Karl Macchio

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Karl von Macchio and his wife
Delegates to the Second Hague Peace Conference. Karl von Macchio right, 2nd picture from above

Karl Freiherr von Macchio (born February 23, 1859 in Herrmannstadt , Transylvania , † April 1, 1945 in Vienna ) was an Austro-Hungarian diplomat before and during the First World War .

Life

Macchio came from an originally Lombard aristocratic family and was born the son of Lieutenant Field Marshal Florian von Macchio and his wife Angelica Antonia nee. from Mylius. He studied law and entered the Austrian-Hungarian foreign service in 1881, where he held posts in Constantinople , Bucharest , Saint Petersburg and Belgrade . From 1899 to 1903 Macchio was ministerial resident in Montenegro , in 1907 plenipotentiary at the Hague Peace Conference and from 1903 to 1908 envoy in Athens . He then became a close associate and, from 1912, as the first section head , deputy of Foreign Minister Count Leopold Berchtold at Vienna's Ballhausplatz .

In the July crisis , he was Berchtold's most important advisor alongside Alexander Hoyos . After the outbreak of World War I, he was from August 24, 1914 to May 23, 1915, first as a special envoy in Rome to prevent Italy from entering the war . He represented the sick ambassador Kajetan Mérey at the Quirinal , but could not prevent the Italian declaration of war on the Danube monarchy through the delaying tactics pursued by Berchtold and his successor Stephan Burián .

In early 1915 the German ambassador in Rome, the former Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow and Macchio urged Foreign Minister Berchtold to cede Trentino to Italy. But when Berchtold suggested this to Emperor Franz Joseph , he was replaced by the Hungarian Burián.

Nevertheless, Bülow and Matthias Erzberger blamed him for the failure of the negotiations, a debt that he vehemently denied in his writings after the war. From May 1915 to 1917 Macchio worked again in the Vienna Ministry. After the war he worked for the Neue Freie Presse . Bülow described Macchio as a “typical Austrian bureaucrat” of the “very old school”.

Karl von Macchio was married to Bertha geb. Czekelius von Rosenfeld.

Works

  • Truth! Prince Bülow and I in Rome 1914/15 . Publishing house Jung Austria, Vienna 1931.
  • Snapshots from the July crisis in 1914 . In: Berliner Monatshefte 14 (1936), Berlin 1936, pp. 763–788.

Individual evidence

  1. Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of baronial houses , Volume 15, Perthes Verlag, Gotha, 1865, p. 604 u. 605; (Digital scan)
  2. a b Breycha – Vauthier:  Macchio Karl Frh. Von. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 5, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1972, p. 387.
  3. Friedrich Kießling: Against the “great” war? Relaxation in international relations 1911–1914 . Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-486-56635-0 , p. 259.
  4. Luciana Frassati: Un Uomo, Un Giorgale. Alfredo Frassati . Edizioni di storia e letteratura, Rome 1978/82, p. 190.
  5. ^ Hugo Hantsch : Leopold Graf Berchtold. Grand master and statesman . Verlag Styria, Graz / Vienna / Cologne 1963. Volume 2: pp. 705-717; and Leo Valiani : Negotiations between Italy and Austria-Hungary 1914-1915 . In: Wolfgang Schieder (Ed.): First World War. Causes, origins and aims of the war . Cologne / Berlin 1969. pp. 317-346, here: pp. 326f.
  6. Geoffrey Dunlop (Ed.): Memoirs of Prince von Bulow - The World War and Germany's Collapse 1909-1919 . Little, Brown and Co., Boston 1931/32, p. 242.
  7. To the family of the Czekelius von Rosenfeld

Web links

predecessor Office successor
Austro-Hungarian envoy to Montenegro
1899–1903
Stephan Burián Austro-Hungarian envoy to Greece
1903–1908
Carl von Braun