Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 46. (1998)

GODSEY, William D. Jr.: Officers vs. Diplomats: Bureaucracy and Foreign Policy in Austria-Hungary 1906–1914

Officers versus Diplomats

the military attaché in Constantinople, the General-Staff Captain Emmerich von Pfliigl, who was given the rank of legation secretary and posted to Athens and soon thereafter Belgrade.9 The entry of both Giesl and Pfliigl into the corps took place in the aftermath of Aehrenthal’s triumph in the annexation of Bosnia-Hercegovina and before his conflicts with General Conrad and the archduke had reached crisis proportions. In his last two years in office, during which his relations with both deteriorated severely, he did not repeat the experiment.

Besides Giesl and Pfliigl, only six other former career military officers, Count Christoph Wydenbruck, Baron Alfons Pereira-Arnstein, Count Heinrich Liitzow, Paul von Burchardt-Bélaváry, Baron Alexander Lago, and Prince Gottfried Hohen- lohe-Schillingsfiirst, appear among the 163 career diplomats who served under Foreign Minsters Aehrenthal and Berchtold. Hohenlohe, like Giesl and Pfliigl, also came from the ranks of the military attachés, having served in that capacity in St. Petersburg for nearly five years. In 1907, as a major on active duty, he entered the foreign service as a legation counselor, but was forced to return to his regiment the following year after his marriage to an archduchess created intractable problems of etiquette. Hohenlohe’s aristocratic connections, background in the army, and experience in the Russian capital nevertheless made him an ideal candidate to undertake a delicate mission to the tsar in February 1913 aimed at reducing tensions following the First Balkan War. In August 1914, he succeeded the decrepit Count Ladislaus Szögyény-Marich as ambassador in Berlin, an appointment under discussion long before the advent of war, but blocked by the refusal of the aging „gypsy baron“ to make a graceful exit.10 None of the other officers mentioned above had ever been military attachés.11

All but unknown in Austria-Hungary was the assignment of career military men, in Germany known as kommandiert officers, to the embassies and legations. As Lamar Cecil has shown in his study of the Wilhelmstraße, the placement of more than 300 such officers abroad lent Germany’s foreign representation a heavily military character.12 Such kommandiert positions, which involved appointing officers on active service to missions for temporary duty (usually 1-2 years), also had counter9 For Pfliigl, see Stiedl, Silvia: Emmerich von Pfliigl (1873-1956). Leben und Werk eines österreichischen Diplomaten. Wien (Phil. Diss.) 1988.

10 In an audience with Francis Joseph on March 14, 1914, Berchtold raised the question of Hohenlohe replacing Szögyény in Berlin. See Berchtold’s unpublished memoirs, vol. VIII, p. 213: Österreichisches Staatsarchiv Wien, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv [HHStA], Nachlaß Berchtold, carton 2. As early as the fall of 1913, Berchtold had discussed the same issue with the Archduke Francis Ferdinand. Cf. Kann, Robert A: Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Count Berchtold during His Term as Foreign Minister, 1912— 1914. In: Dynasty, Politics and Culture: Selected Essays, ed. Stanley B. Winters (Boulder, Col. 1991), p. 136. For Hohenlohe, see Naumann, Victor: Profile. 30 Porträt-Skizzen aus den Jahren des Weltkrieges nach persönlichen Begegnungen. München-Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1925, p. 268-80.

11 For the humorous background of Lago’s decision to transfer from the army to diplomacy, see Benedikt, Heinrich: Damals in alten Österreich. Erinnerungen. Wien-München: Amalthea, 1979, p. 275.

12 Cecil: The German Diplomatic Service, p. 116.

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