Belcredi Ministry
The Belcredi Ministry of the Austrian Empire, chaired by Count Richard Belcredi of the Ministerial Conference , was in office from July 27, 1865 to February 3, 1867.
history
The Ministry Archduke Rainer , the de facto headed by the State Minister Anton Schmerling stand, resigned on 26 June 1865 after Emperor him Franz Joseph I had withdrawn from the trust.
With Count Richard Belcredi, the emperor turned to a proven conservative and appointed him minister of state and chairman of the conference of ministers. The ministry, also known as the “Dreigrafenministerium”, recognized the Hungarian question as the “real crux of the Austrian imperial problem”. From taking office, Belcredi tried to implement a federalist solution for the Austrian Empire on the conservative basis of historical rights. The empire was to be divided into its five historical areas (1. German-Austria, 2. Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia, 3. Hungary, 4. Poland-Ruthenia, 5. Illyria, i.e. the southern Slavic territories), each with its own parliament.
In 1866, Prussia under Bismarck forced a military decision in the struggle for supremacy in the German Confederation ( German dualism ) in the sense of a small German solution without Austria. In the German War, Austria, which led the German Confederation , was defeated by the Prussians in the Battle of Königgrätz on July 3, 1866. Austria no longer played a role in the further German unification process and could therefore rely on a settlement of the nationality conflicts without longer on the German question To have to be considerate.
The intervention of Empress Elisabeth in favor of a settlement favoring the Hungarians unilaterally and the appointment of Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust, who was not sufficiently familiar with Austrian problems, as Foreign Minister on October 30, 1866, against Belcredi's will, prompted Belcredi after a meeting of the Privy Council in which Emperor Franz was also present Joseph I joined Beust's views, and on February 3, 1867, to resign. The successor to this was the Beust Ministry , which in February 1867 achieved the settlement with Hungary and introduced the December constitution .
As Belcredi feared , the favoring of Hungarians, who were now largely independent of Austria in domestic politics , compared to the other peoples of the Habsburg monarchy, fueled nationality conflicts as a result of the settlement achieved with Hungary .
Members of the Council of Ministers
- Richard Belcredi (1823–1902), Chairman of the Conference of Ministers and Minister of State
- Alexander von Mensdorff-Pouilly (1813–1871), Foreign Minister until October 1866
- Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust (1809–1886), Foreign Minister from October 1866
- Johann Larisch von Moennich (1821–1884), Minister of Finance
- Karl von Franck (1806–1867), Minister of War until November 1866
- Franz von John (1815–1876), Minister of War from November 1866
- Franz Haller von Hallerkeö (1796–1875), provisional head of the Transylvanian court chancellery
- Franz Karl Becke (1818–1870), Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Finance
- Emanuel Heinrich Komers von Lindenbach (1810–1889), Minister of Justice
- Bernhard von Wüllerstorf-Urbair (1816–1883), Minister of Commerce
- Moritz Esterházy de Galantha (1807–1890), minister without portfolio
literature
- Constantin von Wurzbach : Belcredi, Richard Graf . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 14th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1865, pp. 397–400 ( digitized version ).
- Karl Otmar Freiherr von Aretin: Belcredi, Richard Graf von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , pp. 26-28 ( digitized version ).
- Belcredi Richard Graf. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1957, p. 66.
- Helmut Rumpler : Schmerling, Anton Ritter von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , pp. 132-134 ( digitized version ).