Stephan Burián

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Stephan (István) Baron (from 1918 Count ) Burián von Rajecz (born January 16, 1852 in Stampfen near Pressburg , † October 20, 1922 in Vienna ) was a leading politician in Austria-Hungary , in particular as multiple foreign and joint finance ministers of the dual monarchy .

Stephan Burián, 1915

Life

Burián von Rajecz in the uniform of an officer of the Austro-Hungarian hussars

Diplomatic service

Burián, descendant of the Hungarian aristocratic upper class in what was then part of the Kingdom of Hungary forming Upper Hungary (today's Slovakia ), first worked in the consular service ( kuk Consul General in Moscow ) before joining the diplomatic service. 1887-1895, he served as Minister of Austria-Hungary in Sofia , the capital of the autonomous then, still formally the Ottoman Empire associated Principality of Bulgaria . In 1896 he became the Imperial and Royal envoy to the King of Württemberg in Stuttgart , before assuming the important position of envoy in Athens in 1897 .

Finance minister

In 1903 he switched to the domestic politics of the dual monarchy when he was appointed joint Minister of Finance by Emperor and King Franz Joseph I , a position he held until 1912. The tasks of the former Reich Finance Ministry, which existed alongside the finance ministries of the two sub-states of the dual monarchy and was no longer called that at the request of Hungary, included the financing of foreign policy, the joint army and the navy and, since 1878, the administration of Bosnia-Herzegovina because Austria and Hungary could not agree on which of the two states the occupied province, annexed in 1908, should belong to.

Minister a latere

After his dismissal in 1912, he was appointed by Franz Joseph to the government of the Kingdom of Hungary in June 1913 as Minister a latere or Hungarian Minister at the royal court camp , who had to ensure the close ties between the Viennese court and the ministries in Budapest .

In the spring of 1914, Burián saw the cause of the opposition between the monarchy and Russia in Galicia and not in the Balkans . If Austria-Hungary gave Russia the guarantee that it would no longer support Polish and Ukrainian attempts to break away, which would have harmed it itself, the tsarist foreign policy would no longer have any reason to support the Balkan countries against the monarchy. Then the alliance with Germany could have been loosened.

During the July crisis , Burián successfully mediated between Foreign Minister Berchtold and the Hungarian Prime Minister István Tisza, who was initially unwilling to go to war .

Foreign minister

Stephan Burián, 1915

After the removal of Count Leopold Berchtold , Burián was appointed joint Austro-Hungarian minister of the imperial and royal houses and foreign affairs by the emperor and king on January 13, 1915 .

At the beginning of April 1915, the German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg complained in connection with the threatened Italian entry into the war that he did not want to chain our fate to the rash and disloyalty of Baron Burián . Burián had negotiated with Italy in a pedantic and rigid manner . From the beginning, according to the classic recipe of diplomacy, he did not seek an agreement with Italy, but always only offered as much as it was just not enough for the negotiating partner. In February 1915 he only signaled that he was ready to negotiate, but did not want to hear about the assignment of territory. In March he agreed in principle, but only in April was he ready to cede the Trentino during the war and thus always lagged behind the increasing Italian demands by a month. He did this with the intention of postponing the Italian entry into the war, which he was convinced of the inevitability from the beginning, as possible. From his war-fatalistic point of view , he did not give the existing strivings for neutrality in Italy a chance from the start.

After Burián became Minister of Foreign Affairs, his favorite project was the Austro-Polish solution , the annexation of Congress Poland to the monarchy, the main topic in the German-Austro-Hungarian war target discussions , while the other areas were barely dealt with. At the Berlin Poland Conference from 11. – 13. August 1915 even the (temporary) German approval of the Austro-Polish solution. In his discussions with Bethmann Hollweg, Burián always presented the possible affiliation of Congress Poland as a burden that one only takes on because one has no other choice. It was difficult to reconcile all too great a zeal with the role of the reluctant annexationist he played .

Finance and again Foreign Minister

The change of the throne from Franz Joseph to Karl I./IV. The situation changed in November 1916, as Karl appointed his favorite Count Ottokar Czernin as Foreign Minister in December 1916 . Burián was again the joint finance minister and remained so until April 1918.

Czernin's resignation, which became inevitable because of the Sixtus affair , brought Burián back to the Foreign Minister's office, which he held again from April to October 24, 1918. He was the penultimate foreign minister of the dual monarchy. After his reappointment, Emperor and King Karl elevated him to the rank of count shortly before the Habsburg monarchy was dissolved. Since the Kingdom of Hungary, with the consent of the monarch, had terminated the real union with imperial Austria at the end of October 1918, Burián saw no more opportunity in this function. Former Hungarian Prime Minister István Tisza , whose confidante was Burián, was assassinated on October 31, 1918 in Budapest.

