Kajetan Mérey

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Kajetan Mérey von Kapos-Mére (born January 16, 1861 in Vienna , † February 2, 1931 in Vienna) was an Austro-Hungarian diplomat before and during the First World War .

Kajetan Mérey from Kapos-Mére

Life

Kajetan was the son of the high administrative officer and banking specialist Alexander von Mérey (1834-1927). He attended the Theresian Military Academy , became a reserve lieutenant in 1883 as a one-year volunteer and passed the diplomatic examination in 1885. Mérey worked in the embassies of the kuk Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Belgrade (1885), Bucharest (1886), later as legation secretary in Paris (1891-1893) and Constantinople (1893-1895). In 1895 he was appointed Section Councilor by Foreign Minister Gołuchowski to head his cabinet. At the international Hague Peace Conference in 1899 he represented the Danube Monarchy as the second delegate. Removed as head of cabinet by Foreign Minister Aehrenthal in November 1901, he also represented the monarchy at the Hague Peace Conference of 1907, this time as the first plenipotentiary.

Ambassador to Rome

On March 4, 1910 he took up the important post as ambassador to the ally Italy in Rome, at the " Quirinal ". Although an excellent administrative officer, he lacked the diplomatic dexterity to do something against the "agony of the Triple Alliance". He used a very open, as Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti criticized, even "outrageous" language. This did not make him friends in Rome. He was perceived as "hardworking and careful, but also annoying and pedantic", as an "Austrian of the old style who despises Italy". Mérey was also criticized as a tactless, humorless bureaucrat. He was an independently thinking man, with sharp, often accurate judgment. In Vienna he even advocated Italian interests on several occasions, since one could not work with an ally whose public one was simultaneously inciting against the Italian population of Austria by harassing. In particular , he criticized the anti-Italian policies of Chief of Staff Conrad and banned all military espionage in his embassy.

During the First Balkan War , Mérey saw the German-British rapprochement as "by far the most interesting and most important phenomenon" in diplomacy at that time. He was unable to defuse the conflict with Italy over the Albanian question . When the situation worsened in the July crisis, he suffered a nervous breakdown and was represented by Karl Macchio as a special envoy from August 12th . Before that, he had spoken to the Italian Foreign Minister, who had described all the compensations Italy could receive in Africa, Albania or France as unacceptable and had spoken the “word Trentino ” directly, as an “impertinence”, “rejected it most energetically”.

Back in Vienna, after his health was restored, Mérey was among the high officials who, on behalf of Foreign Minister Leopold Berchtold, drafted memoranda on the war aims of the Reich . In his memorandum of December 15, 1914, he wrote of the urge to move east , which would correspond to “the needs of richly populated, culturally and economically highly developed states”, “their excess in population, culture and products over those in this regard lower and therefore more receptive To give in the east ”. Nevertheless, in addition to the cession of the coal area of Petrikau by Russia, he was only in favor of an exchange of areas of parts of East Galicia and Bukovina for areas of the Congress Poland . With Serbia he only advocated "border regulation" (the Mačva and Šabac ) and rejected the acquisition of Belgrade, but also of Lovćen .

On January 12, 1915, he was sent back to Rome, still an official ambassador, to support Maccio in preventing the threatened Italian entry into the war.

Vienna and Brest-Litowsk

After Italy entered the war on May 23, 1915, Mérey returned to Ballhausplatz as head of department for Italy . In this function he complained to the German Ambassador Wedel on December 10, 1916 : “We are in a similar situation to Germany as to the Vatican. We are the decent loyal children, we need less consideration than insecure cantonists. That was the case with Italy and recently also with Bulgaria. ”He stressed the need for a Serbian and an Albanian buffer state in order to put a dam on“ Bulgarian greed ”.

Mérey (in the left row, second from the left, seated at the table) signing the armistice agreement between Germany and her allies and Russia on December 15, 1917 in Brest-Litovsk.

