.35 Baron Karl Giskra’s rapacious eating habits astonished onlookers. According to one witness, he consumed at times nothing but beefsteak and at others only fruit. His Sunday morning repasts, while excellent, were followed by copious amounts of wine and beer, and he treated his guests with a boisterous camaraderie that left little possibility for escape.36 An appreciation for the rigidly hierarchical nature of court life and some understanding of the tricky questions of etiquette that constantly arose belonged to the world of diplomacy as well. A great nobleman like the mischievous Prince Nikolaus Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, who reminded one colleague of a “marquis at the court of Louis Quartorze,” moved easily in such an atmosphere.37 To give offense or commit a faux pas risked damaging relations or placing oneself in an embarrassing position. Even the smallest infractions could jeopardize a diplomat’s standing at a foreign court, as one hapless diplomat learned when he asked Queen Olga of Württemberg, the prickly daughter of Nicholas I of Russia, “if she had had good news from her brother?” The queen’s reply, “One generally refers to him as the emperor of Russia,” sent a chill over the assembled company.38 From birth, a young aristocrat grew up in a world closely governed by questions of rank and etiquette. The son of one Bohemian magnate

28 • aristocratic redoubt later remembered that even within a family, rank and prestige differentiated the main branch from the cadet lines, as well as the heir from his younger brothers and sisters.39 Numerous unwritten rules regulated every aspect of existence, from the appropriate clothing to be worn at different hours of the day, to the manner in which one paid calls. When going out in the morning, a gentleman donned a black “Jaquette,” while in the afternoon, a frock coat, likewise black, together with a top hat, formed the prescribed dress.40 At the beginning of the winter social season, when the aristocracy arrived in the capital, one paid a formal courtesy call or at the very least left one’s visiting card at those houses where one expected to move socially. Before this had been accomplished, hostesses took no notice of a person’s presence in the city. Invitations issued by an “unannounced” person were condemned as ill-mannered.41 Similar customs regulated the social intercourse of the upper classes in most European capitals; a diplomat who failed to observe them would quickly have become a liability for the foreign service and an embarrassment to his colleagues.42 In theory, aristocrats brought with them another advantage to the foreign service: long and intimate experience with languages. Among the cosmopolitan court nobility, children often felt equally comfortable with two or even three languages at the most tender ages. Culturally German, nobles often lived on large estates in remote areas of Bohemia and Hungary, where the surrounding population, including the staff employed in the castle, spoke the local language. The Moravian domains of Foreign Minister Berchtold’s father lay at the intersection of areas settled by Germans, Slovaks, Czechs, and Hungarians. Berchtold therefore spoke Czech and Slovak ¶uently, and later learned Hungarian.43 In addition, most noble children had been exposed to French or English since early childhood. Command of French, and sometimes English, constituted a primary requirement for a woman seeking the post of governess or nanny in an aristocratic household.44 Count Emerich Csáky’s parents ¤rst committed him, as a child, to the care of a girl named Minka from Zips County in Upper Hungary, where much of his father’s property was located. By the age of three, when his parents replaced Minka with a French governess named Mademoiselle Lafontaine, he already spoke German and Hungarian ¶uently.45 Two Englishwomen cared for Count Alfons Clary, later an aspiring diplomat, until he reached the age of nine. The elder undertook to teach him French, which she had acquired after long residence in France, while the other spoke English with him.46

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Among the bureaucratic nobility, the emphasis on learning French at a young age also proved widespread. As a child, Baron Rudolf Mittag acquired French at the same time as the basics of piano playing.47 Another of¤cial, Julius von Stepski, remembered childhood outings in the Viennese Volksgarten, where mothers and nannies preferred their charges to speak French to one another.48 While diligent study as an adult might provide an adequate command of a language, exposure to one since the nursery lent an ease and a polish later dif¤cult to match. Several diplomats even enjoyed reputations as elegant literary stylists in French.49 Many diplomats believed the material and psychological independence of the grandees who served in the corps to be a valuable asset. A wealthy magnate whose Bohemian or Hungarian domains equaled the size of a small principality and whose ancestors had lived as great lords for several centuries was generally thought more likely to preserve a certain freedom of perspective than an of¤cial dependent on the ministry for his promotions and monthly salary. According to this view, he could without fear for his own future relate even the most unpleasant facts or support views that con¶icted with cherished illusions held at home. In other words, an aristocrat served at his own pleasure rather than at that of the foreign minister. One commentator summed it up succinctly: “What could either political power or the state offer a Bohemian lord apart from effort, bother, responsibility, and an unpleasant disruption of his way of life?”50 One historian has asserted that, in fact, “most representatives did not ¶inch from sending reports that might disturb Vienna.”51 Prince Franz Liechtenstein, who had himself served in the 1890s as ambassador in St. Petersburg, believed Berchtold’s great advantage vis-àvis Aehrenthal during his tour of duty in Russia to be his ¤nancial independence. It allowed Berchtold “to speak with [the foreign minister] with one hand always on the door knob.”52 The reputation for lordly independence enjoyed by Count Rudolf Khevenhüller-Metsch reached legendary proportions in the service, as he rarely spared his superiors criticism that he felt to be justi¤ed. His frankness and irascible temperament frequently brought him into the bad graces of his chiefs, especially the autocratic Kálnoky. When the latter once half-heartedly tried to effect a reconciliation with Khevenhüller by offering him the rather humble post of minister plenipotentiary in Bern, Khevenhüller telegraphed him the one-word reply, “Cambronne!” a synonym for the French word “merde.”53 Another time, Khevenhüller advised a young diplomat never to report only those things likely to be found agreeable at the Ballhausplatz. He insisted that “one should always write what one sees. To err is human. If one makes

30 • aristocratic redoubt an error, take the consequences and the responsibility. In the worst cases, resign, but remain true to oneself.”54 Among the 163 diplomats who served abroad, only 11 had belonged to the middle class when they entered the corps. We know that several possessed wealth, sophistication, and a familiarity with the usage du monde commensurate with that of their nobly born colleagues. Constantin Dumba, Austria-Hungary’s only bourgeois ambassador in our period, belonged to a rich family of merchants originally from Macedonia, whose philanthropic activities and patronage of the arts earned them a leading place in Viennese society.55 Dumba seems to have moved with assurance and ease among his blue-blooded associates, among whom he enjoyed a good deal of personal popularity. Indicative of his social standing was his membership in Vienna’s exclusive Jockey Club, whose memberships rolls included only a handful of non-nobles.56 Another middle-class diplomat, Otto Franz, known as intelligent, ambitious, and hardworking, was regarded as a man destined for a promising career.57 In general however, the bourgeois remained a rarity in the monarchy’s missions abroad. No direct evidence indicates that the foreign of¤ce turned away middle-class candidates for the diplomatic corps on the basis of their social backgrounds. One apologist has even written that repeated efforts by in¶uential personalities within the ministry to democratize the service by recruiting the sons of the well-to-do bourgeoisie foundered on the latter’s lack of interest.58 Another contemporary also rejected the accusation that the Ballhausplatz favored aristocrats per se in its selection process, arguing that diplomats had to be acceptable to the noble circles that revolved around foreign royal courts.59 Constantin Dumba hints in his memoirs that the English aristocracy received him with less than open arms during his tour of duty in London. While his colleagues, Counts Kinsky and Kaunitz, “with their brilliant names” and splendid horsemanship, attended numerous weekend house parties in the shires, Dumba sat behind in London writing arid reports on the English railway system and Egyptian ¤nance.60 Whatever the logic of such factors, the prevalence of blue blood in the diplomatic service indicates an unmistakable preference on the part of the Ballhausplatz. The prospect of a rebuff may have discouraged some quali¤ed applicants from the middle class from pursuing a career in diplomacy. Fewer still possessed Dumba’s advantages, the most important of which may have been the entrée he enjoyed with the aristocracy. The corps’s reputation for being the preserve of grandees belonging to the most exclusive of Europe’s nobilities may also have dissuaded enterprising young bourgeois from ap-

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31

plying to the Ballhausplatz. Outside the service, close social relations between the “crème” and the “second society,” which included the haute bourgeoisie, as well as the bureaucratic and entrepreneurial nobility, hardly existed.61 Furthermore, the dense network of kinship ties that bound aristocrats together meant that many of the diplomats regarded one another as family. Having been acquainted since childhood, when they began addressing each other with du and a bewildering array of nicknames (like Feri, Cari, and Poldi), they presented a closed social unit to the outside world.62 Strangers emerged confounded after an evening spent in that set. Count Heinrich Lützow remembered one dinner in Vienna at which the lady seated next to him inquired after the identity of the person sitting directly across the table. Lützow answered that she was the Countess Kinsky, née Countess Wilczek. After a long pause, his dinner partner indicated another woman across the room whom she did not know. Lützow again replied, “C’est la comtesse Kinsky, née Wilczek.” To his neighbor’s astonished reaction, Lützow assured her that two women in Vienna had that name.63 Such interrelationships, well-known and understood by the coterie of families involved, existed at the Ballhausplatz as well and doubtlessly created an atmosphere that deterred outsiders, who did not and could not belong, from applying to join the diplomatic corps. In the summer of 1914, the Ballhausplatz remained a bastion for the exercise of in¶uence by traditional elites. Despite Austria-Hungary’s status as an “industrializing agrarian state,” the role of the nobility of the old regime within the foreign of¤ce actually increased rather than declined in the course of the late nineteenth century, a development that may be traced to at least two factors. First, the ministry, particularly during the Kálnoky years, had come heavily to favor the recruitment of aristocrats for the missions abroad. In 1868, the year after the Compromise (Ausgleich), only approximately 44 percent of the corps belonged to families ennobled before the eighteenth century. The ¤gure for the AehrenthalBerchtold era, forty years later, hovered around 60 percent. Even more astonishing was the percentage rise in the same period of those who had been awarded the coveted honor of court chamberlain, which only a quarter of the monarchy’s diplomats in 1868 had held. By the time Berchtold came to of¤ce, the number had nearly doubled, to just under 50 percent. In other words, the old aristocracy showed little sign of retreating from the corps, despite the supposedly fatal challenges of an industrializing society and parliamentary government. The premier place that the diplomatic corps came to occupy vis-à-vis the other branches of the service likewise helped solidify aristocratic

32 • aristocratic redoubt in¶uence. As Helmut Rumpler has explained, Kálnoky reduced the role of leading functionaries within the central of¤ce and ¤rmly kept the reins of power in his own hands.64 The weakening of the departmental heads continued under his successors. Never again did the mandarins in Vienna play the prominent part they had during the 1860s. The section chiefs were generally recruited from among the diplomats, and during the Aehrenthal and Berchtold years, a large proportion of other senior advisers at the Ballhausplatz had been called home from abroad. Therefore the most exclusive sphere of the foreign service, populated by a high percentage of court nobles and imbued with an unmistakable aristocratic ethos, had also come to dominate the policy-making organization.

2 Admission Standards and Education aristocratic redoubt Admission Standards and Education

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hatever their advantages, noble birth and upbringing often provided acceptable substitutes for educational and professional preparation in the view of the Ballhausplatz. The majority of diplomats on the eve of the war had entered the foreign of¤ce during the long tenures of Foreign Ministers Kálnoky (1881–95) and Go|uchowski (1895–1906), when partiality for the well-born reached its peak. In that entire quarter century, the admissions standards for aspiring diplomats underwent neither reform nor revision, despite the changing parameters of international relations. Kinship networks among the aristocracy and the pervasiveness of Viennese Protektion frequently reduced troublesome admissions requirements to farcical proportions. The reputations and credibility of the two examinations required of applicants consequently declined. As in Great Britain, the existence of tests and minimal professional prerequisites played only a subordinate role in foreign of¤ce recruitment, while tact, re¤ned manners, a private income, and good looks remained the paramount considerations.1 Many individual decisions, based upon a wide variety of factors, led young candidates for admission to present themselves at the baroque palace on the Ballhausplatz. Nevertheless, background and upbringing closely conditioned career choice. For the great nobility, job possibilities remained limited down to the fall of the monarchy. Very few occupations were considered suitable to a nobleman’s social rank.2 The military and service in the more prestigious branches of the bureaucracy provided the most frequent avenues of advancement. Younger sons could also ¤nd places in the hierarchy of the church. But careers in business and trade continued to be deprecated.3 Given such restrictions, some noblemen, little enticed by life as an army of¤cer or as a celibate clergyman, no doubt chose the foreign of¤ce almost by default. One such was Count Karl

33

34 • aristocratic redoubt Almeida, whose tepid enthusiasm for diplomacy re¶ected his greater distaste for the other professions open to him. Finding existence in a remote garrison town or behind the walls of a monastery equally unappealing, Almeida concluded that diplomacy furnished the only vocation compatible with his station.4 His tours of duty as an attaché in two of Europe’s most alluring capitals, St. Petersburg and Rome, may have convinced him that he had selected the best course. Considerations of propriety in the choice of a career occasionally combined with other determinants to make the diplomatic service appear desirable. Around 1901, Prince Vincenz Windisch-Grätz, son of the president of the Austrian House of Lords, became involved in an affair with Lona Kussinger, an adventuress whose preference seems to have been for “young, inexperienced cavaliers.” According to one report, Kussinger used blackmail to entrap her victims, and rumors also circulated that she was infected with syphilis. In June 1906, one of the prince’s creditors apparently informed his father of the liaison. Fearing for his son’s health and reputation, as well as horri¤ed by the debts totaling 200,000 Kronen incurred in pursuit of this passion, Prince Alfred considered having his son placed under guardianship. Although receiving regular reports from the Viennese police detailing his son’s continuing contact with the seductress, he at ¤rst proved unable to force a break between the pair. But threats to reduce his inheritance, as well as pressure from his mother, ¤nally brought young Windisch-Grätz to capitulate.5 In order to forestall any possible renewal of the relationship, Prince Alfred decided to send his son overseas. Perhaps mobilizing contacts cultivated as president of the House of Lords, Alfred Windisch-Grätz arranged for Vincenz to serve as a provisional attaché at the embassy in Washington. Within a few months of taking up his new post, though, the younger Windisch-Grätz’s outlook had improved so much that he expressed a desire to remain in the diplomatic service. The following year he passed the entrance examination at the Ballhausplatz and received his ¤rst de¤nitive assignment. In other words, “what had begun as merely the solution to an interfamilial con¶ict, [had] now developed, on the basis of a personal decision, into a long-range career-plan [Lebensplanung].” 6 Family tradition undoubtedly motivated some to enter the foreign service. Of his many ancestors, Count Rudolf Khevenhüller-Metsch, ambassador in Paris, especially admired Hans Khevenhüller, who had served as the envoy of Maximilian II and Rudolf II at the Spanish court.7 Count Alfons Clary planned to enter the diplomatic corps in the footsteps of his father and of his great-grandfather, Count Karl Ludwig Fiquelmont, had

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World War I not intervened.8 On the other hand, family connections to the Ballhausplatz sometimes played only a secondary role in a decision to make a career in diplomacy. Baron Georg Franckenstein’s acquaintance with two American sisters renowned for their beauty induced him to ask the Ballhausplatz to post him as provisional attaché in Washington.9 Franckenstein’s father had been minister in Copenhagen under Kálnoky. Despite the inauspicious beginning, Franckenstein eventually proved to be a valuable acquisition for the foreign of¤ce. The interrelationships within the corps were both numerous and stupefyingly complex. Two former foreign ministers, Count Alexander Mensdorff-Pouilly and Baron Heinrich Haymerle, produced diplomatic offspring. The son of the former became ambassador in London, while Baron Franz Haymerle’s last posting before the war took him to Berlin as legation counselor. All three sons of Ambassador Count Ladislaus Hoyos, who had retired in 1894, entered the diplomatic corps between 1901 and 1904. Yet another member of the same family, Count Alexander Hoyos, served as an in¶uential adviser to Berchtold. The longtime ambassador in Constantinople, Baron Heinrich Calice, took pleasure in personally hosting the ceremony in which his son, Franz, took the oath as a new attaché.10 Count Heinrich Lützow, envoy to Italy (1904–10), had been preceded in the diplomatic corps by his father, who in the 1850s and 1860s had represented Francis Joseph at the court of the grand duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, while his great-uncle, Count Rudolf Lützow, had spent nearly twenty years in Rome as emissary to the Holy See. Lützow’s brother and son-in-law also belonged to the corps. When Baron Johann Gagern applied for admission to the foreign of¤ce in the fall of 1905, one Ballhausplatz of¤cial favorably noted the resemblance he bore to his father and grandfather.11 In the turbulent 1860s, Maximilian Gagern (1810–89) had been, together with Baron Ludwig Biegeleben and Baron Otto Meysenbug, a key foreignof¤ce proponent of a grossdeutsch policy. Maximilian’s son Karl, father of Johannes, reached the rank of legation counselor, while another son, also named Maximilian (1858–1942), headed Go|uchowski’s personal secretariat before becoming emissary in Bern. Not to be left out, the Biegelebens and Meysenbugs concluded a marital alliance that produced the diplomat Baron Otto Biegeleben, who, as a legation secretary stationed in Belgrade, left Serbia with the Austrian envoy on July 25, 1914. Otto Biegeleben’s grandfathers were the above-mentioned Ludwig Biegeleben and Otto Meysenbug. Both his father and uncle worked for the Ballhausplatz as well, the former as a high-ranking ministerial functionary, the latter as emissary to Japan.

36 • aristocratic redoubt Besides such father/son or grandfather/grandson combinations, an endless web of cousins, uncles, nephews, and brothers-in-law crisscrossed the service. Two Hungarian magnates who entered the corps, Count Ivan Csekonics and Count Ladislaus Cziráky, shared a pair of grandparents. So did Count Duglas Thurn, ambassador in Russia, and Count Alexander Thurn, a legation secretary at the Vatican. The Szápárys, a family of Hungarian grandees, were represented by three cousins, one of whom, Friedrich, married the sister of another diplomat and became the last ambassador in St. Petersburg. The Koziebrodzkis, Dubskys, Skrzyñskis, Fürstenbergs, Hohenlohes, Festetics’, and Széchényis each contributed two diplomats between 1906 and 1914. The two Fürstenbergs were halfbrothers through their mother and ¤rst cousins through their fathers, as well as being nephews of Ambassador Khevenhüller in Paris. Baron Johann Dumreicher’s great-uncle, Baron Alois Dumreicher, languished for ¤fteen years as envoy in Lisbon. Count Kuno Des Fours-Walderode’s uncle Arthur married the aunt of another diplomat, Count Michael Bukuwky, a legation secretary in Athens. Count Hugo Logothetti, a refugee from the consular service tapped to ¤ll the vacant legation in Persia, included Count Albert Nemes, a diplomat, among his ¤rst cousins. Emmerich von P¶ügl’s maternal uncle, Baron Ladislaus Hengelmüller, held the ambassadorship in Washington. Such relationships also in¶uenced career choices among the of¤cials stationed permanently in Vienna, among whom numerous kinship ties also existed. Many possessed relatives in the diplomatic and consular services as well. Árpád von Eperjesy chose service in Vienna, although his father’s entire career had been spent in the diplomatic corps. The grandfather of Baron Edwin Versbach, a young ministerial of¤cial assigned to Department 6, retired from the Ballhausplatz as a consul general. Maximilian von Glommer entered the foreign of¤ce just before the retirement of his uncle, Baron Moritz Czikann, envoy in Serbia. The father of Oskar von Montlong had reached high rank in the consular service. The Riedls provided two Ballhausplatz mandarins and a diplomat. One of Baron Eugen Haan’s brothers, Friedrich, did a tour of duty as military attaché in London, while another, Ernst, belonged to the consular corps. After Ernst Haan died, his widow then married Baron Emil Gödel-Lannoy, minister in Portugal. Eugen Haan himself retired from the foreign of¤ce in 1907, having achieved the rank of ministerial counselor. Through his mother, Heinrich von Pacher numbered all of the Gagerns among his kinsmen. Pacher’s uncle, Baron Maximilian Gagern, the envoy in Bern, intervened with Aehrenthal on his nephew’s behalf, assuring the foreign

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minister that he would never promote one of his own relatives at the expense of the ministry.12 Several families in the course of two or three generations became established dynasties in the internal service. From the late 1830s down to the fall of the monarchy, the Barons Vesque never lacked a representative at the Ballhausplatz. All reached positions of considerable responsibility. Baron Richard Vesque, who worked for many years in Department 5, advanced under Berchtold to the rank of ministerial counselor, the level at which his father, Johann Vesque, jun., retired during Kálnoky’s tenure. Richard’s grandfather, Johann Vesque, sen., a respected international jurist, established the family’s presence in the foreign of¤ce and became a section chief. At least one other Vesque, Alexander, an uncle of Richard, pursued a career in the diplomatic corps. In his application for admission, Otto von Weil, who later served Aehrenthal and Berchtold as head of the juridical section, noted that his grandfather, ministerial counselor Karl von Weil, had worked for twenty years in the foreign of¤ce.13 Baron Franz Matscheko, best known for his work in the summer of 1914 in the Referat responsible for policy toward Russia and the Balkans, also came from a family long associated with the Ballhausplatz. His father, like Vesque’s, was for many years a mandarin in the Viennese of¤ce. Oskar von Berger, who headed various departments before his retirement in 1908, witnessed in 1904 the admission of his son, Egon, the future foreign minister of the Austrian republic. In addition to family tradition and social considerations, personal aptitudes and interests of course also in¶uenced career choice. Events in the international arena had fascinated the future foreign minister Aehrenthal in his youth. Years later, his family recalled how passionately he had followed news of the war of 1866.14 The ¤rst book that Count Emerich Csáky learned to read as a small child was Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, which in¶amed his curiosity for distant lands and exotic settings. His decision to enter the Consular Academy and later the diplomatic corps re¶ected the interest so early awakened.15 Occasionally, stays abroad motivated a future diplomat to apply for admission to the foreign service. In 1878, Constantin Dumba visited the Paris Exhibition with some relatives, where he learned about the recently founded Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques et Morales. Settling in Paris for six months, he enrolled in a diplomacy course offered by the school, and made a further excursion across the Channel, where London at the height of the social season captivated him. It then occurred to Dumba “that it would surely be worth while to spend a few years in these surroundings and to obtain an

38 • aristocratic redoubt insight into the political life of the capital of the British Empire by means of a diplomatic post.”16 In December 1880, Dumba entered the corps and soon thereafter obtained an appointment to the London embassy. For Count Alexander Hoyos, a stay with his uncle, the English chargé d’affaires in Tokyo, proved decisive. The two made an expedition to China that so captivated the young Hoyos that he asked his father to intervene with the foreign minister for a provisional assignment to the legation in Peking.17 The foreign of¤ce required a candidate applying to the diplomatic corps or the internal service to spend a trial year at the Ballhausplatz before awarding de¤nitive acceptance. To be allowed to begin this period of Probepraxis, the aspirant needed to pass a qualifying examination (Vorprüfung) to measure his language skills. Very little evidence has come to light on how many people sought to take this test each year. One diplomat stationed in the ministry only during the war wrote later that few applications for admission were received.18 In contrast, Baron Alexander Musulin remembered a great number of candidates both for positions at the Ballhausplatz and in the missions abroad.19 Musulin worked for more than a decade in the Vienna of¤ce under Go|uchowski, Aehrenthal, and Berchtold, albeit in the political rather than the administrative section. Almost certainly, though, more people applied than gained admission. How did the foreign of¤ce decide whom to allow to take the qualifying examination and whom to reject? Adolf von Plason, the of¤cial who administered the test for more than a quarter-century, suggested that recommendations and the famous Viennese Protektion by worthies from outside the Ballhausplatz played an all too important role in the process. He bluntly protested favored candidates being admitted in principle even before they had taken the examination, which, he understandably feared, would be completely discredited.20 Despite his complaints, Plason witnessed numerous instances of in¶uence peddling on behalf of applicants down to his retirement during the Aehrenthal years. In 1892, the Hungarian minister-president supported Baron Géza Duka’s successful efforts to transfer from the consular service into the diplomatic corps.21 When Baron Heinrich Sommaruga expressed an interest in joining the foreign service, his father wrote an old friend, Count Franz Colloredo-Mannsfeld, who also happened to be the brother-in-law of Foreign Minister Aehrenthal, and asked him to put in a good word for “Heinz.”22 Rear Admiral Baron Arthur Bourguignon, father of another aspiring diplomat, asked Archduke Francis Ferdinand to help him secure a place at the Ballhausplatz for his son, Edwin.23 His well-known interest in, and fond-

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ness for, the navy and her of¤cers, may have prompted the archduke to intercede on the Bourguignons’ behalf.24 Although no direct evidence exists that Francis Ferdinand became the deciding factor in this case, the foreign of¤ce nevertheless permitted Edwin Bourguignon to take the qualifying examination in 1910. When Count Leopold Koziebrodzki, the future envoy to Portugal, wanted to join the diplomatic corps, his father asked the governor of Galicia, Count Alfred Potocki, to promote the plan at the foreign ministry. In doing so, Potocki mentioned his long acquaintance with, and high regard for, the Koziebrodzkis.25 Cases in which the exercise of in¶uence clearly failed to produce the desired result appear only rarely. This is no doubt primarily a function of the nature of the available evidence. Letters written on behalf of candidates ultimately admitted to the service often ended up in their personnel ¤les, whereas those for failed aspirants more likely found their way into the wastebasket. At any rate, the foreign of¤ce did not preserve ¤les on rejected applicants. Even for those successful in their quest, Protektion had its limits. Foreign Minister Aehrenthal promised Prince Konrad HohenloheSchillingsfürst, governor in Trieste and former Austrian minister-president, that Baron Johann Economo would be admitted to the diplomatic corps, but only after he had ful¤lled all of the prescribed conditions required of all candidates. Hohenlohe twice spoke to Aehrenthal about Economo, son of an important industrialist and landowner in Trieste, and also wrote to Baron Ottokar Schlechta, the personnel director at the Ballhausplatz.26 The attempt in 1907 by the governor of Bukovina, Oktavian von Bleyleben, to thrust a protégé on the Ballhausplatz did not at ¤rst prosper.27 Although Bleyleben had spoken to the foreign minister about the young Georg von Grigorcea, he learned through Section Chief Call that no more applications were being accepted in 1907. Through Call, Aehrenthal suggested that Grigorcea should call at the ministry if by chance he came to Vienna.28 By the spring of 1908, Grigorcea, possibly with Bleyleben’s help, had wrested an appointment from the Ballhausplatz. Despite such instances, in¶uence and recommendations remained vitally important in securing admission to the Ballhausplatz, especially if a candidate did not belong to the aristocracy. Dozens of diplomats possessed the closest connections to prominent ¤gures in the ruling circles and public life in both halves of the monarchy. Baron Otto Kuhn’s father, a former war minister, approached the emperor himself about having his son transferred into the diplomatic corps.29 Baron Eugen HauenschieldBauer, nephew of another war minister, managed only a brief stint as attaché in Tokyo before 1914. The fathers of Baron Oskar Gautsch, Count

40 • aristocratic redoubt Ludwig Badeni, Prince Vincenz Windisch-Grätz, and Count Gilbert Hohenwart all served as Austrian minister-president, while those of Count Laurenz Szápáry and Count Alexander Khuen-Belasi-Héderváry both headed the government in Transleithania. One of the elder Khuen’s nephews, Count Olivier Woracziczky, also entered the diplomatic service. Baron Felix Gerliczy’s maternal grandfather had also been Hungarian minister-president, and his uncle, Baron Stephan Burián, became joint ¤nance minister and later foreign minister. Baron Demeter Hye’s grandfather, a prominent jurist during the period of absolutism early in Francis Joseph’s reign, drew up the press law of 1849 and the code of criminal procedure of 1853. For a short period in 1867 he occupied the justice ministry. Baron Karl Giskra’s father emerged in the 1860s as one of Austria’s leading liberal statesmen, reaching the apogee of his career as minister of the interior between 1867 and 1870. Georg von Ottlik and Count Alexander Festetics both had high-ranking fathers in the Hungarian agriculture ministry, the former as state secretary, the latter as minister. Count Friedrich Szápáry had close connections to two minister-presidents: his cousin, Julius Szápáry, in Hungary, and his father-in-law, Prince Alfred WindischGrätz, in Cisleithania. That his maternal grandfather, Count Karl Grünne, had been Francis Joseph’s in¶uential adjutant and adviser for many years also surely did not harm him. Such kinship ties bound diplomats to notables outside the central governments in Budapest and Vienna as well. Ludwig von Velics, the longtime envoy in Munich, owed his favorable ¤nancial situation to his uncle, Ludwig Cardinal Haynald, archbishop of Kalocsa.30 The Pejácsevichs had practically become the ruling family in Agram, given that Count Elemér Pejácsevich’s father and grandfather both served as Ban (governor) of Croatia. Count Adam Tarnowski’s father, a Galician landowner, held the dignity of Landmarschall in the same province. Heinrich Janotta, whose son became a diplomat, occupied a conspicuous place in Silesian industrial circles and later became a life member of the Austrian House of Lords. A sprinkling of high-ranking military of¤cers not surprisingly begot diplomats too. Among naval of¤cers, the fathers of Baron Edwin Bourguignon and Count Maximilian Hadik, both rear admirals, stand out. Baron Carl Macchio, Emmerich von P¶ügl, Alexander von Musulin, Count Moritz Pálffy, Count Friedrich Szápáry, Count Alexander Török, and Baron Léon de Vaux were all the sons of generals of one grade or another. Finally, neither his great-grandfather’s execution for treason in 1849 in Hungary nor his father’s years in the consular service affected Baron Anton Kiss’s career as much as the fact that Francis Joseph’s great

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friend and con¤dante, the Burgtheater actress Katharina Schratt, happened to be his mother.31 Once the foreign of¤ce had agreed, for whatever reason, to allow an aspiring diplomat to apply, he submitted his request in accordance with a decree dating from 1880. The requirements for admission had actually changed little since the middle of the nineteenth century, when the foreign of¤ce had ¤rst formulated them. The provisions of 1880 barely differed from a promulgation dating from the ¤rst decade of Francis Joseph’s reign.32 In fact, not until the reforms of the Aehrenthal years would the old state of affairs change substantially. Meanwhile, the great majority of the men who would guide the foreign policy establishment in the decade before 1914 gained admittance on the basis of skills better suited to the old world of court diplomacy than to the modern one of international ¤nance and commerce. To receive permission to take the qualifying examination, an applicant had to prove that he: 1) had successfully completed a course of studies in jurisprudence (or later political science) at an Austrian or Hungarian university, or at one of the Hungarian legal academies, and then had passed a series of state examinations (Staatsprüfungen); 2) possessed a thorough knowledge of German and French. A candidate for the diplomatic corps, though not one for service in the central of¤ce, further had to show that he enjoyed an independent yearly income of at least 4,000 Gulden (later raised to 12,000 Kronen).33 Despite the increasingly complex nature of international relations, juridical studies and some knowledge of French continued to form the basis of the learning expected of aspirants. During the second half of the nineteenth century, those prerequisites underwent periodic re¤nement rather than any fundamental alteration. Originally, applicants taking the diplomatic examination (Diplomatenprüfung) had to answer one question in French. Later, a qualifying exam testing a candidate’s French had to be passed before he could sit for the later exam. Aspiring diplomats posted provisionally to a foreign mission additionally had to write an essay in French on some topic relating to their work, but little evidence suggests that the rule was enforced. The foreign of¤ce belatedly recognized the gradual shift away from French toward English as the primary language of international communication. English became obligatory for applicants in 1914. Although the income requirement ¤rst appeared in 1880, the Ballhausplatz had maintained a lively interest in the private ¤nancial circumstances of its diplomats in earlier years. The low salaries and

42 • aristocratic redoubt frequently high expenses incurred at many posts necessitated outside sources of revenue.34 A future diplomat’s ¤rst extensive contact with the Ballhausplatz normally occurred when he presented himself to Adolf von Plason, whose long years of administering the qualifying examination and interviewing candidates made him something of an institution. Of middle-class ancestry, Plason had been ennobled as a young Ballhausplatz of¤cial in 1874, and later received permission to add the elegant Prädikat “de la Woestyne” to his name.35 He emerged as a key ¤gure in the admissions process during his four decades in the foreign of¤ce (1868– 1907). Between 1878 and his retirement, he served on the commission that oversaw the qualifying and diplomatic exams, directing most if not all of the former and participating as examiner in dozens of the latter. From his unique vantage point, he accumulated a fund of expertise about the quality of foreign of¤ce personnel and the effectiveness of admissions policy unrivaled by any of his colleagues. On numerous occasions, he openly protested declining standards and favoritism, and considered Kálnoky’s tenure positively disastrous in that regard. Not surprisingly, his numerous memoranda advocating reform found scant support from the icily aristocratic Kálnoky or his more genial but equally grand successor.36 Even as a high-ranking ministerial functionary, Plason was in no position to challenge the ultimate authority of the ¤rst section chief and the minister in the choice of candidates to admit. He often availed himself of his right to recommend a course of action, but his superiors freely ignored his advice. Since 1880, the foreign of¤ce formally required applicants to demonstrate pro¤ciency in both German and French, which in practice meant composing an essay in French under Plason’s supervision.37 In only a few cases did an applicant have to prove a knowledge of German on paper. Around the turn of the century, several diplomats, like Moriz von Szent-Ivány, from a minor Hungarian noble family, had their German tested. Two others inducted in 1901, Count Ferdinand Brandis and Count Ferdinand Colloredo-Mannsfeld, also wrote essays in German, the former on the ironic topic “The Beginning and the End of Russian Ambitions to World Power,”38 the latter on “Japan’s Role as a World Power.”39 Since most of the applicants seem to have been German, culturally if not ethnically, the foreign of¤ce may have assumed a familiarity with German and dispensed with the essay in that language. The almost universal submission of applications in German may also have encouraged the Ballhausplatz in its complacency.

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Appraisal of a candidate’s command of French therefore remained the primary purpose of the Vorprüfung, which the Ballhausplatz administered consistently after its introduction in 1880. Applicants were invited to write a short paper, generally three or four pages, on a theme chosen by the foreign of¤ce. A time limit of approximately an hour seems to have been the norm, although a successful exam occasionally took half that time.40 Other aspirants took considerably longer.41 The topics for the essays spanned a wide range, from international relations and current affairs to diplomatic history. Oskar von Montlong’s familiarity with the course of the Boer War came in handy for his exam, “L’antagonisme de l’Europe et de l’Angleterre dans la guerre actuelle.”42 Montlong later became Berchtold’s press chief. Count Georg Festetics received high marks for his discussion of “L’in¶uence de l’Italie sur la politique europeéne et particulièrement sur celle de nos jours.”43 Count Kuno Des Fours-Walderode’s treatment of “La guerre russo-japanaise et la situation européene” earned little praise, though Plason conceded that Des Fours had some experience with the language.44 Current affairs likewise formed the basis of Count Elemer Pejácsevich’s comments on “La question marocaine et son in¶uence tout récente sur la politique européene.”45 Plason found Baron Léon de Vaux’s performance faultless, although the topic— “Le con¶it anglo-americain ou la question de Venezuela et son importance pour la politique de l’Angleterre”—was of only the remotest interest to a Central European and may at ¤rst have startled the young man.46 The foreign of¤ce called upon Baron Hans Seidler to trace one aspect of nineteenth-century European diplomatic history in “L’importance de la Méditerranée dans la politique du dix-neuvième siècle et du siècle actuel.” 47 National history, both domestic and foreign, provided another range of topics for the qualifying examination. Julius Forster, who ¤nally succeeded in getting into the diplomatic corps in 1899, wrote about “La France à l’époque du Consulat et de l’Empire.”48 Baron Otto Biegeleben took the opportunity to criticize the anticlerical policies of the French republic in his “La position actuelle de l’église romaine en France.” He found the situation of the church in France very sad (“aussi triste”) and feared that the French government might suppress religion altogether.49 The British parliamentary system provided the subject matter for Otto von Weil’s successful essay, “Les partis parlementaires en Angleterre dans leur état actuel.”50 Candidates sometimes exhibited their language skills in commenting on an aspect of Habsburg history, as in the case of Cajetan von Mérey’s “Le règne de l’imperatrice Marie Thérèse.”51

44 • aristocratic redoubt The Ballhausplatz may also have used the Vorprüfung to ascertain the political sympathies of certain aspiring diplomats. Georg von Demeliå, a minor Hungarian nobleman trying to win admittance in May 1894, had to address the theme “Le mouvement libéral en Hongrie.”52 His remarks were evidently considered satisfactory and he went on eventually to direct Department 9c. The Ballhausplatz asked Count Carl Trauttmansdorff, the son of one of Bohemia’s greatest landowners, to re¶ect upon “Le rôle de la Bohème dans l’empire austro-hongrois.”53 Occasionally, Plason assigned topics requiring a somewhat more theoretical approach. Count Duglas Thurn, who later became ambassador to Russia, received wide creative latitude when asked for his remarks upon the “Progrès de la civilisation dans le 19ème siècle.”54 Maximilian von Riedl, an of¤cial in Referate III and IV in the Berchtold years, produced a mediocre qualifying examination in German entitled “The Advantages and Disadvantages of a Parliamentary System of Government.”55 Although testing a candidate’s command of written French constituted the original raison d’être of the qualifying examination, the foreign of¤ce used it to appraise a prospective diplomat in other ways as well. When Count Albert Mensdorff-Pouilly arrived at the Ballhausplatz for his Vorprüfung, Plason took the opportunity to size up the young man’s spoken French, which he found very elegant.56 Mensdorff ’s mother, Princess Dietrichstein, presided over one of the most cosmopolitan of Viennese salons, where, among others, she cultivated foreign diplomats.57 No doubt Mensdorff, who had grown up speaking French with his mother’s guests, felt quite comfortable conversing with Plason. Twenty years later, Plason declared himself impressed by Count Elemér Pejácsevich’s command of the spoken language.58 However, Plason does not seem to have systematically assessed the speaking abilities of the applicants. Only on the eve of the war did the Ballhausplatz make the ability to express oneself orally in French a requirement for admission. In the comments that Plason appended to each Vorprüfung, he sometimes recorded his impressions of an applicant’s intellectual abilities. The conceptual approach to the topic, as well as the thoroughness and logic of the treatment, all furnished material for his conclusions. Plason also gathered some idea of the candidate’s familiarity with current affairs, diplomatic history, and other subjects useful for a career in the foreign service. He could even detect a good mind behind a bad command of French, a point he did not fail to emphasize if he believed an applicant would make a good acquisition for the Ballhausplatz. Though disappointed by Baron Georg Franckenstein’s French, Plason believed his

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work to be that of a thoughtful, well-educated young man who could easily improve his language skills during the year of Probepraxis.59 Rudolf von Mittag’s resoundingly successful qualifying examination may have laid the basis for his later reputation as one of the rising stars among the diplomats.60 Behind Mittag’s ¶uent French, keen mind, and quick perception, Plason discerned a solid education.61 The cool judgment and clear thinking exhibited in Baron Theodor Pirquet’s essay, uniquely entitled “Espérances et déceptions d’un émigrant,” likewise impressed Plason.62 The good manners and tact of Maximilian von Glommer pleased Plason almost as much as the linguistic and substantive excellence of his exam. He also pointed out that Glommer came from an old, respectable family of civil servants.63 In the course of an interview with an applicant, Plason sometimes discovered other attractive talents. His favorable estimation of the intelligence of Count Friedrich Szápáry rose even more when he discovered the latter’s command of English, not yet a requirement for admission.64 Nevertheless, Plason’s frequent complaints that neither the candidates nor upper of¤cialdom at the Ballhausplatz took the qualifying examination seriously are borne out by the results of numerous individual performances. His negative evaluations of applicants’ work on the Vorprüfung appear all too frequently in the personnel ¤les. The ¤nal decision on whom to admit or reject did not, however, rest with Plason, but with the ¤rst section chief, and, ultimately, the foreign minister. Even the most damning of Plason’s appraisals sometimes did not deter the foreign of¤ce from opening its portal. In the margin of one unsuccessful attempt, that of Count Paul Wenckheim, Plason scribbled that the Ballhausplatz could expect little if he were granted admission. Notwithstanding such a withering assessment, Section Chief von Mérey admitted him after discussing the matter with the foreign minister. Go|uchowski further ordered that Wenckheim, a great-grandson of Field Marshall Radetzky, be packed off to a summer course in Dijon to improve his execrable French.65 Many aspirants whose exams fell short, like Baron Ludwig Flotow, Hermann von Mitscha, and Guido von Mende, entered under the condition that they improve their French during their year of provisional service, but no evidence has been found to show that the foreign of¤ce later turned out anyone for de¤cient French. Plason found Baron Franz Matscheko’s essay very inadequate, labeling it one of the worst he had seen in years. Taking the opportunity once again to call for the strengthening of the language requirements for the service, he pointedly refused to support the admission of Matscheko.66 Undeterred, Plason’s superiors in the foreign of¤ce

46 • aristocratic redoubt ignored his advice and accepted him.67 Matscheko went on to write the famous assessment in June 1914 of the monarchy’s international position. The regulations of 1880 generously allowed a candidate who failed the qualifying examination to have a second chance. A number of future diplomats took advantage of that provision. When Count August Demblin’s ¤rst effort miscarried, Section Chief von Mérey advised the young man to report again in the fall of that year. After several months of cramming, Demblin duly passed.68 Count Paul Esterházy’s ¤rst attempt likewise proved a ¤asco, but he squeaked by on a second try the following year.69 A failure on the qualifying examination did on occasion result in the outright rejection of an applicant, though even that did not rule out eventual admission. That Ludwig von Boróczy’s mother had been born a Countess Berchtold did not save her son from a refusal after his miserable performance on the Vorprüfung. Jenny Berchtold Boróczy had even appealed to her cousin Count Albert Nemes, who at that time headed the important Referat in charge of Russian and Balkan affairs at the Ballhausplatz.70 A year later, Boróczy managed to pass the exam, although once again he seems to have tried to stave off possible disaster by invoking the help of relatives.71 Connections undoubtedly secured the admission of Count Heinrich Hoyos, who appears to have passed only after a third try. Hoyos’s struggle began in 1903, when he twice endeavored to write a successful essay, once in the spring, when he was turned down outright,72 and then again in the fall. On the second occasion, Foreign Minister Go|uchowski himself had indicated that he wanted Hoyos admitted,73 but the candidate’s effort apparently miscarried that time as well. Finally, in late 1904, Hoyos’s dogged persistence ended in success when the Ballhausplatz declared his third attempt satisfactory.74 That Hoyos’s two brothers and late father, a former ambassador, all belonged to the diplomatic corps surely strengthened the patience and indulgence of the foreign of¤ce. After botching his ¤rst qualifying exam in June 1881, Baron Franz Buschmann enlisted the support of Prince Gustav of SaxeWeimar-Eisenach, who sent a warm letter of recommendation on his behalf to Foreign Minister Haymerle.75 Though accustomed to outsiders pushing and promoting their favorite applicants, the foreign of¤ce may have been surprised at this intervention by a foreign princeling. While informing His Highness that Buschmann had regrettably not satis¤ed the examiner, Haymerle expressed his fervent hope (“was ich lebhaft wünsche”) that Buschmann would soon repeat the test.76 Less

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than a week after the receipt of the prince’s letter, Buschmann retook the qualifying exam with acceptable results. Of the various educational achievements expected of candidates, the Ballhausplatz always asked for con¤rmation of a successfully completed Matura, the comprehensive test which marked the end of secondary school. While detailed evidence on the early educational backgrounds of the diplomats and their colleagues stationed permanently in Vienna is sparse, a few conclusions may nevertheless be drawn. One authority, Gernot Stimmer, has argued that a large percentage of appointments to the Ballhausplatz went to former students of the Theresianum, the monarchy’s most prestigious secondary school.77 The Theresianum had been founded in 1745 by Maria Theresa as an institution to train the sons of the nobility for service in the higher reaches of the state bureaucracy. Down to 1918, it maintained its reputation as an elite school, although its social character changed with the admittance of non-nobles after 1848. However, only a small percentage of foreign of¤ce employees in the Aehrenthal-Berchtold years came from the Theresianum. For purposes of calculation, Stimmer combined the graduates of the Theresianum and of the Consular Academy into one category to make his point that graduates of the two institutions “exclusively dominated” the bureaucracy of the Ballhausplatz.78 If we treat the alumni from each of the two academies separately, however, we discover that of the 251 functionaries under consideration, only 39 (15.5%) had attended the Theresianum.79 This ¤gure inches up slightly only when the 163 diplomats are taken alone (15.9%) and goes down slightly (12.8%) for the 103 permanent functionaries in Vienna. Despite the importance usually accorded the Theresianum in Austrian public life, only a few “old boys” from the school reached positions of importance in the foreign service in the years before the war. Count Johann Forgách and Cajetan von Mérey each served as a section chief, as did, brie¶y, Count Friedrich Szápáry before his appointment to the embassy in St. Petersburg. Among the other ambassadors, only two, Prince Johann Schönburg-Hartenstein at the Vatican and Count Rudolf Welsersheimb in Madrid, attended the Theresianum. Of the ministers plenipotentiary, the Theresianum produced only Eugen von Kuczyñski, pulled out of the consular service to head the undesirable legations in Cetinje, Rio de Janeiro, and Beijing, and Baron Franz Riedl, whom the foreign of¤ce banished to Brazil and then to Mexico. Neither of the foreign

48 • aristocratic redoubt ministers graduated from the Theresianum, and no evidence indicates that its students enjoyed any particular favor at the Ballhausplatz. Given the apparent preference for diplomats from the court nobility, educational achievements at the Theresianum, a bastion of the “second society,” probably counted for less than in branches of the bureaucracy known to value intellect above blue blood. More than three-quarters of the small number of recruits to the foreign service from the Theresianum came from the bureaucratic or entrepreneurial nobility. The custom of the aristocracy in educating its sons at home doubtlessly explains why the names of secondary schools appear so infrequently among the available biographical data. One contemporary, Prince Karl Anton Rohan, son of a Bohemian magnate, later remembered that, as a rule, private tutors taught the sons and daughters of great noblemen within the privacy and security of castle walls. Only the examinations, primarily the Matura, were taken at a public institution.80 Although the father of Count Emerich Csáky sent his son to the public Gymnasium in Budapest’s 5th district, Csáky himself considered his schooling somewhat of an anomaly in the upper class. He ascribed his instruction outside the home to his father’s desire to demonstrate liberal sympathies during his term as Hungarian minister of education.81 The talented Lukas Haug, a scholar from Württemberg noted for his expertise in philology and the natural sciences, tutored Count Leopold Berchtold between the ages of seven and twenty in the seclusion of his parent’s Moravian estate. Later in life, the foreign minister could still quote long passages from Greek and Latin classics.82 Other aristocratic members of the diplomatic corps from both halves of the monarchy, like Counts Otto Brandis and Joseph Somssich, also enjoyed a private education.83 While many future diplomats received their secondary training at home, the available evidence suggests that at least some attended a Gymnasium. The school reforms carried out after 1848 included a far-reaching reorganization of the high-school curricula that balanced traditional classical learning with instruction in the modern humanities, sciences, and mathematics.84 That successful experiment in turn became the model by which even private educators came to feel bound, as their pupils generally took examinations at public institutions. But even the most brilliant of tutors obviously had dif¤culties duplicating the range of offerings and learning techniques found at a Gymnasium. And given the rising importance of education, not only in terms of social prestige, but also as a requirement for entry into nearly all branches of state service, the aristocracy, albeit slowly and hesitantly, began to send its sons to school. Among

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the deeply Catholic upper nobility, institutions run by the church naturally found favor, and also happened to be among the most prestigious in the monarchy.85 Such establishments also drew the second tier of the nobility, among whom Bildung had always been more respected.86 Although we know of only a few diplomats who graduated from a state Gymnasium, the evidence to date allows for no conclusions on the actual breakdown between those educated publicly or by tutors, or for speculation about the number coming from church schools. Attempts to detect possible differences in educational patterns between diplomats and permanent ministerial of¤cials founder on the same dif¤culty.87 All applicants for the diplomatic corps or service in the of¤ce in Vienna also had to prove that they had either completed a course of juridical studies and had passed a series of state examinations (Staatsprüfungen) or had ¤nished a doctorate of jurisprudence. Just as in the second half of the nineteenth century the high nobility had accepted the Matura as a necessary rite of passage, so they gradually warmed to the study of law.88 Since the later eighteenth century, Austrian rulers had recognized that a modern, rational state needed properly trained of¤cials, and had consequently placed increasing emphasis on legal training as a prerequisite for admission to the bureaucracy. The governments of Maria Theresa, Joseph II, and Leopold II all issued decrees to that effect.89 In keeping with that tradition, the foreign of¤ce, in codifying the requirements for admission in the 1850s, asked candidates to present evidence of university attendance and the successful completion of the state exams.90 Aristocrats, who considered state service one of the few acceptable forms of employment, therefore needed a few semesters of jurisprudence to enter the diplomatic corps. Concomitantly, noblemen may have found an acquaintance with the law useful in the administration of their estates.91 By the end of the century, according to one contemporary, aristocrats attending universities enrolled almost exclusively in law faculties.92 Juridical studies completed at universities in either half of the monarchy or at any of the Hungarian legal academies satis¤ed the Ballhausplatz. With the most important and prestigious law faculty, Vienna not surprisingly drew large numbers of students from all parts of the empire.93 Available, if incomplete, evidence for the 251 of¤cials under examination suggests that the University of Vienna attracted an overwhelming preponderance of future employees of the foreign of¤ce, perhaps more than attended all the other possible institutions combined. Budapest, with less than one-third of those in Vienna, trailed a distant second, while Prague, Cracow, Innsbruck, Graz, Klausenburg (Kolozsvár), and Czernowitz all lay even further behind.

50 • aristocratic redoubt Three diplomats attended one of the Hungarian legal academies: two, Béla von Ambró and Count Nikolaus Szécsen, in Preøburg (Pozsony); and one, Albert von Eperjesy, in Hermannstadt (Nagy-Szeben). The general state examinations, required for admission to any branch of the bureaucracy, obliged students to be conversant with topics like civil and criminal law, judicial procedure, church law, public law, political economy, and administrative law.94 Most diplomats, as well as their counterparts at the Ballhausplatz, had earlier contented themselves with the semesters of study necessary to take the state exams. After the turn of the century, candidates more often possessed a doctorate in jurisprudence or, in the case of the Hungarians, a doctorate in political science. Of the monarchy’s ten ambassadors in 1914, most of whom had been admitted to the service in the 1870s and 1880s, only two, Szápáry in St. Petersburg and the middle-class Dumba in Washington, had earned a doctorate, both at Vienna. On the other hand, only two of the eight candidates who passed the last prewar diplomatic examination, in November 1913, did not hold that degree.95 The contrast re¶ects the increasing, if still very incomplete, professionalization of the foreign of¤ce in the last decades of the nineteenth century. While a ¶agrant waiving of the educational requirements seems to have been rather rare by 1900, some of the diplomats whom the foreign of¤ce had earlier allowed to slide through without the proper quali¤cations reached the apogee of their careers during the Aehrenthal-Berchtold years. The emperor himself gave the wink to Count Siegfried Clary, who possessed neither the Matura nor a background at a university.96 Count Albert Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein and Count Rudolf KhevenhüllerMetsch, ambassadors in London and Paris, respectively, both lacked the third state examination at the time of their admission. In Mensdorff ’s case, Foreign Minister Kálnoky asked the emperor to overlook the de¤ciency, citing the long years of service of his father, the former foreign minister. Kálnoky helpfully pointed out that Julius Andrássy the younger, son of another former foreign minister, had also recently been admitted without the same exam.97 Count Heinrich Lützow’s path into the service resembled Siegfried Clary’s in many respects. Like Clary, Lützow secured the post of an unpaid provisional attaché, in this case in Stuttgart, where, during his two year tour of duty, he earned the favor of his chief, Baron Karl Pfusterschmid.98 The regulations provided that such attachés ultimately had no claim on a permanent position in the corps, but Pfusterschmid recommended Lützow highly, suggesting that he be allowed to take the entrance examination even though he lacked the prescribed re-

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51

quirements.99 Lützow at least had completed high school, unlike Clary, but had neither juridical studies nor the state examinations. Foreign Minister Andrássy voiced his opposition to allowing unquali¤ed candidates into the service, but conceded that turning away Lützow after having admitted the even less acceptable Clary would have been hard to defend.100 Renowned for his intellectual shallowness, Lützow eventually became ambassador to Italy under Go|uchowski and Aehrenthal. In the years after the turn of the century, resounding names and connections also occasionally helped the Ballhausplatz overlook obvious educational de¤ciencies.101 Graduation from the Consular Academy (originally the Oriental Academy) provided an acceptable alternative to the study of law for admission to the foreign service. The founding of the Academy in the middle of the eighteenth century was rooted in the state’s need for more functionaries schooled in Near Eastern languages, who could in turn deal with the growing diplomatic and commercial contacts between the monarchy and the Ottoman Empire.102 Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the foreign of¤ce restructured the Oriental Academy to take into account changed circumstances, especially the expansion of trade and, with it, the consular service from areas ruled by the Turks to the great overseas empires of the western powers. The change of name from the “Oriental” to the “Consular” Academy re¶ected the reorganization.103 By the early twentieth century, the Academy had earned a reputation as perhaps the best such institution in Europe, where students underwent intensive training in languages, history, all branches of law, trade policy, commerce, and economics.104 Assertions to the contrary aside, graduates of the Consular Academy probably represented the most vastly underutilized reservoir of talent readily available to the Ballhausplatz.105 During the Aehrenthal-Berchtold years, only 10.3% of all the of¤cials employed either in the diplomatic corps or in the central of¤ce in Vienna had ever been enrolled there. Among the diplomats alone, the ¤gure rises only slightly to 15.3%. Only one permanent functionary of the central of¤ce, Emil von Stofella, had studied at that institution, although a tiny number of former students of the Consular Academy who joined the diplomatic corps later took up high-ranking posts in the ministry. But the percentage here, 4.8%, remained abysmally low. Nonetheless, products of the Academy probably achieved greater sway at the Ballhausplatz than in the diplomatic corps. Both of Aehrenthal’s ¤rst section chiefs, Barons Guido Call and Ladislaus Müller, had attended the Academy, and both later held the ambassadorship in Tokyo. Another alumnus, Ludwig von Callenberg, became a

52 • aristocratic redoubt section chief near the end of Go|uchowski’s term, only to be ousted shortly thereafter by Aehrenthal. By far the most in¶uential alumnus at the Ballhausplatz was Rudolf Pogatscher, a key adviser on Balkan affairs who, however, retained his diplomatic status.106 Except for Call’s and Müller’s brief stints in Japan, no graduate of the Consular Academy held any of the monarchy’s nine other ambassadorships during the period. Thirteen of the twenty-six diplomats who had attended the school ended their careers as a minister plenipotentiary. Most, however, held the least attractive of the available legations, and many emerged from the consular service only to take posts that few diplomats would accept. With the exception of Belgrade, none of the assignments carried much weight in the foreign of¤ce. Eugen von Kuczyñski, a former consul general, spent ¤fteen years moving from Cetinje to Rio and ¤nally to Peking before retirement. Norbert Schmucker may well have longed for his consulate in Genoa after sweltering in Buenos Aires for nearly four years.107 Likewise, Rudolf von Wodianer probably received the news of his promotion from consul general in Venice to envoy in Bangkok with mixed feelings. After more than two decades in the consular service, the capable Otto von Hoenning-O’Carroll ¤nally secured a transfer into the diplomatic corps, only to be sent to Argentina as Schmucker’s successor. Little evidence exists that would shed light on the number of Consular Academy students who, within a short time of graduation, tried to win admittance to the diplomatic corps. What is known is that only about half of the twenty-six diplomats with an Academy background entered the corps soon after they had completed their course of study. Moreover, most of those came from rare¤ed social backgrounds quite atypical among the pupils at the school. The Consular Academy, like the Theresianum, constituted a bastion of the “second society,” as a glance through the rolls for the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries quickly shows.108 Nevertheless, a majority of recent Academy graduates admitted to the diplomatic service, like Baron Ludwig Ambrózy, Count Emerich Csáky, Count Otto Czernin, Baron Erwein Gudenus, and Count Laurenz Szápáry, came from the top ranks of the nobility. Several provided the only representatives of the aristocracy in their classes at the Academy, and most spent less than ¤ve years in the consular service before transferring out. Csáky and Czernin each lasted less than a year. Others, like Count Gilbert Hohenwart and Baron Otto Kuhn, were the sons of prominent dignitaries, the former of a minister-president, the latter of a war minister. But even the presence of a few of less well-connected backgrounds hardly dispels the impression

Admission Standards and Education

•

53

that an education in the Consular Academy offered no great advantage for an aspiring diplomat. Not surprisingly, a number of candidates for admission had studied abroad, some merely to improve their language skills, others for more extended periods. Having failed his ¤rst attempt at passing the qualifying examination, Count August Demblin spent four months in intensive training in Dijon improving his French before a second try.109 The Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques in Paris furnished one relatively popular destination for future diplomats, as the examples of Baron Johann Styrcea and Ernst Janotta illustrate.110 Janotta had also enrolled at the Ecole Practique de Commerce Pigier in the French capital. Georg von Grigorcea also studied trade, but in Leipzig, where in 1899–1900 he successfully completed a course of study at the Handels-Akademie. England attracted aspirants to a diplomatic career as well. Both Baron Johann Economo and Count Georg Festetics attended Oxford, where the former received his baccalaureate.111 Others, like Count Siegfried Clary and Max von Stepski, preferred the offerings in Switzerland. 112 Having satis¤ed the entrance requirements and passed the qualifying exam, an applicant then embarked upon a period of provisional service (known as Konzepts- or Probepraxis) either in one of the departments of the Vienna of¤ce or in one of the legations abroad. Only after the satisfactory completion of that assignment would he be allowed to take the diplomatic examination and receive de¤nitive admittance. The ministry required one year of such service for those who stayed in Vienna but allowed up to two years for those who preferred the attractions of a foreign capital.113 Nearly all future permanent of¤cials of the central bureau discharged the obligation in Vienna, as did most prospective diplomats. The foreign of¤ce gave temporary posts abroad during the year of Probepraxis to less than one-¤fth of the prospective diplomats. Most such candidates came from the high nobility, whose resounding names and polished manners were thought to make up for what they lacked in formal training. From the Hungarian half of the monarchy, magnates like Count Ladislaus Cziráky, Count Maximilian Hadik, and Count Moritz Pálffy, and from Cisleithania, grandees like Count Ladislaus Hoyos, Count Franz Kinsky, and Prince Johann Schönburg-Hartenstein spent all or part of their provisional service abroad. Rarely did a future diplomat have the ill fortune to land in a Balkan capital or in some somnolent post of no social

54 • aristocratic redoubt or political interest. But those that did tended to lack the aristocratic background considered requisite for the grander European embassies. The Ballhausplatz doubtlessly considered Lothar von Egger’s nineteenth-century patent of nobility suf¤cient for dull, republican Bern. Baron Karl Giskra, whose grandfather had been a tanner, passed muster for Bucharest, as did Baron Alexander Lago. During the Aehrenthal-Berchtold years, most candidates spent their year of Konzeptspraxis in one of the administrative departments of the foreign of¤ce, although assignment to a political Referat also occurred. Dating back decades, the practice seems to have produced mixed results.114 All aspirants undoubtedly learned something of the daily routines of the foreign of¤ce, and some might even have received a grounding in various questions of policy. The future foreign minister Berchtold underwent his baptism in Balkan affairs during his months in Referat II, which oversaw, inter alia, the monarchy’s religious protectorate in Albania.115 Others, like Count Johann Ferdinand Kuefstein, received only modest tasks, such as drafting short, formulaic documents.116 In response to the lack of a challenge, Count Franz Vetter even asked his chief in Department 8a in 1912 to give him longer, more dif¤cult duties.117 Perhaps more importantly, such provisional assignments allowed senior Ballhausplatz of¤cials to form some opinion of the capabilities and work habits of the candidates. In 1910, the personnel chief, Baron Ottokar Schlechta, introduced a more systematic evaluation of the performance of the applicants, requesting the departments to submit formal, written appraisals. Most aspirants gained at least some form of quali¤ed approval. The director of Department 3 believed Alexander von Mocsonyi to be able, though not very disciplined or industrious.118 Otto von Jankovich came roughly to the same conclusion about Ludwig von Boróczy after observing his work in Department 14 for several months.119 Count Olivier Woracziczky’s obvious lack of interest in the affairs of Department 6 (citizenship and estate matters) did not escape the notice of his superiors. He appeared at the Ballhausplatz only long enough to dispatch the easy tasks assigned to him, and bolted when he got the chance.120 Woracziczky’s light-hearted approach to his ¤rst job does not seem to have been shared, though, by most of his colleagues, like Baron Leopold Andrian-Werburg, who recorded having even passed long hours at his desk during his year of Probepraxis.121 Applicants also set aside time during this period to prepare for the diplomatic examination (Diplomatenprüfung). To that end, the foreign

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55

of¤ce routinely excused the candidates from their duties at the Ballhausplatz for the last three months of their provisional assignments.122 Some hired tutors to help them get ready, while others, including Andrian, attended lectures on topics like diplomatic history.123 But before Aehrenthal’s reforms, the foreign of¤ce required no systematic study plan tailored speci¤cally for the examination.124 In theory, the diplomatic examination, the most important single obstacle an aspiring diplomat had to overcome, had always, since its inception in 1851, placed high educational and intellectual demands on the candidates.125 Part of the exam, which consisted of both oral and written sections, had to be taken in French, and the material to be mastered included topics in history, international law, and economics. One diplomat later remembered having found daunting the expectation that he would have to exhibit such a vast array of knowledge.126 Nevertheless, much evidence suggests that neither the candidates nor most mandarins at the Ballhausplatz took the examination very seriously. In 1897, at the time of his application, Count Ottokar Czernin expressed irritation that he would even be required to take it, especially as his brother-in-law, Count Karl Kinsky, had gained admission without it. In protest, Czernin’s father-in-law sought an interview with Foreign Minister Go|uchowski demanding an explanation for what he termed a “miserable state of affairs” (elende Protektionswirtschaft) in which the Ballhausplatz had excused one but not the other from the requirement. Intimidated by the clarity of such logic, Go|uchowski yielded, permitting Czernin to join the corps as Kinsky had done.127 Czernin’s experience makes his later characterization of the exam as a joke (bekannter Schwindel) even more meaningful. He may have exaggerated in asserting that no one had ever failed, but even the weakest performances often received a passing mark.128 Relatively few candidates appear to have escaped taking the exam, but good Viennese Protektion could head off the worst consequences of folly. In 1907, the foreign of¤ce allowed Count Ladislaus Cziráky to take the Diplomatenprüfung even though it considered him a very weak candidate. His kinsman, Prince Gottfried HohenloheSchillingsfürst, intervened repeatedly at the Ballhausplatz on Cziráky’s behalf, although he wryly conceded that Cziráky’s abilities left much to be desired. Hohenlohe expressed, however, considerable dismay at one of Cziráky’s exam questions, which dealt with “the monarchy’s trade treaties with the Balkan states with particular reference to the Ausgleich.”129 That Cziráky could handle such an essay seemed to Hohenlohe too absurd a notion even to consider. But Hohenlohe, exhibiting aristocratic disdain for

56 • aristocratic redoubt commercial matters, also doubted that anyone else could write an acceptable answer to such a question.130 Cziráky’s dif¤culties may perhaps also be ascribed partly to factors other than his own dull-wittedness. Twelve years earlier, Lajos Láng, a prominent Hungarian economist serving on the commission for the diplomatic examination, had suggested that the trade-policy section of the written exam could be dispensed with altogether. Another longtime member of the commission, Adolf von Plason, whose calls for reform at the Ballhausplatz were considered tiresomely insistent by his superiors, seconded Láng’s opinion. He argued that the few months that aspirants spent in the foreign of¤ce before taking the examination could hardly provide suf¤cient grounding in the monarchy’s trade treaties and commerce for them to write intelligent essays. To correct the problem, he vainly advocated signi¤cantly increasing the duration of the probationary service before the examination.131 Widespread cheating also undermined the reputation and credibility of the diplomatic examination. While urging that provision be made to monitor the exam, Plason lamented that “there was a time when our young diplomats were regarded as well-bred, decent gentlemen and enjoyed the best reputation abroad. Today this reputation is badly damaged.”132 Until 1910, the diplomatic examination took place twice a year, in May and November, and consisted of oral and written sections. From the 1850s onward, the content of the exam changed but little. In the early days, candidates were responsible in both parts for topics in international law, diplomatic history, the law of the German Confederation, and Austrian jurisprudence and administrative law. At least one oral and one written question had to be answered in French.133 More than a decade later, in response to changing realities, the Ballhausplatz added international trade policy and commerce to the list, and eliminated any reference to the defunct German Confederation.134 No change took place in the content or procedures of the exam during the long ministries of Kálnoky and Go|uchowski, a period noted more for the blue-blooded than for the professional character of the foreign of¤ce. A decree dating from 1880, which remained in force through the ¤rst half of Aehrenthal’s tenure, regulated the diplomatic examinations of the majority of those who served between 1906 and 1914. It differed little from the previous ordinance, specifying only that the replies to questions in diplomatic history and international law be in French, and adding ¤nance to the section on economic affairs.135

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In 1880, the foreign of¤ce likewise expanded from three to four of¤cials the commission that oversaw the exam. The ¤rst section chief generally acted as chairman, with the other members drawn from the higher ranks of of¤cialdom at the Ballhausplatz, like Plason. The examiner responsible for economic matters nearly always came from outside the foreign of¤ce, and was usually a Hungarian. Count Markus Wickenburg, a former state secretary in the Hungarian commerce ministry who sat on the commission between 1902 and 1912, had succeeded Lajos Láng, a professor of political economy and statistics at the University of Budapest. Just as the content and organization of the exam had remained static in the decades before 1906, so too had the composition of the commission. Plason’s three decades (1878–1907) went unrivaled, though Emil von Jettel, head of the press bureau for a time under Aehrenthal, had served since 1891. However, Jettel participated only minimally in the written part of the exam, with Plason often grading both the question in diplomatic history and the one on international law.136 The indulgence with which the exams seem to have been graded perhaps re¶ected in some way the sophistication and breadth of many of the questions. In May 1906, the candidates were given the following topics: “La politique austro-hongroise depuis 1866”; “Essai d’une critique du programme eventuel de la deuxième conférence de la Haye”; and “In welcher Weise haben die Agrarinteressen die europäische Wirtschaftspolitik in den letzten hundert Jahren beein¶usst?”137 Those taking the exam in November of the same year discussed “Rapport politiques austro-français entre 1815 et 1866”; “Différences entre la guerre maritime et la guerre terrestre”; and “Der gegenwärtig in Kraft bestehende Handels- und Zollvertrag der Monarchie mit dem deutschen Reiche ist mit dem gleichen Vertrage vom Jahre 1891 zu vergleichen.”138 Questions with a bearing on controversial domestic matters were avoided, though the latter often impinged on foreign policy. In 1909, Wickenburg intended to query the applicants on the opposition of Austrian agrarians and Hungarian industrialists to the joint customs union, as well as the effect such economic interests exercised on trade policy toward the Balkan states.139 But at the request of the ¤rst section chief, Ladislaus von Müller, Wickenburg agreed to submit a revised version. Finding the latter too contentious as well, Müller then consulted Aehrenthal, who directed that Wickenburg con¤ne himself exclusively to the monarchy’s trade relations with foreign states.140 Wickenburg curtly forwarded a third proposal, which the minister found acceptable.141

58 • aristocratic redoubt Tentative, often stalled efforts to professionalize Austro-Hungarian diplomacy in the second half of the nineteenth century achieved little in the way of substantive change. The introduction of exams and educational requirements was taken seriously neither by higher Ballhausplatz of¤cialdom—Plason excepted—or by the candidates themselves. Insuf¤cient quali¤cations or test scores could be overcome with a wink from the foreign minister or even an appeal to the emperor. Pervasive kinship networks and the in¶uence of patrons generally served to smooth away vexatious obstacles. Foreign Minister Andrássy had opposed such favoritism and introduced reforms, but his successors, especially Kálnoky and Go|uchowski set the unprofessional, aristocratic tone in the service that would prevail until World War I. Thus, the monarchy’s representatives abroad remained more at home among rare¤ed courtiers and aristocrats than in the hurly-burly world of public relations or economic issues. And the impressionistic accounts of contemporaries suggest that AustroHungarian diplomats were becoming increasingly irrelevant in the capitals to which they were accredited. Only during the Aehrenthal years would the Ballhausplatz begin to reform the admissions process to take into account new circumstances.

Baron (1909 Count) Alois Aehrenthal Foreign Minister 1906–1912

Count Leopold Berchtold Foreign Minister 1912–1915 February 18, 1912 (the day after his appointment)

Berchtold as a Hungarian magnate

(1910 Count) Ladislaus von Szõgyény-Marich Ambassador in Berlin 1892–1914

3 Wealth and Outside Career Experience aristocratic redoubt Wealth and Outside Career Experience

A

t the same time that social and educational homogeneity distinguished candidates for admission to the foreign of¤ce, so too did economic circumstance and previous employment experience. Nearly all of the functionaries in both the diplomatic corps and the central of¤ce climbed through the ranks from the bottom. Occasionally, the Ballhausplatz drafted a senior of¤cial from another area of governmental service to ¤ll a speci¤c position, but most functionaries began their careers in the foreign of¤ce at a relatively young age. Other than those who had spent a year or two of provisional service in another of¤ce of the bureaucracy, most came straight from the university. None had previously been engaged in trade or industry, although a number knew something about managing an estate. For those posted in the missions, the private means provided at the beginning by their parents or guardians also proved critical. In general, the pro¤le of those seeking to be admitted presented the same uniformity with respect to wealth and outside experience as it did in other respects. Here, too, Ballhausplatz requirements played a crucial role. The preference in the foreign of¤ce for aristocrats undoubtedly persuaded many graduates of the Consular Academy, as well as other recently ennobled or bourgeois candidates, not to seek a career in the diplomatic corps. But another factor proved equally daunting. From 1880 onward, the Ballhausplatz vigorously enforced a rule that applicants possess a private income. In a foreign capital, a diplomat was expected to maintain a style of life not only commensurate with his own social rank, but one that would re¶ect the dignity and greatness of the Habsburg Empire. Travel and moving expenses, outlays for lavish entertainments, and the daily costs of running a household with the necessary personnel quickly drained a shallow pocketbook. Even more importantly, new attachés received no

59

60 • aristocratic redoubt salary for several years after they had been admitted, a practice by no means restricted either to the foreign of¤ce or to the monarchy.1 Only occasionally did the central of¤ce grant a modest sum to help cover extraordinary expenses. A private income, therefore, proved not only desirable but actually indispensable. In the 1880s, the Ballhausplatz required evidence of a yearly sum of at least 4,000 Gulden, which by 1914 had been raised to 12,000 Kronen (6,000 gulden).2 A notarized statement from the applicant’s father agreeing to provide the requisite funds on a permanent basis generally satis¤ed that demand. Such documentation had to be supplied even by candidates known to come from the wealthiest of homes, as Count Georg Festetics, the son of Hungary’s second-richest landowner, learned after breezily remarking that his ¤nancial circumstances were well-known at the Ballhausplatz.3 Johann Sigismund von Micha|owski, a graduate of the Consular Academy who came from a minor Galician noble family, probably entered the consular service because he lacked the income required of future diplomats. His marriage in 1910 to Countess Maria Wodzicka, however, improved his pecuniary situation and allowed him to transfer into the diplomatic service. In a sworn statement submitted to the foreign of¤ce, Micha|owski’s father-in-law promised his daughter and son-in-law a yearly annuity of 12,000 Kronen.4 That sum, combined with the 3,000 Kronen Micha|owski received from his brother each year,5 allowed the Ballhausplatz to post him to London, one of Europe’s most expensive capitals, but also one of the monarchy’s most alluring foreign missions.6 The income requirement doubtlessly helped narrow the ¤eld of available candidates for the diplomatic service primarily to sons of the landowning nobility. Until World War I, the majority of the monarchy’s wealthiest families, who could best afford to subsidize an expensive career in diplomacy, continued to come from the great territorial aristocracy.7 Landed wealth in Britain and Germany, on the other hand, had by the turn of the century been eclipsed by the spectacular fortunes acquired in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Those aristocrats still in the ranks of the superrich, like the duke of Westminster and Prince Donnersmarck, owed their wealth to commerce and industry rather than landowning per se. Among the top thirty millionaires in Prussia in 1912, only seven belonged to the high nobility, all the rest being plutocrats with names like Krupp, Rothschild, Thyssen, and Bleichröder.8 In Britain between 1809 and 1879, according to David Cannadine, “some 88 per cent of British millionaires had been landowners, but between 1880 and 1914, the ¤gure dropped to only 33 per cent.” 9 By contrast, the monarchy’s relative economic backwardness and the

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continuing primacy of the agrarian sector, particularly in Hungary, probably allowed the landed nobility to maintain its ascendancy among the wealthy down to the eve of the war. The sons of only a few rich industrialists entered the foreign service. Among the diplomats, Gilbert von Proskowetz represented the Bohemian sugar industry; Artur von Rosthorn, iron and steel; and Ernst Janotta, the Silesian sugar industry.10 Of the of¤cials stationed at the home of¤ce, the enormously wealthy Heinrich von Pacher came from a recently ennobled Bohemian family with textile factories.11 Otherwise the staff of no AustroHungarian embassy could match the industrial wealth found, for instance, at the German mission in London in 1913 and 1914. The ¤rst secretary, Richard von Kühlmann, was the son of a railroad magnate married to a Saarland Stumm. The mother of the second secretary, Carl von Schubert, was also a Stumm, while the third secretary, Leopold von Hoesch, came from a rich Ruhr industrial dynasty. Finally, Baron Albert GoldschmidtRothschild served as an attaché.12 The fortunes of very few AustroHungarian diplomats appear to have been based upon such modern, ¶uid forms of wealth. A few, like Count Leopold Strassoldo and Baron Alexander Musulin, cornered the heiresses of rich entrepreneurs. Strassoldo’s Prussian father-in-law, Theodor von Guilleaume, hailed from a rich industrial family in Cologne whose estimated worth in 1913 approached 56 million marks, placing it among the wealthiest German families.13 Musulin landed the granddaughter of Rudolf Isbary, a Bohemian textile magnate, who in 1860 established a branch in New York. One legation secretary of mediatized lineage, Count Hubert Stolberg-Stolberg, had close connections to Silesian coal through his middle-class grandmother, Countess Johanna Schaffgotsch, née Gryzik. Her wealth, combined with the landed estates and industries of her husband, made their fortune the sixth-largest in Prussia, valued at some 79 million marks.14 Nevertheless, only ¤ve diplomats (3.1%) sprang from families of industrialists in the modern sense.15 In contrast, the percentage of landowners among diplomatic fathers (50.3%) dwarfs that of any other occupation. State of¤cials and army of¤cers accounted for only 17.2% and 9.8% respectively, with lawyers (2.5%), bankers (1.8%), and academics (1.2%) trailing even further behind. The father of one envoy, Baron Karl Heidler, had been a doctor of medicine (.6%). But even these ¤gures understate the connection between the agrarian world and the foreign service. Some diplomats had mothers who owned signi¤cant estates, and others came from nonlanded branches of families that continued to hold large properties in the countryside. The father of the three Hoyos brothers apparently

62 • aristocratic redoubt owned no estates himself, but his brother, the head of the clan, possessed entailed domains in Lower Austria in excess of 80,517 acres.16 Likewise, the mother of Baron Léon de Vaux, née Countess Lanckoroñska, inherited Chodorów, a Galician estate of 7,603 acres.17 De Vaux’s father served as a high-ranking of¤cer. Other diplomats whose fathers were military men with close landed connections include Count Johann Pallavicini, Prince Gottfried Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Count Moritz Pálffy, and Count Friedrich Szápáry. Pallavicini’s ¤rst cousin of the elder branch succeeded to the family’s entailed estates, which encompassed 83,907 acres.18 Likewise, Moritz Pálffy’s older brother owned property in Nyitra and Poszony counties totaling 27,028 acres.19 In a broader sense, the landed element in the diplomatic corps surpassed the two-thirds mark. At least 108 of the 163 diplomats either possessed estates themselves or were the sons, grandsons, or nephews of landowners. This ¤gure does not include those with landed maternal relations (other than the mother) or those known to come from large landed clans, like the Bánffys, where more precise evidence on individual landholding is unclear.20 Even a property belonging to a more distant kinsman could yield a diplomat an income in the form of an appanage. An entailed estate ( ¤deicommissum), in particular, legally belonged to an entire family, whose head merely enjoyed the use of the property for his own lifetime.21 Part of his responsibility naturally included providing pecuniary support for the agnates. As a young man, Count Alfons Clary drew an appanage from Teplitz, a family ¤deicommissum in Bohemia of 20,499 acres that had been inherited by his father’s older brother.22 The Bohemian estate of 98,379 entailed acres owned by the father of Prince Karl Emil Fürstenberg, ambassador in Madrid, dwarfed the Clary latifundium. The entire domain, covering 575 square kilometers, included no fewer than nine castles, as well as vast forests, farms, and estate industries like breweries, distilleries, and dairies.23 Many of Bohemia’s ¤fty-seven other entailed properties, which together accounted for 11.15 percent of the kingdom’s land area, were represented among the diplomats as well.24 The Des Fours-Walderodes, Kinskys, Kolowrats, Lobkowitzs, Thuns, Trauttmansdorffs, and WindischGrätzs each contributed one family member to the foreign service, while the Czernins supplied two.25 Count Franz Kinsky, Alexander Hoyos’s deputy in Berchtold’s Kabinett, owned Adlerkosteletz, with a relatively modest size of 8,554 acres.26 Besides being president of the House of Lords, Prince Vincenz Windisch-Grätz’s father managed his estates, entailed and otherwise, scattered throughout the monarchy. The kernel of

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the family property, 49,187 acres, lay in Bohemia, but land totaling 6,669 acres in Styria and 17,670 acres in Hungary added half again to their acreage. The Czernins’ father had owned 18,930 acres in Bohemia, part of which Ottokar, the future foreign minister, eventually inherited. Prince Johann Lobkowitz likewise had no dif¤culty coming up with an independent income to satisfy the Ballhausplatz, given that his parents’ Bohemian properties, again only partly entailed, amounted to 36,558 acres. The Des Fours-Walderode ¤deicommissum of only 12,965 acres maintained the family at a slightly less grand level. Though not to such a great extent, other Cisleithanian provinces noted for large estates appear in the list of diplomatic holdings as well. Count Berchtold’s large Moravian property, Buchlau, with its elegant baroque château, became famous as the site of the controversial meeting in 1908 between Foreign Minister Aehrenthal and his Russian counterpart, Aleksandr Izvol’skij. Despite his many years in public life, Berchtold always exhibited a yearning to retire permanently amidst the broad ¤elds and dense forests of the Moravian countryside where he had spent his youth. His resignation from the St. Petersburg embassy in 1911 may be attributed partially to his desire to return to the administration of his estates.27 Other diplomats, like Ambassadors Mensdorff in London and Schönburg at the Vatican, as well as Count Hugo Logothetti, envoy in Teheran, also came from landholding families in Moravia.28 The revenues from Karwin, the enormous coal-producing Silesian property of the Larischs, enabled the family to spend large parts of every year in St. Moritz and in England, where Count Friedrich Larisch’s father maintained a ¤rst-class racing stable. Further, their Ringstraøe-era Palais in the Johannesgasse in Vienna furnished a focal point for gatherings of the crème de la crème.29 Galicia yielded at least eight landed diplomats, including Count Ludwig Badeni, the two Koziebrodzkis, Baron Léon de Vaux, Baron Alexander Lago, the Skrzyñski cousins, and Count Adam Tarnowski. Badeni’s father, the ill-fated minister-president, owned the largest holdings among this group, with 23,486 acres, while the elder brother of Tarnowski inherited a Galician estate of 10,983 acres. The properties of the others, with the possible exceptions of Ladislaus Skrzyñski’s and Lago’s, all exceeded 1,900 acres.30 Approximately a dozen diplomats or their fathers had estates in Lower Austria, though none approached in scale the Badeni holdings or the mammoth latifundia of Bohemia. Sierndorf, where Count Ferdinand Colloredo-Mannsfeld grew up, constituted one of the largest, with a total

64 • aristocratic redoubt area of 6,849 acres. The Schönborn-Buchheim’s ¤deicommissum Mautern, together with a series of other entailed properties, encompassed 15,305 acres. As one of the highest-ranking knights of the Order of Malta in the monarchy, Count Rudolf Khevenhüller-Metsch, the emissary in Paris, enjoyed the usufruct from Mailberg, an estate of 2,641 acres held by the order in Lower Austria.31 Ambassador Lützow in Rome owned a small estate, Strelzhof, in Lower Austria, but his father, like Khevenhüller’s, had been a Bohemian magnate. As younger sons, neither Lützow nor Khevenhüller inherited the thousands of hectares that had belonged to their parents. The Ballhausplatz drew landed noblemen from the smaller provinces of Cisleithania as well. The only two diplomats from Bukovina, Gregor von Grigorcea and Baron Johann Styrcea, had agrarian backgrounds. Grigorcea’s father had a modest estate, Karapczyn, of 2,443 acres, while the Styrceas possessed property both in Bukovina and in Rumania totaling 10,089 acres.32 Carinthia, Carniola, Styria, and Gorizia each contributed one or two diplomats. The Thurns’ ancestral estates were in Carinthia, and both Count Duglas Thurn, the ambassador in St. Petersburg, and his young cousin, Alexander, a legation secretary, appear to have owned property there.33 Raunach in Carniola had belonged to Count Gilbert Hohenwart’s father before being inherited by his brother. Count Leopold Strassoldo hailed from a territorial family in Gorizia. Baron Erwein Gudenus represented apparently the only clan with its primary holdings in Styria. Located at Frondsberg and Thannhausen, the Gudenus estates, owned by Erwein’s father, comprised some 4,556 acres. Several of the landed fortunes in Hungary, the three largest of which happened to be represented in the diplomatic corps, eclipsed even the giant Fürstenberg acreage in Bohemia. The fantastic riches of the Esterházys, who in the late eighteenth century had built a palace in western Hungary to rival Versailles, had diminished little by 1900 despite various ¤nancial dif¤culties.34 In 1911, the brother of the attaché Prince Rudolf Esterházy possessed estates in seven Hungarian counties amounting to 558,403 acres. The Hungarian holdings of the Schönborn-Buchheims, a family of mediatized counts who had settled in Lower Austria, rivaled those of the Esterházys only in sheer size. The agricultural value of the Schönborns’ 314,830 acres, all in Bereg county, did not approach that of the Esterházys, whose primary rival for lordly magni¤cence was Prince Tassilo Festetics, father of the Count Georg who had imperiously remarked on his well-known ¤nancial circumstances in his application for admission. The elder Festetics embodied the very image of an old-world

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grand seigneur, maintaining one of the best studs outside of England and living in feudal splendor at Keszthely, his palace on the shores of Lake Balaton. In 1896, during the millenary celebrations marking the founding of Hungary, Francis Joseph reviewed a procession of delegations from all the Hungarian counties, each sending a troop of mounted noblemen dressed in traditional costume. As one observer described it, “Count Tassilo and his men did not, however, ¤gure as the representatives of a county, but rode alone, as if his estate had been a county by itself.”35 The vast extent of his properties, centered in Somogy and Zala counties, totaled 169,534 acres. Between 1906 and 1914, of the ¤fty-eight diplomats who possessed Hungarian citizenship, forty-three (74%) are known to have been landowners or the sons of landowners, thus contributing disproportionately to the agrarian presence in the foreign of¤ce. The size of the property, of either the diplomat or his father, is known in thirty-¤ve cases. The great majority (82%) owned domains in excess of 1,422 acres (1,000 Joch), with a full 40% having more than 7,110 acres (5,000 Joch) and only a small percentage (17%) claiming no more than 1,000 Joch.36 Foreign Minister Berchtold’s 8,077 acres, which were scattered across three counties—Sopron, Temes, and Trencsén—constituted one of the smaller of the large estates, though his wife’s 16,199 acres resoundingly reinforced his magnate status.37 Other great landowners in Hungary possessing handsome domains also sent their sons into the diplomatic corps. The parents of Count Paul Wenckheim together held 121,394 acres, while in Torontál and Veszprém counties, Count Ivan Csekonics’s father had properties totaling 52,693 acres. Mindszent, the estate of Count Emerich Csáky’s father in Szepes county in Upper Hungary, encompassed 9,858 acres, and included a castle that had been the seat of his branch of the family for four generations.38 Csáky’s mother, Countess Anna Bolza, owned an estate in Bekes county of more than 4,835 acres. Count Johann Forgách, who played a central role in the monarchy’s foreign-policy apparatus, ¤rst as envoy in Serbia and later under Berchtold as a section chief, came from a landed family as well. Forgách, with 13,573 acres, was the largest landowner among the Hungarian diplomats, although a few of his colleagues, like Count Alexander Khuen-Belasi-Héderváry, stood to inherit considerably larger domains. Count Elemér Pejácsevich’s father, a Ban (governor) of Croatia, possessed an enormous entailed property called Nasice in Verõcze county in Slavonia that totaled 44,086 acres. It should not be surprising, then, that many Austro-Hungarian missions abroad contained a heavy landed element. In stark contrast to

66 • aristocratic redoubt the Germans, for example, most of the monarchy’s representatives in London, led by Ambassador Mensdorff, came from the great territorial aristocracy.39 Mensdorff ’s mother had inherited from her father, the last Prince Dietrichstein, the Nicolsburg latifundium in Moravia amounting to 9,189 acres,40 plus the Dietrichstein Palais on the Minoritenplatz in Vienna, where she opened the doors of her salon only pour le dessus du panier.41 The senior legation counselor, who was also chargé d’affaires in Mensdorff ’s absence, was Count Carl Trauttmansdorff, son of a landed grandee with two entailed estates in Bohemia encompassing 42,145 acres. Baron Georg Franckenstein, the junior legation counselor, came from a cadet branch of an ancient family with a ¤deicommissum at Ullstadt in Franconia.42 Of the three other diplomats posted at the embassy in Belgrave Square, Georg Festetics and Alexander Khuen-BelasiHéderváry, belonged to Hungarian magnate families. Only Baron Oskar Gautsch, son of a former Austrian minister-president, had no roots in the countryside. The overall makeup of the monarchy’s nine other embassies re¶ected a similar concentration of landed wealth. Of the forty-six diplomats posted in 1913 to those missions, thirty-three (71.7%) came from the landowning nobility.43 All of the Habsburg diplomats at the Quai d’Orsay and at the Holy See had agrarian backgrounds, and Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Madrid each lacked only one such. The landed element comprised half or more of the personnel stationed in Italy, Japan, and Turkey. Only in Washington, where three of the ¤ve members of the staff—Ambassador Hengelmüller, Baron Erich Zwiedinek, and Konstantin von Masirevich—did not come from country families, did the nonlanded contingent prevail. Diplomats whose fathers served as career bureaucrats made up the next-largest, but far smaller, group in the corps. Many, like Oskar Gautsch’s father, had reached the senior ranks, where their higher salaries helped them defray costs incurred by their sons in the diplomatic service. Baron Julius Zwiedinek, the father of the legation counselor in the United States, had been, as director of Referat I, one of the most in¶uential functionaries at the Ballhausplatz in the late nineteenth century. In the 1870s, Alexander von Mérey, whose son Cajetan became ambassador in Rome, established his reputation as the right-hand man of Finance Minister Benjamin Kállay during the occupation of BosniaHercegovina.44 The elder Mérey eventually became a section chief in the joint ¤nance ministry, and, perhaps more important for his material situation, secured a clutch of bank directorships.45

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However, determining nonsalary sources of income, like stocks and other shares, remains extremely dif¤cult. Cajetan von Mérey was known to be a bene¤ciary of a monetary ¤deicommissum.46 Such Pekuniär¤deicommisse, often in the form of securities and bonds, enabled a family, just as with entailed landed estates, to maintain its social position over generations.47 But unfortunately, the meager evidence prevents ascertaining how many diplomats might have had access to such earnings. Occasionally, the notarized ¤nancial documents submitted by candidates for admission shed some light on nonlanded wealth. For example, when applying to the Ballhausplatz, Baron Alexander Lago possessed a fortune in securities valued at 451,000 Kronen, on deposit in Lemberg at a branch of the CreditAnstalt. One-half of the interest income from this account, however, went to Lago’s father, a former diplomat, during his lifetime.48 Lago’s own half, plus an appanage of 4,500 Kronen a year that he received from home, enabled him to satisfy the Ballhausplatz’s stringent income requirement.49 Although the insistence on independent wealth reinforced the social exclusiveness of the corps, the meager diplomatic salaries budgeted by the parliamentary delegations made such wealth a necessity. Pay scales and expense allowances improved during the Dualist era at a glacial rate and remained very low down to the war (see tables 1 and 2 below). That the income demanded of newly appointed attachés equaled fully 60 percent of the wages of an ambassador—who occupied the top rung of the career ladder—provides the most telling indicator of the state of affairs. Those serving in the ¤eld received in addition some remuneration for outlays in the performance of their of¤cial duties, with the amount calculated according to the cost of living at individual posts. Entertaining, which included throwing dinners, receptions, balls, and soirées, was a central part of prewar diplomatic life and imposed great ¤nancial burdens. That it served both diplomatic and practical purposes—such as facilitating the gathering of information—meant that a diplomat could not easily neglect his social responsibilities if he wished to remain an effective agent. Furthermore, he and his staff had to come up with the fees for membership in exclusive private clubs, like the Cercle de l’Union in Paris or the Yacht Club in St. Petersburg, where they could mix with local worthies. Other unreimbursed expenditures, which often included heavy overhead associated with moving from country to country, made unencumbered personal wealth absolutely essential. If the numerous extant complaints are any indication, the compensation furnished by the foreign of¤ce rarely matched costs.