After the war

Burián, who was heavily attacked after the war because of his foreign policy, especially from the German side - namely by General Erich Ludendorff - wrote down his memories of the war, which appeared in both German and English after his death.

Burián spent his twilight years in Vienna and most recently lived in Palais Wertheim on Schwarzenbergplatz . He died on October 20, 1922 in Vienna and was buried in the Burián family grave in the Vienna Central Cemetery (group 16 G, number 5).

rating

Many accused Burián of its rigidity; According to the historian István Diószegi , he remained a doctrinal as a practical politician, who pressed flexible reality into theoretical schemes and did things according to the rules he had established, without worrying about the actual driving forces - until it turned out that they were unsuitable. The failure was never followed by a review of the method, but rather the establishment of new theoretical schemes.

Fonts

  • Three years from the time I held office during the war . Ullstein, Berlin 1923.

literature

Web links

Commons : Stephan Burián  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans-Joachim Böttcher: Ferdinand von Sachsen-Coburg and Gotha 1861-1948 - A cosmopolitan on the Bulgarian throne . Osteuropazentrum Berlin - Verlag (Anthea Verlagsgruppe), Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-89998-296-1 , p. 61, 63, 76, 104, 111, 340 .
  2. ↑ a b Burian by Rajecz Stefan Graf. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1957, p. 129.
  3. ^ Hugo Hantsch: Leopold Graf Berchtold. Grand master and statesman . Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1963, Volume 1: p. 585f.
    József Galántai: István Tisza and the First World War . In: Austria in Geschichte und Literatur 8 (1964), pp. 465–477, here: p. 474.
  4. ^ Alberto Monticone: Germany and the neutrality of Italy 1914–1915 . Verlag Steiner, Stuttgart 1982, ISBN 3-515-03603-2 , p. 127.
  5. ↑ Hartmut Lehmann: Czernin's peace policy 1916-18 . In: Die Welt als Geschichte 23 (1963), pp. 47–59, here: p. 47.
  6. ↑ István Diószegi: Foreign Minister Stephan Graf Burián. Biography and diary section . In: Annales Universitatis Scientiarum Budapestinensis de Rolando Eötvös nominatae. Sectio historica 8 (1966), pp. 169–208, here: p. 177.
  7. ↑ Wolfgang Steglich: The Peace Policy of the Central Powers 1917/18 . Volume 1, Wiesbaden 1964, p. 2.
  8. ^ André Scherer, Jacques Grunewald: L'Allemagne et les problemèmes de la paix pendant la première guerre mondiale. Documents extraits des archives de l'Office allemand des Affaires étrangères. (German original documents). Volume 1, Paris 1962. ISBN 2-85944-010-0 , pp. 161f. Stephan Graf Burián: Three years from the time I held office during the war . Berlin 1923, p. 67ff.
  9. ^ Heinz Lemke: Alliance and rivalry. The Central Powers and Poland in the First World War . Verlag Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1977, p. 251ff.
  10. ↑ István Diószegi: Foreign Minister Stephan Graf Burián. Biography and diary section . In: Annales Universitatis Scientiarum Budapestinensis de Rolando Eötvös nominatae. Sectio historica 8 (1966), pp. 169-208, here: pp. 170-174.
predecessor Office successor
Theodor von Zichy kuk envoy in Württemberg
1896–1897 		Siegfried von Clary-Aldringen
Gustav von Kosjek kuk envoy to Greece
February 16, 1897 - July 24, 1903 		Karl von Macchio
Agenor Gołuchowski the Younger (interim) Austro-Hungarian Finance Minister
July 24, 1903 - February 12, 1912 		Leon Ritter von Biliński
László Lukács Minister á latere
10 Jun 1913 - 13 Jan 1915 		Erwin Roszner from Roseneck
Leopold Graf Berchtold Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister
Jan. 13, 1915 - Dec. 22, 1916 		Ottokar von Czernin
Ernest von Koerber kuk Finance Minister (interim)
Oct. 28, 1916 - Dec. 2, 1916 		Konrad zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst
Konrad zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst Austro-Hungarian Finance Minister
Dec. 22, 1916 - Sep. 7 1918 		Alexander Spitzmüller from Harmersbach
Ottokar von Czernin Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister
April 16, 1918 - October 24, 1918 		Gyula Andrássy the Younger
personal data
SURNAME Burián, Stephan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Burián from Rajecz, Stephan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austro-Hungarian diplomat and politician
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1852
PLACE OF BIRTH Stamping
DATE OF DEATH October 20, 1922
Place of death Vienna