On September 8, 1916 he received the newly created War Cross for Civil Merit, 1st Class. In March 1917, during negotiations on the future of conquered Romania, Mérey drafted a counter-opinion to Foreign Minister Czernin's annexionist plans, pointing out the danger that the Germans would increase their demands for war goals through the new Austrian annexation requests. Even if the outcome of the war was favorable, the monarchy did not want to make any conquests: “Nobody asks for them, and what are we supposed to do with them?” They are completely indigestible for the multi-ethnic state and only increase internal difficulties. Nor should one show any jealousy of Germany, which not only achieved more in this war in absolute but also in relative terms than the monarchy . It would therefore have a right to greater success. If the monarchy now annex large parts of Romania, Germany would be forced to demand large annexations for its part and thereby make peace of understanding impossible. On the other hand, in November 1917, he still championed the Austro-Polish solution and described an excessive separation of Polish territory from Germany as incompatible with it. He also made it clear to General Ludendorff and Vice Chancellor Helfferich that a personal union between Poland and Austria would not suffice; the country would have to join Austria-Hungary in political, military and economic terms .

In the negotiations on the peace of Brest-Litovsk , he took over a diplomatic mission as plenipotentiary. On March 11, 1918, Emperor Karl awarded him the War Cross for Civil Merit, 1st Class with diamonds , an award he was the only one to receive. On November 2, 1918, Mérey resigned.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Ernst Rutkowski:  Mérey von Kapos-Mére, Kajetan. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 6, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1975, ISBN 3-7001-0128-7 , p. 228.
  2. ^ A b Ernst Rutkowski: Letters and documents on the history of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy . Volume 1: The Constitutionally Loyal Large Estate 1880-1899. Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-486-51831-3 , p. 137.
  3. ^ Renata Vietor: The activity of the Austro-Hungarian ambassador at the Quirinal Kajetan Mérey von Kapos-Mére 1910–1912. Dissertation, Vienna 1962, p. 11.
  4. ↑ Holger Afflerbach : The Triple Alliance. European great power and alliance politics before the First World War. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-205-99399-3 , p. 792.
  5. ^ William D. Godsey: Aristocratic Redoubt. The Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office on the Eve of the First World War. Purdue University Press, West Lafayette 1999, ISBN 1-55753-140-4 , p. 194.
  6. ↑ a b Holger Afflerbach: The Triple Alliance. European great power and alliance politics before the First World War. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-205-99399-3 , p. 791.
  7. ↑ Friedrich Kießling: Against the “great” war? Relaxation in international relations 1911–1914. Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-486-56635-0 , p. 224.
  8. ↑ Luciana Frassati: Un Uomo, Un Giorgale. Alfredo Frassati. Edizioni di storia e letteratura, Rome 1978/82, p. 190.
  9. ^ Hugo Hantsch: Leopold Graf Berchtold. Grand seigneur and statesman, Styria, Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1963, Volume 1: p. 557f.
  10. ↑ Andrej Mitrovic: The Balkan plans Ballhaus bureaucracy in World War I (1914-1916). In: Ferenc Glatz, Ralph Melville (eds.): Society, politics and administration in the Habsburg monarchy. Steiner, Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-515-03607-5 , pp. 343-371, here: pp. 354ff.
    Wolfdieter Bihl : On the Austro-Hungarian war aims of 1914. In: Yearbooks for the history of Eastern Europe NF 16 (1968), pp. 505-530, here: pp. 510f.
  11. ↑ a b c biography on austro-hungarian-army (English)
  12. ^ 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. 4 volumes (German original documents), Paris 1962, ISBN 2-85944-010-0 , Volume 1, p. 612 ff. No. 419.
  13. ^ Gerhard Ritter : Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk. The problem of "militarism" in Germany. Volume 3: The tragedy of statecraft. Bethmann Hollweg as war chancellor (1914–1917). Munich 1964, ISBN 3-486-47041-8 , pp. 470 and 671.
  14. ^ Gerhard Ritter: Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk. The problem of "militarism" in Germany. Volume 4: The rule of German militarism and the catastrophe of 1918. Munich 1968, ISBN 3-486-47041-8 , p. 509.
personal data
SURNAME Mérey, Kajetan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mérey von Kapos-Mére, Kajetan (full name); Mérey de Kapos-Mére Kajetán
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austro-Hungarian diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH February 2, 1931
Place of death Vienna