68 • aristocratic redoubt Rank

Salary

ambassador minister plenipotentiary embassy/legation counselor 1st class embassy/legation counselor 2nd class embassy/legation secretary 1st class embassy/legation secretary 2nd class attaché

20,000 16,000 11,000 7,000 6,000 4,000 0

table 1. Salary Scales (in Kronen) for the Diplomatic Corps, 1914

The major embassies, especially those in Russia, France, and Great Britain, required an enormous private outlay, not only by the ambassador himself but also by his subordinates. In 1906, Count Nikolaus Szécsen refused the offer to succeed Aehrenthal in St. Petersburg because of the ¤nancial sacri¤ce involved in maintaining an establishment appropriate to the notorious opulence of the tsarist capital.50 Shortly after becoming envoy at the Court of St. James, Count Albert Mensdorff (1904–14) began to bombard the foreign of¤ce with pleas to raise the expense allowance for London, which had actually dropped since the late 1880s. He pointed out that the servants’ pay alone cost signi¤cantly more than anywhere in continental Europe, and that the sheer size of London’s haut monde necessitated entertaining on an extraordinary scale. Receiving royalty in particular demanded large sums: in surveying the coming summer season in the spring of 1905, he expected to play host not only to King Edward and Queen Alexandra, but also to the Prince and Princess of Wales; the Duke and Duchess of Connaught; Prince Arthur of Connaught; the king’s daughter and son-in-law, Prince and Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein; Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll; Princess Beatrice of Battenberg; and Prince and Princess Carl of Denmark.51 As was frequently the case, the Vienna of¤ce remained unmoved by the recital of such ¤nancial exertions52 and forced Mensdorff to wait until 1907 before agreeing to an increase that put London once again on a par with St. Petersburg and Paris (120,300 Kronen a year). Post/Rank St. Petersburg/ambassador Madrid/ambassador Holy See/ambassador Washington/ambassador

Expense Allowance 120,300 103,200 93,200 80,000

Wealth and Outside Career Experience • Tokyo/ambassador Peking/minister Bucharest/minister So¤a/minister Mexico City/minister Bangkok/minister Athens/minister The Hague/minister Teheran/minister Stockholm/minister Dresden/minister Belgrade/minister Cetinje/minister Bern/minister Lisbon/minister Stuttgart/minister

69

80,000 45,600 40,400 40,000 40,000 35,000 33,600 31,300 31,300 31,000 30,000 29,800 26,000 20,000 20,000 16,600

table 2. Expense Allowances (in Kronen) for Selected Posts, 1906–14

Count Szécsen’s rejection of the Russian post did not deter him from accepting the ambassadorship in France a few years later. For Szécsen, the expenses of Parisian life even included paying part of the bill for heating and lighting the enormous Hôtel Matignon, seat of the monarchy’s embassy.53 Count Rudolf Khevenhüller-Metsch, Szécsen’s predecessor, only managed to ¤nance the expenditures for his sumptuous receptions and garden parties by drawing on the revenues of Mailberg, a property in Lower Austria he held as a knight of Malta.54 Even for junior personnel, the French capital often proved too costly for a lengthy assignment. Shortly after the turn of the century, Count Ottokar Czernin, an attaché and an estate owner in Bohemia, could barely make ends meet, even though he also drew a special allowance from the foreign of¤ce.55 In 1908, the Ballhausplatz personnel chief expressed reservations about stationing the attaché Count Leopold Strassoldo in France because his private income might not stand the strain.56 The foreign of¤ce had every incentive to select an envoy with suf¤cient resources, for if he failed in his duties as a representative, it re¶ected upon the monarchy as well. The parsimony of one ambassador at the Quai d’Orsay, Count Ladislaus Hoyos (1883–94), aroused considerable ridicule. He was known for giving only two dinners per year, staged on successive evenings “pour garder les ¶eurs et les petit fours.”57 Diplomats also absorbed losses connected with the more mundane aspects of diplomatic life. The Ballhausplatz budget made no regular

70 • aristocratic redoubt provision for the moving costs of of¤cials beneath the rank of minister plenipotentiary, although in cases of need it awarded some, albeit usually inadequate, compensation.58 That envoys received a ¤xed sum for relocation rather than reimbursement for actual outlays likewise presented challenges. When Baron Alfons Pereira-Arnstein made the arduous transfer from Württemberg to Morocco, he had to arrange for the packing, storage, and transport of his 20,000 kilos of furniture; to cover bills for hotels at the end of his stay in Stuttgart and at the beginning in Tangier; and to pay for the upkeep of four of his seven children in Innsbruck during the move. At the same time, he continued until his departure to spend heavily on his social duties in Germany.59 In reassigning Count Christoph Wydenbruck from The Hague to Madrid, the Ballhausplatz requested that he stop in Vienna for audiences with various archdukes closely related to the Spanish royal house. Wydenbruck calculated that the delay in taking up his new post would cause him a loss of more than 1,200 Kronen.60 Overseas, particularly in South America, sharply rising prices frequently provoked complaints from mission chiefs.61 If Vienna agreed even to take into consideration such grumbling, the forthcoming help rarely met what had been requested. The Ballhausplatz did not require those admitted for service exclusively in the central of¤ce to prove an independent income, and the landed contingent at the Ballhausplatz was correspondingly weak. This circumstance likewise re¶ected the deep social gulf that existed between those posted abroad and those stationed at home. The ministerial Konzipist second class, the lowest-ranking functionary in Vienna, drew a salary from the day of appointment, quite unlike an attaché, his counterpart in the ¤eld. Of the 103 of¤cials stationed in Vienna, only 31 (30%) can be identi¤ed as landowners or as the sons of landowners.62 Six of those 31, however—including both foreign ministers and three section chiefs—had made their careers primarily in the diplomatic corps. The holdings of the remaining twenty-¤ve were, for the most part, insigni¤cant in size, with only three totaling more than 2,471 acres (1,000 hectares). In Lower Austria, Weikersdorf, the estate of Baron Rudolf Doblhoff ’s father, came to 2,515 acres, and Stiebar, which belonged to Baron Eduard Klezl’s mother and her sister, to 2,989 acres.63 Together with his two brothers, Count Tibor Szápáry owned 3,435 acres in PestPilis-Solt-Kiskun county, which represented the only Hungarian holding to exceed 711 acres (500 Joch).64 The income Szápáry earned from this estate may have been the determining factor in enabling the foreign of¤ce to assign him temporarily to missions abroad several times. Count

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Ludwig Thürheim, who served in Department 4, was a genuine landed aristocrat, but his ¤deicommissum in Upper Austria amounted only to 1,267 acres.65 Rank

Salary

Expense Allowance

¤rst section chief section chief ministerial counselor section counselor ministerial secretary ministerial vice-secretary ministerial clerk (Konzipist)

16,000 14,000 11,000 7,000 5,200 4,000 2,800

12,000 10,000 2,200 1,840 1,610 1,380 1,200

table 3. Salary Scales and Expense Allowances (in Kronen) for Central Of¤ce Functionaries, 1906–14

State of¤cials and military of¤cers sired a majority of functionaries in the central of¤ce (61%).66 Another 9 percent had industrialists, bankers, lawyers, or academics as fathers. Many fathers, including those of Baron Klemens Erb, Baron Franz Buschmann, Egon von Berger, the two Klezls, the two Biegelebens, Karl Emil von Brunner, Richard Prantner, Baron Peter Dóczy, and Mauriz von Roeøler, had reached the rank of ministerial counselor or section chief. Karl von Grabmayr, whose son Benno entered the foreign of¤ce, served as president of Cisleithania’s highest court, while Baron Rudolf Prandau’s father, likewise a senior jurist, held a seat on the Oberster Gerichts- und Kassationshof and was president of the PatentGerichtshof. Unlike the diplomats, many employees in the central of¤ce had familial roots in the middle ranks of the Austrian and Hungarian bureaucracies, as the cases of Árpád von Trettina, Eduard Suchanek, and Baron Emil Jettel show.67 The less prestigious character of many such positions, and the lack in most cases of a landed background, once again point up the sharp differences in the composition of the personnel of the central of¤ce and that of the missions abroad. The high degree of uniformity that distinguished the career patterns of most diplomats re¶ected the exclusive nature of employment in the foreign of¤ce. In spite of Adolf von Plason’s admonitions, the Ballhausplatz only infrequently recruited candidates for the corps from other areas of governmental service. None had given up burgeoning vocations in commerce or industry, or in any other part of the private sector, in order to pursue diplomacy in a professional capacity. Of the 163 men stationed

72 • aristocratic redoubt abroad under Aehrenthal and Berchtold, nearly two-thirds ¤rst began their careers when they entered the foreign ministry. They generally applied for admission soon after completion of their educations or after their obligatory stints in one of the ministries or provincial governors’ of¤ces.68 When they retired, most diplomats could look back on an unbroken career at the Ballhausplatz. Only 9 of the 163 diplomats pursued careers in the domestic bureaucracy before transferring to the Ballhausplatz. Count Berchtold had risen after ¤ve years to the modest rank of district commissioner (Bezirkskommissär) in the administration of Moravia before his marriage to the daughter of a former ambassador in London brought about his move to the foreign ministry. Georg von Grigorcea and Count Adam Tarnowski had reached the same level in the governors’ of¤ces in Bukovina and Galicia, respectively, while Alfons von Knaf¶-Lenz had spent more than eight years working for the administrations in Trieste and then in Graz. Of the governmental ministries in either half of the monarchy, that responsible for Hungarian commerce furnished two recruits to the diplomatic corps. In the space of six years, Lothar von Egger moved from the Central Statistical Commission to the Austrian commerce ministry and ¤nally to the emperor’s civil chancellery before receiving an appointment in the foreign of¤ce. Albert von Eperjesy had spent a short period in the employ of the Hungarian minister attached to the person of the monarch (Ministerium am allerhöchsten Ho¶ager). None of those men, however, had reached positions of great responsibility in their earlier assignments or been enlisted by the Ballhausplatz for expertise acquired in the course of such work. Only one member of the diplomatic corps, Ambassador Count Ladislaus Szõgyény-Marich in Berlin, a former Hungarian minister attached to the person of the monarch and for many years a delegate in the Hungarian parliament, could claim to be a seasoned veteran of the domestic political and administrative arena. The close connection between diplomatic and military personnel that existed in Germany had little echo in the Habsburg Monarchy. Whereas the of¤cer corps of the Prussian army provided a prime recruiting ground for the Wilhelmstraøe, the Ballhausplatz tapped few military men for assignments abroad.69 Berlin traditionally sent high-ranking generals to head important embassies like the one in St. Petersburg. Vienna, on the other hand, had customarily restricted their employment, though the practice had been more common earlier, during the tenures of Andrássy (1871–79) and Kálnoky (1881–95). The latter had himself held a high military rank. Although one general, Baron Ferdinand Langenau, had served as envoy in

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Russia throughout the Andrássy years, the Balkan missions—especially those in Belgrade, Cetinje, and, to a lesser extent, Athens—were most often headed by of¤cers. From 1879 to 1895, General Staff of¤cers, ¤rst Baron Gustav Thoemmel and then Theodor von Millinkoviå, continuously oversaw the legation in Montenegro. Thoemmel later served as envoy in Persia (1887–89) and Serbia (1889–95). Two other emissaries who combined diplomatic and military rank, Count Victor Dubsky and Prince Nikolaus Wrede, successively directed the legation in Greece between 1877 and 1883. By 1896, the year after Go|uchowski’s appointment, all but Dubsky among the mission chiefs with military credentials had retired. The social homogeneity of the of¤cer and diplomatic corps, which facilitated moves from the army to the foreign of¤ce in Prussia, hardly existed in Austria-Hungary. The aristocracy, as we have seen, maintained a preeminent place in the monarchy’s foreign missions down to the war, whereas the bourgeoisie and the nineteenth-century nobility overwhelmingly dominated the military. Most of¤cers would therefore have been suited only for the most socially desperate European or overseas capitals, like Belgrade, Cetinje, and Teheran. At the same time, the geopolitical importance of the newly independent and volatile states on the Balkan peninsula may well have demonstrated the wisdom of sending envoys with military expertise. After the conclusion of the crisis surrounding the Bosnian annexation and the consequent rise in tensions south of the monarchy’s border, Aehrenthal revived the old custom slightly by posting Major General Baron Wladimir Giesl as Austria-Hungary’s representative in Montenegro. Giesl’s long experience as a military attaché and military plenipotentiary in various Balkan states, including Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro, recommended him as a valuable addition to the corps in a critical period.70 He spent four years (1909–13) at the court of Nikita of Montenegro before Berchtold transferred him to Belgrade, where he delivered the famous ultimatum in July 1914. At the same time that he recruited Giesl, Aehrenthal also enlisted the military attaché in Constantinople, the General Staff captain Emmerich von P¶ügl, who was given the rank of legation secretary and posted to Athens and soon thereafter Belgrade. Besides Giesl and P¶ügl, only six other former career military of¤cers— Paul von Burchardt-Bélaváry, Baron Alexander Lago, Count Heinrich Lützow, Baron Alfons Pereira-Arnstein, Count Christoph Wydenbruck, and Prince Gottfried Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst—appear among the 163 diplomats. Hohenlohe, like Giesl and P¶ügl, also came from the ranks of the military attachés, having served in that capacity in St. Petersburg for nearly ¤ve years. In 1907, as a major on active duty, he entered the foreign service

74 • aristocratic redoubt as a legation counselor, but returned to his regiment the following year after his marriage to an archduchess created intractable problems of etiquette. Hohenlohe’s aristocratic connections, army background, and experience in the Russian capital nevertheless made him an ideal candidate to undertake a delicate mission to the tsar in February 1913 that was aimed at reducing tensions following the ¤rst Balkan War. In August 1914, he succeeded the decrepit Szõgyény as ambassador in Berlin, an appointment under discussion at the Ballhausplatz long before the advent of war, but blocked by the latter’s refusal to make a graceful exit.71 Except for Hohenlohe and Giesl, none of the of¤cers mentioned above had ever been military attachés. Lützow, Lago, and Burchard-Bélaváry were young cavalry of¤cers who had attained only the rank of ¤rst lieutenant at the time of application to the Ballhausplatz. Lago, who had graduated from the Wiener Neustadt Military Academy, lacked the required legal studies, but a favorable report on his year as a provisional attaché at the legation in Bucharest cleared the way for him to take the diplomatic examination.72 Burchardt had not attended any educational institution after ¤nishing his secondary studies.73 The foreign of¤ce therefore obliged him, unlike Lago, to pass the three state juridical examinations before considering him for de¤nitive admission.74 While preparing for the tests, Burchardt spent two years as a provisional attaché at the missions to The Hague and Brussels. Count Wydenbruck, whose comfortably mediocre career ended as ambassador in Spain, spent barely a year as a career of¤cer before choosing the foreign of¤ce. And as the only former naval of¤cer among the diplomats, Baron Alfons Pereira-Arnstein had earned imperial recognition in 1866 for his bravery at the Battle of Lissa. No mechanism existed, however, for facilitating a regular transfer of army personnel to the Ballhausplatz. Active duty of¤cers, including P¶ügl, Lago, and Burchardt, transferred to the reserves once they had been accepted by the corps, a measure that eliminated the possibility of divided loyalties. Only Giesl, a high-ranking protégé of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and Hohenlohe, a mediatized grandee and son-in-law of another Habsburg prince, remained on active duty after entering the service. Lago and Burchardt had both proven themselves to be suitable candidates for a career at the Ballhausplatz in the course of assignments abroad as provisional attachés. A tradition of allowing wealthy young noblemen with no permanent place in the diplomatic corps a short tour of duty at one of the monarchy’s embassies had a history stretching back decades. Such attachés generally evinced no particular desire to become professional diplomats and typically wished only to spend a few pleasant

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years abroad. In exchange for lending their brilliant social attributes to the occasional embassy function, they enhanced their own positions through the glamorous connection to a diplomatic establishment.75 This informal practice continued to exist alongside that of occasionally sending future career diplomats abroad to acquaint them with their prospective métier. But although the temporary attachés had no claim to a permanent position in the service, some—undoubtedly a minority—eventually secured admission to the service.76 Count Heinrich Lützow and Count Siegfried Clary, neither of whose quali¤cations even remotely met the Ballhausplatz entrance requirements, crept in the back door as provisional attachés. Lützow’s case has already been mentioned above.77 Clary’s cozy three-year tour of duty in Brussels under the rattlebrained Count Bohuslav Chotek decided him in favor of a career in diplomacy. By appealing to the emperor, he received permission to enter the corps over the objections of the foreign minister.78 Although these two cases both date from the 1870s, provisional attachés continued to appear among the monarchy’s diplomats up until the war. Prince Franz Auersperg, for instance, spent a long time attached to the embassy in Paris, as did Count Alexander Festetics, who eventually chose to pursue diplomacy as a career. The father of Count Alexander Hoyos successfully obtained a provisional place for his son at the legation in Peking.79 In the Aehrenthal years, the previous unwillingness to draft experienced of¤cials from other branches of the bureaucracy relaxed slightly with respect to the central of¤ce. Between 1906 and 1914, several midlevel and senior functionaries from the Austrian and Hungarian commerce ministries found places at the foreign of¤ce. In seeking to increase the role of economic considerations in policy making,80 Aehrenthal sought out quali¤ed people from elsewhere in government service. His ¤rst section chief, Baron Guido Call (1907–9), had served for ¤ve years as Austrian commerce minister. He then drafted Mauriz von Roeøler, a high-ranking expert from the same of¤ce, to direct the newly expanded trade division at the Ballhausplatz. Another acquisition was Viktor von Riedl, a section counselor from the Austrian commerce ministry who had considerable knowledge of Balkan affairs.81 Berchtold’s only major outside recruit, Count Markus Wickenburg, who took Roeøler’s place, arrived in the spring of 1912. None of those men, however, brought any former advisers or support staff with them, and their appearance scarcely opened any ¶oodgates. Roeøler lasted barely two years, and there is some indication that he quickly became disillusioned with the “impenetrable caste-spirit”

76 • aristocratic redoubt of the foreign of¤ce.82 At any rate, their presence merely reinforced the old adage that the exception proves the rule. The Ballhausplatz’s reluctance to recruit candidates for the corps from other areas of government, either civil or military, extended to transfers between the three branches within the foreign of¤ce as well. A formal move to diplomacy from the consular service, or especially from the central of¤ce, proved enormously dif¤cult. Of the 163 diplomats, 32 had started their careers in the former, while a negligible 6 came from the latter. For those in the consular service who had not graduated from the Consular Academy, the diplomatic corps remained all but closed. As we have seen, a diploma from the academy provided no entrée per se into the corps, but a consul who lacked it stood even less chance of becoming a diplomat. Among former members of the consular service stationed at the monarchy’s embassies or legations, only ¤ve (Baron Moritz Czikann, Baron Ladislaus Hengelmüller, Count Joseph Somssich, Count Rudolph Welsersheimb, and Baron Erich Zwiedinek) lacked a background at the Consular Academy. The enormous prestige enjoyed by the diplomatic corps made transferring the objective of many ambitious consuls. But bridging the chasm between the services involved overcoming a number of formidable obstacles, not the least of which may have been a certain amount of mutual disdain, rooted, on one hand, in a traditional pride in birth and position, and, on the other, in con¤dence in merit-based education and achievement. Scattered evidence indicates that tension indeed characterized the relations between the two services. One newly assigned attaché in Constantinople recalled that his desire to mix with the personnel at the local AustroHungarian consulate met with the disapproval of his colleagues at the embassy, who suggested that he “either socialize with us or with them.”83 The authorities at the Ballhausplatz exhibited little sympathy for the “diplomatic aspirations” of consular personnel.84 In 1907, Section Chief Baron Guido Call refused one vice consul’s request for the title of legation secretary, pointing out the unfavorable past experiences with similar promotions.85 Such resistance seems nevertheless to have increased the determination of some consuls to obtain a transfer. The frequency and persistence of requests for an appointment to the corps, as well as the considerable ingenuity employed to achieve that goal, leave little doubt about its extraordinary allure. In contrast, only one case has come to light where a diplomat, Géza von Gáspárdy, accepted a permanent consular assignment. One of the lengthiest sustained campaigns for a transfer concerned Vice Consul Wilhelm von Storck, who spent more than seven

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years, ultimately successfully, trying to wrest the coveted appointment from a reluctant Ballhausplatz.86 Not long after his graduation from the Oriental Academy in the early 1870s, Vice Consul Eugen von Kuczyñski expressed a fervent wish to win a place in the ranks of diplomacy.87 He evidently lacked, however, the dogged tenacity later displayed by Storck, and only in 1895 was he tapped for the thankless post of envoy in Montenegro. Stephan von Ugron, who ¤nally achieved diplomatic status in late 1908, had likewise been pleading his case for more than a decade. Other aspirants proved unsuccessful, though no less obnoxious, in pursuit of their desires. The ambition of Georg de Pottere and Count Franz Firmian led both to mobilize in¶uential friends to intervene, ultimately in vain, at the Ballhausplatz.88 The strategies devised to secure a transfer generally centered around eliciting the help of a senior diplomat willing to support the project. The capable Wilhelm von Storck showed particular aptitude in that regard. Soon after he took up his post at the legation in Cetinje, his chief petitioned on Storck’s behalf for the title of legation secretary. The reply, though unfavorable, nevertheless raised Storck’s hopes, since the Ballhausplatz had merely rejected the request as “premature” (verfrüht).89 After his transfer to the mission in So¤a, Storck once again enlisted the help of the envoy, in this case Count Duglas Thurn, who wrote a strong letter to the foreign minister recommending him for a diplomatic appointment.90 Storck’s eventual success, attained with the help of sympathetic colleagues, was not shared, at least in the short run, by Vice Consul Rudolph Weinzetl, who served under Baron Arnold HammersteinGesmold in Teheran. Hammerstein’s representations to both the ¤rst and second section chiefs in favor of Weinzetl’s case brought no result.91 Consul General Stephan von Ugron’s zeal to enter the corps led him to ask his friend and fellow Hungarian Count Nikolaus Szécsen, ambassador at the Vatican, to put in a good word for him with Aehrenthal, particularly as regarded his social position and ¤nancial circumstances. Szécsen duly obliged, pointing out that Ugron’s family was regarded as de bonne noblesse across the Leitha, where its members had marital connections with several distinguished families. From reliable sources, Szécsen also learned that Ugron’s estates brought him a handsome yearly income of approximately 36,000 Kronen.92 The occasional posting of a consular of¤cial to one of the diplomatic missions, however lowly, seems to have been the Ballhausplatz equivalent of a taste of fruit from the tree of knowledge. Those seeking a transfer seem to have thought their chances improved by gaining such experience.

78 • aristocratic redoubt Both Storck and Weinzetl had enjoyed tours of duty at minor legations, which had exposed them to the political and economic sides of foreign affairs. The former had even spent a period attached to the London embassy, where he had earned the high praise of his superiors.93 In 1903, at the height of his struggle to join the corps, Storck inquired in Vienna whether an assignment either to the mission in Peking or to the one in Mexico City—both of which regular diplomats shunned—might not help his prospects.94 One consul, who explicitly promised not to use a place at the legation in Santiago to press for a career in the diplomatic service, thereby implicitly conceded the lure of such an appointment.95 Consecutive stays in Belgrade and Lisbon raised the expectations of another young consular of¤cer so high that he threatened to resign from the service if the transfer were not forthcoming.96 Sometimes a proposed move was justi¤ed by reference to the prestige or effectiveness of the monarchy’s agents abroad. When requesting that the title of legation counselor in Washington be assigned to the consul general in New York, Ambassador Hengelmüller noted that such a disposition would enhance the standing of the important consular of¤ce in America’s largest city.97 In supporting Storck’s cause, his chief in So¤a argued that Prince Ferdinand, with his ¤nely honed appreciation for subtleties, would welcome the posting of a second representative with diplomatic rank at the Austro-Hungarian mission. That France, Russia, England, and several other states already followed that practice merely increased the desirability of the change.98 On another occasion, Storck asserted that granting him the title of legation secretary would send the Bulgarian establishment the signal that he possessed the trust of the foreign of¤ce.99 Despite the self-interested nature of such reasoning and the skeptical reception it thereby received, the Ballhausplatz sometimes agreed. In 1913, the Siamese government objected to recognizing the diplomatic status of Vice Consul Emil Keil, who ranked directly behind the envoy and who would act as chargé in the latter’s absence. Foreign Minister Berchtold therefore arranged to give Keil an appropriate diplomatic standing, at least for the duration of his stay in Bangkok.100 Despite its generally reserved attitude toward transfers, the Ballhausplatz nevertheless provided one limited, albeit systematic, mechanism for the introduction of consular personnel into the diplomatic branch. The foreign of¤ce permitted the periodic induction into the corps of senior consuls stationed at the translation bureau (Dragomanat) of the embassy in Constantinople.101 A stint at the Dragomanat, an of¤ce with a far more wide-ranging agenda than interpretation and translation, supplied the only

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regular route by which suitable young consuls might be co-opted for diplomacy. Until a reorganization of the translation bureau late in Kálnoky’s tenure (1893), appropriate candidates had been appointed Dragomanatsattachés, a dignity which carried with it a transfer to diplomatic rank. Several who began their careers in the 1870s and 1880s, including Baron Guido Call, Count Gilbert Hohenwart, Baron Otto Kuhn, Ladislaus Müller, and Baron Constantin Trauttenberg, had come to the corps in that way.102 Even before 1893, Kálnoky attempted to restrict the pipeline by explicitly reserving the right eventually to send such attachés back to the consular service.103 The selection in 1884 of Ladislaus Müller and Count Hugo Logothetti as Dragomanatsattachés led directly, if slowly, to a career in the diplomatic service only for the former. Logothetti’s case notwithstanding, by 1893 it was fairly standard practice ultimately to con¤rm the diplomatic standing of the attachés. In fact, Ambassador Calice himself, who closely supervised the affairs of the translation bureau, complained in the late 1880s that the Dragomanat had become little more than a way station on the way to the diplomatic corps.104 Precisely that consideration led many ambitious consular of¤cers to seek a posting at the Dragomanat. The consequent opportunities for advancement, responsibility, and status were considered far greater than those available in the less prestigious branch of the service.105 With the reorganization of 1893, Kálnoky did not abolish the old system, though he greatly limited it. He ended the appointment of attachés to the translation bureau, but stipulated that the post of senior dragoman would carry automatic transfer to the diplomatic corps.106 A place at the Dragomanat therefore remained a prize eagerly sought after. One zealous consul, Julius Pisko, made no secret of his higher aspirations when requesting a place in the translation bureau. Ambassador Calice’s priorities, including long-term stability and dedication among the personnel of the Dragomanat, meant that Pisko’s petition elicited only the coolest response. Undeterred, Pisko put out word that the envoy had indeed given him the desired promise, a story that the envoy immediately de¶ated.107 The lustrous image enjoyed by the translation bureau among consular personnel was ironically, though not surprisingly, not shared by the diplomats running the central of¤ce. In 1903, Calice complained bitterly to the foreign minister that at one time the importance of the Dragomanat had been “undisputed,” but that in recent years the increasingly privileged position of the diplomatic corps had crowded out other considerations. He particularly resented what he perceived to be the disadvantageous terms under which the transfer of the senior dragoman from

80 • aristocratic redoubt the consular to the diplomatic branch took place.108 Under Calice’s guidance, the Dragomanat nevertheless produced several of the diplomatic corps’ most talented ¤gures, like Baron Guido Call, Rudolph Weinzetl, Rudolf Pogatscher, Ladislaus Müller, and Eduard Otto. Call and Müller both served Aehrenthal as ¤rst section chiefs, while Pogatscher was a key Balkan specialist stationed at the Ballhausplatz in the decade before World War I. Weinzetl’s command of languages astonished his superiors, and Calice repeatedly praised the abilities of Otto, who in 1913 was assigned the arduous envoyship in Montenegro.109 To the extent that middle-class penetration of the diplomatic service occurred, the translation bureau played an important role. Of the eleven men who entered the corps lacking a patent of nobility, ¤ve came via the Dragomanat: Eduard Otto, Rudolf Pogatscher, Ladislaus Müller, Franz Kolossa, and Rudolph Weinzetl. Calice, who himself climbed from a bourgeois background to the rank of count in the course of his career, took a meticulous interest in the affairs of the translation bureau and its personnel during his quarter century (1880–1906) at the Sublime Porte. Social origins played a distinctly subsidiary role in Calice’s recommendations to ¤ll vacancies in the Dragomanat, which advice the Ballhausplatz moreover seems to have accepted with little question.110 And the ambassador did not hesitate to spar with the responsible authorities in Vienna if he believed his dragomen were being slighted in the matter of promotions or honors.111 For most of the Dualist period, no consular position enjoyed the prestige necessary to guarantee its holder a future post in the diplomatic corps. However, as Austro-Russian relations became more strained in the last decade before the war, the consulate general in Warsaw assumed new importance. Orthodox propaganda aimed at the Ruthenians poured into Galicia from the east, while the Russians accused the monarchy of fomenting trouble among the Uniate population in the Ukraine. By 1914, Berchtold could declare that the Ruthenian question would be “decisive” for Austro-Russian relations.112 The head of the Warsaw of¤ce therefore became Austria-Hungary’s primary westernmost observer in the tsarist empire. The increasing signi¤cance ascribed by the foreign of¤ce to Warsaw, which led one observer to compare the consulate general there to a legation, eventually worked to the detriment of consular personnel aspiring to the post.113 The last titular consul general, Baron Leopold Andrian-Werburg, actually belonged to the diplomatic corps, a fact the Ballhausplatz attempted to conceal from the Russians.114 Of Andrian’s three consular predecessors, Stephan von Ugron (1902–9) most successfully parlayed the

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assignment into a place in the corps, though Otto von HoenningO’Carroll (1898–1902) eventually secured one as well after heading the taxing consulate general in New York. Ugron’s protracted campaign for a transfer, combined with the rising pro¤le of Warsaw during his long tenure, eventually netted him his prize.115 On the basis of his outstanding work in handling the “dif¤cult and tricky” agenda there, Aehrenthal arranged for him to move to the diplomatic service with the rank of legation counselor.116 Even fewer functionaries of the central of¤ce managed to gain admittance to the diplomatic corps. If a legation found itself short-staffed, the Ballhausplatz would occasionally send out one of its own to ¤ll the gap temporarily, as the careers of men like Hermann von Mitscha, Franz von Bolgár, Count Tibor Szápáry, and Baron Rudolf Prandau illustrate. Only rarely did such an arrangement become permanent. The internal branch of the service enjoyed the least prestige of the three, having neither the glamour associated with working abroad nor the renown connected with rare¤ed ancestry or an education in the Oriental Academy. The highest posts in the ministry itself, including the section chiefs and heads of the political departments, almost always went to candidates from the diplomatic or consular corps. When the titular section chief Emil von Jettel retired in 1910 after four decades spent in Vienna, he asked to be awarded the title of baron, partly in recognition of his having been one of the few such of¤cials to have reached so high a position.117 Implicit in his request was discontent with the low status traditionally accorded him and his colleagues in the hierarchy of the ministry. Of the few from the central of¤ce who managed to obtain a transfer, only three—Baron Maximilian Gagern, Cajetan von Mérey, and Baron Alexander Musulin—reached the higher echelons of the diplomatic corps. Gagern became envoy to the Swiss Confederation, while Mérey, among his many other accomplishments, represented the monarchy in Italy in 1914. As a Balkans expert and an Aehrenthal protégé, Musulin spent 1903 through 1914 stationed in Vienna, albeit with diplomatic status. The others who managed to make the transition were Georg von Barcza, Baron Otto Biegeleben, and Baron Oskar Gautsch, whose father, the minister-president, appears to have been crucial in his change of course. Like their counterparts in the consular service, the Vienna functionaries calculated that a posting at a diplomatic mission might improve their chances. His son’s satisfactory performance during a two-year temporary assignment at the embassy in Paris doubtlessly facilitated the elder Gautsch’s intervention.118

82 • aristocratic redoubt Most often, however, requests for a posting abroad, even when granted, did not result in a permanent transfer. In 1902, the foreign of¤ce gave Oskar von Montlong, in response to his petition, a provisional assignment at the legation in Tangier. That ten-month experience later probably helped him get a spot on the delegation to the Algeciras Conference, and then a short stay in Tangier again in the summer of 1906, but his lack of independent wealth made him unsuitable for a lasting diplomatic career.119 Among central of¤ce functionaries, Count Tibor Szápáry perhaps spent the most time abroad, collecting assignments in Bucharest, Dresden, Mexico City, and Tangier and traveling as a member of the delegation sent to represent the monarchy in Bangkok in 1911 for the coronation of the king of Siam. But his ardent desire for a transfer remained unful¤lled. The year that he spent in Mexico seems particularly to have encouraged Szápáry’s hopes, such that his recall to Vienna proved a bitter disappointment.120 Even for a member of the high nobility like Szápáry, the Ballhausplatz showed little inclination to relent. Despite the lesser prestige enjoyed by the internal branch of service, transfers to Vienna from the ¤eld were far more common than vice versa. However, diplomats who returned to Vienna did not ¤ll subordinate positions, but rather dominated policy making by virtue of the key posts they occupied. The permanent bureaucracy at the Ballhausplatz did not produce a single foreign minister during the Dualist period. Both Aehrenthal and Berchtold crowned long careers abroad with the ambassadorship in St. Petersburg, though the former had spent several years in Vienna as an advisor to his patron, Foreign Minister Kálnoky. Similarly, all of Aehrenthal’s and Berchtold’s ¤rst section chiefs—Cajetan von Mérey (1904–7), Baron Guido Call (1907–9), Baron Ladislaus Müller (1909–12), and Baron Carl Macchio (1912–17)—came from the diplomatic corps. The same held true for the second section chiefs—Baron Ladislaus Müller (1904–9), Baron Carl Macchio (1909–12), Count Friedrich Szápáry (1912–13), and Count Johann Forgách (1913–17)—who oversaw the political departments and consequently the day-to-day relations of the monarchy with other countries. Other central ¤gures in Vienna, like the section chief for Hungarian affairs, Count Paul Esterházy, had also spent most of their professional lives abroad. When a diplomat did not hold the position of section chief for legal or for economic affairs, it tended to go to distinguished outsiders, like Mauriz von Roeøler from the Austrian commerce ministry or Count Markus Wickenburg from the Hungarian commerce ministry. Otto von Weil, a prominent jurist and Ballhausplatz functionary whom Berchtold named full section chief in 1912, appears to have been the ¤rst person from

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the central of¤ce since Andrássy’s tenure in the 1870s to have achieved such a distinction.121 Diplomatic ascendancy repeated itself in other pivotal foreign-of¤ce divisions as well.122 Individual departments (Referate) within the political section, especially those charged with Balkan and Russian concerns—which constituted the focus of the monarchy’s entire foreign policy—always stood under the direction of a diplomat during the Aehrenthal/Berchtold years. Germany likewise generally fell within the bailiwick of someone drafted from a station abroad, as did the minister’s personal secretariat (Kabinett des Ministers), which handled a range of important duties.123 Not only were its chiefs—Baron Maximilian Gagern (1901–9), Count Friedrich Szápáry (1909–12), and Count Alexander Hoyos (1912–17)—career diplomats; so also was the majority of the bureau’s other staff, including Baron Georg Franckenstein, Count Franz Kinsky, Paul von Burchardt-Bélaváry, Count Josef Walterskirchen, and Count Alexander Török. With few exceptions, the primary quali¤cation for recall to Vienna remained experience in the Balkans, including the Ottoman Empire, and in Russia. Aehrenthal’s stint as ambassador in St. Petersburg had been preceded by one at the head of the legation in Bucharest. Between them, the ¤rst section chiefs, Baron Guido Call and Baron Ladislaus Müller, counted nearly forty years of service in Constantinople and So¤a, while their successor under Berchtold, Baron Carl Macchio, had spent the two and a half decades beginning in 1882 posted in Bucharest, St. Petersburg, Belgrade, and twice in the Ottoman capital, all followed by tours as mission chief in Cetinje and Athens. In 1908, Aehrenthal transferred Macchio, whom he described as an “expert in Balkan questions,” back to Vienna as an adviser.124 The second section chiefs, with the exception of Count Friedrich Szápáry, who lasted barely more than a year in the position, possessed similar backgrounds. Likewise, many of the departmental heads in the political division, including Constantin Dumba, Alexander von Musulin,125 Rudolf Pogatscher, Eduard Otto, and Count Laurenz Szápáry, had spent long periods in the Balkans or the tsarist empire. In contrast, neither Count Albert Nemes (1911–13) nor Baron Ludwig Flotow (1913–14), the last two men who oversaw the important Referat I (Russia and the Near East) before the war, could claim such expertise. Much of Nemes’s career had been passed in western Europe, particularly Paris, while Flotow, for ¤ve years the number-two man in the Berlin embassy, had a greater than usual German orientation. Whatever experience a diplomat brought to bear on his work in Vienna, his position in the central of¤ce invariably placed him at or near

84 • aristocratic redoubt the summit of policy making. The enormous prestige enjoyed by the diplomatic corps vis-à-vis the other branches remained as solid in 1914 as it had been earlier. The income requirement reinforced the preference for rare¤ed ancestry, just as the rigid bureaucratic divisions among the three services kept unsuitable functionaries within the ministry from penetrating the realm of diplomacy. The Aehrenthal and Berchtold years witnessed the continued depreciation of the ministerial bureaucracy, a process that had begun under Haymerle and been accelerated by Kálnoky. As Helmut Rumpler has explained, Kálnoky directed his staf¤ng and administrative policies at ensuring his own personal authority down through the departmental level. In doing so, he reduced the in¶uence and power of those further down the hierarchy who had formerly enjoyed considerably more independence.126 As a consequence, few central-of¤ce functionaries came to hold key appointments during the last decades of Dualism. The Aehrenthal and Berchtold years merely con¤rmed the process. The section chiefs, as we have seen, had traditionally been drawn from among the monarchy’s standard-bearers abroad. The increasing complexity and quantity of the business to be handled led both foreign ministers to turn to diplomatic and consular personnel, called to Vienna on a temporary basis, to take up the slack. By 1914, quite apart from the section chiefs, much of the top layer of of¤cialdom that conducted the day-to-day foreign relations of the monarchy had come to be dominated by diplomats as well. The developments of the previous thirty years had yielded a foreign service notable for the unchallenged primacy of the socially exclusive diplomatic corps both abroad and at home.

4 Religion and Marriage aristocratic redoubt Religion and Marriage

I

n making an application to the Ballhausplatz, potential displomats had neither to reveal their religious confession, though many did so, nor to worry about the acceptability of their wives. The decrees of 1880, 1909, and 1914 that regulated requirements for admission made no mention of faith.1 The social basis of the corps actually rendered super¶uous the necessity for such a provision, the religious beliefs of most aristocratic families being well known or easily ascertained via one of the numerous published almanacs of the nobility. As we shall see, of¤cial silence on the matter did not indicate indifference. With respect to the marriage of its diplomats, the Ballhausplatz reserved for itself enormous and explicit authority. An informal rule applied during most of the Dualist era required candidates to be single. In 1909, the Ballhausplatz relaxed the provision to allow the admittance of those who had taken wives of an “appropriate social standing” (standesgemäß), a decision it however reversed on the eve of the war. The Ballhausplatz ultimately manifested little inclination to relinquish its control in the selection of a bride who, as the consort of a diplomat, played an important role abroad. No evidence suggests that the foreign of¤ce demanded a particular confessional af¤liation from its candidates. Emperor Francis Joseph, while a pious, loyal son of the Roman Church, could ill afford Catholic zealotry in choosing his of¤cials when so many of his subjects belonged to other denominations. One witness even believed that the monarch was enough of a Josephinian to see no essential difference between a bishop and a provincial governor. No contemporary testimony indicates that Francis Joseph voiced any bias against non-Catholics.2 Foreign Ministers Aehrenthal and Berchtold also belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, and both observed all of the outward forms of ¤delity to their faith, which they considered the guardian of traditions to which their forebears had

85

86 • aristocratic redoubt been attached for many generations. Neither set any formal religious limitations on their diplomats and of¤cials, though both considered most Jews socially unacceptable. In the monarchy, members of the Church of Rome naturally comprised an overwhelming majority of the corps. Of the 163 of¤cials serving in missions abroad, at least 137 (84%) were Catholic. The Protestant denominations of Calvinism and Lutheranism contributed 11 (7%), and the Orthodox churches, 5 (3%), while the religion of 10 diplomats (6%) could not be determined. No Jews or Muslims entered the corps. Taking the 105 Cisleithanian diplomats alone, their religious af¤liations run remarkably parallel to those of the population at large. In contrast to 88 percent of the diplomats, 91 percent of the inhabitants of Cisleithania belonged to the Catholic Church.3 The Protestant and Orthodox communities each accounted for about 2 percent of the total populace, the ¤gures for those posted abroad being slightly higher—5 percent and 4 percent respectively. Jews, who comprised nearly 5 percent of the people of Cisleithania, lacked representatives in the corps, though a statistically signi¤cant percentage of the diplomats (11%) descended from recent Jewish forebears.4 All but one of the ¤ve Orthodox diplomats came from the Austrian side of the monarchy. Constantin Dumba and Baron Johann Economo both sprang from Greek families originally established in Macedonia. The Dumbas emigrated to Vienna in the early nineteenth century, where they assumed a leading role in the Balkan cotton trade, while the Economos, during the same period, emigrated to Trieste and became one of the principal families in the Greek colony there.5 The other two Orthodox diplomats from Cisleithania, Baron Johann Styrcea and Georg von Grigorcea, not surprisingly hailed from Bukovina, a stronghold of the eastern church within the monarchy. The pattern of religious af¤liation of the Hungarian diplomats, on the other hand, differed quite markedly from that of the larger population. Sixty-two percent of the inhabitants of the lands of the Crown of St. Stephen, as opposed to 74 percent of the diplomats, adhered to the Roman Church.6 In Transleithania, Protestants comprised a much larger proportion of all church members: almost 26 percent for the Calvinists and about 4 percent for the Lutherans. In contrast, only 9 percent of the diplomats were Calvinist and 3 percent Lutheran. The large numbers of Catholics and the corresponding underrepresentation of the Reformed Church re¶ected the social composition of the Magyar contingent in the corps. Most of the Hungarians came from the great Catholic territorial aristocracy. Calvinism, on the other hand, ¶ourished primarily among the lesser landed nobility,

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particularly east of the Tisza River and in Transylvania, where the CounterReformation had made fewer inroads.7 Many such nobles possessed neither the wealth nor the tradition of service to the Habsburgs that would have led them to join the diplomatic service, particularly if, as alleged, that section of the population had particularly intimate links with Magyar nationalism. As one historian has observed, “Calvinists in eastern Hungary were both geographically and temperamentally the furthest removed from Austro-German and cosmopolitan in¶uences, remaining solidly Magyar in their identity.”8 Of the six known Calvinists in the entire corps, ¤ve came from the Hungarian half of the monarchy, of whom four belonged to minor noble families. Only the ¤fth, Baron Zoltán Bánffy, came from a genuine magnate clan, in his case from Transylvania.9 Only one Hungarian diplomat, Konstantin von Masirevich, an ethnic Serb, had roots in the Orthodox Church. Of the non-Catholics in the diplomatic corps, only a few reached high rank, like Constantin Dumba, who became ambassador to the United States. Three Protestants, Koloman von Kánia, Julius von Szilassy and Eduard Otto, and one member of the Orthodox Church, Baron Johann Styrcea, became envoys, all in lesser posts. Catholics, through sheer numbers, remained an overwhelming presence in all parts of the corps. In 1913, they completely staffed the embassies in Berlin, Paris, London, and Tokyo and at the Vatican. Baron Johann Economo accounted for the only nonCatholic at the mission in St. Petersburg. The anticlerical regime in Rome probably voiced no objection to the posting of two Protestants at the Palazzo di Venezia, one of whom, Count Ludwig Ambrózy, acted as chargé in the absence of the ambassador. Konstantin von Masirevich and Georg von Grigorcea, both Orthodox, and the Protestant Hans Ludwig von Wagner—serving in Washington, Constantinople, and Madrid respectively—complete the list of non-Catholics assigned to the monarchy’s primary foreign missions on the eve of the war. The percentage of embassy personnel (11.5%) belonging to the Orthodox Church or to one of the Protestant churches differed little from the total proportion (11.04%) of all non-Catholics in the corps. No practicing Jew served in the diplomatic service, though a relatively high number (eighteen, or 11.04%) descended from recent Jewish forebears. Only ¤ve of the eighteen, however, belonged directly to families that had originally been Jewish: Paul von Hevesy, Heinrich von Löwenthal, Baron Alfons Pereira-Arnstein, Baron Hans Seidler, and Rudolf von Wodianer. The other thirteen came from Christian noble families on the paternal side and possessed Jewish ancestry, primarily through

88 • aristocratic redoubt their mothers or grandmothers: Baron Leopold Andrian-Werburg, Count Felix Brusselle-Schaubeck, Count Kuno Des Fours-Walderode, Count Johann Forgách, Baron Otto Franz, Baron Felix Gerliczy, Baron Franz Haymerle, Baron Ladislaus Hengelmüller, Baron Rudolf Mittag, Count Albert Nemes, Emmerich von P¶ügl, Baron Heinrich Sommaruga, and Count Franz Vetter. That members of families of Jewish origin were so negligibly represented in the corps strongly indicates their unacceptability to of¤cialdom at the Ballhausplatz, particularly as many of them possessed the wealth and polished manners otherwise necessary for entrance.10 The picture changed slightly during World War I, when two ranking of¤cials of Jewish ancestry from other branches of the service, Theodor Ippen and Friedrich von Wiesner, were given diplomatic status. And the young Baron Paul Winterstein, who had applied for and been granted provisional admission before 1914, joined de¤nitively only after the outbreak of war.11 Of the 103 of¤cials serving in the central of¤ce, we know that at least 74 (72%) belonged to the Church of Rome. The religious af¤liations of twenty functionaries (19%) have eluded discovery, though it is fair to assume that Catholics may in fact have occupied a yet higher proportion of places in Vienna. At least seven Protestants, including three Lutherans (Baron Emil Konradsheim, Béla von Glacz, and Baron Ernst von der Wense) and three Calvinists (Karl Emil von Brunner, Ludwig von Felméri, and Laurenz von Mara) served permanently at the Ballhausplatz. These numbers perhaps understate their presence as well, given that more than half of those for whom we have no data came from the untitled nobility across the Leitha, among whom Protestantism was less uncommon. Apparently only one functionary at the Ballhausplatz, Georg von Demeliå, professed allegiance to the Orthodox Church. As in the diplomatic corps, no adherent of Judaism worked at the Ballhausplatz during the Aehrenthal-Berchtold years. However, no de facto prohibition on the admission of Jews to the central branch existed. In 1886, the foreign of¤ce permitted Otto von Weil to enter the service, though he identi¤ed himself as Jewish in his application.12 Weil’s acceptance occurred notwithstanding his Jewishness and possibly on the basis of his family’s long connection to the Ballhausplatz. In the mid-nineteenth century, Prince Felix Schwarzenberg had drafted Weil’s paternal grandfather, a gifted Frankfurt publicist, to handle press relations for the foreign of¤ce. The elder Weil remained in his post for more than two decades, achieving the rank of Hofrat, which, according to one source, made him the ¤rst high-ranking Jewish functionary in Austrian history.13

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By the turn of the century, the younger Weil had converted, a step that doubtlessly made possible his spectacular rise in the hierarchy.14 In 1912, Berchtold raised Weil, the head of the ministry’s legal section, to the rank of full section chief. Like that of his grandfather, his appointment broke with established practice, not only with respect to his Jewish heritage. He became the ¤rst permanent functionary in the central of¤ce in decades to advance beyond a merely titular position as section chief. Weil was not the only former Jew in the of¤ce in Vienna, though he appears to have been the only one to have converted after his admission to the service. In 1909, Foreign Minister Aehrenthal recalled Consul General Alfred Rappaport from the ¤eld to the central of¤ce, where, as a leading expert on the tangled Albanian question, he became deputy director of not one but two political departments.15 Born in 1868, Rappaport accepted baptism according to the Roman Catholic rite in 1883, several years before he entered the Oriental Academy.16 Other leading consular of¤cials seconded to the Ballhausplatz, including Theodor Ippen and Richard Oppenheimer, also descended on the paternal side from Jews, as did the ministerial secretary Friedrich von Wiesner, a jurist who carried out the investigation of Francis Ferdinand’s assassination.17 Ippen or Oppenheimer in particular may have been converts, though evidence to date provides no conclusive answers. Other functionaries in the central of¤ce, like a number of their counterparts in the ¤eld, possessed Jewish ancestry through maternal lines, including two directors of the personnel department, Hermann von Mitscha and Baron Ottokar Schlechta. The relatively obscure origins of many families represented at the Ballhausplatz makes dif¤cult a systematic search for such forebears. None, of course, professed Judaism. As evidence of the importance it attached to the question, the Ballhausplatz forbade a diplomat to marry without the express consent of the emperor. Receiving permission depended on a variety of factors, having to do with the background of the prospective wife and the needs of the foreign service. The qualities it considered essential in a diplomat, like grace, polish, and tact, counted for no less with his wife. The foreign of¤ce expended considerable energy investigating the social position, ¤nancial circumstances, and reputation of a woman engaged to a diplomat. If she were foreign-born, it required the Austrian head of mission in her country to submit his comments on the suitability of the proposed marriage. In Vienna, the Ballhausplatz even directed inquiries to the embassy representing the state from which the woman came. In the case

90 • aristocratic redoubt of exclusively domestic marriages, sources of information included the of¤ces of provincial governors and Viennese police reports. The contraction of an unsuitable match could mean the end of a diplomat’s career, as Count Erwin Schönborn-Buchheim learned when he wed the divorced wife of an American dentist. Of the 163 men who served in the diplomatic corps between 1906 and 1914, only 90 (55%) are known to have been married, while 57 (35%) remained bachelors, and evidence on the remaining 16 (10%) is inconclusive. To determine why so many diplomats did not marry would require far more information on individual decisions than is available. Several factors, however, appear to have governed the issue. First, the Ballhausplatz insisted that aspiring diplomats be single upon entering the service. Once admitted, a diplomat no longer found himself free to marry as he chose, with attachés expected to remain single until promotion to the rank of legation secretary. The foreign of¤ce believed an elegant young bachelor to be more useful, particularly in the larger, socially important missions like London, than a diplomat burdened with a wife, a large household, and possibly a child on each knee.18 Financial considerations always played a large role in the Ballhausplatz’s thinking regarding marriage. The ability to maintain a way of life considered appropriate to one’s rank continued to be a sine qua non of receiving permission to marry. As we have seen, new attachés received no salary from the foreign of¤ce, generally serving for several years before being granted a small yearly sum (Adjutum) to cover a part of their expenses. Furthermore, as younger sons of wealthy families, many diplomats drew only an appanage from home barely suf¤cient for their own bills. Marriage thus remained out of the question. Even for higher-ranking diplomats, who had long begun to draw salaries and who had independently wealthy wives, income could prove inadequate. During Prince Johann Schönburg-Hartenstein’s tour of duty as embassy counselor in London, the cost of maintaining an establishment—which included a butler, a valet, a lady-in-waiting for his wife, a footman, a cook, a nanny, a chauffeur, an English governess, a charwoman and at least two other servants—strained his resources to the breaking point.19 Career paths may also have determined ability to marry. Those who had spent many years in the consular service, which even more strictly regulated the ¤nancial aspect of marriage and where considerations of distance, climate, and hygiene made the presence of a wife problematic, may have chosen not to marry. Twenty-¤ve diplomats under the age of thirty-¤ve and thirty-two over that age remained unattached in 1914. Many in the younger group

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had naturally not yet been promoted to legation secretary and therefore could not marry. And since marriage also tended to take place among aristocratic males at a later age, a bachelor in his mid-thirties proved no unusual phenomenon. Physical or psychological obstacles to marriage may also have played a part, though evidence on that point is understandably scanty. At least two diplomats, Count Thaddäus Koziebrodzki and Baron Leopold Andrian-Werburg, were homosexual. While stationed as envoy in Württemberg, Koziebrodzki admitted to Foreign Minister Berchtold to having paid off a waiter with whom he was alleged to have had an affair during his ¤rst months in Stuttgart.20 For several years, he believed the matter settled, but then had been approached once again with demands for money. To free himself of the blackmailer and his accomplices, poor Koziebrodzki arranged for his lawyer to intervene with the local police.21 In notifying Berchtold of his démarche, he expressed con¤dence that the affair would be resolved quietly but asked for the benevolent protection and indulgence of the foreign minister. Whatever the immediate outcome of Koziebrodzki’s course of action, the incident does not seem to have harmed his standing in the foreign of¤ce. He kept his post in Württemberg until his death in 1916. No evidence to date indicates that Andrian’s orientation, though well-documented in his diaries and letters, became known among his fellow diplomats or led to a problem similar to that faced by Koziebrodzki. Before entering the corps, Andrian had pursued his literary interests, producing a short novel, Garten der Erkenntnis (1895), that created a sensation among avant-garde writers throughout Europe. In the event, he failed to publish thereafter, a silence occasionally attributed by historians to a psychological crisis prompted in part by his homosexuality.22 To close friends, such as Hugo von Hofmannsthal, he did not conceal being homosexual and even confessed to being in love with the tall and aristocratic Baron Georg Franckenstein, a member of the circle of young admirers around Hofmannsthal and a future colleague of Andrian at the Ballhausplatz.23 The crumbling of his hopes for a career in literature coincided with an increasing devotion to Catholicism, which may have eased his transformation to the rigid norms of of¤cial life in diplomacy. Aehrenthal, under whom he had served in St. Petersburg, tapped him in 1911 to head the challenging consulate general in Warsaw, where he witnessed in 1914 the outbreak of war.24 Discreet homosexuality therefore apparently posed no great hindrance to a career. Some diplomats, like Prince Gottfried Hohenlohe, no doubt felt an aversion to homosexuals. Hohenlohe’s acid reference to

92 • aristocratic redoubt Berlin as “Sodom an der Spree” while posted there during the Harden/ Eulenburg scandals, and the mock relief he expressed at being able to leave the city “still heterosexual,” evidence that.25 Another diplomat reported being told by one mandarin at the Ballhausplatz that Koziebrodzki could not be placed as counselor at a major embassy because of his homosexuality.26 He nevertheless spent nearly a year in that position in 1904 in Paris. On the other hand, ¶agrant violations of good taste that led to embarrassing incidents brought a swift response from the Ballhausplatz. In 1890, Baron Arthur Eisenstein was recalled from Berlin and dismissed from the service, possibly after making a pass at a German of¤cer. Earlier, Foreign Minister Kálnoky himself had warned the alcoholic Eisenstein about spending too much time in the company of young of¤cers. For several years thereafter, Eisenstein made numerous pathetic, but futile, attempts to reenter the corps by promising to get married.27 The cosmopolitan European-wide connections that so many diplomats brought to the service extended even further once they married. An astonishing 44 percent of all the wives were foreign-born, including women from Italy, Sweden, the German states, England, the United States, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Rumania, Belgium, France, and Greece; there was even a Turk of Polish extraction. The Ballhausplatz screened a potential bride from outside the monarchy particularly carefully, demanding detailed information on her family’s history, current social position, reputation, and ¤nancial circumstances, as well as on her own character and manners. When Count Constantin Deym requested permission to marry Clara de Montalvo, a daughter of the Spanish conde de Macuriges, the foreign of¤ce received a three-page report devoted solely to the family’s pedigree. Special mention was made of one Montalvo ancestor in the sixteenth century who had accompanied a Spanish princess to Prague for her marriage to the king of Bohemia. The Montalvos offered the foreign of¤ce perhaps one of the easier cases to judge, as Deym’s ¤ancée’s aunt had in 1896 married another diplomat, Count Gilbert Hohenwart.28 The Ballhausplatz inquired closely into the pecuniary aspects of a proposed match. Concerning the future father-in-law of one diplomat, the foreign of¤ce learned which of his properties he had inherited and which he had built up himself. Reliable ¤gures placing his fortune at between two and three million francs also reached Vienna, while his daughter’s potential income and the size of his late wife’s estate also ¤gured into the equation.29 The German foreign of¤ce proved forthcoming in the Ballhausplatz’s effort to determine the suitability of Count

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Leopold Strassoldo’s proposed marriage to Erna von Guilleaume, the daughter of an industrialist in Cologne. Through a note verbale supplied by the Wilhelmstraøe, Vienna discovered the size of his fortune (30 million Marks), as well as information about his political reliability and reputation.30 Baron Maximilian Gagern’s match with a Russian noblewoman of slender means resulted in his transfer out of the diplomatic corps to service in the of¤ce in Vienna for seventeen years. Gagern’s own small income was thought to be insuf¤cient to support him and his new wife abroad.31 With very few exceptions, such foreign marriages anchored the diplomats even more ¤rmly into the rare¤ed world of the European aristocracy. As a granddaughter of the last reigning Hospodar of Wallachia, Baron Felix Gerliczy’s wife, Princess Elisabeth Stirbey, also had familial ties to her husband’s colleague Count Friedrich Larisch. She possessed the additional advantages of already having been presented at the court in Vienna and of drawing a yearly appanage from her father of 40,000 francs (ca. $8,000).32 After tours as an attaché in Madrid, Buenos Aires, and Santiago, Baron Hans Seidler not surprisingly chose a Spanish bride. His wife’s father, Don Francisco Merry y Colon, had served as Spain’s ambassador in Rome, while her maternal grandfather had held the same position in the 1860s in Vienna. Cardinal-State Secretary Raffaelo Merry del Val also adorned her family tree.33 The minister to Chile, Baron Johann Styrcea, married Berthe de Vismes de Ponthieu, daughter of a British diplomat of French extraction. The grandfather of Albert von Eperjesy’s wife, Countess Armgard Oriola, spent years as Portuguese minister to the court in Berlin before settling permanently in Prussia. Since that time, the family had carved out a distinguished place for itself in the Prussian capital, where Eperjesy’s father-in-law had reached the rank of lieutenant general.34 The cream of the south German high nobility—including a Countess Schönborn-Wiesentheid, a Princess Oettingen-Wallerstein, a Countess Fugger-Babenhausen, and a Countess Waldburg-Zeil-Wurzach—was also represented among diplomatic wives.35 Foreign marriages could pose dif¤culties for European diplomats during this period. In Germany, Bismarck secured an edict from William I forbidding such matches without the leave of both king and chancellor.36 Any violation provided grounds for immediate expulsion from the corps. The rule continued to be applied, albeit inconsistently, under the Iron Chancellor’s successors. In the age of nationalism, critics of such matches maintained that these hybrid households “did not truly represent Germany and that such wives tended to in¶uence their husbands in ways

94 • aristocratic redoubt contrary to the interests of the Fatherland.” At the Ballhausplatz during the Aehrenthal-Berchtold years, no opposition seems to have been raised on the basis of a woman’s nationality. An objection would doubtlessly have found little resonance among the nobility of such a multinational empire. Nonetheless, while the bachelor Kálnoky presided over the foreign of¤ce between 1881 and 1895, he frowned upon, though did not forbid, foreign marriages. In 1891, Karl von Heidler tried to mitigate his ¤ancée’s German birth by pointing to her father’s service in the Austrian army and her close maternal ties among the Habsburg nobility.37 Another understandable objection concerned a possible con¶ict of interest if a diplomat married a citizen of the state to which he was accredited. After Ludwig von Velics wed Edith de Messala, daughter of the private secretary of the queen of Greece, the Ballhausplatz transferred him from Athens for that reason explicitly.38 Kálnoky’s successor, Count Agenor Go|uchowski, had himself married a Frenchwoman and very likely evinced little sympathy for the old rule. In the late 1890s, Francis Joseph himself remarked that he had no intention of barring his diplomats from marrying foreigners.39 Since attributes considered essential in the diplomatic world were thought as a rule to be found among the nobility, it should hardly be surprising that most wives (87.1%) belonged to that caste. Of those, more than 60 percent (60.7%) came from families ennobled before the turn of the eighteenth century, while nearly half (46.8%) had titles that predated 1500. Comparable ¤gures for the diplomats show a nearly identical pattern: 59.6 percent and 43.7 percent respectively. Only approximately one¤fth of the wives (21.5%), in contrast to one-third of the diplomats, had ancestors who became noble in the two centuries preceding World War I. The above percentages may, however, be somewhat distorted in that data on many of the women (17.7%) are lacking. As a group, the consorts of the diplomats appear to have been even more aristocratic than their husbands. Nearly one-quarter of all noble wives (24.05%) had been awarded the Order of the Star Cross (Sternkreuzorden), founded in 1668 by Empress Eleonore and renowned throughout Europe for its exclusiveness.40 One diplomat stationed in Paris recalled that many ladies of the French aristocracy sought that coveted honor, but all too often could not produce the obligatory unblemished quarterings.41 The prime requirement for admission resembled that demanded of court chamberlains, who had to show the noble birth of many ancestors on both the paternal and maternal sides. One important difference, however, distinguished the two: the husbands of the ladies of

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the Star Cross also had to produce a ¶awless pedigree.42 Instead of sixteen noble ancestors, a noblewoman therefore needed thirty-two. The discrepancy between the percentage of ladies of the Star Cross among the wives and that of chamberlains among the diplomats may be attributed partly to that stringent requirement. A number of wives who themselves probably possessed the necessary ancestry married diplomats who did not. The capable ambassador in Washington, Baron Ladislaus Hengelmüller, whose grandfather had been a butcher in Upper Austria, married Countess Albertine Borkowska, of an ancient landed Galician family. Despite his parvenu and Jewish background, Heinrich von Löwenthal, the monarchy’s ¤rst and only minister in Albania, snared Countess Karoline Nostitz-Rieneck, the daughter of a Bohemian magnate. Such women no doubt lent an authentically aristocratic quality to diplomatic establishments where it might otherwise have been lacking while reinforcing the blue-blooded character of the service in a larger sense. In fact, no fewer than seven diplomats of relatively modest origin allied themselves by marriage with the high nobility, and ¤ve of them became mission chiefs.43 Only one diplomat succeeded in marrying a woman considered unsuitable and remained in the corps. Count Moritz Pálffy’s plan to marry Janina Suchodolska, the daughter of a Pole who had fought with the rebellious Hungarians in 1848 and who afterwards ¶ed to Turkey, encountered the objections of his family.44 Only after overcoming those did Pálffy formally petition the foreign of¤ce for permission to marry Suchodolska, which was granted after a favorable report from Constantinople on her personal character, if not her ¤nancial situation.45 An illustrious match, though, did not always work to the advantage of a diplomat. That of Prince Gottfried Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, an embassy counselor in Berlin, to Archduchess Marie Henriette of Austria in 1908 effectively ended his diplomatic career until World War I.46 In the months leading up to his marriage, Hohenlohe carefully weighed its advantages and drawbacks. One of Hohenlohe’s colleagues hinted that material factors heavily in¶uenced his choice.47 The bene¤ts of marrying an archduchess who drew a yearly revenue of 24,000 Gulden from the imperial house, and also brought a dowry, provided no small incentive.48 Only after pondering such issues did Hohenlohe, according to one observer, “suddenly burn with a passionate, profound love” for the Habsburg princess.49 Aehrenthal at ¤rst gave Hohenlohe to understand that dif¤culties associated with his wife’s position as a member of a sovereign house would pose no insuperable dif¤culties to remaining in the diplomatic corps. Both the bride and her

96 • aristocratic redoubt parents, Archduke and Archduchess Friedrich, favored such a solution as well. The plan foundered, however, on the opposition of Francis Joseph, as well as on Aehrenthal’s inability to solve the ticklish questions of rank that the presence of the archduchess in a foreign capital as the consort of a diplomat would have called forth.50 As one commentator noted, one could hardly expect a daughter of the house of Austria to yield precedence to the wives of the French, American, or Japanese ambassadors.51 His wife’s renunciation of her rank as an imperial and royal highness (k. und k. Hoheit) permitted Hohenlohe’s reentry into the diplomatic service as ambassador in Berlin at the outbreak of World War I.52 The Ballhausplatz raised no particular objection to a woman who did not come from the nobility, provided she was rich, polished, well-connected, and preferably foreign. Of the twelve middle-class wives, only four came from the monarchy. As the daughter of a Viennese dentist, Paula von Rosthorn, née Pichler, doubtlessly proved socially acceptable only as the wife of the envoy in far-off Peking. Five Habsburg diplomats chose their brides in the increasingly popular trans-Atlantic marriage market.53 Other great European noblemen—like the ninth Duke of Marlborough, who had married Consuelo Vanderbilt, and Prince Albert of Monaco, who chose Alice Heine of New Orleans as his second wife—had already discovered the charms and wealth of American heiresses. That pattern extended to Central Europe as well. Nora Iselin’s marriage to Count Ferdinand Colloredo-Mannsfeld, a legation secretary in Rome who also happened to be Aehrenthal’s nephew, encountered no objections at the Ballhausplatz. The bride belonged to a rich banking family in New York with origins in the Swiss patriciate, and the American embassy in the Italian capital provided a “thoroughly favorable” report on the Iselins. Any lingering reservations on the part of the foreign of¤ce disappeared when the future countess announced that any children of the match would be brought up Roman Catholic.54 The long residence in Europe of some American women had made them familiar with the customs and usages of the nobility. Harriette Wright, the daughter of a Cleveland banker, had been married to Leonardo conte Mercati, marshal of the Greek court, before becoming the wife of Emmerich von P¶ügl.55 Since most diplomats belonged to the Roman Church, which fervently supported the sanctity and ¤nality of marriage, the issue of divorce rarely arose. Only two of those posted abroad, one Catholic and one Protestant, ended their marriages. In 1908, the minister in Bern, Baron Karl Heidler, and his wife, the daughter of Prince Eberhard WaldburgZeil-Wurzach, ended their marriage of seventeen years by civil divorce,

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though they had evidently been estranged for a lengthy period before the ¤nal separation.56 Heidler’s career seems not to have been harmed by the collapse of his marriage, as he remained at his post in Switzerland until the end of 1909. Divorce for Protestants or members of the Greek Orthodox Church proved less problematic, as both, unlike the Catholic Church, recognized it. Nevertheless, at the devoutly Catholic Habsburg court, a divorced Protestant could still ¤nd himself in an uncomfortable position. The minister in Athens, Julius von Szilassy, later developed scruples for having told Archduke Francis Ferdinand that he did not have a wife without also mentioning that he had earlier terminated his marriage.57 The most celebrated divorce case involving an Austro-Hungarian diplomat also precipitated infelicitous political repercussions. Constantin Dumba, for two years envoy to Serbia, fell in love with the wife of the Russian legation secretary in Belgrade. Unfortunately, Dumba’s tour of duty (1903–5) happened to come during a time of tense Austro-Serbian relations that saw the overthrow of the pro-Austrian Obrenovich dynasty and the installation of a nationalist, pro-Russian government. While the Russian diplomat himself admitted the failure of his marriage, pro-Russian elements in Serbia used the scandal to fan a press campaign against the monarchy and its representative. Local newspapers portrayed Dumba as a lecher tainting the honor and purity of a Slavic woman, and nationalists urged her husband to defend his honor.58 The Ballhausplatz ¤nally recalled Dumba, who had taken an extended holiday because of the political fallout. Within several months of his departure he married the recent divorcée with the consent of the foreign of¤ce.59 Many wives proved to be important social assets in the missions abroad. Princess May Fürstenberg, wife of the legation counselor in St. Petersburg, seems to have outshone Countess Berchtold, who, as consort of the ambassador, outranked her. Her beauty, irresistible naiveté, and illustrious ancestry all combined to make her a celebrated social ¤gure in Russian society during her years there. Foreign Minister Izvol’skij, notorious for his vanity and snobbishness, felt particularly drawn to the princess, who tolerated his gushing ¶attery with considerable tact and good humor.60 Besides providing a focal point for St. Petersburg’s haut monde, the Fürstenberg salon also offered a second home to the other diplomats posted at the embassy and contributed to the collegial atmosphere among them. Of a wife’s various duties, supporting her husband in his social obligations posed the most important challenge. The foreign of¤ce welcomed wives distinguished not only by beauty and charm, but by other talents making for an effective diplomatic outpost.61 Baron Otto Kuhn compensated

98 • aristocratic redoubt somewhat for his own upstart origins by marrying Countess Anna Ráday, a Hungarian magnate’s daughter, who had musical gifts and an excellent knowledge of languages.62 When ¤ling reports with the Ballhausplatz on the effectiveness of their subordinates, mission chiefs frequently included a reference to their wives as well. From Munich, Ludwig von Velics happily announced that both the attaché Count Hubert Stolberg-Stolberg and his wife, née Princess Anna Lobkowitz, enjoyed a respected position in local society.63 The fortitude and courage with which Paula von Rosthorn withstood the rigors of Peking with her husband during the Boxer Rebellion earned her the War Medal.64 Some wives inevitably proved valuable in the actual practice of diplomacy as well, but the lack of evidence on the role of women in that aspect of diplomatic life hinders any detailed examination for the immediate prewar years. For earlier periods, the parts played by the duchess of Sagan and Princess Lieven in the nineteenth century are well known.65 Among consorts in the Aehrenthal and Berchtold eras, Princess Sophie Schönburg-Hartenstein can hardly have been unique. She later recalled that her husband, who served as envoy in Bucharest (1906–11) and ambassador to the Holy See (1911–18), discussed all of his of¤cial business with her. Additionally, he sometimes commissioned her to ¤sh for information at receptions and dinners, a task allegedly more easily accomplished by ladies.66 A wife possessing the virtues of intelligence, grace, and attractiveness supplied an emissary with a potent weapon, not only in furthering interests of state, but her husband’s own career as well. Other wives proved less successful additions to their husbands’ diplomatic establishments. In Berlin, Countess Szõgyény’s advancing age rendered her increasingly deaf, which made conversation with her dif¤cult at best. Her replies frequently had nothing to do with the topic, and she often resorted to nodding her head and smiling.67 Baroness Hengelmüller, wife of the ambassador in Washington, was described as “a beauty well past her prime” whose presence did little to compensate for her husband’s lack of social gifts. A young attaché posted in the New World complained that “she took a slightly embarrassing liking to me and sought to improve our relations, more particularly at Ping-Pong, as we stooped simultaneously to pick up the ball.”68 As the wife of the envoy in Brazil, Frida von Kuczyñski impressed one observer as being “unbelievably offensive,”69 a handicap that may have resulted in her husband’s banishment to South America. She crowned her obnoxious behavior during their earlier tour of duty in Cetinje by publishing, shortly after

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their departure, an anonymous pamphlet singing the praises of the Montenegrin princely family.70 The presence of a wife, irrespective of her talents, occasionally worked to the disadvantage of a diplomat. As a bachelor, Aehrenthal had enjoyed considerable popularity in Russian court society, whose lax morals he had no reason to challenge. He married during his time as ambassador, a move that, according to one source, reinforced a pedantic streak in his character and resulted in his ostracism by certain circles of the haut monde.71 Posts overseas, where costs of transportation and physical hardship and disease had to be considered, raised particular obstacles. In 1904, Baron Arnold Hammerstein-Gesmold lost his wife in a typhus epidemic in Persia during his stint as envoy there.72 His understandable association of that tragedy with Teheran eventually led Hammerstein to request his own recall, a move that effectively ended his career. The wishes of a diplomat’s wife could in¶uence the actual path taken by her husband’s career. While assigned to the legation in Brussels, Count Heinrich Lützow learned that the foreign of¤ce intended to transfer him to Madrid. He managed to have the decision reversed so that his wife, a Dutch noblewoman, could remain in the vicinity of her relatives at The Hague and in England.73 In the summer and fall of 1905, Count Adam Tarnowski, who had been clamoring for a post of more political signi¤cance than Dresden, carefully considered his wife’s wishes when petitioning for a new position. In his correspondence with the ¤rst section chief, he did not shy away from mentioning the substantial role that his wife’s considerations had in his thinking.74 The wives of functionaries in the central of¤ce had few duties comparable to those of their counterparts abroad. As the wife of a mission chief, a woman had to maintain an establishment worthy of her husband’s of¤cial capacity. Even the consorts of lower-level diplomats employed their charms and time to ensure the brilliance of receptions and dinners in the embassy and appeared at local society fêtes. Many entertained of¤cially in their own homes as well. With the exception of the highest-ranking mandarins, like the section chiefs and perhaps some of the departmental heads, few of those in Vienna had such representative roles. And unlike the wives of those stationed in foreign countries, who regularly accompanied their husbands to social gatherings, those in Vienna rarely had occasion to appear at the foreign of¤ce. The general lack of possibilities for active participation in the substance of diplomacy, such as existed abroad, re¶ected, and to some extent resulted from, their minimal social role.

