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

personnel files reveal no outside wealth.“' The vain effort to find an officer of the General Staff rich enough to take the new post in Stockholm in 1913 under the same conditions that Schwarzenberg had served in Madrid is a case in point."2 When an officer wanted to marry, however, military regulations required him to post a deposit {Kaution), a large sum of money the interest from which would enable him and his wife to live at a level appropriate to his rank. At least in the case of the attachés, the fund usually came from the distaff side."3 The relative poverty of the officers posted abroad is reflected as well in their salaries and expense allowances, which ranged anywhere from 8,000 to 21,000 Kronen more than what a legation counselor received at the same post.111 112 113 114 Whereas the diplomats had to prove a minimal independent income of 12,000 Kronen even to be admitted to the corps, the war ministry had to ensure that officers who had no money of their own could live in a manner appropriate to their station in a foreign capital and to the dignity of the Monarchy.115 A deep economic as well as social cleft therefore divided the military from the civilian representatives of Austria-Hungary abroad.

In keeping with the two different bureaucratic cultures, informal influence and Viennese Protektion played a smaller role in personnel decisions in the army than in the Ballhausplatz. In the appointments of the attachés, the single most significant source of outside wire-pulling came from the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, who used his senior military rank to intervene. His attention to Baron Wladimir Giesl’s career and his close involvement in filling the vacancy in Madrid have already been noted. He likewise promoted the preferment of his former orderly officer, Lieutenant Ladislaus von Rémy-Berzenkovich, to the post of naval attaché in Rome.116 In the General Staff, the heir additionally and justifiably enjoyed the reputation of wanting to increase the military presence in the missions abroad, not least by transfers into the regular diplomatic service. After the archduke’s assassination, the military attaché in Paris detected a secret relief on the part of the diplomats, who he believed found

111 The Qualifikationslisten often contain the two words „ohne Vermögen“. See, for instance, the Qualifikationslisten of Baron Otto Berlepsch, Wladimir Laxa, Eduard Böltz, Adalbert von Dani, Julius Vidalé, and William von Einem (KA).

112 KA, KM Präs. 1913, 47-13/2: Vortrag War Minster Alexander von Krobatin to Francis Joseph, February 28, 1913.

113 The Manne Qualifikationsliste of Ladislaus von Rémy-Berzenkovich (KA) is typical in its wording in this regard: „Heiratskaution Eigentum seiner Frau, welche außerdem noch bedeutendes Vermögen besitzt.“

114 KA, KM Präs. 1913, 47-43/1: „Tabelle über die bisherigen und die geplanten erhöhten Gebühren der Militarattachés mit jenen der Stellvertreter der Botschafter (Gesandten etc.) bei den diplomatischen Vertretungen im Auslande“.

115 For a military attaché who had wanted to be a civilian diplomat but could not produce the 12,000 Kro- nen/year income, see S e i 11 e r, Viktor Freiherr von: Erinnerungen des letzten k.u.k. Militarattachés in Rom 1914/1915, Vortrag gehalten am 14. April und 2. Juni 1958 (unpublished typescript): KA, Nachlaß Seiller, B/811.

116 KA, Nachlaß Rémy-Berzencovich, B/1087: Typoscript of Ladislaus von Rémy-Berzencovich, „Als Ordonnanzoffizier Franz Ferdinands, 6 Jahre beim Erzherzog Thronfolger, p. 4.

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