Karl von Werther

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Karl von Werther (2nd from right) at the Conference of Constantinople (1876)

Karl Anton Philipp von Werther (born January 31, 1809 in Königsberg ; † February 8, 1894 in Munich ) was a German diplomat and ambassador . Werther was royal Prussian Real Privy Councilor and envoy , later of the North German Confederation and the German Empire , among others in Switzerland , Greece , Denmark , Russia , Austria , France and Turkey .

Life

family

Karl Freiherr von Werther came from a noble family from New Mark - East Prussia . His father Heinrich Wilhelm von Werther (1772-1859) was a Prussian diplomat and from 1837 to 1841 Prussian Foreign Minister. The title of baron in the Kingdom of Prussia was confirmed to him in 1841 . Heinrich Wilhelm married on September 18, 1797 in Donzdorf Josepha Maria Hyazintha Henriette Franziska Cajetana (born May 14, 1777 in Munich, † November 8, 1853 in Berlin), born Countess von Sandizell , the mother of Karl. He was one of the couple's two children.

Professional background

Training and first work experience

Werther studied law and passed the first legal exam in 1830 . In 1832 he decided to pursue a diplomatic career and, after passing his diplomatic examination , was transferred to Munich as legation secretary in 1834 . As such he came to The Hague in 1835 . In 1836 he became Heinrich von Bulow , the son of Wilhelm von Humboldt , to London as Counselor appointed. In the same year King Friedrich Wilhelm III appointed him . from Prussia to Chamberlain . During the lengthy negotiations during the conference in London on the Belgian question, he often had to represent Bülow, who was ailing because of illness, especially in 1839.

In 1840 Werther was transferred to Paris ; there he was able to follow the events of the Orient crisis in detail. At the end of 1841 he was sent to Switzerland (to Bern ) as envoy extraordinary . This decision was criticized, among others, by Karl August Varnhagen von Ense , who considered Werther to be incapable.
From 1844 to 1849 he was the Prussian envoy in Athens . King Otto I ruled there ; a rebellion by the military and the people had forced Otto to draw up a constitution in the autumn of 1843.

Revolution 1848 up to the foundation of the German Empire

He experienced the beginning of the March Revolution as an envoy in Greece. In 1849 Werther was transferred to Copenhagen , where in January 1848 Frederick VII had succeeded his father. At the Danish court he had to represent Prussia in the entanglements during the Schleswig-Holstein uprising . So he persuaded Duke Christian August of Schleswig-Holstein to renounce his claims to the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein and transfer them to the Danish crown.

In the spring of 1854 he was appointed envoy in Saint Petersburg to lead the difficult negotiations about the settlement between Austria and Russia in the wake of the Crimean War . A few weeks earlier, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Of Prussia temporarily entrusted him with the responsibility of an undersecretary of state in the Foreign Ministry. Before leaving for Saint Petersburg in June 1854, Werther had detailed discussions with the king, Leopold von Gerlach , Hermann Ludwig von Balan and other Prussian diplomats. Austria presented Russia, in consultation with France and Great Britain, the Ottoman allies in the Crimean War, with a four-point note as the basis for ultimate peace negotiations. Prussia supported the mediation and tried, with Werther's posting, to win over the Russian State Chancellor Karl Robert von Nesselrode for the proposal. The military representative Hugo Eberhard zu Münster-Meinhövel was put to his side as a companion . After the conclusion of the Paris Peace on March 30, 1856 to end the Crimean War, he received the title of Excellency on June 5, 1856 for his services .

At the beginning of the Northern Italian War in 1859 between Austria on the one hand and Sardinia-Piedmont and France on the other, he was sent to Vienna to bring about a settlement. He got on so well with the Austrian Prime Minister Bernhard von Rechberg that he would doubt whether he would adequately represent Prussia in Berlin. His task was also difficult in the crisis of the German Customs Union from 1862 to 1863 and subsequently in the trade policy discussions with Austria. At the end of the German-Danish War in 1864, Werther initialed the Peace of Vienna together with Hermann Ludwig von Balan, both as Prussian negotiators, and signed and sealed it on October 30, 1864. He was also immediately close friends with the new head of Austrian politics, Alexander von Mensdorff-Pouilly . During the German War of 1866 he represented Otto von Bismarck in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin. Werther also led the conferences with the Austrian representative Adolph von Brenner-Felsach at Nikolsburg and Prague , which led to the signing of the Peace of Prague by him as Prussian representative on August 23, 1866 . After the war, Werther was again authenticated as the Prussian envoy in Vienna. He got on extremely well with the newly appointed Austrian Prime Minister Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust . However, in the course of time there were various conflicts that came to the public with the coronation of Emperor Franz Joseph I as King of Hungary in Budapest in 1867. During the coronation celebrations there were disputes about the origin of the last war and there were allegations from the Prussian side that Austria supported the deposed Hanoverian King George V.

