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 social backgrounds of Counts Aehrenthal and Berchtold on one side and of General von Conrad and the commoner General Schemua on the opposite symbolized the divide between diplomat and officer. While the Aehrenthals may not have enjoyed quite the prestige of the Berchtolds, the former certainly moved among and were accepted as equals by the most wellborn sector of the Bohemian aristocracy, with whom they had concluded numerous marital alliances. The family additionally owned sizable estates in Bohemia. Berchtold, who himself possessed large properties in Moravia and Hungary, has been labelled by his biographer as „one of the most distinguished representatives of the corpus aristocraticumIn stark contrast, Conrad belonged to a family of minor bureaucrats and officers that had first been ennobled in the nineteenth century. On his mother’s side, he came from more proletarian stock, his maternal grandfather having been the grandson of a coachman.” The middle-class Schemua shared with Conrad the distinction of being the son of an officer. Both were self-made men who had little in common with the world in which the two foreign ministers lived. As a group, the military attachés tended to be far more middle class than even the ministerial bureaucracy of the foreign office (15.5%), to say nothing of their civilian colleagues in the missions abroad (6.7%).” Of the thirty-two army officers who served at some point between Aehrenthal’s assumption of power and the summer of 1914, twelve (37.5%) were products of the bourgeoisie. Of the twenty noblemen among them, only eight (25% of the total) may be said to have belonged to the court nobility (Hofgesellschaft), that uniquely exclusive stratum that furnished so many of the diplomats.” The other twelve noblemen (37.5%) came from the „second society“ (zweite Gesellschaft), which was composed primarily of newer bureaucratic and entrepreneurial nobility.” Among the nine naval attaches in the same period, somewhat different proportions prevailed, although the middle class (22%) and the „second society“ (45%) together dominated that group as well.” 91 * 93 * 95 96 91 Hantsch, Hugo: Leopold Graf Berchtold. Grandseigneur und Staatsmann. 2 Vols. Graz: Styria, 1963, Vol. 2, p. 844. ” For information on Conrad’s ancestry, see Neue Deutsche Biographie. Ed. Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Vol. 3. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1957, p. 336. 93 G o d s e y Jr., William D.: Aristocratic Redoubt: The Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office on the Eve of the First World War (forthcoming, Purdue University Press, 1998), chapter 1. ” The eight included Count Thaddäus Dzieduszycki, Count Heribert Herberstein, Prince Gottfried Hohenlo- he-Schillingsfurst, Prince Franz Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfurst, Prince Friedrich Liechtenstein, Prince Georg Schwarzenberg, Count Lelio Spannocchi, and Count Stanislaus Szeptycki. 95 The twelve included Baron Otto Berlepsch, Baron Karl Bienerth, Victor von Bilimek, Adalbert von Dáni, William von Einem, Moritz von Fischer, Baron Wladimir Giesl, Oskar von Hranilovic-Czvetassin, Alois von Klepsch-Kloth, Count Robert Lamezan-Salins, Emmerich von Pflügl and Thaddäus von Rozwa- dowski. 96 The following members of the court nobility served as naval attachés: Count Hieronymus Colloredo- Mannsfeld, Prince Johann Liechtenstein and Count Otto Welsersheimb. Those from the „second society“ included: Napoleon von Louis, Nikolaus von Michieli, Baron Franz Preuschen and Ladislaus von Rémy- Berzenkovich. 59
