Sergei Dmitrievich Sasonov

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Sergey Sazonov ( Russian Сергей Дмитриевич Сазонов ., Scientific transliteration Sergei Sazonov Dmitrievič ; born July 29, jul. / 10. August  1860 greg. In Ryazan Governorate ; †  25. December 1927 in Nice ) was a Russian diplomat and foreign minister.

Sergei Dmitrievich Sasonov

Life

Sasonow came from a noble family in the Ryazan Governorate and entered the diplomatic service of the Tsar in 1883 after visiting the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum . After serving as embassy secretary in London , he was ambassador to the Holy See from 1906 . In 1909 his brother-in-law Stolypin appointed him to the Foreign Ministry, and from September 1910 to July 1916 he was Foreign Minister. In this role he supported the political course of rapprochement with Great Britain and Japan . From March to November 1911, as a result of an illness, he had to leave official business to his deputy Anatoly Anatoljewitsch Neratow (Sasonow was operated on by Turban with the support of Ferdinand Sauerbruch because of a lung abscess in a clinic run by Karl Turban in Davos . Before that he is said to have said, “It is my task to destroy Germany. "). The Balkan Wars , the Liman von Sanders Crisis and the beginning of the First World War fell during Sasonov's tenure . He was repeatedly criticized by nationalist Pan-Slavist forces for his comparatively moderate politics .

Sergei Dmitrievich Sasonov

First World War

July crisis

In the July crisis , which culminated in the war, he was one of the forces who rather wanted to avoid armed conflict. For tactical reasons, too, he tried to find a peaceful solution on the condition that Russia could save face as a great power. But he did not assert himself against the armed forces who were pressing for war.

When the Austrian Foreign Minister Leopold Berchtold declared on July 28, 1914 that Russia had no right to interfere after receiving its assurance that Austria would not seek territorial acquisition , it had little success because Sasonow feared that Serbia would be “pushed down” into an Austrian “satellite state” .

War aims

In the first confidence that he would win, Sasonow created a “13-point program” on September 14, 1914, which in some aspects can be seen as a counterpart to the well-known September program of German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg . It is also called the “12-point program” because point 13, about reparations , was eliminated from the first publications .

Sasonow primarily provided for territorial cessions of Germany , allegedly on the basis of the nationality principle . Russia would annex the lower reaches of the Nyemen ( Memelland ) and the eastern part of Galicia as well as annex the east of the province of Posen , (Upper) Silesia and western Galicia to the Kingdom of Poland . Further provisions were the often mentioned fixed points of Allied war target programs : Alsace-Lorraine , perhaps the Rhineland and Palatinate to France , an area increase for Belgium near Aachen , Schleswig-Holstein back to Denmark and the restoration of Hanover .

Austria would form a "triple monarchy", consisting of the kingdoms of Bohemia (Bohemia and Moravia - Moravia was taken to be the territory of the Slovaks , which shows the ambiguity of his ideas about Central Europe), Hungary and Austria (Alpine countries), with Hungary as well Romania would have to agree on Transylvania . Serbia would receive Bosnia and Herzegovina , Dalmatia and northern Albania , Greece , however, southern Albania, Bulgaria part of Macedonia , United Kingdom, France and Japan, the German colonies . The straits, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles were , at least officially, not mentioned before the Turkish war entered the war. Sazonov's program was the first comprehensive statement of war aims of the Russian government and Russia became the first Entente power , which produced its allies a list of war aims.

As early as October 1914, Sasonov himself spoke of Austria-Hungary as a “complete anachronism ” and at the end of 1914 he emphatically demanded its dissolution. Before the war he had warned representatives of the Czechs against counting on Russian support. During the war, however, he was the only important politician in tsarist Russia who seriously supported the independence of the Czechs.

When the straits came into focus again with Turkey's entry into the war, on March 4, 1915, Sasonov warned Great Britain and France, who fought in the Dardanelles without Russian participation, that any solution that would not bring Constantinople and the Bosporus into Russia would be unsatisfactory and unsafe would. For Russia he called for Constantinople , the European coast of the Black Sea to the Dardanelles, the Asian coast of the Bosporus, the islands of the Marmara Sea and the islands of Imbros and Tenedos . At his urging, the Western Allies, who feared a separate Russian peace, yielded to the Agreement on Constantinople and the Straits of March 4, 1915.

