Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 41. (1990)

BEVERIDGE, Kent D.: „Worthy Representative of Europe“. Anton Graf Prokesch von Osten

Anton Graf Prokesch von Osten

ments on Bahá’u’lláh’s behalf by Arthur Comte de Gobineau, French diplomat in Tihrán and Athens.

Anton Graf Prokesch von Osten, Austrian ambassador to the Sublime Porte, stands out among the members of the diplomatic corps. Records in the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv in Vienna reveal that Prokesch- Osten interceded with the Ottoman authorities on behalf of Bahá’u’lláh in order to have the edict banishing him and his adherents from Turkey to the notorious penal colony of ‘Akká in Palestine withdrawn.

Anton Prokesch’s adult life was spent in the service of the Austrian Empire. Influenced by his experiences during the course of the French occupation of Styria in his youth, as well as by his „enlightened“ education, he abandoned his law studies at the age of eighteen to join an Austrian regiment fighting Napoleon’s troops. Following several decorations for bravery, he was promoted to the General Staff, and soon rose to the position of adjutant to Prince Karl zu Schwarzenberg, victor of the Battle of Leipzig. Prokesch found army service following Schwarzen- berg’s death confining and unsatisfactory and requested a transfer to the Austrian navy, which was granted in 1842. Prokesch made his first acquaintance with the Orient as a result of this transfer, for the Austrian navy’s mission at that time was to protect the interests of Austrian merchants in the Levant who were enmeshed in the Greek war of independence3). However, Prokesch’s early enthusiasm for the Greek cause, which had grown out of an interest in German romanticism and a sense of identification with Byron, soon withered; he wrote a former professor that, precisely because he loved Greece, the sight of the Greeks who presently populated that sacred ground filled him with such pain4). His reports showed such insight into „Oriental affairs“ that, when rising tensions between Muhammad-‘Ali Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt, and the Sublime Porte5) made it necessary for the Austrian government to dispatch an observer to the Viceroy’s court in Cairo, Prokesch was chosen. This marked the beginning of his diplomatic career. He was able to enhance Austria’s standing in the Near East by mediating the settlement of a long-standing feud between the Viceroy and the Ottoman Sultan, Mahmud II.6). As a result of his successful mission to Egypt, Prokesch was

3) Anton Prokesch-Osten Geschichte des Abfalls der Griechen 5 vols. (Wien 1867) and Henry Kissinger A IVorld Restored: The Politics of Conservatism in a Revolutionary- Age (New York 1964), 286 et sec.

4) Prokesch to Julius Schneller. Cf. Julius Schneller Hinterlassene Werke hg. Ernst Münch 2 (Leipzig 1836) 313; and Friedrich Engel-Janosi Die Jugendzeit des Grafen Prokesch von Osten (Innsbruck 1938) 54.

5) H.M. Balyuzi Muhammad and the Course oflslám (Oxford 1976) 414 and 418f.; and Philip K. Hitti History of the Arabs 6th ed. (London 1956) 722 et sec.

6) Lawrence Ross Beaber Prokesch von Osten and Austria’s Balkan Policy 1860139