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 ta. Upon hearing of the new turn of events, the war minister, Moritz von Auffenberg, urged a rapid resolution of the issue.67 In the same month, Berchtold personally gave his consent for the creation of the post and in August, the new military attaché, General-Staff Captain Gustav Hubka, arrived in Cetinje where he quickly managed to establish a good relationship with the king.68 Hardly had Hubka taken up his responsibilities than Schemua moved on two other fronts to expand his intelligence gathering capabilities in the Balkans. Given the approach of hostilities between Greece and the Ottoman Empire, he asked that an officer be assigned, at least temporarily, to the legation in Athens.69 His proposal, made in the first week of October, evidently met no resistance in the Ballhausplatz, for on the twenty-first of that month, the former military attaché in Belgrade, Lieutenant-Colonel Gabriel Tánczos, received orders to proceed to the Greek capital.70 Tánczos’ appointment proved however to have a more permanent character. A year later, after the end of the Second Balkan War, the emperor approved the regularization of the position in Athens and made Tánczos its first incumbent.71 At the same time that he arranged for the latter’s initial mission to Greece, Schemua ordered the attachés in Sofia, Contantinople, and Belgrade to sound out the local authorities on the possibility of receiving Austro-Hungarian „war attaches“ in the event of hostilities. Such attachés, which had been employed during the Russo-Japanese- and Boer wars as well as during other conflicts stretching back to 1870, served as observers directly in headquarters or on the battlefield.72 Schemua’s plan miscarried, not on any opposition by Berchtold, who does not appear to have been consulted, but rather on that of the various states concerned.73 The crisis associated with the First Balkan War prompted the Archduke Francis Ferdinand in December 1912 to press successfully for the recall of the experienced Conrad.74 Less than two months after the dispatch of Tánczos to Athens and ten months after the death of his rival Aehrenthal, Conrad once again found himself at the helm of the General Staff. The following year, he therefore supervised the systematization of the post in Greece. First, however, he returned to the scene of an earlier defeat by Aehrenthal: the establishment of the position of military attaché for the Scandinavian states. Within days of his re-assumption of power, agreement had been secured from the emperor for sending an officer to Stockholm under conditions similar to those for Madrid. In other words, the appointee would necessarily have to possess a private income, as the war ministry could not afford the requisite pay and 67 Ibi dem: Auffenbergto Berchtold, June 23, 1912. 68 See the handwritten note by Count Alexander Hoyos (head of Berchtold’s personal secretariat) at the top of the Auffenberg’s letter from June 23. 69 KA, KM Präs. 1912, 47-44/1: Schemua to the war ministry, October 3, 1912. 70 Allmayer-Beck: Die Archive der k. u. k. Militärbevollmächtigten und Militär-Akjoints, p. 355. 71 KA, KM Präs. 1913, 47-12/5: Bolfras to the war ministry, October 17, 1913. 72 For the war attachés, see Allmayer-Beck: Die Archive des k.u.k. Militärbevollmächtigten und Militär-Adjoints, p. 354, 375 f. 73 KA, KM Präs. 1912, 47-44/1. 74 K i s z 1 i n g: Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand, p. 183 f. 55