After being replaced as Foreign Minister

In 1916 Sasonov was given leave of absence and was seconded to the State Council. On January 12, 1917, he was sent to London as the tsar's ambassador, which meant that he did not see the February Revolution in his own country. After the October Revolution , Sasonov was actively involved in the counterrevolution under Denikin and Admiral Kolchak and became foreign minister again under Kolchak's government in exile. In this function he also took part in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 .

In 1927 he died while emigrating in Nice, where he is also buried.

Works

  • Six difficult years . Verlag für Kulturpolitik, Berlin 1927, 385 pp.

Web links

Commons : Sergei Dmitrijewitsch Sasonow  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ferdinand Sauerbruch [, Hans Rudolf Berndorff ]: That was my life. Kindler & Schiermeyer, Bad Wörishofen 1951; cited: Licensed edition for Bertelsmann Lesering, Gütersloh 1956, pp. 141–144.
  2. ↑ Horst Günther Linke: Russia's path to the First World War and its war goals 1914–1917 . In: Wolfgang Michalka (Ed.): The First World War. Effect, perception, analysis . Seehamer Verlag, Weyarn 1997, ISBN 3-932131-37-1 , pp. 54–94, here: p. 64.
  3. ↑ Imanuel Geiss (ed.): July crisis and outbreak of war. A collection of documents . Hanover 1964, Volume 2: p. 718f. And Walter Goldinger : Austria-Hungary in the July crisis, 1914 . In: Institute for Austrian Studies (Hrsg.): Austria on the eve of the First World War . Graz / Vienna 1964, pp. 48–62, here p. 58.
  4. ↑ Horst-Günther Linke: Tsarist Russia and the First World War. Diplomacy and War Aims 1914-1917 . Munich 1982, ISBN 978-3-7705-2051-0 , pp. 40f. And Henryk Batowski: plans to divide the Habsburg monarchy in the First World War . In: Österreichische Osthefte . Vol. 10, Heft 3 (1968), pp. 129-140, here: p. 130.
  5. ↑ Horst-Günther Linke: Tsarist Russia and the First World War. Diplomacy and War Aims 1914-1917 . Munich 1982, ISBN 978-3-7705-2051-0 , p. 237.
  6. ↑ Friedrich Stieve (ed.): Iswolski in the world wars. Isvolski's diplomatic correspondence from 1914-1917. New documents from the secret files of the Russian state archives. On behalf of the German Foreign Office . Berlin 1925, p. 268 (wording); and Gifford D. Malone: War Aims toward Germany . In: Merritt Abrash, Alexander Dallin : Russian Diplomacy and Eastern Europe 1914–1917 . New York 1963, pp. 124-161, here: p. 143.
  7. ↑ Merritt Abrash: War Aims toward Austria-Hungary: The Czechoslovak Pivot . In: Merritt Abrash, Alexander Dallin: Russian Diplomacy and Eastern Europe 1914-1917 . New York 1963, pp. 78-123, here: p. 85; and Leo Valiani: The End of Austria-Hungary . Secker & Warburg Verlag , London 1973, ISBN 0-436-55230-2 , pp. 82f.
  8. ↑ Horst-Günther Linke: Tsarist Russia and the First World War. Diplomacy and War Aims 1914-1917 . Munich 1982, ISBN 978-3-7705-2051-0 , p. 239; and AJP Taylor: The war aims of the Allies in the First World War . In: Essays presented to Sir Lewis Namier . London 1956, pp. 475-505, here: p. 482.
  9. ^ Aaron S. Kliemann: Britain's War Aims in the Middle East in 1915 . In: The Journal of Contemporary History 3, No 3 (1968), pp. 237-251, here: p. 240.
  10. ^ AJP Taylor: The war aims of the Allies in the First World War . In: Essays presented to Sir Lewis Namier . London 1956, pp. 475-505, here: p. 482; and E. Adamov: The European Powers and Turkey during the World War . Volume 3: The Division of Asiatic Turkey. According to secret documents of the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs . Dresden 1932, p. 65 f. and 135 f.
personal data
SURNAME Sasonow, Sergei Dmitrievich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sazonov, Sergej Dmitrievič; Сазонов, Сергей Дмитриевич (Russian spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH August 10, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Ryazan Governorate
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1927
Place of death Nice