Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 46. (1998)
GODSEY, William D. Jr.: Officers vs. Diplomats: Bureaucracy and Foreign Policy in Austria-Hungary 1906–1914
William D. Godsey such use of officers.51 Soon thereafter, the experiment was allowed to lapse and, a- round the same time, Macchio also managed to torpedo the proposal to station a military attaché in Centinje.52 The measure that Conrad pushed through in 1907 meant that Vienna, for the first time in nearly seven years, would receive fairly regular reports on the Montenegrin army. But the already overburdened attaché in Constantinople, who was also accredited in Athens, could devote only limited time to his duties in faraway Centinje. This unsatisfactory situation set the stage for one of the bitterest of the bureaucratic conflicts between the foreign minister and the Chief of the General Staff, which would still be festering at the time of the former’s death in early 1912. After the peaceful conclusion of the Bosnian annexation crisis, which the Chief of the General Staff viewed as an illusory triumph (Scheinerfolg), the hostility between him and the foreign minister gradually intensified.53 Conrad’s dissatisfaction with the outcome of the conflict in the Balkans and his continuing disagreement with Aehrenthal over policy toward Italy sustained the antagonism. However, in the immediate afterglow of Aehrenthal’s success, for which the foreign minister had been raised from the rank of baron to that of count, the enmity remained at low heat. Only in early 1911 did Conrad return to the offensive in terms of both policy and bureaucracy. The acrimony thus engendered forced the general from office at the end of the year. He chose to renew his campaign to increase the number of military attachés during Aehrenthal’s extended absence from Vienna in the early spring of 1911. The foreign minister, who was already suffering from the leukemia that would soon kill him, had retired to Abbazzia on the Adriatic coast for ten weeks of convalescence.54 Conrad exploited the opportunity by turning his attention to the neutral Scandinavian states and suggesting the posting of a military attaché in Stockholm, where sentiment favorable to the central powers was strong. He argued that European political developments had forced Sweden, Norway and Denmark to develop intensively their own military capabilities. Technological and other advances by those countries in areas such as winter maneuvers, the manufacture of powder, and the construction of bridges for wartime use, justified the maintenance there of a permanent observer. To overcome any budgetary difficulties, Conrad further suggested that an officer could serve in Stockholm under the same modalities as did Prince Schwarzenberg in Ma51 HHStA, Nachlaß Macchio, carton 1, folder 2: Mérey to Macchio, September 21, 1900. See also KA, Nachlaß Hubka, B/61: H u b k a, Gustav von: Tagebuch aus meiner Dienstzeit als Militärattache in Montenegro 1912/14 (unpublished typescript), p. 2. 52 HHStA, Nachlaß Macchio, carton 1, folder 2: Mérey to Macchio, September 21, 1900. 53 For Conrad’s view of the results of the Annexation crisis, see his memorandum to Francis Joseph from April 2, 1909 reproduced in Conrad: Aus meiner Dienstzeit. Vol. 1, p. 166-68. 54 Molden, Berthold: Alois Graf Aehrenthal. Sechs Jahre äußere Politik Österreich-Ungams. Stuttgart- Berlin: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1917, p. 230. Aehrenthal departed Vienna on March 11, 1911 and left the foreign office in the hands of the ambassador in Constantinople, Count Johann Pallavicini, who had been especially recalled for the purpose. 52