100 • aristocratic redoubt While the wives in the embassies and legations lent an even more aristocratic air to the corps, the wives of central of¤ce personnel collectively and resoundingly reinforced the more modest origins of their husbands. As we have seen, functionaries in the ¤eld whose families had risen to distinction only in the nineteenth century showed a relatively marked tendency to choose brides with more blue-blooded pedigrees. In contrast, only two of¤cials in Vienna lacking a background in the diplomatic service had allied themselves with members of the court nobility. Baron Rudolf Doblhoff, a section counselor assigned in 1914 to Department 4 and son of a Lower Austrian estate owner, had married Countess Felicitas Dubsky, while the head of the press division, Oskar von Montlong, had made an altogether more unusual match when he won the hand of Countess Maria Waldstein, who belonged to one of Bohemia’s foremost magnate clans and whose mother, Countess Maria Berchtold, claimed the foreign minister as a cousin. A glance at the wives of the heads of the administrative departments in late 1913 con¤rms the uncommon nature of Doblhoff’s and Montlong’s matches. Of the seventeen of¤cials, one, Baron Hugo Rhemen, may be excluded as a diplomat stationed temporarily in Vienna, while four remained unattached, and the marital status of three others is unknown. The maiden names of the spouses of the nine remaining functionaries are Bertha von Mihanoviå, Marguerite von Olexow-Gniewosz, Countess Maria Waldstein, Marie von Raab, Mercedes Fragiacomo, Eleonore von Jarsch, Baroness Marie Krauø, Baroness Caroline Ajroldi, and Lola von Schreiner. Leaving aside Montlong’s exceptional match, few of these ladies possessed connections even in the higher reaches of the monarchy’s “second society.” The father-in-law of Baron Maximilian Sonnleithner of Department 10, Baron Karl Krauø, had at one time been a section chief at the Ballhausplatz, while several of Guido von Mende’s relatives by marriage had worked for the foreign of¤ce. On the other hand, the father of Franz Peter’s bride ran a hotel in Smyrna in Turkey,75 and most of the others came from similarly respectable, if undistinguished, antecedents. The sample of wives above is perhaps somewhat unrepresentative of the remainder of the spouses in Vienna in that a signi¤cant number of the latter actually came from the bourgeoisie. No evidence suggests that the Ballhausplatz even remotely considered admitting women to the foreign service in our period. Most of his colleagues undoubtedly shared the view of Julius von Szilassy, who believed that women possessed no fundamental aptitude for diplomacy. He con-

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ceded that their tact and ¤nesse might rival or even exceed a man’s, but argued that they lacked cool judgment and the ability to remain composed under stress.76 In other words, women for Szilassy were too emotional for a major role in high politics. Although excluded from an of¤cial role, women, in their capacity as wives of diplomats, played a formidable part in prewar international life, not only as hostesses but occasionally as indispensable adjuncts in the substance of their husbands’ work.

5 Diplomacy in a New Age Aehrenthal’s Reforms aristocratic redoubt Diplomacy in a New Age

T

he reforms introduced by Foreign Minister Aehrenthal during his tenure at the Ballhausplatz between 1906 and 1912 in some respects negate the oft-cited witticism that Austria invariably lagged behind her European counterparts “d’une année, d’une armée et d’une idée.” Within two years of coming to of¤ce, Aehrenthal had inaugurated a series of changes that affected all three branches of the foreign service (diplomatic corps, consular corps, and central of¤ce) and that compared favorably to similar efforts in other European countries in the same period. The main thrust of the reforms, at both the Ballhausplatz and other European foreign of¤ces, concerned the tighter integration of economic factors into the policy process and the support of domestic companies in increasingly competitive foreign markets. According to one authority, an integrated international economy had emerged in the late nineteenth century in the wake of lower tariff barriers, at least in some countries, and a rapidly expanding transportation network.1 Power and status within the global order had come to rely more and more on economic might, a development that could be ignored by Europe’s statesmen only at considerable risk. The relevance and effectiveness of traditional court-oriented diplomacy had consequently declined. Among European foreign of¤ces in the decade before World War I, the Quai d’Orsay in Paris appears to have undertaken the most comprehensive set of reforms. The retreat of monarchists and members of the nobility from the foreign service after the 1890s in part facilitated a substantive overhaul of the policy-making apparatus. In April 1907, the same month that saw the introduction of Aehrenthal’s ¤rst major innovation,

102

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a general reform of the French foreign ministry ended the traditional bureaucratic and increasingly arti¤cial division between political and commercial affairs.2 The old system, whereby business at the Quai d’Orsay was handled by two major departments—the Directorate of Political Affairs and the Directorate of Commercial and Consular Affairs—gave way to four geographic subdirectorates, each of which dispatched all concerns pertaining to its particular region. The new approach to foreign policy in Paris, and its accompanying organizational structure, in fact heralded a more general twentieth-century trend. Questions of reform in the British foreign of¤ce occupied a royal commission on the civil service, though the hearings occurred only in 1914, seven years after Aehrenthal ¤rst addressed the issue in Vienna.3 Complaints abounded about the presence of too many peers’ sons and Etonians and a glaring lack of representatives skilled in commercial reporting. Drawing a comparison unfavorable to Whitehall, the president of the Leeds Chamber of Commerce pointed out that, unlike British diplomats, their German counterparts looked after the commercial interests abroad of their compatriots.4 Whatever the truth of that charge may be, the outbreak of war in the summer of 1914 delayed reform in the British foreign of¤ce yet longer, until the spring of 1918. The paradoxes so typical of other aspects of Habsburg history are not lacking here, either. Reform came to the Ballhausplatz not through outside liberal or radical pressure, but through the efforts of Foreign Minister Aehrenthal, a conservative representative of the great Bohemian landowning aristocracy. Aehrenthal further presided over a service renowned in Europe, if contemporary memoir accounts are to be believed, for the profusion of narrow-minded, frivolous, and arrogant aristocrats who populated its ranks. In 1913, the middle-class Austro-Hungarian military attaché in Paris, in a report to the chief of the General Staff, quoted rather gleefully from an article in the French press that described “the dandi¤ed diplomats in kid gloves and sporting whiskers in the style of half-century ago who direct policy at the Ballhausplatz.”5 Many of the monarchy’s diplomats showed neither a grasp of nor interest in the rapid changes affecting society around them. Berchtold’s sympathetic biographer, Hugo Hantsch, noted that the future foreign minister’s diary entries for the periods when he was stationed abroad reveal his preoccupation with “the rare¤ed, self-contained world of the high nobility, in which he moved almost exclusively.”6 Aehrenthal himself, indisputably one of the most capable of the monarchy’s foreign representatives, showed an acute understanding of high politics during his time as ambassador in St. Petersburg,

104 • aristocratic redoubt but resorted to conspiracy theories built around Judeo-anarchist plots when attempting to explain the 1905 revolution.7 Every aspect of the foreign minister’s reform program bore the stamp of its conservative origins, which in turn, as we shall see, ultimately determined its outcome. While blind to the sources of social change, Aehrenthal nevertheless appreciated the importance of economic strength for power politics. In that way he differed from his immediate predecessors and from many of his colleagues. From his own observations abroad and from information sent him by friends, he further recognized the de¤ciencies of a foreign service that lacked expertise in trade and commercial questions. In 1903, following stays in various European capitals, Josef Maria Baernreither, a well-known statesman and former cabinet minister, sent Aehrenthal, then ambassador in Russia, an extensive report on the appalling state of the diplomatic corps, particularly emphasizing the utter ignorance concerning modern economic issues. He complained that the Ballhausplatz pursued no coherent joint trade policy, possessed few competent of¤cials either at the missions abroad or in Vienna, and failed to transmit clear trade-political directives to or collect regular reports from the ¤eld. Even more interesting from Aehrenthal’s perspective was undoubtedly Baernreither’s belief that economics was the “driving wheel” of all foreign policy and that inef¤cient, improperly trained representatives prevented decisive and effective intervention in world affairs.8 Baernreither’s was hardly the only voice raised in alarm, though few came from inside the foreign service.9 For years, the Ballhausplatz had listened with sovereign indifference to the pleas of various economic interests within the monarchy for more effective commercial and trade representation abroad, which was often associated with an overhaul of the consular service. In 1898, the chamber of commerce (Handels- und Gewerbekammer) in Reichenberg, an industrial center in Bohemia, summed up the situation as follows: “The song of consular reorganization is not new. Its plaintive tone has been heard for decades, the passage of which has made it still louder. Today one hears the melody, if only one wishes, from all directions, from all industrial and business organizations and chambers of commerce, from factories, workshops, and of¤ces.”10 As far back as 1862, the same chamber had made wide-ranging suggestions, at the instigation of the commerce ministry, for improvements in the consular service. More than a quarter of a century later, in 1888, this time at the request of the Austrian Commerce Museum in Vienna, it conducted a survey of leading businessmen, industrialists, and export ¤rms in Bohemia about consular effectiveness. A report summarizing the wishes of the business community was

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submitted afterward directly to the Ballhausplatz, but evidently, and not surprisingly during Foreign Minister Count Gustav Kálnoky’s tenure (1881– 95), it brought no response. Other groups, like the Lower Austrian Chamber of Commerce and the Austro-Hungarian Export Union had likewise lobbied for changes and greeted the announcement of Aehrenthal’s reforms as the ful¤llment of “long-cherished” hopes.11 The new foreign minister wasted little time after coming to of¤ce in declaring his intention to introduce reforms at the Ballhausplatz. In a speech given before the budget committee of the delegation of the Austrian parliament barely a month after his appointment, Aehrenthal acknowledged the ever increasing importance of a healthy economy in general and foreign trade in particular for the monarchy’s international position.12 In announcing a reform of admission standards for the diplomatic corps, he further af¤rmed the long-standing claims of the business community that the Ballhausplatz had a key role to play in helping them capture foreign markets. In particular, Aehrenthal proposed to stiffen the entrance examination (Diplomatenprüfung) by requiring “more intensive” exposure to economic issues.13 A little more than a year later, he delivered what would be his most signi¤cant parliamentary utterance on the theme of reform, on this occasion arguing the need for a more “practical promotion of export trade by the consular service.”14 His plans included recruiting “commercial advisers” (kommerzielle Beiräte) directly from business circles to be attached to “all consular of¤ces of commercial importance.” Additionally, he stated his intention to induct into the consular corps itself of¤cials who had not only enjoyed rigorous theoretical preparation but who had undergone practical training in export houses. These parliamentary speeches are apparently the only ones Aehrenthal devoted to the question of reform during his ¤ve-year tenure. In many ways, they provide only the barest outline of the far broader reform program that he conceptualized. No mention appears in his addresses of the fundamental changes he introduced into the political and administrative sections of the central of¤ce in Vienna, nor does he more than hint at the new admissions and personnel dispositions in the diplomatic corps. Only with respect to the consular service do his remarks provide a relatively accurate, if still somewhat incomplete, indication of the scope of renewal he planned. The pattern of Aehrenthal’s tenure in the foreign of¤ce, which was marked by a break in the Bosnian annexation crisis, marked the reform program as well. He introduced his most unusual, if short-lived, innovation, which resembled in a limited way that at the Quai d’Orsay and which was intimately connected to Aehrenthal’s Balkan policy,

106 • aristocratic redoubt soon after taking power. Most of the other reforms, in the diplomatic and consular services and the administrative section of the foreign of¤ce, had to await the resolution of the Bosnian affair in the spring of 1909. Determined to revive Austria-Hungary ’s ¶agging prestige, Aehrenthal abandoned the status quo policy of his predecessor. As the Balkans furnished the only realistic arena for asserting the monarchy’s power, he launched a peaceful offensive aimed at dominating the peninsula through trade and commercial ties. In other words, he hoped to achieve political primacy in the area without resorting to force, a goal that actually dated at least back to the Andrássy era.15 The new foreign minister planned assaults on two fronts. First, he hoped to connect the Serbian and Turkish rail networks to that in Bosnia, via the well-known Sanjak Railway project. With an extension to the Adriatic, the monarchy would then control the fastest, cheapest route for Serbian wares to western markets.16 Second, Aehrenthal proposed to counter Italian economic penetration of Albania by constructing a coastal railway from Cattaro in Dalmatia to Scutari in Turkish Albania by way of Antivari in Montenegro.17 He particularly feared that the stretch of track already laid within Montenegro from Antivari to Virpazar by the Italian Compagnia di Antivari would become the ¤rst link in a Serbo-Russian-backed transversal-Balkan railroad. If the northern Albanian market were once secured, the monarchy could then turn to the construction of its own line through Monastir to the Greek border, with the Aegean port of Salonika as the ultimate, rather magical objective.18 Aehrenthal recognized the inadequacies of the bureaucratic organization at his disposal for formulating and implementing his policies. Since the Andrássy era (1871–79), little effort had been made to incorporate commercial and ¤nancial factors into the daily business of policy making. Foreign Ministers Baron Heinrich Haymerle (1879–81) and Count Gustav Kálnoky (1881–95) had done away with the independent economic section established by Andrássy and directed by the capable Baron Joseph Schwegel.19 As a stopgap measure, Foreign Minister Count Agenor Go|uchowski (1895–1906) had appointed Consul General Alexander von Suzzara to be de facto section chief for trade policy at the end of 1900,20 but had left the essence of the Haymerle-Kálnoky system intact. Suzzara died in 1905, and the bestowal in the spring of 1906 of the title of a section chief on Johann von Mihalovich, director of Department 9 (trade policy), did nothing to bring a coherent economic perspective to the formulation of high policy.21

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Aehrenthal’s ¤rst effort to inject a new spirit into the decision-making process at the Ballhausplatz came with the appointment in February 1907 of Baron Guido Call as ¤rst section chief. Though a former diplomat, Call’s chief attraction lay in his years as commerce minister in the cabinet of Minister-President Ernst von Koerber. As ¤rst section chief, he became the ranking of¤cial behind the foreign minister. The recruitment of Call, however, provided only the prelude to what would be Aehrenthal’s most important reform initiative of the ¤rst phase of his tenure. Two months later, in April 1907, he erected a department (Referat) for economic affairs within the political section, a move that resembled the new approach taken in the French foreign of¤ce but that also harked back to a Beust-era initiative.22 The responsibilities of the new creation, both geographically and topically, re¶ected Aehrenthal’s concern with enhancing the greatpower status of the Habsburg Empire in the one area left for such activity. He assigned Department I/H.P., as it was designated, all matters connected with communications, ¤nance, banks, and other related issues in the Balkan peninsula and Turkey.23 To oversee the new division he chose of¤cials whose previous experience recommended them for the challenge. He tapped Walter von Princig, a member of the board of the Austrian Lloyd shipping line and a former consul general. In the course of his consular career, Princig had accumulated extensive experience in the Balkans, having served in Constantinople and at the head of the consulate in Belgrade. Additionally, he had been attached to the commercial bureau of the London embassy, where he had been able to observe at ¤rsthand the world’s foremost trading nation. His work at the Austrian Lloyd, with its operations throughout the strategic Adriatic, also recommended him for the post. Princig received as a deputy Consul Simon Joannovics, an ethnic Serb from Transleithania whose intimate knowledge of Balkan commerce also came from long assignments at the consulate in Belgrade. Aehrenthal came to regard his work so highly that he later named him head of the department for trade policy.24 If success abroad may at least partly be taken as an indicator of the effectiveness of the experiment, the new division proved a dismal failure, whatever the quali¤cations of Princig and Joannovics. With respect to the plans for a railway along the Dalmatian-Montenegrin littoral, Aehrenthal’s thinking throughout exhibited a lack of conceptual clarity and of an appreciation of the practical dif¤culties involved. He failed to make a persuasive case to the ministries that would have been responsible for implementing the scheme (including the Austrian minister-president) or the great banks and the Austrian Lloyd. By the end of 1907, he had to

108 • aristocratic redoubt concede defeat.25 The following year brought yet another setback, when Cisleithania refused to consider funding Consul General von Princig’s proposal for a railway across Bosnia to Montenegro and Albania aimed at undermining a projected Serbo-Russian track connecting the Danube with the Adriatic.26 The Sanjak railway proposal had a somewhat longer life, perhaps in spite of what again appears to have been muddled preparation and illusory optimism.27 It also had to be shelved in later 1908, during the crisis surrounding the annexation of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Thereafter the delicate political situation in the Balkans provided no opportunity to revive it. The seizure of the Sanjak by the victorious Serbs and Montenegrins in the course of the First Balkan War in 1912 ¤nally destroyed any possibility of its realization. By then, however, Department I/H.P. had long since ceased to exist. Aehrenthal abolished it in the spring of 1909, only two years after its creation. Neither he nor his successor tried to establish any similar policy unit at the Ballhausplatz. The novelty of the experiment lay in the effort to treat politics and economics from a single integrated vantage point. The relatively brief appearance of Department I/H.P. proved to be the only effort in that direction on the part of Austria-Hungary in the decade before the war. Its limited scope, short life, and dubious achievements left little likelihood that Aehrenthal would adopt on a more permanent basis such a comprehensive frame of reference. He had certainly come to recognize the importance of economic factors in foreign affairs, but only as one limited element in his old-fashioned game of power politics. Once he had abandoned his offensive in the Balkans, the trade department in the political section lost its raison d’être. The elimination of Department I/H.P. did not, however, mark a return to the situation as it had been under Go|uchowski. The second half of Aehrenthal’s tenure brought a renewed impetus for reform that ultimately proved more lasting. He directed his attention to three areas. First, he reorganized the central of¤ce to make policy making more responsive to economic and trade concerns, even if he did not integrate them with political affairs under one rubric this time. The changes were limited exclusively to the administrative divisions of the ministry. Second, Aehrenthal revised admissions standards and made personnel changes aimed primarily at securing a diplomatic corps whose members exhibited greater understanding of the forces at work in modern foreign relations. And third, he sought to make the consular service more

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responsive to domestic ¤rms engaged in export trade, the growth of which he hoped would strengthen the monarchy ’s international position. In keeping with his conservative reformist principles, traditional political considerations remained foremost in the policy arena, while the diplomatic corps maintained or even enhanced its premier place among the three branches of service. Additionally, Aehrenthal’s reforms were less obviously linked to speci¤c foreign-policy initiatives than they had been in the ¤rst half of his stewardship. The results of his earlier efforts in the Balkans undoubtedly pointed up the lack of an experienced organization and staff, problems that could not be solved by simply calling a special department into being for a particular purpose. Such a solution had already proven inadequate, and could not in the long run supply the expertise necessary to handle complex issues of international commerce and transportation. His goal therefore was a general improvement of the ministry ’s human and organizational resources that in the future might allow for a more effective intervention abroad, both economically and otherwise. Although commerce had once again been relegated exclusively to the administrative section of the ministry, Aehrenthal nevertheless carried out a massive expansion of the departments charged with overseeing such questions. His new reforms, which took effect in the spring of 1909, followed the end of the Bosnian annexation crisis and the abolition of Department I/H.P. The duties of Department 9, formerly responsible for all economic issues, were parceled out among ¤ve new divisions, and numerous areas not previously or only imperfectly monitored under the previous system were accounted for. Department 8, which had dealt with emigration and combating anarchism, disappeared altogether, to be replaced by two new organs. Questions related to international shipping; navigation on inland waterways; hydrography; and post, telegraph, and telephone communications with foreign states fell to Department 8a, while Department 8b supervised issues connected with railways, automobiles, international ¤nance, and social welfare. Department 9 itself emerged as three new departments: trade policy (9a), agriculture (9b), and commerce (9c). The ¤rst of these managed the monarchy’s trade and tariff policies, tracked those of foreign powers, and reported on import/export prohibitions, rights of transit, direct and indirect taxation, and state monopolies. With the creation of Department 9c, the Ballhausplatz for the ¤rst time became actively involved in very speci¤c ways in the advancement of the monarchy’s foreign commercial interests. Among others, its new responsibilities included monitoring import/export

110 • aristocratic redoubt chances; rendering a variety of services to domestic businessmen seeking to penetrate markets abroad; arranging visits by foreign entrepreneurs to establishments within Austria-Hungary; promoting the trade of the monarchy’s industrial and mining products; tracking changes in foreign legislation and legal codes affecting patents and trademarks; and maintaining current information on commercial exhibitions, congresses, and conferences both at home and abroad.28 The foreign of¤ce had barely concerned itself with such matters before Aehrenthal’s changes. Even the agenda of Department 9b (agriculture and forestry), certainly more traditional in scope than that of 9a or 9c, had not fallen within the purview of the old Department 9, which had been primarily occupied with the preparation and conclusion of treaties and conventions. In entering such a partnership with the business community, Aehrenthal broke, however cautiously, with the Ballhausplatz’s long-standing and exclusive devotion to the world of high politics. He further may have hoped to bridge the gulf between entrepreneurial circles and the ministry, which may well have hampered his work in 1907 and 1908.29 The foreign minister decided to appoint one high-ranking of¤cial to coordinate the work of the new departments, thus re-creating, albeit informally, a uni¤ed economic section such as had existed before Kálnoky and, brie¶y, during Go|uchowski’s tenure. Section Chief Call, who since early 1907 had been the Ballhausplatz’s leading voice in commercial affairs, was accredited at the beginning of 1909 as ambassador in Tokyo. Aehrenthal also passed over Mihalovich, a relic of the Kálnoky years who had served as director of Department 9 and thereafter headed 9a.30 Lacking a candidate from his own bailiwick, Aehrenthal turned outside the ministry to Mauriz von Roeøler, a leading of¤cial in the Austrian commerce ministry who enjoyed a European-wide reputation as an authority on international trade. Interestingly, he was one of the few Ballhausplatz mandarins to have had recent roots in the proletariat, his grandfather having been a Viennese coachman.31 Roeøler not only shared Mihalovich’s skill in the legalese of treaty making, having helped conclude numerous agreements with Germany, but had also emerged as a principal proponent of industrial expansion and exports. In the late 1890s, his dissatisfaction with available educational facilities led him to lobby successfully for the establishment of the Export Academy. At the Ballhausplatz, Roeøler oversaw all ¤ve economic of¤ces, as well as the consular department.32 While the new arrangement did not de jure return the ministry to its pre-Kálnoky structure, it nevertheless de facto reassembled an integrated economic section that existed at least theoretically on a par

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with its political counterpart. Only in November 1911, three months before his death, did Aehrenthal re-create two formal sections in the ministry, one for political affairs, the other encompassing the economic and consular departments.33 While restructuring the central of¤ce, Aehrenthal also tended to questions of admissions standards and personnel in Vienna and the missions abroad. The ¤rst half of his term had actually seen some tentative steps in that regard, though only in 1909 were general reforms implemented. Ironically, Ministerial Councillor Adolf von Plason, long the ministry ’s most vocal proponent of change, retired in 1907 after having seen his calls for reform ignored for decades by Foreign Ministers Kálnoky and Go|uchowski. What opinion, if any, Aehrenthal held of Plason’s suggestions or whether he had ever read any of Plason’s extensive memoranda on the subject of reform remains unknown.34 They certainly had been acquainted with each other in the 1880s and 1890s when Aehrenthal had served Kálnoky as an adviser in Vienna. But the fact that Plason held the latter responsible, at least implicitly, for the decline in the standards of the corps cannot have presented a basis for mutual understanding. Kálnoky had been Aehrenthal’s greatest patron within the service. That said, however, several of Plason’s recommendations turned up in the new minister’s program. Three months after assuming of¤ce, Aehrenthal formalized a rule requiring candidates for the diplomatic corps to have spent one year of service in a government bureau of the domestic bureaucracy; those seeking a post in the central of¤ce were to spend two years. Plason had long called for such a regulation, arguing that the foreign of¤ce employed an overabundance of young and inexperienced staff. Permitting applications only from aspirants with signi¤cant practical knowledge, he suggested, would relieve the educational burden borne by the ministry and furnish better-quali¤ed, more mature of¤cials.35 Before 1907, the ministry, however, rarely accepted candidates for appointments to the central of¤ce who did not have some background in another governmental department. Prospective diplomats, by contrast, often did not have such experience. Of the ¤ve new attachés appointed in May 1906, only one had previously worked in another branch of government. What type of experience, thought necessary by the Ballhausplatz, did a candidate bring from a background in the bureaucracy? Evidence is scanty for the rationale behind the requirement, but one could imagine that the foreign ministry hoped that its future of¤cials would learn the

112 • aristocratic redoubt forms, routine, and discipline of a government bureau.36 A few sources suggest, however, that the results of this training may have been meager at best. One contemporary noted that noblemen invariably chose service in provincial governors’ of¤ces because of the opportunities it presented for enjoying the pleasures of country life. Thus few nobles could be found in the ministries in Vienna, where complicated economic issues dominated the agenda.37 One diplomat, Count Emerich Csáky, later recalled his service in the administration of the Hungarian port of Fiume, where his chief, knowing that he was only a temporary acquisition, paid him little attention and gave him only one assignment. One day, the governor ordered Csáky and a colleague to inspect a lobster-breeding station established a few years earlier down the coast at Porto Ré. After their voyage in the governor’s yacht, which had been placed at their disposal, the pair discovered that only one ¤ne example from the original stock for the experiment had survived. Having duly inspected the lone lobster and seeing no suitable restaurant in the little village, the two of¤cials, hungry from the morning’s exertions, asked an old ¤sherman to prepare it for their lunch. After satisfying their palates, they climbed aboard the yacht once again, sailed back to Fiume, and drew up a report announcing that the breeding station had unfortunately failed, the last specimen having died in their presence.38 No doubt other aspiring diplomats confronted the same indifference experienced by Csáky. The work the provisional of¤cials did receive may all too often have been the sort for which other, more valuable employees could not be spared. Aehrenthal also began rather early making changes in the composition of the commission that oversaw the diplomatic examination (Diplomatenprüfung), which all applicants for the central of¤ce and the diplomatic corps had to take for de¤nitive admission. In the more than half-century of its existence, that body had undergone little change. One extra examiner, to make a total of four (including the chairman), had been added during the Haymerle years. When Aehrenthal came to of¤ce, more than a quarter-century had since passed. His ¤rst, albeit minor, innovation was the expansion in 1907 of the commission to include the ministry’s leading expert in international law, Otto von Weil. Even more importantly, Aehrenthal decided to begin including faculty from the Consular Academy on the commission. Although he ultimately rejected Plason’s suggestion that quali¤ed graduates of the Academy be regularly inducted into the corps, he nonetheless sought to tap its resources for the bene¤t of prospective diplomats. Almost unbelievably, no representative of the monarchy’s premier educational establishment for foreign affairs had ever been chosen to serve on the commission.

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By 1908, two such professors, Rudolf von Herrmann-Herrnritt and Ludwig von Thallóczy, had been drafted, bringing the total number of examiners to seven. The outstanding reputations of both men lent the commission the prestige and visibility that it had theretofore lacked. By 1912, Aehrenthal’s changes had brought the commission from four to seven members, with three of the four new positions held by faculty from the Consular Academy. The trend toward raising the level and prestige of the exam by co-opting distinguished outsiders continued during the Berchtold years. In January 1914, the Ballhausplatz issued the ¤rst formal directive since 1880 for regulating the composition of the commission.39 It called for no fewer than eight members, three of whom—the ¤rst section chief, the personnel director in the foreign of¤ce, and the director of the preparatory course for the diplomatic examination40—were identi¤ed speci¤cally. At that time, the latter also happened to be the head of the Consular Academy, who thus appeared for the ¤rst time on the commission. Of the eight of¤cials who examined the last class of prewar candidates, only three came directly from ministerial ranks, and only one member (Baron Emil Jettel) remained whose tenure preceded the Aehrenthal years. In another initiative from 1909, Aehrenthal directed the Consular Academy to establish a one-year preparatory course (Vorbereitungskurs) to ready candidates for the diplomatic examination. The offerings included instruction in Austrian and Hungarian constitutional law, diplomatic history, international law, and international economic relations. Attendance was mandatory for all aspirants, and at the end of the course, the Consular Academy evaluated individual performances and forwarded the results to the foreign of¤ce. The new system possessed a number of advantages. For the ¤rst time, the ministry exploited the intellectual assets of the Consular Academy to train the monarchy’s future diplomats. Attending presentations by the Academy’s leading instructors exposed the candidates to subjects with which they had theretofore had minimal contact. Of the four professors from the Academy participating in the preparatory course in 1911, two specialized in economic issues.41 Occasionally, they also assigned lengthy essays, as when Ludwig von Thallóczy asked his students to comment on the differences between the Hungarian and Austrian versions of the laws regulating the Ausgleich.42 Additionally, the preparatory course also provided the Ballhausplatz a new angle from which to assess the talents of future of¤cials and to weed out those found wanting.43 In 1909, Aehrenthal also extensively reformed the two tests taken by candidates for admission. He began with the qualifying exam (Vorprüfung),

114 • aristocratic redoubt once administered by Adolf von Plason and required at the time of initial application. In Plason’s day, an aspirant had only to compose a short essay (ca. 2–3 pages) in French and very infrequently one in German if his command of the latter were suspect. No organized attempt was made to assess either speaking ability or general intelligence or knowledge, though Plason often supplied the ¤rst section chief with impressionistic comments on such matters. Under Aehrenthal, the foreign of¤ce expanded the qualifying examination to include both written and oral sections. The requirements for the former included a short paper in German on a given theme, and translation work from German to French and, beginning in 1914, from German to English.44 For the oral section, an examinee had to answer questions about history, particularly that of Austria-Hungary, and demonstrate speaking ability in French and English.45 Aehrenthal’s decision to utilize faculty of the Consular Academy and to alter the initial entrance test corresponded with the ¤rst major reform in decades of the diplomatic examination (Diplomatenprüfung), which constituted the last major hurdle before de¤nitive admission. Until 1909, candidates had undergone a four-day oral and written ordeal at the end of their year of provisional service. Each of the ¤rst three days had been devoted to writing an essay on an assigned topic, with the oral part falling on the fourth. Beginning in 1910, the old in-house written work gave way to three, more extensive take-home papers, which the aspirants had up to four months to complete. Whereas formerly they had been allowed only dictionaries while composing, the foreign of¤ce now permitted them to use all “generally accessible sources,” including history books, legal treatises, and other reference works.46 The candidates in 1910 had from late June until the ¤rst of November to accomplish this task. Upon its completion, the foreign of¤ce required them to write a three-hour supervised exam (Klausurprüfung) in French, evidently to evaluate their independent language capabilities.47 In reforming the examinations, Aehrenthal hoped to gain a more accurate picture of a candidate’s intellectual qualities, including judgment, critical thinking, and the ability to construct a systematic argument. The new system achieved that objective, even if the actual results of the exams left much to be desired. The examiners complained, in their evaluations of the take-home essays, that masses of irrelevant detail suffocated whatever glimmers of insight might have existed and that the bibliographies contained titles that mostly had gone unused. Even worse, the excellent French exhibited in several essays raised the suspicion of cheating, which had plagued the old system as well.48

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Though dif¤cult to judge because the outbreak of war interrupted and ¤nally destroyed the momentum generated by the reforms, it nevertheless appears that no essential break with past practice occurred with respect to admissions. The foreign of¤ce still decided, on the basis of subjective criteria, who would be allowed to take the initial qualifying examination.49 The social pro¤le of the recruits changed little after the introduction of the reforms. Of the seventeen attachés on duty in the spring of 1914, all of whom had been admitted to the corps under the new system, eight (47% ) came from the territorial aristocracy, a proportion similar to that existing in the middle years of Foreign Minister Go|uchowski’s term.50 Further, much evidence indicates that neither upper of¤cialdom at the Ballhausplatz nor the aspirants themselves took the reforms very seriously. Those who failed the exam could retake it a few months later, while even the bungling Count Johann Ferdinand Kuefstein eventually secured admission in spite of his disastrous performance.51 The vehement protests of one member of the commission, Ludwig von Thallóczy, did not prevent two candidates from being excused altogether from the diplomatic examination in 1912.52 Great names and powerful connections proved particularly useful, as shown by the cases of the unstable Prince Vincenz Windisch-Grätz and Count Alexander Festetics, neither of whom had served a provisional stint in the domestic bureaucracy. Several factors may account for the relatively unchanging pro¤le of the inductees under Aehrenthal and Berchtold. First, less than eight years separated Aehrenthal’s arrival at the Ballhausplatz and the beginning of the war. The centerpiece of the reforms in the admissions process, the new diplomatic examination, ¤rst appeared in 1910 and took place only four times before 1914. Second, the Ballhausplatz, unlike its German counterpart, maintained an independent income requirement for aspirants down to 1914.53 Recruitment among the well-educated but less af¶uent sections of the middle classes thus continued to be restricted. Third, the advent in 1912 of Berchtold, who enjoyed a reputation as a blue-blooded dilettante, undoubtedly helped preserve the ministry’s notoriety as an aristocratic redoubt.54 Only a few months before the war, press attacks assailed the well-born “clique” who dominated the monarchy’s foreign-policy establishment.55 But even in Aehrenthal, whose image differed so markedly from that of his successor, the Ballhausplatz possessed a chief with the closest connections to and sympathy with the high nobility. In addition to overhauling admissions standards, Aehrenthal tried in at least one other important respect to make the diplomatic corps more

116 • aristocratic redoubt responsive to the needs of the export community. Here again, as in the reorganization and expansion of the economic section of the ministry, he appears to have looked partially to precedents that were set during the Andrássy years (1871–79) but ignored or de-emphasized in the KálnokyGo|uchowski era. During the economic boom of 1867–73, the Ballhausplatz made tentative moves toward adapting to international realities by attaching commercial bureaus (Kommerzkanzlei) to the missions in London and Paris. Wishing to acquaint embassy personnel with domestic business interests in foreign markets, the ministry had also hoped to forge closer links between the diplomatic corps, traditionally responsible for political affairs, and the consular service, which handled trade issues.56 The effort foundered, though the bureaus, long neglected, were not abolished until 1909. An unfortunate constellation of circumstances doomed the creation, not the least being that Kálnoky’s tenure partly coincided with the long recession following the crash of 1873 and the resulting decrease in the growth rate of the monarchy’s exports.57 With the more rapid rise in export trade after the turn of the century, which simultaneously served as an impetus for his other measures, Aehrenthal decided to introduce the new post of commercial director (Kommerzdirektor) at the embassies in London, Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, and Washington. Unlike the heads of the two abolished commercial bureaus, the new of¤cials, insofar as they did not already belong to the corps, were to be awarded diplomatic rank and senior status in the mission hierarchy for the duration of their assignments. Aehrenthal hoped thereby to diminish the gulf that had separated the diplomatic from the consular service without eliminating it entirely. Nearly all of the commercial directors, as did their predecessors in the commercial bureaus, came from a consular background. In making the case to Francis Joseph for the new creation, Aehrenthal once again emphasized the needs of domestic producers as well as the increasingly critical relationship between politics and economics in the formulation of foreign policy.58 Because of budgetary constraints, the new positions could at ¤rst only be ¤lled at the embassies in London and Paris, where funds had already been allocated for the former commercial bureaus. In 1911, Constantinople and Berlin received commercial directors, while the posts in Washington and St. Petersburg were never occupied, possibly as a result of the repeated crises of the Berchtold years. Aehrenthal intended the commercial director to be the ambassador’s chief adviser in all economic matters, providing him with information and technical expertise. He was

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expected to report on a wide variety of issues: the tariff and trade policy of the host country, as well as trade relations between the latter and the monarchy; tariffs and tariff reclamations, and questions of direct and indirect taxation; trade statistics; state monopolies; forestry, agriculture, and the coal and steel industry; railroads, shipping, and ports; the postal service, telegraphs, and telephones; the ¤nancial world, including banks and currency; immigration; and medical services and quarantines. The commercial director also had to watch for import/export opportunities, changes in licensing, delivery, and patent regulations, and generally pass along information of commercial interest.59 In soliciting the support of the delegations, which would provide the ¤nancing, the foreign of¤ce downplayed raisons d’état in favor of the advantages the new system would bring to domestic industry competing abroad. Aehrenthal also assured the parliamentarians that the new experts would be thoroughly acquainted with the conditions of domestic industry and agriculture.60 To keep that promise, the Ballhausplatz envisaged a closer working relationship with the commerce ministries in both halves of the monarchy. Routine consultations between those of¤ces and the commercial directors did in fact develop, though the latter sometimes found themselves caught between two sets of priorities. Soon after being appointed to the new post in London in 1913, Baron Georg Franckenstein arranged to undertake an extensive study trip in Cisleithania. Section Chief Richard Riedl in the Austrian commerce ministry drew up a lengthy travel program that would have taken Franckenstein to Vienna, Prague, Brünn, Troppau, Cracow, Lemberg, Czernowitz, Linz, and ten other cities.61 Franckenstein estimated that the factory visits and meetings with business leaders in Bohemia, Silesia, and Galicia alone would take approximately one month.62 The entire program was vetoed, however, by Theodor Ippen, deputy director of the foreign ministry’s trade section, who suggested that Franckenstein ¤rst acquaint himself with English market conditions and the state of the monarchy’s exports there. Ippen believed that Franckenstein would require a year to orient himself in London before undertaking the proposed tour.63 Such thinking contrasted with the more practical considerations of the commerce ministry, which viewed Franckenstein’s mission as an immediate opportunity to advance Austrian business and trade interests abroad. While Ippen by no means discounted such an objective, he ¤rst wanted Franckenstein to be thoroughly familiar with conditions on the ground and to provide regular reports to the foreign of¤ce on his observations. Then, better quali¤ed than before, he could help facilitate the penetration of Austro-Hungarian products into the British marketplace.

118 • aristocratic redoubt Aehrenthal’s expansion of the staff in the central of¤ce to meet the new international challenges also re¶ected the conservative and pragmatic nature of his reform program. Between 1906 and 1910, the foreign minister doubled, from eleven to twenty-two, the number of consular personnel employed on a temporary or semipermanent basis in Vienna. In proportional terms, the percentage of consular of¤cers among Konzeptsbeamte at the Ballhausplatz rose quite markedly in those years, from only 15.3 percent to nearly one-quarter (23.9 percent). The majority never formally transferred from the consular branch, and many returned to the ¤eld after their assignments in Vienna had ended. Several came to occupy key positions. Both Walter von Princig and Simon Joannovics, whom we met earlier in the discussion about Department I/H.P., furnish examples of the practice. At the end of 1909, Aehrenthal brought in another consul general and Balkan specialist, Alfred Rappaport, whose experience lay mostly in Albanian affairs. Up until the war, Rappaport held senior appointments in the political departments for the Balkans and Russia (Referat I) and the Ottoman religious protectorates (Referat II).64 The assignments of Princig, Joannovics, and Rappaport are typical, in that consular of¤cers tended to be most heavily concentrated in divisions that dealt with Balkan or economic matters. In 1910, one-third of the personnel of Referat I (two of six), and one-half of those of Referat II and Department 6 (two of four each), belonged to the consular service. Aehrenthal’s expansion of the economic section of the foreign of¤ce created a demand for quali¤ed functionaries for the new spots. Of the eleven of¤cials in Departments 9a (trade policy) and 9c (commerce) in the spring of 1912, a quarter had been drafted from consular ranks.65 Other Aehrenthal creations, including the ministry’s new intelligence bureau (Referat V) and the division for ¤nancial and social policy (Department 8b), were dominated by persons from the same branch. Just as the use at the embassies of commercial directors drawn from the consular service limited the social dilution of the diplomatic corps, so Aehrenthal’s co-option of consular personnel for temporary service in Vienna maintained the relative homogeneity of the permanent ministry staff.66 Only 15.8 percent of the latter came from the bourgeoisie, a signi¤cant ¤gure when compared with that for the diplomats but inconsequential next to that for consuls in the central of¤ce (45.9% ). Another 37.8 percent belonged to the lowest rung of the nobility, while only four barons (10.8% ) and one count (2.7% ), Alois Dandini, are found in the group.67 Only a very few, like Consul General Baron Siegfried Pitner, who married Princess Elisabeth Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst,

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had kinship connections to the aristocracy. Even fewer possessed meaningful ties to foreign courts, though Consul Georg de Pottere had connections to Princess Mirko of Montenegro.68 Of Aehrenthal’s various projected reforms, none aroused the interest of the monarchy’s business community more than his proposals for the consular service itself. On a daily basis, exporters dealt far more regularly with consuls than with courtly diplomats or Viennese mandarins. For decades, demands for change coming from entrepreneurial circles had focused almost exclusively on the necessity of making the consular service more responsive to their needs. Aehrenthal’s announcement in the delegations in early 1908 of several generous initiatives therefore evoked extravagant expressions of gratitude and offers of collaboration from representatives of business interests.69 The hopes thus raised, however, remained long unful¤lled, with the press and other commentators still advancing proposals and regretting the lack of progress more than two years later.70 When the Ballhausplatz ¤nally introduced a vastly curtailed version of his program in 1912, after four years of hesitation and also after the death of Aehrenthal himself, it bore but a pale resemblance to the grand promises of the earlier, more optimistic era. Aehrenthal’s plan for the consular service encompassed three major facets, two of which appear in recognizable form in his speech before the delegations in 1908.71 Acknowledging the need for more engaged consular participation in the promotion of exports, he proposed two personnel innovations that, he believed, would facilitate such a goal. First, he foresaw stationing at all “commercially important consular of¤ces” experts to be known as “commercial counselors” (kommerzielle Beiräte), who would be drawn from the ranks of seasoned businessmen. Though Aehrenthal’s notions on the subject were at that time vaguely formulated, it appears that the new functionaries were not to belong to the consular corps as such but were to be merely attached to consulates. Their task, again outlined in only the most general terms, would have consisted in collecting information and carrying out commissions of practical interest to domestic ¤rms engaged in foreign trade. His second innovation concerned raising the level of competence of the consular corps itself by inducting directly into its ranks persons who had enjoyed rigorous theoretical training as well as practical experience in export houses.72 While not mentioned in his parliamentary address, the third major aspect of Aehrenthal’s design stood in close connection to the ¤rst two. He intended a fundamental overhaul of the system of consular reporting, primarily to make it more responsive to

120 • aristocratic redoubt the ¶uctuations of market conditions and therefore more useful to entrepreneurs involved in the export/import trade.73 Though not originally so envisaged, the introduction of the third part of the consular reform program was later coupled with the ¤rst two.74 Had these three initiatives been implemented, the monarchy might well have acquired a modern and effective tool for promoting the growth of its exports abroad. Instead, only the second of the changes reached the stage of implementation. In late 1911, the Ballhausplatz effectively abandoned, for reasons that remain unclear, the scheme to draft businessmen to serve as “commercial counsellors.”75 As conceived at the beginning, however, it bore all the marks of unlikelihood, since the foreign minister believed that he could recruit the services of experienced middle-class entrepreneurs in exchange for an “agreeable-sounding” title (Herr Commercieller Beirat) and no monetary compensation from the foreign of¤ce.76 Carrying out the reforms in consular reporting outlined in the fall of 1909 in a conference of of¤cials from the Ballhausplatz and the Hungarian and Austrian commerce and agriculture ministries also fell by the wayside, as least for the remainder of Aehrenthal’s tenure. The participants had in fact reached substantive agreement on a number of signi¤cant issues, including a redivision of labor among all consulates in a single country and a more ¶exible schedule for ¤ling reports.77 As late as the summer of 1911, no further progress had been made in effecting the changes.78 Only a much diluted version of the original idea for commercial of¤cials eventually achieved realization, in 1912. As we have seen, Aehrenthal had initially aimed to station the new functionaries at all commercially important consular of¤ces. No fewer than twenty consulates on four continents had been labeled by the Austro-Hungarian Export Union as being in “pressing” need of such help, with a further twelve recommended for secondary consideration.79 When the program made its anticlimactic debut, only six consulates, all in Europe (Belgrade, Bucharest, Paris, Constantinople, Berlin, and Moscow), appeared on the list.80 Not surprisingly, the four-year process leading to the ¤rst appointments had encountered numerous hurdles, not the least perhaps being low priority at the Ballhausplatz. Complaints in 1911 by the Hungarian commerce ministry about the delays, though, must have seemed particularly ironic given the dif¤culties made on the Hungarian side about the designation of the new of¤cials.81 That the scarcely auspicious name “trade of¤cial” (Handelsfachbeamter) had to be accepted resulted primarily from Hungarian objections to more recognized terms like “commercial attaché,” which the British used.82 The Hungarians feared that the foreign of¤ce’s new

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creation might be confused with, and lower the status of, agents sent abroad by various Hungarian ministries. Magyar anxiety about the further growth of the hated joint institutions also played a role. Hungarian sensibilities had also ensured that parity between Cis- and Transleithania would be observed in the choice of the new trade of¤cials, who were appointed by the foreign of¤ce on the recommendation of the commerce ministries of either half of the monarchy.83 The Ballhausplatz arranged that the candidates, before taking up their new posts, would spend a two-month preparatory period (Vorbereitungspraxis) in the of¤ces of the Lower Austrian Chamber of Commerce.84 They would learn the internal operations of the export section of the chamber, which worked closely with various consular of¤ces, and also spend time visiting local factories and businesses engaged in foreign trade. In his report on his ¤rst month at the chamber, Sigismund Illés disclosed that he had inspected more than a dozen such.85 Because of space limitations at the chamber, the last of the new of¤cials had not completed his training and taken up his responsibilities abroad before October 1912. Foremost among the tasks of the new functionaries, in the view of the foreign ministry, came the expeditious promotion of the monarchy’s export trade.86 To this end, he was required generally to familiarize himself with local business conditions in all aspects relative to imports and exports and to become acquainted with representatives of commercial circles. In particular, the Ballhausplatz expected him to remain abreast of all developments—like favorable turns in market conditions—that could be exploited by Austrian or Hungarian entrepreneurs. And he had to be ready to supply up-to-date information to the monarchy’s businessmen and to intervene with local customs authorities to facilitate imports.87 In the spring of 1914, after a two-year probationary period, the foreign of¤ce decided on its de¤nitive adoption. Reports from the heads of the six consulates to which the of¤cials were attached indicated a marked improvement in the dispatch of practical questions relative to foreign trade. Over the longer term however, it may have proven less successful. In the spring of 1918, Consul General von Princig in Hamburg, who had earlier served Aehrenthal as head of Department I/H.P., attacked the institution, which he described as a complete ¤asco in every respect.88 To support his assertion, he pointed to the jealousies that marked the relationship between trade of¤cials and regular consular personnel as well as to what he believed to be the numerous contradictions inherent in trying to turn businessmen into state functionaries. The dismissal of Martin Atlász from his post in Hamburg in

122 • aristocratic redoubt early 1918 symbolized, he believed, the end of the trade of¤cials, as Atlász had been the last one remaining in of¤ce. The introduction of trade of¤cials into the consular service proved to be the last reform at the Ballhausplatz before World War I. Aehrenthal died in February 1912 and was succeeded by Count Leopold Berchtold, whose way of thinking more closely resembled Kálnoky’s. The new foreign minister did not, however, move to reverse the changes instituted by Aehrenthal. In his reorganization of the foreign of¤ce in 1913, Berchtold actually reaf¤rmed the existence of the economic section on an equal basis with the new political and legal-administrative divisions.89 To the dismay of his critics, he relied heavily for advice—probably more than Aehrenthal—on specialists drafted from the consular service for work in the central of¤ce.90 Five of the seventeen administrative departments and one of the ¤ve political departments in early 1914 stood under the supervision of consuls general.91 The emphasis on economic training for incoming diplomats continued under Berchtold as well. When Count Alfons Clary made inquiries at the Ballhausplatz in 1912 about joining the corps, he was told that his education in jurisprudence had become obsolete for a career abroad. The deputy director of Berchtold’s personal secretariat, Count Franz Kinsky, informed him that “diplomats of the future must also understand something about international economic questions.” Clary heeded the advice by arranging to work for several months in the Warburg banking house in Hamburg.92 But while Berchtold by and large preserved Aehrenthal’s changes, he did not build upon them. The repeated crises of his short tenure, as well as his traditional court-oriented outlook, made him little suited to be an innovator. That Clary could seek out and receive informal advice from Kinsky, a cousin of his mother, reveals the importance of kinship ties and aristocratic connections at the Ballhausplatz up until the war. As Aehrenthal’s reform program was conceptualized, it aimed to overhaul aspects of the policy process and the recruitment of personnel. Its broad scope compared favorably with developments in other European foreign of¤ces of the period and it constituted the ¤rst such effort at the Ballhausplatz in more than a quarter-century. His changes further encompassed all three branches of the service, though he made no move to unite them. The effects of the reforms, however, remained distinctly limited. The blue-blooded diplomatic corps maintained its premier status within the organization of the foreign of¤ce. No evidence indicates that Aehrenthal either intended to or did change its social basis. Though

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consuls became increasingly visible among the staff of the central of¤ce, the personnel of the consular service and the ministry continued to be ¤rmly subordinate to diplomats. As one contemporary noted, the latter tended to treat the former like “shoe rags” (Schuhfetzen).93 The long delays in consular reform and then the much reduced scale of the changes that were eventually introduced re¶ect the continuing low priority accorded commerce and foreign trade at the Ballhausplatz. Aehrenthal himself was not a man for far-reaching reforms. A career diplomat who had spent three decades in the ministry and abroad, he was also a conservative nobleman deeply suspicious of the plutocratic class that had appeared in the wake of industrialization. He hoped, however, to harness modern economic power in the service of the international position of the monarchy without dislodging the traditional elite from its place at the Ballhausplatz. He realized the de¤ciencies of a diplomatic corps more at home in the rare¤ed atmosphere of nineteenth-century court life than in grappling with the modern intricacies of commerce and railroads in the Balkans. Nevertheless, he did not reject the old aristocratic, amateur approach to diplomacy. Instead he sought to modify it to meet new needs.

Count Albert Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein Ambassador in London 1904–1914

Count Johann Pallavicini Ambassador in Constantinople 1906–1918

Cajetan von Mérey First Section Chief 1904–1907 Ambassador in Rome 1910–1915

Count Duglas Thurn Ambasador in St. Petersburg 1911–1913

Baron Guido Call First Section Chief 1907–1909 Ambassador in Tokyo 1909–1911

Walter von Princig Head of Department I/H.P. 1907–1909

Mauriz von Roeøler Section Chief for Economic Affairs 1909–1911

6 Ethnicity and the Ausgleich The Foreign Of¤ce in the Multinational Monarchy aristocratic redoubt Ethnicity and the Ausgleich

H

istorians have traditionally maintained that little interface existed between the foreign of¤ce and the multinational character of the monarchy. Two important factors have conditioned such thinking. First, the diplomats and central-of¤ce functionaries have always been portrayed as cosmopolitan and anational in their orientation. Whatever their cultural heritage, whether German, Hungarian, or Polish, all are said to have owed primary political and emotional allegiance to the dynasty. Second, the complex constitutional structure of the Habsburg realm, which included two coequal governments, also provided for several joint institutions, including the foreign ministry. Because the Compromise designated the army and external affairs as the exclusive domain of the monarch, the Ballhausplatz fell directly under his jurisdiction rather than under the cabinets in Vienna or Budapest. Constitutionally divorced from the daily pull of domestic politics and subject to a supranational emperorking, the foreign of¤ce has understandably been seen as outside the national context that governed life in the Dual Monarchy. The supranational patriotism of the diplomats became proverbial long ago, and an obligatory reference to the cosmopolitan orientation of the diplomats has become standard in treatments of the monarchy’s foreign relations. Samuel Williamson has written that the ambiance within the Habsburg foreign service was “international and aristocratic,” while Helmut Rumpler has asserted that the Ballhausplatz constituted a center of “imperial attitudes” that “dissolved the bonds of nationality.”1 The foremost diplomatic historian of the Dualist period concluded that not even

124

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the “slightest hint of separatist or nationalist feeling” existed among the monarchy’s representatives abroad.2 Such statements contain much truth, but convey little of the reality behind them. The actuality of supranational sympathies was all the more remarkable in an age when increasingly brutal forms of nationalism had captured the loyalties of populations across the continent. For that reason alone, the phenomenon deserves to be explored. But the dismissal of nationality as a non-issue within the foreign of¤ce has also obscured the extent to which such considerations played a role in Ballhausplatz dispositions. In only one respect have historians made systematic inquiries into the relationship between the nationality question and the Ballhausplatz. Because each of the monarchy’s ethnic groups allegedly had its own international priorities, many contemporaries believed that individual representatives of the nationalities within the foreign service tried to slant policy to serve the needs of their countrymen.3 Consequently, scholars have attempted to determine what in¶uence, if any, a particular nationality exercised through its own personnel employed at the Ballhausplatz. After intensive studies of the sources, most commentators agree that the diplomats and foreign of¤ce mandarins never provided such a medium. A few writers have tried, rather unsuccessfully, to explain policy choices on the basis of national background. István Diószegi ascribed Go|uchowski’s suspicions of Russia to his status as a Polish magnate, but provided little evidence to support the conclusion that his Balkan policy actually originated in this hostility.4 Of more lasting interest has been the charge that a Hungarian ma¤a at the Ballhausplatz directed affairs in the interests of the Kingdom of St. Stephen. A clique of Magyar diplomats allegedly manipulated the policy process in ways detrimental to the good of the entire monarchy, particularly in the last decade before the outbreak of war.5 Few historians would deny that the Hungarians exerted considerable in¶uence on the course of the monarchy’s foreign relations, but the notion that they did this in a surreptitious way through the bureaucracy in Vienna has received scant credence. Only Hugo Hantsch has argued that opinion within the ministry split along lines of nationality on important issues. As proof, he cited the position taken by Hungarians in the foreign of¤ce, ¤rst on the revision of the Treaty of Bucharest in 1913, and then on Serbian intransigence in Albania later the same year.6 Most students of the period, however, have rejected Hungarian national bias as a key motivating factor among the diplomats, arguing instead that Magyar

126 • aristocratic redoubt in¶uence was effected constitutionally through the mechanism of the Compromise of 1867, which provided that the Hungarian minister-president be consulted on foreign affairs.7 Several heads of government from across the Leitha, particularly Counts Julius Andrássy and István Tisza, indeed played critical roles in the monarchy’s international relations during the Dualist era. But their direct access to the highest levels of policy making, especially to the emperor and the foreign minister, made unnecessary the use of surrogate agents in the form of personnel in the foreign of¤ce.8 Strictly speaking, the Compromise of 1867 did not address the ethnic aspirations of the Magyars, but instead the constitutional claims of the lands of the Crown of St. Stephen, whose inhabitants included at least half a dozen nationalities. The voice of the Hungarian minister-president in foreign-policy deliberations in the joint ministerial council re¶ected his position in theory as representative of all of the nationalities in Transleithania. That he was generally an ethnic Magyar did not necessarily mean that the interests of the Magyars prevailed in his thinking. In fact, as we know, the autonomy achieved via the Compromise allowed the Magyars, and particularly the nobility, to dominate political life across the Leitha. They possessed an almost unchallenged ascendancy in parliament, and the head of government drew his support from one or another of the Magyar political parties established there. Ideally then, the agreement of 1867 spoke to constitutional rather than ethnic concerns; in practice, it provided the mechanism allowing the Magyars to wield power in their half of the monarchy. Although we know that the Hungarian minister-president had an effective role in high policy guaranteed by the Compromise, little has come to light on other Magyar demands based on their constitutionally coequal status. But pressure from Budapest governed thinking at the Ballhausplatz on a variety of issues, from general personnel dispositions to the choice of candidates for particular slots in the Vienna hierarchy. The display abroad of symbols of Habsburg sovereignty, the handling of affairs within the ministry, the negotiation of speci¤c types of treaties, and the use of languages all aroused controversy. In their entirety, such claims raised the specter that common foreign policy, and thereby the unity of the monarchy, might be undermined. In the remaining sections of this chapter, we shall ¤rst explore the Magyar challenge, which came by way of the Compromise. No other nationality in either half of the monarchy possessed such a ¤rm legal and political position from which to make its claims. Magyar authority within

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Hungary left no room for competition from other ethnic groups in pressing concessions from Vienna. In Cisleithania, governments had been constructed over the years from the ranks of German liberals, conservative Slavs, and high-ranking bureaucrats. The Hungarians therefore had an optimal chance to leave their mark on the joint institutions—responsible to the emperor, to be sure—but paid for out of a budget voted by deputies of the individual parliaments. They used the political leverage afforded them by their coequal position under the Compromise to press for greater Magyar visibility in the foreign of¤ce. To what extent did they succeed? The ¤nal part of the chapter will then be devoted to a tentative discussion of the ethnic identities of the diplomats, not only from Hungary, but also from Galicia, Bohemia, Bukovina, and the German and Italian areas. The consensus that the national backgrounds of Ballhausplatz of¤cials generally counted for little in policy making has led to the neglect of that issue, though the lack of consideration of the foreign ministry qua bureaucracy has also played a role. Historians of Austria-Hungary have rarely entertained the notion that ethnic self-identi¤cation might be compatible with dynastic loyalty. To be sure, few of even the most vehement nationalist leaders in the decade before 1914 called for an end to Habsburg rule. But they based their calculations on power-political realities rather than any fundamental allegiance to the imperial idea. The traditional depiction of supranational loyalties among the diplomats has obscured a more complicated phenomenon and diverted attention away from the origins of an attachment quite extraordinary in an age of rabid nationalism. To what degree were the diplomats disconnected from nationalist currents of the age? How was the Ballhausplatz able to recruit a set of functionaries who could conscientiously and convincingly represent the interests of a united monarchy? Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, the Hungarians made claims for a prominent role in foreign policy that they never quite relinquished, even in the Dualist period. In the spring of 1848, the Vienna government believed the Hungarians to be trying to wrest such a voice through the creation of the ministry a latere.9 The following year, they achieved de facto primacy in external affairs when the Hungarian Diet deposed the house of Austria. After the capitulation of Világos (1849), Transleithania lost its constitution and was ruled for more than a decade directly from Vienna. As we have seen, the Compromise of 1867 preserved the emperor’s prerogative in the sphere of foreign policy. However, leading ¤gures in Transleithania, including the future minister-president

128 • aristocratic redoubt Koloman Tisza, adopted a program in 1868 that, among other things, called for a separate Hungarian diplomatic service.10 In the remaining decades of the 1800s, public and parliamentary opinion came to insist on Hungary’s right to absolute equality in the monarchy’s joint diplomatic establishment. After 1900, Magyar nationalists became, if anything, even more tenacious and shrill in making their case. From at least the turn of the century, the Ballhausplatz began to keep a precise record of the number of Hungarian citizens employed in the service.11 The immediate impetus for gathering such information remains obscure, but can probably be ascribed to pressure exerted by the Hungarian parliament and its delegation. Even if the magyarization of foreign policy itself proved unattainable, the Hungarians determined, in line with their coequal status, to make their presence felt in the joint institutions. The con¶ict over the army between 1903 and 1906, which had been provoked by Magyar nationalists, provided the most sensational demonstration of that resolve.12 The foreign of¤ce, as the most prominent manifestation of the Dualist system apart from the military, naturally became a focus for criticism and attack. Indeed, in 1906, the Hungarian Delegation formally directed the foreign minister to report annually on the number of Hungarians employed at the Ballhausplatz.13 The data on citizenship that the ministry had been recording may well have found its way into the hands of Hungarian parliamentarians. But the beginning of Aehrenthal’s tenure in late 1906, which followed Go|uchowski’s ouster through Magyar agitation, coincided with the call from Budapest for a regular and very public accounting of Hungarians in the service. Since the turn of the century, the number of Hungarians employed in the foreign of¤ce had been increasing, even more dramatically than of¤cial ¤gures indicated. In 1900, the Ballhausplatz counted 26 Hungarians on a staff of 158 stationed in Vienna (16%).14 By 1914, the number had climbed to 57 of 220 (26%). Still, given Hungary’s share of the monarchy’s common budget during this period, approximately 33%,15 such a rise appears remarkably modest. Analogous ¤gures for the diplomatic corps represented an even smaller gain: from 40 of a total of 136 (29%) in 1900, to 67 of 198 (34%) in 1914. From the perspective of nationalist parliamentarians in Budapest, the Hungarian portion of personnel in the foreign of¤ce must still have seemed less than its position within the Dual Monarchy warranted. As compiled by the ministry, however, the numbers are somewhat deceptive because they also included the clerical staff, who made up the majority of all those attached to the Vienna of¤ce and the missions

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abroad. Once these workers are factored out, leaving only Konzeptsbeamte, the proportion of Hungarians having true diplomatic or administrative responsibilities increases markedly. In the ¤rst year of the new century, Hungarians accounted for 21 percent of all functionaries of the central of¤ce, a ¤gure that would climb extraordinarily in the next fourteen years. By 1907, the ¤rst full year of Aehrenthal’s tenure, citizens of the Kingdom of St. Stephen constituted 28 percent of all Ballhausplatz mandarins; by 1911, the last complete calendar year Aehrenthal served, the total had grown to an astonishing 37 percent, where it hovered until 1914. Instead of a 10 percent rise at far lower levels, the Hungarians actually increased their share of the more powerful and prestigious positions some 16 percent from a considerably higher base. If not quite as spectacular, the ¤gures from the diplomatic service tell the same story. Whereas the of¤cial data, including clerical staff, reveal a change over the last decade and a half before the war of only 4 percent, the number of Hungarians in the actual corps in fact rose by nearly 13 percent. In 1900, 31 percent of diplomats came from Transleithania. The year after Aehrenthal took of¤ce recorded an increase since the beginning of the century to nearly 40 percent of the total. Yet more gains by 1914 brought that ¤gure to slightly more than 44 percent. The considerably lower rise in the numbers of support staff recruited from beyond the Leitha masked the rapidly ascending employment rate of Hungarians in the ministry’s important diplomatic and administrative branches. Whether that subtle yet important distinction came to the attention of the patriots in Budapest remains doubtful, but would probably have been ineffective at stanching nationalist demands. In any case, with some 43 percent of the monarchy’s population, the Hungarians easily claimed that for much of the period their proportion of foreign of¤ce personnel still remained inadequate. From another perspective, though, the Hungarians had achieved an inordinate presence at the Ballhausplatz by 1914. Their contribution to the common budget, out of which the foreign ministry operated, amounted to only about a third of the total, whereas their quota of diplomats and bureaucrats in the central of¤ce reached 44 percent and 37 percent respectively. Such steep gains can hardly be explained outside the tumultuous context of Hungarian political life and joint affairs after the turn of the century. The period between 1903 and 1909, marked by the sharp contest over the uni¤ed army and then the arrival in government of a coalition led by the Independence Party, also saw a substantial induction of Hungarians at the Ballhausplatz.

130 • aristocratic redoubt Apart from limited discussion of the alleged Hungarian clique centered upon Count Johann Forgách during Berchtold’s tenure, it has hitherto been unclear what positions in the corps or in Vienna, if any, came to be dominated by Hungarian citizens. At the highest rank after minister at the Ballhausplatz—namely, section chief—the Hungarians never achieved a disproportionate presence in the decades after the Ausgleich. Foreign Minister Andrássy (1871–79) had carried out a major reorganization of the service in the later part of his tenure. Although much of the content of Andrássy’s reforms did not survive the Kálnoky era, the basic structure he set up remained in place down to the end of the monarchy, including the two posts of section chief, which ranked just after the foreign minister in the hierarchy. Andrássy had aimed at adapting the ministry to the new Dualist form of government, while at the same time maintaining a uni¤ed policy-making instrument. He envisioned each section chief as the advocate within the foreign of¤ce of one of the constitutional halves of the monarchy, with the minister representing the interests of the entire empire.16 Andrássy’s effort to balance the claims of the Hungarians and Austrians through the choice of section chiefs proved successful enough to endure down to the war.17 Of the thirteen men who served as ¤rst section chief between 1879 and 1918, ¤ve came from Transleithania, including one, Ladislaus von Müller, who had two terms (1909–12, 1917– 18). The other Hungarians to ¤ll that of¤ce were Benjamin von Kállay (1880–82), Ladislaus von Szõgyény-Marich (1883–90), Count Nikolaus Szécsen (1900–1901), and Cajetan von Mérey (1904–7). Seventeen functionaries occupied the position of second section chief, among them nine Hungarians, including all of those who later became ¤rst section chief.18 Generally, the foreign minister attempted to offset an Austrian in the ¤rst slot by placing a Hungarian in the second or vice versa. Only two lengthy exceptions to that rule occurred, once during the Kálnoky years, when two “Austrians,” Baron Marius Pasetti and Count Rudolf Welsersheimb, held the top positions, and again during Go|uchowski’s tenure, with the two Hungarians Mérey and Müller. Go|uchowski and Aehrenthal each systematized another post of section chief, which brought the total number to four on the eve of the war. The duties of the new section chiefs varied according to immediate needs, but the tradition of maintaining a relative balance between Hungarians and Austrians continued. Soon after coming to of¤ce, Aehrenthal brought Count Paul Esterházy back into the service, thus placing two of the three positions of section chief in the hands of Hungarians. Then, in

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early 1909, he hired the Viennese Mauriz von Roeøler to direct the newly expanded trade section, thus restoring the former symmetry. In appointing his top advisers, Berchtold also followed established custom. Baron Karl Macchio, from April 1912 ¤rst section chief, was seconded by Count Friedrich Szápáry (1912–13), and then by Count Johann Forgách (1913– 17), both from Hungarian magnate families. Roeøler, who had resigned in 1911, was replaced after Berchtold came to power by Count Markus Wickenburg, a former state secretary in the Hungarian commerce ministry. After Paul Esterházy’s retirement, Otto von Weil, an Austrian of Jewish background, inherited his position, if not his responsibilities. Although the traditional parity between Austrians and Hungarians in the two new posts of section chief was maintained, Esterházy and Wickenburg brought with them more than just the right citizenship. Aehrenthal had concluded, after the experiences of Kálnoky and Go|uchowski, that he needed a close Ballhausplatz counselor with his ¤nger on the pulse of Hungarian political life. The section chief traditionally drawn from across the Leitha had often spent much of his life at diplomatic missions abroad or at the central of¤ce in Vienna, and consequently had little connection to the establishment in Budapest. To ¤ll the new slot, Aehrenthal in 1907 chose Paul Esterházy, a Hungarian grand seigneur who was well-recommended by several high-ranking Hungarians, including the minister of the interior, Count Julius Andrássy the younger, and Kálmán Széll, a former minister-president.19 In addition to guiding Aehrenthal around the dangerous shoals of Budapest politics, Esterházy served as his principal support during meetings of the Hungarian Delegation, where he spoke on behalf of the foreign minister, who did not know Magyar.20 Within the ministry, Aehrenthal ordered that all dispatches and other documents that in any way touched upon political affairs in the Kingdom of St. Stephen be laid before Esterházy.21 His responsibilities quickly earned him his reputation as Aehrenthal’s “ambassador to the Hungarians.”22 Esterházy, a personal friend and con¤dant of the foreign minister, remained in of¤ce until the latter’s death in 1912, and may presumably be credited with helping Aehrenthal avoid the sorts of mistakes made by his predecessors. Berchtold, a Hungarian magnate himself, undoubtedly possessed better connections in Budapest than had Aehrenthal.23 He nevertheless quickly moved to ¤ll the space left by Esterházy, choosing Count Markus Wickenburg for the dual role of liaison to Hungary and head of the trade-policy section. Like Esterházy, Wickenburg had had considerable experience in the vagaries of Hungarian public life. After quitting the

132 • aristocratic redoubt commerce ministry, he had been elected to the lower house of the legislature and had further served as a member of the delegation. Wickenburg’s intimate knowledge of parliamentary life in Budapest, Berchtold believed, would be a particularly valuable asset. The new foreign minister, insecure in his command of Magyar, also expected that Wickenburg would represent him when he had to appear before the Hungarian Delegation.24 Whether Wickenburg actually achieved the same level of trust and effectiveness in Budapest as Esterházy is doubtful. In March 1914, the Hungarian minister-president, István Tisza, urged Berchtold to lay all important questions of the monarchy’s foreign-trade policy directly before the joint ministerial council, bypassing Wickenburg, whose “wretched incompetence” he had come to deplore.25 Tisza obviously believed that he himself could more ably defend Hungary’s economic interests by intervention through the council. During the Aehrenthal-Berchtold years, there appears to have been no attempt to balance Austrians and Hungarians in any other parts of the ministry. Among Ballhausplatz departments, those that handled political affairs possessed the most prestige and exercised the greatest in¶uence on policy making. The Hungarians remained, if anything, underrepresented in that part of the foreign of¤ce. During the ¤rst half of Aehrenthal’s term, Rudolf Pogatscher and Constantin Dumba, who were both from Cisleithania, directed, respectively, Departments I and III, which together handled the monarchy’s relations with Russia, Germany, and the Balkan states. Only Department II, responsible for the Holy See and the Habsburg religious protectorates in the Orient, was overseen continually by Hungarians. Pogatscher was later replaced as immediate head of the department for the Balkans and Russia by a Hungarian, Count Albert Nemes, who had to yield his position to Baron Ludwig Flotow, an Austrian, eight months before the outbreak of war.26 Despite his chronically poor health, the capable Pogatscher reappeared in the spring of 1912, when Berchtold appointed him to oversee three of the political Referate.27 His new responsibilities thus made Pogatscher the immediate superior of Nemes, who had succeeded him as head of Department I. When Count Forgách, the alleged kernel of the Magyar conspiracy, arrived in Vienna to take up his new post as section chief in the fall of 1913, few Hungarians remained in leading positions in the political departments. Nemes would soon give way to Flotow, and Count Friedrich Szápáry, who had advocated an aggressive policy toward Serbia during the Balkan Wars, had been tapped for the ambassadorship in St. Peters-

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burg. Only Alexander von Musulin, a Croatian with Hungarian citizenship, remained at the head of the division for church affairs. In early 1914, Berchtold appointed another Hungarian, Stephan von Ugron, who came from central Transylvania, to direct the department charged with the monarchy’s relations with Scandinavia, the Iberian states, and the Low Countries (Referat III).28 Ugron shared with Forgách the experience of having been envoy in Belgrade, but his new responsibilities hardly placed him at the heart of the policy debates within the ministry. As Hungarians, only Forgách and Musulin, and Szápáry before his transfer to Russia, have ¤gured in that group.29 Among the sixteen other functionaries employed in 1914 in the ¤ve political Referate, only three—Prince Nikolaus Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, Baron Anton Kiss, and Ladislaus von Gömöry-Laiml—possessed Hungarian citizenship. Although the notion that Magyar diplomats had a stranglehold on the monarchy’s foreign policy has generally been discredited, the dearth of available conspirators makes a Hungarian plot from inside the ministry even less plausible. Among other of¤ces at the Ballhausplatz, only the minister’s private secretariat (Kabinett des Ministers) approached in prestige or political importance the section led by Forgách. It handled, among other things, the minister’s of¤cial personal correspondence; prepared, in conjunction with the ¤rst section chief, the daily dispatches and documents to be laid before the emperor; and provided the foreign minister his primary support in his role as chairman of the joint council of ministers.30 The signi¤cance of the Kabinett perhaps only reached its zenith during the later part of Aehrenthal’s tenure and the Berchtold era, ¤rst under the direction of Count Friedrich Szápáry and then of Count Alexander Hoyos. Although Szápáry came from across the Leitha, he remained at his post barely two years (December 1909–April 1912) before being replaced in the ¤rst months of Berchtold’s term by Hoyos.31 Szápáry did not, however, pack the secretariat with his own countrymen. Count Alexander Török, a mid-level diplomat who served brie¶y under him, provides the only example. The Hoyos years brought an almost complete disappearance of Hungarians from the secretariat. Of the three of¤cials assigned to Hoyos in 1914, the two highest-ranking, Counts Franz Kinsky and Josef Walterskirchen, came from the western part of the monarchy. Török had been succeeded in 1913 as token Hungarian by Eugen von Marsovszky, a native of Trencsén county. While the most prominent centers of policy making in the foreign of¤ce evidenced little trace of Hungarian ascendancy, the same cannot be said of several of the administrative departments, particularly those charged with economic affairs. In the later 1870s, Andrássy had named his

134 • aristocratic redoubt fellow Hungarian Baron Béla Orczy to head the newly constituted tradepolicy section at the Ballhausplatz. Orczy’s appointment established a tradition of Magyar predominance in that part of the Ballhausplatz, albeit one that suffered during Kálnoky’s long reign. Near the end of his term, Kálnoky did move to increase the Hungarian presence in the service by recruiting Johann von Mihalovich from the commerce ministry in Budapest to become deputy director of trade policy.32 Mihalovich’s rise through the Ballhausplatz hierarchy received an important boost in 1900 when he became head of the trade-policy department (9).33 In 1905, he also received the Titel und Charakter of a section chief and the right, previously denied him as a departmental director, to prepare certain dispatches himself.34 By the time Aehrenthal became minister, therefore, the custom that was established under Andrássy of employing Hungarian citizens in leading tradepolicy posts had gradually begun to revive. Mihalovich maintained his position in Department 9 (later 9a) throughout the Aehrenthal years, but he stood in the shadow ¤rst of Baron Guido Call, the former Austrian commerce minister whom Aehrenthal recruited to become ¤rst section chief, and then of Mauriz von Roeøler, who oversaw a reconstituted, albeit still informal, economic division (Departments 8a, 8b, 9a, 9b, 9c, and 10). Both also came from Cisleithania and possessed backgrounds in modern commercial and trade issues that Mihalovich, vegetating at the Ballhausplatz since Kálnoky’s time, could not hope to match. Roeøler left the Ballhausplatz in 1911 to take the commerce portfolio in the Stürgkh cabinet, and Mihalovich retired the following year. Shortly after Berchtold’s accession to power, Count Markus Wickenburg, a former state secretary in the Hungarian commerce ministry, took Mauriz von Roeøler’s place as head of the informal economic section.35 When the administrative reorganization of 1913 formally restored the trade-policy section,36 which had been dissolved more than thirty years earlier, Wickenburg became its new principal.37 As section chief, he took over all the departments formerly overseen by Roeøler (8a, 8b, 9a, 9b, 9c, and 10), and was additionally given control of the translation bureau (14). Throughout the Aehrenthal-Berchtold years, the personnel in the various departments of the section for trade policy was heavily weighted with Hungarians. If at times the highest of¤cials came from Cisleithania, their subordinates in all of the divisions for economic affairs, including department heads, came primarily from the Kingdom of St. Stephen. Before the reforms initiated by Aehrenthal, Department 9 handled the

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bulk of such business in the ministry, concentrating primarily on the negotiation of traditional trade treaties. As indicated above, Johann von Mihalovich retained his leading role there after Aehrenthal came to power. In 1908, four of the six permanent functionaries assigned to Mihalovich were also Hungarians: Baron Dionys Tallián, Count Tibor Szápáry, Georg von Demeliå, and Simon Joannovics. Additionally, the only two candidates for admission allotted to Department 9 for provisional service in the same year, Ivan von Práznovszky and Baron Peter Dóczy, also came from across the Leitha.38 After passing their diplomatic examinations, both continued their careers in the economic section. For the three decades between 1881 and 1912, Tallián, often assisted by Szápáry, also acted as the ministry’s regular liaison to the Hungarian Delegation, a role that undoubtedly kept him, perhaps more than his other countrymen at the Ballhausplatz, abreast of the latest currents in Hungarian political life.39 The large-scale expansion of the later Aehrenthal years hardly diluted the Magyar presence in the economic section. Of the ¤ve new departments that emerged in 1909 (8a, 8b, 9a, 9b, and 9c), three were directed by Hungarians, and half or more of the personnel in the other two also came from Transleithania.40 Mihalovich took trade policy (9a); Tallián, agricultural policy (9b); and Demeliå, the commerce division (9c). In other words, all of the new units that grew directly out of the old economic department fell to Hungarian citizens. Mihalovich received Consul Simon Joannovics as his deputy, while Count Tibor Szápáry and Ivan von Práznovszky accounted for two of the other four of¤cials stationed in that of¤ce. In addition, Szápáry occupied the second spot in both Department 8a (shipping, postal, and telegraph affairs) and in Department 9b, while Práznovszky had a further assignment in 8b (railways, social, and ¤nance policy). Of the six functionaries attached to Departments 8a and 8b, three boasted Hungarian citizenship, including one, Baron Peter Dóczy, who served in both. Hungarians remained an inordinate presence in all of those departments down to the war.41 While some of the personalities occasionally changed, their citizenships did not. Until his retirement in 1912, Tallián continued as the chief of¤cial for agricultural policy, when his old colleague, Tibor Szápáry, took over.42 Near the end of Aehrenthal’s term, Joannovics succeeded Mihalovich at 9a, and Baron Julius Malcomes, a recent recruit to the foreign of¤ce from the Hungarian commerce ministry, was assigned to be his immediate assistant. By late 1913, Hungarians headed four of the ¤ve departments of the economic section, though that

136 • aristocratic redoubt number sank to three in early 1914. Throughout this period, Magyars consistently accounted for at least half of all the personnel in the economic section. Indeed, in relation to their numbers in other parts of the foreign of¤ce, they occupied a disproportionate allotment of the available positions. That the Hungarians achieved such a presence may no doubt be ascribed in part to the practice begun in the 1870s by Andrássy, when he made Baron Orczy responsible for trade policy. But other, more practical factors may have played a role as well. Since the loss of positions in Italy and Germany in the 1860s, the monarchy had to look upon the Balkan peninsula as her primary ¤eld of in¶uence. Limited territorial expansion, best illustrated by the occupation in 1878 of Bosnia-Hercegovina, corresponded with the desire to tie the emerging Balkan principalities closely to the monarchy economically. The conquest of those markets, seen as an ideal outlet for Austro-Hungarian exports, would in turn have had advantageous political consequences. Key personalities in that debate during the Andrássy era, like Baron Joseph Schwegel, for a time the leading ¤gure in the trade-policy section, believed that those states could be dominated economically through a customs union, thus eliminating any need for direct annexation.43 That thinking became a prime tenet of imperial foreign policy throughout the remaining prewar decades. One of the chief domestic dif¤culties in realizing the economic conquest of the Balkans, however, involved the contradiction between the aims of the joint foreign ministry and the government of Cisleithania, on one side, and on the other, of the authorities in Budapest. Pressed by the more advanced and powerful industrial interests in the Austrian half of the monarchy, the establishment in Vienna urged that tariffs be raised against competitors in western Europe and lowered for the less developed Balkan states, which could be expected to buy manufactured wares. Such a position generally accorded with that of the Ballhausplatz. However, the potent agrarian lobby in Transleithania opposed opening the borders, fearing a ¶ood of cheap agricultural products from Rumania, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Russia. For decades, this disagreement clouded the monarchy’s ability to pursue a focused trade policy in the Balkans, and occasionally led to disastrous consequences, like the tariff war in the 1880s with Rumania.44 Hungarian protectionism remained vigorous throughout the Aehrenthal-Berchtold years, by which time it had been reinforced by support from the farmers in Cisleithania. While the infamous “pig war” between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, which began during Go|uchowski’s tenure, may not be ascribed primarily to the intransigence of

