Dominik Andreas I. von Kaunitz

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Dominik Andreas I. Count of Kaunitz

Dominik Andreas I. Count von Kaunitz Frhr. von Sezima Austy (* 1655 in Austerlitz near Brno ; † January 11, 1705 in Vienna ) was an Austrian diplomat, privy councilor at the imperial court and the emperor's agent in international treaty negotiations. Later he was Vice Chancellor .

family

He came from the Bohemian branch of the Kaunitz family . The father was Leopold Wilhelm von Kaunitz. The mother was Eleonore (née von Dietrichstein).

He was married to Marie Eleonore Josepha Countess von Sternberg from 1675 , died on December 2, 1706, daughter of the married couple Adolph Wratislaw Gf. von Sternberg, Oberstburggraf zu Prague and Anna Lucia Countess Slawata von Chlum and Koschumberg and left the two sons Franz Karl Josef (1675–1705), after 1710 bishop in Laibach and Maximilian Ulrich von Kaunitz (1679–1746), governor of Moravia and the daughter Maria Eleonore Countess von Kaunitz (1681–1723), who married Franz Wenzel Graf von und zu Trautmannsdorff on November 9, 1699.

Life

Between 1671 and 1673 he made a cavalier tour of Italy. He then attended the Noble Academy in Besançon . After traveling through France, he returned in 1674.

In 1676 he was the royal principal commissioner at the state parliament of the Kingdom of Bohemia in Brno . In 1682 he was appointed imperial envoy in Munich . He contributed to Elector Maximilian II Emanuel taking the imperial side. Kaunitz was on friendly terms with the elector. This visited him in Moravia and Vienna. Last but not least, his wife had considerable influence on the elector. She is credited with making a significant contribution to the marriage of Maximilian Emanuel with Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria .

Kaunitz was raised to the hereditary status of Austrian counts on January 12, 1683, was the founder of the family Fideikommiss Austerlitz with Hungarian-Brod, Mährisch-Prus and Groß-Urhau and received permission to manage and fiduciary duties for the lords of Schlakau , Hungarian Brod and Neu Orzechau . In 1687 he acquired Krizanau .

Since 1685 he was secret imperial council. Kaunitz played a major role in the founding of the Augsburg Alliance in 1686. In 1687 he was sent to England to include Jacob II in an alliance directed against Louis XIV . This mission was unsuccessful. In the Cologne diocese dispute in 1687, as the imperial election commissioner, he played a key role in making Joseph Clemens von Bayern coadjutor of the archbishopric of Cologne against resistance from France . For his services he was accepted into the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1687 . Between 1688 and 1689 at the beginning of the Palatinate War of Succession he was again envoy in Munich. Since 1694 he was extraordinary agent in The Hague . During the negotiations for the Peace of Rijswijk he was head of the imperial delegation.

From 1696 he was Vice Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire. Within the empire he was distrusted as a member of the Bohemian nobility. Politically, he stood for an equalizing policy towards France. He drafted the plan for the formation of a unified state in Central Europe with Bohemia and Austria as the center. He negotiated with France about an exchange to acquire the Duchy of Milan for Bavaria. Due to his attitude towards France, he lost influence at the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1700. In 1703 he belonged to the court party around the later Emperor Josef I , who succeeded against the will of Leopold I in replacing his most important adviser in favor of new ones around Wratislaw von Mitrowitz , Gundaker Thomas Starhemberg and Eugen von Savoyen . In his last years in office he had to put up with criticism, especially from his successor Friedrich Karl von Schönborn-Buchheim .

After retreating into private life, he pursued various plans to get rid of his money worries. He opened the first textile manufacture in Moravia in Austerlitz in 1704. However, the company turned out to be a failure, so that Kaunitz was deeply in debt when he died of a stroke in 1705.

literature

Web links

Commons : Dominik Ondřej Kounic  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Kaunitz, Dominik Andreas I. von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kounic, Dominik Ondřej z
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian statesman
DATE OF BIRTH 1655
PLACE OF BIRTH Brno
DATE OF DEATH January 11, 1705
Place of death Vienna