Sonderband 3. „wir aber aus unsern vorhero sehr erschöpfften camergeföllen nicht hernemben khönnen…” – Beiträge zur österreichischen Wirtschafts- und Finanzgeschichte vom 17. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (1997)

Ronald E. Coons - Carey Goodman: An Audacious Proposal. A Memorandum Attributed to Finance Minister Karl Ludwig Freiherr von Bruck

Ronald E. Coons Carey Goodman

The purpose of the present article is to make a remarkable document available to historians in a readily accessible form. Graphically the manuscript illustrates the difficulties the Finance Minister encountered shortly after assuming office in his efforts to balance the monarchy’s budget and strengthen its currency. Even in the best of times the Habsburg Monarchy’s chief financial officer faced the daunting task of funding a foreign policy and a military establishment that the state ultimately could not afford12. As is clear from the first section of the memorandum, however, in the summer of 1855 conditions were exceptionally critical as a result of the Emperor’s decision to adopt a costly policy of armed neutrality during the Crimean War13. Given the severity of the international crisis, Bruck recognized that there was a limit to the government’s ability to improve the budgetary situation by reducing military expenditures. Understandably reluctant, moreover, to turn to an unfavorable credit market for loans, he was also unwilling to increase taxes, since these already placed a heavy burden upon the Emperor’s subjects. Accordingly, the minister argued that decisive action was essential in the one area in which he considered it possible to effect significant savings - the domestic budget. In a proposal notable for its boldness, Brack concluded that financial considerations left the government little choice but to dismantle the very system of bureaucratic centralism it had assiduously worked to establish in recent years. Bolder still was the program Brack suggested for achieving necessary change. After explaining the magnitude of the budgetary difficulties besetting the government, he proposed that he - and he alone - be empowered to choose a group of officials who would join him in secret deliberations to draft a new administrative structure for the monarchy.

The preceding summary presupposes, of course, a positive answer to the most important question that arises concerning the manuscript Brack’s son intended to publish: is it the work of the Finance Minister? Despite the younger Brack’s affirmation of his father’s authorship, an unsettling element of mystery surrounds the memorandum and its origins. What the collection of Brack’s papers at the Austrian National Library offers is not a manuscript that is written in the minister’s own hand, that mentions him by name, or that bears his signature, but rather two virtually identical versions, each prepared by a different copyist14. The memorandum does not appear in the indices of the Finanzarchiv, and a tantalizing reference to a category of „Memoiren über Staats- und Finanz-Vorschläge“ in the catalogue of papers that Austrian officials seized in Brack’s quarters at the Finance Ministry immediately following his suicide in April 1860 is unfortunately so vague that it provides no

See, e. g., Brandt: Der österreichische Neoabsolutismus, pp. 703-704 and Kennedy, Paul: The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York 1987, pp. 162-166.

On Austrian military activity during the Crimean War see, e. g., S c h m i d t - B r e n t a n o, Antonio: Die Armee in Österreich. Militär, Staat und Gesellschaft 1848-1867. Boppard am Rhein 1975 (Militärgeschichtliche Studien 20), pp. 189-203. For Austrian policy in general, see U n c k e 1, Bemhard: Österreich und der Krimkrieg. Studien zur Politik der Donaumonarchie in den Jahren 1852-1856. Lübeck- Flamburg 1969 (Historische Studien 410) and Schroeder, Paul W.: Austria, Great Britain, and the Crimean War. The Destruction of the European Concert. Ithaca-London 1972.

ÖNB Wien, HSS, Codex Series nova 32.682 and 32.683.

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