The Foreign Ministry in Berlin therefore felt compelled to transfer Werther to Paris in 1869 as ambassador for the North German Confederation. His role at the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War was fateful for his further diplomatic career. After King Wilhelm I of Prussia went to Bad Ems for a cure in the summer of 1870 , Werther set out from Paris on July 4, 1870 to meet the king. Shortly before his departure, he met the newly appointed French Foreign Minister Antoine Alfred Agénor de Gramont , whom he knew from his time as a delegation in Vienna. Gramont urged him emphatically to suggest to the Prussian king that his Hohenzollern relatives renounce the Spanish royal crown . From the French point of view, this meant a considerable threat to the political situation and that France would not tolerate the candidacy . He told the French ambassador Vincent Benedetti , who arrived in Bad Ems on July 9th , that the king could not forbid Prince Leopold to accept the candidacy under the house laws . On July 12, Werther was already back in Paris with Gramont, who had just received news of the resignation of Hohenzollern. The French foreign minister now demanded that King Wilhelm make a declaration that the Hohenzollerns would for all time renounce running again. The draft had already been completed. Werther did not reject Gramont's request, but promised to inform King Wilhelm about it. When the Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck found out about his envoy's behavior, he sent him a reprimand on July 13, 1870 with the request to take leave on the spot because he was unwell and leave Paris. When Werther received the instruction, he went back to Gramont and told him that he was in an awkward position. His government reprimanded him sharply after he forwarded the French request. Bismarck then publicly condemned Werther's behavior again in a speech in the Reichstag on July 20, 1870.

Retirement and death

After the end of the Franco-Prussian War, Werther was retired from the diplomatic service in July 1871. He first took up residence in Munich. Three years later, Bismarck reactivated him for a short time by appointing him ambassador of the German Empire in Constantinople in May 1874 . Due to his knowledge during the Crimean War, Werther was considered an expert on oriental conditions. Until the beginning of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877, he held the post of ambassador in the Ottoman Empire. He also represented Germany in the ambassadors conference in Constantinople , which had been meeting since the end of 1876 to end the crisis, but which was unsuccessful due to the resistance of Sultan Abdülhamid II .

In the spring of 1877 he finally retired and moved back to Munich, where he had once started his diplomatic career. On May 3, 1879, King Wilhelm of Prussia awarded him the Order of the Black Eagle , the highest distinction of the Kingdom of Prussia. His investiture took place a year later, on January 24, 1878. After his diplomatic activity he went as Ferdinand Gregorovius who know him in Munich and appreciate learned aptly the mutual friends Hermann von Thile wrote: calm under the philosopher or hermit , as a Man who knows that man has to look at his life like the shadow of a cloud that passes by . Like his father, he became an honorary knight of the Order of St. John . Karl von Werther died on February 8, 1894, at the age of 85 in Munich. His written estate with a term from 1859 to 1870 is in the Secret State Archive of Prussian Cultural Heritage in Berlin.

Marriage and offspring

Werther married on July 30, 1846 in Berlin Mathilde Sophie Adelheid Lobo da Silveira, Countess of Oriola (born February 3, 1827 in Berlin, † May 30, 1889 in Munich) from the Portuguese aristocracy. She was the daughter of the diplomat Joaquim of Oriola . The marriage resulted in a son and a daughter.

Maximilian Wilhelm Friedrich Freiherr von Werther (born June 5, 1847 in Piraeus near Athens ; † November 2, 1920 in Graz ), the only son, became the owner of the Damnig manor in the Namslau district in Silesia , royal Prussian chamberlain and cavalry master in the Landwehr Regiment No. 38. He married Isabella von Ciechowski in 1875 and had a son.

Maximilian Wilhelm Friedrich's younger sister Olga Auguste Julie Josephine Freiin von Werther (born April 12, 1853 in Copenhagen; † January 31, 1937 in Munich) married Maximilian Konstantin Friedrich Alfons von Arco, Count von Arco , on June 28, 1875 in Pera near Constantinople. Zinneberg (born February 19, 1850 in Munich; † January 24, 1916 in Munich) the son of Maximilian von Arco-Zinneberg , a great-grandson of Empress Maria Theresa .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Constitution of March 2, 1844
predecessor Office successor
Christian Karl Josias von Bunsen Prussian envoy in Bern
1841–1844 		Friedrich von Wylich and Lottum
Joseph Maria Anton Brassier de Saint-Simon-Vallade Prussian envoy in Athens
1844–1849 		Louis von Wildenbruch
vacant Prussian envoy in Copenhagen
1849–1854 		Alphonse of Oriola
Theodor von Rochow Prussian envoy to Saint Petersburg
1854–1859 		Otto von Bismarck
Heinrich Friedrich von Arnim-Heinrichsdorff-Werbelow Prussian envoy in Vienna
1859–1866
Ambassador of the North German Confederation in Vienna
1866–1869 		Hans Lothar von Schweinitz
Robert Heinrich Ludwig von der Goltz Ambassador of the North German Confederation in Paris
1869–1870
Robert von Keudell Ambassador of the German Empire in Constantinople
1874–1877 		Heinrich VII. Prince Reuss
personal data
SURNAME Werther, Karl von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Werther, Karl Anton Philipp von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat and ambassador
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg
DATE OF DEATH February 8, 1894
Place of death Munich