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the agrarians,45 they nevertheless hampered Aehrenthal’s efforts to end it. Whether the Hungarian estate owners who manned the foreign ministry’s economic of¤ces bear responsibility for obstructing efforts to come to a constructive accommodation with the Balkan states deserves some consideration. As in affairs of a primarily political nature, the authorities in Budapest had no need of surrogates at the Ballhausplatz to promote the Hungarian viewpoint in foreign trade. The Hungarian minister-president could, and often did, express directly to the foreign minister his views regarding the monarchy’s tariff policies. The Compromise required the foreign minister to consult with the heads of government in both halves of the empire, a provision that naturally extended to economic concerns as well. Such circumstantial evidence in itself speaks against the existence of an agrarian clique at the Ballhausplatz directed from Budapest, but a ¤nal judgment requires closer scrutiny of the activities of such key ¤gures as Mihalovich, Tallián, and Szápáry. If Budapest insisted, however, that the trade-policy departments be staffed by Hungarians, particularly those from landed backgrounds, no other outside interference from the government across the Leitha may have been needed.46 Considerations of personal interest, which could easily have come to the fore with no prompting from Budapest, may have played a hitherto unrecognized role in policy recommendations. Many of the Hungarians in the Ballhausplatz’s economic section came from that part of the nobility whose small estates had barely, if at all, weathered the challenges presented by the emancipation of the serfs in 1848 and the generally depressed agricultural conditions of the later nineteenth century. The department for agricultural policy (9b), created by Aehrenthal, was dominated until 1914 ¤rst by Baron Dionys Tallián, who owned a modest property of 348 Joch (495 acres) in Somogy county, and then by Count Tibor Szápáry, who came from a magnate family but possessed, together with two brothers, only 2,416 Joch (3,435 acres) in Pest-Pilis-SoltKiskun county. Scions of Hungarian landed wealth appeared among the personnel of the other economic departments as well. The longtime director of the tradepolicy division, Johann von Mihalovich, though nonlanded himself, was the son, grandson, and nephew of well-connected estate owners in Slavonia. His grandmother, Countess Antonia Pejácsevich, came from Croatia’s greatest magnate family, and his ¤rst cousin, Károly von Mihalovich, belonged both to the Croatian diet and the lower house of the Hungarian parliament.47 Eugen von Marsovszky, Béla von Glacz, and Ivan von Práznovszky all sprang from old, respectable county clans, similar to the many such that had become

138 • aristocratic redoubt déclassé in the course of the later nineteenth century. Glacz’s family owned an estate called Puszta-Dombegyháza, comprising only 354 Joch, in Csanád county, which moreover did not lie in one of Hungary’s most fertile agricultural regions.48 His grandfather had been the local deputy to the parliament in Budapest, and his father, like Marsovszky’s, served at the head of the local administration as lord-lieutenant.49 Aladár von Steiger, who oversaw Department 8b, came from a recently ennobled banking family that had also acquired an estate.50 Like Tibor Szápáry, Count Josef Draskovich belonged to a relatively poor, younger branch of a prominent family of magnates with large holdings. His father apparently possessed only one property, called Bisag, in Croatia. To what extent, if any, such landed connections in¶uenced the formulation of the monarchy’s disastrous trade policy in the Balkans requires further investigation. However, the extraordinary preponderance of such persons in positions of in¶uence can hardly be ignored. Indeed, one piece of evidence does indicate that members of the service did resist the foreign minister’s attempts to conciliate the Balkan states if they believed their material interests would suffer. While he was ambassador in St. Petersburg, Count Berchtold, in his capacity as a Hungarian magnate, opposed Aehrenthal’s plan to draw Serbia into the monarchy’s orbit at the expense of Transleithanian farmers. In so doing, Berchtold implicitly placed himself on the side of those Hungarians, like Agriculture Minister Ignaz von Darányi, who hoped to oust Aehrenthal for his attempt to pursue a conciliatory economic policy toward Serbia after the Bosnian annexation crisis.51 The more marginal character of properties belonging to men like Tallián and Tibor Szápáry, who stood at the center of the ministry’s economic section, may well have engendered even ¤ercer opposition than that manifested by the grandees. The stubborn recalcitrance Aehrenthal faced on the part of agrarian interests in Budapest can hardly have surprised him. What remains more obscure is the attitude adopted by his subordinates within a key division of the ministry traditionally dominated by Hungarians, and what possibilities may have been open for him to counter any dissent. That no sudden personnel changes among Hungarians took place in the economic section during the Aehrenthal years could have been a function of the foreign minister’s satisfaction with his staff, but also of the Protektion they enjoyed from patrons in Budapest. The only other division in the ministry to show a continuous heavy concentration of Hungarians was the bureau of translation, likewise an Aehrenthal creation. Until 1908, a single of¤ce for translation and cryptography had existed separately from the administrative departments. Lit-

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tle more than a year after coming to power, Aehrenthal abolished that organ and set up two new departments within the administrative section, one for codes (13) and one for translation (14). Of the highest functionaries in the old of¤ce, none possessed Hungarian citizenship. In contrast, Aehrenthal chose a Hungarian, Johann von Jezerniczky, who had headed one of the Ballhausplatz legal units, to take Department 14, which he headed until his death in the fall of 1913. Fully half of the of¤cials serving under Jezerniczky in 1909 also came from Transleithania, including Laurenz von Mara and Otto von Jankovich, both of whom shared his roots in the lesser Magyar nobility.52 That proportion continued through the end of Aehrenthal’s term.53 By the spring of 1912, however, all of Jezerniczky’s subordinates—Konstantin von Masirevich, Desiderius von Bethlen-Mattyasovszky, Franz von Bolgár, Alfred von Nickl, and Karl Setz—came from across the Leitha.54 When Jezerniczky died, Berchtold, rather than promote a candidate from within the service, co-opted for the job a Transylvanian of¤cial from the Hungarian agricultural ministry, Ludwig von Felméri.55 Felméri’s staff also remained completely Hungarian in its composition. Besides Bethlen-Mattyasovszky and Setz, he was also assigned Béla von Török and Ludwig von Boróczy.56 The new translation of¤ce differed signi¤cantly from the one inherited by Aehrenthal in that it served primarily as a clearing house for communications with the Hungarian government. Informally, Department 14 was known as the “Hungarian translation bureau,” Berchtold himself even referring to it as such in a letter to a Hungarian cabinet minister.57 In the years before Aehrenthal came to power, nationalists in the Hungarian parliament had put increasing pressure on the foreign of¤ce to use Magyar as an of¤cial language of the service.58 To meet that demand, the Ballhausplatz had agreed that the diplomatic missions and consulates abroad should accept and process communications in Magyar from Hungarian government bureaus. According to one source, Budapest even insisted that all messages to these of¤ces be written in Hungarian.59 Similar provisions for correspondence between Hungarian authorities and the ministry in Vienna existed as well,60 and this material ¤rst passed through Department 14 as it reached and left the Ballhausplatz.61 Throughout the tenures of both Aehrenthal and Berchtold, the section chiefs responsible for Hungarian affairs, ¤rst Count Paul Esterházy and then Count Markus Wickenburg, exercised oversight over Department 14.62 Both therefore possessed a reliable source of information on all developments that touched the relations between the ministry and the Kingdom of St. Stephen. The creation of such an of¤ce at the

140 • aristocratic redoubt Ballhausplatz re¶ected yet again the efforts of the service to come to terms with nationalist demands that, in the case of the Hungarians, were reinforced by constitutional claims of parity. As the percentage of Hungarian personnel stationed abroad began to rise after the turn of the century, so too did the number of them in the higher ranks. But they never dominated the corps, particularly not to the extent alleged by the Magyarophobe Count Ottokar Czernin in his discussions with Archduke Francis Ferdinand.63 In 1900, only one of the monarchy ’s eight embassies, that in Berlin, was headed by a Hungarian, as were but seven of the twenty legations. By 1907, Aehrenthal’s ¤rst full year in of¤ce, Hungarians had captured six of the ten ambassadorships, most of whose incumbents had been appointed during the Go|uchowski era.64 On the other hand, only three of a total of twenty-one lesser mission chiefs—including Ludwig von Velics in Munich, Count Johann Forgách in Rio de Janeiro, and Albert von Eperjesy in Stockholm—came from Transleithania. The Hungarians maintained a solid hold on the leading embassies down to the war. While no longer particularly effective in other ways, the aging but wily ambassador Szõgyény proved remarkably agile in holding on to his position in Berlin until the late summer of 1914. Count Nikolaus Szécsen had in 1911 exchanged the Holy See for Paris, where he remained until 1914. In the fall of 1913, Berchtold replaced the inept Count Duglas Thurn in St. Petersburg with the able Aehrenthal protégé Count Friedrich Szápáry. Count Johann Pallavicini kept the Ballhausplatz abreast of the latest developments at the Sublime Porte, while Cajetan von Mérey carried out a similar assignment in Rome. Though not considered one of the more important posts, the embassy in Tokyo was overseen by Baron Ladislaus Müller, the son of a Budapest apothecary.65 Of the major ambassadorships, only that in London, held by Count Albert MensdorffPouilly-Dietrichstein, belonged to a non-Hungarian. The concentration of the top diplomatic positions among Hungarians undoubtedly led some to believe that they monopolized the service. As one moves down the ranks, however, the picture changes. Though they occupied a bare majority of the embassies, in 1914 the Hungarians headed only nine of the twenty-one legations. They oversaw neither the critical Balkan posts, like Serbia, Rumania, or Bulgaria, nor, with the exception of Bavaria, the pleasanter of the western European ministries, like Belgium, Saxony, or the Netherlands. Most had been dispatched to endure either the tedium and cold of one of the Scandinavian countries,

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or the primitive conditions and discomforts associated with living in a South American capital.66 The Hungarians therefore constituted a minority of all of the monarchy’s mission chiefs. But why so many of them should have been found at the top embassies is an issue that requires some examination. No evidence has emerged to suggest that any ¤xed system of quotas determined such postings, though pressure from Budapest may have played some role. However, the government in Transleithania tended to take an interest in speci¤c diplomatic postings only insofar as it perceived direct Hungarian interests. Such instances appear in the records infrequently. One authority has argued that the appointment in 1901 of Count Nikolaus Szécsen as ambassador to the Holy See involved the last such intervention from Transleithania.67 Szécsen’s predecessor, Count Nikolaus Revertera, had become highly unpopular in Budapest after the papal nuncio in Vienna had attempted in 1895 to undermine the new Hungarian civil marriage law.68 In the fall of 1900, Magyar parliamentarians again bitterly reproached Revertera for failing to protect Hungarian interests at the Holy See. The attack brought only a tepid defense of the ambassador by the Hungarian minister-president, and the emperor ¤nally decided to bow to the intense pressure to replace Revertera.69 To mollify the Hungarians, Szécsen, whose nationality outweighed his limited experience, became Revertera’s successor.70 Magyar sensibilities played an important, if somewhat different, role in the choice in 1913 of Count Ottokar Czernin to ¤ll the important envoyship in Bucharest. Although bound by a decades-old secret alliance, the monarchy and Rumania clashed often in the last decade before the war as a result of Hungary’s policy toward her minorities and of rising irredentist feeling in Bucharest, which was in¶amed by the three million Rumanians living in Transylvania. Within the foreign-policy establishment in Vienna, two con¶icting views emerged as to an appropriate course of action. One side, represented by Francis Ferdinand, and to a great extent by Berchtold, hoped to reinvigorate the bond between the two countries and to encourage King Carol to permit publication of the treaty of alliance, theretofore known only to a small group of statesmen. On the other hand, several voices, the most prominent of which belonged to the Hungarian minister-president Tisza, argued that Rumania should be dropped in favor of Bulgaria as the monarchy’s principal Balkan ally.71 To promote his own standpoint, the archduke intervened at the Ballhausplatz to have his protégé Czernin posted to Bucharest in an effort to save the pact with Rumania.72 According to Samuel Williamson, he wanted

142 • aristocratic redoubt Czernin to “win the con¤dence of the Rumanian leadership, and then to persuade them to make the alliance public.”73 The tense state of Hungarian-Rumanian relations made the envoyship in Bucharest of particular interest to the Hungarians, so the plan to send the notoriously Magyarophobe Czernin to Bucharest was unacceptable across the Leitha. Czernin had earlier published a pamphlet condemning Hungary’s treatment of her minorities, and many consequently feared that he would use his new position to meddle in the domestic affairs of Transleithania. For that and other anti-Magyar public statements, leading Hungarian parliamentary deputies, including Counts Albert Apponyi and Julius Andrássy the younger, attacked him.74 The shrewd Czernin, however, managed to persuade Tisza to agree to the appointment. He pointed out that as a servant of the crown, he would be obliged to follow of¤cial policy rather than his own inclinations. When Czernin further pledged not to pursue an independent line in Bucharest, Tisza dropped his objections and defended the choice before the Hungarian parliament.75 Without the powerful support of the Hungarian minister-president, Czernin could not have received the post, as protests in the parliament and press—which were hardly muted anyway—would have made Berchtold’s position untenable, exposing him to the charge of interfering in Hungary’s internal affairs. Unlike the active pressure exerted to have Szécsen sent to the Vatican, Tisza merely acquiesced in the choice of Czernin. But the refusal to exercise a veto made the appointment no less possible.76 In general, however, the government in Budapest appears not to have interfered in day-to-day dispositions of personnel. Speaking before the foreign-affairs committee of the Hungarian Delegation, Minister-President Tisza emphasized the kingdom’s right to exercise its in¶uence in matters of policy, but he rejected the notion that this could be extended to individual postings.77 At any rate, the Ausgleich stipulation that the minister-presidents on both sides of the Leitha be consulted regularly ensured that they had the opportunity to express opinions on major impending assignments. Some heads of mission further tried to maintain regular contacts with leading circles in Transleithania, a practice that provided the Hungarians with an informal channel for expressing their views. Potential con¶icts that might have led Budapest to intervene in favor of or against a diplomat may thereby have been defused. After he became envoy in Bulgaria, Count Duglas Thurn traveled to Budapest to make the acquaintance of in¶uential personalities.78 Having done so, Thurn cultivated his new friends. In 1907, during negotiations for the trade treaty with Bulgaria, he sounded out the principal members of the Hungarian cabinet, including

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Minister-President Alexander Wekerle, on a variety of related questions, including the always critical issue of the importation of foreign livestock into the monarchy. He briefed them on conditions in Bulgaria and in turn gathered impressions on domestic politics in Hungary.79 Despite an ongoing interest in personnel matters on the other side of the Leitha, as well as occasional instances of overt intervention, the Hungarians occupation of the monarchy’s most important embassies in 1914 cannot be ascribed primarily to Magyar demands. Favoritism toward Hungarians as such in the choice of the monarchy’s highest representatives abroad ultimately had a low priority. The sharp climb between 1900 and 1907 in the number of ambassadorships they held can be partly explained by the fact that two legations with Hungarian chiefs, those in Washington and Tokyo, achieved embassy status. Another factor of greater signi¤cance had to do with the abilities of the Hungarians who reached high of¤ce. All of the Hungarians who held ambassadorships in 1914, with the possible exception of the aging, partly deaf Szõgyény, enjoyed reputations as capable diplomats. Mérey’s intelligence found few rivals at the negotiating table, while Szápáry’s many talents had been sharpened during a long apprenticeship under Aehrenthal.80 Count Szécsen, if somewhat less dazzling, nevertheless possessed a solid, practical mind and a masterful grasp of the workings of diplomacy.81 The names of Mérey, Szécsen, and Pallavicini all turned up at one time or another on lists of possible foreign ministers.82 When Aehrenthal’s leukemia forced him to take an extended leave in the spring of 1911, he summoned Pallavicini from Constantinople to conduct business in his absence, rather than leave the ¤rst section chief in charge. One contemporary from Cisleithania believed that the Hungarian aristocracy generally provided the monarchy’s best recruits to the diplomatic service. As proof, he cited the irritation felt by Bismarck, who found he could not so easily outmaneuver the Hungarian ambassadors usually posted by the monarchy in Berlin.83 However, the Hungarians still remained a minority, albeit a strong one, among the mission chiefs. In the multinational Habsburg empire, those Hungarians in leading diplomatic positions owed them far less to ethnic pandering than to their own superior quali¤cations. Because of the requirement that the legations abroad be able to handle communications in Magyar, the foreign of¤ce typically assigned at least one diplomat with a knowledge of Hungarian to each. The growing volume of Hungarian business at the missions also meant that the envoys complained if they found themselves without a Magyar-speaking of¤cial. Upon the transfer of Count Felix Brusselle-Schaubeck in 1912 from Munich, his chief

144 • aristocratic redoubt pressed for a quick replacement, because of the “quantity and importance” of Hungarian matters dealt with by his of¤ce.84 In 1906, the Ballhausplatz offered to send Baron Julius Forster, a native of Budapest, to Ambassador Khevenhüller in Paris. The latter rejected Forster for other reasons but suggested either Brusselle or Count Friedrich Szápáry as an acceptable replacement.85 When both proved unavailable, Khevenhüller agreed to take the young Count Georg Festetics, though he pointed out that having the proper ethnic background did not substitute for experience.86 Similarly, Baron Carl Braun, the minister in Dresden, wrote to the Ballhausplatz that the assignment to his mission of an extra of¤cial, especially a Hungarian, would be very desirable because of the heavy workload .87 The foreign of¤ce honored his request by dispatching Count Emerich Csáky, the son of a former Hungarian cabinet minister.88 After the turn of the century none of the missions showed any particular concentration of Hungarian personnel. Although the numbers varied considerably, the larger embassy staffs tended to have two or three Hungarians, as opposed to just one or none at the smaller legations. In terms of the monarchy’s diplomatic and economic ties, it obviously made more sense to have Hungarians in Berlin or London than in Lisbon or Teheran. In 1907, the embassies in Germany, France, and Italy and at the Holy See, as well as the mission in Rumania, each had two diplomatic functionaries from Transleithania. Three served in Washington, Munich, and St. Petersburg, while four were assigned to Constantinople. On the other hand, the Ballhausplatz sent no Hungarians to Persia, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Switzerland, Saxony, Württemberg, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Morocco, Portugal, or Spain. The greater number of Hungarians in some missions can occasionally be explained by other than purely political or trade considerations. Heavy immigration from Austria-Hungary to the United States in the later nineteenth century placed a burden on the monarchy’s diplomatic and consular of¤ces there. According to one source, America was the only country where the monarchy’s diplomatic representatives tried to cultivate close relations with the local Austro-Hungarian colony. That task became progressively more dif¤cult as the size of the resident community grew and began to organize itself according to national groups rather than citizenship.89 From at least the turn of the century, the Ballhausplatz maintained a healthy contingent of Hungarians in Washington. By 1907, three Hungarians, including Ambassador Hengelmüller, Baron Ludwig Ambrózy, and Moriz von Szent-Ivány, manned the embassy on the Potomac. Hengelmüller, whose own Hungarian language skills had become

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rusty, retired in 1913, leaving two fellow countrymen to serve under his successor. During Ambrózy’s tour of duty between 1907 and 1910, he applied himself to an intensive study of the immigration question. His work included a trip to one of the centers of the Hungarian immigrant population in order to gather information about local living and working conditions. In reports to the foreign of¤ce that earned Aehrenthal’s highest praise, Ambrózy relayed much of the extensive and valuable material he had put together.90 Budapest did not restrict its demands for equal representation at the Ballhausplatz solely to questions of personnel. The differing interpretations of the Compromise of 1867 on either side of the Leitha heightened the tension over the joint institutions. The insistence, even among the most loyal supporters of a uni¤ed foreign policy, that the monarchy consisted of two independent states91 led to repeated calls for the increased visibility of Hungarian symbols of sovereignty abroad. The concept of an Oberstaat, such as existed in the law of Cisleithania, possessed no validity in Hungary.92 Nationalists in Transleithania therefore insisted on the display of the Hungarian ¶ag and coat of arms at diplomatic missions, on the right of Hungary to sign treaties under its own name, and other such perquisites. One member of the delegation even suggested dividing the consular service into separate Austrian and Hungarian branches, a proposal that brought a quick rebuff from the foreign of¤ce. In a meeting of the Hungarian Delegation in 1906, another deputy, Ferenc von Nagy, complained about reports that the mission in Tokyo had neglected to ¶y the Hungarian colors on appropriate occasions. A directive from 1893 instructed all legations to display jointly the blackgold of Cisleithania and the red-white-green of Hungary. A similar rule applied to the embassies, except that the ambassador himself had the right, as the personal representative of the sovereign, to use the imperial standard as well.93 In response to Nagy’s criticism, the foreign of¤ce reminded the envoy in Tokyo, Béla von Ambró, himself a Hungarian, that the ¶ags of both states should be ¶own.94 Ambró replied indignantly that the regulation in question had always been respected in Tokyo, attributing any accounts to the contrary to “slanderous insinuations” and begging the foreign minister to protect his legation from such unjust attacks.95 Informed by Section Chief von Müller that his representations did not correspond to the facts as Ambró related them, Nagy, no doubt believing his point had been taken, declared that the matter had been resolved satisfactorily.96

146 • aristocratic redoubt For most of the period before the war, no directive existed with respect to the proper use of the armorial bearings of each half of the empire. During the controversy over the ¶ags, the suggestion was made that the Austrian and Hungarian arms should be af¤xed side by side to the buildings of all of the monarchy’s foreign missions. One Ballhausplatz of¤cial doubted whether the embassies and legations even possessed correct copies of the heraldic devices.97 Six years later, in 1912, the issue still remained unclear, a circumstance that led the Hungarian Delegation to pass a resolution calling on the foreign minister to ensure that a Hungarian coat of arms equal in size to that of Austria be placed next to the latter at all Ballhausplatz of¤ces abroad. Berchtold indicated that the foreign of¤ce would gladly comply with the request but would ¤rst await the completion of a war ministry report addressing the same issue for the army. He promised to follow the recommendations contained therein.98 One of the more ticklish constitutional problems confronting the Ballhausplatz concerned the signing of international treaties. Many on the Hungarian side insisted that representatives of the governments in Budapest and Vienna countersign all such agreements. In other words, the signature of the joint foreign minister or his representative alone was not held to be suf¤cient. Endless controversy surrounded the form of the signature, whether it should read, “Pour l’Autriche-Hongrie,” or for each of the states separately, and whether Hungary should be listed alphabetically among treaty signatories under “H” (Hongrie) or under “A” (Autriche-Hongrie).99 Budapest began to press for separate Austrian and Hungarian signatures particularly on international commercial treaties. The foreign of¤ce naturally opposed a distinct status for Hungary, which would tend to undermine a united front in foreign policy. Ambassador Szõgyény in Berlin warned Go|uchowski that allowing Hungary to place its seal on the monarchy’s trade pacts would violate the provisions of the Compromise that established the joint Austro-Hungarian customs area. In addition, he feared setting a dangerous precedent that could be extended to political and diplomatic affairs.100 The threats that Aehrenthal perceived to the unity of the monarchy’s foreign policy led him to lodge a strong protest on the eve of his appointment to head the ministry.101 He argued that the concessions Go|uchowski made to Transleithania amounted to nothing less than the recognition of an independent Hungarian position in international law. In particular, he cited the role accorded Hungary in the negotiations for the Brussels Sugar Convention and the agreement regarding anarchism signed in St. Petersburg.102 The consequences of Go|uchowski’s weakness left his successor

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with the darkest foreboding, especially with respect to the debilitating con¶ict over a separate Hungarian army. Aehrenthal only hoped that there might be a possibility for reversing the situation in the coming talks between the two halves of the monarchy on renewing the economic compromise.103 He was not, however, very sanguine about the prospects, given that the foreign minister lacked any constitutional right to intervene or participate in the process.104 His apprehensions proved all too justi¤ed. In the course of the dealing, Budapest demanded and received the right, together with Cisleithania, to countersign all commercial treaties concluded by the Ballhausplatz.105 The nationalist upsurge after the turn of the century, particularly the campaign against Go|uchowski in the summer of 1906, prompted the ministry to soothe Magyar sensibilities in other ways. In 1907, the Ballhausplatz circulated instructions to the mission chiefs asking them to try to correct the use of constitutionally improper designations of the monarchy in the local press. For instance, “Austria-Hungary” was to be preferred to “Austria.” The irony of such a directive was not lost on the ambassador to the Holy See, Count Nikolaus Szécsen, who reported that the Italian newspapers generally referred accurately to the monarchy. According to Szécsen, the Hungarian press constituted the primary culprit, utilizing expressions like “the Hungarian envoy,” “Hungarian-Austrian army,” and “Hungarian and Austrian consul.” Szécsen ridiculed those journalists who believed themselves especially meticulous when they wrote “the Austrian and Hungarian envoy.” He suggested that the Ballhausplatz, rather than worry about foreign newspapers, quietly point out the unfortunate impact of such inaccuracies to in¶uential personalities in Budapest.106 Hungarian insistence on recognition of their coequal status with respect to the diplomatic service occasionally reached absurd proportions. During the celebrations marking Francis Joseph’s birthday at the legation in Bucharest in 1907, the envoy, Prince Johann Schönburg-Hartenstein, allegedly slighted the Realm of St. Stephen by excluding the “king” (of Hungary) from his toast to the “emperor” (of Austria), and by failing to rise during the playing of the Hungarian anthem. Within days, a press campaign against Schönburg had been launched by several newspapers across the Leitha, including Budapesti Hirlap and Pesti Hirlap. The latter even took the opportunity to suggest that the “system” itself was ¶awed, in that at the previous year’s banquet in Bucharest, the ranking diplomat, Count Laurenz Szápáry, a Hungarian, had not arranged for the hymn to be played at all.107 In a letter to Section Chief von Müller, Schönburg

148 • aristocratic redoubt rejected the charge that he had not drunk to the “king,” an account supported by the Austro-Hungarian military attaché in his report to the chief of the General Staff.108 The foreign of¤ce thereupon issued an of¤cial statement, published in Transleithania by the papers Magyar Hirlap and Magyarország, refuting the version in the nationalist press.109 The move, however, scarcely brought a respite in the attacks on Schönburg, with Pesti Hirlap maintaining that he had omitted the words “Hungarian and Apostolic” in referring to the ruler, so that one could easily have assumed that he was speaking of the king of Bohemia or Dalmatia. Pesti Hirlap also could not resist a gibe at the Rumanians, who, it argued, would at least learn something of Hungarian constitutional law from the incident.110 All participants in the affair, however, agreed that the envoy had in fact not remained standing for the Hungarian anthem. Schönburg insisted that in the confusion he had simply not recognized the lesserknown tune, while his antagonists in Budapest claimed that they detected an anti-Hungarian pattern in his behavior. That the Magyar colony in Rumania was composed primarily of elements from the lower social orders and was almost exclusively dependent on subsidies from Budapest permitted, Schönburg believed, the manipulation of the local Hungarians by nationalists in Transleithania. The prince particularly resented being unjustly labeled an “enemy of Hungary” and hoped that more reasonable voices in Budapest would help him reestablish his authority over the Magyar community in Bucharest. He even indicated, his schedule permitting, his willingness to learn Hungarian, a de¤ciency (Übelstand) for which his antagonists had reproached him.111 While the essentially frivolous attacks on Schönburg in the “banquet affair” ultimately posed little threat to his position, public opinion as expressed in the Hungarian press proved remarkably dangerous at other times. The envoy in Bucharest had especially to be careful never to be seen sacri¤cing Magyar interests to Rumanian irredentism or interfering in Hungary’s internal affairs. In January 1914, Count Ottokar Czernin, the newly appointed minister in Rumania, gave a disastrous interview to the Hungarian newspaper Az Est that nearly cost him his job. In the course of his remarks, Czernin noted the strained relations between Vienna and Bucharest and argued that many of the demands by the Transylvanian Rumanians for better treatment deserved consideration. The publication of such indiscreet statements unleashed a storm of indignation in Transleithania, particularly given the ongoing negotiations with the leaders of the Rumanian minority.112 The foreign minister, who variously referred to Czernin as a prima ballerina and an enfant terrible, regretted that the

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envoy’s imprudence provided the Hungarian opposition with an opportunity to attack the government. Having recently boycotted parliament, members of the Independence Party reappeared to interpellate MinisterPresident Tisza about Czernin’s conduct.113 Though outraged by the interview, Tisza decided to support Czernin, though not unequivocally. In his statement to the deputies, he deplored the incident while reaf¤rming his belief in Czernin’s loyalty. To Francis Ferdinand, Czernin characterized Tisza’s remarks more bluntly: “I was indeed ‘correct’ but actually a colossal ass, that was really the tenor of his speech.”114 But in such a highly charged atmosphere, even that démarche did not immediately silence the envoy’s opponents. Calls for the dismissal of Czernin, who had taken up his post only two months previously, lasted for weeks, prompting him to appeal to Berchtold to quash rumors of his transfer.115 The scandal ¤nally died down, albeit slowly, and he remained in of¤ce. Czernin exhibited little tolerance when his subordinates made similar missteps. A few days before the Az Est ¤asco, he complained that Count Forgách, the ministry’s section chief for political affairs, had been bragging in Budapest that a legation secretary of Hungarian nationality had been posted in Bucharest to “paralyze” Czernin’s work.116 Count Iwan Csekonics had in fact been transferred to Rumania after Czernin accepted the envoyship in Bucharest, but this move was effected two weeks before the latter’s appointment had been made public. According to one source, Csekonics himself gave an interview to a Hungarian newspaper in which he maintained that the Hungarian government closely monitored Czernin’s activities to prevent developments detrimental to Hungarian interests. He further hinted that Tisza had charged him with keeping an eye on Czernin. After reading the article, the envoy declared that he could hardly be expected to be subject to the control of one of his own subordinates and doubted that this story re¶ected Tisza’s intention. In the presence of Count Emerich Csáky, the other Hungarian stationed at the mission in Bucharest, Czernin telephoned Csekonics in Budapest. Sputtering with rage, he gave full vent to his indignation, heaping the sharpest reproaches on the younger diplomat and admonishing him as a teacher would an unruly schoolboy. Afterward, Czernin turned to Csáky and asked for his impressions of the exchange. The latter answered that, if he were Csekonics, he would ask to be transferred from Bucharest, whereupon Czernin laughingly replied, “That’s exactly what I wanted to achieve!”117 Csekonics did not return to Rumania. The Compromise provided Hungary with two potent weapons for protecting its interests in the monarchy’s foreign-policy counsels. First,

150 • aristocratic redoubt the minister-president had the right to be consulted by the foreign minister on questions of external affairs. That is not to say, though, that Hungarian views always or even mostly carried the day in such deliberations. Second, the agreement of 1867 conceded the coequal status of Transleithania and thus provided an informal, yet a constitutionally derivative, justi¤cation for making demands that affected the internal structure and dispositions of the foreign of¤ce. Such were aimed at emphasizing the Austro-Hungarian, rather than the imperial, character of the Ballhausplatz. How successful were Magyar efforts in that direction? Although the percentage of Hungarian personnel abroad and in the central of¤ce rose sharply after the turn of the century, they achieved no commanding role at the Ballhausplatz. Furthermore, as we shall see in the next section, the social basis of foreign-of¤ce recruitment restricted the in¶ux of ¤ery nationalists. The Magyars could look to Pyrrhic victories, including forcing the ministry to address symbolic issues like ¶ags and coats of arms and the language of communication to be used with Hungarian authorities. More important was the achievement of the right to countersign certain types of treaties, which earned Hungary independent recognition in international law. But the incessant press campaigns and agitation did more than anything else, albeit intangibly, to weaken the monarchy’s unity vis-à-vis other states. However, the Magyars won no concessions in the political realm that actually undermined a unitary, imperial foreign policy before the war. The Hungarian government’s insistence on the employment of an appropriate number of its citizens in the joint foreign of¤ce did not directly address the question of nationality. Large numbers of Slovaks, Serbs, Croats, Jews, Rumanians, and Germans, in addition to Magyars, lived in the Kingdom of St. Stephen. A casual survey of the list of Hungarian citizens employed by the Ballhausplatz between 1906 and 1914 reveals names of Magyar, German, Italian, Irish, Serbian, Croatian, and Slovak origin. Among Cisleithanian diplomats, we ¤nd surnames of equally diverse derivation: Czech, German, French, Italian, Rumanian, Polish, Spanish, English, Slovenian, Dutch, and Portuguese. On the basis of ethnic appellation, it would seem that most of the major nationalities of the monarchy, as well as of Europe, were represented in the foreign service. As is the case today in the United States, in the Habsburg Monarchy the origin of a name ultimately disclosed little about the ethnic identity of a person. Moreover, cognomens in the course of time themselves often underwent various transformations. Aehrenthal’s legal surname “Lexa” fell

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into disuse in the course of the nineteenth century in favor of the more elegant and German-sounding Prädikat. Paul von Hevesy, a legation secretary in Constantinople, came from a Hungarian Jewish clan originally styled Bischitz. In 1895, twelve years after Paul’s birth, Francis Joseph granted the head of the family a patent of nobility. Nine years later, in 1904, Paul’s father received permission to change his name to Hevesy-Bisicz, followed within two years by the right to drop the Bisicz altogether, leaving the sonorously Magyar name Hevesy to conceal the ancestral roots.118 Less than three years after that, the newly minted Hungarian cavalier Paul von Hevesy entered the diplomatic corps. Similarly, Count Albert Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein, the ambassador in London, belonged to the old noble family Pouilly of Lorraine, which twice during the nineteenth century added ethnically German surnames to the original French one.119 As these examples show, surnames may provide no accurate indicator of ethnic origin, though they may supply a somewhat less imperfect sign of cultural or national orientation. In the course of climbing the social ladder, all three families sought to shed their earlier identities and acquire the protective coloring of the level to which they aspired. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Czech culture remained alive primarily among the peasantry, while the Bohemian nobility was suffused by a cosmopolitan ethos. The Lexas therefore found it expedient to distance themselves from their humble beginnings in the Czech countryside by using their German-sounding title as a surname. Across the Leitha, the Hungarians, fearful of becoming a minority in the polyglot Kingdom of St. Stephen, particularly welcomed the magyarization of German and Jewish elements resident in the country. Such cases, however, tell us more about family history and the general phenomenon of assimilation than they do about individual attitudes, which conceivably differed markedly from one generation to the next. Other factors that were more speci¤c to the individual lives of Ballhausplatz of¤cials also prove problematic in determining nationality. Because of the different historical experiences of the nobility in various parts of the monarchy, geographical roots may or may not provide a clue to a diplomat’s ethnic af¤liation. In the Kingdom of St. Stephen, Hungarian nationalism was closely linked with the preservation of constitutional government, whose primary defenders had historically been the Magyar nobility. As such, that stratum became identi¤ed with the various strands of Hungarian nationalism that fell, after 1848, along a broad spectrum from the conservative concept of “historic rights” to Louis Kossuth’s radical calls for independence from the Viennese yoke.120 In other words,

152 • aristocratic redoubt even the most devoted noble Habsburg loyalist across the Leitha seems at the same time to have recognized his af¤nity with the Magyar nation. In contrast, the majority of the Bohemian and Moravian aristocracy apparently lacked any close ethnic connection to the Czech population. Most of the original Czech nobility had been destroyed in or after the Battle of the White Mountain, and their properties fell primarily to followers of the emperor imported from abroad. The constitutional emasculation of the Bohemian estates thus coincided with the arrival of a horde of foreign adventurers bound to imperial authority and possessing little knowledge of the kingdom’s pre-1620 structure.121 The revival of claims to historic constitutional rights by the nineteenth-century descendants of the condottieri, a process inspired by events in Hungary, occurred at ¤rst without a corresponding interest in Czech culture and language.122 True, one of the two major politically active sectors of the aristocracy, the conservative great landowners (Feudaler Großgrundbesitz), formed a tactical alliance with the Czech nationalists. But emotive identi¤cation with the Czech nation remained exceptional, though perhaps more common by the eve of the war. Their opponents among the grandees, the constitutionally loyal great landowners (Verfassungstreuer Großgrundbesitz), who supported a centralized Cisleithanian state as opposed to provincial rights, likewise failed to adopt the sentiments of their German nationalist bedfellows, even if the leader of the party occasionally referred to “we Germans” in his correspondence with the liberals.123 The case of the Galician aristocracy differed markedly in historical terms from the situations in Hungary and Bohemia. The kingdom of Poland had lost its independence only slightly more than a century before Aehrenthal became foreign minister. The nobility therefore possessed relatively recent memories of a Polish state, one in which, moreover, they had constituted the ruling caste. Traditions of national culture, which in other eastern European areas revived only in the early nineteenth century, had long remained alive among the Poles, particularly the upper classes.124 Polish patriotism consequently ¶ourished among the Galician nobility, even as this group provided one of the prime pillars of Dualism in the western half of the monarchy. The two positions were not incompatible, given the extraordinary international complications that a general resolution of the Polish question would have entailed and the concessions made by Vienna to the grandees in the question of local autonomy. The assertion by one scholar that only a minority of Galician nobles supported the Habsburg cause has yet to be proven;125 but there can be little doubt that

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most magnates thought of themselves as Poles, just as their counterparts across the Carpathians identi¤ed themselves as Magyars. In the course of the nineteenth century, the service nobility, which was concentrated primarily in Vienna, increasingly adopted a German cultural orientation. Bureaucrats were drawn from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, but their original national identities generally disappeared among their descendants within a few generations.126 At least two factors contributed to this process. The large expansion of the central administration under Maria Theresa and her successors necessitated the use of a common language. In the course of the later eighteenth century, and especially during the time of Francis II (I), the court itself gradually shed its Spanish-French af¤liation, renewing its former German ties.127 One consequence of that process was the introduction of a predominantly German-directed centralism, which remained intact, at least in the western half of the monarchy, down into Francis Joseph’s reign. As one authority put it, “German leadership was taken for granted by strength of tradition, for reasons of administrative expediency, and only lastly, if at all, by outright consentual preference.”128 That development corresponded with the German cultural revival, which produced luminaries like Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Hegel, and Fichte, which in turn profoundly in¶uenced the educated world in central Europe. According to one source, the cultural orientation of the bureaucracy had already become German by the 1830s.129 Scattered evidence from the last decades preceding World War I indicates that among the bureaucratic nobility such sympathies remained strong.130 Among Ballhausplatz of¤cials posted abroad, the high percentage with landed backgrounds meant that most came from the crownlands or the counties. In Cisleithania, the provinces of Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, and Lower Austria (excluding Vienna) were most heavily represented, not surprisingly, since together they contained a large proportion of the great territorial aristocracy. Enormous entailed latifundia prevailed particularly in Bohemia, Moravia, and Lower Austria, where they accounted for a relatively high share of total land area.131 Data drawn from records of birth place, location of family estates, and of¤cial domicile (Heimatzuständigkeit) indicate that at least 67 of the 106 diplomats from Cisleithania (63 percent) came from one of the provinces, while the place of origin of only 29 (27 percent) was Vienna.132 Information on eight diplomats (7 percent) is incomplete, and two (3%)—Baron Hugo Rhemen (Westphalia) and Count Karl Almeida (Bavaria)—do not appear to have been native to the monarchy.

154 • aristocratic redoubt The twenty-eight recruits from Bohemia and Moravia together accounted for the largest contingent (26 percent) from the Cisleithanian crownlands. The Austrian hereditary lands jointly contributed twenty-one diplomats (20 percent), with Lower Austria alone supplying fully half of those.133 Nine of those stationed abroad (8 percent) came from Galicia, two from Bukovina (2 percent), and three from Silesia (3 percent). The remaining four for which we have data were natives of the city of Trieste or of the surrounding county of Gorizia and Gradisca (4 percent). Dalmatia had no representation in the corps. Very few of the non-Viennese Cisleithanian diplomats had roots in major urban areas in the crownlands. Of the eighteen diplomats from Bohemia, sixteen came from clans of great landowners. All of the latter belonged to the blue-blooded Bohemian “cousinage” that passed the winter social season in baroque family palaces in Prague.134 They spent the remaining months of the year at ancestral castles in the countryside, where the center of familial social, political, and economic responsibilities lay. Similarly, only one of the ten Moravians, Baron Karl Giskra, who had been born in Brünn, had nonagrarian antecedents. This pattern prevailed among the diplomats from the other provinces of Cisleithania. Only in Trieste and the surrounding county of Gorizia and Gradisca did those with urban backgrounds outnumber those without. Baron Edwin Bourguignon came from a line of Habsburg naval of¤cers of French origin based in Trieste, while Baron Johann Economo was the son of a Greek industrialist in the same city.135 The emissary in Montenegro in 1914, Eduard Otto, was born and attended the Gymnasium in Trieste, where his father directed the printing of¤ce of the Austrian Lloyd.136 The other diplomat from the area, Count Leopold Strassoldo, came from a landed family with an estate in Gorizia and Gradisca.137 The non-Magyar minorities in Hungary had few representatives among those serving in the monarchy’s foreign legations and embassies. Most of the diplomats came from families of Magyar territorial magnates concentrated in the fertile counties of western and northern Hungary. Few came from northeastern Hungary or east of the Tisza River, though several hailed from Transylvania, including Baron Zoltán Bánffy, Stephan von Betegh, Albert von Eperjesy, and Stephan von Ugron. The only Croatian found in the diplomatic corps, Baron Alexander Musulin, played a key role in policy formulations in the years before the war. One envoy, Ludwig von Vélics, who served from 1905 to 1917 as head of the mission in Munich, described himself as “the offspring of a modest Slovak noble family.”138 No evidence has emerged, however, to suggest that Velics spoke Slovakian,

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and he appears rather to have been culturally Hungarian, unlike Musulin, whose mother tongue was Croatian.139 The Transylvanian Rumanians also do not appear among those stationed abroad, although Alexander von Mocsonyi, an attaché in Constantinople, descended from an immensely wealthy Rumanian merchant who was ennobled in 1805. In the course of the nineteenth century, the family assimilated with the Magyar nobility, with whom they intermarried. Barons Paul Forster, Ladislaus Müller, and Ladislaus Hengelmüller all sprang from the large German community across the Leitha. None, however, belonged to the best-known segment of that population, the Transylvanian Saxons.140 The urban Hungarian element in the corps was, as be¤tted an overwhelmingly agrarian society, likewise minimal. Inhabitants of Budapest made up only seven (12 percent) of the ¤fty-eight Hungarian recruits, as opposed to the 27 percent who came from Vienna. Of those seven, three were the above-named Germans, and one, Rudolf von Wodianer, came from an originally Jewish family. The geographical origins of the central of¤ce personnel differ strikingly from what we have encountered for the diplomats. Of the total ministry staff of 103 in the Aehrenthal and Berchtold years, 67 were Austrians, and 36 were Hungarians. The Viennese accounted for more than half (58 percent) of those coming from Cisleithania and for more than a third (37 percent) of all employees posted at the Ballhausplatz. Of those from the western half of the monarchy, only nineteen (27 percent) were native to one of the provinces. Four each (12 percent) came from Bohemia and Moravia, including both foreign ministers. Lower Austria provided three functionaries (5 percent), Upper Austria and Tyrol two each (6 percent), and Silesia, Styria, Galicia, and Carniola one each (4 percent). The place of origin of ten of¤cials (15 percent) remains obscure. The less complete data available for the Hungarian functionaries in Vienna reveal that more than one-third (39 percent) had urban backgrounds, with 28 percent coming from Budapest and the other 11% from such provincial cities as Klausenburg (Kolozsvár), Hermannstadt (NagySzeben), and Ödenburg (Sopron). Only thirteen of the Hungarians at the Ballhausplatz (36 percent) came from the counties, including Count Josef Draskovich from Croatia and Johann von Mihalovich from Verõcze county in Slavonia. The origins of one-quarter of the Hungarians (25 percent) have eluded discovery, though several, like Baron Árpád Eperjesy, Alfred von Nickl, Cajetan von Mérey, and Bela von Török, had fathers in the imperial bureaucracy or military, where transfers occurred frequently. Language is a more reliable indicator of cultural or national orientation than geographical origin. There exists an abundance of information,

156 • aristocratic redoubt .

collected at various times in the course of careers, relative to the linguistic capabilities of diplomatic personnel. Of greatest importance here are the surveys conducted by the foreign of¤ce in 1900, 1909, and 1913 to evaluate the language skills of those posted in missions abroad.141 Candidates for admission often summarized their knowledge of languages in their applications, but this is evidentially less credible. In addition, the army, in which many of the diplomats served as reserve of¤cers, regularly gathered the same material for its own records. And the military updated the ¤le (Quali¤kations-Liste) as a person moved through the ranks, so that we sometimes have assessments over the space of several years. The abundance of those sources does not, however, compensate for the problems of interpretation that they present. We do not know, for example, how ability was measured. Did the diplomat himself simply furnish his own opinion, or was there an of¤cial quali¤ed to make an independent judgment? In the embassies and legations, how would a Hungarian mission chief with no knowledge of Polish have been able to gauge the quali¤cations of his subordinate from Galicia, or vice versa? Given such dif¤culties, evaluations of a diplomat’s foreign languages, especially French, may re¶ect a greater degree of accuracy. The imprecise classi¤cation schemes generally used in the assessments pose other problems. The Ballhausplatz utilized only three rather vague categories to describe linguistic skills: “perfect” (vollkommen), “adequate” (hinreichend), and “marginal” (zum Dienstgebrauch genügend). The army occasionally added others, such as “¶uent” ( geläu¤g), “correct” (korrekt), “good” ( gut), “pretty good” (ziemlich gut), and “poor” (notdürftig). The aptitude denoted by each of the labels, as well as the differences among them, can at best be imperfectly understood. Only rarely does a notation appear indicating a person’s mother tongue, as was done in the cases of Legation Secretary Johann Sigismund von Micha|owski and Consul Nikolaus von Jurystowski, who were both Polish.142 The extant data may nevertheless yield helpful insights, provided such dif¤culties are borne in mind. That we often have more than one and sometimes several assessments over an extended period reduces the somewhat arbitrary character of the designations and allows us some sense, however de¤cient, of a diplomat’s greater or lesser familiarity with various idioms. Our knowledge of the languages commanded by the diplomats supports the notion that the nobility in different parts of the monarchy had unique historical relationships to the surrounding national cultures. We have evidence on the linguistic talents of more than half of the Galician and Transleithanian members of the corps, revealing that nearly all had a

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“perfect” or “¶uent” grasp of Polish or Magyar, respectively. Only a handful of the Hungarians, such as Prince Nikolaus Hohenlohe-WaldenburgSchillingsfürst, possessed merely an “adequate” speaking ability.143 Hohenlohe, whose own family did not belong to the traditional Magyar aristocracy, had connections to Hungary through his mother, Countess Franziska Esterházy. Others with a de¤cient grasp of Hungarian also tended to be recent additions to the haut monde across the Leitha. Of the seven Galicians in the service for whom we have information, all appear to have been native speakers of Polish.144 The representatives of the Bohemian aristocracy more rarely mastered Czech, though all spoke German, a historic language of the kingdom. Count Carl Trauttmansdorff and Prince Vincenz Windisch-Grätz, whose families had owned estates in Bohemia for centuries, knew only the barest rudiments of Czech.145 Several, including Counts Ottokar Czernin and Johann Kolowrat, as well as the Fürstenberg brothers, evidently had a somewhat more sophisticated understanding of the idiom, but they remained exceptional.146 Only two diplomats, Alexander von Musulin and Count Elemér Pejácsevich, seem to have known Croatian. Primarily Magyar by culture, the Pejácsevichs ranked as important magnates in Budapest, and Elemér, despite his Slavic origins, had less experience with Croatian than with Hungarian.147 Representatives of the Rumanian-speaking boyars of Bukovina in the corps included Georg von Grigorcea and Baron Johann Styrcea. Of the monarchy’s many languages, German was the only one in which candidates for admission had to demonstrate pro¤ciency.148 Although a few older envoys sent dispatches to the foreign of¤ce in French, German remained the only domestic language of service down to the war. Among those posted abroad, de¤ciency in German in the AehrenthalBerchtold years rarely, though by no means never, emerged as a problem. As the language of the court and the central bureaucracy, German had naturally been a staple of education since the cradle for the upper classes in all parts of the empire. Evidence to date indicates that a diplomat lacked the necessary ability in German on only a few occasions. Norbert von Schmucker, the pompous emissary in Buenos Aires, complained that his new attaché, the Hungarian Paul von Hevesy, lacked the language skills to discharge his duties at the legation. The Ballhausplatz, however, gave little credence to the assessment by Schmucker, who submitted, at other times, wildly differing assessments of Hevesy’s capabilities.149 In a memorandum to Archduke Francis Ferdinand, Czernin declared that other Hungarian diplomats, such as Julius von Szilassy, Count Maximilian Hadik, and Count Paul Wenckheim,

158 • aristocratic redoubt could not speak proper German.150 Szilassy’s writings, at least, do not bear out that assertion. In 1913, the foreign of¤ce admitted three Hungarian candidates for provisional service, Georg von Ottlik, Béla von Glacz, and Johann von Wettstein, all with an inadequate knowledge of German. To correct the problem, Ludwig von Thallóczy, the leading Hungarian on the committee for the diplomatic examination, arranged for them to take a study trip in Bosnia, at the conclusion of which they submitted detailed German-language reports on their observations.151 The nationality of individual diplomats also played a role in personnel dispositions at the missions abroad. Thus no perception existed at the Ballhausplatz of a corps of of¤cials lacking distinctive ethnic identities. Assignments to states neighboring the monarchy, where kindred populations spilled across both sides of the border, proved particularly troublesome. For many years, the foreign of¤ce on principle never assigned Poles to St. Petersburg, where the suspicious tsarist government would have accorded them a frosty reception. In 1907, Count Casimir Badeni, a former minister-president, asked Aehrenthal to arrange for the transfer of his son, Louis, a legation secretary, to the embassy in the Russian capital. Aehrenthal raised no objections in theory to discarding the old rule but directed Ambassador Berchtold to make inquiries with Izvol’skij as to the acceptability of such a change.152 In his reply, Berchtold pointed out the deep unpopularity of the Poles in Russian ruling circles. Their demands for autonomy and the unyielding posture of the Polish representatives in the Duma had aroused old animosities, the effects of which had been felt not only politically but also socially. Those dif¤culties notwithstanding, he believed that a reasonable, reserved, and tactful diplomat of Polish ancestry might still be possible, but that Louis Badeni, whom he described as a “¤ery, eloquent patriot” too ready to play the “Polish grand seigneur,” would be a regrettable choice. Berchtold also feared Badeni’s habit of discoursing on the disasters of Russia’s and Prussia’s Polish policies.153 Such objections ended any possibility of the projected transfer, though the Galician Baron Alexander Lago received an appointment to St. Petersburg the following spring. Of the nine Polish diplomats in the corps, Lago was the only one to serve in Russia during his career, and he at least possessed the advantage of a surname of Spanish origin.154 Similarly, the Ballhausplatz posted only one Pole, Baron Léon de Vaux, a Galician of French heritage, in Berlin.155 The delicate relations between Magyars and Rumanians in Transylvania made the question of a Hungarian at the head of the monarchy’s Bucharest legation problematic. Some in the ministry argued that a diplo-

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mat from the Austrian side of the empire would enjoy more sympathy at the Rumanian court, while others suggested that a Hungarian would have a better chance of persuading his compatriots in Budapest to adopt a more ¶exible policy toward the minority nationalities.156 The proponents of sending an emissary from Cisleithania generally prevailed. Of the monarchy’s nine envoys in Rumania between 1878 and 1916, only one, Count Johann Pallavicini, came from Transleithania. Like Lago and de Vaux, Pallavicini enjoyed the bene¤t of a surname that to some extent masked his origins, and as the son of a hussar of¤cer, he had spent many of his early years in northern Italy, where his father had been stationed. His actual connection to Hungary ¤rst began when the elder Pallavicini retired from service and settled in the border town of Ödenburg, where his son ¤nished Gymnasium.157 Pallavicini commanded Magyar only imperfectly, a circumstance that may have hindered his reaching the post of foreign minister, and he had little patience with Hungarian pretensions in the international realm that might have prejudiced uni¤ed policy-making. Unlike many of his colleagues from across the Leitha, Pallavicini never appeared in the gala dress of a Hungarian magnate, to which he was entitled, but instead always wore the standard diplomatic uniform.158 His appointment to Bucharest aroused interest, though evidently little hostility, on the part of the Rumanian government. One of¤cial even applauded the choice, saying that the establishment in Budapest would soon learn that a Hungarian would have no more success than an Austrian in forcing its wishes on the neighboring kingdom.159 The new envoy’s well-known tact and conciliatory manner quickly won him the respect of of¤cialdom in Bucharest, which he retained until his recall nearly eight years later.160 The question of nationality appears to have played a lesser role in assignments to other states bordering the monarchy. Of the three ambassadors accredited to Berlin between 1871 and 1914, all came from Transleithania. Their non-German origins may have recommended them as appropriate representatives vis-à-vis Bismarck, the author of German uni¤cation, and later William II. Despite the tense relations that sometimes existed between Vienna and Rome, Italian ancestry did not disqualify a diplomat from a posting at the Palazzo di Venezia. Barons Carl Macchio and Heinrich Sommaruga, both of whose forebears came from Lombardy, served tours of duty there at different times. In placing Baron Alexander Musulin at the legation in Belgrade as provisional chargé d’affaires, the Ballhausplatz rightly had little to fear from possible appeals to South Slav unity. Musulin later recalled the advantage that his native command of Serbo-Croatian gave him in dealing with Serbian functionaries.161 Similarly, the foreign of¤ce tapped an ethnic

160 • aristocratic redoubt Serb, Simon Joannovics, to head the important consulate in Belgrade between 1901 and 1905.162 In general, though, the almost total absence of diplomats with close Serbian ethnic ties made considerations of nationality a moot point for a position across the Sava. The Austro-Hungarian diplomatic corps consisted of a mixture of of¤cials, some who felt a particular ethnic af¤nity and others who did not. Count Szõgyény, the ambassador in Berlin, cultivated his image as a Magyar nobleman. Despite his long decades of living in Vienna and Berlin, ¤rst during his father’s tenure as a court of¤cial, then for many years as a section chief at the Ballhausplatz, and ¤nally as envoy, he spoke German with a strong Hungarian accent. One contemporary believed that Szõgyény wanted to convince his countrymen of his undiluted Magyar patriotism.163 Whatever the reasons, in later years his unique personality earned him the sobriquet “gypsy baron.”164 Count Johann Forgách’s connections to Budapest, however exaggerated by his enemies, likewise reveal a ¤rm Hungarian attachment.165 In his memoirs, Julius von Szilassy maintained that the chief negotiator for the Second Hague Peace Conference, Cajetan von Mérey, chose him as a member of the monarchy’s delegation because of his clear Magyar sympathies.166 The fervently Polish orientation of Count Louis Badeni has already been mentioned. When Count Agenor Go|uchowski served as minister to Rumania in the 1890s, one of his subordinates sarcastically remarked that the mission should have been called “la légation franco-polonaise.” The atmosphere created by his wife, née Princess Murat, mingled elegantly with Go|uchowski’s own style as a Polish grandee.167 We also know that other diplomats came from backgrounds noted for strong national ties. Baron Armand Dumreicher, father of the attaché in Bucharest, “resigned his position in the state bureaucracy out of [German] nationalist conviction in 1886 to carry his torch into Parliament.” Several years later, he quit his party after it refused to ¤ght Slovenian demands in the schools.168 Prince Georg Christian Lobkowitz, the father of another young recruit and head of a leading Bohemian aristocratic house, openly acknowledged a Czech national identity. His attempts to mediate between Czech nationalist politicians and the court and central government garnered him enormous popularity among the Czech public in Bohemia. Whether the sons shared similar sentiments is not known, but it seems fair to assume that paternal in¶uence in such matters played some role. As we have seen, other diplomats felt no discernible loyalty to a national group. Dumreicher’s background was undoubtedly exceptional

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among Ballhausplatz personnel of German origin, as was Lobkowitz’s among the Bohemian aristocracy. Having German as a mother tongue by no means implied sympathy for the cause of German nationalism. While taking a cure at Karlsbad one year, a French statesman asked Berchtold which nationality—German, Hungarian, or Czech—he considered himself. Berchtold instead af¤rmed a “Viennese” identity. Not satis¤ed, his interlocutor pressed the issue, asking which side he would take in the event of open con¶ict among the various nationalities. To this Berchtold con¤dently responded, “the side of the emperor.”169 One authority has stated unequivocally that the German-speaking of¤cials of the foreign ministry were always “Austrian-Habsburg” in their sentiments, even during the upheavals of the 1860s.170 Many Hungarians in the service likewise appeared markedly non-Magyar to their colleagues. Baron Ludwig Flotow remembered one associate in Rome, Elemér von Lónyay, whom his countrymen accused of saying regularly, “Bei Euch in Ungarn.”171 Of the Hungarian magnates, whom he disliked in general, Francis Ferdinand favored Count Nikolaus Szécsen. Even Count Ottokar Czernin grudgingly admitted that Szécsen was not very nationalist “according to the standards of Transleithania,” a characterization he also extended to Count Maximilian Hadik, the diplomat responsible for religious affairs at the embassy to the Holy See.172 Few would have identi¤ed Cajetan von Mérey, a section chief under Go|uchowski and later ambassador in Rome, as a “genuine Magyar.” Though a scion of an old county family, Mérey spoke but little Hungarian, had received a Germanlanguage education, and had spent much of his life in Vienna.173 A common loyalty to the dynasty and a belief in its providential mission bound the diplomats together, whether they empathized with a particular ethnic group or not. In other words, national feeling among Ballhausplatz personnel and the circles from which they came, to the extent that it existed, was not necessarily equated with the concepts of political allegiance and the state. Such ideas could be and were understood separately.174 In fact, representatives of the aristocracy could ¤nd no more pernicious basis for a community than arbitrary racial distinctions that then destroyed the basis for liberty and justice. In the nineteenth century, Foreign Minister Count Karl Buol-Schauenstein expressed the feeling thus: “Do they not understand that the principle of nationalities such as it is exploited today serves as a mask for vulgar cupidities, unbounded ambitions, and all the evil revolutionary instincts?”175 By the last decade before the war, no Ballhausplatz of¤cial possessed a more profound faith in the importance of a cosmopolitan monarchy

162 • aristocratic redoubt than did Aehrenthal.176 Even those functionaries known most for their national peculiarities, such as Szõgyény, displayed an unconditional ¤delity to the Habsburg state. Szõgyény equated the true interests of Hungary, his cara patria, with those of the monarchy.177 He thus reconciled two seemingly contradictory allegiances. The Poles in the service similarly emphasized their attachment to the imperial cause. In the course of a New Year’s reception, the queen of Italy asked one Habsburg legation secretary, Count Jaroslav Wišniewski, if he were a Pole. When Wišniewski answered, “I am from Galicia, Majesty,” the queen objected that Galicia was in fact Poland. Undeterred by the monarch’s embarrassingly dogged insistence, Wišniewski ¤rmly maintained that he came from “the Austrian province of Galicia.”178 For the gifted Baron Leopold Andrian-Werburg, who headed the important general consulate in Warsaw, the “Austrian idea,” as he called it, embodied a vision far more appealing than that of a national state. He ardently believed that the Habsburg Monarchy provided the best framework for the cooperation and even partial amalgamation of the genius of many peoples.179 The longtime ambassador in Constantinople, Baron Heinrich Calice, claimed to be equally indifferent to “every national party” and deplored any tendencies that would undermine the common polity.180 Background and tradition, rather than any process of indoctrination after admittance to the Ballhausplatz, produced the fealty to the Habsburg throne espoused by diplomats like Calice, Andrian, and Szõgyény. Only rarely, though perhaps more often in the consular service, did an of¤cial make a conscious choice to abandon a nationalist orientation in favor of a “Habsburg-Austrian” allegiance. Vice Consul Karl Linha, the son of a leader in the Czech community in Bohemia, provides one example. Left fatherless at the age of ten, Linha’s guardian furnished him with an education dominated by an “extrême-nationale Kultur,” the effects of which he spent several years trying to cast off. Linha attributed his success in doing so to his strong individuality, and by his early twenties, he had begun to learn German as well as French and English.181 The great majority of Linha’s colleagues, especially in the diplomatic corps and the central of¤ce, lacked such a narrow upbringing and therefore did not face similar dif¤culties. Family custom and education among the aristocracy and the bureaucratic nobility instead nourished a universal outlook and a strong attachment to the dynasty, which employment in the foreign ministry reinforced. From the cradle onward, as we have seen, upper-class children simultaneously learned to think and speak in several languages. Such learning extended beyond the schoolroom as well. More often than not, a cosmo-

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politan air suffused such houses. One Magyar grandee recalled that a distinctly French ¶avor characterized the atmosphere at his grandmother’s estate. She, as well as a large proportion of the aristocracy of western Hungary, had been educated in the last years before the French Revolution in a famous boarding school in Preøburg run by the Order of Notre Dame. To the end of her life, she understood little Hungarian and expressed delight when her grandson spoke his ¤rst French words with her.182 Patrician youth learned to play a role in public life at the highest levels within the monarchy and to move comfortably on the European stage as well. Possessed of enormous wealth—which allowed a unique style and view of life—frequently interrelated with one another, and multilingual, the aristocracy considered itself and was thought of by others as a race apart. No matter what their ethnic origins, which many did not deny, they had more in common with each other than with their conationals.183 The experiences of the lower nobility, especially those who populated the army and bureaucracy, also fostered an imperial loyalty. Both institutions served as the primary supports of the Habsburg system of rule. Baron Alexander Musulin, the son of a military of¤cer in Croatia, inherited a traditional feeling of vassalage toward the ruling house.184 Many others spent their childhoods or received their educations in Vienna, which served as the nerve center of the multinational empire. The Consular Academy, as well as such popular secondary schools as the Theresianum and the Schottengymnasium, accepted students from all corners of the monarchy. One graduate of the Consular Academy remembered that despite the disparate heritages of the students and the increasingly bitter struggles among the nationalities on the outside, such friction never disturbed the school.185 Although in many ways very different, the separate traditions of the aristocracy and the “second society” nevertheless produced a similar loyalty to the Habsburgs and their mission. Ethnic origins played only a subordinate role in the way the diplomats and foreign of¤ce mandarins identi¤ed themselves.186 While it would be dif¤cult to argue the disloyalty of even the more rabid nationalists before 1914, most unabashedly conceded merely the geopolitical necessity of the monarchy. With the collapse of Germany and Russia at the end of the war and the consequent disappearance of the monarchy’s raison d’être, the nationalities claimed their independence without looking back. For many aristocrats, the farewell proved much more dif¤cult. Their attachment to the ancien régime rested on their belief in its transcendent mission rather than its political convenience on the European stage.

164 • aristocratic redoubt On the eve of the collapse in 1918, Count Nikolaus Revertera sent a letter of farewell to his old friend Berchtold in which he gave voice to the anguish he felt at his imminent departure into exile. Alarmed by the adverse turn taken by the war and the possibility of revolution, Revertera, once a diplomat himself, had decided to take refuge in Switzerland. He mentioned how sweetly and poignantly the poet Ovid had sung the praises of the Eternal City on the night before being sent into perpetual banishment.187 Just as Rome had been for Ovid, so the Habsburg Empire for Revertera represented more than just his home. The monarchy symbolized an ideal that embodied the values and traditions of a universal civilization. He instinctively understood that he would have no af¤nity with a polity based on ethnicity.

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nce a candidate had satis¤ed the various entrance requirements and performed acceptably on the diplomatic examination, he received, within a few days, his appointment as a new attaché. Shortly thereafter, the personnel department noti¤ed him of his ¤rst posting. In such a way, a diplomat launched a career that might last several decades. His experiences in the admissions process and the year of provisional service furnished him reliable indicators as to what to expect as he climbed through the ranks in the corps. In making assignments, just as in granting a petition to be admitted, the Ballhausplatz weighed a variety of factors, some measured by seemingly objective standards, others more subjective in character. As in the preliminary stage, kinship networks, social considerations, and Viennese Protektion all remained codeterminant in possibilities for advancement. A diplomat discovered a fairly broad consensus among his colleagues of all ranks as to the desirability and attractiveness of the many stations abroad. Members of the service, particularly the young attachés and legation secretaries, sometimes had little choice where they would be sent, but the evidence directly contradicts one functionary’s assertion that individual wishes were “disregarded as a matter of principle.”1 The ¤rst section chief and the personnel director sought to match the post with the person most quali¤ed to ¤ll it, but they often showed ¶exibility within those parameters. The prerequisites even for apparently similar assignments could vary, and an array of issues, including wealth, personality, and intelligence, had to be considered before making ¤nal dispositions. In the higher ranks, such motivations naturally assumed greater importance, but here the foreign of¤ce generally consulted senior legation counselors and envoys about their upcoming placements. A combination of political considerations and personal interest therefore governed the award of envoyships in a way that was much less common lower down in the ranks.

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166 • aristocratic redoubt Many diplomats, however, declined to wait submissively for dispositions from on high regarding their fate. Cultivating those in the ministry with in¶uence on personnel questions or having the protection of a highranking colleague in the ¤eld who carried weight at the Ballhausplatz proved effective in furthering one’s career. Kinship ties and traditional Viennese Protektion played no less a role here than in the matter of admissions. In his memoirs, Count Heinrich Lützow recalled that throughout his long career, he made a rule of remaining in constant, con¤dential contact with ¤gures at the Ballhausplatz so that he would be apprised of any planned changes in his status.2 Another diplomat, Count Albert Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein, who rose quickly and successfully to the ambassadorship at the court of St. James, maintained a lively correspondence with Cajetan von Mérey, a powerful of¤cial in Vienna during the Go|uchowski years.3 Conversely, the lack of a patron could have a deleterious effect on the possibilities for advancement of an otherwise talented diplomat, as illustrated by the case of Baron Ludwig Flotow, whose abilities drew the praise of his superiors abroad, but who remained “unknown and without protection” in the ministry.4 The friendly intercession of a well-disposed elder in the corps also proved helpful in the climb through the ranks. Best known in this regard are the efforts of Aehrenthal, who, while serving as envoy in Bucharest and then in St. Petersburg, kept an eye out for capable young lieutenants. The careers of such man as Alexander von Musulin, Baron Georg Franckenstein, and Baron Leopold Andrian-Werburg all prospered as a result of their relationship with the future minister.5 Aehrenthal even looked occasionally outside the narrow con¤nes of traditional diplomacy for promising material. During his tenure in Russia, he spotted Vice Consul Koloman von Kánia, whose work at the consulates in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Rostov, and Odessa he had favorably assessed. Thereafter, Kánia’s progress closely followed that of Aehrenthal; at the age of thirty-eight, he became head of the latter’s press bureau, where he became known for his vigorous, even aggressive attempts to in¶uence the printed media.6 After Aehrenthal succeeded Go|uchowski at the Ballhausplatz, one hostile witness contended that hopes for promotion rested primarily on currying favor with certain all-powerful ambassadors, especially Counts Mensdorff (Great Britain) and Lützow (Italy). While doubtless an overstatement, both did take a lively interest in the paths of some of their subordinates.7 Though less common as a factor in preferment, the favor of the emperor himself could work to a diplomat’s advantage. Francis Joseph scrupulously avoided the obnoxious, often arbitrary forays into personnel

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affairs to which William II subjected the Wilhelmstraøe.8 Nevertheless, the knowledge that a member of the corps enjoyed the monarch’s goodwill ensured his smooth passage through the ranks. One of the bestknown of those who pro¤ted thereby was Baron Karl Bruck, ambassador to Italy for nearly a decade in the late nineteenth century. Bruck’s father, a ¤nance minister early in Francis Joseph’s reign, had been accused— falsely as it turned out—of ¤nancial irregularities and had been relieved of his post. Unable to bear the disgrace, he took his own life, and the emperor, feeling responsible for his callous treatment of Bruck and the consequent suicide, tried to compensate by assuring his son a brilliant career in the foreign service.9 The benevolence of the ruler likewise extended to Baron Carl Braun, twice envoy in Dresden (1905–9, 1913–18), whose father had for decades overseen the imperial civil chancellery.10 Count Ladislaus Szõgyény-Marich owed his extraordinarily long tenure of twenty-two years at the embassy in Berlin exclusively to Francis Joseph’s protection. Even the energetic Aehrenthal’s attempts to jettison Szõgyény foundered thereon.11 Few Austro-Hungarian diplomats had the close relationship to Francis Joseph enjoyed by Anton von Kiss, the son of Katharina Schratt. When staying in Vienna, he was permitted to visit the sovereign in the evening, by having himself announced, in contrast to other guests, only by the valet.12 His career also cannot have been hurt by the discreet inquiries Francis Joseph made about his progress as a newly appointed attaché at the embassy in Constantinople.13 More frequent but less successful attempts to in¶uence the course of a career came from outside the foreign of¤ce, frequently in the form of pleas from parents or prominent personages. Archduchess Maria Theresia tried in vain to persuade the Ballhausplatz to appoint Baron Otto Kuhn, the envoy in Portugal, to the Washington embassy.14 When, in 1913, Ludwig von Callenberg lost his post upon the dissolution of the legation in Morocco, the joint ¤nance minister, Leon von Biliñski, fruitlessly sought to secure him a new one.15 Callenberg had been out of favor at the Ballhausplatz since Aehrenthal had unceremoniously forced him out of his position as section chief. In contrast, the able but troubled Julius von Szilassy, who in 1913 received the legation in Athens, possessed an effective advocate in the person of the Hungarian minister-president, Baron Géza Fejérváry, whose son had married a sister of Szilassy’s.16 On at least two occasions, diplomats fruitlessly asked the foreign of¤ces of other countries to intervene on their behalf.17 Where the entreaties of the great proved unavailing, diplomats often turned to their relatives, who obligingly contacted the Ballhausplatz to

168 • aristocratic redoubt illuminate the issues at hand. In late 1913, a prominent parliamentary deputy and the father of Baron Erwein Gudenus’s ¤ancée asked Berchtold to reactivate his future son-in-law, who had taken a lengthy leave of absence. Although the foreign minister made no promises, Gudenus did in fact receive a position in Madrid within three months.18 Baron Franz Riedl successfully solicited his father’s help in avoiding a second assignment to Washington.19 Heinrich von Löwenthal’s long tour of duty at the legation in Tokyo, as well as his presence there during the Russo-Japanese War, led his mother to make an appeal to Section Chief von Mérey. Although she spent much of her missive lobbying for a European post, particularly Berlin, for her son, she ended by asking Mérey “to have patience with the worries of a mother.”20 The mawkishness of her plea barely concealed the initiative of Löwenthal himself, who in any event was hopelessly unsuited for the German capital. The Ballhausplatz instead sent him to Belgrade. That Count Constantin Deym had shown himself to be little more than a frivolous playboy during his career did not prevent his relatives from bombarding the foreign of¤ce with telegrams and letters on his behalf. His father, the ambassador in London, blocked “Stani’s” transfer to Dresden, and his sister pressed the Ballhausplatz not to dispatch him to the Far East.21 Whether they enjoyed Protektion in the ministry or not, diplomats rarely shied away from letting the Ballhausplatz know how they regarded their assignments. A wide range of factors governed their opinions, from personal dif¤culties of various sorts to calculations about how a stint at a post would affect their career paths. But few dispositions by the foreign of¤ce brought more howls of protest than the prospect of having to serve at one of the missions overseas. The international system before World War I remained a primarily European one, unaffected in its essentials even by the gradual emergence of the United States and Japan. Nearly all of Africa and large tracts of Asia carried the colonial yoke until after World War II, and the South American republics, even the largest of them, played a minimal role in world trade and politics. In contrast, all ¤ve great powers, Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, were concentrated within Europe. The practical consequence of that constellation meant that the choicest assignments took diplomats no further east than St. Petersburg and no further west than London. The long distances and often adverse conditions associated with a placement beyond Europe contributed in a signi¤cant way to their undesirability.

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As the distance between the Old World and an overseas mission increased, so too did the resistance offered by those condemned to man it. If the prospect of several years in Cairo or Teheran evoked little enthusiasm, the mention of Peking or Rio de Janeiro brought expressions of loathing. Even Washington and Tokyo failed to inspire any interest in most diplomats. In many cases, even the general offer of a post outside of Europe elicited a refusal. In 1912, the foreign of¤ce inquired whether Baron Ludwig Flotow, at that time embassy counselor in Berlin, would accept a “transoceanic” legation. Although the Ballhausplatz did not specify the destination, and although Flotow would have obtained his ¤rst independent assignment by accepting it, he promptly rejected the offer.22 When trying to obtain an envoyship, Baron Carl Braun let Vienna know that the advanced age of his father would make accepting anything other than a European position very dif¤cult.23 Braun’s reference to his fathers’ condition is a theme that reappears time and again in the correspondence of diplomats who were all too willing to use parental dotage or illness to avoid leaving the continent. Assignments in the Near and Far East and in Latin America were universally despised as being more appropriate for escapees from the consular service. Occasionally, the foreign of¤ce even proffered either Teheran or Rio de Janeiro to force a diplomat into retirement. Baron Moriz Czikann’s lackluster performance in Serbia merited only the offer of Brazil after he had ¤nished his tour of duty in Belgrade. Czikann’s numerous complaints about his health and his consequent need for a European post with a favorable climate, factors well-known in Vienna, left him little choice but to reject Rio and ask to be pensioned.24 Count Hugo Logothetti, a consul general who had long hoped for a transfer into the corps, ¤nally received Persia. Though grateful, he regretted Teheran’s geographical isolation as well as the lack of opportunity for stimulating work, given the negligible interests of the monarchy in that part of the world.25 Others, like the aristocrats Prince Johann SchönburgHartenstein and Count Dionys Széchényi, with their secure positions in the corps and independent wealth, more easily declined undesirable overseas assignments with no adverse effects. In the fall of 1905, Schönburg rebuffed proposals that he go either to Persia or Brazil, pointing out that his wife’s pregnancy made such destinations out of the question.26 In the same year, Széchényi cited his mother’s health and the administration of his estates as reasons for being unable to take the spots rejected by Schönburg.27 Both men soon received more agreeable legations somewhat closer to home, the latter in Bucharest, the former in Copenhagen.

