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

sian officer.62 Schemua’s move failed, however, as completely as any of Conrad’s. In what must have been one of its last pieces of business, the Aehrenthal foreign office rejected the proposal, citing the same arguments frequently advanced by the minister himself: the presence of Giesl as envoy in Montenegro and the simultaneous accreditation in Cetinje of the military attaché in Constantinople.63 The struggle initiated by Conrad in the question of personnel and the collection of information, at least during Aehrenthal’s lifetime, had thus failed as completely as that over high policy.64

In the more than five years of Aehrenthal’s tenure, Conrad had secured essentially only two new posts of military attaché, those in Berne and Madrid. He can have viewed neither with great satisfaction. In contrast, in the two and one-half years remaining before the First World War, the army pushed through three new positions, including two in the Balkans, a region where Aehrenthal had jealously guarded his prerogatives. Two others were under discussion when war broke out. We may attribute these gains to a couple of factors. For much of Aehrenthal’s tenure after the Bosnian crisis, the international scene had remained relatively quiet. Later, the Italo- Turkish war and the tensions on the Monarchy’s southern borders preceding the outbreak of the First Balkan War in the autumn of 1912 naturally pointed up the importance of reliable military intelligence. And, as noted earlier, there did exist an earlier tradition of sending representatives of the army to the Balkans. Further, however, the accession of Foreign Minister Berchtold himself marked a turning point in that he proved far more amenable than his predecessor to the proposals of the General Staff. This constituted, though, not a victory for the military, but rather a different course in the Ballhausplatz. As the historian Samuel Williamson has shown, Berchtold himself implemented a new „militant diplomacy.“65 Developments on the bureaucratic plane presaged, then reflected, and perhaps reinforced, those at the level of policy.

An indication of the change of direction in the foreign office came early in Berch- told’s tenure, when the issue of Cetinje reappeared on the agenda, barely four months after Aehrenthal’s death. Berchtold himself appears to have broached the subject affirmatively in an audience with the emperor, most probably in connection with the visit of the king of Montenegro to Vienna.66 Whatever his reasoning, the gesture marked a dramatic reversal of a long-standing and bitterly defended position. Further, none of the factors that had influenced Aehrenthal’s thinking had changed. In particular, General Giesl remained at the head of the mission at the court of Niki62 HHStA, AR, F 6, carton 49, folder Militär Attaché I: Moritz von Auffenberg to the foreign oiFice, February 1, 1912. KA, KM Präs. 1912, 47-20/1: Schemuato the war ministry, February 1, 1912.

63 HHStA, AR, F 6, carton 49, folder Militär Attaché I: Foreign office to the war ministry, draft, February 16, 1912.

64 See the general remarks on Aehrenthal’s ability to maintain control of the policy process in W i 11 i a m - son Jr., Samuel R.: Austria-Hungary and the Origins of the First World War. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991, p. 78 f.

65 Ibidem, chap. 7.

66 HHStA, AR, F 6, carton 49, folder Militär Attaché I: Moritz von Auffenberg to Berchtold, June 23, 1912; and foreign office to Rudolf Weinzetl (consul general attached to the mission in Cetinje), July 5, 1912.

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