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Foreign Policy and the National Question in the Habsburg Empire: A Memorandum of Kálnoky
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2009
Extract
Although all governments in the past have been strongly influenced in the conduct of foreign policy by domestic considerations arising from the political, economic, and social compositions of their populations and the ethnic divisions within their state, in no European country has the intertwining and interaction between internal controversy and foreign diplomacy been so significant and so fateful for Europe as in the Habsburg monarchy in the last fifty years of its existence. By the close of the nineteenth century not only were the component nationalities in the process of shifting their prime loyalties from the symbol of Habsburg unity, the emperor, to their own leaders and parties, but the majority of them had been able to secure the sympathy, if not the outright assistance, of foreign governments. For instance, the Eomanians and Italians of the monarchy could look to strongly nationalistic governments in Bucharest and Rome whose irredentist propensities were scarcely concealed; the Habsburg South Slavs could hope for future encouragement from Serbia, despite the fact that under the Obrenović dynasty the Serbian government had close ties with Vienna. Among the great powers Russia, although herself a conservative empire opposed to the breakup of the Habsburg state, nevertheless offered a great deal of attraction for some Czechs, South Slavs, and Ruthenes. Even the nationally-minded citizens of the German empire, the monarchy's closest ally, were deeply concerned about the relative position of their German brethren within Austria.
- Type
- Nineteenth Century Diplomacy
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1970
References
1 This memorandum can be found in the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (Vienna), Politisches Archiv, Fasz. XL, No. 316. The document has been cited by Wank, Solomon in his “Foreign Policy and the Nationality Problem in Austria-Hungary, 1867–1914,” Austrian History Yearbook, Vol. III, Pt. 3 (1967), pp. 37–56.Google Scholar This study and the other articles in Vol. III of the Austrian History Yearbook should be consulted for various aspects of the nationality problem in the Habsburg empire in the nineteenth century. Foreign policy in the same period is covered in Jelavich, Barbara, The Habsburg Empire in European Affairs, 1814–1918 (Chicago, I11.: Rand McNally, 1969)Google Scholar. The author wishes to thank Peter Jelavich for his assistance in transcribing the Kálnoky memorandum and Indiana University for grants given for travel and for the reproduction of documentary material. The spelling, capitalization, and punctuation of the original document have in general been retained. The memorandum is undated but obviously was written in the 1880's.
2 As could be expected, Bismarck was opposed to a regime based clerical and Slavic support. For an excellent account of German reaction to the events in Austria-Hungary, see Jenks, William A., Austria under the Iron Ring, 1879–1893 (Charlottesville, Va.: University of Virginia Press, 1965).Google Scholar
3 Three annotations by Francis Joseph, dated July, 1898, appear on this document. The first, written on the side of this paragraph, states: “Immer derselbe Kapitalfehler der in der /:falschen:/ Beurtheilung der galizischen Zustände seitens der oesterreichischen Staatsmänner begangen wird.”
4 Francis Joseph commented here: “Vollkommen unrichtig!”
5 Here the emperor noted: “Ja! die von Russland besoldeten Hochverräther! die dem leichtglaubigen ruthenischen Bauern das Unglaublichste weis machen. Die ruthenische Bewegung ist keine nationale, sondern eine radical socialistische.”