170 • aristocratic redoubt The same considerations that made Asian posts unattractive operated in the case of Latin America, where the monarchy maintained missions in Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Santiago. Few Ballhausplatz dispositions aroused as much tumult as the dispatch in 1902 of Count Carl Trauttmansdorff-Weinsberg to the newly opened mission in Chile. To send an impeccably blue-blooded mediatized grandee to live in allegedly unhygienic conditions among barbarians uncomfortably recalled the death in Shanghai six months earlier of Legation Secretary Prince Karl Schwarzenberg. But Foreign Minister Go|uchowski, who had instituted an informal rule requiring that younger diplomats take an overseas assignment for a short period, showed little inclination to relent in Trauttmansdorff’s case.28 His efforts to avoid Santiago, including a plea on his behalf by Ambassador Deym in London, failed, and he agreed to go.29 The strains of his tour of duty there, which lasted scarcely a year, hardly equaled the laurels he earned for his sacri¤ce.30 For tolerating South America’s “heat, dirt, and dust,” Trauttmansdorff advanced early to the rank of legation secretary and received the Iron Crown, a decoration, one observer noted with disgust, won by his own father on the battle¤eld at Königgrätz. The supreme thanks, though, awaited him at a court ball, where the emperor personally expressed his gratitude for his sel¶ess service.31 Trauttmansdorff’s ability to magnify his Chilean achievement did nothing to reconcile other unfortunates to the thought of going to Latin America. Despite his request that he be given, for reasons of health and family, no Asian or South American assignments, Baron Karl Giskra found himself in 1905 consigned to Santiago. The journey to his new destination con¤rmed all of his worst fears about the perilous and primitive nature of life overseas. Soon after his arrival, he reported that the ship carrying him and his family to Argentina had run aground on a sand bar just outside the harbor at Buenos Aires, while the train bringing them over the Andes had nearly plunged off a “bottomless precipice.” Once he reached Santiago, Giskra had little time to recover from those experiences. The diplomat who had been acting as chargé d’affaires until Giskra’s arrival departed the country posthaste to begin a long-promised vacation, leaving Giskra alone to learn the intricacies of his new position.32 Giskra’s stay in Chile was cut short, however, by a severe earthquake that so unnerved him that the Ballhausplatz transferred him to Mexico.33 Years later, his extreme reaction to minor tremors in So¤a re¶ected the dif¤culties of his time in Santiago.34 Austro-Hungarian diplomats considered a promotion to the legation in Mexico City a marginal, but nonetheless real, improvement over the South American republics. In 1901, the monarchy had, after a thirty-

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four-year hiatus, reestablished diplomatic relations with Mexico after the Mexicans had built and dedicated a memorial chapel at Querétaro to the slain Emperor Maximilian.35 Despite the unhappy memories associated with the country, the capital at least proved more easily accessible than many of those to the south and could hardly be labeled a “miserable little provincial city,” as Trauttmansdorff had found Santiago. Such advantages lent little comfort, however, to envoys suffering from the extraordinarily high prices found in all parts of Latin America, including Mexico. After his move north, Giskra did not escape the costs associated with vacations to Europe or with the numerous cures his family was compelled to take. He complained about the ubiquity of dysentery and typhus and mentioned that the unfavorable climatic conditions had forced him to leave his wife and children behind in Europe, as they needed time to recover from the effects of experiencing 180 earthquakes and tremors in the space of four months in Santiago.36 Giskra’s repeated protests that the high altitude of Mexico City endangered his health ¤nally persuaded the Ballhausplatz to give him a post closer to home.37 The political instability of the Latin American republics added nothing to their attractiveness. The confusion occasioned by the outbreak of revolution in Mexico in 1910–11, which deposed the long-lived regime of Por¤rio Díaz, eventually cost one diplomat his job. In the midst of the chaos, the envoy, Baron Franz Riedl, compelled members of the AustroHungarian colony in Mexico City to leave their homes and undertake the defense of the legation. He inundated the foreign ministry with panicked reports and even requested credits for the purchase of arms. Shortly thereafter, several Austrians resident in Mexico returned to Vienna, where they protested Riedl’s measures, particularly his insistence that they abandon their own dwellings to protect the mission, and pointed out that the envoy suffered from an “overactive imagination” (überhitzte Phantasie).38 The Ballhausplatz immediately recalled Riedl, who did not receive a new assignment. The three African posts—the diplomatic agency/consulate general in Cairo, the legation accredited to the sultan of Morocco in Tangier, and the delegate to the Egyptian Debt Commission—though not popular, seem to have been held in somewhat less contempt than those in South America. The monarchy’s representation in Egypt had in the later nineteenth century gradually acquired a diplomatic as well as a consular character. For much of the Dualist period, a member of the corps had headed the of¤ce in Cairo (earlier in Alexandria), and had borne the title of diplomatic agent rather than minister plenipotentiary, since Egypt was still under the nominal suzerainty

172 • aristocratic redoubt of the Ottoman Empire. Toward the end of Foreign Minister Kálnoky’s tenure, the removal of the mission in Cairo from the jurisdiction of the consulate in Alexandria reinforced its diplomatic status.39 Before the advent in 1885 of full relations, Austria-Hungary had sent a similar delegate to Morocco; after the French established a protectorate over the sultanate in 1912, the legation closed, leaving only a consular presence.40 In contrast to Cairo and Tangier, either one of which often served as the ¤rst independent post attained by a diplomat, the position on the Egyptian Debt Commission was viewed as a sinecure for superannuated of¤cials, such as Baron Constantin Trauttenberg and Count Gilbert Hohenwart. Aehrenthal’s assurances to Hohenwart that his appointment did not portend the end of his career proved incorrect.41 Though disappointed that he had received Cairo instead of a central European assignment, Baron Carl Braun expressed relief that he had been spared an “envoyship à la Santiago.”42 Even more indicative of Egypt’s relative desirability was Braun’s willingness to accept it even though it did not automatically bring the promotion to full minister plenipotentiary, which he would have had in Chile. He also discovered, to his surprise, that the work in Cairo interested him more than he thought it would,43 and he spared the Ballhausplatz the agonized cries that so often emanated from those transferred overseas. In contrast, Braun’s successor, the high-strung Count Thaddäus Koziebrodzki, who had spent his entire career in western Europe, found Cairo a bleak exile. He spent much of his time in northern Africa alternately plotting or begging to escape. In late January 1907, he twice wrote Aehrenthal from Egypt to ask for Stuttgart, his pleas reaching a crescendo with, “I beseech you, dear esteemed friend, give me this post!” Koziebrodzki based his demands for a post in Germany on the havoc that illness and the harsh Egyptian climate had wreaked on his health. That he and his ailing mother could take cures together at nearby Baden-Baden also provided, he believed, a happy justi¤cation for the proposed move.44 He remained little impressed by Egypt’s relative advantages, including the splendor of its ancient civilization and its proximity to Europe, both of which ensured a regular ¶ow of distinguished visitors from the monarchy.45 But his maneuvering at the Ballhausplatz availed little, and his assignment in Egypt lasted until the early spring of 1909. Of the three missions in East Asia, that in Tokyo proved the least objectionable among diplomats, but it was also the least popular of the ten embassies maintained by the monarchy in 1914. Independent legations in Peking and Bangkok had only been in existence since 1896 and 1912, respectively, the envoy in Tokyo having previously been accredited

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to the other states as well. Unlike Japan, neither China nor Siam possessed any particular signi¤cance in Austria-Hungary’s foreign-policy calculations. The growing economic ties between Vienna and Bangkok, coupled with the question of prestige, played the major role in the opening of a separate diplomatic of¤ce in the Siamese capital in 1912.46 When selecting the personnel for the new bureau, the Ballhausplatz ignored the traditional diplomatic corps altogether, choosing as minister plenipotentiary the consul general in Venice, Rudolf von Wodianer, while Vice Consul Emil Keil became his deputy. While regular diplomats usually escaped the rigors of a stay at the court of King Rama VI, the same cannot be said with regard to China. In making assignments to the Middle Kingdom, the foreign of¤ce encountered resistance similar to that exhibited by its standard bearers in South America.47 Certainly from the turn of the century, China presented an even less palatable prospect. The outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 and the consequent murder of the German minister presented the staff of the mission with challenges of a truly frightening nature. The Boxers compelled the Austrian chargé d’affaires, Artur von Rosthorn, to ¶ee the legation with his wife and seek refuge with the French and British envoys. During the lengthy siege of the diplomatic quarter, the Rosthorns and their foreign colleagues endured food shortages, the destruction of their possessions, and the risk of injury, capture, or death. Rosthorn himself suffered a wound in the left eye, and the Boxers plundered and destroyed the building that had housed the mission. In recognition of their service under such hardships, Francis Joseph, on his own initiative, bestowed on both Rosthorns the War Medal, a most unusual decoration for diplomatic personnel.48 The absence of domestic upheaval in Tokyo did little to conciliate those diplomats chosen for service there. The favorable results of both the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) and the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), as well as the signature of the Anglo-Japanese alliance (1902), had catapulted the Land of the Rising Sun into a formidable international player. Japan’s new signi¤cance, particularly in relation to Russia, the monarchy’s great rival in the Balkans, did not escape the notice of policy makers in Vienna,49 though such considerations did not outweigh the disadvantages associated with a tour of duty in the Far East. In 1911, when the Ballhausplatz tried to ¤nd a new embassy counselor for Tokyo, at least ¤ve candidates refused. Baron Léon de Vaux demurred on the basis of his father’s advanced age and his own lack of ¶uency in English.50 The foreign of¤ce then turned to Baron Erich Zwiedinek, who pointed out that no suitable European-style

174 • aristocratic redoubt residence existed for his ménage, which consisted of his wife, two children, a governess, a tutor, and a staff of servants. The house set aside for the embassy counselor within the mission compound had room enough only for a couple with no offspring, and he ruled out the possibility of a Japanese dwelling, as it would lack even “the most primitive furnishings.” In a ¤nal effort to avoid the assignment, Zwiedinek mentioned that his old father, a former high-ranking Ballhausplatz of¤cial, would ¤nd the separation from him particularly dif¤cult.51 As had de Vaux, Baron Rudolf Mittag took refuge behind the deathbeds of his parents to evade an appointment to Tokyo.52 Although his parents were long deceased and he remained unmarried, Baron Franz Haymerle’s reference to obscure “familial obligations” enabled him to resist the offer of Japan. But Haymerle’s primary justi¤cation rested on his delicate health, particularly his rheumatism, which he felt would be aggravated by the harsh climate in East Asia.53 Why the foreign of¤ce even approached the playboy Count Constantin Deym about going to Tokyo de¤es explanation. In reply, Deym cited his wife’s impending operation, his mother’s imminent demise, and his own stomach ailment, which required a yearly cure at Marienbad, as reasons not to send him outside of Europe.54 Of all the monarchy’s missions overseas, Washington seems to have been considered the least unacceptable. The United States possessed, understandably enough, little political signi¤cance for Vienna’s policy makers and was taken into account more for its role in the tiresome emigration issue.55 Baron Ladislaus Hengelmüller, the longtime envoy on the Potomac (1894–1913), attributed his American exile to the dislike of Foreign Ministers Kálnoky and Go|uchowski56 and prophetically though ironically spent years trying to convince the Ballhausplatz of the coming prominent role of the republic in the world. At times, however, he could barely conceal his disappointment at his lengthy stay so far from home. He told Aehrenthal that he had hoped for higher ¤elds of endeavor than “immigration and tariff questions” so near the end of his career.”57 The second-rate position accorded the monarchy’s representatives in the New World proved frustrating for a proud Habsburg patriot. Whereas in Europe “sentimental traditions” and historical memory helped paper over Austria-Hungary’s international decline, only the “naked reality of the facts and interests” counted in Washington.58 Shortly before the turn of the century, Hengelmüller began his campaign to have the legation in the United States raised to the rank of an embassy. He argued that the increasing rivalry between England and the rest of Europe, so apparent during the Boer War, raised the international

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posture of the United States, particularly since the government and the local press sympathized with the British.59 Additionally, all of the other major powers had for some time been represented in Washington at ambassadorial rank. Considerations of prestige dictated that the monarchy soon follow their lead.60 At ¤rst, Hengelmüller’s efforts foundered on the unpleasant consequences of an industrial dispute known as the Latimer affair, but thereafter primarily on the resistance of the emperor and the foreign minister, who opposed the shift on ¤nancial grounds.61 By late 1901, nearly four years after the Russians had upgraded their legation, the Ballhausplatz still equivocated, giving rise to unfavorable commentary in American newspapers, as well as an expression of regret by President Roosevelt during a dinner at the White House.62 Even after a de¤nitive decision had been reached and announced publicly, Vienna delayed the changeover until early 1903, once again creating a “very bad impression.”63 The Ballhausplatz’s hesitation in the matter of the embassy status re¶ected the low priority accorded the United States, but also ultimately the recognition that the New World, however irksome, could not be ignored. Such ambiguity characterized the attitudes of the diplomats as well. At the time that he rejected Tokyo, Baron Erich Zwiedinek indicated his willingness to take an assignment in Washington, a step that revealed the greater acceptability of a stay in America, if also some distaste. In 1905, Baron Franz Haymerle delicately resisted the proposal that he undertake a tour of duty there, notwithstanding the “highly interesting” opportunities it afforded.64 Nevertheless, an occasional diplomat appears to have enjoyed the challenges his American experience offered him. Baron Ludwig Ambrózy expressed his admiration for the high economic and educational level of the population, which he considered superior to that in Europe, though he found fewer people among the highest stratum possessing the rare¤ed conversation and manners upon which “the pride and the glory” of the old European aristocracy rested. He thus manifested a certain amount of appreciation for the opportunity to serve on the Potomac.65 It even transpired, albeit very infrequently, that a diplomat would request a post otherwise considered disagreeable. In the fall of 1900, Baron Arnold Hammerstein-Gesmold, a legation counselor in Madrid, asked to be appointed envoy in Persia, a post for which he expected little competition.66 Similarly, Baron Otto Kuhn hoped to become head of the mission in Egypt.67 Neither man, but particularly the former, had reason to be sanguine about his prospects for a glamorous position. Despite his seniority, Hammerstein had already been passed up for promotion numerous times. No doubt thrilled that someone would actually propose

176 • aristocratic redoubt his own transfer to Teheran, the Ballhausplatz readily granted his wish. Kuhn, who had only recently been angling for the senior counselorship in St. Petersburg,68 had realistically modi¤ed his ambitions in applying for Cairo, which in any event eluded him. As his ¤rst independent assignment, he became minister resident in Argentina. The most striking example of a diplomat who sought a transoceanic placement, but not on the basis of justi¤ably modest career expectations, was the talented and intelligent, though troubled, Julius von Szilassy. With a Swiss mother and an English public-school education, Szilassy perhaps entered the service with a broader perspective than many of his colleagues. During an early tour of duty in Washington, he had married an American, although the union proved short-lived. Despite a host of personal problems that included severe alcoholism, a bout with syphilis, and ¤nancial dif¤culties, and which led one of his chiefs to forecast his complete ruin, Szilassy maintained and cultivated his interest in non-European affairs.69 Unlike Hammerstein or Kuhn, Szilassy’s sharp understanding and good looks made him a candidate for the best openings, such as London and St. Petersburg. Despite his advantages, he did not shy away from asking for “dif¤cult, political” assignments outside of northern or western Europe. Beginning no later than 1904, Szilassy manifested lively interest in going to Japan and expressed bitter disappointment when instead he received boring Bern.70 The Ballhausplatz ¤nally dispatched him to Tokyo in 1907, where he discovered that no effort had been made to exploit the monarchy’s uniquely disinterested position among the Great Powers there.71 Within a few months of his arrival, Szilassy’s keen powers of observation and analysis gave him a remarkable grasp of his host country and of the Far East generally. His enthusiasm led him to congratulate Cajetan von Mérey—prematurely as it turned out—on the latter’s appointment to head the local embassy.72 The example of Szilassy notwithstanding, the overriding concern at the Ballhausplatz in making overseas dispositions remained ¤nding diplomats willing to take what was offered. The question of inherent suitability for a post beyond Europe appears to have played a more secondary role. There is, however, little evidence to indicate that the monarchy’s emissaries in Asia, Africa, and America were particularly ill-suited to their assignments. In fact, the selection process, however much it may have been affected by the many refusals, appears paradoxically to have produced the most appropriate available candidates. The foreign of¤ce had less need of elegant manners and blue blood in backwater Buenos Aires

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or Bangkok than of expertise in tariffs and trade. In Washington, Ambassador Dumba discovered, to his credit, that “the art of making friends in drawing-rooms, the delicate ¤nessing through petticoat in¶uence, [and] personal intercourse with monarchs and princes” all had to be abandoned in favor of cultivating journalists and members of Congress.73 Even the lowliest of the legations in Europe appeared attractive in comparison with an assignment in Asia or Latin America. But the prospect of a stay in some semibarbarous corner of southeastern Europe tempered relief at evading Santiago or Peking. Baron Carl Macchio expressed the prevailing attitude quite succinctly when offered Cetinje: “If, by [taking] this post, I can avoid overseas sinecures like Teheran and Rio, I will indeed be quite happy.”74 Among the diplomats, the missions on the Balkan peninsula counted as the least popular on the continent, with the possible exception of Lisbon. Clearly, Macchio evinced little enthusiasm for Montenegro, and even less after his stay there dragged on for nearly ¤ve years. And he was not alone. In trying to escape a Balkan appointment, many of his colleagues applied creative energy equal to those threatened with a transoceanic placement. In 1914, the monarchy maintained legations in So¤a, Athens, Cetinje, Bucharest, Belgrade, and Durazzo. The oldest, that in Greece, had been opened in 1832 following the Hellenic war of independence, while that in Albania only followed the arrival in 1914 in Durazzo of the ¤rst envoy to the new principality.75 Diplomatic relations with Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro followed the conclusion of the Congress of Berlin (1878), which had liberated them from Ottoman rule. Bulgaria did not ¤nally renounce Turkish suzerainty until 1908, after which Austria-Hungary dispatched its ¤rst minister plenipotentiary. Before that time, however, a diplomatic agency/consulate general, similar to that in Cairo, had furnished the of¤cial connection to Prince Ferdinand. The last incumbent in that of¤ce, Count Duglas Thurn, assumed the new dignity in May 1909. As with the various non-European posts, those in the Balkans varied as to greater or lesser acceptability. Because Bucharest possessed a cosmopolitan nobility not found in any other Balkan capital, it was the most desirable assignment. In the words of one diplomat, the Rumanians had a real upper class (eine wirkliche Gesellschaft) in the western European sense,76 one that had been educated abroad, particularly in France, generally spoke at least one of the major European languages, and gave good parties. In addition, the magic pull exerted on the Rumanians by the tradition-laden Viennese court and the snobbish appeal of mixing socially

178 • aristocratic redoubt with the great names of the Habsburg Empire proved advantageous.77 Even so, such bene¤ts offered little solace to those who shunned a Balkan assignment. The wife of one diplomat stationed there for a second time remembered often awakening in the night with the horrible nightmare of being “in Bucharest again.”78 Similarly, Baron Ludwig Flotow complained that the local families offered little in the way of diversion. He remembered that life after hours for the diplomats revolved primarily around the threadbare salon of a fat Jewish hotel proprietress with unbearable social pretensions.79 The other Balkan capitals boasted even fewer amenities. After centuries of Turkish rule, indigenous aristocracies did not exist, nor did theaters, museums, or galleries. In Belgrade, a diplomat generally mixed with his foreign colleagues and only occasionally had any contact with the three or four Serbian families who maintained a household acceptable to western European standards. Proximity to the monarchy and low prices seem to have provided some compensation for a tour of duty there.80 One young attaché even asked not to be transferred away from Belgrade, partly because of the convenient proximity of his estate to the city.81 In general, however, Belgrade offered few enticements comparable to those in western Europe, and many diplomats displayed a marked reluctance to be stationed on the Sava.82 One mission chief in Serbia, Count Johann Forgách, expressed bewilderment that the foreign of¤ce would even consider transferring one of his subordinates, whom he labeled a “rara avis” for having expressed an interest in extending his stint in Belgrade.83 After Bucharest and Belgrade, So¤a appears to have been considered the next-least objectionable Balkan assignment. In 1905, Count Duglas Thurn summoned up only modest enthusiasm for his appointment to the Bulgarian capital, which he found distinguished by few social or other advantages.84 Further, he carried only the rank of “diplomatic agent and general consul,” rather than minister plenipotentiary, because the prince of Bulgaria was a vassal of the Ottoman sultan. Thurn estimated that the difference in status compared with a more prestigious assignment to Bucharest cost him tens of thousands of Kronen per year in salary and expense allowances. Such a disparity, Thurn believed, exempli¤ed the “glaring” contrast between the two positions in the eyes of Vienna.85 Soon after Aehrenthal came to of¤ce, Thurn began to campaign for a full promotion to minister plenipotentiary, a change that would not, however, have altered the legal position of the local mission.86 For more than a year, the foreign of¤ce resisted Thurn’s arguments before granting him the desired promotion. Moreover, relations with the prickly ruler of Bul-

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garia, Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, whom the emperor and Francis Ferdinand both disliked, scarcely lightened the burden of the job in So¤a.87 In spite of these drawbacks, Thurn at least allowed that his position offered more of interest than Stockholm or Dresden.88 The inaccessibility of Athens and Cetinje did nothing to increase the desirability of an appointment in either place. The trip to the Greek capital involved a three- or four-day voyage on a Lloyd steamer from Trieste to the port of Patras and then an overland journey via rail. The result was that in Greece “one was as far from home as if one had been in America.”89 Baron Carl Macchio rarely drew pleasant analogies to describe his work in Montenegro, which he compared to that of Sisyphus.90 On another occasion, he referred to Cetinje as his “job of thorns” (Dornenstelle), going on to explain how he and his family had sought refuge in Rome and Naples during the winter in order to assemble enough strength for the “summer campaign.”91 The foreign of¤ce tried in vain to convince Legation Secretary Count Josef Walterskirchen that the offer of a place in the legation in Montenegro evidenced its trust in him. He successfully requested that his transfer be called off.92 Even the glories of ancient Greek civilization could not overcome the dismay that sometimes accompanied a summons to Athens.93 When Baron Carl Braun learned that the Ballhausplatz intended to send him there as minister plenipotentiary, he asked for a reconsideration, citing the harm to his children from years in places like Cairo, So¤a, and Constantinople.94 For all that, a posting in the Balkans presented a challenge that overseas assignments could never hope to match. The Balkan peninsula remained the one undisputed outlet for Austria-Hungary’s great-power aspirations right down to World War I. The cluster of small states to the south and southeast consequently occupied a place of importance in the monarchy’s foreign policy virtually unrivaled by any other region. Throughout the tenures of Aehrenthal and Berchtold, the Balkans loomed ever larger. The gradual but inexorable disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, marked by the Bosnian annexation crisis (1908–9), the Italo-Turkish War (1911–12), and ¤nally the two Balkan Wars (1912–13), lent the diplomatic outposts, particularly those in Belgrade, Bucharest, So¤a, and Cetinje, but also in Athens, even greater signi¤cance than in the ¤rst decades after 1867. Habsburg apprehensions about the formation of a Balkan league directed against the monarchy paralleled rising German fears of encirclement by the Entente powers. The emergence of Serbia and Rumania in the wake of their victories against Turkey and Bulgaria, as well as the possibility that Montenegro might be absorbed by the Serbs, gave particular cause for alarm. In¶amed national

180 • aristocratic redoubt and irredentist sentiment threatened Austro-Hungarian territory all along her southern ¶ank, from Bosnia in the west to Transylvania in the east. The crucial role of the Balkans did not escape the attention of ambitious diplomats anxious to acquaint themselves with the monarchy’s chief foreign-policy problems. Baron Ludwig Flotow was disappointed with his appointment in 1900 to Bern rather than the Balkans, where he might have deepened his knowledge of local conditions in ways advantageous to his later advancement within the service.95 One of his colleagues aptly summarized the weight attributed to this type of experience when he wrote that “an Austrian diplomat who did not know [St.] Petersburg and the Balkans was like a soldier who only knows shooting from hearsay.”96 Having at least one assignment on the Balkan peninsula was thought to be an essential step in a great career. Known as “the springboard for ambassadors,” the envoyship in Bucharest launched several highly successful diplomats.97 Of the nine ministers plenipotentiary in Rumania from 1878 to 1916, six eventually became ambassadors, and three—Count Agenor Go|uchowski, Baron Alois Aehrenthal, and Count Ottokar Czernin—became foreign minister. A former head of mission in Serbia believed, with some reason, that his post had been “the most dif¤cult and the most responsible” of those available in the corps.98 Having served in Belgrade did not necessarily guarantee brilliant prospects, though three former incumbents in time came to head embassies, while another, Count Johann Forgách, directed the entire political section of the foreign of¤ce on the eve of the war. Although Belgrade enjoyed a reputation as the “most politically unpleasant post imaginable,”99 even lower-ranking diplomats sometimes welcomed the opportunity to work in the legation there. When Count Felix Brusselle-Schaubeck requested a challenging assignment, the Ballhausplatz sent him in late 1912 to Serbia as the number-two of¤cial.100 A few years earlier, Ladislaus von Skrzyñski could scarcely conceal his joy at being chosen to ¤ll the same position, the award of which he considered a mark of trust.101 Shortly after the turn of the century, Count Albert Nemes reported feeling “¶attered” about an offer to go as legation counselor to Belgrade.102 After doing stints in Bucharest and Athens, Alexander von Musulin gratefully accepted the chance to serve as chargé in the Serbian capital, believing that he could thereby round out his Balkan expertise.103 Members of the corps also recognized the drawbacks of passing up a Balkan appointment in favor of a more somnolent locale, as when Count Moritz Pálffy feared that exchanging Bucharest for Bern might damage his career.104

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The quali¤cations that the Ballhausplatz sought when considering a candidate for one of the Balkan missions remained fairly constant over the couple of decades before 1914. But attributes judged appropriate for So¤a did not necessarily pass muster in Cetinje. For Bucharest, where the Catholic south German branch of the house of Hohenzollern held the throne, the foreign of¤ce dispatched only those with lustrous credentials.105 Go|uchowski’s appointment there in the 1880s was greeted enthusiastically, primarily thanks to his status as a grandee with a “superior social standing,” “French education and manners,” and royal connections through his wife, Princess Anne Murat. His large fortune happily buttressed his other advantages.106 In selecting Go|uchowski’s six successors in Bucharest, who included three counts and two mediatized princes, the Ballhausplatz obviously looked for similar criteria. That both Prince Karl Emil Fürstenberg and his wife were related to the Rumanian royal family posed no obstacle to his designation in 1911 as head of the legation. In fact, the connection may have proved advantageous. Although King Carol indicated that court etiquette in Bucharest could not be relaxed in favor of his cousins, he did point out that he laid much less emphasis on such matters at his summer residence at Sinaia.107 In the other Balkan capitals, where the more polished social graces would have been lost amid the peasant welter, members of the court nobility more rarely appeared as envoys. Instead, Vienna stressed more practical merits, the chief of which seems to have been previous Balkan experience. Ideally, the candidates should be acquainted with the Byzantine world of Balkan politics and have some familiarity with the complicated trade ties that bound those countries to Austria-Hungary, as well perhaps as some understanding of Slavic languages. In the years preceding Aehrenthal’s appointment as foreign minister, the quality of Habsburg representation in the Balkans appears to have declined rather sharply. During an audience with the emperor in 1901, the ambassador in Berlin, Ladislaus von Szõgyény-Marich, harshly criticized what he believed to be the incompetence of the monarchy’s emissaries in the Balkans. In what must have constituted a high degree of candor for an imperial interview, he depicted his colleagues there, with the exception of Pallavicini in Bucharest, as “completely inadequate” and “for our interests almost dangerous.”108 The envoy in Belgrade, Baron Karl Heidler, who had been named despite his nearly complete lack of familiarity with the region, was a particular object of his contempt.109 Other Go|uchowski selections, especially that of Baron Moriz Czikann in the summer of 1905, likewise for Serbia, appear equally questionable. Such choices may have

182 • aristocratic redoubt re¶ected the relatively quiescent nature of Balkan affairs on the heels of the Austro-Russian agreement of 1897 and the subsequent involvement of the tsarist empire in its Far Eastern adventures. Aehrenthal unceremoniously sacked Czikann within a few months of coming to of¤ce and replaced him with the seasoned and talented Count Johann Forgách.110 With other dispositions, Aehrenthal set about trying to restore a set of able of¤cials for advancing the monarchy’s aims in the Balkans. The tense relations between the monarchy and the Karageorgevichs placed great demands on diplomats in the Serbian capital. Forgách’s successor, Stephan von Ugron, believed that a functionary in Belgrade needed, over and above the general requirements, “a higher understanding and much interest for political questions” and a “level-headed and calm character,” since “it was not always easy to keep one’s temper in dealing with the Serbian statesmen.”111 For Montenegro, Aehrenthal chose Baron Wladimir Giesl, whose long years of service as a military attaché and plenipotentiary in the Near East suited him for his new task. As a young army of¤cer in Sarajevo, Giesl had also learned something of conditions in BosniaHercegovina, a circumstance that one veteran diplomat considered a virtual sine qua non for the incumbent in Cetinje.112 Whether Aehrenthal succeeded in his objective is open to question. His dispatch of the dry, bureaucratic Baron Carl Braun to Greece in 1909 perhaps indicated the lesser signi¤cance of that kingdom in Ballhausplatz calculations at the time. But the slight may not have escaped notice in Athens. One foreign-of¤ce functionary later suggested that the incompetence of the monarchy’s representatives in the area during the Balkan Wars led Berchtold to undertake a general redistribution of posts on the peninsula.113 Braun gave way to Julius von Szilassy, whose work in St. Petersburg and then in Vienna as a Balkan specialist had impressed Berchtold.114 The appointment of a man of Szilassy’s abilities to head the Athenian mission probably re¶ected the desire for closer ties to Greece as the threat of an alliance of the Balkan states menaced the horizon.115 The talented Count Adam Tarnowski, who had earlier succeeded Baron Karl Giskra in So¤a, remained.116 Giesl moved from Cetinje to Belgrade and was succeeded in Montenegro by Eduard Otto, whose knowledge of the Balkans had been honed by a decade and a half at the embassy in Constantinople. As early as 1909, Aehrenthal had considered him seriously for the position of envoy in Belgrade.117 Finally, Heinrich von Löwenthal’s extensive background in Balkan affairs, including stints in Belgrade, Athens, and Constantinople, led Berchtold to select him in 1914 to undertake the delicate task of representing Austria-Hungary in the new Albanian

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principality.118 Despite these changes, one informed observer in early 1914 had not abandoned his profound and long-standing skepticism about the quality of the monarchy’s missions in the Balkans.119 Though a career spent primarily in western European capitals remained the ideal, not all assignments in that part of the world inspired equal ardor. Few diplomats regarded a sojourn on the Iberian peninsula as anything other than a torment, and the cries of anguish issuing from Lisbon in particular often resembled those heard from the New World. Spain and Portugal possessed none of the political signi¤cance associated with the Balkans, where appointees could at least console themselves with learning about critical issues of foreign policy. The importance of the two countries was mostly symbolic, representing as they did the two principal Catholic kingdoms outside of central Europe. When Baron Otto Kuhn received the legation in Portugal after six years as envoy in Montenegro, the prospect of Lisbon considerably quali¤ed his joy at leaving Cetinje. In fact, he admitted that Lisbon would have been “the last post in Europe” he would have chosen, but he agreed to take the assignment anyway.120 His predecessor, Count Otto Brandis, spent much of his time bombarding the Ballhausplatz with missives bemoaning the ill wind that had blown him thither. After four years in Portugal, he could no longer contain his exasperation, exclaiming, “how long must I yet remain in exile?”121 The foreign of¤ce evidently considered inconsequential Lisbon a safe repository for the nasty-tempered Count Leopold Koziebrodzki. Despite his undistinguished record, he too objected to his appointment. He groaned that the voyage to Lisbon took twenty-four hours longer than the one to Tangier, his previous station, and that his expenses in transporting his household—consisting of a wife, four children, and governesses—would be ruinous. He also objected to Portugal on the basis of its political irrelevance.122 Several months later, Aehrenthal had reason to regret not having heeded Koziebrodzki’s plea after the latter climbed over a wall into the locked royal gardens and fought with a sentinel who challenged his presence.123 His recall followed immediately. A tour of duty in Portugal became even less palatable when revolution in 1910 overthrew the monarchy.124 Diplomats reckoned a transfer to Madrid a promotion, and indeed the monarchy had maintained an embassy, as opposed to a simple legation, in Spain since 1888. Nevertheless, few diplomats showed an inclination to accept an assignment there.125 In 1906, when the Ballhausplatz offered to move Count Adam Tarnowski to the Spanish capital from

184 • aristocratic redoubt Brussels, he demurred, citing the number of times in recent years he had had to dissolve and set up his household. He warned the foreign of¤ce not to tax his good will.126 The following year the foreign of¤ce revived the project to send Tarnowski to Madrid, leading him to ask, in vain, that Vienna post him elsewhere.127 An extended stay in Spain did little to enamor those chosen for duty there. Count Jaroslav Wišniewski considered his post as senior legation counselor in Madrid, where he had spent four years, the worst in the service and was consequently appalled that the Ballhausplatz, instead of compensating him for his sacri¤ce, proposed to name him envoy in Santiago.128 In selecting its representatives to Spain, the foreign of¤ce generally sought to reward diplomats whose long service deserved recognition but whose talents fell short of the more demanding embassies. Former ¤rst section chiefs at the Ballhausplatz in particular had a traditional claim on an ambassadorship to top off their careers. Having served as ¤rst section chief for more than four years under Go|uchowski, Count Rudolf Welsersheimb received the post in Madrid in 1903 and remained there until early 1911. Prior to his nomination, he had spent nearly four years without an assignment, although in that time, the embassies in London and at the Holy See had opened up. Even early in his tour of duty, Welsersheimb appears to have been suffering the effects of age, especially deafness, a handicap that caused dif¤culties during a visit of Archduke Francis Ferdinand to Spain.129 Welsersheimb gave way to Count Christoph Wydenbruck (1911–13), a mediocrity who likewise made little mark on contemporaries. After he retired, some consideration was given to dispatching to Madrid Count Siegfried Clary, the minister in Brussels, who was described by one observer as “highly decent” and “honorable,” though also “careless” and “stupid.” His ultimate suitability for the Spanish capital does not seem to have been questioned,130 but he did not get the nod, which went instead to Prince Karl Emil Fürstenberg. An unusual choice, Fürstenberg was a younger diplomat widely regarded as having a promising future. But after the strains of the Rumanian legation, which he had overseen throughout the Balkan Wars, he indicated that he might leave the service. In an effort to head off such an eventuality, Berchtold offered him Madrid as a sinecure until he should feel ready to take over a major embassy.131 The smaller western and northern European countries constituted several of the most popular and pleasant assignments in the corps. The Ballhausplatz maintained legations in Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, and Sweden. The envoy at the Hague was also accredited

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to the grand duke of Luxembourg, while his counterpart in Copenhagen similarly represented the emperor at the court of newly independent Norway. None of these posts had any great political signi¤cance, and the workloads paled in comparison with those at the large embassies or in the Balkans.132 Boredom appears to have been the greatest af¶iction, and one functionary relegated to Copenhagen feared that he had been forgotten altogether by the foreign of¤ce.133 The Ballhausplatz viewed its missions in those capitals more as observation outposts than as tools of active policy. Reports from Bern, for instance, provided a useful perspective on events in France as well as on the sinister machinations of the various socialist movements operating on Swiss soil.134 For such assignments Vienna needed candidates of intelligence and tact rather than initiative. Baron Max Gagern, described by one colleague as “not brilliant, but well-schooled in diplomacy,” proved an ideal minister to the Helvetic Confederation.135 Of¤cials with more ambition and dynamism, like Constantin Dumba, whom Aehrenthal banished to Stockholm for his proGerman sympathies, found few challenges in their work.136 Long-standing historical, cultural, and sentimental ties bound the Habsburgs to the smaller German principalities. With the end of the old Austro-Prussian rivalry and the foundation in 1871 of the Reich, the lesser states, particularly those in southern Germany, naturally lost their previous geopolitical prominence, though not their right to retain now largely symbolic diplomatic relations with other countries. The claims of tradition, as well as the continuing marital links between the house of Austria and several German reigning families, including those in Bavaria and Saxony and the Catholic ducal line in Württemberg, made the exchange of representatives an enduring ritual. In 1914, Vienna maintained four missions within Germany to keep in touch with the many petty courts scattered from the Baltic to the Alps. The most substantial kingdom south of the Main, Bavaria, whence Francis Joseph’s wife and mother had both come, sheltered an Austro-Hungarian legation in Munich, while the envoy to the king of Saxony in Dresden was also accredited to the many smaller Thuringian principalities. The monarchy’s emissary to the king of Württemberg in Stuttgart similarly presented credentials to the grand dukes of Baden and Hesse-Darmstadt as well. Finally, the grand dukes of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and Oldenburg, the duke of Brunswick, and the three Hanseatic cities, fell within the bailiwick of the ambassador in Berlin.137 The great popularity of the posts in the German states rested primarily on personal comfort and convenience. As with the legations in western

186 • aristocratic redoubt Europe, a diplomat rarely required more than graceful manners and tact for a successful tour of duty. Dominating the calendars of those attached to the monarchy’s missions in Germany were the obligatory audiences with the numerous princely personages found at every court. Such demands, though not onerous, consumed an enormous amount of time and not infrequently taxed patience to the limit. Some royal worthies appear to have perfected the art of delicately torturing the unfortunates whom they had to receive. The formidable old Duchess Vera of Württemberg liked to torment her guests by guiding the conversation onto obscure scienti¤c topics. One diplomat recalled being asked to discuss the various methods for calculating the distance of the stars from the earth.138 In some capitals, like Dresden, where the local nobility lived in rather modest material circumstances and therefore did not entertain on a grand scale, social life revolved almost exclusively around the king and his family.139 Baron Carl Braun, who twice served as envoy in Saxony, came to have particular cause to regret his frequent contact with the waggish Frederick August III. It came to the attention of the monarch that Braun resented not having been awarded the rank of privy counselor, which would have entitled him to be addressed as “Excellency” at home as well as abroad, where, as a head of a mission, the honori¤c was accorded automatically. From that day forward, the ruler never failed to greet Braun with a mischievous, “Well, Excellency, are you not yet a real Excellency?” Deeply embarrassed, the good but humorless Baron Braun rarely managed to hide his extreme discom¤ture.140 Ambassador Szõgyény in Berlin managed to avoid such comic opera incidents by simply not visiting the many smaller courts to which he was accredited.141 But the advantages, such as proximity to the monarchy and the presence of relatives among the native aristocracy, outweighed the drawbacks of princely roguishness and boring administrative routine associated with a stay in Germany. When Count Thaddäus Koziebrodzki and Prince Karl Emil Fürstenberg simultaneously received envoyships, the ¤rst in Stuttgart, the other in Dresden, the former, ever immodest in his requests, could not help suggesting that the Ballhausplatz let them switch assignments. Saxony, Koziebrodzki observed, lay much closer to his own estates in Galicia, while his colleague, in going to Württemberg, would be conveniently near his cousins at Donaueschingen in the Black Forest.142 The personal interest that the emperor evinced in Saxony made the spot in Dresden particularly attractive. Francis Joseph never forgot the loyalty exhibited in 1866 by the king of Saxony, and he generally awarded the post in Dresden to someone enjoying his special favor, like Baron

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Braun. On at least one occasion, the foreign of¤ce used sleepy Dresden as cold storage for a controversial ¤gure, as with Count Johann Forgách, whose involvement in the scandal surrounding the Friedjung libel trial necessitated his temporary disappearance from public view.143 The inevitable failure of Forgách’s predecessor, the enterprising Ludwig von Velics, to enhance the importance of the Saxon post, allowed Forgách to retreat successfully from the glare of popular scrutiny.144 But the lack of serious work also permitted him to spend the last months of his assignment there as a provisional adviser on Balkan affairs in Vienna.145 To head one of the western European or German legations marked the upper limit of legitimate expectations for most diplomats. The foreign of¤ce considered a stint at the Hague or in Stuttgart as the crown of a career to be valid recompense for earlier tours outside Europe or in the Balkans. Occasionally, the incumbent of such a post even moved up to a lesser ambassadorship, such as Madrid. But the Ballhausplatz in general drew few of its ambassadors from the ranks of those in charge of the smaller missions. Extraordinary talents or attributes rather than time in service governed promotion to a major embassy. Relatively few of the monarchy’s leading diplomats had held previous independent appointments abroad before assuming the responsibilities of an embassy. If the recurrent complaints in the sources are any guide, seniority often played little role in foreign-of¤ce dispositions. The rapid advancement of Count Joseph Somssich, Szõgyény’s spoiled son-in-law, proved a particular source of resentment among his colleagues.146 Julius von Szilassy complained that not only Somssich, but nine others, had jumped ahead of him.147 Another diplomat, Baron Georg Franckenstein, recalled that Aehrenthal had promoted him over the heads of twenty-one who were in line ahead of him.148 Even Somssich felt he had been overlooked, whining at one point that he was “not a youngster any more.”149 When modestly requesting the envoyship in Teheran, Baron Arnold Hammerstein-Gesmold pointed out that “so many” of those previously behind him had already reached the standing of mission chief.150 It is therefore not surprising that seniority, so often violated at lower levels, scarcely entered the equation in selecting the ambassadors. Indeed, the foreign of¤ce could hardly be bound exclusively, or even primarily, by such a narrow consideration. Trudging through the ranks, however faultlessly, furnished no inherent quali¤cation to head a major embassy, of which the monarchy had seven on the eve of the war. The posts at St. Petersburg, Berlin, London, Paris, Constantinople, Rome, and the Holy

188 • aristocratic redoubt See all enjoyed great prestige within the corps, though they differed in many essential ways. As personal representatives of the emperor, as well as key ¤gures in the Habsburg diplomatic apparatus, these ambassadors outranked all Ballhausplatz functionaries except the foreign minister. Further, the embassies over which they presided were universally judged the most desirable of assignments for those, like the attachés, secretaries, and counselors, further down the ladder. After taking of¤ce, neither Aehrenthal nor Berchtold sought to displace any of the ambassadors, which indicates the lack of any regular rotation system at the higher levels, which became more common in western foreign services after World War I. But those functionaries also enjoyed a secure tenure by virtue of being the personal representatives of the sovereign. Although Aehrenthal took over the Ballhausplatz in late 1906, the ¤rst ambassadorial appointment he made—besides that in St. Petersburg, which he had himself just vacated—came in 1909 in Tokyo. In Europe, his ¤rst change occurred only with the dismissal in 1910 of Count Lützow in Rome. Of the men either serving as ambassadors at the time of Aehrenthal’s arrival in Vienna or those nominated thereafter by him or Berchtold, fully half had never before headed a mission. Go|uchowski had appointed two of them, Count Mensdorff in London and Count Szécsen at the Vatican, while the Kálnoky holdover, Count Szõgyény in Berlin, had no previous professional experience abroad. Count Berchtold, Aehrenthal’s choice for the Russian capital, boasted only a decade of service and had only achieved the rank of legation counselor. To replace Lützow in Rome, Aehrenthal decided upon Cajetan von Mérey, who had handled the monarchy’s delegation to the Second Hague Peace Conference but otherwise had spent most of the preceding decade posted at the Ballhausplatz.151 Count Friedrich Szápáry had last served abroad as a legation secretary in Munich, before he was ordered to St. Petersburg in 1913, though he, like Mérey, had been a section chief. Of all the monarchy’s foreign missions, none occupied so important a place as that to the tsar, whose maneuvers in the Balkans threatened the continued existence of Austria-Hungary as a great power. In 1906, Aehrenthal faced a very narrow range of candidates quali¤ed to take the St. Petersburg embassy, a post that required an unusual combination of social talent, diplomatic polish, and political skill. The enormously expensive and hedonistic life of Russia’s upper classes, which revolved around the St. Petersburg Yacht Club and the salons of grandes dames and imperial princesses, necessitated the dispatch of a worldly grandee.152 Berchtold, the highly cultured, somewhat feminine, but Cyrenaic aristocrat, certainly possessed

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the requisite quali¤cations. During the time that Berchtold had served under him as senior legation counselor in St. Petersburg, Aehrenthal had also come to value his tact, discriminating intelligence, and conceptual understanding. Berchtold demurred when ¤rst offered the position, evidently forcing Aehrenthal to turn to Count Nikolaus Szécsen, the ambassador to the Holy See, who declined as well, probably for ¤nancial reasons.153 In response to the foreign minister’s renewed pleas, Berchtold then agreed to take the assignment, provided he be allowed to retire after two years.154 As a result of the Bosnian annexation crisis, Berchtold’s time at the tsar’s court in fact lasted until 1911. And Aehrenthal’s motives in choosing him for such a delicate mission were subsequently con¤rmed. Even during the bleakest days of Austro-Russian relations, Berchtold’s charm allowed him to maintain his personal popularity in St. Petersburg and avoid becoming a “thorn in the eye” to Russian statesmen forced to swallow Austria’s fait accompli in Bosnia.155 The short tenures of Berchtold’s successors in Russia, Counts Duglas Thurn (1911–13) and Friedrich Szápáry (1913–14), proved less fortunate. Thurn took of¤ce with certain advantages, especially extensive experience in the Balkans, including service in Rumania and Bulgaria. At a time of continuing Austro-Russian tension, he also “supported a policy that called for understanding and even détente,”156 a stance one observer attributed to Thurn’s fears for his own fortune in the event of a war-induced ¤nancial collapse.157 Personally, Thurn was said to possess the unique quality among diplomats of “common sense,” which reinforced a balanced judgment.158 Despite his elegant appearance, his presence in St. Petersburg society won few plaudits. He preferred his own family circle and hunting to the diversions of the local aristocracy, and the melancholy atmosphere of Count and Countess Thurn’s house, with three of their four children deaf-mutes, proved ill-suited to light-hearted entertaining. Eventually, even the advantage of Thurn’s pro-Russian orientation vanished when his conspicuous anxiety to avoid a break with the tsarist regime led him to a major diplomatic blunder. Following the conclusion of the Balkan Wars, Austria-Hungary and Russia negotiated the simultaneous publication in Vienna and St. Petersburg of an identical joint communiqué aimed at reducing strains in their relationship, particularly with respect to Serbia. To please his hosts, Thurn then approved, without authorization from home, the inclusion of a supplement to the Russian version that effectively nulli¤ed the undertaking. The appearance in print of the addendum brought an immediate outcry from the Ballhausplatz and resulted in Thurn’s hasty recall.159

190 • aristocratic redoubt His replacement, Count Friedrich Szápáry, scarcely had an opportunity to in¶uence events before the outbreak of war. Like Thurn and Berchtold, he also came well-quali¤ed, having served as second section chief at the Ballhausplatz since the spring of 1912. Gifted, quick, hardworking, and a bit mysterious, Szápáry also showed far less willingness than Thurn to accommodate the Russians. In the course of the Balkan Wars, he had advocated armed intervention against Serbia.160 As the scion of a Hungarian magnate family, the new ambassador enjoyed the great wealth necessary to make a social success of the St. Petersburg assignment, and he possessed important connections through his father-in-law, Prince Alfred Windisch-Grätz. Appointed in the late fall of 1913, he did not arrive in Russia until early the following year. Barely installed in the Russian capital, he faced family crises that called him home again. The death of an infant son in the early summer of 1914 prevented him from devoting full attention to his new responsibilities before the consequences of Sarajevo deprived him of his post.161 In fact, for all but a few weeks between September 1913 and July 1914, the monarchy lacked a chief diplomat in St. Petersburg, as Thurn left Russia in September 1913 and Szápáry only presented his credentials to the tsar in late February 1914. Within two weeks, Szápáry had returned to the monarchy, not coming back to his post until the middle of April and staying until late May. He was absent from the embassy during the Sarajevo crisis and for several weeks thereafter, only taking up the reins again in the second half of July. Although the chargé, Count Otto Czernin, conducted business while Szápáry was away, the lack of an authoritative ¤gure in the Russian capital representing the monarchy’s interests during the crisis did nothing to strengthen Vienna’s hand. The embassy in Berlin, the capital of the monarchy’s closest ally, stood continuously between 1892 and 1914 under the control of Count Ladislaus Szõgyény-Marich, about whom numerous humorous stories circulated. Shrewd and calculating, but endowed with considerable bonhomie, Szõgyény owed his post to his close connections with the house of Austria. He had been a con¤dant of Crown Prince Rudolf and had also managed to capture the trust of Francis Joseph.162 Not a diplomat by profession, though he had served as a section chief under Kálnoky, Szõgyény laid less importance on traditional forms than his colleagues. He nevertheless exhibited great skill in his métier. Speaking his heavily accented Hungarian German and donning a mask of disarming ignorance, he knew how to draw people out to secure the information he wanted without arousing their suspicions.163

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Szõgyény’s affability and powers of perception were particularly handy in dealing with the tactless and unpredictable William II, with whom he forged a good relationship. Particularly noteworthy was his ability to preserve his own dignity in a dif¤cult situation without giving offense to the German emperor. On the eve of a court ball, the news of Foreign Minister Aehrenthal’s death arrived in Berlin, and Szõgyény expected that William would release him and the embassy staff from their obligation to attend. But this did not occur, leaving Szõgyény no choice but to put in an appearance. When William then failed to express his condolences as he greeted the assembled diplomatic corps, Szõgyény took the omission as both a personal insult and an affront to the monarchy which he represented. With a darkened face, the aged ambassador responded by pulling a chair across the parquet, its legs screeching, to where the emperor had been standing. He ensconced himself therein, crossed his arms and legs, and began to puff and snort so loudly that the scene became apparent to the entire assembled company, including William, despite the frenzied efforts of his entourage. After welcoming the remaining guests, the monarch implicitly conceded his improper behavior by extending his hand to Szõgyény and declaring his sorrow at Aehrenthal’s demise.164 In his later years, which fell during Aehrenthal’s and Berchtold’s tenures, Szõgyény employed his considerable talents primarily in thwarting efforts to force him into retirement.165 Szõgyény’s counterpart in London, Count Albert Mensdorff-PouillyDietrichstein, owed his appointment, as well as his excellent position in Edwardian society, to his close kinship with the British royal family. A grandson of a princess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, he had spent practically his entire career at the London embassy, where his entrée into the palace had aroused the jealousy of his chief, Ambassador Deym. At the age of forty-two, having had no previous independent assignment, Mensdorff became head of the mission at the Court of St. James. Most contemporaries agreed that Mensdorff’s connections, unequaled by those of any other diplomat in the British capital, provided the Ballhausplatz with an invaluable asset. He further forti¤ed his standing by giving brilliant dinners and entertaining lavishly.166 Nevertheless, Mensdorff endured numerous attacks, precisely because of his privileged status in London. Archduke Francis Ferdinand, rarely generous in his appraisal of diplomats, referred to him as Queen Alexandra’s footman, an attitude perhaps inspired by the malicious reports of Franz Stockinger, the monarchy’s consul general in London.167 Even Aehrenthal expressed dissatisfaction with Mensdorff, believing his ties to the English court hindered his freedom of action on

192 • aristocratic redoubt behalf of the monarchy.168 But at least one observer who worked with Mensdorff in London credited him with talents and psychological insight, which counted far more in his success than generally acknowledged.169 The reproaches heaped on him for his distinguished relatives and status appear particularly ironic in view of the weight usually accorded such things at the Ballhausplatz. Representing Austria-Hungary in Paris in the last decade before 1914 were Count Rudolf Khevenhüller-Metsch (1903–10) and Count Nikolaus Szécsen (1911–14). The prestige of the Paris embassy within the corps rested more on its location in one of the world’s most alluring capitals than on the importance of France in the monarchy’s foreign-policy calculations. Its standing as a great power nevertheless entailed the maintenance of a substantial diplomatic establishment, which, however, functioned chie¶y as an elaborate observation post.170 Khevenhüller’s mediatized background furnished the social luster necessary for the assignment, but he brought few other noteworthy quali¤cations. Having sat for fourteen years in Brussels, a sinecure normally reserved for benighted blue bloods, it was far from clear whether Vienna would be forthcoming with another position.171 His reactionary political views and hatred of anticlericalism and Freemasons contributed little to his understanding of the French Republic, and his years there are chie¶y remembered for his mistake in prematurely notifying the Quai d’Orsay of the annexation of Bosnia-Hercegovina.172 On the other hand, Khevenhüller’s successor, Count Szécsen, enjoyed a reputation as a capable diplomat. Having previously served as ambassador to the Vatican, he ¤gured at various times as a candidate for foreign minister. Whereas his political gifts remained relatively unexploited in Paris, he played to perfection the role of the grand seigneur, which the German emperor curiously thought so effective among republicans.173 Szécsen’s aristocratic hauteur reached legendary proportions, even provoking hostility from his own military attaché, who referred to him as “our knight of the Golden Fleece with the degenerate nasal voice.”174 Whether Szécsen’s arrogance, which also alienated foreign statesmen, actually proved a desirable asset is doubtful.175 The monarchy’s diplomatic representation in Rome re¶ected the division in Roman society between those who supported the pope in his refusal to accept the loss of his temporal rights (“black society”) and those who accepted the results of Italian uni¤cation (“white society”).176 The glorious Palazzo Venezia, presented by Pius IV to the Venetian Republic in 1564 and acquired by Vienna with the annexation of Venice in 1797, housed two Austro-Hungarian embassies, one attached to the Holy See,

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the other to the kingdom of Italy. The papal boycott of Italians associated of¤cially with the new regime extended also to those foreigners obliged to maintain relations with the royal government. To avoid becoming entangled in the complications ensuing from this hostility, locally accredited diplomats required above all an exquisite sense of tact. Baron Rudolf Mittag, who served at the embassy to the Quirinale, recalled one invitation to a bridge party where, he had been warned, a prince of the church would be present. The extraordinary friendliness shown him by the cardinal over the course of the evening led him to ask the ambassador to the Vatican, Count Szécsen, how he should respond. At Szécsen’s suggestion, he visited the prelate’s residence, leaving a calling card that omitted mention of his of¤cial position, and soon thereafter received one in turn with the surname pre¤xed simply by “Monseigneur.”177 The troubled relationship between Austria-Hungary and Italy naturally called for a far greater amount of diplomatic skill and ¤nesse than did drawing-room encounters with clergymen. Although the two states had been allies since 1882, Italian irredentism and nationalist strife within the monarchy occasionally aroused enmities that frustrated the intentions of statesmen on both sides. The Habsburg representative at the Quirinale from 1904 to 1910, Count Heinrich Lützow, contributed in no small part to the lessening of tensions during his years in Rome. As a scion of a Bohemian aristocratic family, Lützow did not ¤t the general pro¤le of previous envoys entrusted with the post, most of whom had been products of the nineteenth-century service nobility. By all accounts narrow-mindedly patrician in outlook, Lützow possessed a grand manner that contrasted sharply with the bureaucratic aridity of Baron Marius Pasetti, his immediate predecessor.178 Descended through his mother, an Englishwoman, from the marquesses of Hertford, he manifested, especially in his appearance, manners, and enthusiasm for fox-hunting, an Anglomania that earned him the sobriquet “Whiskey and Soda.”179 Numerous stories circulated in the corps about his intellectual shallowness, and Aehrenthal shared this low opinion of his abilities.180 Other observers suggested, however, that Lützow’s dif¤culty in expressing his thoughts perpetuated the allegations of obtuseness. He was said to be aware of his limitations and prepared to listen to those better informed, and to take good advice while still being capable of forming an independent judgment.181 Whatever the truth, the ambassador established a good rapport with the Italian authorities, which in turn eased the day-to-day strains of a dif¤cult relationship. Cajetan von Mérey, who succeeded to the Italian ambassadorship in 1910 and held it until the war, provided a stark contrast to his aristocratic

194 • aristocratic redoubt predecessor. Known for his great intelligence and precision, he lacked the ease and affable charm of Lützow. As a former mandarin at the Ballhausplatz, as well as a product of the lower echelons of the nobility, Mérey embodied many of the qualities, good and unfavorable, associated with his background. Though hard-working and well-informed, he often left the impression of a pedantic, tactless, and ill-humored bureaucrat. His delicate health had led him to prefer solitude to society, and all contemporary witnesses agreed that he was extraordinarily suspicious and mistrustful.182 He failed markedly to capture the sympathies of the Italian ministers with whom he had to negotiate, but their postwar charges of his Italophobe sentiments do not bear close inspection. Like Lützow, he discovered that the dif¤culties in the Austro-Italian partnership could by no means all be attributed to Rome.183 This realization, though, failed to offset his personal de¤ciencies as a diplomat or to lessen the strains imposed by the Italo-Turkish War, the warmongering of General Conrad, the two Balkan con¶icts, and the dismissal of Italian citizens from the administration of the city of Trieste. Though the Ballhausplatz showed no aversion to dispatching nonaristocratic representatives, some even tainted by Protestant or Jewish connections, to the king of Italy, entirely different priorities governed the selection of the ambassador to the pope. Of Francis Joseph’s eleven emissaries to the Vatican, only three—one rumored to be an illegitimate son of Metternich’s—came from the lower ranks of the nobility. The close historical connections between the house of Austria and the papacy, as well as the emperor’s own devotion to the church, called for an envoy from among the monarchy’s great Catholic magnate families. On the other hand, the position at the Vatican made fewer demands on the diplomatic skills of its incumbents than Berlin, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, or the other embassy in the Palazzo Venezia and took on major importance primarily during a conclave.184 In his allegedly exceptional talents, Count Nikolaus Szécsen, who served in the post from 1901 to 1911 before being transferred to Paris, differed from most of his forerunners, though he certainly quali¤ed as a grandee. His successor, Prince Johann Schönburg-Hartenstein (1911–18), partly made up for his want of any outstanding abilities by his intense piety, which led him to attribute anti-Austrian feeling in Italy to Masonic-Jewish conspiracies,185 an explanation advanced all too often by Habsburg diplomats at a loss to make sense of developments around them. Earlier in his career, both he and his wife had expressed disappointment at receiving an assignment to the Italian embassy rather than to the Vatican, to which they were drawn by

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their “entire outlook and tradition.”186 Schönburg’s orthodox perspective, as well as his distinguished bearing, made him an agreeable, if typical, example of Austro-Hungarian diplomacy at the Holy See.187 Of the monarchy’s major embassies, that in Constantinople presented the most striking contrasts. Lacking the social prestige associated with the great establishments in western and northern Europe, it nevertheless possessed a political signi¤cance that at times outshone all but St. Petersburg. The city itself was the cosmopolitan capital of a venerable empire that straddled the border of Europe and Asia, yet it had few of the conveniences or cultural references available to diplomats elsewhere on the continent. Remarkably, these de¤ciencies rarely discouraged a Ballhausplatz functionary from taking an assignment there. In Constantinople, perhaps more than any capital, the Habsburg representative could with some justice claim a position among his colleagues of primus inter pares, thanks not only to historical associations but also to the realities of regional power. Only the Russian envoy seriously challenged his Austrian counterpart in the question of prestige. The weakness of the Ottoman government and its susceptibility to outside pressure also raised the pro¤le of locally stationed diplomats. The trappings of Oriental pomp, as well as “the threatening shadows of [Habsburg] warships” cruising nearby, endowed the ambassador with great respect and in¶uence.188 Further, of the numerous foreign missions in the city, that of Austria-Hungary possessed the oldest, most historic building, which at one time had housed the embassy of the Venetian Republic.189 Even lower-ranking personnel, like the well-paid senior legation counselor, enjoyed such privileges as a private boat rowed by two “Kaikjis” in ceremonial costumes and the use of magni¤cent Arabian horses.190 Go|uchowski’s last ambassadorial appointment, Count Johann Pallavicini, oversaw the embassy in Constantinople from the fall of 1906 until the dissolution of the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires at the end of World War I.191 A scion of a prominent Italo-Hungarian aristocratic family, Pallavicini enjoyed a reputation as the monarchy’s most capable diplomat in the last years before 1914. His thoroughbred background differed markedly from that of many of his best-known predecessors, especially Barons Anton Prokesch (1855–71) and Heinrich Calice (1880–1906), who were both of bourgeois origin. But his want of independent wealth placed him more squarely in the tradition of Ottoman ambassadors. As the second son of a younger son, Pallavicini did not stand to inherit his family’s enormous entailed estates, and he often seems to have drawn no signi¤cant appanage from home.192 In 1879, his ¤nancial circumstances forced him to leave the

196 • aristocratic redoubt corps, though the foreign of¤ce carefully arranged for his withdrawal to be easily reversible.193 With the help of his relatives and extra pay from the Ballhausplatz, he managed to take a new assignment the following year.194 However, the meager earnings from his small estate in Abaúj-Torna county in northern Hungary would never have allowed him to take one of the larger embassies, like St. Petersburg or London, where the costs of representation necessitated large infusions of personal funds. Pallavicini’s long tours of duty in the Balkans, including ¤ve years in Belgrade and nearly eight as mission chief in Bucharest, made him the obvious choice for Constantinople.195 His amiable manner, intelligence, and diplomatic skills won him a prominent place in the Ottoman capital.196 Unlike many of his colleagues, he also possessed a far-reaching conceptual grasp of the monarchy’s foreign-policy problems and freely developed his ideas in reports to the Ballhausplatz. Despite tensions between them, Aehrenthal acknowledged the ambassador’s talents by tapping him to head the foreign of¤ce during his extended sick leave in the early spring of 1911. Although the abilities, attributes, and successes of the monarchy’s mission chiefs differentiated them rather sharply one from another, they nonetheless shared one common characteristic. Few of them, at least at the highest level, showed inhibitions about expressing frank opinions to the foreign minister on policy matters. Here the Ballhausplatz parted company with the German foreign of¤ce, which operated under the double onus of William II’s delusions and the in¶uence exercised by gushy sycophants, such as Prince Philipp Eulenburg and Wilhelm von Schoen. Criticism generally took the form of discreet private letters aimed at elucidating objections as seen from the ground. At one time or another, Aehrenthal found himself at odds with nearly all of his major ambassadors. Pallavicini initially voiced objections to Aehrenthal’s policy regarding the annexation of Bosnia and was joined to varying degrees in that opposition by several of his colleagues, including Ambassadors Szõgyény, Szécsen, and Lützow.197 The last also disagreed with the line taken by the minister in relations between Vienna and Rome, believing that he paid too little attention to the strength of Italian public opinion. Lützow’s suggestion that Austria present her southern neighbor with the Roman ruins of Aquileia, which would have required a minor border recti¤cation, ¤nally provoked Aehrenthal to dismiss him.198 During Berchtold’s tenure, the new envoy in Italy, Cajetan von Mérey, proved even more assertive, harshly assailing Ballhausplatz moves that he found incomprehensible.199 From St. Petersburg, Count Duglas Thurn took exception to

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Berchtold’s decision to oppose a Serbian corridor to the Adriatic through Albanian territory. Together with Julius von Szilassy, his embassy counselor, he submitted a lengthy memorandum setting out his views on that issue.200 Despite such dissent, no evidence has emerged to indicate that the envoys tried to pursue independent policies. Once Vienna decided on a course, the representatives abroad, even if they continued to disapprove, loyally carried out their instructions. The exalted conception that senior mission chiefs had of their positions also exacerbated tensions between the two branches of service. The envoys frequently felt that Vienna neglected to keep them briefed about important international political developments, a circumstance that, they believed, undermined their standing with the governments to which they were accredited. Complaints particularly abounded during the lackadaisical Go|uchowski years, when the foreign minister rarely summoned the energy to correspond with his diplomats. In comparing notes with several of his predecessors, Constantin Dumba, the representative in Belgrade from 1903 to 1905, discovered that, like him, they had never received instructions as to “the aims of our Balkan policy.”201 In Ambassador Mensdorff’s ¤rst letter from London to the newly appointed Aehrenthal, he speci¤cally asked for more frequent directives than had been sent him under the previous regime.202 Vienna’s failure to forward in a timely fashion, if at all, relevant reports from colleagues serving in other countries proved equally irritating. From his exile in Washington, Ambassador Hengelmüller protested that the foreign of¤ce sent him useless accounts of Italian parliamentary debates, but that he had not gotten any data compiled by the embassies in St. Petersburg, London, Berlin, or Paris. In 1900 he told Aehrenthal that he had yet to receive a copy of any of the latter’s submissions from St. Petersburg.203 In Berlin, Szõgyény grumbled that he had not seen any dispatches from Paris in months, though he had been well-supplied with plenty of inconsequential material.204 Under Aehrenthal, the situation seems to have improved somewhat, but the confusion in the Berchtold foreign of¤ce negated the gains. Prince Karl Emil Fürstenberg, the envoy in Bucharest, attributed his extraordinarily good relationship with King Carol to the fact that Aehrenthal had kept him, and through him the Rumanian monarch, well-informed on all aspects of the monarchy’s Balkans policy.205 Only a few years previously, however, Fürstenberg, then posted in Dresden, had noted that the central of¤ce rarely sent him anything of interest, and that he had not been passed news from Berlin in six months.206 In 1913, the head of the Ballhausplatz political section,

198 • aristocratic redoubt in whose hands all the threads of foreign policy lay, himself suggested that the representatives abroad frequently lacked the facts they needed to evaluate European and Balkan conditions.207 Except under unusual circumstances, the Ballhausplatz forbade individual missions to communicate with one another via telegraph, the result being that the ministry alone commanded the main channels of current information.208 When the ministry did transmit messages, mandarins in the central of¤ce had to be particularly careful to avoid offending the prickly mission chiefs. A sharply worded directive from Vienna led Count Khevenhüller, whose fondness for obnoxious telegrams rivaled that of William II, to cable in return that he forbade “a simple section chief from writing to His Majesty’s ambassador in such a tone.”209 Count Ottokar Czernin’s insubordinate and aggressive style in reporting from Bucharest frequently brought him into con¶ict with various departments in the foreign of¤ce.210 The perspective from the ministry of course differed markedly. Vienna operated on the principle that the missions abroad existed to provide information rather than be informed. Further, the Ballhausplatz feared prejudicing the judgment of the envoys by allowing them to read appraisals of matters about which they were supposed to be formulating independent opinions. The importance of secrecy to successful diplomatic strategy also played a role. Sending out packets of politically sensitive documents with every courier hardly seemed conducive to maintaining the desired element of surprise. The secrecy in which Aehrenthal shrouded his plans for the annexation of Bosnia-Hercegovina re¶ect the prevailing practice. Of¤cials in Vienna could rightly be skeptical as well whether any number of dispatches could provide those abroad with the bird’s-eye view available at the Ballhausplatz.211 Another source of friction between the home of¤ce and the envoys concerned personnel dispositions. Vienna generally consulted an ambassador before making assignments to his mission, especially at the rank of counselor, where political, as well as administrative, responsibilities were involved.212 Appointments to lower-level positions, such as legation secretary and attaché, ordinarily took place without a pourparler, though even here the wishes of an envoy occasionally carried the day. Overall, the Ballhausplatz paid less attention to the requests of the junior ministers plenipotentiary than to the heads of the great embassies. In late 1908, the Ballhausplatz, in considering Julius von Szilassy for the position of embassy counselor in St. Petersburg, invited the ambassador, Count Berchtold, to submit his views on the matter.213 A year and a half earlier,

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Berchtold had had little dif¤culty in securing from the foreign of¤ce an extension of the previous embassy counselor’s tenure in the Russian capital.214 When Vienna decided to transfer the attaché Baron Rudolf Mittag from Paris to Stockholm, his chief, Count Khevenhüller, successfully opposed it.215 Similarly, the foreign of¤ce asked Count Nikolaus Szécsen at the Vatican whether moving Anton von Kiss from Constantinople to Rome would be agreeable with him.216 Sometimes the Ballhausplatz offered an envoy a choice among two or more candidates, as when the ambassador to Italy was proffered either Hans Ludwig Wagner or Count Ludwig Badeni for his embassy’s secretaryship.217 Vienna now and then allowed a prominent emissary to choose his entire staff, as did Aehrenthal when he took over the legation in Bucharest in 1895.218 While the foreign minister might at times have been willing to accommodate the requests of the envoys, he stood by his absolute prerogative to determine where a functionary should serve.219 Once he arrived at a decision, the mission chief had no right to question it. It not infrequently happened that the Ballhausplatz refused the proposals of even the most highly placed of its diplomats. After the fall of Bismarck in 1890, Ambassador Széchényi in Berlin asked in vain that Count Gilbert Hohenwart, whose reputation as an ultramontane had made him anathema to the chancellor, be posted as senior counselor at his embassy.220 In 1908, the foreign of¤ce transferred Baron Ludwig Flotow to Berlin, likewise as senior counselor, although Szõgyény had expressed a preference for another candidate. Flotow’s cool relationship with Szõgyény’s inane son-inlaw contributed to the opposition.221 Despite the dismay of Count Mensdorff in London, Vienna decided to reassign simultaneously two of his staff.222 The efforts of Baron Hengelmüller to get Otto von Hoenning-O’Carroll for the embassy in Washington similarly fell on deaf ears.223 The appointment of Emmerich von P¶ügl to Belgrade encountered the resistance of Stephan von Ugron, who oversaw the legation there, but the Ballhausplatz brushed his objections aside.224 The patronage of a prestigious ambassador with in¶uence at the Ballhausplatz could lead to an advantageous placement. Unlike in the German diplomatic service, Habsburg mission chiefs had little cause to worry about ambitious underlings who might seek to undermine them. The resonance of the scandal surrounding Count Rudolf Montgelas, who had pursued an indiscreet and independent policy behind the back of his chief during the 1870s,225 may have dissuaded those so tempted. But the highly social, really clubbish, atmosphere within the corps, where climbing was condemned as vulgar, did most to deter such behavior. As one

200 • aristocratic redoubt diplomat noted, “pushiness” remained taboo.226 To the extent that tensions existed, they tended to have either one of two explanations. Often they re¶ected purely personal animosity that had little to do with lines of authority; such resentments occasionally had their origins in disputes about seniority. Some ambassadors tried to prevent unpleasant situations by ensuring that two functionaries from the same category, one of whom ranked directly after the other, not be stationed together at an embassy.227 Brusque personalities, like that of Count Johann Forgách, who appears at one time to have alienated several of his fellows, could create dif¤culties.228 Prince Johann Schönburg-Hartenstein exhibited little enthusiasm about serving in St. Petersburg under his uncle, Prince Franz Liechtenstein, whom he disliked.229 In keeping with the lightheartedness that so characterized the general approach to the service, those diplomats who showed themselves too industrious or failed to cover for their dilatory comrades made themselves unpopular.230 Personnel dispositions all too often re¶ected the unprofessional and boisterous milieu of the corps. Problems with gambling and women received appropriately indulgent treatment unless a violation of the gentlemanly code of honor occurred. In Paris, Count Khevenhüller even volunteered to serve as a second to one of his subordinates in a duel—of course, after he had determined that the lady in question had a respectable reputation.231 But when Vice Consul Marian von Heimroth thrashed his mistress’s husband in a train compartment, his position in Warsaw became untenable.232 Bucharest in particular seems to have been the scene of several appallingly imprudent romances. King Carol had to ask the Ballhausplatz to transfer Otto Franz because of the latter’s affair with his nephew’s wife, Crown Princess Marie. With Franz out of the way, Marie then turned for comfort to another Habsburg diplomat, Baron Ivan Rubido-Zichy, necessitating his removal as well. The experiences of Franz and Rubido-Zichy did not prevent Count Michael Bukuwky from carrying on an amour with the wife of the justice minister during his tour in Rumania.233 The frequency of such incidents within the corps discloses the fundamental lack of seriousness with which so many diplomats turned to the grave task of defending the monarchy’s interests abroad. The incessant clamor to be stationed in western Europe, where the whirl of aristocratic social life furnished a more amusing diversion than the tiresome quarrels of Balkan folk, is revealing. Considerations of personal convenience very often played a decisive part in determining the acceptability of many posts.234 The

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wishes of allegedly mortally ill parents, semiannual cures at Marienbad or Baden-Baden, the location of foreign relatives, the claims of estate management, and the availability of civilized comforts all appear time and again in the surviving correspondence. The evidence fully corroborates the damning acknowledgment by one diplomat that few of his colleagues manifested any “discipline and enthusiasm for work.”235 Attitudes had changed little since the 1870s, when the enormously wealthy envoy in Berlin, Count Alois Károlyi, whose daughter later married Berchtold, explained to Bismarck why he had bothered to return to the service after an earlier retirement. “Look,” Károlyi replied, “in the mornings I ride; in the afternoons I pay calls and play whist at my club; in the evenings I go out or receive at home. But since my retirement, I have not known what I should do between twelve and one o’clock. Now I shall kill this hour in the of¤ce signing documents.” 236 The lordly independence of perspective that aristocratic diplomats brought to their work—which many believed an excellent asset—also carried heavy costs. Few grandees had any incentive to submit to the rules and routine of a professional bureaucracy. And as the induction of blueblooded candidates received new impetus from the court and from Foreign Minister Kálnoky in the 1870s and 1880s, the professionalization of the diplomatic service, which had begun after 1848 with the introduction of an examination and entrance standards, stalled. Between 1880 and the middle of Aehrenthal’s tenure, the Ballhausplatz made almost no progress in that regard, despite the pleas of Adolf von Plason. Even harder to calculate is the price that the monarchy had to pay for the exceedingly narrow social perspective of her representatives abroad, hidebound even by the standards of the time. The envoys may have placed a high priority on precisely following instructions and reporting their observations to Vienna, but they drew their information from a very limited range of sources. In most capitals, Austria-Hungary’s diplomats con¤ned their circle of acquaintances to those at court or in of¤cial positions, and the local nobility.237 As late as 1903, the monarchy maintained an ambassador in Paris who refused to receive journalists.238 Minimal effort seems to have been given to countering the consistently negative images of the monarchy in the European press,239 though admittedly, in an age of rabid nationalism, this would have been a truly Sisyphean task. The ill-concealed contempt felt by so many diplomats for the inhabitants of the countries in which they worked can hardly have gone unremarked. Count Carl Trauttmansdorff ’s joy at ¤nding himself “once again in Europe and among civilized people” after his sojourn in Chile

202 • aristocratic redoubt may perhaps have been of little consequence, given the monarchy’s few interests in that part of the world.240 But Prince Johann SchönburgHartenstein’s aversion to the “dirt and lack of civilization” in Constantinople created more potential for damage. One astute outside observer, Joseph Maria Baernreither, as well as a few Habsburg diplomats, including Baron Franz Haymerle, openly speculated about the harm to relations with the Balkan states from decades of treatment marked even by personal rudeness and disdain.241 Aehrenthal’s reforms, however conservative, had little chance to take effect before the foreign of¤ce itself was swept away by World War I. Section Chief von Mérey’s complaint in 1903 about the short supply of quality personnel remained no less true a decade later.242 Shortly after the end of the Balkan Wars, during which many of the monarchy’s representatives on the peninsula had demonstrated their ineffectiveness,243 Foreign Minister Berchtold himself lamented the “marked lack of competent envoys” at his disposal. At the same time, however, he refused to consider Baron Wladimir Giesl for the post in Bucharest for social reasons, though he characterized him as “indisputably capable.”244 In the last decade before 1914, Austria-Hungary had undeniably accomplished diplomats, like Pallavicini in Constantinople and Tarnowski in So¤a, and Aehrenthal was arguably the most able minister of the Dualist period. But the frivolity and arrogance of so many of their colleagues provided neither a good advertisement abroad nor served in any constructive way the cause of the multinational Danubian state.

Epilogue aristocratic redoubt Epilogue

A

study like this one naturally raises the important issue of the relationship between the internal workings and life of a bureaucracy and the problems it was created to address, as well as the solutions that it formulates and implements. In the case of the Austro-Hungarian foreign of¤ce in the last years of the old regime, that connection assumes particular signi¤cance. Despite the focus in recent decades on Germany’s role in the origins of World War I, there can be no doubt that Austria-Hungary shares responsibility for the con¶agration. Within two days of the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his consort, Foreign Minister Berchtold had decided for a “¤nal and fundamental reckoning” with Serbia.1 As the foremost authority on Habsburg policy in the Berchtold era has written, the initiative had been Vienna’s not Berlin’s. The steps that pushed Europe toward war were taken in Vienna. The support given by Berlin simply con¤rmed and assured that the Habsburg decision to settle accounts would this time be a military solution rather than a diplomatic one.2

In other words, the Germans ceded to their allies the initiative in the crisis and expected a quick resolution. But more than three weeks separated William II’s blank check of July 5 from the declaration of war. In that period, Germany became a hostage to Austro-Hungarian decision making. Samuel Williamson has recently provided us with a ¤ne reassessment of the monarchy’s policy-making process, particularly depicting Berchtold’s adroit efforts to keep the initiative in his own hands. The foreign minister proved especially dominant in the ¤nal crisis, which led to the outbreak of the war and ultimately the end of the system he tried to preserve. It is therefore appropriate to ask how the backgrounds and

203

204 • aristocratic redoubt personal experiences of Berchtold and his fellow diplomats might have conditioned their responses not only to speci¤c problems but to the challenges of the modern age. Put more poignantly, what qualities did they possess that, when applied in pursuit of their aspirations, led ultimately to their own destruction? To debate whether Berchtold foresaw in 1914 the possible doom of his world would be pointless. But while he could not predict the future, that future certainly had its origins in the decisions he made in the summer of 1914. And in coming to them, the foreign minister, like his colleagues, brought not only cold raison d’état but also more intangible attributes of mind and heart. Their appreciation of the circumstances can hardly be divorced from their ways of thinking and views of the world. To pose such a question, however, does not mean that it can be answered. The intangibles are too many, the evidence too inadequate, especially for a day-to-day account of policy making. The dif¤culties do not preclude, though, a broader, if necessarily more imprecise, approach to the problem. The preceding chapters have pro¤led the personnel of the Ballhausplatz and explored the bureaucratic culture of the service. Agrarian elites, in the guise of the great territorial aristocracy, remained ascendant in the foreign of¤ce in 1914. The diplomatic corps furnished their primary base, but they dominated the Vienna of¤ce as well. Berchtold himself, not to mention such key advisers as Counts Alexander Hoyos and Johann Forgách, all belonged to the nobility of the preindustrial age. Until the advent of Aehrenthal’s reforms, little emphasis was placed on education or other professional quali¤cations. Even thereafter, appointments from an earlier era prevailed at both the highest and intermediate levels. The sources also indicate that most diplomats directed their allegiance, both emotional and political, toward the dynasty and a united monarchy. However fashionable it may now be to argue that Austria-Hungary was far from the brink of collapse in 1914, leading circles at the time viewed the situation with great alarm. Nationality con¶icts within the monarchy had at the very least paralyzed parliamentary life, while the threats from abroad in the form of Serbian, Rumanian, and Italian territorial claims menaced the very existence of the state.3 The aristocrats who directed the monarchy’s foreign policy could be expected to oppose such pretensions, and not only on the basis of raison d’état. They were a priori averse to the idea that ethnic heritage provided a legitimate basis for a civilized polity. The Serbs in particular presented the greatest challenge to the monarchy in the decade preceding the war. Their behavior at the time of the annexation of Bosnia-Hercegovina, followed by the extreme prov-

Epilogue •

205

ocations of the two Balkan Wars, had dangerously heightened tensions between the two states. The struggle between them actually encompassed more than a simple contest between two powers in the traditional sense. It was also a con¶ict between two fundamentally separate ideologies. However inadequately, the Habsburg Monarchy represented the conviction that justice makes no distinctions based on ethnic character. The many shortcomings of Austria-Hungary’s domestic political life, especially the nationality con¶ict in Bohemia, can scarcely be attributed, however, to the intransigence of the crown or the aristocracy. The fate of the Badeni decrees in 1897, sabotaged by the intransigence of the nationalities themselves, is a glaring case in point. In contrast, the Serbs aspired to join their Slav brethren, including those within the neighboring monarchy, under one banner. In other words, the ¤rebrands across the Sava hoped to establish a society resting on the narrowest of foundations. Aristocratic opposition to such a solution, which is generally and perhaps mistakenly interpreted in terms of pure self-interest, nevertheless looks remarkably prescient if we survey the horrors of the twentieth century. That the cosmopolitan nobles who oversaw the foreign of¤ce opted for war after years of provocative Serbian conduct, including attempts to destabilize the southern Slav areas of the monarchy, can hardly be surprising. Those developments, and their own Weltanschauung, left no doubt in the minds of Berchtold and his colleagues about the possibility of settling the rivalry in any other way. The traditional depiction of the monarchy’s declaration of war as the last gasp of a ramshackle, antiquated, and repressive empire fails to take into account what Europeans have learned only painfully since World War II, but what Habsburg elites instinctively understood decades before: Close cooperation, including joint political structures, provides the best hope for nations living next to one another. Ironically, the group that possessed the greatest ideological af¤nity with the multinational monarchy, the aristocracy, proved woefully unequal to its defense. As we have seen, too many of the diplomats failed to take their responsibilities seriously, and their concerns were often directed toward questions of personal convenience. In its personnel policies, the Ballhausplatz failed to keep pace with the rapidly changing world, where in¶uencing public opinion and penetrating markets had begun to matter more than courting monarchs. All too often, blue blood—though not to be discounted in pre–World War I Europe—furnished the only quali¤cation necessary for admission to the foreign of¤ce.

206 • aristocratic redoubt It is of course impossible to say what might have happened in history had certain factors been different. But can there be little wonder that outsiders, observing the fossilized grandees posted by the Ballhausplatz in their countries, failed to appreciate the vibrant industrial and cultural life of the monarchy? Austria-Hungary must indeed have appeared an anachronism on the verge of dissolution. Compared with the energetic pluckiness of the Serbs, who cast their struggle in the most heroic of terms, the hedonistic but otherwise languorous aristocrats in the monarchy’s embassies presented at best an unsympathetic image. They surely were not up to the task of refuting the commentary ¶owing from the poisonous pens of such men as Henry Wickham Steed and R. W. Seton-Watson, who powerfully in¶uenced foreign public opinion against the monarchy. What result the lassitude of the diplomats might have had by 1914 must remain conjecture but cannot be dismissed out of hand. Similarly, the social insularity of the corps, which kept out undesirable elements at home, greatly restricted the circles in which the diplomats moved abroad. The effect was twofold. On the one hand, the information forwarded to Vienna came from a narrow and incomplete range of sources. On the other, the standard bearers in foreign countries missed opportunities to boost the monarchy’s image among a broader segment of the host population. Playing polo in St. Petersburg or spending weekends in châteaux on the Loire did not furnish possibilities for accomplishing that goal. The evidence even suggests that concrete policy decisions were made on the basis of social considerations. Section Chief Count Johann Forgách insisted that Albanian children brought to the Theresianum to be educated come from the “most distinguished and richest families of notables” of that country.4 One of the most powerful indictments came from the last Habsburg military attaché in France, who in 1913 described his diplomatic colleagues thus: “The Austro-Hungarian embassy is a quiet, isolated island in the sea of democratic sentiment in Paris, and is surrounded by a Chinese Wall, behind which the chosen few pursue their secret rituals.”5 The endurance of the old regime at the Ballhausplatz contributed to weakening the very polity it was called upon to protect.

Appendix

central office Austro-Hungarian Foreign Ministers 1867–1914 1866–71 1871–79 1879–81 1881–95 1895–1906 1906–12 1912–15

Baron (1868 Count) Friedrich Beust Count Julius Andrássy Baron Heinrich Haymerle Count Gustav Kálnoky Count Agenor Go|uchowski Baron (1909 Count) Alois Aehrenthal Count Leopold Berchtold

First Section Chiefs 1906–14 1904–7 1907–9 1909–12 1912–17

Cajetan von Mérey Baron Guido Call (1910 Baron) Ladislaus von Müller Baron Karl Macchio

Second Section Chiefs 1906–14 1904–9 1909–12 1912–13 1913–17

Ladislaus von Müller Baron Karl Macchio Count Friedrich Szápáry Count Johann Forgách

Other Section Chiefs 1906–14 1906–1912 1912–17 1912–18

Count Paul Esterházy (Hungarian Affairs) Mauriz von Roeøler (Economic Affairs) Count Markus Wickenburg (Economic and Hungarian Affairs) Otto von Weil (Legal-Administrative Affairs)

Heads of the Minister’s Secretariat 1906–14 (Chef des Kabinetts des Ministers) 1901–9 1909–12 1912–17

Baron Maximilian Gagern Count Friedrich Szápáry Count Alexander Hoyos

207

208 • Appendix Heads of the Personnel Department 1906–14 1906–7 1907–18

Hermann von Mitscha Baron Ottokar Schlechta diplomatic corps

Austro-Hungarian Heads of Mission 1906–14 Albania 1914–15

Heinrich von Löwenthal

Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay 1903–8 1908–11 1911–18

Baron Hugo Rhemen Norbert von Schmucker (1911 Baron) Otto von Hoenning-O’Carroll

Bavaria 1905–17

Ludwig von Velics

Belgium 1902–14

Count Siegfried Clary

Brazil 1905–7 1907–11 1912–18

Count Johann Forgách Baron Franz Riedl Franz Kolossa

Bulgaria 1905–9 1909–11 1911–16

Count Duglas Thurn Baron Karl Giskra Count Adam Tarnowski

Chile, Bolivia, and Peru 1906–12 1912–16

Baron Johann Styrcea Count Laurenz Szápáry

China 1905–11 1911–17

Eugen von Kuczyñski Artur von Rosthorn

Appendix •

209

Denmark and (after 1906) Norway 1899–1907 1908–17

Count Christoph Wydenbruck Count Dionys Széchényi

Egypt 1904–9 1909–14

Count Thaddäus Koziebrodzki Count Ludwig Széchényi

France 1903–10 1911–14

Count Rudolf Khevenhüller-Metsch Count Nikolaus Szécsen

German Empire and Prussia, Brunswick, Hanseatic Cities (after 1893), Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Oldenburg 1892–14

(1910 Count) Ladislaus von Szõgyény-Marich

Greece 1903–8 1909–13 1913–16

Baron Karl Macchio Baron Carl Braun Julius von Szilassy

Holy See 1901–11 1911–18

Count Nikolaus Szécsen Prince Johann Schönburg-Hartenstein

Italy 1904–10 1910–15

Count Heinrich Lützow Cajetan von Mérey

Japan and (until 1912) Siam 1899–1908 1909–11 1912–14

Adalbert von Ambró Baron Guido Call Baron Ladislaus Müller

Mexico 1906–9 1909–11 1911–13

Baron Karl Giskra Count Maximilian Hadik Baron Franz Riedl

210 • Appendix 1913–18

Koloman von Kánia

Montenegro 1903–9 1909–13 1913–14

Baron Otto Kuhn Baron Wladimir Giesl Eduard Otto

Morocco 1904–9 1909–13 1914

Count Leopold Koziebrodzki Ludwig von Callenberg Hans Ludwig von Wagner

Netherlands and Luxembourg 1905–7 1908–11 1911–17

Count Otto Brandis Count Christoph Wydenbruck Baron Karl Giskra

Persia 1905–11 1911–12 1912–18

Artur von Rosthorn Eduard Otto Count Hugo Logothetti

Portugal 1905–9 1909 1909–16

Count Gilbert Hohenwart Count Leopold Koziebrodzki Baron Otto Kuhn

Rumania 1906–11 1911–13 1913–16

Prince Johann Schönburg-Hartenstein Prince Karl Emil Fürstenberg Count Ottokar Czernin

Russia 1906–11 1911–13 1913–14

Count Leopold Berchtold Count Duglas Thurn Count Friedrich Szápáry

Appendix •

211

Saxony, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Saxe-Altenburg, Anhalt, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, SchwarzburgSondershausen, and the elder and younger branches of Reuø 1905–9 1909–11 1911–13 1913–18

Baron Carl Braun Prince Karl Emil Fürstenberg Count Johann Forgách Baron Carl Braun

Serbia 1905–7 1907–11 1911–13 1913–14

Baron Moritz Czikann Count Johann Forgách Stephan von Ugron Baron Wladimir Giesl

Siam 1906–12 1912–17

see Japan Rudolf von Wodianer

Spain 1903–11 1911–13 1913–18

Count Rudolf Welsersheimb Count Christoph Wydenbruck Prince Karl Emil Fürstenberg

Sweden 1905–9 1909–12 1912–18

(1909 Baron) Albert von Eperjesy Konstantin Dumba Count Maximilian Hadik

Switzerland 1903–9 1909–17

Baron Karl Heidler Baron Maximilian Gagern

Turkey 1906–18

Count Johann Pallavicini

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 1904–14

Count Albert Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein

212 • Appendix United States of America 1894–13 1913–15

(1906 Baron) Ladislaus von Hengelmüller Konstantin Dumba

Württemberg, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt 1899–1907 1907–9 1909–16

Baron Alfons Pereira-Arnstein Ludwig von Callenberg Count Thaddäus Koziebrodzki

Not included in this list are those of¤cials who bore only the title and character of a section chief (Titel und Charakter eines Sektionschefs).

