Nikolai Karlowitsch de Giers

Nikolai Karlowitsch de Giers

Nikolai Karlowitsch de Giers ( Russian: Николай Карлович Гирс ; * May 21, 1820 , † January 26, 1895 ) was a Russian diplomat and foreign minister .

Life

youth

Like his future predecessor as Foreign Minister, Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov , he went to school in the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum near Saint Petersburg . At the age of 18 he joined the Foreign Service.

diplomat

In the absence of influential sponsors, his career was initially slow. He spent more than 20 years in subordinate posts, mostly in south-eastern Europe, before being transferred to Persia in 1863 . After six years in Persia, he was a diplomat in Switzerland and Sweden . In 1875 he became Director for Eastern Affairs and Deputy Foreign Minister under Prince Gorchakov, whose niece Olga Cantacuzene he had meanwhile married.

Statesman

After the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, the new Tsar Alexander III appointed him foreign minister after Gorchakov's resignation. Due to the frequent absence of the minister, he had in fact been in charge of official business for a long time. Russia did not wage a major war during Gier's tenure. In Central Asia, expansion continued as under its predecessors, while Russia pursued a rather cautious policy in Europe.

The rivalry between Austria-Hungary and Russia prevented a renewal of the three emperors , and Germany and Russia negotiated a bilateral treaty to replace it. On June 18, 1887, de Giers and Bismarck signed the reinsurance treaty , which was not renewed by the German Reich in 1890 . The rapprochement between Russia and France , which had already been initiated under his predecessor Gorchakov, then led to a military convention between France and Russia in 1892 and to an alliance treaty ( two-way association ) in 1894 .

After Alexander's death in 1894, he remained in office under Tsar Nicholas II until his death in 1895. He was succeeded by Prince Alexei Lobanow-Rostowski .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Giers, Nikolai Karlowitsch in the Dodis database of diplomatic documents in Switzerland

predecessor	Office	successor
Nikolai Adrianowitch Anichkov	Russian envoy in Tehran 1863–1869	Alexander Fyodorowitsch Berger
Alexander Petrovich Ozerow	Russian envoy in Bern 1869–1872	Mikhail Alexandrovich Gorchakov
Jakob Andrejewitsch Daschkow	Russian envoy in Stockholm 1872–1875	?
Alexander Gorchakov	Russian Foreign Minister 1882–1895	Alexei Lobanov-Rostovsky