N ot es

Prologue 1. Arno Mayer, The Persistence of the Old Regime: Europe to the Great War (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981). 2. For a sample of this vibrant debate, see Dominic Lieven, The Aristocracy in Europe 1815–1914 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992); David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990); Hans-Ulrich Wehler, ed., Europäischer Adel 1750–1950, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, ed. Helmut Berding et al., Sonderheft 13 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990); David Higgs, Nobles in Nineteenth-Century France: The Practice of Inegalitarianism (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987); Dominic Lieven, Russia’s Rulers under the Old Regime (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989); Seymour Becker, Nobility and Privilege in Late Imperial Russia (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1985); and Armgard von RedenDohna and Ralph Melville, eds., Der Adel an der Schwelle des bürgerlichen Zeitalters 1780–1860, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz, Abteilung Universalgeschichte, ed. Karl Otmar Freiherr von Aretin, no. 10 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1988). 3. For one example of that approach, see the multivolume Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, especially volume 3, published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences, where the treatment is such that one could think the Dual Monarchy was a federation of ethnic groups rather than an agglomeration of historical and constitutional crownlands in which members of the various nationalities lived side by side. 4. Anonymous [Crown Prince Rudolf], “Der österreichische Adel und sein constitutioneller Beruf: Mahnruf an die aristokratische Jugend,” in Kronprinz Rudolf: Majestät, ich warne Sie . . . , ed. Brigitte Hamann (Vienna and Munich: Amalthea, 1979), 19–52. 5. Walter H. Perl, Hugo von Hofmannsthal—Leopold von Andrian Briefwechsel (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1968), 204–5. 6. Solomon Wank, “Aristocrats and Politics in Austria 1867–1914: A Case of Historiographical Neglect,” East European Quarterly 26 (June 1992): 133–48. Lothar Höbelt has reviewed recent and not-so-recent contributions to the topic in “The Discreet Charm of the Old Regime,” Austrian History Yearbook 27 (1996): 289–302. 7. Hannes Stekl, Österreichs Aristokratie im Vormärz: Herrschaftsstil und Lebensformen der Fürstenhäuser Liechtenstein und Schwarzenberg, Sozial- und Wirtschaftshistorische Studien, ed. Alfred Hoffmann and Michael Mitterauer (Vienna:

213

214 • Notes to Pages 4–6 Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1973); Hannes Stekl and Marija Wakounig, Windisch-Grätz: Ein Fürstenhaus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Vienna: Böhlau, 1992); Hannes Stekl, “Zwischen Machtverlust und Selbstbehauptung: Österreichs Hocharistokratie vom 18. bis ins 20. Jahrhundert,” in Europäischer Adel 1750–1950, ed. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Geschichte und Gesellschaft: Zeitschrift für Historische Sozialwissenschaft, Sonderheft 13 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990), 144–65. 8. Brigitte Hamann, “Der Wiener Hof und die Hofgesellschaft in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts,” in Hof und Hofgesellschaft in den deutschen Staaten im 19. und beginnenden 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Karl Möckl, Deutsche Führungsschichten in der Neuzeit, vol. 18 (Boppard am Rhein: Harald Boldt, 1990), 61–78; Jean-Paul Bled, “La Cour de François-Joseph,” in Hof, Kultur und Politik im 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Karl Ferdinand Werner, Pariser Historische Studien, vol. 21 (Bonn: Ludwig Röhrscheid, 1985), 169–82. 9. Ernst Rutkowski, ed., Briefe und Dokumente zur Geschichte der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des böhmischmährischen Raumes. part 1: Der Verfassungstreue Großgrundbesitz 1880–1899, Veröffentlichungen des Collegium Carolinum, vol. 51/I (Munich and Vienna: R. Oldenbourg, 1983); Solomon Wank, ed., Aus dem Nachlaß Aehrenthal: Briefe und Dokumente zur österreichisch-ungarischen Innen- und Außenpolitik 1885–1912, 2 vols., Quellen zur Geschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. Fritz Fellner, vol. 6 (Graz: Wolfgang Neugebauer, 1994). 10. See, for instance, Jonathan Dewald, Aristocratic Experience and the Origins of Modern Culture: France, 1570–1715 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Mark Edward Motley, Becoming a French Aristocrat: The Education of the Court Nobility, 1580–1715 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). 11. For Great Britain, see Zara Steiner, The Foreign Of¤ce and Foreign Policy, 1898–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969); for Germany, Lamar Cecil, The German Diplomatic Service, 1871–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976); for Russia, D. C. B. Lieven, Russia and the Origins of the First World War (New York: St. Martin’s, 1983); and for France, M. B. Hayne, The French Foreign Of¤ce and the Origins of the First World War 1898–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). 12. Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War (Houndmills and London: Macmillan, 1991). 13. For the most recent treatment of the composition of the of¤cer corps, see István Deák, Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Of¤cer Corps 1848–1918 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). 14. The best work so far on the Ballhausplatz bureaucracy is that by Helmut Rumpler, “Die rechtlich-organisatorischen und sozialen Rahmenbedingungen für die Aussenpolitik der Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918,” in Die Habsburgermonarchie im System der internationalen Beziehungen, vol. 6/1 of Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, ed. Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch (Vienna: Verlag der Öster-

Notes to Pages 6–14 •

215

reichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1989), 1–121. Rumpler’s article, which is based on extensive archival research, deals primarily with the juridical and organizational structure of the foreign of¤ce, and only tangentially with the socioeconomic backgrounds of the mandarins and diplomats. Erwin Matsch, Der auswärtige Dienst von Österreich(-Ungarn) 1720–1920 (Vienna: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1986) provides a formal legal and administrative history of the Ballhausplatz, as well as extremely helpful lists of the monarchy’s mission chiefs from the early eighteenth to the twentieth century, but does not touch upon their social origins. A few impressionistic remarks on the backgrounds of the diplomats may be found in the following articles, which are cited here for the sake of completeness: Ludwig Bittner, “Das österreichisch-ungarische Ministerium des Äuøern, seine Geschichte und sein Organisation,” Berliner Monatshefte 15 (1937): 819–43; Georg Schmid, “Der Ballhausplatz 1848–1918,” Österreichische Osthefte 23 (1981): 18–37; and Friedrich Engel-Janosi, “Der ‘Ballhausplatz’ 1848–1918,” in Geschichte auf dem Ballhausplatz: Essays zur österreichischen Außenpolitik 1830–1945 (Graz: Styria, 1963), 9–28. 15. The consular service has been included in the discussion of Aehrenthal’s reforms in chapter 5 and also receives more than passing attention in chapter 3. 16. German has a much more precise term, Konzeptsbeamten, to describe those who have been included in this study. 17. For the well-known interview between General Conrad and the emperor, see Feldmarschall Conrad, Aus meiner Dienstzeit 1906–1918. vol. 2, 1910–1912: Die Zeit des libyschen Krieges und des Balkankrieges bis Ende 1912 (Vienna: Rikola, 1922), 282. See also Hugo Hantsch, “Kaiser Franz Joseph und die Aussenpolitik,” in Probleme der franzisko-josephischen Zeit 1848–1916, ed. Friedrich Engel-Janosi and Helmut Rumpler (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1967), 25–39. 18. Rudolf Freiherr von Mittag-Lenkheym, Unter zwei Kaisern: Lebenserinnerungen des kaiserlichen- und königlichen ausserordentlichen Gesandten und bevollmächtigten Ministers Rudolf Freiherr von Mittag-Lenkheym, ed. William D. Godsey, Jr. (Vienna: Verlag der Mitteilungen des österreichischen Staatsarchivs, forthcoming), 2:26 (pagination of typescript). 19. The members of the consular service fell directly under the jurisdiction of Department 10. 20. The rank of court and ministerial vice-secretary was ¤rst bestowed early in Berchtold’s tenure, when it took the place of the later-discontinued rank of court and ministerial clerk ¤rst-class. Thereafter, the former court and ministerial clerks second-class became known simply as court and ministerial clerks. 21. The ambassador to the court in Berlin was also accredited to Brunswick, the Hanseatic cities, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and Oldenburg. The monarchy maintained no diplomatic representative in Lippe, SchaumburgLippe, or Waldeck und Pyrmont. 22. Vortrag Aehrenthal to Francis Joseph, May 18, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 457, folder Revirement 163.

216 • Notes to Pages 16–17 Chapter One: Social Origins 1. Rudolf Sieghart, Die letzten Jahrzehnte einer Grossmacht: Menschen, Völker, Probleme des Habsburger Reiches (Berlin: Ullstein, 1932), 260. “Fruges consumeri nati galt als das Ideal standesgemäøen Lebens.” 2. “Die Clique,” and “Unser diplomatisches Korps,” Die Zeit, November 13, 1913. 3. Heinrich Kanner, Kaiserliche Katastrophenpolitik (Leipzig: E.P. Tal, 1922), 87–89. 4. Oscar Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy (Chicago and London: Phoenix Books, 1961), 153. 5. Ernst U. Cormons [Emanuel Urbas], Schicksale und Schatten: Eine österreichische Autobiographie (Salzburg: Otto Müller, 1951), 78. 6. Heinrich Wildner, Die Technik der Diplomatie (Vienna: Springer, 1959), 68. 7. Nikolaus von Preradovich, Die Führungsschichten in Österreich und Preussen (1804–1918), Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz, ed. Joseph Lortz and Martin Göhring, vol. 11 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1955), 8–25. Preradovich’s ¤gures are marred, however, by a mania for legalisms and a statistical pool comprising only 38 of the 251 central-of¤ce functionaries and diplomats of the Aehrenthal and Berchtold years. 8. The most recent publications on the foreign of¤ce unfortunately contribute little to our understanding of the social origins of Habsburg diplomats. Erwin Matsch provides useful lists of the heads of missions from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries, as well as a short administrative history of the Ballhausplatz, but makes no mention of socioeconomic backgrounds. See Erwin Matsch, Der auswärtige Dienst von Österreich(-Ungarn) 1720–1920 (Vienna: Böhlau, 1986). Other works include sections on the foreign of¤ce bureaucracy but make no systematic inquiry into the social origins of the diplomats. See Helmut Rumpler, “Die rechtlich-organisatorischen und sozialen Rahmenbedingungen für die Aussenpolitik der Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918,” in Die Habsburgermonarchie im System der internationalen Beziehungen, vol. 6/1, Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, ed. Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch (Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1989); and Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War (Houndmills and London: Macmillan, 1991), esp. chap. 3. 9. For the court nobility, see William D. Godsey, Jr., “Quarterings and Kinship: The Austro-Hungarian Aristocracy in the Dualist Period,” forthcoming in Journal of Modern History (March 1999). No adequate treatment of the “second society” yet exists. For an introduction, see Adam Wandruszka, “Die ‘zweite Gesellschaft’ der Donaumonarchie,” in Adel in Österreich, ed. Heinz Siegert (Vienna: Kremayr & Scheriau, 1971). The literature on the Habsburg nobility is in general sparse. See Hannes Stekl, “Zwischen Machtverlust und Selbstbehauptung: Österreichs Hocharistokratie vom 18. bis ins 20. Jahrhundert,” in Europäischer Adel 1750–1950, ed. Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, eds.

Notes to Pages 18–21 •

217

Helmut Berding, et al., vol. 13 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990), 144–65; Heinz Dopsch, “Der österreichische Adel,” in Österreichs Sozialstrukturen in historischer Sicht, ed. Erich Zöllner (Vienna: Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1980), 25–43; and Moritz Csáky, “Adel in Österreich,” in Das Zeitalter Kaiser Franz Josephs, part 1: Von der Revolution zur Gründerzeit 1848–1880 (Vienna, 1984), 212–19. 10. In the Dualist period, the only foreign ministers not to be drawn from the court nobility served relatively brief tenures. They included Baron (later Count) Friedrich Ferdinand Beust (1866–71), Baron Heinrich Haymerle (1879–81), and Baron (later Count) Stephan Burián (1915–16, 1918). 11. Colloredo married one sister, who died shortly thereafter. He then married his sister-in-law, who also predeceased him. 12. See the remarks on this issue by Baron Ludwig Flotow, who wrote that “Aehrenthal hatte die typischen Allüren des österreichischen Aristokraten.” See Ludwig Freiherr von Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz: Erinnerungen Ludwigs Freiherrn von Flotow des letzten Chefs des österreichisch-ungarischen auswärtigen Dienstes 1895–1920, ed. Erwin Matsch (Vienna: Böhlau, 1982), 267. 13. These ¤gures re¶ect the person’s rank when he entered the diplomatic corps and do not take into account advances in status once in the service. For example, Legation Secretary Baron Franz Calice, who became a count on the elevation of his father in 1906, is included among the barons. The term “mediatized” refers to those regnant families of the Holy Roman Empire who lost their status as a result of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and the postwar settlement. 14. For the prerequisites for the award of the post of chamberlain, see Seiner k. und k. apostolischen Majestät Oberstkämmer-Amt, Allerhöchst sanktionierte Bestimmungen über die k. und k. Kämmererwürde, 15th ed. (Vienna, 1914), 22. The introduction of proof of noble ancestry for holding certain of¤ces in central Europe ¤rst occurred in the cathedral chapters of the Holy Roman Empire in the early modern period. See Heinz Reif, Westfälischer Adel 1770–1860: Vom Herrschaftsstand zur regionalen Elite, Kritische Studien zur Geschichtswissenschaft, ed. Helmut Berding et al., vol. 35 (Göttingen, 1979), 35–36; Karl Otmar Freiherr von Aretin, Heiliges Römisches Reich 1776–1806: Reichsverfassung und Staatssouveränität, vol. 1, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz, Abteilung Universalgeschichte, vol. 38, ed. Martin Göhring (Wiesbaden, 1967), 82–83. 15. “Personal-Stand der Konzepts-Departements des k. und k. Ministeriums des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern,” December 23, 1913, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 451, folder Kanzlei-Verordnungen 301–400, fols. 424–25. 16. A few of the diplomats from the lower Hungarian nobility, like Ottlik and Adalbert von Ambró, can hardly be included among court circles, despite their faultless ancestry. They generally lacked the material means and kinship ties that characterized the top stratum. Ambró, who served as ambassador in Tokyo, nevertheless descended on the maternal side from the magnate family Berényi.

218 • Notes to Pages 22–27 17. Brigitte Hamann, ed., Meine liebe, gute Freundin! Die Briefe Kaiser Franz Josephs an Katharina Schratt (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 1992), 24. For the Nemes case, see Graf Paul Vasili, Die Wiener Gesellschaft, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: H. Le Soudier, 1885), 379. 18. For the illegitimate birth of Freudenthal’s mother, Countess Agathe Wrbna, see Count Eduard Gaston Pettenegg to Count Franz Crenneville, April 29, 1879, HHStA, OKäA, Reihe B, Akten 1879, r. 74, carton 636. Freudenthal’s father, also a bastard of the house of Wrbna, was never legitimated, unlike his future wife, but was given the baronial dignity as a teenager under the name “Freudenthal.” See Schrenck Library (Charlottesville), Nachlaø Hans von Bourcy/Johann Baptist Witting. 19. “P¶ügl, P¶ügl von Leiden und P¶ügl von Lissinetz,” in Österreichisches Familienarchiv, ed. Gerhard Geøner (Neustadt an der Aisch: Degener, 1969), 3:148. 20. High Life Almanach der Österr. Gesellschaft (Vienna: Verlag des “High Life,” 1906), 2:381. 21. Hanns Jäger-Sunstenau, “Statistik der Nobilitierungen in Österreich 1701–1918,” in Österreichisches Familienarchiv, ed. Gerhard Geøner (Neustadt an der Aisch: Degener, 1963), 1:16. 22. [Alexander] Freiherr von Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz: Erinnerungen eines österreich-ungarischen Diplomaten (Munich: Verlag für Kulturpolitik, 1924), 28. 23. Ibid., 28. 24. Berchtold memoirs, 2:304–14, HHStA, Nachlaø Berchtold, carton 1. 25. Heinrich Graf von Lützow, Im diplomatischen Dienst der k. u. k. Monarchie, ed. Peter Hohenbalken (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1971), 19–20. 26. Emerich Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten: Erinnerungen des k. und k. Diplomaten und k. ungarischen Außenministers Emerich Csáky (1882–1961), ed. Eva-Marie Csáky (Vienna: Böhlau, 1992), 168. 27. Prince Gottfried Hohenlohe to Francis Ferdinand, 7 July 1902, HHStA, Nachlaø Franz Ferdinand, carton 15, folder Prince Gottfried Hohenlohe, fols. 32–34. 28. Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 168. 29. Julius v. Szilassy, Der Untergang der Donau-Monarchie: Diplomatische Erinnerungen (Berlin: Verlag Neues Vaterland E. Berger & Co., 1921), 182–83. 30. Lützow, Im diplomatischen Dienst, 19. 31. For the role of the Vortänzer, see Camilla Short (née Countess Hoyos), “Nobody Knows, or Leaves from the Vienna Woods,” unpublished typescript memoirs, 36–37. 32. Baron Franz Riedl to Cajetan von Mérey, 8 January 1907, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. 33. Hugo Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold: Grandseigneur und Staatsmann (Graz: Styria, 1963), 1:97. Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 130.

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34. For the details of those and other incidents, see Koziebrodzki’s personnel ¤le, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 174. 35. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 18–19. The nickname “Kotzengrobski” is a play on the two German words kotzen = “to puke”; and grob = “coarse.” 36. Ibid., 67. 37. Sir George Franckenstein, Facts and Features of My Life (London: Cassell and Company, Ltd., 1939), 70. 38. Lützow, Im diplomatischen Dienst, 20–21. 39. Karl Anton Rohan, Heimat Europa: Erinnerungen und Erfahrungen (Düsseldorf and Cologne: Eugen Diederichs Verlag, 1954), 20. 40. Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 70. 41. Ibid., 72. 42. For one such instance, see Michael Karolyi, Memoirs of Michael Karolyi: Faith without Illusion, trans. Catherine Karolyi (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1957), 34. 43. Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold, 1:9–10. 44. Princess Sophie Schönburg-Hartenstein, “Erinnerungen der Prinzessin Sophie zu Schönburg-Hartenstein geb. Prinzessin Oettingen-Wallerstein. Geboren 4. Oktober 1878. Gestorben bei dem Fliegerangriff auf Wien am 10. September 1944.” Photocopy of the unpublished typescript, 32. 45. Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 54–55. 46. For other examples, see Schönburg-Hartenstein, “Erinnerungen,” 27; and Franckenstein, Facts and Features of My Life, 11–12. 47. Rudolf Freiherr von Mittag-Lenkheym, Unter zwei Kaisern: Lebenserinnerungen des kaiserlichen und königlichen ausserordentlichen Gesandten und bevollmächtigten Ministers Rudolf Freiherr von Mittag-Lenkheym, ed. William D. Godsey, Jr. (Vienna: Verlag der Mitteilungen des österreichischen Staatsarchivs, forthcoming), 1:3 (pagination of typescript). 48. Julius von Stepski, Geschichte und Intrige: Politische Erlebnisse aus einem halben Jahrhundert (Vienna: Adolf Luser, 1940), 11. 49. Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz, 36; Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 1:118. 50. Rohan, Heimat Europa, 24. 51. Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War, 41. 52. Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold, 1:120. 53. Lützow, Im diplomatischen Dienst, 27, 283. The French general Pierre comte de Cambronne (1770–1842) commanded one of the toughest of Napoleon’s bataillons at Waterloo. When urged by his opponents to surrender, Cambronne answered, “Le garde meurt et ne se rend pas!” To a second call for his surrender, Cambronne answered simply, “Merde!” Since that time, the expressions, “Le mot de Cambronne” and “Cambronne” have been synonymous with that word. 54. Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 1:179–80. For other examples of Khevenhüller’s approach to diplomacy, see Hanns Schlitter, Rudolf Graf Khevenhüller (geb. 18. Juni 1844, gest. 20. Oktober 1910): Nach Aufzeichnungen und Briefen (Vienna: Adolf Holzhausen, 1911). Cf. Baron Franz Schiessl, “Memoiren des Kabinettsdirektors

220 • Notes to Pages 30–35 Franz Freiherrn v. Schiessl (1844–1917),” 87, 108, unpublished typescript, HHStA, Nachlaø Schiessl. 55. See Elvira Konecny, Die Familie Dumba und ihre Bedeutung für Wien und Österreich, Dissertationen der Universität Wien 179 (Vienna: VWGÖ, 1986). 56. High Life Almanach, 429. 57. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 104–5. 58. Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 94. 59. Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 1:87–88. 60. Constantin Dumba, Memoirs of a Diplomat, trans. Ian F. D. Morrow (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1932), 13–14. 61. See Rohan, Heimat Europa, 23. 62. Vasili, Die Wiener Gesellschaft, 472. For the even more legendary exclusivity of the Bohemian aristocracy, see Princess Nora Fugger, The Glory of the Habsburgs: The Memoirs of Princess Fugger, trans. J. A. Galston (New York: Dial Press, 1932), 13–14. 63. Lützow, Im diplomatischen Dienst, 111. 64. Rumpler, “Die rechtlich-organisatorischen und sozialen Rahmenbedingungen, 76–79.

Chapter Two: Admission Standards and Education 1. For Great Britain, see Zara Steiner, The Foreign Of¤ce and Foreign Policy, 1898–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 173–74. 2. Princess Nora Fugger von Babenhausen, The Glory of the Habsburgs: The Memoirs of Princess Fugger, trans. J. A. Galston (New York: Dial Press, Inc., 1932), 142. 3. Karl Anton Rohan, Heimat Europa: Erinnerungen und Erfahrungen (Düsseldorf and Cologne: Eugen Diederichs Verlag, 1954), 22. 4. Baron Niklas Schrenck von Notzing to the author, undated fax from the summer of 1991. Baron Schrenck kindly spoke on my behalf with Almeida’s grandson, Count Hieronymous Almeida, who provided the information about his grandfather. 5. Hannes Stekl and Marija Wakounig, Windisch-Grätz: Ein Fürstenhaus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Vienna: Böhlau, 1992), 69–73. 6. Ibid., 209–10. 7. Hanns Schlitter, Rudolf Graf Khevenhüller (geb. 18. Juni 1844, gest. 20. Oktober 1910) nach Aufzeichnungen und Briefen (Vienna: Adolf Holzhausen, 1911), 30. 8. Alfons Clary-Aldringen, Geschichten eines alten Österreichers (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1977), 138. 9. Sir George Franckenstein, Facts and Features of My Life (London: Cassell and Company, Ltd., 1939), 25. 10. Baron Heinrich Calice to Go|uchowski, December 14, 1898, HHStA, PA I, carton 643, Kabinett des Ministers.

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11 Remarks by Adolf von Plason on Gagern’s qualifying exam, AdR, NAR, F4, carton 45, personnel ¤le Baron Johann Gagern. 12. Gagern to Aehrenthal, August 23, 1910, AdR, NAR, F4, carton 119, personnel ¤le Heinrich von Pacher. 13. Weil to the foreign of¤ce, April 29, 1886, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 373, personnel ¤le Otto von Weil. 14. Berthold Molden, Alois Graf Aehrenthal: Sechs Jahre äußere Politik Österreich-Ungarns (Stuttgart and Berlin: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1917), 15. 15. Emerich Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten: Erinnerungen des k. und k. Diplomaten und k. ungarischen Außenministers Emerich Csáky (1882–1961), ed. Eva-Marie Csáky (Vienna: Böhlau, 1992), 60. 16. Constantin Dumba, Memoirs of a Diplomat, trans. Ian F. D. Morrow (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1932), 3–4. 17. Count Edgar Hoyos to Go|uchowski, September 9, 1900, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 142, personnel ¤le Count Alexander Hoyos. 18. Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 94 19. Freiherr von Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz: Erinnerungen eines österreich-ungarischen Diplomaten (Munich: Verlag für Kulturpolitik, 1924), 136. 20. Memorandum by Adolf von Plason, February 7, 1889, HHStA, AR, F6, carton 39, folder Dipl. Prüfung I/10 bis I/14. 21. Vortrag Kálnoky to Francis Joseph, May 17, 1895, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 77, personnel ¤le Baron Géza Duka. 22. Baron Hugo Sommaruga to Count Franz Colloredo, May 21, 1908, AdR, NAR, F4, carton 169, personnel ¤le Baron Heinrich Sommaruga. 23. Baron Arthur Bourguignon to Francis Ferdinand, June 6, 1910, AdR, NAR, F4, carton 15, personnel ¤le Baron Edwin Bourguignon. 24. Baron Karl Rumerskirch (Franz Ferdinand’s Obersthofmeister) to Aehrenthal, June 18, 1910, ibid. 25. Potocki to Haymerle, October 2, 1881, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 174, personnel ¤le Count Leopold Koziebrodzki. For other instances of in¶uence-peddling, see Count Karl Khuen-Belasi-Héderváry to Aehrenthal, October 27, 1911, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 25, personnel ¤le Stephan von Betegh; Count Friedrich Szápáry to Baron Johann Dumreicher, June 26, 1912, and Szápáry to Joseph Maria Baernreither, draft letter, July 12, 1912, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 78, personnel ¤le Baron Johann Dumreicher. 26. Hohenlohe to Schlechta, June 13, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 80, personnel ¤le Baron Johann Economo. 27. Bleyleben to Aehrenthal, November 20, 1907, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 114, personnel ¤le Georg von Grigorcea. 28. Baron Guido Call to Bleyleben, November 29, 1907, ibid. 29. Baron Franz Kuhn to Francis Joseph, September 10, 1882, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 182, personnel ¤le Baron Otto Kuhn. 30. Vortrag Kálnoky to Francis Joseph, May 11, 1887, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 363, personnel ¤le Ludwig von Velics.

222 • Notes to Pages 41–43 31. James A. Treichel, “Magyars at the Ballplatz: A Study of the Hungarians in the Austro-Hungarian Diplomatic Service 1906–1914” (Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University, 1971), 64. 32. “Erlaø des Ministeriums des Aeuøern vom 6. Juni 1856,” in ReichsGesetz-Blatt für das Kaiserthum Oesterreich, 1856, HHStA, AR, F6, carton 39, folder Dipl. Prüfung I Diverse. 33. “Erlass des kais. und kön. Ministeriums des Aeussern vom 13. December 1880, betreffend die Erfordernisse für den Eintritt in den innern oder äussern Conceptsdienst dieses Ministeriums,” ibid. 34. For a detailed discussion of income and outlay, see chapter 3 below. 35. See Plason’s personnel ¤le, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 265. 36. Four of Plason’s extensive memoranda are preserved in HHStA, AR, F6, carton 39, folder Dipl. Prüfung I Diverse: “Ausblick nach einer Reform der diplomatischen Prüfung und der Dienstzweige des Ministeriums,” from the summer of 1895; untitled memorandum, from November 12, 1895; untitled memorandum from March 1900; and “Einige Bemerkungen über die Aufnahms-Bedingungen in den diplomatischen Dienst,” undated (1883?). 37. “Erlass des kais. und kön. Ministeriums des Aeussern vom 13. December 1880, betreffend die Erfordernisse für den Eintritt in den innern oder äussern Conceptsdienst dieses Ministeriums,” HHStA, AR, F6, carton 39, folder Dipl. Prüfung I Diverse. 38. See Brandis’s personnel ¤le, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 36. 39. See Colloredo’s personnel ¤le, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 56. 40. For example, Cajetan von Mérey spent only half an hour on his qualifying examination in the spring of 1884. His essay received high marks from Plason. See HHStA, AR, F4, carton 213, personnel ¤le Cajetan von Mérey. On April 7, 1889, Baron Theodor Pirquet wrote a faultless (“tadellos”) three-page paper. He required from twelve to one o’clock in the afternoon to complete the assignment. See HHStA, AR, F4, carton 261, personnel ¤le Baron Theodor Pirquet. 41. Baron Franz Matscheko took more than two hours to write his exam. See Plason’s extensive comments, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 207, personnel ¤le Baron Franz Matscheko. 42. Montlong’s qualifying exam, 1900, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 224, personnel ¤le Oskar von Montlong. 43. Festetics’s qualifying exam, 1905, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 89, personnel ¤le Count Georg Festetics. 44. Des Fours’s qualifying exam with Plason’s comments, 1905, AdR, NAR, F4, carton 23, personnel ¤le Count Kuno Des Fours-Walderode. 45. Pejácsevich’s qualifying exam, 1905, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 250, personnel ¤le Count Elemér Pejácsevich. 46. HHStA, AR, F4, carton 362, personnel ¤le Baron Léon de Vaux. 47. Seidler’s qualifying exam, ca. 1903, AdR, NAR, F4, carton 165, personnel ¤le Baron Friedrich Johann Seidler.

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48. Forster’s qualifying exam, 1899, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 95, personnel ¤le Baron Julius Forster. 49. Biegeleben’s qualifying exam, 1907, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 26, personnel ¤le Baron Otto Biegeleben. 50. Weil’s qualifying exam, 1886, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 373, personnel ¤le Otto von Weil. 51. Mérey’s qualifying exam, 1884, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 213, personnel ¤le Cajetan von Mérey. 52. Demeliå’s qualifying exam, 1894, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 69, personnel ¤le Georg von Demeliå. 53. Trauttmansdorff ’s qualifying exam, ca. 1895, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 357, personnel ¤le Count Carl Trauttmansdorff. 54. Thurn’s qualifying exam, 1887, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 353, personnel ¤le Count Duglas Thurn. 55. Riedl’s qualifying exam, ca. 1901, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 286, personnel ¤le Maximilian von Riedl. 56. Mensdorff ’s qualifying exam, with Plason’s comments, 1884, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 212, personnel ¤le Count Albert Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein. 57. Fugger, The Glory of the Habsburgs, 96. 58. Pejácsevich’s qualifying exam, with Plason’s comments, 1905, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 250, personnel ¤le Count Elemér Pejácsevich. 59. Franckenstein’s qualifying exam, with Plason’s comments, 1901, AdR, NAR, F4, carton 40, personnel ¤le Baron Georg Franckenstein. 60. Memorandum by Count Ottokar Czernin, February 1909, HHStA, Nachlaø Franz Ferdinand, carton 12. In characterizing the diplomats, Czernin wrote that Mittag was regarded as a “great light” (“gilt als grosses Licht”) at the Ballhausplatz. 61. Mittag’s qualifying exam, with Plason’s comments, ca. 1898, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 222 personnel ¤le Baron Rudolf Mittag. 62. Pirquet’s qualifying exam, with Plason’s comments, 1889, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 261, personnel ¤le Baron Theodor Pirquet. 63. Glommer’s qualifying exam with Plason’s comments, ca. 1906, AdR, NAR, F4, carton 48, personnel ¤le Maximilian von Glommer. 64. Szápáry’s qualifying exam with Plason’s comments, 1895, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 338, personnel ¤le Count Friedrich Szápáry. 65. Wenckheim’s qualifying exam, with Plason’s comments and Mérey’s instructions, ca. 1905, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 376, personnel ¤le Count Paul Wenckheim. Plason wrote, “The ministry can expect little by the admission of Count Paul Wenckheim.” 66. See Plason’s extensive comments on Matscheko’s qualifying examination, November 14, 1902, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 207, personnel ¤le Baron Franz Matscheko. 67. Foreign of¤ce to Baron Franz Matscheko, draft letter, November 22, 1902, ibid.

224 • Notes to Pages 46–49 68. Mérey memo, May 23, 1906, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 68, personnel ¤le Count August Demblin. 69. Esterházy’s second qualifying exam, with Plason’s comments, ca. 1884, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 85, personnel ¤le Count Paul Esterházy. 70. Jenny von Boróczy to Nemes, undated letter (ca. late summer/early fall 1911), HHStA, AR, F4, carton 34, personnel ¤le Ludwig von Boróczy. 71. Countess Irma Sztáray to an unidenti¤ed Ballhausplatz of¤cial, September 22, 1912, ibid. The countess had been a lady-in-waiting of Empress Elisabeth. 72. Foreign of¤ce to Hoyos, draft letter, May 4, 1903, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 142, personnel ¤le Count Heinrich Hoyos. 73. Memo by Section Chief Cajetan von Mérey, September 9, 1903, ibid. 74. Foreign of¤ce to Hoyos, draft letter, December 1, 1904, ibid. 75. Prince Gustav of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach to [Foreign Minister Baron Heinrich Haymerle], September 14, 1881, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 45, personnel ¤le Baron Franz Buschmann. 76. [Haymerle] to Prince Gustav of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, draft letter, September 16, 1881, ibid. 77. See Gernot Stimmer, “Zur Herkunft der höchsten österreichischen Beamtenschaft: Die Bedeutung des Theresianums und der Konsularakademie,” in Student und Hochschule im 19. Jahrhundert: Studien und Materialien, ed. Christian Helfer and Mohammed Rassem (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), 303–45. 78. Ibid., 316. 79. Statistical information compiled from the comprehensive list of students at the Theresianum contained in, Max Frhr. v. Gemmel-Flischbach and Camillo Manussi Edl. v. Montesole, Album der k. k. Theresianischen Akademie (1746–1913): Verzeichnis sämtlicher Angehörigen der k. k. Theresianischen Akademie (Ehemals k. k. Theresianischen Ritterakademie) von der Gründung durch die Kaiserin Maria Theresia im Jahre 1746 bis 1 November 1912 mit biographischen Daten (Vienna, 1913). 80. Rohan, Heimat Europa, 21. 81. Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 59–60. 82. Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold, 1:9–10. 83. See the Quali¤kationslisten Count Otto Brandis and Count Joseph Somssich, KA. Cf. Alfons Clary-Aldringen, Geschichten eines alten Österreichers (Berlin and Vienna: Ullstein, 1977), 75–77. 84. Helmut Engelbrecht, Geschichte des österreichischen Bildungswesens: Erziehung und Unterricht auf dem Boden Österreichs. Vol 4, Von 1848 bis zum Ende der Monarchie (Vienna: Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1986), 148. 85. Stekl and Wakounig, Windisch-Grätz, 45–47. For aristocrats who attended the famous Schottengymnasium in Vienna run by the Benedictines, see Count Carl Trauttmansdorff to the foreign of¤ce, ca. 1895, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 357, personnel ¤le Count Carl Trauttmansdorff; and Franckenstein, Facts and Features of My Life, 8–9. Count Johann Pallavicini, the capable ambassador on the Bosporus, was an alumnus of a Benedictine school in the town of Ödenburg.

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See Comtesse Edina Zichy Pallavicini, “Le Marquis Jean Pallavicini (1848–1941),” Nouvelle Revue de Hongrie (September 1941), 146. 86. In the Gymnasium in Kalksburg (Lower Austria), the Jesuits educated Baron Leopold Andrian-Werburg, a diplomat who became consul general in Warsaw, while Baron Johann Gagern, a legation secretary in Madrid, attended the school run by the Benedictines at Kremsmünster (Upper Austria). Both Andrian and Gagern later attended state-run institutions as well, the former in Meran and Vienna, the latter in Salzburg. For Andrian, see Franz Planer, Das Jahrbuch der Wiener Gesellschaft: Biographische Beiträge zur Wiener Zeitgeschichte (Vienna: Franz Planer, 1929), 16. See also Baron Johann Gagern to the foreign of¤ce, September 29, 1905, AdR, NAR, F4, carton 45, personnel ¤le Baron Johann Gagern. For Gymnasia run by the religious orders in the monarchy, see Josef von Pilat, Die katholische Männer- und Frauenklöster der österr.-ungar. Monarchie (Vienna: Eipeldauer, 1875). 87. One diplomat, Count Siegfried Clary, longtime envoy in Brussels, is known to have been admitted to the diplomatic corps without ever having completed his secondary studies or taken the Matura. After serving a more than two-year stint as a provisional attaché in Brussels between 1873 and 1876, Clary petitioned the emperor directly to allow him to take the entrance examination (Diplomatenprüfung). He not only lacked the Matura, but also the prescribed juridical studies and the three state examinations (Staatsprüfungen) necessary to enter state service. Foreign Minister Andrássy opposed the request, primarily because Clary had essentially never even ¤nished high school. Fortunately for Clary, Francis Joseph indicated a willingness to waive the requirements and Andrássy reconciled himself to the emperor’s decision by pointing out that at least Clary’s distinguished family background and his careful upbringing had prepared him somewhat to move in the rari¤ed world of high diplomacy. See Clary’s petition to Francis Joseph, December 18, 1876: and Vortrag Andrássy to Francis Joseph, January 10, 1877: both in HHStA, AR, F4, carton 55, personnel ¤le Count Siegfried Clary. 88. Stekl and Wakounig, Windisch-Grätz, 54–55. 89. Waltraud Heindl, Gehorsame Rebellen; Bürokratie und Beamte in Österreich 1780 bis 1848, Studien zu Politik und Verwaltung, vol. 36 (Vienna; Böhlau, 1991), 96–103. 90. Helmut Rumpler, “Die rechtlich-organisatorischen und sozialen Rahmenbedingungen für die Aussenpolitik der Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918,” in Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, ed. Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1989), 97. 91. Stekl and Wakounig, Windisch-Grätz, 55. 92. Rohan, Heimat Europa, 22. 93. Gustav Otruba, “Die Universitäten in der Hochschulorganisation der Donau-Monarchie: Nationale Erziehungsstätten im Vielvölkerreich 1850 bis 1914,” in Student und Hochschule im 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Christian Helfer and Mohammed Rassem, 111.

226 • Notes to Pages 50–53 94. See, for example, two extant examination certi¤cates of Count Leopold Koziebrodzki, preserved in his personnel ¤le, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 174. Robert [Freiherr von] Ehrhart, Im Dienste des alten Österreich (Vienna: Bergland, 1958),15– 18, also makes a few comments about his own Staatsprüfungen. 95. Six of the eight came from Hungary, of whom ¤ve had doctorates in political science. 96. Vortrag Andrássy to Francis Joseph, January 10, 1877, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 55, personnel ¤le Count Siegfried Clary. 97. Vortrag Kálnoky to Francis Joseph, May 12, 1885, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 212, personnel ¤le Count Albert Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein. For Khevenhüller, see Baron Otto Meysenbug to Khevenhüller, May 26, 1867, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 162, personnel ¤le Count Rudolf Khevenhüller-Metsch. 98. For a discussion of the provisional attachés, see chapter 3. 99. Baron Karl Pfusterschmid to Foreign Minister Andrássy, March 12, 1877, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 201, personnel ¤le Count Heinrich Lützow. 100. Vortrag Andrássy to Francis Joseph, April 24, 1877, ibid. 101. For the case of Count Erwin Schönborn-Buchheim, see Schönborn to the foreign of¤ce, March 1900, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 306, personnel ¤le Count Erwin Schönborn-Buchheim. For Count Georg Festetics, the son and heir of Hungary’s second-greatest magnate, see Festetics to the foreign of¤ce, November 22, 1905, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 89, personnel ¤le Count Georg Festetics. 102. Die k. und k. Konsular-Akademie von 1754 bis 1904: Festschrift zur Feier des hundertfünfzigjährigen Bestandes der Akademie und der Eröffnung ihres neuen Gebäudes (Vienna: Verlag des k. u. k. Ministeriums des kaiserlichen und königlichen Hauses und des Äussern, 1904), 1. 103. Ibid., 39–41. 104. See the “Lehrplan der k. u. k. Konsular-Akademie,” in ibid., 82–83. 105. For the contrary assertion, see Stimmer, “Zur Herkunft der höchsten österreichischen Beamtenschaft,” 316. 106. Rumpler, “Die rechtlich-organisatorischen und sozialen Rahmenbedingungen,” 84–85. 107. See Schmucker’s letter to the foreign of¤ce from August 31, 1909, complaining of the unbearable tropical heat, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 305, personnel ¤le Norbert von Schmucker. 108. See the “Verzeichnis der Zöglinge der Akademie von 1754 bis 1904,” in Die k. und k. Konsular-Akademie von 1754 bis 1904, 93–99. 109. Baron Ludwig Oppenheimer to Cajetan von Mérey, November 4, 1906, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. 110. Styrcea to the foreign of¤ce, July 2, 1891, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 336, personnel ¤le Baron Johann Styrcea; undated foreign of¤ce memo [ca. 1908], AdR, NAR, F4, carton 72, personnel ¤le Ernst Janotta. 111. For Economo, see the Quali¤kationstabelle der k. k. Statthalterei Trieste, [ca. 1909], HHStA, AR, F4, carton 80, personnel ¤le Baron Johann Economo. For Festetics, see his Quali¤kationsliste, KA.

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112. Clary’s petition to Francis Joseph, December 18, 1876, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 55, personnel ¤le Count Siegfried Clary. Clary had only spent a couple of semesters listening to lectures on diplomacy at the University of Zürich. Stepski to the foreign of¤ce, September 22, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 330, personnel ¤le Max von Stepski. 113. “Erlass des kais. und kön. Ministeriums des Aeussern vom 13. December 1880, betreffend die Erfordernisse für den Eintritt in den innern oder äussern Conceptsdienst dieses Ministeriums,” HHStA, AR, F6, carton 39, folder Dipl. Prüfung I Diverse. 114. “Memoiren des Kabinettsdirektors Franz Freiherrn Schiessl von Perstorff 1844–1917,” 10, HHStA, Nachlaø Schiessl. Schiessl records that he spent his Konzeptspraxis in the late 1860s assigned to the departments for military affairs and trade policy. 115. Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold, 1:14–15. 116. HHStA, AR, F6, carton 36, folder Diplomatenprüfung 124. 117. Ibid., folder Diplomatenprüfung 123. 118. Evaluation of Alexander von Mocsonyi by Department 6, November 1912, ibid. 119. Evaluation of Ludwig von Boróczy by Department 14, November 1913, folder Diplomatenprüfung 124. 120. Evaluation of Count Olivier Woracziczky by Department 6, November 1912, ibid., folder Diplomatenprüfung 123. 121. Walter H. Perl, ed., Hugo von Hofmannsthal—Leopold von Andrian Briefwechsel (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1968), 143. 122. See, for example, Count Ferdinand Brandis to the foreign of¤ce, July 23, 1902, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 36, personnel ¤le Count Ferdinand Brandis, in which Brandis asks for a break from August through October to study for the November examination. Departments 1 and 6, to which he had been assigned, voiced no objections to his request, which was granted. 123. Perl, Hofmannsthal—Andrian Briefwechsel, 143. 124. For a discussion of Aehrenthal’s reforms, see chapter 5. 125. Rumpler, “Die rechtlich-organisatorischen und sozialen Rahmenbedingungen,” 96. 126. Rudolf Freiherr von Mittag-Lenkheym, Unter zwei Kaisern: Lebenserinnerungen des kaiserlichen und königlichen ausserordentlichen Gesandten und bevollmächtigten Ministers Rudolf Freiherr von Mittag-Lenkheym, ed. William D. Godsey, Jr. (Vienna: Verlag der Mitteilungen des österreichischen Staatsarchivs, forthcoming), 1:91 (pagination of typescript). 127. Arthur Graf Polzer-Hoditz, Kaiser Karl: Aus der Geheimmappe seines Kabinettschefs (Zurich: Amalthea, 1929), 189–90. 128. Czernin memorandum, February 1909, HHStA, Nachlaø Franz Ferdinand, carton 12. Only the previous year, in May 1908, Baron Otto Biegeleben had failed the oral exam, but was given the chance to try again six months later. He passed with a considerably improved performance.

228 • Notes to Pages 55–60 129. The question was actually, “Was ist die Bedeutung der Handelsverträge mit den Balkanstaaten für die Monarchie, besonders mit Rücksicht auf den neuen deutsch-österreich-ungarischen Handelsvertrag?” HHStA, AR, F6, carton 36, folder Diplomatenprüfung 115. 130. Hohenlohe to Berchtold, November 25, 1907, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 134, folder 464/16. Hohenlohe’s comments, indicative as they are of the prevailing attitude toward the exam, deserve to be reproduced in full. Hohenlohe begins by jokingly suggesting that Cziráky could succeed Aehrenthal if the latter were forced out: “Vielleicht wird Cziráky Aehrenthals Nachfolger—ich erhielt heute ein Telegramm von “Laszlo” dass er seine Prüfung absolviert hat. Mir war sehr ängstlich um ihn—denn im Ministerium wurde sehr gejammert—dass er “sehr schwach sei”—ich habe aber Aehrenthal und alles was mir am Ballplatz in den Weg kam ange¶eht ihn durchzulassen und gottlob es ist also dem armen Teufel geglückt. Das schriftliche Thema—das er zu bearbeiten hat—war: “Die Handelsverträge der Monarchie mit den Balkenstaaten mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Ausgleichs”!!! Darüber so ll Cziráky einen Aufsatz schreiben? Gibt es jemanden—der de but en blanc darüber etwas schreiben kann?? Ich bezwei¶e es!” 131. Adolf von Plason, “Ausblick nach einer Reform der diplomatischen Prüfung und der Dienstzweige des Ministeriums,” memorandum from the summer of 1895, HHStA, AR, F6, carton 39, folder Dipl. Prüfung I Diverse. 132. Adolf von Plason, “Einige Bermerkungen über die AufnahmsBedingungen in den diplomatischen Dienst,” undated memorandum [1883?], in ibid. 133. “Erlaø des Ministeriums des Aeuøern vom 6. Juni 1856,” Reichs-GesetzBlatt für das Kaiserthum Oesterreich 25 (1856): 322–24, in ibid. 134. Leitfaden für die Candidaten der Diplomaten-Prüfung (Vienna: Kaiserlichkönigliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1870), 5, in ibid. 135. “Erlass des kais. und kön. Ministeriums des Aeussern vom 13. December 1880, betreffend die Erfordernisse für den Eintritt in den innern oder äussern Conceptsdienst dieses Ministeriums,” in ibid. 136. See, for instance, the exams from 1905 and 1906 in HHStA, AR, F6, carton 35. 137. Ibid., folder Diplomatenprüfung 112. 138. Ibid., folder Diplomatenprüfung 113. 139. Count Markus Wickenburg to Baron Ottokar Schlechta, November 10, 1909, HHStA, AR, F6, carton 36, folder Diplomatenprüfung 119. 140. Schlechta to Wickenburg, November 19, 1909, in ibid. 141. Wickenburg to Schlechta, November 20, 1909, in ibid.

Chapter Three: Wealth and Outside Career Experience 1. Robert Ehrhart, Im Dienste des alten Österreich (Vienna: Bergland, 1958), 18–19. Ehrhart, who served in the domestic bureaucracy, later recalled that he drew

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his ¤rst pay only three years after he began his career. See also Zara Steiner, The Foreign Of¤ce and Foreign Policy, 1898–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 174–75. British attachés received no salary during their ¤rst two years. 2. In 1905, $1.00 = ca. 4.8 Kronen. Applicants therefore needed an independent income of approximately $2,500.00. 3. Festetics to the foreign of¤ce, November 22, 1905, and foreign of¤ce to Festetics, draft letter, November 27(?), 1905, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 89, personnel ¤le Count Georg Festetics. At the age of twenty, Festetics already enjoyed a yearly appanage of 20,000 Kronen. Quali¤kations-Liste Count Georg Festetics, KA. 4. Declaration by Count Stanislaus Wodzicki, October 17, 1912, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 217, personnel ¤le Johann Sigismund von Micha|owski. 5. Declaration by Ludwig von Micha|owski, October 26, 1912, ibid. 6. The father-in-law of another aspiring diplomat, Lothar von Egger, also came to the rescue. Egger’s English father-in-law guaranteed him a yearly income of £500 sterling. AdR, NAR, F4, carton 29, personnel ¤le Lothar von Egger. 7. Magnus Tessner, Der Außenhandel Österreich-Ungarns von 1867 bis 1913, Wirtschafts- und Rechtsgeschichte, ed. F.-W. Henning, vol. 15 (Cologne: Müller Botermann, 1989), 8–9. 8. Rudolf Martin, Jahrbuch des Vermögens und Einkommens der Millionäre in Preußen (Berlin: W. Herlet, 1912), 1–3. 9. David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 91. 10. On the notarized declaration guaranteeing his son 12,000 Kronen per year, Heinrich Janotta signed himself as chairman of the board of the Troppauer Zuckerraf¤nerie Actien Gesellschaft. AdR, NAR, F4, carton 72, personnel ¤le Ernst Janotta. For the elder Janotta, see also Alfred Fessen, “Der österreichische Wirtschaftsadel von 1909–1918” (Ph. D. diss., University of Vienna, 1974), 61–63. 11. Baron Konstantin Gagern (son of the diplomat Baron Maximilian Gagern), interview by the author, fall 1992, Vienna, Austria. Gagern is a ¤rst cousin of Pacher. 12. Lamar Cecil, The German Diplomatic Service, 1871–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 42. 13. Martin, Jahrbuch des Vermögens, 6–7, 220. 14. Ibid., 1. 15. Heinrich Janotta, Baron Johann Economo, Constantin Dumba, Gilbert von Proskowetz, and Artur von Rosthorn. 16. Figures for the holdings of landowners in Upper and Lower Austria and Styria come from Ig[naz] Tittel, Schematismus und Statistik des Grossgrundbesitzes in den Erzherzogtümern Nieder- und Oberösterreich und im Herzogtume Steiermark (Prague: Josef Springer, 1908). 17. Figures for the holdings of landowners in Galicia and Bukovina come from Ignaz Tittel, Schematismus und Statistik des Grossgrundbesitzes im Königreiche Galizien mit Lodomerien und dem Herzogtume Krakau, dann im Herzogtume Bukowina (Prague: Josef Springer, 1913).

230 • Notes to Pages 62–63 18. Alexander Markgraf Pallavicini’sche Fideicommissherrschaft Míndszent und Algnõ (Vienna: Alexander Markgraf Pallavicini, 1897), 1. 19. Figures for the landholdings of Hungarian estate owners come from Gyula Rubinek, Magyarországi Gazdaczímtár: Magyarország, Horvát- és Szlavonországok 100 Kat. Holdon Felüli Birtokosainak és Bérlõinek Czímjegyzéke, az Egyes Megyék Részletes Monogra¤ájával/Schematismus der Grundbesitzer Ungarns. Adressbuch der über 100 Katast.-Joch besitzenden Grundbesitzer und Gutspachter Ungarns, Kroatiens und Slavoniens (Budapest: Verlag des Ungarischen Landes-Agrikulturvereins, 1911). 20. One source lists the diplomat Baron Zoltán Bánffy as a landowner, but does not clarify when and how Bánffy came into possession of the property. See Walter v. Hueck, ed., Genealogisches Handbuch der freiherrlichen Häuser, series B, vol. 6, Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, vol. 62 (Limburg an der Lahn: C. A. Starke, 1976), 32. 21. Heinz Gollwitzer, Die Standesherren: Die politische und gesellschaftliche Stellung der Mediatisierten 1815–1918 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964), 259. 22. Alfons Clary-Aldringen, Geschichten eines alten Österreichers (Frankfurt/M.: Ullstein, 1977), 157. Hannes Stekl and Marija Wakounig, Windisch-Grätz: Ein Fürstenhaus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Vienna: Böhlau, 1992), unfortunately provides little information on the ¤nancial obligations of the head of the house toward the agnates. 23. Fideicommiss-Domäne Pürglitz. Fideicommissbesitzer Seine Durchlaucht Fürst Max Egon zu Fürstenberg (Pürglitz: Die fürstliche Centraldirection, 1884), 12–58. 24. Friedrich Graf Lanjus, Die erbliche Reichsratswürde in Österreich (Schloø Haindorf am Kamp: Friedrich Graf Lanjus, 1939), 149. 25. “Übersichts-Tabelle der 80. Fideikommisse im Königreiche Böhmen nach dem Stande am 31. Dezember 1912,” Schrenck Library (Charlottesville, Va.). 26. Figures for landholdings in Bohemia are drawn from the following two works, Joh. F. Procházka, Topographisch-Statistischer Schematismus des Grossgrundbesitzes im Königreich Böhmen (Prague: Joh. F. Procházka, 1891); and Ignaz Tittel, Schematismus und Statistik des Grossgrundbesitzes und grösserer Rustikalgüter im Königreich Böhmen (Prague: J. Springer, 1906). 27. Hugo Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold: Grandseigneur und Staatsmann, 2 vols. (Graz: Styria), 1:232. 28. For the landholdings of these and other diplomatic families in Moravia and Silesia, see Ignaz Tittel, Statistik und Beamten-Schematismus des Gross-Grundbesitzes in der Markgrafschaft Mähren und im Herzogthume Schlesien (Vienna and Olmütz: Eduard Hölzel, 1885). 29. Victor von Fritsche, Bilder aus dem österreichischen Hof- und Gesellschaftsleben (Vienna: Gerlach & Wiedling, 1914), 85–86. 30. Count Leopold Koziebrodzki, envoy to Morocco and then Portugal had 2,085 acres; Count Thaddäus Koziebrodzki, minister in Stuttgart, 3,274

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acres; and Count Alexander Skrzyñski, legation secretary at the Hague, 2,117 acres. The size of Ladislaus Skrzyñski’s and Alexander Lago’s properties has eluded discovery. 31. For Khevenhüller’s rank in the Order of Malta, see Ruolo Generale del Sov. Mil. Ordine di S. Giovanni di Gerusalemme detto di Malta (Rome: Tipogra¤a Poliglotta, 1905), 23, 100, 110. 32. The ¤gure for Styrcea’s estates in Rumania comes from Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch der freiherrlichen Häuser 1913 (Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1912), 950. 33. Information on landowning in Carinthia and Carniola is drawn from Schematismus des landtä¶ichen und Grossgrund-Besitzes von Kärnten und Krain (Vienna: Leopold Weiss, 1902). Additionally, Duglas Thurn’s wife owned an estate called Schrems, in Lower Austria, that totaled 4,415 acres. 34. For the Esterházys in the nineteenth century, see Richard Perger, Das Palais Esterházy in der Wallnerstraße zu Wien (Vienna: Deuticke, 1994), 72–75. 35. Zsolt Harsányi, “A Hungarian Magnate,” The Hungarian Quarterly 5 (spring 1939): 94–96. Francis Joseph raised Tassilo Festetics to the rank of prince in 1911. 36. This percentage might increase somewhat were the sizes of the estates of the eight other diplomats or their fathers known. Some, like Ludwig von Velics and Otto von Hoenning-O’Carroll, most likely owned only small properties. 37. Berchtold’s wife’s estates were located in Bekes and Csongrád counties. 38. Emerich Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten: Erinnerungen des k. und k. Diplomaten und k. ungarischen Außenministers Emerich Csáky (1882–1961) (Vienna: Böhlau, 1992), 53. 39. See the listing for the diplomats stationed at the Austro-Hungarian embassy at the Court of St. James in 1913 in Hof- und Staats-Handbuch der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie für das Jahr 1913 (Vienna: k. k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1913), 282. 40. Dr. v. Hof¤nger, Das fürstliche und grä¶iche Haus Dietrichstein (Vienna: Carl Gerold’s Sohn, 1866), 48–49. 41. Fritsche, Bilder aus dem österreichischen Hof- und Gesellschaftsleben, 152. 42. Bayerischer Landwirtschaftsrat, Handbuch des größeren Grundbesitzes in Bayern (Munich: Verlag des Bayerischen Landwirtschaftsrates, 1907), 468. 43. Hof- und Staats-Handbuch 1913, 281–84. The monarchy maintained embassies in the United States, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, the Holy See, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Spain. The ¤gure rises to 73 percent if the mission in Great Britain is included in the calculation. 44. Creditanstalt-Bankverein, ed., Ein Jahrhundert Creditanstalt-Bankverein (Vienna, 1957), 83. 45. Hof- und Staats-Handbuch 1913, 572, 1254. 46. See the papers relating to Mérey’s income from this source in HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 3. 47. Josef Pollatschek, “Die Pekuniär¤deikommisse,” typescript, Schrenck Library (Charlottesville, Va.).

232 • Notes to Pages 67–70 48. Lemberg Filiale der Credit-Anstalt für Handel und Gewerbe to the foreign of¤ce, [ca. 1901], HHStA, AR, F4, carton 185, personnel ¤le Baron Alexander Lago. 49. Baron Eduard Lago to the foreign of¤ce, [ca. 1901], ibid. For the income provided by the liquid assets of another diplomat, Baron Johann Dumreicher, see Schoeller & Co. to the foreign of¤ce, August 10, 1912, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 78, personnel ¤le Baron Johann Dumreicher. Through his mother, Adele von Schoeller, Dumreicher belonged to the famous Viennese industrial family of the same name. 50. Count Miklos Szécsen (grandson of the ambassador), interview by the author, November 24, 1992, Vienna, Austria. 51. Mensdorff to the foreign of¤ce, March 30, 1905, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 212, personnel ¤le Count Albert Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein. 52. Foreign of¤ce to Mensdorff, draft letter, May 12, 1905, ibid. 53. Rudolf Agstner, “Das Hôtel Matignon als k. u. k. Botschaft in Paris 1889–1914,” Mitteilungen des österreichischen Staatsarchivs 41 (1990): 240–42. 54. Ibid., 236. For details of Khevenhüller’s “seignorial” style of entertainment, see Rudolf Freiherr von Mittag-Lenkheym, Unter zwei Kaisern: Lebenserinnerungen des kaiserlichen und königlichen ausserordentlichen Gesandten und bevollmächtigten Ministers Rudolf Freiherr von Mittag-Lenkheym, ed. William D. Godsey, Jr. (Vienna: Verlag der Mitteilungen des österreichischen Staatsarchivs, forthcoming), 1:138–40 (pagination of typescript). 55. Czernin to Cajetan von Mérey, August 19, 1900, and July 18, 1901, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. Cf. Count Ferdinand Colloredo-Mannsfeld to Mérey, December 1, 1911, ibid., carton 1. 56. Baron Ottokar Schlechta to Baron Guido Call, April 29, 1908, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 457, folder Revirement 136. When petitioning for admission to the corps, Strassoldo had provided proof of a minimum independent income of 12,000 Kronen per year. See his application for admission dated October 21, 1905, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 334, personnel ¤le Count Leopold Strassoldo. 57. Agstner, “Das Hôtel Matignon,” 234. 58. Baron Franz Riedl to Cajetan von Mérey, January 22, 1907; Mérey to Riedl, draft letter, February 6, 1907, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 286, personnel ¤le Baron Franz Riedl. 59. Pereira to Baron Marius Pasetti, December 29, 1894, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 252, personnel ¤le Baron Alfons Pereira-Arnstein. With the ¤nancial dif¤culties of his family’s banking house in Paris, Pereira’s woes continued after his arrival in northern Africa. See Pereira to Go|uchowski, March 31, 1896, ibid. 60. Wydenbruck to Baron Ladislaus Müller, February 3, 1911, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 386, personnel ¤le Count Christoph Wydenbruck. 61. For Buenos Aires, see foreign of¤ce to Baron Otto Hoenning-O’Carroll, May 28, 1912, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 136, personnel ¤le Baron Otto HoenningO’Carroll. For a very detailed description of conditions in Santiago, see Baron

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Johann Styrcea to foreign of¤ce (with enclosure), June 6, 1910, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 336, personnel ¤le Baron Johann Styrcea. 62. This ¤gure includes landowning mothers of central of¤ce functionaries. 63. Tittel, Schematismus des Grossgrundbesitzes in Nieder- und Oberösterreich und Steiermark, 49, 118. 64. Other Hungarian landowners included Baron Dionys Tallián, who directed Department 9b, with 348 Joch in Somogy county, and Béla von Glacz, with 354 Joch in Csanád county. 65. Tittel, Schematismus des Grossgrundbesitzes in Nieder- und Oberösterreich und Steiermark, 331. 66. The professions of slightly more than three-quarters (79 out of 103) of the fathers of central of¤ce functionaries are known. The ¤gure 79 forms the basis of the percentages presented here. 67. See Trettina’s application for admission, ca. 1894, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 358, personnel ¤le Árpád von Trettina. For relatives of Suchanek and Jettel, see the Partezettel-Sammlung of the Adler Genealogische Gesellschaft, Vienna. 68. For a discussion of provisional service in a government of¤ce apart from the foreign ministry, which became a requirement for entering diplomats under Aehrenthal, see chapter 5. 69. For the practice in Prussia, see Lamar Cecil, The German Diplomatic Service (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 104–46. For the relationship between the military and diplomacy at the bureaucratic level, see William D. Godsey, Jr., “Of¤cers vs. Diplomats: Bureaucracy and Foreign Policy in AustriaHungary 1906–1914,” Mitteilungen des österreichischen Staatsarchivs 46 (1998): 43–66. 70. Giesl hints in his memoirs that his transfer from the army to the diplomatic corps was promoted by Archduke Francis Ferdinand, who had taken an interest in his career and who was also known to favor the use of military men in the foreign service. For examples of the archduke’s favor toward Giesl, see Baron Wladimir Giesl, Zwei Jahrzehnte im nahen Orient: Aufzeichnungen des Generals der Kavallerie Baron Wladimir Giesl, ed. Ritter v. Steinitz (Berlin: Verlag für Kulturpolitik, 1927), 210, 235. 71. In an audience with Francis Joseph on March 14, 1914, Berchtold raised the question of Hohenlohe replacing Szõgyény in Berlin. See Berchtold’s unpublished memoirs, vol. 8, 213, HHStA, Nachlaø Berchtold, carton 2. 72. Count Johann Pallavicini to Count Nikolaus Szécsen, April 25, 1901, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 185, personnel ¤le Baron Alexander Lago. 73. Paul von Burchardt-Bélaváry to the foreign of¤ce, March 18, 1903, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 43, personnel ¤le Paul von Burchardt-Bélaváry. 74. Burchardt to the foreign of¤ce, February 14, 1905, ibid. 75. A partial list of the provisional attachés from the 1870s whose personnel ¤les have been preserved reads like a directory of the high nobility: Count Robert Althann, Count Nikolaus Esterházy, Prince Franz Liechtenstein, Prince Gustav

234 • Notes to Pages 75–77 Batthyány, Count Edmund Batthyány, Baron Otto Brusselle, Count Franz Colloredo, Alexander von Halpert, Baron Helfried Kaiserstein, Count Wilhelm Kaunitz, Count Zdenko Kinsky, Count Richard Nugent, Count Alexander Pallavicini, Prince Paul Sapieha, Stephan von Szirmay, Count Otto Traun, and Count Oswald Thun. See HHStA, AR, F6, carton 44, for the personnel ¤les of these men. 76. A provisional attaché should be distinguished from a candidate for admission scheduled to take the diplomatic examination and posted abroad for a period. As in the cases of Burchardt and Lago, it occasionally happened that a provisional attaché later elected to enter the corps permanently by taking the exam. For examples of the decrees appointing provisional attachés in the Dualist era, see Vortrag Go|uchowski to Francis Joseph, March 31, 1903, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 43, personnel ¤le Paul von Burchardt-Bélaváry; Vortrag Andrássy to Francis Joseph, February 2, 1873, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 55, personnel ¤le Count Siegfried Clary; and Vortrag Go|uchowski to Francis Joseph, January 13, 1899, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 306, personnel ¤le Count Erwin Schönborn-Buchheim. The wording of these decrees scarcely changed over the decades, and always included the following passage: “The appointment to the position of provisional attaché gives its holder no claim on regular employment in the diplomatic service.” 77. See p. 50–51 above. 78. Vortrag Andrássy to Francis Joseph, January 10, 1877, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 55, personnel ¤le Count Siegfried Clary. 79. Count Georg Hoyos to Foreign Minister Go|uchowski, September 9, 1900, HHStA, AR , F4, carton 141, personnel ¤le Count Alexander Hoyos. 80. For a more complete discussion of that issue, see chapter 5. 81. Vortrag Aehrenthal to Francis Joseph, March 21, 1911, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 458, folder Revirement 198. 82. Joseph M. Baernreither, Fragments of a Political Diary, ed. Joseph Redlich (London: Macmillan, 1930), 70. 83. Erwin Matsch, Der auswärtige Dienst von Österreich(-Ungarn) 1720–1920 (Vienna: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1986), 237. 84. See, for instance, Section Chief Count Nikolaus Szécsen to Aehrenthal, November 19, 1898, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 4, on the attempt of one consul to transfer to the diplomatic corps. See also Cajetan von Mérey to Baron Carl Macchio, November 21, 1900, HHStA, Nachlaø Macchio, carton 1, in which the former relates Szécsen’s opposition in another such case. 85. Call to Baron Otto Kuhn, draft letter, October 31, 1907, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 154, personnel ¤le Nikolaus von Jurystowski. 86. See Storck’s personnel ¤le, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 333, as well as his correspondence with Section Chief Cajetan von Mérey, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. 87. Kuczyñski to Count Carl Za|uski, October 25, 1878, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 180, personnel ¤le Eugen von Kuczyñski. 88. See the personnel ¤les of Pottere and Firmian, HHStA, AR, F4, cartons 269 and 91.

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89. Baron Carl Macchio to the foreign of¤ce, July 30, 1900; and foreign of¤ce to Macchio, draft letter, August 14, 1900, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 333, personnel ¤le Wilhelm von Storck. 90. Thurn to Go|uchowski, February 21, 1906, ibid. 91. Hammerstein to Mérey, February 20, 1902, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 2. Weinzetl ¤nally achieved his goal after serving in the translation bureau in Constantinople. 92. Szécsen to Aehrenthal, March 10, 1907, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 4. 93. Count Albert Mensdorff to the foreign of¤ce, September 25, 1899, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 333, personnel ¤le Wilhelm von Storck. 94. Storck to Mérey, September 4, 1903, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. 95. Béla Szentirmay to Mérey, September 22, 1902, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. 96. Count Otto Brandis to Mérey, February 5, 1898, ibid., carton 1. 97. Baron Ladislaus Hengelmüller to Ladislaus von Müller, November 9, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 198, personnel ¤le Heinrich von Löwenthal. 98. Count Duglas Thurn to Go|uchowski, February 21, 1906, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 333, personnel ¤le Wilhelm von Storck. 99. Storck to Mérey, April 1, 1903, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. 100. Vortrag Berchtold to Francis Joseph, April 27, 1913, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 458, folder Revirement 259. 101. Vortrag Go|uchowski to Francis Joseph, December 23, 1905, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 417, folder Revirement 87. This document merely refers to the reorganization of the Dragomanat twelve years earlier without giving a complete description of its provisions. 102. See, for example, foreign of¤ce to Baron Heinrich Calice, February 9, 1881, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 46, personnel ¤le Baron Guido Call, af¤rming Call’s diplomatic status as a Dragomanatsattaché. 103. Vortrag Kálnoky to Francis Joseph, March 1, 1884, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 228, personnel ¤le Baron Ladislaus Müller; Vortrag Kálnoky to Francis Joseph, November 17, 1891, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 182, personnel ¤le Baron Otto Kuhn; Baron Heinrich Calice to Count Heinrich Lützow, January 16, 1903, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 242, personnel ¤le Eduard Otto. 104. Baron Heinrich Calice to the foreign of¤ce, March 8, 1889, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 228, personnel ¤le Baron Ladislaus Müller. 105. Baron Guido Call to Baron Heinrich Calice, February 5, 1884, ibid. 106. Baron Heinrich Calice to Go|uchowski, January 16, 1903, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 242, personnel ¤le Eduard Otto. See especially the memorandum enclosed with this letter. 107. Baron Carl Macchio to Mérey, March 30, 1898, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. 108. See the extensive correspondence and memoranda related to this question in Otto’s personnel ¤le, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 242.

236 • Notes to Pages 80–83 109. For Weinzetl’s facility with languages, see Giesl, Zwei Jahrzehnte im nahen Orient, 315. 110. See, for instance, Vortrag Go|uchowski to Francis Joseph, April 1, 1902, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 242, personnel ¤le Eduard Otto. 111. See the acrimonious exchange between Calice and the foreign of¤ce over Eduard Otto’s transfer into the diplomatic service in Otto’s personnel ¤le, ibid. 112. F. R. Bridge, From Sadowa to Sarajevo: The Foreign Policy of AustriaHungary, 1866–1914 (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), 367. 113. Baron Leopold Andrian-Werburg to Count Alexander Hoyos (?), November 4, 1913, HHStA, PA I, carton 645, Kabinett des Ministers, folder IX/b 41–116. 114. Andrian to an unidenti¤ed Ballhausplatz of¤cial, undated (ca. February 1911), HHStA, AR, F4, carton 10, personnel ¤le Baron Leopold Andrian-Werburg. 115. The military attaché in St. Petersburg described Ugron’s position in Warsaw thus: “Given the importance of his responsibilities and his representative position in Warsaw, Herr von Ugron in fact discharged the duties of a minister plenipotentiary.” Count Lelio Spannocchi, “Aus dem Tagebuch eines österreichisch-ungarischen Militär-Attachés,” 64, in KA, Nachlaø Lelio Graf Spannocchi, B/760:7. 116. Vortrag Aehrenthal to Francis Joseph, November 22, 1908, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 457, folder Revirement 147. 117. See Jettel’s undated memorandum (ca. 1910), HHStA, AR, F4, carton 151, personnel ¤le Emil von Jettel. Jettel, however, had only the Titel und Charakter eines Sektions-Chefs. 118. Count Rudolf Khevenhüller-Metsch to Aehrenthal, November 16, 1906, HHStA, PA I, carton 645, Kabinett des Ministers, folder IX/b 41–116, fol. 417. 119. Foreign of¤ce to Montlong, draft letter, December 17, 1902; and, on Montlong’s ¤nancial situation, see Count Viktor Crenneville to the foreign of¤ce, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 224, personnel ¤le Oskar von Montlong. For another example of a Ballhausplatz of¤cial seeking an assignment abroad, this time in Cetinje, see Alexander von Günther to personnel chief Wilhelm von Mittag, March 29, 1897, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 118, personnel ¤le Alexander von Günther. 120. Count Gilbert Hohenwart to Go|uchowski, October 5, 1904, HHStA, PA I, carton 642, Kabinett des Ministers, folder IX-a, fols. 131–32. 121. Other of¤cials from the central of¤ce who used the title of section chief, like Emil von Jettel and Johann von Mihalovich, actually possessed only the “title and character of a section chief ” (Titel und Charakter eines Sektionschefs). 122. For introductory remarks on this topic, see Ludwig Bittner, “Das österreichisch-ungarische Ministerium des Äuøern, seine Geschichte und seine Organisation,” Berliner Monatshefte 15 (1937): 834. 123. Matsch, Der auswärtige Dienst, 97.

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124. Vortrag Aehrenthal to Francis Joseph, November 18, 1908, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 207, personnel ¤le Baron Carl Macchio. 125. Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz: Erinnerungen eines österreich-ungarischen Diplomaten (Munich: Verlag für Kulturpolitik, 1924), 145. 126. Rumpler, “Die organisatorischen und sozialen Rahmenbedingungen für die Aussenpolitik der Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918,” in Die Habsburgermonarchie im System der internationalen Beziehungen, vol. 6/1 of Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, ed. Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1989), 76.

Chapter Four: Religion and Marriage 1. “Erlass des kais. und kön. Ministeriums des Aeussern vom 13. December 1880 betreffend die Erfordernisse für den Eintritt in den innern oder äussern Conceptsdienst dieses Ministeriums,” HHStA, AR, F6, carton 39; “Verordnung des k. und k. Ministeriums des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern vom 18. Mai 1909, Z. 47.784/2, betreffend die Erfordernisse für den Eintritt in den Konzeptsdienst dieses Ministeriums oder in den diplomatischen Dienst,” in Jahrbuch des k. und k. auswärtigen Dienstes (Vienna, 1912), 433–36; “Verordnung des k. und k. Ministeriums des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern vom 20. Jänner 1914, Z. 10/2, betreffend die Erfordernisse für den Eintritt in den Konzeptsdienst dieses Ministeriums oder in den diplomatischen Dienst,” in Jahrbuch des k. und k. auswärtigen Dienstes (Vienna, 1915), 449–52. 2. Rudolf Sieghart, Die letzten Jahrzehnte einer Grossmacht: Menschen, Völker, Probleme des Habsburger-Reiches (Berlin: Ullstein, 1932), 229. 3. The ¤gure includes Greek Catholics, or Uniates, as well. Figures for the religious af¤liations of the inhabitants of Cisleithania are drawn from “Tabelle 5: Die Konfessionelle Gliederung der Nationalitäten in Cisleithanien 1900 und 1910,” in Die Völker des Reiches, vol. 3/1 of Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, ed. Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch (Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1980), 54–55. 4. On this question, see William D. Godsey, Jr., “The Nobility, Jewish Assimilation, and the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Service in the Late Imperial Era,” Austrian History Yearbook 27 (1996): 155–80. 5. Elvira Konecny, Die Familie Dumba und ihre Bedeutung für Wien und Österreich, Dissertationen der Universität Wien, vol. 179 (Vienna: VWGÖ, 1986), 1. For the Economos, see Mihail-Dimitri Sturdza, Dictionnaire historique et généalogique des grandes familles de Grèce d’Albanie et de Constantinople (Paris, chez l’auteur, 1983), 181. 6. Figures for religious af¤liations of the general population in Transleithania are drawn from László Katus, “Die Magyaren,” in Die Völker des Reiches, vol. 3/1 of Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, ed. Adam Wandruszka and Peter

238 • Notes to Pages 87–91 Urbanitsch (Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1980), 441. 7. Oscar Jászi, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy (Phoenix Books, 1966), 161–62. 8. Gabor Vermes, István Tisza: The Liberal Vision and Conservative Statecraft of a Magyar Nationalist, East European Monographs, no. 184 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 18. 9. The other Hungarian members of the Reformed Church were the emissary to Serbia, Stephan von Ugron; the attachés Georg von Barzca and Georg von Ottlik; and the envoy in Athens, Julius von Szilassy. 10. Godsey, “The Nobility, Jewish Assimilation, and the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Service,” 176–77. 11. For a list of of¤cials with diplomatic rank in November 1918, see Ludwig Freiherr von Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz: Erinnerungen Ludwigs Freiherrn von Flotow des letzten Chefs des österreichisch-ungarischen auswärtigen Dienstes, ed. Erwin Matsch (Vienna: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1982), 360–61. 12. See Weil’s application for admission to the foreign of¤ce, dated April 29, 1886, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 373, personnel ¤le Otto von Weil. 13. S. Wininger, Große Jüdische National-Biographie (Czernowitz, 1925–1936), 6:225. 14. Weil, together with his parents and sister, converted from Judaism in 1900. They followed Weil’s younger brother, Leopold Felix von Weil, who had converted in 1893 and later also achieved high bureaucratic rank. Matriken der Israelitischen Kultusgemeinde, Vienna. 15. Foreign of¤ce to Prince Konrad Hohenlohe, draft letter, January 29, 1916, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 280, personnel ¤le Alfred Rappaport. 16. Eugen Rappaport (Alfred’s father) to the foreign of¤ce, ca. 1886, HHStA, Konsular Akademie, carton 11, folder 1886, no. 90. 17. For Ippen, see Anneliese Wernicke, Theodor Anton Ippen: Ein österreichischer Diplomat und Albanienforscher, Albanische Forschungen, vol. 7, ed. Georg Stadtmüller (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1967), 11. 18. Count August Demblin to an unidenti¤ed of¤cial in the foreign of¤ce [probably Section Chief Müller], May 26, 1911, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 68, personnel ¤le Count August Demlin. 19. Princess Sophie Schönburg-Hartenstein, “Erinnerungen der Prinzessin Sophie zu Schönburg-Hartenstein, geb. Prinzessin Oettingen-Wallerstein. Geboren 4. Oktober 1878, gestorben bei dem Fliegerangriff auf Wien am 10. September 1944,” typescript (photocopy), 96. 20. Koziebrodzki to Berchtold, November 18, 1913, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 135, folder 464/19, fols. 3–6. 21. Friedrich von Schmidlin (justice minister of Württemberg) to Carl von Weizsäcker (minister-president of Württemberg), December 2 and December 11, 1913, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, Bestand Q 1/8 (Nachlaø Carl von Weizsäcker), Bü 125.

Notes to Pages 91–93

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22. Jens Rieckmann, “Leopold von Andrian,” in Major Figures of Turn-ofthe-Century Austrian Literature, ed. Donald G. Daviau (Riverside, Calif.: Ariadne, 1991), 39–41. 23. Walter H. Perl, ed., Hugo von Hofmannsthal—Leopold von Andrian Briefwechsel (Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer, 1968), 70. 24. Whether the foreign of¤ce knew about Andrian’s orientation is a matter of some interest. In the spring of 1913, the monarchy’s intelligence service discovered that the Russians had been blackmailing a homosexual General-Staff of¤cer, Colonel Alfred Redl, into handing over sensitive military material, including mobilization plans (for the Redl case, see Harold B. Segel, ed., Egon Erwin Kisch, The Raging Reporter: A Bio-Anthology [West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1997], 16–17, 162–203). Had tsarist of¤cials known of Andrian’s homosexuality, he certainly would have been, in the high-pro¤le consulate general in Warsaw, a prime target. No evidence has emerged that such occurred. 25. Hohenlohe to Berchtold, November 25, 1907, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 134, folder 464/16, fols. 50–52. For an uncorroborated assertion of Berchtold’s homosexual tendencies by a Viennese journalist, see Harry Graf Kessler, Tagebücher 1918–1937, ed. Wolfgang Pfeiffer-Belli, Insel Taschenbuch 659 (Frankfurt a.M.: Insel, 1982), 764–65. 26. Béla von Rakovszky to Baron Maximilian Gagern, August 10, 1905, HHStA, PA I, Karton 644, Kabinett des Ministers, folder IX/b-39, fol. 1030. 27. For the extensive correspondence relative to this matter, see Eisenstein’s personnel ¤le, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 81. 28. Hohenwart to Aehrenthal, March 24, 1907, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 72, personnel ¤le Count Constantin Deym. 29. Baron Karl Heidler to Go|uchowski, November 15, 1904, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 97, personnel ¤le Otto Franz. 30. Count Ladislaus Szõgyény to the foreign of¤ce, March 20, 1912, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 334, personnel ¤le Count Leopold Strassoldo. 31. Vortrag Kálnoky to Francis Joseph, May 29, 1892, AdR, NAR, F4, carton 45, personnel ¤le Baron Maximilian Gagern. 32. Baron Karl Heidler to Aehrenthal, April 30, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 104, personnel ¤le Baron Felix Gerliczy. 33. Vortrag Aehrenthal to Francis Joseph, February 20, 1911, AdR, NAR, F4, carton 165, personnel ¤le Baron Friedrich Johann Seidler. 34. Vortrag Haymerle to Francis Joseph, October 25, 1880, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 83, personnel ¤le Albert von Eperjesy. 35. Countess Athenais Schönborn-Wiesentheid married Count Otto Brandis, whose last post was minister to the Netherlands and Luxemburg. Princess Sophie Oettingen-Wallerstein wed Prince Johann Schönburg-Hartenstein, ambassador to the Holy See, while the ambassador in Madrid, Count Christoph Wydenbruck, was married to Countess Marie Fugger-Babenhausen. Baron Karl Heidler, minister in Switzerland, married Countess Sophie Waldburg-ZeilWurzach.

240 • Notes to Pages 93–96 36. Lamar Cecil, The German Diplomatic Service, 1871–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 88–89. 37. Heidler to Kálnoky, February 23, 1891, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 128, personnel ¤le Baron Karl Heidler. See also F. R. Bridge, From Sadowa to Sarajevo: The Foreign Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1866–1914 (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), 125, for Kálnoky as a “severe judge of a diplomat’s wife.” 38. Vortrag Kálnoky to Francis Joseph, May 11, 1887, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 363, personnel ¤le Ludwig von Velics. 39. Heinrich Graf von Lützow, Im diplomatischen Dienst der k. u. k. Monarchie, ed. Peter Hohenbalken (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1971), 83. 40. Friedrich Ernst Hübsch and Emil Hübsch, Sternkreuz-Orden (Vienna, 1915), ix. 41. Rudolf Freiherr von Mittag-Lenkheym, Unter zwei Kaisern: Lebenserinnerungen des kaiserlichen und königlichen ausserordentlichen Gesandten und bevollmächtigten Ministers Rudolf Freiherr von Mittag-Lenkheym, ed. William D. Godsey, Jr. (Vienna: Verlag der Mitteilungen des österreichischen Staatsarchivs, forthcoming), 1:165 (pagination of typescript). 42. Anweisung über die Legung der Ahnenprobe bei dem hochadeligen Sternkreuz-Orden (n.p.: n.p., n.d.), 4–5. 43. Besides Hengelmüller and Löwenthal, the others included Baron Moritz Czikann, envoy in Serbia (1905–7) and married to Countess Ilma Zichy; Baron Karl Heidler, minister in Switzerland (1903–9) and married to Countess Sophie Waldburg-Zeil-Wurzach; and Baron Otto Kuhn, envoy in Portugal (1909– 16) and married to Countess Anna Ráday. 44. Pálffy to Go|uchowski, February 8, 1897, HHStA, PA I, carton 643, Kabinett des Ministers, folder IX/b-6. 45. Baron Heinrich Calice to Count Rudolf Welsersheimb, March 2, 1897, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 243, personnel ¤le Count Moritz Pálffy, fols. 55–56. 46. Hohenlohe, who had served for ¤ve years as military attaché in St. Petersburg, had transferred de¤nitively into the diplomatic corps only in 1907. For that move, see Vortrag Aehrenthal to Francis Joseph, April 24, 1907, HHStA, AR, F4 carton 139, personnel ¤le Prince Gottfried Hohenlohe, fols. 154–56. 47. Prince Karl Emil Fürstenberg to Berchtold, February 2, 1908, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 134, folder 464/12, fols. 46–52. 48. Brigitte Hamann, “Die Familie Habsburg unter Kaiser Franz Joseph,” in Das Zeitalter Kaiser Franz Josephs, part 1: Von der Revolution zur Gründerzeit (Vienna, 1984), 33. 49. Prince Karl Emil Fürstenberg to Berchtold, February 2, 1908, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 134, folder 464/12, fols. 46–52. 50. Hohenlohe to Berchtold, February 21, 1908, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 134, folder 464/16, fols. 68–71. Vortrag Aehrenthal to Francis Joseph, March 13, 1908; and Aehrenthal to Szõgyény, draft letter, February 22, 1908, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 139, personnel ¤le Prince Gottfried Hohenlohe.

Notes to Pages 96–98 •

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51. Prince Franz Liechtenstein to Berchtold, February 6, 1908, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 135, folder 464/21, fols. 5–6. 52. Foreign of¤ce to the legation in Brussels, August 21, 1914, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 139, personnel ¤le Prince Gottfried Hohenlohe. 53. See Maureen E. Montgomery, Gilded Prostitution: Status, Money and Transatlantic Marriages, 1870–1914 (New York and London: Routledge, 1989). 54. Count Heinrich Lützow to Aehrenthal, April 12, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 56, personnel ¤le Count Ferdinand Colloredo-Mannsfeld. 55. Silvia Stiedl, “Emmerich von P¶ügl (1873–1956): Leben und Werk eines österreichischen Diplomaten” (Ph.D. diss., University of Vienna, 1988), 157–58. 56. Copy of a letter from Heidler to his lawyer, Hermann von Hampe, March 11, 1908, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 128, personnel ¤le Baron Karl Heidler. 57. Szilassy to Berchtold, December 10, 1913, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 135, folder 464/34, fols. 29–30. Another diplomat, Count Alexander Festetics, appears to have contracted a marriage with an unsuitable woman, by whom he had a child. The union is mentioned in only one issue of the Gotha and appears to have been suppressed thereafter. Whether the marriage ended with the death of the woman or, more likely, in divorce, is not known. See Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch der grä¶ichen Häuser 1910 (Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1909), 285. 58. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 159–62. The ironies and absurdities of nationalist passion are perhaps nowhere more evident than in the Dumba affair. Dumba himself was not an ethnic German, but came from a family of merchants of Macedonian-Greek origin that settled in the monarchy only in the nineteenth century. The Russian legation secretary’s estranged wife, who had been born a Baroness Lieven, belonged to an old family of the Baltic nobility of German stock. Dumba therefore doubtlessly possessed more Slavic blood than the woman whose Slavic “purity” he was accused of besmirching. 59. Vortrag Go|uchowski to Francis Joseph, June 27, 1905, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 78, personnel ¤le Constantin Dumba. 60. Emerich Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten: Erinnerungen des k. und k. Diplomaten und k. ungarischen Außenministers Emerich Csáky (1882–1961), ed. Eva-Marie Csáky (Vienna: Böhlau, 1992), 138–39. 61. On this point, see Heinrich Wildner, Die Technik der Diplomatie (Vienna: Springer, 1959), 161–63. 62. Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 1:94. 63. Velics to the foreign of¤ce, November 1, 1913, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 334, personnel ¤le Count Leopold Strassoldo. 64. Gerd Kaminski and Else Unterrieder, Wäre ich Chinese, so wäre ich Boxer: Das Leben an der k. und k. Gesandtschaft in Peking in Tagebüchern, Briefen und Dokumenten, Berichte des Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institutes für China- und Südostasienforschung, no. 28 (Vienna and Zurich: Europaverlag, 1989), 75. 65. Wildner, Die Technik der Diplomatie, 57.

242 • Notes to Pages 98–103 66. Schönburg, “Erinnerungen,” 112. 67. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 65. 68. Sir George Franckenstein, Facts and Features of My Life (London: Cassell and Co., Ltd., 1939), 26. 69. Perl, Hofmannsthal—Andrian Briefwechsel, 172. 70. Baron Carl Macchio to Cajetan von Mérey, July 21, 1902, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. 71. Berchtold memoirs, 1:55–56, HHStA, Nachlaø Berchtold, carton 1. 72. Hammerstein to Cajetan von Mérey, November 19, 1904, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 2. 73. Lützow, Im diplomatischen Dienst, 29. 74. Tarnowski to Cajetan von Mérey, August 20, 1905, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 2. 75. Foreign of¤ce to Count Armin Wass (consul in Smyrna), draft telegram, June 6, 1899, AdR, NAR, F4, carton 124, personnel ¤le Franz Peter. 76. Wildner, Die Technik der Diplomatie, 56.

Chapter Five: Diplomacy in a New Age 1. Robert Gildea, Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800–1914, The Short Oxford History of the Modern World, ed. J. M. Roberts (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 148. 2. Georges Dethan, “France: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs since the Nineteenth Century,” in The Times Survey of Foreign Ministries of the World, ed. Zara Steiner (London: Times Books, 1982), 209; M. B. Hayne, The French Foreign Of¤ce and the Origins of the First World War 1898–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), chapter 7. 3. Zara Steiner, The Foreign Of¤ce and Foreign Policy, 1898–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 167–71. 4. Ibid., 168. The leading authority on the German diplomatic service argues that the Wilhelmstraøe was as antiquated in its methods and personnel as Steiner suggests Whitehall was. See Lamar Cecil, The German Diplomatic Service, 1871–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), esp. chapter 10. He mentions nothing about any reform program. 5. Colonel Julius Vidalé to General Baron Franz Conrad, April 6, 1913, KA, Nachlaø Conrad, B/1450: 83. 6. Hugo Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold: Grandseigneur und Staatsmann (Graz: Styria, 1963), 1:29. “Beim Studium der Memoiren Berchtolds, fällt besonders auf, daø mit keinem Wort der inneren Entwicklung Frankreichs und Englands Erwähnung getan wird. Das soziale, wirtschaftliche, kulturelle Leben, das gerade damals so entscheidende Wandlungen durchmachte und einem regen und aufgeschlossenen Geist doch sicher viel zu denken gegeben hätte, scheint Berchtold nicht besonders interessiert zu haben. Die Welt, in der er sich fast ausschlieølich bewegte,

Notes to Pages 104–6

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die vornehme, sich abschlieøende Welt der adeligen Gesellschaft, nahm seine freie Zeit völlig in Anspruch. Auch die später einsetzenden Tagebücher verraten selten etwas von tieferer Beschäftigung mit diesen Problemen.” Also see the remarks in Freiherr von Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz: Erinnerungen eines österreich-ungarischen Diplomaten (Munich: Verlag für Kulturpolitik, 1924), 44–45. 7. Solomon Wank, “A Case of Aristocratic Antisemitism in Austria: Count Aehrenthal and the Jews, 1878–1907,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook (London: Secker & Warburg, 1985), 446–53. 8. Baernreither to Aehrenthal, June 27, 1903, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 1. 9. For an example of one that did, see Ladislaus von Szõgyény-Marich (ambassador in Berlin) to Aehrenthal, September 17, 1904, in Solomon Wank, ed., Aus dem Nachlaß Aehrenthal: Briefe und Dokumente zur österreich-ungarischen Innenund Außenpolitik 1885–1912, Quellen zur Geschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. Fritz Fellner, vol. 6 (Graz: Wolfgang Neugebauer, 1994), no. 250. 10. Handels- und Gewerbekammer in Reichenberg to the foreign of¤ce (with enclosed “Bericht des II. Comités betreffend die Reform des Consularwesens”), February 21, 1898, HHStA, AR, F8, carton 402. The report contains a summary of various proposals for consular reform by the business community dating back to 1862. Some of the recommendations in the report regarding the training of future consuls were adopted the same year in a reform of the monarchy’s famous Oriental Academy (Consular Academy), which trained future members of the consular service. For this reform, see Die k. und k. Konsular-Akademie von 1754 bis 1904: Festschrift zur Feier des hundertfünfzigjährigen Bestandes der Akademie und der Eröffnung ihres neuen Gebäudes (Vienna: Verlag des k.u.k. Ministeriums des kaiserlichen und königlichen Hauses und des äussern, 1904). 11. Handels- und Gewerbekammer für Niederösterreich to Aehrenthal, April 30, 1908; and Österreichisch-Ungarischer Export-Verein to Section Chief Baron Guido Call, March 11, 1908, HHStA, AR, F8, carton 393, fols. 479–80, 509–14. 12. “Exposé des Ministers des Äuøern Freiherrn v. Aehrenthal, Sitzung des Budgetausschusses der Delegation des Reichsrates am 4. Dezember 1906,” Stenographisches Sitzungs-Protokolle der Delegation des Reichsrates, 41. Session (II. Abschnitt) Budapest 1906/1907 (Vienna: k.k. Hof- u. Staatsdruckerei, 1907), 3. 13. Ibid. 14. “Exposé des Ministers des Äuøern Freiherrn v. Aehrenthal, Sitzung des Ausschusses für auswärtige Angelegenheiten der Delegation des ungarischen Reichstages am 27. Jänner 1908,” Stenographische Sitzungs-Protokolle der Delegation des Reichsrates, 42. Session, Wien 1907/1908 (Vienna: k.k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1908), 5–6. 15. For the program for economic expansion in the Balkans put forward by Section Chief Joseph Schwegel in the later 1870s, see Emil Palotás, “Die aussenwirtschaftlichen Beziehungen zum Balkan und zu Russland,” in Die Habsburgermonarchie im System der internationalen Beziehungen, vol. 6/1 of Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, ed. Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch, 600–609.

244 • Notes to Pages 106–10 16. W. M. Carlgren, Iswolsky und Aehrenthal vor der bosnischen Annexionskrise: Russische und österreichisch-ungarische Balkanpolitik 1906–1908 (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1955), 115–16; F. R. Bridge, From Sadowa to Sarajevo: The Foreign Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1866–1914 (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan, 1972), 297. 17. For Ballhausplatz efforts in that regard before Aehrenthal, see Michael Behnen, “Der österreichische informelle Imperialismus in Montenegro und Albanien 1904–1908,” chap. 4 of Rüstung—Bündnis—Sicherheit: Dreibund und informeller Imperialismus 1900–1908, Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, vol. 60 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1985), 405–19. 18. Ibid., 419–24. 19. For the Andrássy trade policy section, see Kanzlei-Verordnung, July 14, 1876, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 412, folder Handelspolitische Section, fols. 6–12. 20. Kanzlei-Verordnung, December 31, 1900, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 450, folder Kanzlei-Verordnungen, fols. 57–58. 21. Kanzlei-Verordnung, April 18, 1906, HHStA, carton 451, folder KanzleiVerordnungen 141–300. Mihalovich remained a ministerial counselor and enjoyed only the title of a section chief. At this time, only three actual positions of section chief were systematized for the foreign of¤ce. 22. For the Beust initiative, see Erwin Matsch, Der auswärtige Dienst von Österreich(-Ungarn) 1720–1920 (Vienna: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1986), 99. 23. Kanzlei-Verordnung, April 25, 1907, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 451, folder Kanzlei-Verordnungen 141–300. The initials “H.P.” stand for the German abbreviation of the term Handelspolitik (trade policy). 24. Berchtold to Count István Tisza, draft letter, January 27, 1914, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 152, personnel ¤le Simon Joannovics. 25. Behnen, “Der österreichische informelle Imperialismus,” 419–30. 26. Ibid., 430–33. 27. Carlgren, Iswolsky und Aehrenthal, 115–24. For Aehrenthal’s unsuccessful meeting with the banker Karl Morawitz on funding for the Sanjak Railway project, see Felix Somary, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben, 4th ed. (Zürich: Manesse, 1959), 67–71. After the meeting, Morawitz told an associate, “Von Finanzen verstehen unsere Herren Aristokraten eben nichts.” 28. Kanzlei-Verordnung, May 26, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 451, folder Kanzlei-Verordnungen 301–400, fols. 464–70. 29. For suggestive remarks on this issue, see Behnen, “Der österreichische informelle Imperialismus,” 411. 30. For the recruitment of Mihalovich to the Ballhausplatz, see Vortrag Kálnoky to Francis Joseph, November 21, 1892, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 218, personnel ¤le Johann von Mihalovich. 31. Professor Dr. Hanns Jäger-Sunstenau to the author, March 17, 1994, typescript letter. 32. Kanzlei-Verordnung, May 29, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 289, personnel ¤le Mauriz von Roeøler.

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33. Erwin Matsch, Der auswärtige Dienst von Österreich(-Ungarn) 1720–1920 (Vienna: Böhlau, 1986), 100. 34. See Plason’s numerous memoranda addressed to Foreign Ministers Kálnoky and Go|uchowski, calling for various reforms at the Ballhausplatz, HHStA, AR, F6, carton 39. 35. Adolf von Plason, “Ausblick nach einer Reform der diplomatischen Prüfung und der Dienstzweige des Ministeriums,” dated summer 1895, in ibid. 36. Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold, 1:11–12; Alfons Clary-Aldringen, Geschichten eines alten Österreichers (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1977), 157–58. 37. Rudolf Sieghart, Die letzten Jahrzehnte einer Grossmacht: Menschen, Völker, Probleme des Habsburger-Reiches (Berlin: Ullstein, 1932), 257–58. This pattern held true for aspiring noble diplomats as well, at least in Cisleithania. In Hungary, candidates for the Ballhausplatz could be found in numerous ministries in Budapest. 38. Emerich Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten: Erinnerungen des k. und k. Diplomaten und k. ungarischen Außenministers Emerich Csáky (1882–1961), ed. Eva-Marie Csáky (Vienna: Böhlau, 1992), 73–74. 39. For the new directive, see the “Verordnung des k. und k. Ministeriums des k.u.k. Hauses und des Äuøern vom 20. Jänner 1914, Z. 10/2, betreffend die Erfordernisse für den Eintritt in den Konzeptsdienst dieses Ministeriums oder in den diplomatischen Dienst,” in Jahrbuch des k. und k. auswärtigen Dienstes (Vienna, 1915), 451. For the members of the 1914 commission, see HHStA, AR, F6, carton 36, folder Diplomaten-Prüfung 124. 40. For the preparatory course for the diplomatic examination, see below p. 113. 41. For the instructors of the preparatory course in 1911, see the Hof- und Staats-Handbuch der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie für das Jahr 1911 (Vienna: k.k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1911), 272. 42. Thallóczy to Baron Ottokar Schlechta, October 24, 1913, HHStA, AR, F6, carton 36, folder Diplomatenprüfung 124. Performances on the essays presaged the results of the diplomatic examination several weeks later. Count Alexander Festetics submitted the best paper, and then received the highest marks on the examination, while Thallóczy labeled Count Johann Ferdinand Kuefstein’s paper “useless.” Kuefstein failed the exam. 43. For the results of the 1909–10 preparatory course, see Anton von Winter (director of the Consular Academy) to Aehrenthal, October 31, 1910, HHStA, AR, F6, carton 36, folder Diplomaten-Prüfung 120. Winter evaluated the performances of the candidates as follows: Vorzüglich geeignet (eminently quali¤ed): Baron Heinrich Sommaruga and Baron Eduard Klezl; Sehr gut (very well quali¤ed): Baron Johann Economo and Eugen von Marsovszky; Gut geeignet (well-quali¤ed): Count Franz Dubsky and Baron Friedrich Schlosser; Geeignet (quali¤ed): Baron Zoltán Bánffy and Alfred von Nickl. Winter declined to evaluate the performance of one candidate who had been absent so often that no adequate appraisal of his capabilities could be rendered.

246 • Notes to Pages 114–16 44. Applicants to the ministerial branch were not required to do the English sections of the exam. 45. “Verordnung des k. und k. Ministeriums des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern vom 18. Mai 1909, Z. 47.784/2 betreffend die Erfordernisse für den Eintritt in den Konzeptsdienst dieses Ministeriums oder in den diplomatischen Dienst,” in Jahrbuch des k. und k. auswärtigen Dienstes (Vienna, 1912), 434. 46. See the memorandum dated November 14, 1910, by Otto von Weil commenting on the ¤rst year’s results of the new examination in HHStA, AR, F6, carton 36, folder Diplomatenprüfung 120. 47. Foreign of¤ce to the candidates for the diplomatic examination (Count Alexander Festetics, Béla von Glacz, Georg von Ottlik, Stephan von Betegh, Johann von Wettstein, Baron Johann Georg Dumreicher, Ludwig von Boróczy, Erich von Gradl, and Count Johann Ferdinand Kuefstein), draft letter, October 27, 1913, HHStA, AR, F6, carton 36, folder Diplomatenprüfung 124. 48. Memorandum by Otto von Weil, November 14, 1910; and memorandum by Adalbert von Fuchs, November 16, 1910, HHStA, AR, F6, carton 36, folder Diplomatenprüfung 120. 49. “Verordnung des k. und k. Ministeriums des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern vom 18. Mai 1909,” 434. The wording reads, “Es bleibt dem Ministerium vorbehalten, zu entscheiden, welche Kandidaten zu der erwähnten Aufnahmsprüfung zugelassen werden, wobei dasselbe in Betracht ziehen wird, ob bei dem Bewerber jene persönlichen Vorbedingungen erfüllt sind, welche für den Ministerial- beziehungsweise diplomatischen Dienst gefordert werden müssen.” 50. The eight were Count Franz Dubsky, Count Paul Thun-Hohenstein, Count Franz Vetter, Prince Johann Lobkowitz, Count Olivier Woracziczky, Count Karl Almeida, Count Alexander Festetics, and Baron Zoltán Bánffy. For the attachés in 1900, see Hof- und Staats-Handbuch der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie für 1900 (Vienna: Verlag der k.k. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1900), 229–32. 51. Protokoll, November 13, 1913, HHStA, AR, F6, carton 36, folder Diplomatenprüfung 124. 52. HHStA, AR, F6, carton 36, folder Diplomatenprüfung 123. See also Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 64. 53. Lamar Cecil, The German Diplomatic Service, 325. The Wilhelmstraøe abolished the income requirement in May 1908, though Cecil believes it continued to be applied covertly. 54. Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., rejects the traditional depiction of Berchtold as an ineffectual fop who was “more interested in racing and art than diplomacy.” See his Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War (Houndmills and London: Macmillan, 1992), 43–44. 55. “Die Clique” and “Unser diplomatisches Korps,” Die Zeit, November 13, 1913. 56. Heinrich Pfusterschmidt-Hardtenstein, “Von der Orientalischen Akademie zur k.u.k. Konsularakademie: Eine maria-theresianische Institution und ihre Bedeutung für den auswärtigen Dienst der österreichisch-ungarischen

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Monarchie,” in Die Habsburgermonarchie im System der internationalen Beziehungen, vol. 6/1 of Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, 146–47. 57. For statistics on the monarchy’s foreign trade, see Magnus Tessner, Der Außenhandel Österreich-Ungarns von 1867 bis 1913, Wirtschafts- und Rechtsgeschichte, ed. F.-W. Henning, vol. 15 (Cologne: Müller Botermann, 1989), 65–97. 58. Vortrag Aehrenthal to Francis Joseph, July 14, 1909, HHStA, AR, F8, carton 406, folder Kommerz Direktoren. 59. “Erlaø des k. und k. Ministers des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern an die k. und k. Botschaft in Paris,” July 14, 1909, ibid. 60. Draft statement for the delegations, ca. October 1910, ibid. 61. Franckenstein to the foreign of¤ce, September 1, 1913, AdR, NAR, F4, carton 40, personnel ¤le Baron Georg Franckenstein, fols. 809–10. 62. Franckenstein to the k.k. Handelsministerium (Austrian commerce ministry), September 2, 1913, in ibid., fols. 812–13. 63. Memorandum by Theodor Ippen, September 6, 1913, in ibid., fols. 807–8. 64. “Personal-Stand der Konzepts-Departements des k. und k. Ministeriums des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern,” January 21, 1914, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 456, folder Referats- und Geschäftseinteilung, fol. 120. 65. “Personal-Stand der Konzepts-Departements des k. und k. Ministeriums des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern,” May 10, 1912, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 451, folder Kanzlei-Verordnungen 301–400, fols. 458–59. 66. Of the seven men who served as commercial director between 1909 and 1914, six came from the consular service. Baron Georg Franckenstein was the only representative of the diplomatic corps among the group. Beyond a vague reference to Aehrenthal’s interest in his gaining “experience in the spheres of trade and ¤nance,” his memoirs reveal none of the rationale behind his unusual assignment. Sir George Franckenstein, Facts and Features of My Life (London: Cassel and Co., Ltd., 1939), 141. See also Fritz Fellner, ed., Schicksalsjahre Österreichs 1908–1919: Das politische Tagebuch Josef Redlichs, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Neuere Geschichte Österreichs, no. 39 (Graz: Böhlau, 1953), 1:97. 67. Alois Dandini came from an old family of Italian origin whose title, however, had not been recognized by the Habsburg court as equivalent to that of Graf. Dandini is thus listed in the foreign of¤ce yearbook as “Alois conte Dandini de Sylva.” His social position did not correspond to the high nobility. 68. Berchtold to Eduard Otto (envoy in Montenegro), draft telegram, May 16, 1914, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 269, personnel ¤le Georg de Pottere. This connection seems to have been through Pottere’s mother, Anna Constantinovits de Germán. 69. Österreichisch-Ungarischer Export-Verein to Section Chief Baron Guido Call, March 11, 1908; Handels- und Gewerbekammer für das Erzherzogtum Österreich unter der Enns to Aehrenthal, April 30, 1908, both in HHStA, AR, F8, carton 393, fols. 479–80, 509–14. 70. Wiener Sonn- und Montags-Zeitung, October 24, 1910, 1–2; Sigismund Gargas, Zur Reform des österreichisch-ungarischen Konsularwesens (Vienna: Huber &

248 • Notes to Pages 119–20 Lahme, 1910), provides a good summary of the various reform proposals advanced by the business community. The Wiener Sonn- und Montags-Zeitung, founded by the journalist and industrialist Alexander Scharf (1834–1904), specialized in the coverage of economic and commercial news. 71. “Exposé des Ministers des Äuøern Freiherrn v. Aehrenthal,” in Stenographische Sitzungs-Protokolle der Delegation des Reichsrates, 42. Session, Vienna, 1907/ 1908, 5–6. 72. Several titles were considered by the foreign of¤ce for this new position, including “commercial secretary” (commerzieller Sekretär), “commercial of¤cial” (commerzieller Beamte), and “commercial attaché” (Handels-Attaché), all of which were later discarded in favor of “trade of¤cial” (Handelsfachbeamter). 73. Foreign of¤ce to the Austrian and Hungarian minister-presidents, draft letter, July 19, 1909, HHStA, AR, F8, carton 393, fols. 447–53; “Protokoll der am 23. und 24. September 1909 im k. und k. Ministerium des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern abgehaltenen Sitzungen der Zoll- und Handels-Konferenz, betreffend die Reform der Konsular-Berichterstattung, Einschränkung der konsularischen Kreditauskunftserteilung, Änderung der Jahresberichts-Vorlagstermine und Einführung eines Telegraphen-Code bei den Konsularämtern,” HHStA, AR, F34, carton 76. 74. Hungarian commerce ministry to the foreign of¤ce, (German translation of original), April 28, 1911, HHStA, AR, F8, carton 393, fol. 311. 75. Foreign of¤ce to the Austrian and Hungarian minister-presidents, draft letter, December 12, 1911, in ibid., fol. 275. 76. “Memorandum betreffend die Stellungnahme des Ministeriums des Äuøern zu den mit der Note des kgl. ung. Ministerpräsidiums vom 17. November 1909 Z. 5471/M.E. geäuøerten Wünschen betreffend die geplante Creirung “Commercielle Beiräthe” und “Commercielle Beamten” bei den k.u.k. Consularämtern,” in ibid., fol. 413. 77. “Protokoll der am 23. und 24. September 1909 im k. und k. Ministerium des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern abgehaltenen Sitzungen der Zoll- und Handels-Konferenz, ” HHStA, AR, F34, carton 76. The conference was chaired by Section Chief Mauriz von Roeøler of the foreign of¤ce. 78. Foreign of¤ce to the Hungarian commerce ministry, draft letter, July 11, 1911, HHStA, AR, F8, carton 393, fol. 306. 79. Österreichisch-ungarischer Export-Verein to Section Chief Baron Guido Call, March 11, 1908, in ibid., fols. 509–14. 80. The post established in Berlin gave way within a few months to one instead in Hamburg. Foreign of¤ce to the Austrian and Hungarian minister-presidents, draft letter, March 7, 1914, HHStA, AR, F8, carton 392. 81. Hungarian commerce ministry to the foreign of¤ce (German translation of the original), April 28, 1911, in ibid., carton 393, fols. 310–13. 82. Hungarian minister-president to the foreign of¤ce (German translation of the original), June 16, 1914, in ibid., carton 392. For the British commercial attachés, see Steiner, The Foreign Of¤ce, 168–70, 184.

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83. The three Cisleithanian candidates were Maximilian Mösslacher (Paris), Albrecht Tetzner (Moscow), and Johann Prokopec (Bucharest). Those from Hungary were Alexander Balázs (Belgrade), Sigismund Illés (Constantinople), and Géza Lukács (Berlin). Foreign of¤ce to the Austrian and Hungarian minister-presidents, draft letter, December 12, 1911, in ibid., carton 393. In early 1914, the Hungarian Martin Atlász replaced his countryman Géza Lukács. Simultaneously, the consulate in Hamburg instead of that in Berlin became the seat of business for the new trade of¤cial in Germany. 84. Count Karl Stürgkh (Austrian minister-president) to Berchtold, February 18, 1912, in ibid., fol. 227. Aehrenthal had died the previous day. See the “Instruktion über die Verwendung der Konsularhandelsfachbeamten während der Dauer ihrer Dienstleistung bei der Kammer,” in ibid., fols. 194–96. 85. Sigismund Illés, “Bericht über meine Tätigkeit bei der n.-ö. Handelsund Gewerbekammer in Wien vom 3. bis 30. April 1912,” in ibid., carton 392. 86. Foreign of¤ce to the consulates in Bucharest, Paris, and Moscow, draft letter, July 22, 1912, in ibid., carton 393, fol. 25. 87. “Instruktion für die Handels-Fachbeamten bei den k. und k. Konsularämtern,” in ibid., fol. 33. 88. Princig to the foreign of¤ce, March 25, 1918, in ibid., carton 392. 89. Matsch, Der auswärtige Dienst von Österreich(-Ungarn), 100. 90. See the remarks on this point by Heinrich Kanner, Kaiserliche Katastrophenpolitik (Leipzig: E. P. Tal, 1922), 89. 91. “Personal-Stand der Konzepts-Departements des k. und k. Ministeriums des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern,” January 21, 1914, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 456, folder Referats- und Geschäftseinteilung. 92. Clary-Aldringen, Geschichten eines alten Österreichers, 138–44. 93. Peter Broucek, ed., Ein General im Zwielicht: Die Erinnerungen Edmund Glaises von Horstenau, vol. 1: K.u.k. Generalstabsof¤zier und Historiker, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Neuere Geschichte Österreichs, vol. 67 (Vienna: Böhlau, 1980), 451.

Chapter Six : Ethnicity and the Ausgleich 1. Samuel R. Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War (Houndmills and London: Macmillan, 1991), 39; Helmut Rumpler, “The Foreign Ministry of Austria and Austria-Hungary 1848 to 1918,” in The Times Survey of Foreign Ministries of the World, ed. Zara Steiner (London: Times Books, 1982), 54–55. 2. F. R. Bridge, From Sadowa to Sarajevo: The Foreign Policy of AustriaHungary, 1866–1914 (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), 16. For a similar evaluation, see Friedrich Engel-Janosi, “Der ‘Ballhausplatz’ 1848–1918,” chap. in Geschichte auf dem Ballhausplatz: Essays zur österreichischen Außenpolitik 1830–1945 (Graz: Styria, 1963), 18–19.

250 • Notes to Pages 125–28 3. For a discussion of the foreign-policy perspectives of the various nationalities in Cisleithania, see Thomas Kletecka, “Aussenpolitische Vorstellungen von Parteien und Gruppen in Cisleithanien,” in Die Habsburgermonarchie im System der internationalen Beziehungen, vol. 6/1 of Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, ed. Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch (Vienna: Verlag der österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1989), 399–458. 4. See István Di—szegi, Hungarians in the Ballhausplatz: Studies on the Austro-Hungarian Common Foreign Policy (Budapest: Corvina Kiadó, 1983), 191–92. 5. For one of the more vehemently expressed examples of this charge by a contemporary, see the Czernin Memorandum, February 1909, HHStA, Nachlaø Franz Ferdinand, carton 12. 6. Hugo Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold: Grandseigneur und Staatsmann (Graz: Styria, 1963), 2:472–73, 486. 7. Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War, 40; James A. Treichel, “Magyars at the Ballplatz: A Study of the Hungarians in the Austro-Hungarian Diplomatic Service 1906–1914” (Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University, 1971), 309–10; Helmut Rumpler, “Die rechtlich-organisatorischen und sozialen Rahmenbedingungen für die Aussenpolitik der Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918,” in Die Habsburgermonarchie im System der internationalen Beziehungen, vol. 6/1 of Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, ed. Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch, 111–12. The late Professor John Leslie related to the author that his effort to detect national bias in the reports and memoranda of Ballhausplatz of¤cials yielded no consistent evidence of such. For a summary of the provisions of the Hungarian version of the Ausgleich as it related to foreign policy, see Sked, The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 240–41. 8. István Diószegi believes that the Hungarian minister-presidents exercised signi¤cant in¶uence on the course of the monarchy’s foreign policy for only the ¤rst couple of decades after the Compromise. Thereafter, “the Hungarians gave up the idea of reshaping the monarchy’s foreign policy along nationalistic lines and accepted the course that had been set . . . in Vienna.” Diószegi admits, however, that for part of the later period at least, “of¤cial foreign policy and the Hungarian views agreed in the basic questions and the former found support from the latter.” Diószegi, Hungarians in the Ballhausplatz, 309–10. For the case of István Tisza, see Gabor Vermes, István Tisza: The Liberal Vision and Conservative Statecraft of a Magyar Nationalist, East European Monographs, no. 184 (New York: East European Monographs, 1985). Vermes agrees with Diószegi in arguing that the Hungarians had taken little interest in the monarchy’s international affairs before the Annexation crisis. That accounted for Tisza’s lack of political realism in his efforts in 1913 to intervene in this area. 9. C. A. Macartney, The House of Austria: The Later Phase 1790–1918 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1978), 90. The ministry a latere was the Hungarian ministry attached to the person of the monach. 10. Arthur J. May, The Hapsburg Monarchy 1867–1914 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951), 70–71.

Notes to Pages 128–31 •

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11. One by-product of the Dualist system was that the inhabitants of the two halves of the monarchy received separate citizenship. In other words, Francis Joseph’s subjects became citizens of either Austria or Hungary, but not of Austria-Hungary. 12. May, The Hapsburg Monarchy, 351–58. 13. Diószegi, Hungarians in the Ballhausplatz, 284. 14. “Verzeichnis der Beamten der Central-Leitung und des Archives ungarischer Staatsangehörigkeit,” 1900, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 460, folder Staatsbürgerschaft. 15. May, The Hapsburg Monarchy, 349. 16. Helmut Rumpler, “Die rechtlich-organisatorischen und sozialen Rahmenbedingungen,” 72–75. 17. Ludwig Freiherr von Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz: Erinnerungen Ludwigs Freiherrn von Flotow des letzten Chefs des österreichischen-ungarischen auswärtigen Dienstes 1895–1920, ed. Erwin Matsch (Vienna: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1982), 62. 18. For lists of these of¤cials, albeit with no reference to their citizenship, see Erwin Matsch, Der auswärtige Dienst von Österreich(-Ungarn) 1720–1920 (Vienna: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1986), 95–96. The other second section chiefs from Hungary included Count Adalbert Cziráky (1894–95), Count Friedrich Szápáry (1912–13), Count Johann Forgách (1913–17), and Count Ludwig Széchényi (1918). 19. Treichel, “Magyars at the Ballplatz,” 97–98. 20. Berthold Molden, Alois Graf Aehrenthal: Sechs Jahre äußere Politik Österreich-Ungarns (Stuttgart and Berlin: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1917), 133. 21. Kanzleiverordnung, November 9, 1907, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 451, folder Kanzlei-Verordnungen 141–300. “Ich ¤nde mich bestimmt, anzuordnen, daø sämtliche Geschäftsstücke der politischen Referate und Departements, welche in irgend einer Richtung auf die politischen Verhältnisse der Länder der ungarischen Krone Bezug haben, ante expeditionem Seiner Exzellenz dem Sektionschef Paul Grafen Esterházy zur Kenntnis zu bringen sind.” 22. Prince Karl Emil Fürstenberg to Berchtold, July 14, 1907, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 134, folder 464/12. Fürstenberg accurately summed up Esterházy’s position thus: “Er ist Aehrenthalischer bevollmächtigter Botschafter ungarischer Nationalität bei den Ungarn, mit dem Sitze in Wien!” See also Prince Johann Schönburg-Hartenstein to Aehrenthal, March 20, 1907, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 3. Schönburg, at that time envoy in Bucharest, relates that Count Julius Andrássy the younger had expressed to him his pleasure at Esterházy’s appointment. 23. In 1902, the forty-seven year old Aehrenthal, at that time still unmarried and ambassador in St. Petersburg, wed Countess Pauline Széchényi, the daughter of a prominent Hungarian cabinet minister and member of one of Hungary’s greatest clans of magnates. It is dif¤cult to believe that Aehrenthal’s thinking in concluding the match was not governed by a wish for close ties with the Hungarian establishment to lessen possible opposition to his succession at the foreign of¤ce and to smooth his path once he did inherit Go|uchowski’s mantle.

252 • Notes to Pages 132–35 24. Vortrag Berchtold to Francis Joseph, March 30, 1912, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 458, folder Revirement 222. 25. Count István Tisza to Berchtold, March 15, 1914, HHStA, Nachlaø Berchtold, carton 4. 26. Kanzleiverordnung, December 2, 1913, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 452, unnamed folder, fol. 58. 27. Kanzleiverordnung, April 22, 1912, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 451, folder Kanzlei-Verordnungen 301–400. 28. Kanzleiverordnung, January 4, 1914, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 452, unnamed folder, fol. 53. 29. For a good introductory discussion of leading personalities on the Ballhausplatz in the years prior to the war, see John Leslie, “Österreich-Ungarn vor dem Kriegsausbruch: Der Ballhausplatz in Wien im Juli 1914 aus der Sicht eines österreichisch-ungarischen Diplomaten,” in Deutschland und Europa in der Neuzeit: Festschrift für Karl Otmar Frhr. v. Aretin zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Ralph Melville, Claus Scharf, Martin Vogt, and Ulrich Wengenroth (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1988). 30. Matsch, Der auswärtige Dienst von Österreich(-Ungarn), 97. 31. Kanzleiverordnung, December 15, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 451, folder Kanzlei-Verordnungen 301–400. 32. Vortrag Kálnoky to Francis Joseph, November 21, 1892, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 218, personnel ¤le Johann von Mihalovich. In addition to describing Mihalovich as a well-quali¤ed specialist, Kálnoky wrote that his transfer would bring a “desirable increase in the Hungarian element” in the foreign ministry. 33. Kanzleiverordnung, December 31, 1900, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 218, personnel ¤le Johann von Mihalovich. 34. Kanzleiverordnung, April 18, 1906, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 451, folder Kanzlei-Verordnungen 141–300. 35. Kanzleiverordnung, April 1, 1912, in ibid. 36. Matsch, Der auswärtige Dienst von Österreich(-Ungarn), 100. 37. Zirkular [to the missions abroad], October 25, 1913, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 452, unnamed folder, fol. 74. 38. “Personal-Stand der Konzepts-Departements des k. und k. Ministeriums des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern,” (1908) HHStA, AR, F4, carton 451, folder Kanzlei-Verordnungen 141–300. 39. See Tallián’s correspondence between 1886 and 1910 with Cajetan Mérey, in which many questions of domestic politics in Hungary are broached. HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 2. 40. “Personal-Stand der Konzepts-Departements des k. und k. Ministeriums des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern (1. Juni 1909),” HHStA, AR, F4, carton 451, Kanzlei-Verordnungen 301–400. 41. See the “Personal-Stand der Konzepts-Departements des k. und k. Ministeriums des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern,” for November 10, 1911 and December 23, 1913, in ibid. For early 1914, see the “Personal-Stand der KonzeptsDepartements des k. und k. Ministeriums des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern,”

Notes to Pages 135–39

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[1914], HHStA, AR, F4, carton 456, folder Referats- u. Geschäftseinteilung, fols. 120–21. 42. Kanzleiverordnung, June 24, 1912, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 451, folder Kanzlei-Verordnungen 301–400. 43. Emil Palotás, “Die aussenwirtschaftlichen Beziehungen zum Balkan und zu Russland,” in Die Habsburgermonarchie im System der internationalen Beziehungen, vol. 6/1 of Die Habsburgermonarchie 1848–1918, ed. Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch, 600–601. 44. Ibid., 609–19. 45. Bridge, From Sadowa to Sarajevo, 277–78. 46. No evidence has emerged so far to indicate that Budapest insisted that the economic section be dominated by Hungarians. But explaining the high number of Hungarians there would be dif¤cult without reference to the nationalist pressures emanating from across the Leitha. 47. Quali¤kations-Liste Johann v. Mihalovich, KA. Zoltán v. Barcsay-Amant, ed., Adeliges Jahrbuch 35, n.s., 5 (Luzern, 1957), 189–91. 48. For a short description of Hungary’s primary agricultural regions, see May, The Hapsburg Monarchy, 238–39. 49. Treichel, “Magyars at the Ballplatz,” 70. 50. Julius von Steiger (father) to the foreign of¤ce, circa 1888, HHStA, Konsular Akademie, carton 11, folder 1888, no. 47. 51. Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold, 1:185–86; Bridge, From Sadowa to Sarajevo, 341. 52. Jezerniczky was the son of a Protestant landowner in Veszprém. See his marriage certi¤cate in his personnel ¤le, AdR, NAR, F4, carton 69; and the Quali¤kationsliste Johann von Jezerniczky, KA. 53. “Personal-Stand der Konzepts-Departements des k. und k. Ministeriums des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern,” November 10, 1911, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 451, folder Kanzlei-Verordnungen 301–400. 54. “Personal-Stand der Konzepts-Departements des k. und k. Ministeriums des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern,” May 10, 1912, in ibid. 55. Kanzleiverordnung, November 12, 1913, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 452, unnamed folder, fol. 71. Felméri, the son of a university professor, was a native of Klausenburg (Kolozsvár) in Transylvania and a member of the Reformed Church. He completed his university studies, leading to a doctorate in law, at Klausenburg and Berlin, and had served in the joint ¤nance ministry, in the administration of Brassó county in eastern Transylvania, and the Hungarian agriculture ministry before taking up his post in the foreign of¤ce. In 1912–13, he had been assigned abroad to the agriculture ministry’s technical agent (Fachberichterstatter) for southern Germany and Switzerland. See Felméri’s Quali¤kations-Liste, KA. 56. “Personal-Stand der Konzepts-Departements des k. und k. Ministeriums des k. und k. Hauses und des Äuøern,” [ca. January 1914], HHStA, AR, F4, carton 456, folder Referats- und Geschäftseinteilung.

254 • Notes to Pages 139–41 57. Berchtold to the Hungarian agriculture minister, draft letter, Oktober 11, 1913, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 88, personnel ¤le Ludwig von Felméri. 58. Diószegi, Magyars in the Ballhausplatz, 277. 59. Alexander von Brosch to Francis Ferdinand, September 11, 1907, HHStA, Nachlaø Franz Ferdinand, carton 10. Brosch, the head of the archduke’s military chancellery, relates information he gleaned at the Ballhausplatz on a report drawn up by Consul General Otto von Hoenning-O’Carroll (who later transferred to the diplomatic corps) about the use of Hungarian in the service. 60. Diószegi, Hungarians in the Ballhausplatz, 283. 61. Kurrende, May 29, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 451, folder KanzleiVerordnungen 301–400. 62. Kanzleiverordnung, September 15, 1908, ibid., folder Kanzlei-Verordnungen 141–300; Kanzleiverordnung, April 1, 1912, in ibid., folder Kanzlei-Verordnungen 301–400. 63. Count Ottokar Czernin to Francis Ferdinand, memorandum from February 1909, HHStA, Nachlaø Franz Ferdinand, carton 12. 64. The ambassadors with Hungarian citizenship included Baron Ladislaus Hengelmüller in Washington (1903), Ladislaus von Szõgyény in Berlin (1892), Adalbert von Ambró in Tokyo (1907), Count Nikolaus Szécsen at the Holy See (1901), Count Johann Pallavicini in Constantinople (1906), and Count Leopold Berchtold (1906). 65. Ernst U. Cormons [Emanuel Urbas], Schicksale und Schatten: Eine österreichische Autobiographie (Salzburg: Otto Müller, 1951), 78. 66. In early 1914, the following Hungarian citizens headed legations: Baron Otto Hoenning-O’Carroll in Argentina (1911); Ludwig von Velics in Bavaria (1907); Count Laurenz Szápáry in Chile (1912); Franz Kolossa in Brazil (1912); Count Dionys Széchényi in Denmark (1908), Julius von Szilassy in Greece (1913); Koloman von Kánia in Mexico (1913); Count Maximilian Hadik in Sweden (1912); and Rudolf von Wodianer in Siam (1912). 67. Treichel, “Magyars at the Ballplatz,” 101–3. 68. For details of the crisis, which also brought down Foreign Minister Kálnoky, see Alois Hudal, Die österreichische Vatikanbotschaft 1806–1918 (Munich: Pohl & Co., 1952), 243–44; Friedrich Engel-Janosi, Österreich und der Vatikan 1846–1918 (Graz: Verlag Styria, 1960), 1:285–94 69. Engel-Janosi, Österreich und der Vatikan, 1:302. 70. Treichel, “Magyars at the Ballplatz,” 102–3. Berchtold once refused the offer of the ambassadorship at the Holy See, which he believed to be a thankless job, caught between the con¶icting demands of the clergy and Archduke Francis Ferdinand on one hand, and on the other, the Hungarian government. Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold, 1:214–15. 71. Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War, 168; Gary W. Shanafelt, “Activism and Inertia: Ottokar Czernin’s Mission to Romania, 1913–1916,” Austrian History Yearbook 19–20, no. 1 (1983–84): 194. 72. Berchtold memoirs, 8:59–60, HHStA, Nachlaø Berchtold, carton 2.

Notes to Pages 142–43

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73. Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., “In¶uence, Power, and the Policy Process: The Case of Franz Ferdinand, 1906–1914,” The Historical Journal 17 (1974): 432. 74. For Apponyi’s and Andrássy’s speeches opposing Czernin’s appointment, see “Sammlung von Zeitungsausschnitten der Plenar Sitzungen der ung. Delegation und des auswärtigen Ausschusses der ung. Delegation,” November 21, 1913, HHStA, Delegationen des österreichischen Reichsrates und des ungarischen Reichstages, vol. 84. 75. Ottokar Czernin, Im Weltkriege, 2nd ed. (Berlin and Vienna: Ullstein & Co., 1919), 103–5. 76. One authority has suggested that, as a rule, “the agreement of the Hungarian minister-president was a sine qua non for nomination to the envoyship in Bucharest.” He does not indicate, however, when this became the case. See Robert Kann, “Rat und Ein¶uss: Die Beziehungen zwischen dem Thronfolger und Graf Ottokar Czernin,” in Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand Studien, Veröffentlichungen des österreichischen Ost- und Südosteuropa-Instituts, ed. Richard Georg Plaschka and Karlheinz Mack, vol. 10 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1976), 171. 77. “Sammlung von Zeitungsausschnitten der Plenar Sitzungen der ung. Delegation und des auswärtigen Ausschuøes der ung. Delegation,” November 21, 1913, HHStA, Delegationen des österreichischen Reichsrates und des ungarischen Reichstages, vol. 84. 78. Thurn to Aehrenthal, November 15, 1906, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 4. 79. Thurn to Aehrenthal, February 28, 1907, in ibid. See also Ambassador Lützow’s remarks on his relationship with the Hungarians in Heinrich Graf von Lützow, Im diplomatischen Dienst der k. u. k. Monarchie, ed. Peter Hohenbalken (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1971), 102–3. 80. One anonymous source claims that Szápáry’s abilities did not match the high demands of the St. Petersburg ambassadorship and that he had received the post thanks only to his excellent connections. However, Szápáry’s fellow diplomats, including Aehrenthal, who had appointed him Chef des Kabinetts, and Berchtold, who made him a section chief, regarded him as highly gifted. For the unfavorable appraisal, see [Anonymous], Kaiser Franz Joseph I. und sein Hof: Erinnerungen und Schilderungen aus den nachgelassenen Papieren eines persönlichen Ratgebers, ed. Josef Schneider (Vienna and Hamburg: Paul Zsolnay, 1984), 187. 81. Count Josef Walterskirchen, “Persönlichkeiten des Ballplatzes,” HHStA, Nachlaø Berchtold, carton 4. In this unpublished piece, Walterskirchen, who had worked in the minister’s secretariat (Kabinett des Ministers), provides short sketches of several leading personalities in the foreign of¤ce. 82. Apart from Berchtold, other leading candidates to succeed Aehrenthal in 1912 were Szécsen and Pallavicini. See Solomon Wank, “The Appointment of Count Berchtold as Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister,” Journal of Central European Affairs 23 (July 1963): 143–51. When Berchtold offered to resign his of¤ce during the Second Balkan War, he proposed Széscen, Mérey, and Baron Stephan Burián, the joint ¤nance minister, to Francis Joseph as possible successors. See

256 • Notes to Pages 143–46 Berchtold’s unpublished memoirs, HHStA, Nachlaø Berchtold, carton 1, 3:8, and 7:536. For Pallavicini, see Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 113. 83. Cormons [Urbas], Schicksale und Schatten, 69–70. 84. Ludwig von Velics to the foreign of¤ce, November 15, 1912, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 41, personnel ¤le Count Felix Brusselle-Schaubeck. 85. Count Rudolf Khevenhüller-Metsch to Cajetan von Mérey, November 3, 1906, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. 86. Khevenhüller to Mérey, December 29, 1906, in ibid. 87. Braun to Cajetan von Mérey, November 3, 1905, in ibid. 88. For another example, see Count Albert Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein to Ladislaus von Müller, February 5, 1909; and Müller to Mensdorff, February 12, 1909, both in HHStA, AR, F4, carton 341, personnel ¤le Count Ludwig Széchényi. 89. [Alexander] Freiherr von Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz: Erinnerungen eines österreich-ungarischen Diplomaten (Munich: Verlag für Kulturpolitik, 1924), 70–71. 90. Vortrag Aehrenthal to Francis Joseph, March 28, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 457, folder Revirement 157. 91. See the speech by the Hungarian minister-president, Count Karl KhuenBelasi-Héderváry, in which he prefaces his remarks on the constitutional role of the foreign of¤ce with a strong reference to Hungary’s status as an independent state. Khuen, a trusted adviser of Francis Joseph, could in no way be labeled a rabid nationalist. “Sammlung von Zeitungsausschnitten der Plenar Sitzungen der ung. Delegation und des auswärtigen Ausschusses der ung. Delegation,” November 14, 1910, HHStA, Delegationen des österreichischen Reichsrates und des ungarischen Reichstages, vol. 84. 92. Sked, The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 189. 93. For that directive, as well as the rules governing display of the ¶ag at Austro-Hungarian consulates, see the circular dated December 23, 1893, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 445, folder Interpellationen i. d. Delegationen, fols. 65–66. 94. Foreign of¤ce to Ambró, draft letter, July 2, 1906, in ibid., fol. 73. 95. Ambró to the foreign of¤ce, August 14, 1906, in ibid., fol. 63. 96. Ladislaus von Müller to Nagy, draft letter, September 25, 1906; and Nagy to Müller, German translation of original letter, September 28, 1906, both in ibid., fols. 62, 67. Nagy was later a member of the Committee for the Diplomatic Examination, and his son Alexius joined the diplomatic corps in early 1914. 97. Hermann von Mitscha to Cajetan von Mérey, September 20, 1906, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. 98. See the speeches by delegates Johann Sándor and Count Theodor Zichy, as well as by Foreign Minister Berchtold, in “Sammlung von Zeitungsausschnitten der Plenar Sitzungen der ung. Delegation und des auswärtigen Ausschusses der ung. Delegation,” Vienna, September 25, 1912, HHStA, Delegationen des österreichischen Reichsrates und des ungarischen Reichstages, vol. 84. 99. Lützow, Im diplomatischen Dienst, 102–3.

Notes to Pages 146–49 •

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100. Ladislaus von Szõgyény to Aehrenthal, February 7, 1904, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 4. 101. See the “Pro memoria” by Aehrenthal, [October 23, 1906], HHStA, Nachlaø Szápáry, carton 1, folder 2, fols. 135–40. 102. See the extensive correspondence between Aehrenthal and Go|uchowski relative to those issues in Solomon Wank, ed., Aus dem Nachlaß Aehrenthal: Briefe und Dokumente zur österreichisch-ungarischen Innen- und Außenpolitik 1885–1912, 2 vols., Quellen zur Geschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. Fritz Fellner, vol. 6 (Graz: Wolfgang Neugebauer, 1994), nos. 234–38, 240–41, 243–44. 103. The Compromise of 1867 provided for a permanent political union, but required the decennial renewal of the economic union. Aehrenthal was looking ahead to the coming renegotiation in 1907. 104. With regard to the minister’s role in the Ausgleich negotiations, Aehrenthal, in his Pro-Memoria from 1906, wrote, “Doch wie gestaltet sich die Stellung des Ministers des Äuøern? Die Verhandlungen werden zwischen den beiden Regierungen geführt, der Minister des Äuøern muø die ganze Zeit eine neutrale Stellung einnehmen, hat gar keinen festen locus standi, schwebt in der Luft und eine solche Position ist à la longue unbequem und auch unhaltbar.” 105. Rudolf Sieghart, Die letzten Jahrzehnte einer Grossmacht: Menschen, Völker, Probleme des Habsburger-Reichs (Berlin: Ullstein, 1932), 125; Robert [Freiherr von] Ehrhart, Im Dienste des alten Österreich (Vienna: Bergland, 1958), 197. Cf. the Berchtold memoirs, 8:159, HHStA, Nachlaø Berchtold, carton 2. 106. Szécsen to Aehrenthal, November 26, 1907, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 4. 107. Section Chief Ladislaus von Müller to Schönburg, draft letter, August 26, 1907, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 307, personnel ¤le Prince Johann SchönburgHartenstein. 108. Schönburg to Müller, copy, August 20, 1907; and “Abschrift eines Berichtes des k. u. k. Militärattachés, k. u. k. Oberstleutnants von Rozwadowski an Seine Exzellenz den Herrn k. u. k. Generalstabschef ddo. Sinaia, den 21. August 1907, both in ibid. 109. For the German text of this statement, see Schönburg’s personnel ¤le, in ibid. 110. See the German-language summary of this article in ibid. 111. Schönburg to Müller, September 5, 1907, in ibid. Francis Ferdinand distrusted Schönburg, whom he believed to be in the pocket of the Hungarians. See Ludwig Freiherr von Pastor, Tagebücher-Briefe-Erinnerungen, ed. Wilhelm Wühr (Heidelberg: F. H. Kerle, 1950), 573–75. 112. Shanafelt, “Activism and Inertia: Ottokar Czernin’s Mission to Romania, 1913–1916,” 197–99. 113. Berchtold memoirs, 8:89, 186, HHStA, Nachlaø Berchtold, carton 2. 114. Quoted in Shanafelt, “Activism and Inertia,” 199. 115. Czernin to Berchtold, February 11, 1914, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 134, folder 464/6, fols. 52–53.

258 • Notes to Pages 149–53 116. Czernin to Berchtold, January 22, 1914, in ibid., fols. 40–41. 117. Emerich Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten: Erinnerungen des k. und k. Diplomaten und k. ungarischen Außenministers Emerich Csáky (1882–1961), ed. Eva-Marie Csáky (Vienna: Böhlau, 1992), 198–99. 118. Zoltán v. Barcsay-Amant, “Ungarische adelige Familien, die in der Zeit ihrer Adelung oder knapp vorher der israel. Religion angehörten,” in Adeliges Jahrbuch 1936/43 (Luzern, 1969), 258–59. 119. In 1818, Emanual baron de Pouilly was raised to the rank of count in Austria with the surname Mensdorff-Pouilly. In 1868, the ambassador’s father, the former foreign minister Count Alexander Mensdorff-Pouilly, received, as the husband of the daughter and heiress of the last Prince Dietrichstein, the title “Prince Dietrichstein zu Nikolsburg.” In 1887, the descendants of that marriage were given the new family name Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein. 120. Robert Kann, The Multinational Empire: Nationalism and National Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy 1848–1918 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950), 2:93–114. 121. R. J. W. Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy 1550–1700 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 195–216. 122. Hugh LeCaine Agnew, “Noble Natio and Modern Nation: The Czech Case,” Austrian History Yearbook 23 (1992): 56–71. 123. Ibid., 70. 124. Kann, The Multinational Empire, 1:221–22. 125. Henryk Wereszycki, “The Poles as an Integrating and Disintegrating Factor,” Austrian History Yearbook, III/2 (1967): 301. 126. Waltraud Heindl, Gehorsame Rebellen: Bürokratie und Beamte in Österreich 1780 bis 1848, Studien zu Politik und Verwaltung, ed. Christian Brünner, Wolfgang Mantl, and Manfried Welan, vol. 36 (Vienna: Böhlau, 1991), 191–200. 127. Robert A. Kann, “The Dynasty and the Imperial Idea,” in Dynasty, Politics and Culture: Selected Essays, ed. Stanley B. Winters, East European Monographs, no. 317 (Boulder, Colo., 1991), 57–60. 128. Ibid., 60. 129. Haindl, Gehorsame Rebellen, 198. 130. See, for example, Alexander Spitzmüller Freiherr von Harmersbach, Memoirs, trans. and ed. Carvel de Bussy, East European Monographs, no. 228 (Boulder, Colo., 1987), 8–10. 131. Entailed estates accounted for 11.15% of total land area in Bohemia, 7.99% in Moravia, and 6.32% in Lower Austria. Only Carinthia, with 6.83%, Upper Austria, with 5.04%, and Carniola, with 4.87%, contained somewhat similar, though slightly lower proportions. Before the annexation of Galicia by the Habsburg Empire, the entailed estate as an institution had been unknown and few were established in the course of the nineteenth century. The Fideicommisse in Galicia took up only .38% of the total area. Karl Theodor von Inama-Sternegg, “Die Familien-Fideicommisse in Österreich,” Statistische Monatschrift 1 [Vienna] (1883): 471, 473.

Notes to Pages 153–57

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132. Although treated separately for present purposes, Vienna actually fell within the province of Lower Austria. Only in the early 1920s did the city ¤nally achieve an autonomous status apart from the surrounding region. Paul Hofmann, The Viennese: Splendor, Twilight, and Exile (New York: Anchor Books, 1989), 190. 133. Besides Lower Austria’s ten (9%), Styria sent four (4%), Upper Austria two (2%), Carinthia two (2%), and Tyrol and Carniola each one (1%). Neither Salzburg nor Vorarlberg furnished any diplomats during this period. 134. Princess Nora Fugger von Babenhausen, The Glory of the Habsburgs: The Memoirs of Princess Fugger, trans. J. A. Galston (New York: Dial Press, 1932), 11–14. 135. Mihail-Dimitri Sturdza, Dictionnaire historique et généalogique des grandes familles de Grèce, d’Albanie et de Constantinople (Paris, 1983), 181. 136. Quali¤kations-Liste Eduard Otto, KA. 137. Carl Freiherr von Czoernig, Das Land Görz und Gradisca (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1873), 671–76. 138. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 59. 139. Quali¤kations-Liste Ludwig von Velics, KA; Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz, 36. 140. For a good introduction to the Hungarian Germans in the Dualist era, see the memoirs of one of their parliamentary representatives, Edmund Steinacker, Lebenserinnerungen, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts zur Erforschung des deutschen Volkstums im Süden und Südosten, ed. Fritz Machatschek, no. 13 (Munich: Max Schick, 1937). 141. Material collected from the survey in 1900 is partly preserved in HHStA, AR, F4, carton 100, Quali¤kations-Tabellen. A separate circular located in the same source indicates that the Ballhausplatz may have conducted such an inquiry among the diplomats as early as 1887. Data assembled in the canvasses of 1909 and 1913 are to be found in the personnel ¤les of the individual diplomats. 142. “Sprachkenntnistabelle,” November 15, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 217, personnel ¤le Johann Sigismund von Micha|owski; “Sprachkenntnistabelle,” 12 November 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 154, personnel ¤le Nikolaus von Jurystowski. 143. “Sprachkenntnistabelle,” November 27, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 138, personnel ¤le Prince Nikolaus Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst. His writing skills were, however, described as “perfect.” 144. These include Count Ludwig Badeni, Count Leopold Koziebrodzki, Baron Alexander Lago, Johann Sigismund von Micha|owski, Count Alexander Skrzyñski, Ladislaus von Skrzyñski, and Count Adam Tarnowski. For the information on Koziebrodzki, I am indebted to his son, Count Leopold Koziebrodzki, interview by the author, September 12, 1994, Charlottesville, Virginia. 145. Quali¤kations-Listen Count Carl Trauttmansdorff and Prince Vincenz Windisch-Grätz, KA. 146. Quali¤kations-Listen Count Ottokar Czernin, Count Johann Kolowrat, Prince Emil Fürstenberg, and Prince Karl Emil Fürstenberg, KA.

260 • Notes to Pages 157–59 147. “Sprachkenntnistabelle,” 1913, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 250, personnel ¤le Count Elemér Pejácsevich. The Pejácsevichs were actually Bulgarian in origin, though long assimilated with the Magyar-Croat nobility. 148. Beginning in 1909, Hungarian citizens who were candidates for admission were required to know Hungarian. 149. Foreign of¤ce to Schmucker, March 31, 1911, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 305, personnel ¤le Norbert von Schmucker. 150. Czernin memorandum, February 1909, HHStA, Nachlaø Franz Ferdinand, carton 12. 151. Thallóczy to the foreign of¤ce, May 16, 1913, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 242, personnel ¤le Georg von Ottlik. For the language abilities of several Poles in the corps, see Rudolf Freiherr von Mittag-Lenkheym, Unter zwei Kaisern: Lebenserinnerungen des kaiserlichen und königlichen ausserordentlichen Gesandten und bevollmächtigten Ministers Rudolf Freiherr von Mittag-Lenkheym, ed. William D. Godsey, Jr. (Vienna: Verlag der Mitteilungen des österreichischen Staatsarchivs, forthcoming), 2:33 (pagination of typescript); “Sprachkenntnistabelle,” January 16, 1910, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 321, personnel ¤le Count Alexander Skrzyñski; and see Adolf von Plason’s comments appended to Ladislaus von Skrzyñski’s qualifying examination, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 321, personnel ¤le Ladislaus von Skrzyñski. 152. Aehrenthal to Berchtold, May 17, 1907, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 15, personnel ¤le Count Ludwig Badeni. 153. Berchtold to Aehrenthal, June 3, 1907, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 1. 154. One German diplomat recalled that the Russians had been displeased by the assignment to St. Petersburg of Prince Radolin, a nobleman of Polish extraction. See Hermann Prinz von Schönburg-Waldenburg, Gehörtes und Gesehenes (Vevey, 1993), 93. I am grateful to the late Princess Friederike Juliane zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg for allowing me to use her copy of this privately printed work. 155. Through his maternal grandparents, Count Casimir Lanckoroñski and Countess Leonie Potocka, de Vaux possessed close connections to some of Poland’s most prominent aristocratic families. Lago’s Polish heritage also came through his mother. 156. Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz, 73; Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 195. 157. Comtesse Edina Zichy Pallavicini, “Le Marquis Jean Pallavicini (1848– 1941),” Nouvelle revue de Hongrie (September 1941): 146. 158. Berchtold memoirs, 3:8, HHStA, Nachlaø Berchtold, carton 1; Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 113; Joseph Pomiankowski, Der Zusammenbruch des Ottomanischen Reiches: Erinnerungen an die Türkei aus der Zeit des Weltkrieges (Graz: Amalthea, 1969), 41. 159. Prince Johann Schönburg-Hartenstein to Aehrenthal, January 19, 1899, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 3.

Notes to Pages 159–61 •

261

160. Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz, 73; Vortrag Go|uchowski to Francis Joseph, October 5, 1906, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 245, personnel ¤le Count Johann Pallavicini. 161. Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz, 125. 162. Chariton Joannovics (father) to the foreign of¤ce, July 12, 1886, HHStA, Konsular Akademie, carton 11, folder 1886, no. 90. In this letter, the elder Joannovics wrote that his son’s native language was Serbian. 163. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 62; Josef Stürgkh, Politische und militärische Erinnerungen (Leipzig: Paul List, 1922), 170. 164. In a letter to Berchtold, Prince Gottfried Hohenlohe produced one of the most amusing imitations of the mannerisms and accent of the aging “gypsy baron.” Hohenlohe described a scene with the ambassador just before the latter’s departure from Berlin for an extended stay in Harzburg. Szõgyény’s “Hungarianisms” are marked with a star: “Die Nervosität Szõgyénys vor seiner Abreise nach Harzburg war entsetzlich; wenn jemand eigentlich hätte nervös sein sollen, so wäre es eigentlich ich gewesen, der jetzt in seinem Namen telegra¤eren muss, was ich hasse. Ich tue alles mit Vergnügen wenn ich es auf meine Verantwortung tue, aber “Szõgyény” zu unterschreiben ist mir langweilig. Also ich hätte eher Grund nervös zu sein! So hatte ich aber den rasend aufgeregten Zigeunerbaron noch zu beruhigen und um ihn zu trösten, sagte ich: “Aber Excellenz können ganz ruhig sein, wir werden alles machen und schliesslich wenn etwas besonders los ist, kann ich Ihnen ja sogar telefonieren, denn sicher geht ein Telephon nach Harzburg,” worauf er mir sagt, “Télegrophieren* Sie so viel Sie wollen aber nur nicht télephonieren*, denn dos* konn* ich nicht,” und auf mein verblüfftes Gesicht widerholte er “ich konn* dos* nicht und bin wirklich schon zu olt* um sowos* zu lernen.” Es war mir neu, dass auch das Telephonieren eine Kunst sei, die erlernt u[nd] gep¶egt sein müsse.” Hohenlohe to Berchtold, June 17, 1907, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 134, folder 464/16, fols. 27–33. 165. Karl Freiherr von Macchio, “Momentbilder aus der Julikrise 1914,” Berliner Monatshefte 14 (October 1936): 770–71. 166. Julius von Szilassy, Der Untergang der Donau-Monarchie: Diplomatische Erinnerungen (Berlin: Verlag Neues Vaterland E. Berger & Co., 1921), 84. 167. Stürgkh, Politische und militärische Erinnerungen, 147. 168. Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 67. 169. Michael Karolyi, Memoirs of Michael Karolyi: Faith without Illusion, trans. Catherine Karolyi (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1957), 15. 170. Rumpler, “Die rechtlich-organisatorischen und sozialen Rahmenbedingungen,” 110–11.

262 • Notes to Pages 161–64 171. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 15; Szilassy, Der Untergang der Donau-Monarchie, 84. 172. Czernin memorandum, February 1909, HHStA, Nachlaø Franz Ferdinand, carton 12. 173. Treichel, “Magyars at the Ballplatz,” 288–89. 174. See the remarks on this subject in Spitzmüller, Memoirs, 8–9. 175. Charles W. Hallberg, Franz Joseph and Napoleon III, 1852–1864: A Study of Austro-French Relations (New York: Bookman Associates, 1955), 129. 176. Josef Redlich, Schicksalsjahre Österreichs 1908–1919: Das politische Tagebuch Josef Redlichs, vol. 1: 1908–1914, ed. Fritz Fellner, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für neuere Geschichte Österreichs, no. 39 (Graz: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1953), 125–26. 177. Szõgyény to Aehrenthal, September 26, 1894, in Briefe und Dokumente zur Geschichte der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des böhmisch-mährischen Raumes, part 1: Der Verfassungstreue Großgrundbesitz 1880–1899, ed. Ernst Rutkowski, Veröffentlichungen des Collegium Carolinum, vol. 51/I (Munich and Vienna: R. Oldenbourg, 1983), no. 131. 178. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 42–43. 179. Walter H. Perl, Hugo von Hofmannsthal—Leopold von Andrian Briefwechsel (Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer, 1968), 204–5. 180. Calice to Aehrenthal, March 15, 1900, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 1. 181. Linha to [Baron Maximilian Sonnleithner?], June 24, 1911, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 164, personnel ¤le Karl Linha. 182. Count Albert Apponyi, The Memoirs of Count Apponyi (London and Toronto: William Heinemann, 1935), 18–19. 183. See the cogent summary of Berchtold’s background with respect to nationality in Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold, 2:844–45. 184. Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz, 23–24. 185. Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 67; Cormons [Urbas], Schicksale und Schatten, 69–70. 186. Attaching an individual national label to many diplomats would in any case have been extremely problematic, given the great variety of ethnic strands frequently represented in their ancestry. The case of Count Albert MensdorffPouilly-Dietrichstein was not unusual. His eight great-grandparents included two French nobles; two members of minor German ruling families; one Moravian of German origin; one Russian countess; one Bohemian of Czech origin; and one Bohemian belonging to an originally French family. See Mensdorfff ’s ancestral tree in Zentralarchiv des Deutschen Ordens (Vienna), Ri 264, Nr. 1136a, personnel ¤le Count Albert Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein. 187. Count Nikolaus Revertera to Count Leopold Berchtold, September 23, 1918, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 135, folder 464/30.

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Chapter Seven: Careers 1. Emerich Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten: Erinnerungen des k. und k. Diplomaten und k. ungarischen Außenministers Emerich Csáky (1882–1961), ed. Eva-Marie Csáky (Vienna: Böhlau, 1992), 146. 2. Heinrich Graf von Lützow, Im diplomatischen Dienst der k. u. k. Monarchie, ed. Peter Hohenbalken (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1971), 43. 3. Eleonore Jenicek, “Albert Graf Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein” (Ph.D. diss., University of Vienna, 1965), 11. See also Ludwig Freiherr von Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz: Erinnerungen Ludwigs Freiherrn von Flotow des letzten Chefs des österreichischen auswärtigen Dienstes 1895–1920, ed. Erwin Matsch (Vienna: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1982), 173–74, for Mérey’s role as the protector of Baron Franz Riedl. For Count Alexander Hoyos’s role in the appointment of Constantin Dumba to the embassy in Washington, see ibid., 163. 4. Prince Franz Liechtenstein to Berchtold, February 6, 1908, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 135, folder 464/21, fols. 5–6. 5. For a more extensive treatment of Aehrenthal’s protégés, see John Leslie, “Österreich-Ungarn vor dem Kriegsausbruch: Der Ballhausplatz in Wien im Juli 1914 aus der Sicht eines österreichischen Diplomaten,” in Deutschland und Europa in der Neuzeit: Festschrift für Karl Otmar Frhr. v. Aretin zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Ralph Melville et al. (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1988), 661–84. 6. George Ottlik, “Coloman Kánya de Kánya,” The New Hungarian Quarterly 4, no. 2 (summer 1938): 212. For a very unfavorable assessment of Kánia’s work in the press bureau, particularly during the Berchtold years, see James A. Treichel, “Magyars at the Ballplatz: A Study of the Hungarians in the AustroHungarian Diplomatic Service 1906–1914” (Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University, 1971), 232–44. 7. See, for example, the solicitous letter written by Mensdorff on behalf of Count Carl Trauttmansdorff, who had served under him in London, Mensdorff to Berchtold, January 29, 1904, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 135, folder 464/25, fols. 29–34. 8. Lamar Cecil, The German Diplomatic Service, 1871–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 215–20. 9. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 13. 10. Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 91. For another case of Francis Joseph’s benevolence toward the father being transferred to the diplomat-son, see ibid., 169. 11. Ibid., 153–54. 12. Erich Graf Kielmansegg, Kaiserhaus, Staatsmänner und Politiker: Aufzeichnungen des k. k. Statthalters Erich Graf Kielmansegg (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1966), 119. Normally a visitor had to be announced more formally through a military adjutant. Going through the valet was reserved for members of the imperial family and close friends.

264 • Notes to Pages 167–69 13. Brigitte Hamann, ed., Meine liebe, gute Freundin! Die Briefe Kaiser Franz Josephs an Katharina Schratt aus dem Besitz der österreichischen Nationalbibliothek (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 1992), 509–10. 14. Count Ladislaus Cavriani (the archduchess’s Obersthofmeister) to the foreign of¤ce, September 16, 1915, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 182, personnel ¤le Baron Otto Kuhn. 15. Biliñski to Berchtold, August 28, 1913; and Berchtold to Biliñski, draft letter, 6 September 1913, HHStA, PA I, carton 645, Kabinett des Ministers, fol. 384. 16. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 340. 17. For the case of Count Rudolf Coronini in Belgium, see Henri comte de Merode (Belgian foreign minister) to Emile de Borchgrave (Belgian envoy in Vienna), [24] April 1893; and foreign of¤ce to Emile de Borchgrave, April 27, 1893, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 57, personnel ¤le Count Rudolf Coronini. For Count Thaddäus Koziebrodzki’s frantic efforts to secure a European appointment via the grand-ducal court in Darmstadt, see Carl Ewald (Hessian foreign minister) to Baron Alfons Pereira-Arnstein, February 16, 1907; and foreign of¤ce to Pereira, telegram, February 19, 1907, PA I, carton 645, Kabinett des Ministers, fols. 47, 49. 18. Baron Franz Morsey to Berchtold, November 13, 1913; and Berchtold to Morsey, draft letter, November 17, 1913, ibid., fols. 589–94. 19. Baron Franz Riedl sen. to Cajetan von Mérey, June 10, 1905, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. 20. Countess Betty Grimaud d’Orsay to Cajetan von Mérey, October 17, 1904, ibid. 21. Count Franz Deym to Count Heinrich Lützow, telegrams, December 4 and 8, 1899; and Countess Isabella Esterházy to Baron Carl Macchio, January 14, 1912, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 72, personnel ¤le Count Constantin Deym. For other examples of intervention by relatives trying to in¶uence diplomatic careers, see Ladislaus von Müller to Count Heinrich Lützow, draft letter, February 15, 1910, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 201, personnel ¤le Count Heinrich Lützow; and Count Franz Coronini to the foreign of¤ce, March 30, 1901, HHStA, PA I, carton 644, Kabinett des Ministers, folder IX/b-25. 22. Baron Carl Macchio to Count Ladislaus Szõgyény, March 16, 1912; and Szõgyény to Macchio, draft letter, March 21, 1912, HHStA, Botschaftsarchiv Berlin, carton 199, folder Personalien. For similar cases, see Macchio to Prince Johann Schönburg-Hartenstein, March 16, 1912; and Schönburg to Macchio, [March 1912], HHStA, AR, F4, carton 243, personnel ¤le Count Moritz Pálffy, fols. 142–43, 145; and the sarcasm of Count Jaroslav Wišniewski to Cajetan von Mérey, July 29, 1905, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 2. 23. Braun to Cajetan von Mérey, October 7, 1902, ibid., carton 7. 24. Aehrenthal to Czikann, draft letter, March 30, 1907; Czikann to Aehrenthal, May 18, 1907; Czikann to Baron Guido Call, May 19, 1907, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 65, personnel ¤le Baron Moriz Czikann. 25. Logothetti to Berchtold, December 25, 1912, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 135, folder 464/22, fols. 1–2.

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26. Schönburg to Ladislaus von Müller, September 9, 1905; Schönburg to Müller, October 16, 1905, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 307, personnel ¤le Prince Johann Schönburg-Hartenstein. 27. Széchényi to Ladislaus von Müller, telegram, September 23, 1905, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 340, personnel ¤le Count Dionys Széchényi. 28. For the sporadic application of Go|uchowski’s new rule, see Count Rudolf Khevenhüller-Metsch to Cajetan von Mérey, January 13, 1905, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. See also Count Thaddäus Koziebrodzki to Aehrenthal, January 12, 1907, HHStA, PA I, carton 645, Kabinett des Ministers, folder IX/b-44, fol. 41. 29. Count Franz Deym to the foreign of¤ce, telegram, December 12, 1902, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 357, personnel ¤le Count Carl Trauttmansdorff. Deym to Go|uchowski, December 12, 1902; and Go|uchowski to Deym, December 19, 1902, HHStA, PA I, carton 645, Kabinett des Ministers, folder Count Carl Trauttmansdorff, fols. 75–79. 30. For an account of his time in Chile, see Trauttmansdorff to Cajetan von Mérey, March 23, 1903, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 2. 31. Czernin memorandum, February 1909, HHStA, Nachlaø Franz Ferdinand, carton 12. 32. Giskra to Go|uchowski, August 27, 1905; Giskra to Go|uchowski, March 24, 1906, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 107, personnel ¤le Baron Karl Giskra. 33. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 67. 34. Rudolf Freiherr von Mittag-Lenkheym, Unter zwei Kaisern: Lebenserinnerungen des kaiserlichen und königlichen ausserordentlichen Gesandten und bevollmächtigten Ministers Rudolf Freiherr von Mittag-Lenkheym, ed. William D. Godsey, Jr. (Vienna: Verlag der Mitteilungen des österreichischen Staatsarchivs, forthcoming), 2:31 (pagination of typescript). 35. Erwin Matsch, Der auswärtige Dienst von Österreich(-Ungarn) 1720–1920 (Vienna: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1986), 148. 36. Giskra to Baron Guido Call, Notiz pro memoria, October 15, 1908; Giskra to Ladislaus von Müller, February 8, 1909; Giskra to Aehrenthal, February 9, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 107, personnel ¤le Baron Karl Giskra. For another diplomat who sought to avoid the rigors of Mexico’s climate, see Count Constantin Deym to the foreign of¤ce, September 15, 1905, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 72, personnel ¤le Count Constantin Deym. 37. Vortrag Aehrenthal to Francis Joseph, March 21, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 457, folder Revirement 158. 38. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 174. 39. Vortrag Kálnoky to Francis Joseph, February 9, 1891, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 128, personnel ¤le Baron Karl Heidler. 40. Matsch, Der auswärtige Dienst von Österreich(-Ungarn), 130–31. 41. Baron Guido Call to Hohenwart, September 24, 1908, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 139, personnel ¤le Count Gilbert Hohenwart. 42. Braun to Cajetan von Mérey, November 7, 1902, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7.

266 • Notes to Pages 172–74 43. Braun to Cajetan von Mérey, April 15, 1903, ibid. 44. Koziebrodzki to Aehrenthal, January 12 and 29, 1907, HHStA, PA I, carton 645, Kabinett des Ministers, folder IX/b-44, fols. 40–44, 46. 45. See Princess Nora Fugger, The Glory of the Habsburgs: The Memoirs of Princess Fugger, trans. J. A. Galston (New York: Dial Press, 1932), 249, for a dinner hosted by Koziebrodzki for Archduke Otto, who was visiting Egypt. The proximity of Europe, and thus of illustrious personages, to Egypt was not always an advantage, as Baron Karl Heidler discovered when he incurred the wrath and enduring ill will of Archduke Francis Ferdinand during the latter’s stay there for health reasons in the later 1890s. Heidler believed that his allegedly pro-English sympathies had provoked the heir to the throne, whose fruitless efforts to have him recalled lasted for several years. The envoy feared that the archduke had in fact focused all of his supposed aversion for professional diplomats on himself. See Heidler to Go|uchowski, January 20, 1899, HHStA, PA I, carton 643, Kabinett des Ministers, folder IX/b-14, fols. 379–81. 46. Vortrag Berchtold to Francis Joseph, November 1, 1912, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 458, folder Revirement 247. 47. See Baron Karl Heidler to the foreign of¤ce, September 8, 1896, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 128, personnel ¤le Baron Karl Heidler. 48. Gerd Kaminski and Else Unterrieder, Wäre ich Chinese, so wäre ich Boxer: Das Leben an der k. und k. Gesandtschaft in Peking in Tagebüchern, Briefen und Dokumenten, Berichte des Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institutes für China- und Südostasienforschung, no. 28 (Vienna and Zürich: Europaverlag, 1989), 45–76. For Rosthorn, see also Gerd Kaminski and Else Unterrieder, “Arthur von Rosthorn—Diplomat, Wissenschaftler und Mittler zwischen Österreich und China,” chap.14 of Vom Österreichern und Chinesen, Berichte des Ludwig Boltzmann Institutes für China- und Südostasienforschung, no. 13 (Vienna: Europaverlag, 1980), 331, 334. 49. See Julius v. Szilassy, Der Untergang der Donau-Monarchie: Diplomatische Erinnerungen (Berlin: Verlag Neues Vaterland E. Berger & Co., 1921), 166, for Aehrenthal’s interest in concluding a pact with Japan in the wake of the Bosnian annexation crisis. 50. Cajetan von Mérey to Baron Carl Macchio, November 30, 1911, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 362, personnel ¤le Baron Léon de Vaux. 51. Macchio to Zwiedinek, draft letter, December 5, 1911, ibid. Zwiedinek to Macchio, December 10, 1911, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 395, personnel ¤le Baron Erich Zwiedinek. 52. Mittag to Macchio, December 28, 1911, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 222, personnel ¤le Baron Rudolf Mittag. 53. Haymerle to Macchio, December 20, 1911, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 127, personnel ¤le Baron Franz Haymerle. 54. Deym to Count Friedrich Szápáry, January 26, 1912, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 72, personnel ¤le Count Constantin Deym.

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55. Constantin Dumba, Memoirs of a Diplomat, trans. Ian F. D. Morrow (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1932), 157–59. 56. Hengelmüller to Aehrenthal, May 12, 1898, and February 19, 1900, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 1, fols. 45–46, 57–59. 57. Hengelmüller to Aehrenthal, May 26, 1897, ibid., fols. 40–42. 58. Hengelmüller to Aehrenthal, February 22, 1898, ibid., fols. 43–44. 59. Hengelmüller to Aehrenthal, January 22, 1900, ibid., fols. 55–56; Erwin Matsch, Wien-Washington: Ein Journal diplomatischer Beziehungen 1838–1917 (Vienna and Cologne: Böhlau, 1990), 459. 60. Ibid., 433. 61. Hengelmüller to Aehrenthal, February 5, 1901; and Baron Ludwig Ambrózy to Aehrenthal, December 19, 1899, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 1. For the Latimer affair, which involved the deaths of several Austrian and Hungarian workers during an industrial dispute in 1897 in Pennsylvania, see Matsch, WienWashington, 751–52. 62. Hengelmüller to Aehrenthal, December 31, 1901, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 1, fol. 71; Matsch, Wien-Washington, 482–83. 63. Hengelmüller to Aehrenthal, March 28, 1902, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 1, fols. 72–73. 64. Haymerle to Cajetan von Mérey, 1905, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 1. 65. Ambrózy to Aehrenthal, December 19, 1899, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 1. 66. Hammerstein to Cajetan von Mérey, fall 1900, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 2. 67. Kuhn to Mérey, December 28, 1899, ibid., carton 7. 68. Kuhn to Mérey, November 20, 1898, ibid. 69. In late 1898, Ambassador Hengelmüller, under whom Szilassy was serving in Washington, wrote that he “viewed him as lost, and not only in terms of his career, but also in life,” Hengelmüller to Aehrenthal, August 14, 1898, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 1. During his tour of duty in Bucharest (1895–97), Szilassy required an extensive leave of absence for treatment of his severe syphilitic symptoms. See Count Duglas Thurn to Aehrenthal, undated, [ca. 1896–97], ibid., carton 4. See also Baron Franz Riedl to Cajetan von Mérey, October 7, 1898, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. Riedl, at that time a colleague of Szilassy in Washington, referred to him as a “dangerous drinker” (gefährlicher Trinker). Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 109, 338–41, con¤nes himself to somewhat more elliptical remarks about Szilassy’s personal life. 70. Szilassy to Mérey, March 9, 1904, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. 71. Szilassy, Der Untergang der Donau-Monarchie, 150–51. 72. Szilassy to Mérey, June 13, 1908, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. 73. Dumba, Memoirs, 278–79 74. Macchio to Aehrenthal, November 18, 1898, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 3.

268 • Notes to Pages 177–79 75. For Albania, see the circular from March 14, 1914, HHStA, AR, Zirkularien Sammlung, carton 12. 76. [Alexander] Freiherr von Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz: Erinnerungen eines österreich-ungarischen Diplomaten (Munich: Verlag für Kulturpolitik, 1924), 65. 77. Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 195. 78. Princess Sophie Schönburg-Hartenstein, “Erinnerungen der Prinzessin Sophie zu Schönburg-Hartenstein, geb. Prinzessin Oettingen-Wallerstein. Geboren 4. Oktober 1878, gestorben bei dem Fliegerangriff auf Wien am 10. September 1944” (unpublished manuscript), 112. 79. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 109–11. See also Josef Stürgkh, Politische und militärische Erinnerungen (Leipzig: Paul List, 1922), 124–25. 80. Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz, 129; Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 1:99– 100; Baron Wladimir Giesl, Zwei Jahrzehnte im Nahen Orient: Aufzeichnungen des Generals der Kavallerie Baron Wladimir Giesl, ed. Rit. v. Steiner (Berlin: Verlag für Kulturpolitik, 1927), 254. 81. Paul von Burchardt-Bélaváry to Baron Guido Call, June 16, 1907, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 417, folder Revirement 114. 82. For the reserve with which one diplomat greeted his appointment to the envoyship in Belgrade, see Baron Karl Heidler to Count Nikolaus Szécsen, telegram, December 26[?], 1899; and Szécsen to Heidler, draft telegram, December 26, 1899, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 128, folder Baron Karl Heidler. See also Baron Johann Styrcea to Cajetan von Mérey, November 16, 1903, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7, expressing gratitude that his transfer to Serbia had been canceled. 83. Forgách to Ladislaus von Müller, July 25, 1907, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 43, personnel ¤le Paul von Burchardt-Bélaváry. 84. Thurn to Aehrenthal, August 16, 1905, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 4. 85. Thurn to Aehrenthal, October 27, 1906, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 353, personnel ¤le Count Duglas Thurn. 86. Thurn to Aehrenthal, March 6, 1907, ibid. 87. Thurn to Aehrenthal, August 18, 1905, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 4. 88. Thurn to Aehrenthal, July 16, 1905, ibid. 89. Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz, 107–8. Cf. Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 1:184–85. 90. Macchio to Aehrenthal, May 2, 1901, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 3. 91. Macchio to Aehrenthal, April 20, 1900, ibid. 92. Baron Ottokar Schlechta to Walterskirchen, November 6, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 370, personnel ¤le Count Josef Walterskirchen. 93. Diplomats stationed in Greece certainly had plenty of opportunities for traveling around the country. See Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 1:184–206. 94. Braun to Baron Guido Call, December 23, 1908; and Call to Braun, December 27, 1908, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 37, personnel ¤le Baron Carl Braun. For

Notes to Pages 180–82

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another instance, see Baron Ludwig Flotow to Wilhelm von Mittag, January 10, 1897, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 93, personnel ¤le Baron Ludwig Flotow. 95. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 90. 96. Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz, 80. 97. Lützow, Im diplomatischen Dienst, 84. Cf. Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz, 56; and Schönburg, “Erinnerungen,” 66. See also Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 195, who wrote that the legation in Bucharest was so important that it practically ranked as an embassy. 98. Dumba, Memoirs, 88. 99. Count Johann Forgách to Berchtold, September 10, 1908, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 134, folder 464/9, fols. 1–2. 100. Baron Carl Macchio to Stephan von Ugron[?], draft letter, November 13, 1912, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 41, personnel ¤le Count Felix BrusselleSchaubeck. 101. Skrzyñski to Cajetan von Mérey, November 17, 1905, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. Skrzyñski did not get the post, possibly because of considerations of seniority. 102. Nemes to Mérey, June 30, 1901, ibid. 103. Musulin to Aehrenthal, July 12, 1901, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 5. 104. Pálffy to Mérey, February 15, 1900, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. 105. The wife of one envoy remembered that there “was nothing Balkan about his [King Carol’s] court.” See Schönburg, “Erinnerungen,” 77. 106. Baron Karl Heidler to Aehrenthal, February 16, 1887, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 1. 107. Prince Johann Schönburg-Hartenstein to the foreign of¤ce, telegram, March 1, 1911, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 101, personnel ¤le Prince Karl Emil Fürstenberg. 108. Szõgyény to Aehrenthal, October 6, 1901, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 5. 109. One source, Baron Rudolf Mittag, a junior diplomat who served under Heidler in Serbia, claims that, despite Heidler’s lack of experience in the Balkans, he managed rather quickly to acquaint himself with local conditions. See Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 1:104. 110. For the most complete evaluation of Forgách yet undertaken, see Treichel, “Magyars at the Ballplatz,” 123–231. 111. Ugron to Baron Carl Macchio, December 20, 1911, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 127, personnel ¤le Baron Franz Haymerle. 112. Baron Heinrich Calice to Aehrenthal, August 22, 1895, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 1. 113. Ernst U. Cormons [Emmanuel Urbas], Schicksale und Schatten: Eine österreichische Autobiographie (Salzburg: Otto Müller, 1951), 126. 114. Vortrag Berchtold to Francis Joseph, November 7, 1913, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 459, folder Revirement 277.

270 • Notes to Pages 182–85 115. On this point, see Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War (Houndmills and London: Macmillan, 1991), 167. 116. Alexander Hoyos, Der deutsch-englische Gegensatz und sein Ein¶uß auf die Balkanpolitik Österreich-Ungarns (Berlin and Leipzig, 1922), 39. Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 2:33. For Giskra, see ibid., 32. 117. Aehrenthal to Count Johann Pallavicini, December 23, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 242, personnel ¤le Eduard Otto. 118. Vortrag Berchtold to Francis Joseph, February 22, 1914, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 198, personnel ¤le Heinrich von Löwenthal. 119. Joseph M. Baernreither, Fragments of a Political Diary, ed. Joseph Redlich (London: Macmillan, 1930), 294. See also pp. 109, 113, 121, 135, and 286 for Baernreither’s dismay at the monarchy’s diplomatic representation in the Balkans throughout the Aehrenthal and Berchtold years. 120. Kuhn to Cajetan von Mérey, December 31, 1909, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. 121. Brandis to Mérey, November 24, 1899, ibid., carton 1. See also Brandis to Mérey, December 8, 1901, ibid., in which the former, still not having received satisfaction, once again lamented his “exile.” 122. Koziebrodzki to Aehrenthal, February 11, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 174, personnel ¤le Count Leopold Koziebrodzki. 123. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 18. 124. Baron Otto Kuhn to Berchtold, November 16, 1912, and October 7, 1913, HHStA, PA I, carton 644, Kabinett des Ministers, folder IX b/37. 125. See Lützow, Im diplomatischen Dienst, 29. 126. Tarnowski to Mérey, November 7, 1906, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 2. 127. Tarnowski to Baron Guido Call, November 29, 1907, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 346, personnel ¤le Count Adam Tarnowski. 128. Wišniewski to Cajetan von Mérey, May 28, 1905, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 2. See Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 146, for a case where a diplomat would have been satis¤ed with a stint in Madrid so as to escape the cold of northern European assignments. 129. Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 1:174–76. 130. Francis Ferdinand to Berchtold, July 16 and August 31, 1913, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 133, folder 457, fols. 62–63, 77–80. 131. Berchtold to Francis Ferdinand, September 17, 1913, HHStA, Nachlaø Franz Ferdinand, carton 9, folder Count Leopold Berchtold, fols. 166–67. 132. For So¤a during the Balkan Wars, see Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 2:34–36. 133. Baron Arnold Hammerstein-Gesmold, a legation counselor in Copenhagen, began a letter to the foreign of¤ce thus: “‘Out of sight, out of mind’ is a proverb that is particularly apt when one is stuck in Copenhagen.” Hammerstein to Cajetan von Mérey, January 13, 1899, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 2. See also Count Moritz Pálffy to Mérey, April 14, 1900, ibid., carton 7, who considered Bern a “dull hole” (“urfades Nest”).

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134. Vortrag Kálnoky to Francis Joseph, August 26, 1887, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 357, personnel ¤le Baron Constantin Trauttenberg. 135. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 320. 136. Dumba, Memoirs, 155–56. For Brussels, see Lützow, Im diplomatischen Dienst, 25. 137. The monarchy accredited no diplomatic representatives to the princes of Lippe(-Detmold), Schaumburg-Lippe, or Waldeck und Pyrmont. 138. Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz, 48. 139. Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 98–99. 140. Ibid., 100–101. 141. Ibid., 163. 142. Koziebrodzki to Aehrenthal, March 6, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 173, personnel ¤le Count Thaddäus Koziebrodzki. 143. For a sample of the harsh criticism leveled at Forgách and the foreign of¤ce in that Byzantine affair, see T. G. Masaryk, Vasic-Forgách-Aehrenthal: Einiges Material zur Charakteristik unserer Diplomatie (Prague: Verlag des Tagblattes “Ças,” 1911). 144. For Velics, see Count Adam Tarnowski to Cajetan von Mérey, August 22, 1904, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 2. 145. Berchtold memoirs, 8:37, HHStA, Nachlaø Berchtold, carton 2. Another diplomat recalled that during his entire year stationed in Dresden, only one enciphered telegram arrived from Vienna. See Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 98. 146. See Baron Géza Duka to Wilhelm von Mittag, October 13, 1904, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 77, personnel ¤le Baron Géza Duka. Cf. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 66, 189. 147. Szilassy to Berchtold, May 5, 1911, and April 27, 1912, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 135, folder 464/24, fols. 17–19, 25. A couple of those named by Szilassy, including Eduard Otto and Franz Kolossa, were former consuls who, at the time of their transfers into the corps, had appropriately been given diplomatic status equal to their former consular rank. For an explanation of such a case, see Count Karl Kinsky to Wilhelm von Mittag, April 27, 1902; and Mittag to Kinsky, May 9, 1902, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 341, personnel ¤le Count Ludwig Széchényi. 148. Sir George Franckenstein, Facts and Features of My Life (London: Cassell and Company, Ltd., 1939), 84. 149. Somssich to Go|uchowski, June 4, 1906, HHStA, PA I, carton 644, Kabinett des Ministers, folder IX/b-28. 150. Hammerstein to Cajetan von Mérey, August 12, 1900, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 2. 151. See Solomon Wank, “Diplomacy against the Peace Movement: The Austro-Hungarian Foreign Of¤ce and the Second Hague Peace Conference of 1907,” in Doves and Diplomats: Foreign Of¤ces and Peace Movements in Europe and America in the Twentieth Century, ed. Solomon Wank (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978), 55–84.

272 • Notes to Pages 188–92 152. For St. Petersburg society, see Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 119–24, and Szilassy, Der Untergang der Donau-Monarchie, 186–88. 153. Count Miklos Szécsen (grandson of the ambassador), interview by the author, November 24, 1992, Vienna. Other candidates for the job included Prince Karl Kinsky and Prince Gottfried Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, both acquainted with Russian conditions through tours of duty there. Neither, however, proved congenial to Francis Joseph. See W. M. Carlgren, Iswolsky und Aehrenthal vor der bosnischen Annexionskrise: Russische und österreichisch-ungarische Balkanpolitik 1906– 1908 (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1955), 133. 154. Hugo Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold: Grandseigneur und Staatsmann, 2 vols. (Graz: Styria, 1963), 1:41. 155. Szilassy, Der Untergang der Donau-Monarchie, 182–83. For a more detailed picture of Berchtold’s activity in St. Petersburg, see Carlgren, Iswolsky und Aehrenthal, 132–33 and especially chapter 5; and Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold, 1:49–237. 156. Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War, 116. 157. Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 189. 158. Szilassy, Der Untergang der Donau-Monarchie, 202–3. 159. For an account of this incident, see Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 190–92. 160. Leslie, “Österreich-Ungarn vor dem Kriegsausbruch,” 665. 161. Cormons, Schicksale und Schatten, 123–24. 162. Treichel, “Magyars at the Ballplatz,” 300–302. 163. Stürgkh, Politische und militärische Erinnerungen, 195–96; Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 64. 164. Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 155–56. 165. See, for instance, Berchtold to Francis Ferdinand, May 26, 1914, HHStA, Nachlaø Francis Ferdinand, folder Count Leopold Berchtold, fols. 235–36. 166. Franckenstein, Facts and Features, 142. 167. Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold, 2:420; Stockinger to Francis Ferdinand, 6 May 1904, HHStA, Nachlaø Francis Ferdinand, carton 20, folder Franz Stockinger, fols. 38–39, 43. 168. Hantsch, Leopold Graf Berchtold, 1:185; Carlgren, Iswolsky und Aehrenthal, 134. 169. Szilassy, Der Untergang der Donau-Monarchie, 72. For another favorable assessment of Mensdorff, see Alfred Francis Pribram, Austria-Hungary and Great Britain 1908–1914, trans. Ian F. D. Morrow (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971), 91–93. 170. Hans Kramer, “Botschafter Anton Graf Wolkenstein-Trostburg,” Der Schlern 28 (1954): 126. 171. Hanns Schlitter, Rudolf Graf Khevenhüller (geb. 18. Juni 1844, gest. 20. Oktober 1910) nach Aufzeichnungen und Briefen (Vienna: Adolf Holzhausen, 1911), 11–15. 172. F. R. Bridge, From Sadowa to Sarajevo: The Foreign Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1866–1914 (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972), 305. Josef

Notes to Pages 192–95 •

273

Redlich, Schicksalsjahre Österreichs 1908–1919: Das politische Tagebuch Josef Redlichs, ed. Fritz Fellner, 2 vols., Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Neuere Geschichte Österreichs, vol. 40 (Graz and Cologne: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., 1954), 2:88. 173. Cecil, The German Diplomatic Service, 70–71. 174. Colonel Julius Vidalé to General Baron Franz Conrad (chief of the General Staff), May 5, 1913, KA, Nachlaø Conrad, B/1450, folder 84, fols. 31–33. 175. Treichel, “Magyars at the Ballplatz,” 268. For an unfavorable opinion of Szécsen, see Redlich, Schicksalsjahre Österreichs, 2:146. 176. For descriptions of this division within the Roman nobility and its social consequences, see the memoirs of two Austrian diplomats stationed in Rome: Gabriel Adriányi, ed., “Friedrich Graf Revertera, Erinnerungen (1888– 1901)” Archivum Historiae Ponti¤ciae 10 (1972): 256–59; and Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 2:3–5. 177. Ibid., 4–5. 178. For Pasetti, see Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 27–29; and Schönburg, “Erinnerungen,” 87. 179. Franckenstein, Facts and Features, 62. 180. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 167–69; Maximilian Claar, “Zwanzig Jahre habsburgischer Diplomatie in Rom (1895–1915): Persönliche Erinnerungen,” Berliner Monatshefte 15 (July 1937): 550; Count Josef Walterskirchen, “Persönlichkeiten des Ballplatzes,” HHStA, Nachlaø Berchtold, carton 4. 181. Claar, “Zwanzig Jahre habsburgischer Diplomatie,” 549. 182. For contemporary characterizations of Mérey, see Count Josef Walterskirchen, “Persönlichkeiten des Ballplatzes,” HHStA, Nachlaø Berchtold, carton 4; Claar, “Zwanzig Jahre habsburgischer Diplomatie,” 557–59; Berthold Molden, “Botschafter von Mérey,” Berliner Monatshefte 10, no. 5 (May 1932): 460–61; Cormons, Schicksale und Schatten, 124–25; Luigi Graf Aldrovandi Marescotti, Der Krieg der Diplomaten: Erinnerungen und Tagebuchauszüge 1914–1919, trans. Eugen Dollmann (Munich: Paul Hugendubel, 1940), 50–55. 183. Maximilian Claar, “Die römische Mission des österreichisch-ungarischen Botschafters von Mérey (1910–1914),” Berliner Monatshefte vol. 10, no. 3 (March 1932): 248. 184. Friedrich Engel-Janosi, Österreich und der Vatikan 1846–1918, 2 vols. (Graz: Styria, 1960), 2:126. 185. Ludwig Freiherr von Pastor, Tagebücher—Briefe—Erinnerungen, ed. Wilhelm Wühr (Heidelberg: F. H. Kerle, 1950), 547, 615. 186. Schönburg, “Erinnerungen,” 86. 187. For Schönburg, see Engel-Janosi, Österreich und der Vatikan, 2:126–29. 188. Giesl, Zwei Jahrzehnte im Nahen Orient, 56–57; Schönburg, “Erinnerungen,” 56. 189. Matsch, Der auswärtige Dienst von Österreich(-Ungarn), 177; Giesl, Zwei Jahrzehnte im Nahen Orient, 55. 190. Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 2:56–57; Schönburg, “Erinnerungen,” 58. See also Joseph Pomiankowski, Der Zusammenbruch des ottomanischen Reiches:

274 • Notes to Pages 195–98 Erinnerungen an die Türkei aus der Zeit des Weltkrieges (Graz, 1969), 59–60, for a brief description of society in Constantinople before the war. 191. In German, Pallavicini’s name and title of nobility read: Johann Markgraf von Pallavicini. His title has traditionally been translated into English as “marquis” or “marquess,” though neither corresponds strictly to his rank in Central Europe. The dignity of “marquis” did not exist among the nonregnant nobility in German-speaking areas or in the Habsburg Monarchy, although it had been borne occasionally in the early modern period by certain reigning families in the Holy Roman Empire. Originally a north Italian family, the Pallavicinis took up residence in Austria(-Hungary) in the nineteenth century and had their title, marchese, recognized as “Markgraf ” by Francis Joseph. The almanac of the nobility in Gotha always published the Pallavicini genealogy in the yearly volume devoted to counts. 192. For the estates, totaling 59,006 Joch, belonging to his ¤rst cousin, see Alexander Markgraf Pallavicini’sche Fideicommissherrschaften Míndszent und Algyõ (Vienna: Alexander Markgraf Pallavicini, 1897). 193. Vortrag Andrássy to Francis Joseph, September 30, 1879, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 245, personnel ¤le Count Johann Pallavicini. 194. Vortrag Haymerle to Francis Joseph, February 6, 1880, ibid. 195. Vortrag Go|uchowski to Francis Joseph, October 5, 1906, ibid. 196. Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 2:62. 197. Treichel, “Magyars at the Ballplatz,” 256–57; Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 169. 198. Claar, “Die römische Mission,” 246. 199. For speci¤cs of the Mérey-Berchtold disagreements, see Renate Vietor, “Die Tätigkeit des österreich-ungarischen Botschafters am Quirinal Kajetan Mérey von Kapos-Mére 1910–1912” (Ph.D. diss., University of Vienna, 1962). 200. Szilassy, Der Untergang der Donau-Monarchie, 217–20. For other examples in the Berchtold years, see Joseph Maria Baernreither, Fragments of a Political Diary, ed. Joseph Redlich (London: Macmillan, 1930), 264. 201. Dumba, Memoirs, 91–92. 202. Mensdorff to Aehrenthal, October 26, 1906, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 3. Cf. Ladislaus von Szõgyény to Aehrenthal, March 9, 1899, ibid., carton 4. 203. Hengelmüller to Aehrenthal, January 22, 1900, ibid., carton 1. See also Hengelmüller to Aehrenthal, March 28, 1902, ibid. 204. Szõgyény to Aehrenthal, March 24, 1901, ibid., carton 4. 205. Fürstenberg to Berchtold, February 28, 1912, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 134, folder 464/12, fols. 135–38. 206. Fürstenberg to Berchtold, March 2, 1910, ibid., fols. 125–28. 207. Count Friedrich Szápáry to Berchtold, April 21, 1913, ibid., carton 135, folder 464/32, fols. 11–12. Ironically, Szápáry himself was in charge of the departments responsible for keeping the missions abroad up-to-date. See also Baernreither, Fragments, 156, 191.

Notes to Pages 198–200 •

275

208. Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 1:88–89. 209. Ibid., 178–79. 210. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 319. 211. Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz, 138–39; Heinrich Wildner, Die Technik der Diplomatie (Vienna: Springer, 1959), 156. 212. For the duties of the mission personnel in Dresden and St. Petersburg, see Csáky, Vom Geachteten zum Geächteten, 95–97, 187; in St. Petersburg, Mérey to Aehrenthal, July 15, 1905, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 3; in Constantinople, Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 2:57–62. 213. Baron Guido Call to Berchtold, November 5, 1908, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 101, personnel ¤le Prince Karl Emil Fürstenberg. 214. Berchtold to Aehrenthal, July 7, 1907, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 1. 215. Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 1:178. 216. Foreign of¤ce to Szécsen, draft letter, October 16, 1907, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 164, personnel ¤le Baron Anton Kiss. 217. Count Heinrich Lützow to Baron Marius Pasetti, draft telegram; and Pasetti to Lützow, telegram, March 13, 1903, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 368, personnel ¤le Hans Ludwig von Wagner. Wagner was ennobled in the fall of 1907. 218. Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz, 53. For other instances of the Ballhausplatz’s willingness to consider an envoy’s wishes, see Claar, “Zwanzig Jahre habsburgischer Diplomatie,” 558; Count Anton Wolkenstein to Aehrenthal, December 21, 1893, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 4. 219. For an explicit statement of that right, see Cajetan von Mérey to Baron Maximilian Gagern, September 10, 1905; and Gagern to Béla von Rakovszky, November 7, 1905, HHStA, PA I, carton 644, Kabinett des Ministers, folder IX/b-39. 220. Count Emmerich Széchényi to Kálnoky, December 4, 1890, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 81, personnel ¤le Baron Arthur Eisenstein. 221. See the correspondence relative to this issue in HHStA, AR, F4, carton 93, personnel ¤le Baron Ludwig Flotow; Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 189. 222. Mensdorff to Berchtold, October 13, 1905, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 135, folder 464/25, fols. 37–38. 223. Hengelmüller to Ladislaus von Müller, November 9, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 198, personnel ¤le Heinrich von Löwenthal. 224. Silvia Stiedl, “Emmerich von P¶ügl (1873–1956): Leben und Werk eines österreichischen Diplomaten” (Ph.D. diss., University of Vienna, 1988), 126–27. 225. For details of that affair, see Lützow, Im diplomatischen Dienst, 48–49. 226. The only evidence to come to light so far for our period about an ambitious diplomat intriguing against his chief concerns Baron Otto Franz. See Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 104–5, 162. 227. Count Rudolf Khevenhüller-Metsch to Cajetan von Mérey, November 3, 1906, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7.

276 • Notes to Pages 200–202 228. See Count Theobald Westphalen to Cajetan von Mérey, March 30, 1904, ibid., carton 2. Westphalen asked not to be stationed at the same mission with Forgách. Westphalen referred cryptically to an incident in 1899 in St. Petersburg that led him to make his request. See the likewise obscure reference to the “Forgách affair ” in Count Rudolf Welsersheimb to Mérey, September 12, 1899, ibid. For Mérey’s unsatisfactory relations with his own staff at the embassy in Rome, see Claar, “Zwanzig Jahre habsburgischer Diplomatie,” 558. 229. Count Anton Wolkenstein to Aehrenthal, April 26, 1894, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 4. 230. For one instance, see Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 2:26; Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 66–67. 231. Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 1:134–35. 232. Ernst von Maurig to Aehrenthal, September 30, 1909, HHStA, AR, F4, carton 129, personnel ¤le Marian von Heimroth. 233. Flotow, November 1918 auf dem Ballhausplatz, 106–8, 110. 234. For a classic expression of that attitude, see Count Nikolaus Revertera to Mérey, July 22, 1897, HHStA, Nachlaø Mérey, carton 7. For a perhaps apocryphal illustration of the lack of seriousness, see Harry Graf Kessler, Tagebücher 1918–1937, ed. Wolfgang Pfeiffer-Belli, Insel Taschenbuch 659 (Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1982), 764–65. 235. Count Gilbert Hohenwart to Aehrenthal, December 1894, HHStA, Nachlaø Aehrenthal, carton 5. 236. Quoted in Rudolf Agstner, “Von der österreichisch-ungarischen Botschaft zum österreichischen Generalkonsulat Berlin,” Mitteilungen des österreichischen Staatsarchives 42 (1992): 284. 237. Baernreither, Fragments, 121, 281, 294. 238. Dumba, Memoirs, 69; Mittag, Unter zwei Kaisern, 1:114. For an even more devastating account from 1913, see Julius Vidalé (military attaché in Paris) to August von Urbañski, February 27, 1913, KA, Nachlaø Conrad, B/1450: 76. 239. Musulin, Das Haus am Ballplatz, 127–28. For a discussion of AustriaHungary in the western and Russian press before World War I, see Barbara Jelavich, “Clouded Image: Critical Perceptions of the Habsburg Empire in 1914,” Austrian History Yearbook 23 (1992): 23–35. 240. Trauttmansdorff to Berchtold, January 18, 1904, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 135, folder 464/38, fols. 5–7. 241. Baernreither, Fragments, 52, 109, 113, 286. 242. Mérey to Berchtold, October 28, 1903, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 135, folder 464/26, fols. 1–2. 243. On this point, see Cormons, Schicksale und Schatten, 126. 244. Berchtold to Francis Ferdinand, September 17, 1913, HHStA, Nachlaø Franz Ferdinand, carton 9, folder Count Leopold Berchtold, fols. 166–67. For Count Mensdorff as the monarchy’s representative at the ambassador’s conference in London in 1912, see Mensdorff to Berchtold, December 6 and 26, 1912, MZA, Rodinnÿ archiv Berchtoldû, carton 135, folder 464/25, fols. 73–77, 79–82.

Notes to Pages 203–6

• 277

Epilogue 1. Quoted in Samuel R. Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War (London and Houndmills: Macmillan, 1991), 194. 2. Ibid., 196. 3. The term “irredentism” is hardly value-free in that it suggests that the monarchy was illicitly and unjustly occupying territory rightfully belonging to another state. Italia irredenta was a concept whose origins existed only in the fevered minds of Italian nationalists, there never having before been an Italian state to which the south Tyrol or Trieste belonged. Serbian and Rumanian claims were based on similarly false and convoluted premises. 4. Forgách to General Baron Franz Conrad, February 14, 1914, KA, Nachlaø Conrad, B/1450: 100. While it may well have been good policy to educate the sons of prominent Albanian families at the Theresianum in the expectation that they would eventually exercise more in¶uence than their less fortunate countrymen, Forgách’s thinking on the subject re¶ected other priorities as well. For example, he rejected one Albanian candidate for the school because his background was not appropriate to the milieu of the school and that he was handicapped. 5. “Die ö(sterreichisch)-u(ngarische) Botschaft ist in dem Meer der demokratischen Gesinnung von Paris eine einsame, stille Insel, umgeben von einer chinesischen Mauer, hinter der die wenigen Auserwählten ihre geheimnisvollen Kulte treiben,” Julius Vidalé to August von Urbañski, February 27, 1913, KA, Nachlaø Conrad, B/1450: 76.

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Inde x

Admission standards: diplomatic examination (Diplomatenprüfung), 54–57, 105, 112, 114; education, 41, 47–53; income requirement, 41, 59–71, 84; linguistic ability, 41, 42–46, 55, 56; marriage, 85, 89–90; provisional service (Konzepts- or Probepraxis), 53–55; qualifying examination (Vorprüfung), 41–47, 113–14; reform of, 111–15 Aehrenthal. See Bylandt; ColloredoMannsfeld Aehrenthal, Baron (1909 Count) Alois, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 23, 26, 31, 32, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 47, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 63, 68, 72, 73, 75, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 88, 89, 91, 94, 98, 102, 128, 129, 130, 132, 133, 140, 143, 145, 152, 155, 157, 158, 166, 167, 172, 174, 178, 179, 181, 182, 183, 185, 187, 188, 189, 191, 193, 196, 197, 198, 201, 207, 215, 216, 221, 227, 228, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 239, 240, 241, 243, 244, 245, 247, 249, 251, 254, 255, 256, 257, 260, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 274, 275, 276; as envoy in Bucharest, 180, 199; ethnic origins of, 150– 51; and Hungary, 131, 134–35, 136–37, 138–39, 146–47; marriage of, 99; and reform program in foreign of¤ce, 102– 23, 202, 204; religious views of, 85–86; social origins, 10, 19–20, 103, 217; supranational sentiments of, 161–62 Aehrenthal, Baroness Johanne, née Countess Wilczek, 19 Aehrenthal, Baroness Marie, née Countess Thun und Hohenstein, 19 Aehrenthal, Countess Pauline, née Countess Széchényi, 19, 251 Albert I, Prince of Monaco, 24, 96 Alexandra, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, née Princess of Denmark, 68, 191 Alice, Princess of Monaco, née Heine, 96 Almeida, Count Hieronymous, 220 Almeida, Count Karl, 24, 33–34, 153, 220, 246 Althann, Count Robert, 233 Ambró, Béla von, 50, 145, 209, 217, 254, 256 Ambró, Gisela von, née Countess Berényi, 217 Ambrózy, Baron (1913 Count) Ludwig, 52, 87, 144–45, 175, 267

Andrássy, Count Julius (†1890), 72, 73, 83, 106, 116, 126, 130, 133, 136, 207, 226, 234, 244, 274; and admission standards, 51, 58, 225; social origins, 10 Andrássy, Count Julius (†1929), 50, 131, 142, 251, 255 Andrian-Werburg, Baron Leopold, 4, 54, 55, 80, 88, 162, 166, 225, 236; homosexuality of, 91, 239 Antonie, Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, née Countess (1815 Princess) Koháry, 25 Apponyi, Count Albert, 142, 255 Apponyi, Count Heinrich, 25 Apponyi, Countess Margareta, née Countess Seherr-Thoø, 25 Argyll, Louise Campbell, Duchess of, née Princess of Great Britain and Ireland, 68 Arthur, Prince of Great Britain and Ireland (1874 Duke of Connaught) (†1942), 68 Arthur, Prince of Great Britain and Ireland (†1938), 68 Atlász, Martin, 121–22 Auersperg. See Windisch-Grätz Auersperg, Prince Franz, 75 Auersperg, Princess Wilhelmine, née Countess Colloredo-Mannsfeld, 21 Austria, house of, 9, 185, 194 Badeni, Count Casimir, 158 Badeni, Count Ludwig (Louis), 40, 63, 158, 160, 199, 259, 260 Badeni decrees (1897), 205 Baernreither, Josef Maria, 104, 202, 221, 243 Balázs, Alexander, 249 Bánffy, family, 62 Bánffy, Baron Zoltán, 87, 154, 230, 245, 246 Barcza, Georg von, 81, 238 Battenberg, Princess Beatrice of, née Princess of Great Britain and Ireland, 68 Batthyány(-Strattmann), Count (1883 Prince) Edmund, 234 Batthyány-Strattmann, Prince Gustav, 233–34 Beauharnais. See Stephanie Berchtold. See Boróczy; Waldstein Berchtold, Countess Ferdinandine, née Countess Károlyi, 97, 231 Berchtold, Count Leopold, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 23, 31, 32, 35, 37, 38, 43, 44, 47,

293

294 • Index 50, 51, 54, 62, 73, 75, 78, 80, 82, 83, 84, 88, 91, 94, 98, 116, 130, 133, 136, 140, 141, 142, 155, 157, 164, 168, 179, 182, 184, 188, 191, 196, 197, 201, 202, 203–4, 205, 207, 215, 216, 228, 233, 235, 238, 239, 240, 241, 244, 246, 247, 249, 251, 252, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 266, 269, 270, 271, 274, 275; as ambassador in St. Petersburg, 158, 188– 89, 190, 198–99, 210, 272; career, 72; citizenship of, 254; education, 48; and Hungary, 131–32, 134, 138, 139, 146; and reform of foreign of¤ce, 113, 115, 122; religious views of, 85–86; social origins of, 10, 16, 21, 25, 26, 28, 103, 242–43; supranational sentiments of, 161, 262; wealth, 29, 63, 65, 231 Berényi. See Ambró Berger, Baron Egon, 37, 71 Berger, (1908 Baron) Oskar von, 37 Betegh, Stephan von, 154, 221, 246 Bethlen-Mattyasovszky, Desiderius von, 139 Beust, Baron (1868 Count) Friedrich Ferdinand, 10, 107, 207, 217, 244 Biegeleben, family, 71 Biegeleben, Baron Ludwig, 35 Biegeleben, Baron Maximilian, 13 Biegeleben, Baron Otto, 35, 43, 81, 223, 227 Biliñski, Leon von, 167, 264 Bischitz-Hevesy. See Hevesy Bismarck, (1865 Count, 1871 Prince) Otto von, 93, 143, 159, 199, 201 Bled, Jean-Paul, 4 Bleichröder, family, 60 Bleyleben, (1911 Baron) Oktavian von, 39, 221 Bolgár, Franz von, 81, 139 Bolza. See Csáky Borchgrave, Emile de, 264 Borkowska. See Hengelmüller Boróczy, Eugenie (Jenny) von, née Countess Berchtold, 46, 224 Boróczy, Ludwig von, 46, 54, 139, 224, 227, 246 Bosnia-Herzegovina, annexation of, 26, 73, 105–6, 108, 179, 189, 192, 196, 204 Bourguignon, Baron Arthur, 38–39, 221 Bourguignon, Baron Edwin, 38–39, 40, 154, 221 Boxer Rebellion (China), 98, 173 Brandis, Countess Athenaïs, née Countess Schönborn-Wiesentheid, 93, 239 Brandis, Count Ferdinand, 42, 222, 227 Brandis, Count Otto, 48, 183, 210, 224, 235, 239, 270 Braun, Baron Carl, 144, 167, 169, 172, 179, 182, 186–87, 209, 211, 256, 264, 266, 268

Brosch, Alexander von, 254 Bruck, Baron Karl, 167 Brunner, Karl Emil von, 71, 88 Brusselle-Schaubeck, Count Felix, 21, 88, 143, 144, 180, 256, 269 Brusselle-Schaubeck, Baron Otto, 234 Bucharest, Treaty of (1913), 125 Bukuwky, Count Michael, 36, 200 Buol-Schauenstein, Count Karl, 161 Burchardt-Bélaváry, Paul von, 73, 74, 83, 233, 234, 268 Burián, (1900 Baron, 1918 Count) Stephan von, 40, 217, 255 Buschmann, Baron Franz, 46–47, 71, 224 Buska. See Török Bylandt, Count Anton, 19 Bylandt, Countess Johanna, née Baroness Aehrenthal, 19 Calice, Count Franz, 35, 217 Calice, (1873 Baron, 1906 Count) Heinrich, 16, 35, 79–80, 162, 195, 220, 235, 236, 240, 262, 269 Call, Baron Guido, 52, 235; as ambassador in Tokyo, 110, 209; career, 75, 79, 80, 83; education, 51; as ¤rst section chief, 39, 76, 82, 107, 134, 207, 221, 232, 234, 243, 247, 248, 264, 265, 268, 270, 275 Callenberg, (1918 Baron) Ludwig von, 51, 167, 210, 212 Cambronne, Pierre comte de, 29, 219 Cannadine, David, 60 Carl, Prince of Denmark (1905 King Haakon VII of Norway), 68 Carol I, King of Rumania, né Prince of Hohenzollern, 141, 181, 197, 200 Cavriani, Count Ladislaus, 264 Central of¤ce (Ballhausplatz): income requirement, 70–71; minister’s personal secretariat (Kabinett des Ministers), 12, 83, 133; organization, 9–13, 106–11, 118– 19, 138–40; reform of, 105–11; transfers from, 81–82; transfers to, 17, 82–83 Chotek. See Hohenberg Chotek, Count Bohuslav, 75 Christian, Prince of Schleswig-Holstein, 68 Clary und Aldringen, Count Alfons, 28, 34, 62, 122 Clary und Aldringen, Count Siegfried, 50, 51, 53, 75, 184, 208, 225, 226, 227, 234 Colloredo-Mannsfeld. See Auersperg Colloredo-Mannsfeld, Countess Elisabeth, née Baroness Aehrenthal, 19 Colloredo-Mannsfeld, Count Ferdinand, 27, 42, 63, 96, 222, 232, 241 Colloredo-Mannsfeld, Count Franz, 38, 217, 221, 234

Index • Colloredo-Mannsfeld, Countess Maria, née Baroness Aehrenthal, 19 Colloredo-Mannsfeld, Countess Nora, née Iselin, 96 Compromise (Ausgleich) of 1867, 9, 10, 31, 113, 250, 257; Hungarian claims under, 120–21, 124–50 Connaught, duchess of. See Luise Margarete, Princess Connaught, duke of. See Arthur, Prince Conrad, (1910 Baron, 1918 Count) Franz von, 194, 215, 242, 273, 277 Constantinovits. See Natalija, Princess; Pottere Consular Academy (earlier Oriental Academy), 15, 47, 51–53, 59, 60, 76, 77, 81, 89, 112–13, 163, 243 Consular service: Dragomanat (translation bureau), 78–80; organization, 14–15, 235; reform of, 105, 119–22, 243; transfers from, 76–81 Coronini, Count Franz, 264 Coronini, Count Rudolf, 25, 264 Crenneville, Count Franz, 218 Crenneville, Count Viktor, 236 Croy, Natalie, Duchess of, née Princess de Ligne, 25 Croy, Rudolf, 11th Duke of, 25 Csáky, Countess Anna, née Countess Bolza, 65 Csáky, Count Emerich, 26, 28, 37, 48, 52, 65, 112, 144, 149 Csekonics, Count Ivan, 27, 36, 65, 149 Czernin, family, 62 Czernin, Count Otto, 52, 190 Czernin, Count Ottokar, 55, 63, 69, 140, 141–42, 148–49, 157, 161, 180, 198, 210, 223, 227, 232, 250, 254, 255, 257, 258, 259, 260, 262, 265 Czikann, Baroness Ilma, née Countess Zichy, 240 Czikann, Baron Moritz, 36, 76, 169, 181– 82, 211, 264 Cziráky, Count Adalbert, 251 Cziráky, Count Ladislaus, 36, 53, 55–56, 228 Dandini, Alois conte, 118, 247 Darányi, Ignaz von, 138 Defoe, Daniel, 37 Demblin, Count August, 46, 53, 224, 238 Demeliå, Eleonore von, née von Jarsch, 100 Demeliå, Georg von, 44, 88, 135, 223 Des Fours-Walderode, family, 62, 63 Des Fours-Walderode, Count Arthur, 36 Des Fours-Walderode, Count Kuno, 36, 43, 88, 222

295

Deym. See Esterházy Deym, Count Constantin, 92, 168, 174, 239, 264, 265, 266 Deym, Countess Clara, née de Montalvo, 92 Deym, Count Franz, 170, 191, 264, 265 Díaz, Por¤rio, 171 Dietrichstein, Prince Alexander. See Mensdorff-Pouilly Dietrichstein, Prince Joseph, 66 Dietrichstein, Princess Alexandrine, née Countess Dietrichstein-Proskau und Leslie, 44 Diller, Baron Erich, 26 Diószegi, István, 125, 250 Diplomatic corps (Austro-Hungarian): ethnic complexion of, 151–64; and military, 72–74; organization, 13–14; provisional attachés, 74–75; reform of, 115–17; religious complexion of, 86–88; salaries and expenses, 59–60, 67–70, 90; transfers to, 17, 72–82 Diplomatic examination (Diplomatenprüfung), 54–57, 105, 112, 114 Doblhoff, Baroness Felicitas, née Countess Dubsky, 100 Doblhoff, Baron Rudolf, 70, 100 Dóczy, Baron Peter, 71, 135 Donnersmarck, Prince Guido, né Count Henckel, 60 Douglas-Hamilton. See Festetics Dragomanat. See Consular service Draskovich, Count Josef, 18, 138, 155 Dreyfus affair (France), 26 Dubsky. See Doblhoff Dubsky, family, 36 Dubsky, Count Franz, 245, 246 Dubsky, Count Victor, 73 Duka, Baron Géza, 22, 38, 221, 271 Dumba, Anna, née Baroness Lieven, 241 Dumba, Constantin, 37–38, 132; as ambassador in Washington, 177, 212, 263; career, 83; education, 50; as envoy in Belgrade, 197; as envoy in Stockholm, 185, 211; marriage of, 97, 241; religion of, 86, 87; social origins, 30, 229 Dumreicher, Baron Alois, 36 Dumreicher, Baron Armand, 160 Dumreicher, Baroness Adele, née von Schoeller, 232 Dumreicher, Baron Johann, 36, 160–61, 221, 232, 246 Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques et Morales (Paris), 37, 53 Ecole Practique de Commerce Pigier (Paris), 53

296 • Index Economo, family, 237 Economo, Baron Johann, 39, 53, 86, 87, 154, 221, 226, 229, 245 Edward VII, King of Great Britain and Ireland, 24, 68 Egger, Lothar von, 54, 72, 229 Ehrhart, (1917 Baron) Robert von, 228–29 Eisenstein, (1889 Baron) Arthur von, 92, 239, 275 Eleonore, Holy Roman Empress, née Gonzaga, 94 Elisabeth, Empress of Austria, née Duchess of Bavaria, 224 Eperjesy, (1909 Baron) Albert von, 14, 50, 72, 140, 154, 211, 239 Eperjesy, Baron Árpád, 36 Eperjesy, Baroness Armgard, née Countess Oriola, 93 Erb, Baron Klemens, 71 Esterházy. See Hohenlohe-WaldenburgSchillingsfürst Esterházy, family, 64, 231 Esterházy, Countess Isabella, née Countess Deym, 264 Esterházy, Countess Marie-Anne, 26 Esterházy, Count Nikolaus, 233 Esterházy, Count Paul, 17, 131; ethnicity of, 130; qualifying examination, 46, 224; as section chief for Hungarian affairs, 82, 131, 132, 139, 207, 251; social origins, 21, 23, 26 Esterházy, Prince Rudolf, 25, 64 Esterházy, Princess, née Lady Sarah Villiers, 25 Eulenburg und Hertefeld, Count (1900 Prince) Philipp, 26, 92, 196 Ewald, Carl, 264 Fejérváry, (1862 Baron) Géza von, 167 Felméri, Ludwig von, 88, 139, 253, 254 Ferdinand I, Prince of Bulgaria (1908 King of the Bulgarians), né Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, 25, 78, 177, 179 Ferdinand, Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, 25 Festetics, family, 36 Festetics, Count Alexander, 40, 75, 115, 241, 245, 246 Festetics, Count Georg, 24, 43, 53, 60, 64, 66, 144, 222, 226, 229 Festetics, Count (1911 Prince) Tassilo, 64– 65, 231 Festetics, Princess, née Lady Mary Douglas-Hamilton, 24 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 153 Fiquelmont, Count Karl Ludwig, 34 Firmian, Count Franz, 77, 234

Fischer, Fritz, 5 Flotow, Baron Ludwig, 45, 83, 132, 161, 166, 169, 178, 180, 199, 217, 269, 275 Foreign service (France), reform of, 102–3, 105, 107 Foreign service (Great Britain), reform of, 103 Forgách, Count Johann, 204, 268, 269, 271; education, 47; as envoy in Belgrade, 178, 180, 182, 211; as envoy in Dresden, 187, 211; as envoy in Rio de Janeiro, 208; ethnicity of, 130, 131, 132, 133, 140, 160; Jewish ancestry of, 88; personality of, 200, 269, 276; as second section chief, 82, 149, 206, 207, 251, 277; social origins, 21; wealth, 65 Forster, (1906 Baron) Julius, 43, 144, 155, 223 Fragiacomo. See Peter Francis II (I), (until 1806) Holy Roman Emperor, (after 1804) Emperor of Austria, 153 Francis Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and heir to the throne, 9, 38–39, 74, 89, 97, 140, 141, 149, 157, 161, 179, 184, 191, 203, 218, 221, 233, 254, 257, 266, 270, 272, 276 Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, 9, 10, 20, 22, 40, 41, 50, 65, 85, 116, 147, 173, 179, 185, 186, 190, 194, 215, 221, 225, 226, 231, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 239, 240, 241, 244, 247, 251, 252, 255, 256, 261, 263, 265, 266, 269, 270, 271, 272, 274; and Hungary, 141; and marriages of diplomats, 94; and personnel policy, 166–67; and social origins of diplomats, 16 Franckenstein, Baron Georg, 21, 27, 35, 44– 45, 66, 83, 91, 117, 166, 187, 223, 247 Franz, (1910 Baron) Otto, 30, 88, 200, 239, 275 Frederick August III, King of Saxony, 186 Freudenthal, Baron Carl, 22, 218 Freudenthal, Baroness Agathe, née Countess Wrbna, 218 Friedjung, Heinrich, 187 Friedrich, Archduke of Austria, 96 Fuchs, Adalbert von, 246 Fürstenberg, family, 36, 64, 157 Fürstenberg, Prince Emil, 24, 259 Fürstenberg, Prince Karl Emil, 24, 62, 181, 184, 186, 197, 210, 211, 240, 251, 259, 269, 274, 275 Fürstenberg, Princess Amalie, née Princess of Baden, 24 Fürstenberg, Princess Maria (May), née Countess Festetics, 97

Index • Fugger. See Wydenbruck Gagern, family, 36 Gagern, Baron Johann, 35, 221, 225 Gagern, Baron Karl, 35 Gagern, Baron Konstantin, 229 Gagern, Baron Maximilian (†1889), 35 Gagern, Baron Maximilian (†1942), 35, 36, 81, 83, 93, 185, 207, 211, 221, 229, 239, 275 Gáspárdy, Géza von, 76 Gautsch, Baron Oskar, 39, 66, 81 Gautsch, (1890 Baron) Paul von, 81 George, Prince of Wales (1910 George V, King of Great Britain and Ireland), 68 Gerliczy, Baroness Elisabeth, née Princess Stirbey, 93 Gerliczy, Baron Felix, 40, 88, 239 Giesl, Baron Wladimir, 73, 74, 182, 202, 210, 211, 233 Giskra, (1891 Baron) Karl, 22, 27, 40, 54, 154, 170, 171, 182, 209, 210, 265, 270 Glacz, Béla von, 88, 137–38, 158, 233, 246 Glommer, Maximilian von, 36, 45, 223 Gödel-Lannoy, Baron Emil, 36 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 153 Goldschmidt-Rothschild, Baron Albert, 61 Go|uchowski, Count Agenor, 9, 11, 12, 25, 35, 38, 51, 52, 73, 94, 108, 110, 115, 116, 130, 136, 140, 161, 166, 170, 174, 184, 188, 195, 207, 220, 221, 232, 234, 235, 236, 239, 240, 241, 245, 251, 257, 261, 265, 266, 271, 274; and admission standards, 33, 45, 46, 55, 56, 58, 111; as envoy in Bucharest, 180, 181; ethnicity of, 125, 160; and Hungary, 128, 146–47; and organization of foreign of¤ce, 106; social origins, 10 Go|uchowska, Countess Anne, née Princess Murat, 25, 160, 181 Gömöry(-Laiml), Ladislaus (1910 von), 133 Grabmayr, Benno von, 71 Grabmayr, Karl von, 71 Gradl, Erich von, 246 Grigorcea, Georg von, 39, 53, 64, 72, 86, 87, 157, 221 Grimaud d’Orsay, Countess Betty, née Juranek, 264 Grimaud d’Orsay, Count Oskar, 22 Grünne, Count Karl, 40 Gudenus, family, 64 Gudenus, Baron Erwein, 52, 64, 168 Günther, Alexander von, 236 Günther, Bertha von, née von Mihanoviå, 100 Guilleaume. See Strassoldo Guilleaume, Theodor von, 61

297

Gustav, Prince of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, 46, 224 Haan, Baron Ernst, 36 Haan, Baron Eugen, 36 Haan, Baron Friedrich, 36 Hadik, Count Maximilian, 40, 53, 157, 161, 209, 211, 254 Halpert, Alexander von, 234 Hamann, Brigitte, 4 Hamilton. See Douglas-Hamilton Hamilton, William Douglas-Hamilton, 11th Duke of, and 8th Duke of Brandon, 24 Hamilton and Brandon, Marie DouglasHamilton, Duchess of, née Princess of Baden, 24 Hammerstein-Gesmold, Baron Arnold, 77, 99, 175–76, 187, 235, 242, 267, 270, 271 Hampe, Hermann (1899 von), 241 Handels-Akademie (Leipzig), 53 Hantsch, Hugo, 103, 125 Harden, Maximilian, 92 Hauenschield-Bauer, Baron Eugen, 22, 39 Haug, Lukas, 48 Haymerle, Baron Franz, 35, 88, 174, 175, 202, 266, 267, 269 Haymerle, Baron Heinrich, 10, 35, 46, 84, 106, 112, 207, 217, 221, 224, 239, 274 Haynald, Ludwig Cardinal, 40 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 153 Heidler, Baroness Sophie, née Countess Waldburg-Zeil-Wurzach, 93, 96, 239, 240 Heidler, (1891 Baron), Karl von, 61, 94, 96, 181, 211, 239, 240, 241, 265, 266, 268, 269 Heimroth, Marian von, 200, 276 Heine. See Alice, Princess of Monaco Helena, Princess of Schleswig-Holstein, née Princess of Great Britain and Ireland, 68 Hempel, Karoline von, née Baroness Ajroldi, 100 Henckel. See Donnersmarck Hengelmüller, Baroness Albertine, née Countess Borkowska, 95, 98 Hengelmüller, (1906 Baron), Ladislaus von: as ambassador in Washington, 78, 174–75, 197, 199, 212, 235, 240, 267, 274, 275; career, 76; citizenship of, 254; ethnicity of, 144–45, 155; Jewish ancestry of, 88; social origins, 20, 36, 66 Herrmann-Herrnritt, Rudolf von, 113 Hertford, marquesses of, 193 Hevesy, Paul von, 87, 151, 157 Hevesy-Bisicz, family, 151

298 • Index Hildebrandt, Johann Lucas von, 8 Hoenning-O’Carroll, (1911 Baron), Otto von, 52, 81, 199, 208, 231, 232, 254 Hoesch, Leopold von, 61 Hofmann, (1872 Baron) Leopold von, 26 Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, 4, 91 Hohenberg, Sophie Duchess of, née Countess Chotek, 9, 203 Hohenlohe, family, 36 Hohenlohe-Langenburg, family, 19 Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Prince Chlodwig, 25 Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Prince Gottfried, 25, 55, 62, 73–74, 91–92, 95– 96, 218, 228, 233, 239, 240, 241, 261, 272 Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Prince Konrad, 39, 221, 238 Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Princess Marie Henriette, née Archduchess of Austria, 95–96 Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst. See Pitner Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, Prince Nikolaus, 27, 133, 157, 259 Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, Princess Franziska, née Countess Esterházy, 157 Hohenwart, Countess Mercedes, née de Montalvo, 92 Hohenwart, Count Gilbert, 40, 52, 64, 79, 92, 172, 199, 210, 236, 239, 265, 276 Hohenzollern, dynasty (Rumania), 181 Hôtel Matignon (Paris), 69 Hoyos, family, 61–62 Hoyos, Count Alexander, 12, 23, 35, 38, 62, 75, 83, 133, 204, 207, 221, 234, 236, 263 Hoyos, Count Edgar, 221 Hoyos, Count Georg, 234 Hoyos, Count Heinrich, 21, 46, 224 Hoyos, Count Ladislaus (†1901), 35, 69 Hoyos, Count Ladislaus (†1939), 53 Hye, Baron Demeter, 40 Illés, Sigismund, 121, 249 Ippen, Theodor, 88, 89, 117, 238, 247 Isabella, Archduchess of Austria, née Princess Croy, 96 Iselin. See Colloredo-Mannsfeld Izvol’skij, Aleksandr, 63, 97, 158 Jäger-Sunstenau, Hanns, 244 Jankovich, Otto von, 54, 139 Janotta, Ernst, 53, 61, 226, 229 Janotta, Heinrich, 40, 229 Jarsch. See Demeliå Jászi, Oscar, 16 Jersey, Georg Child-Villiers, 5th Earl of, 25

Jettel, (1910 Baron), Emil (1894 von), 57, 71, 81, 113, 233, 236 Jezerniczky, Johann von, 139, 253 Joannovics, Chariton, 261 Joannovics, Simon (1914 von), 107, 118, 135, 160, 244 Jockey Club (Vienna), 22, 30 John, King of Saxony, 186 Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, 18, 49 Jurystowski, Nikolaus von, 156, 234, 259 Kaiserstein, Baron Helfried, 234 Kállay, Benjamin von, 66, 130 Kálnoky, Count Gustav, 11, 29, 31, 32, 37, 72, 82, 84, 92, 105, 110, 116, 122, 130, 134, 172, 174, 190, 207, 221, 226, 235, 239, 240, 244, 245, 252, 254, 265, 271, 275; and admission standards, 33, 42, 50, 56, 58, 111, 201; and consular service, 79; and marriages of diplomats, 94; and organization of foreign of¤ce, 106; social origins, 10 Kánia, Koloman von, 87, 166, 210, 254, 263 Kanner, Heinrich, 16 Kant, Immanuel, 153 Karageorgevich, dynasty (Serbia), 182 Karl, Prince of Bavaria, 24 Károlyi, Count Alois, 201 Károlyi, Countess Elisabeth, née Countess Waldstein, 25 Kaunitz, family, 19 Kaunitz, Count Wilhelm, 30, 234 Keil, Emil, 78, 173 Khevenhüller-Frankenburg, (1566 Baron, 1593 Count), Johann (Hans) von, 34 Khevenhüller-Metsch, Count Rudolf, 29, 34, 36, 226, 265; as ambassador in Paris, 69, 144, 192, 198, 199, 200, 209, 232, 236, 256, 275; as knight of Malta, 64, 69; education, 50; wealth, 64 Khuen-Belasi-Héderváry, Count Alexander, 40, 65, 66 Khuen-Belasi-Héderváry, Count Karl, 221, 256 Kinsky. See Liechtenstein Kinsky, family, 62 Kinsky, Countess Elisabetha, née Countess Wilczek, 31 Kinsky, Countess Maria, née Countess Wilczek, 31 Kinsky, Count Franz, 21, 53, 62, 83, 122, 133 Kinsky, Count (1904 Prince) Karl, 30, 55, 271, 272 Kinsky, Count Zdenko, 234 Kiss, (1911 Baron) Anton von, 40–41, 133, 167, 199, 275 Kleist, Heinrich von, 153

Index •

299

Klezl, family, 71 Klezl, Baron Eduard, 70, 245 Klezl, Baroness Marie, née von Raab, 100 Knaf¶-Lenz, Alfons von, 72 Koerber, Ernst von, 107 Koháry. See Antonie, Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha Koháry, Count (1815 Prince) Franz Joseph, 25 Kolossa, Franz, 80, 208, 254, 271 Kolowrat, family, 62 Kolowrat, Count Johann, 157, 259 Konradsheim, Baron Emil, 88 Kossuth, Louis, 151 Koziebrodzki, family, 36, 63 Koziebrodzki, Count Justin, 27 Koziebrodzki, Count Leopold (†1855), 27, 39, 183, 210, 219, 221, 226, 230, 259, 270 Koziebrodzki, Count Leopold (†1906), 259 Koziebrodzki, Count Thaddäus, 172, 186, 209, 212, 230–31, 264, 265, 266, 271; homosexuality of, 91, 92, 238 Krauø. See Sonnleithner Krauø, Baron Karl, 100 Krupp, family, 60 Kuczyñska, Frida von, née Potts-Wegner, 98–99 Kuczyñski, Eugen von, 47, 52, 77, 208, 234 Kuefstein, Count Johann Ferdinand, 54, 115, 245, 246 Kühlmann, Margarete von, née von Stumm (1912 Baroness StummRamholz), 61 Kühlmann, Richard von, 61 Kuhn, Baroness Anna, née Countess Ráday, 98, 240 Kuhn, (1852 Baron) Franz von, 221 Kuhn, Baron Otto, 22, 39, 52, 79, 97, 167, 175–76, 183, 210, 221, 234, 235, 240, 264, 267, 270 Kussinger, Lona, 34

Leslie, John, 250 Lexa, family, 150, 151 Liechtenstein. See Lobkowitz Liechtenstein, Prince Franz, 29, 200, 233, 241, 263 Liechtenstein, Princess Franziska, née Countess Kinsky, 21 Lieven. See Dumba Lieven, Princess Dorothea, née von Benckendorff, 98 Linha, Karl, 162, 262 Lobkowitz. See Windisch-Grätz and Stolberg-Stolberg Lobkowitz, family, 62 Lobkowitz, Prince Georg Christian, 160 Lobkowitz, Prince Johann, 21, 63, 160, 246 Lobkowitz, Princess Anna, née Princess Liechtenstein, 21 Lobkowitz, Princess Anna Bertha, née Princess Schwarzenberg, 21 Löwenthal, Heinrich von, 22, 87, 168, 182, 208, 235, 240, 270, 275 Löwenthal, Karoline von, née Countess Nostitz-Rieneck, 95 Logothetti, Count Hugo, 36, 63, 79, 169, 210, 264 Lónyay, (1896 Count, 1917 Prince) Elemér von, 161 Louise, Princess of Great Britain and Ireland. See Argyll Luise Margarete, Princess of Great Britain and Ireland, Duchess of Connaught, née Princess of Prussia, 68 Lukács, Géza, 249 Lützow, Count Heinrich, 26–27, 31, 35, 99, 188, 226, 235, 264, 275; as ambassador in Rome, 193–94, 196, 209, 241; career, 73, 74, 75, 166; education, 50–51; and Hungary, 255; social origins, 25; wealth, 64 Lützow, Count Rudolf, 35

Lafontaine, Mademoiselle, 28 Lago, Baron Alexander, 54, 63, 67, 73, 74, 158, 159, 232, 233, 234, 259, 260 Lago, Baron Eduard, 232 Lanckoroñska. See Vaux Lanckoroñska, Countess Leonie, née Countess Potocka, 260 Lanckoroñski, Count Casimir, 260 Láng, Lajos, 56, 57 Langenau, Baron Ferdinand, 72 Larisch. See Pereira-Arnstein Larisch, family, 63 Larisch, Count Friedrich, 24, 63, 93 Latimer affair (Pennsylvania), 175, 267 Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, 49

Macaulay, Thomas Babington (1857 Baron), 1 Macchio, Baron Carl, 40, 82, 83, 131, 159, 177, 179, 207, 209, 234, 235, 237, 242, 264, 266, 267, 268, 269 Macuriges, conde de, 92 Malcomes, Baron Julius, 135 Mara, Laurenz von, 88, 139 Margherita, Queen of Italy, née Princess of Savoy, 162 Maria Theresa, Holy Roman Empress, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, 8, 18, 43, 47, 49, 153 Maria Theresia, Archduchess of Austria, née Princess of Portugal, 167

300 • Index Marie, Crown Princess (later Queen) of Rumania, née Princess of Saxe-CoburgGotha, 200 Marie Henriette, Archduchess of Austria. See Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst Marlborough, Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of, 96 Marlborough, Consuelo Spencer-Churchill, Duchess of, née Vanderbilt, 96 Marsovszky, Eugen von, 133, 137–38, 245 Mary, Princess of Wales (1910 Queen of Great Britain and Ireland), née Princess of Teck, 68 Masirevich, Konstantin von, 66, 87, 139 Matscheko, Baron Franz, 37, 45–46, 222, 223 Maud, Princess of Denmark (1905 Queen of Norway), née Princess of Great Britain and Ireland, 68 Maurig, Ernst von, 276 Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, né Archduke of Austria, 171 Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor, 34 Mayer, Arno, 1–2 Mende, Guido von, 45, 100 Mende, Lola von, née von Schreiner, 100 Mensdorff-Pouilly, Count Alexander (1868 Prince Dietrichstein), 35, 258 Mensdorff-Pouilly, Countess Sophie, née Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, 24, 191 Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein, Count Albert, 226, 235, 263; as ambassador in London, 68, 140, 188, 191–92, 197, 199, 211, 232, 256, 272, 274, 276; education, 50; ethnic origins of, 151, 262; qualifying examination, 44, 223; social origins, 20, 24, 63, 66 Mercati, Leonardo conte, 96 Mérey, Alexander von, 66 Mérey, Cajetan von, 143, 160, 166, 176, 232, 234, 235, 242, 252, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 273, 276; as ambassador in Rome, 188, 193–94, 196, 209, 274; as candidate for foreign minister, 255; career, 81, 166; education, 47; ethnicity of, 140, 155, 161; as ¤rst section chief, 45, 46, 82, 130, 168, 202, 207, 218, 224, 226, 256, 275; qualifying examination, 43, 222, 223; social origins, 20, 66– 67; wealth, 231 Merode, Henri comte de, 264 Merry del Val, Raffaelo, 93 Merry y Colon, Don Francisco, 93 Messala. See Velics Metternich-Winneburg, Prince Clemens, 9, 194

Meysenbug, Baron Otto, 35, 226 Micha|owska, Maria von, née Countess Wodzicka, 60 Micha|owski, Johann Sigismund von, 60, 156, 229, 259 Micha|owski, Ludwig von, 229 Mihalovich, Antonia von, née Countess Pejácsevich, 137 Mihalovich, Johann von, 106, 110, 134, 135, 137, 155, 236, 244, 252, 253 Mihalovich, Károly von, 137 Mihanoviå. See Günther Millinkovic, Theodor von, 73 Mirko, Prince of Montenegro. See Natalija, Princess Mitscha, Hermann von, 12, 23, 45, 81, 89, 208, 256 Mittag, Baron Rudolf, 29, 45, 88, 174, 193, 199, 223, 266, 269 Mittag, (1906 Baron) Wilhelm (1888 von), 12, 236, 269, 271 Mocsonyi, Alexander von, 54, 155, 227 Mösslacher, Maximilian, 249 Montalvo. See Deym; Hohenwart Montgelas, Count Rudolf, 199 Montlong, Maria von, née Countess Waldstein, 100, 222 Montlong, Oskar von, 36, 43, 82, 100, 236 Morawitz, Karl, 244 Morsey, Baron Franz, 264 Müller, (1910 Baron) Ladislaus (1896 von), 20, 51, 52, 57, 79, 80, 82, 83, 130, 140, 145, 147, 155, 207, 209, 232, 235, 238, 256, 257, 264, 265, 268, 275 Murat. See Go|uchowska Musulin, (1912 Baron) Alexander von, 22, 24, 38, 40, 61, 81, 83, 133, 154–55, 157, 159, 163, 166, 180, 269 Nagy, Alexius von, 256 Nagy, Ferenc von, 145, 256 Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 24, 219 Natalija, Princess of Montenegro, née Constantinovits, 119 Nemes, Count Albert, 21, 36, 46, 83, 88, 132, 180, 218, 224, 269 Nickl, Alfred von, 139, 155, 245 Nikita, Prince (1910 King) of Montenegro, 73 Nostitz-Rieneck, family, 19 Nostitz-Rieneck. See Löwenthal Nugent, Count Richard, 234 Obrenovich, dynasty (Serbia), 97 Oettingen-Wallerstein. See SchönburgHartenstein

Index •

301

Olexow-Gniewosz. See Würth Olga, Queen of Württemberg, née Grand Duchess of Russia, 27 Oppenheimer, (1878 Baron) Ludwig (1868 von), 226 Oppenheimer, Richard (1911 von), 89 Orczy, Baron Béla, 134, 136 Order of the Star-Cross (Sternkreuzorden), 94–95 Oriental Academy. See Consular Academy Oriola. See Eperjesy Ottlik, Georg von, 21, 40, 158, 217, 238, 246, 260 Otto, Archduke of Austria, 266 Otto, Eduard, 80, 83, 87, 154, 182, 210, 235, 236, 247, 259, 270, 271

Pogatscher, Rudolf, 52, 80, 83, 132 Potocka. See Lanckoroñska Potocki, Count Alfred, 39, 221 Pottere, Anna de, née Constantinovits, 247 Pottere, Georg de, 77, 119, 234, 247 Pouilly, family, 151 Pouilly, Baron Emmanuel de, 258 Prandau, Baron Rudolf, 21, 71, 81 Prantner, Richard, 71 Práznovszky, Ivan von, 135, 137 Preradovich, Nikolaus von, 16 Princig, Walter von, 107, 108, 118, 121, 249 Prokesch, (1871 Count; 1845 Baron) Anton (1830 von), 16, 195 Prokopec, Johann, 249 Proskowetz, Gilbert von, 61, 229

Paar, Count Eduard, 22 Pacher, Heinrich von, 36, 61, 221, 229 Palazzo Venezia (Rome), 192–93 Pálffy, Countess Janina, née Suchodolska, 95 Pálffy, Count Moritz, 40, 53, 62, 95, 180, 240, 264, 269, 270 Pallavicini, Count Alexander, 234 Pallavicini, Count Johann, 20, 62, 140, 143, 159, 181, 195–96, 202, 211, 224, 233, 254, 255–56, 261, 270, 274, 274 Pasetti, Baron Marius, 130, 193, 232, 273, 275 Pejácsevich. See Mihalovich Pejácsevich, family, 40, 260 Pejácsevich, Count Elemér, 40, 43, 44, 65, 157, 222, 223, 260 Pereira-Arnstein, Baron Alfons, 22, 70, 73, 74, 87, 212, 232, 264 Pereira-Arnstein, Baroness Henriette, née Countess Larisch, 22 Peter, Franz, 100, 242 Peter, Mercedes, née Fragiacomo, 100 Pettenegg, Baron (1878 Count) Eduard Gaston, 218 P¶ügl, Emmerich von, 22, 36, 40, 73, 88, 96, 199 P¶ügl, Harriette von, née Wright, 96 Pfusterschmid, (1878 Baron) Karl von, 50, 226 Pichler. See Rosthorn Pirquet, Baron Theodor, 45, 222, 223 Pisko, Julius, 79 Pitner, Baroness Elisabeth, née Princess Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, 118 Pitner, Baron Siegfried, 118 Pius IV, Pope, 192 Plason, Adolf (1874 von), 38, 42, 43, 44, 45, 56, 57, 58, 71, 111, 114, 201, 221, 222, 223, 224, 228, 245, 260

Qualifying examination (Vorprüfung), 41– 47, 113–14 Ráday. See Kuhn Radetzky, Count Joseph, 45 Rakovszky, Béla von, 239, 275 Rama VI, King of Siam, 82, 173 Rappaport, Alfred (1916 von), 89, 118, 238 Rappaport, Eugen, 238 Redl, Alfred, 239 Revertera, Count Nikolaus, 141, 164, 262, 276 Rhemen, Baron Hugo, 100, 153, 208 Riedl, family, 36 Riedl, (1896 Baron) Franz von (†1918), 264 Riedl, Baron Franz (†1943), 47, 168, 171, 208, 209, 218, 232, 263, 267 Riedl, Maximilian von, 44, 223 Riedl, Richard, 117 Riedl, Viktor von, 75 Roeøler, (1912 Baron) Mauriz von, 71, 75– 76, 82, 110, 131, 134, 207, 244, 248 Rohan, Prince Karl Anton, 48 Romer, Count Karl, 18, 21 Roosevelt, Theodore, 175 Rosthorn, Artur von, 61, 173, 208, 210, 229 Rosthorn, Paula von, née Pichler, 96, 98, 173 Rothschild, family, 60 Rozwadowski, Thaddäus von, 257 Rubido-Zichy, Baron Ivan, 21, 200 Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria and Hungary, 4, 22, 190 Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, 34 Rumerskirch, Baron Karl, 221 Rumpler, Helmut, 32, 84, 124 Rutkowski, Ernst, 4 Sagan, Dorothea de Talleyrand-Périgord, Duchess of, née Countess Biron, Princess of Courland, 98

302 • Index Sándor, Johann, 256 Sanjak Railway project, 106–8, 244 Sapieha, Prince Paul, 234 Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, Princess Friederike Juliane, née Princess SalmHorstmar, 260 Schaffgotsch, Countess Johanna, née Gryzik (1858 ennobled as “Gryzik von Schomberg-Godulla”), 61 Scharf, Alexander, 248 Schiessl, (1909 Baron) Franz (1876 von), 227 Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von, 153 Schlechta, Baron Ottokar, 12, 39, 54, 89, 208, 221, 228, 232, 245, 268 Schlosser, Baron Friedrich, 245 Schmidlin, Friedrich von, 238 Schmucker, Norbert (1903 von), 52, 157, 208, 226, 260 Schoeller. See Dumreicher Schoen, Wilhelm (1885 von), 196 Schönborn-Buchheim, family, 64 Schönborn-Buchheim, Count Erwin, 90, 226, 234 Schönborn-Wiesentheid. See Brandis Schönburg-Hartenstein, Prince Johann, 53, 90, 169, 200, 202, 239, 260, 264, 265, 269; as ambassador to the Vatican, 194– 95, 209, 273; education, 47; as envoy in Bucharest, 147–48, 210, 251, 257; social origins, 20, 63 Schönburg-Hartenstein, Princess Sophie, née Princess Oettingen-Oettingen und Oettingen-Wallerstein, 93, 98, 239 Schratt, Katharina, 41, 167 Schreiner. See Mende Schrenck, Baron Niklas, 220 Schubert, Carl von, 61 Schubert, Ida von, née Baroness Stumm, 61 Schwarzenberg. See Lobkowitz Schwarzenberg, Prince Karl, 170 Schwegel, (1875 Baron) Joseph (1870 von), 106, 136, 243 Seherr-Thoø. See Apponyi Seidler, Baron Friedrich Johann (Hans), 43, 87, 93, 222, 239 Seton-Watson, R. W., 206 Setz, Karl, 139 Sieghart, Rudolf, 16 Skrzyñski, family, 36, 63 Skrzyñski, Count Alexander, 231, 259, 260 Skrzyñski, Ladislaus von, 63, 180, 231, 259, 260, 269 Sommaruga, Baron Heinrich, 22, 38, 88, 159, 221, 245

Sommaruga, Baron Hugo, 221 Somssich, Count Joseph, 48, 76, 187, 224, 271 Sonnleithner, Baroness Marie, née Baroness Krauø, 100 Sonnleithner, Baron Maximilian, 100, 262 Sophie, Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. See Mensdorff-Pouilly Steed, Henry Wickham, 206 Steiger, Aladár von, 138 Steiger, Julius von, 253 Stekl, Hannes, 4 Stephanie, Grand Duchess of Baden, née de Beauharnais, 24 Stepski, Julius von, 29 Stepski, Max von, 53, 227 Stimmer, Gernot, 47 Stirbey. See Gerliczy Stirbey, Barbo, Hospodar of Wallachia, 25, 93 Stockinger, Franz, 191, 272 Stofella, Emil von, 51 Stolberg-Stolberg, Countess Anna, née Princess Lobkowitz, 98 Stolberg-Stolberg, Count Hubert, 61, 98 Storck, Wilhelm von, 76–77, 78, 234, 235 Strassoldo, Countess Erna, née von Guilleaume, 93 Strassoldo, Count Leopold, 61, 64, 69, 92– 93, 154, 232, 239, 241 Stumm. See Schubert and Kühlmann Stürgkh, Count Karl, 134, 249 Styrcea, Baroness Berthe, née de Vismes de Ponthieu, 93 Styrcea, Baron Johann, 53, 64, 86, 87, 93, 157, 208, 226, 231, 232, 268 Suchanek, Eduard, 71, 233 Suchodolska. See Pálffy Suzzara, Alexander (1883 von), 106 Szápáry, family, 36 Szápáry, Count Friedrich, 12, 36, 40, 143; as ambassador in St. Petersburg, 188, 189– 90, 210, 255; education, 47, 50; ethnicity of, 131, 132, 133, 140, 144; as head of the minister’s secretariat, 83, 133, 207, 221, 266; qualifying examination, 45, 223; as second section chief, 82, 207, 251, 274; social origins, 21, 23, 62 Szápáry, Count Julius, 40 Szápáry, Count Laurenz, 52, 83, 147, 208, 254 Szápáry, Count Tibor, 18, 21, 70, 81, 82, 135, 137, 138 Széchényi. See Aehrenthal Széchényi, family, 36 Széchényi, Count Dionys, 169, 209, 254, 265

Index • Széchényi, Count Emmerich, 199, 275 Széchényi, Count Ludwig, 209, 251, 256, 271 Szécsen, Count Miklos, 232, 272 Szécsen, Count Nikolaus, 77; as ambassador in Paris, 69, 143, 192, 209, 273; as ambassador at the Vatican, 141, 142, 147, 188, 189, 193, 194, 196, 199, 209, 235, 257, 275; as candidate for foreign minister, 255; citizenship of, 254; education, 50; ethnicity of, 130, 140, 161; as section chief, 233, 234, 268; wealth, 68 Széll, Kálmán von, 131 Szentirmay, Béla, 235 Szent-Ivány, Moriz von, 42, 144 Szilassy, Julius von, 87, 97, 100–101, 157–58, 160, 167, 176, 182, 187, 197, 198, 209, 238, 241, 254, 267, 271 Szirmay, Stephan von, 234 Szõgyény-Marich, Countess Irma, née Baroness Geramb, 98 Szõgyény-Marich, (1910 Count) Ladislaus von, 146, 187, 239, 240, 262, 269, 274; as ambassador in Berlin, 143, 181, 186, 188, 190–91, 196, 197, 199, 209, 233, 243, 257, 264; career, 72, 74, 167; citizenship of, 254; ethnicity of, 130, 140, 160, 162, 261; social origins, 20 Sztáray, Countess Irma, 224 Tallián, Baron Dionys, 135, 137, 138, 233, 252 Tarnowski, Count Adam, 40, 63, 72, 99, 182, 183–84, 202, 208, 242, 259, 270, 271 Tetzner, Albrecht, 249 Thallóczy, Ludwig von, 113, 115, 158, 245, 260 Theresianum (Vienna), 47–48, 52, 163, 206, 277 Thoemmel, (1880 Baron) Gustav (1870 von), 73 Thürheim, Count Ludwig, 18, 71 Thun und Hohenstein. See Aehrenthal Thun und Hohenstein, family, 62 Thun und Hohenstein, Count Oswald, 234 Thun und Hohenstein, Count Paul, 246 Thurn und Valsassina-Como-Vercelli, family, 64 Thurn und Valsassina-Como-Vercelli, Count Alexander, 36, 64 Thurn und Valsassina-Como-Vercelli, Count Duglas, 36, 64, 140, 267; as ambassador in St. Petersburg, 189–90, 196– 97, 210; as envoy in So¤a, 77, 142–43, 177, 178–79, 208, 235, 255, 268; qualifying examination, 44, 223; social origins, 20, 25; wealth, 231

303

Thurn und Valsassina-Como-Vercelli, Countess Franziska, née Countess Thurn und Valsassina-Como-Vercelli, 189 Thyssen, family, 60 Tisza, (1897 Count) István von, 126, 132, 141–42, 149, 244, 250, 252 Tisza, Kolomon von, 128 Török, Béla von, 139, 155 Török, Count Alexander, 21, 40, 83, 133 Török, Countess Johanna, née Buska, 21 Traun, Count Oswald, 234 Trauttenberg, Baron Constantin, 79, 172, 271 Trauttmansdorff-Weinsberg, family, 19, 62 Trauttmansdorff-Weinsberg, Count Carl, 44, 66, 157, 170, 171, 201–2, 223, 224, 259, 263, 265, 276 Trettina, Árpád von, 71, 233 Trevelyan, G.M., 1 Ugron, Stephan von, 77, 80–81, 133, 154, 182, 199, 211, 236, 238, 269 Urbañski, August (1908 von), 276, 277 Urbas, Emmanuel, 12 Vanderbilt. See Marlborough Vaux, Baroness Elisabeth de, née Countess Lanckoroñska, 62 Vaux, Baron Léon de, 40, 43, 62, 63, 158, 159, 173, 222, 260, 266 Velics, Edith von, née de Messala, 94 Velics, Ludwig von, 40, 94, 98, 140, 154, 187, 208, 221, 231, 240, 241, 154, 256, 259, 271 Vera, Duchess of Württemberg, née Grand Duchess of Russia, 186 Versbach, Baron Erwin, 36 Vesque, family, 37 Vesque, Baron Alexander, 37 Vesque, Baron Johann, jun., 37 Vesque, Baron Johann, sen., 37 Vesque, Baron Richard, 37 Vetter, Count Franz, 54, 88, 246 Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, 24 Vidalé, Julius (1916 von), 242, 273, 276, 277 Villiers. See Esterházy Vismes de Ponthieu. See Styrcea Vorprüfung. See Qualifying examination Wagner, Hans Ludwig (1907 von), 87, 199, 210, 275 Waldburg-Zeil-Wurzach. See Heidler Waldburg-Zeil-Wurzach, Prince Eberhard, 96 Waldstein. See Montlong Waldstein, family, 19

304 • Index Waldstein, Countess Maria, née Countess Berchtold, 100 Walsin-Esterházy, Marie-Charles-Ferdinand, 26 Walterskirchen, Count Josef, 83, 133, 179, 255, 268 Wank, Solomon, 4 Warburg banking house (Hamburg), 122 Wass, Count Armin, 242 Weil, Karl (1864 von), 88 Weil, Leopold Felix von, 238 Weil, Otto von, 13, 37, 43, 82, 88–89, 112, 131, 207, 221, 223, 238, 246 Weinzetl, Rudolph, 77, 78, 80, 235, 236 Weizsäcker, (1916 Baron) Carl von, 238 Wekerle, Alexander, 143 Welsersheimb, Count Rudolf, 47, 76, 130, 184, 211, 240, 276 Wenckheim, Count Paul, 45, 65, 157–58, 223 Wense, Baron Ernst von der, 21, 88 Westminster, Hugh Grosvenor, 1st Duke of, 60 Westmoreland, John Fane, 10th Earl of, 25 Westphalen, Count Theobald, 276 Wettstein, Johann von, 158, 246 Wickenburg, Count Markus, 18, 21, 57, 75, 82, 131–32, 134, 139, 207, 228 Wiesner, Friedrich von, 88, 89 Wilczek. See Aehrenthal Wilczek, Count Hans, 4 William I, German Emperor and King of Prussia, 93 William II, German Emperor and King of Prussia, 25, 26, 159, 167, 191, 196, 198, 203 Williamson, Samuel, 124, 141, 203 Windisch-Grätz, family, 62

Windisch-Grätz, Prince Alfred, 34, 40, 190 Windisch-Grätz, Princess Gabriele, née Princess Auersperg, 21 Windisch-Grätz, Princess Hedwig, née Princess Lobkowitz, 21 Windisch-Grätz, Prince Vincenz, 21, 34, 40, 62, 115, 157, 259 Winter, Anton von, 245 Winterstein, Baron Paul, 88 Wišniewski, Count Jaroslav, 162, 184, 264, 270 Wittelsbach, dynasty, 24 Wodianer, Rudolf von, 52, 87, 155, 173, 211, 254 Wodzicka. See Micha|owska Wodzicki, Count Stanislaus, 229 Wolkenstein, Count Anton, 275, 276 Woracziczky, Count Olivier, 40, 54, 227, 246 Wrbna. See Freudenthal Wrbna, family, 22 Wrede, Prince Nikolaus, 73 Wright. See P¶ügl Würth, Marguerite von, née von OlexowGniewosz, 100 Wydenbruck, Count Christoph, 70, 73, 74, 184, 209, 210, 211, 232, 239 Wydenbruck, Countess Marie, née Countess Fugger, 93, 239 Za|uski, Count Carl, 234 Zichy. See Czikann Zichy, Count Theodor, 256 Zwiedinek, Baron Erich, 66, 76, 173–74, 175, 266 Zwiedinek, (1880 Baron) Julius von, 66