Philippe Crozier

Philippe Marie Crozier (before 1912)

Philippe Marie Crozier , also Philippe Marius Crozier (born January 31, 1857 in Lyon , France , † February 1944 in Geneva , Switzerland ) was a French diplomat .

During the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 he took part in the defense of besieged Paris and the Battle of Le Bourget . After the war he entered the École polytechnique in 1875 , which he graduated from in 1877 (or 1880) as a second lieutenant in the artillery. He then entered the diplomatic service and in 1881 became Chief of Staff of the Foreign Minister. Further missions led him under Foreign Minister Alexandre Ribot, first to London, Bern and in 1893 to Luxembourg.

Crozier was a knight from 1889, an officer in 1893 and commander of the French Legion of Honor in 1900 .

At the suggestion of the French Foreign Minister Gabriel Hanotaux , Crozier became Chief of Protocol of the French Republic in April 1895 . Under Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé he was the French envoy in Copenhagen in 1902 , and under Foreign Minister Stéphen Pichon in January 1907 he was sent to Vienna as the French ambassador to Austria-Hungary . In Vienna he pursued his own vision of negotiating a neutrality agreement with Austria-Hungary similar to that which France had reached with Italy in 1902 and thus to detach Austria-Hungary from the Triple Alliance. When Crozier had been very committed to Austria's financial interests in France in this context (e.g. for the admission of Austrian and Hungarian government bonds to the Paris stock exchange ), he was finally taken over by the French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré , who was also Foreign Minister, in May 1912 . recalled from Vienna and replaced by Ambassador Alfred Chilhaud-Dumaine .

After the First World War and after the end of Poincaré's presidency, Crozier accused Poincaré in 1921 of having turned down the chance of an entente between Austria-Hungary, France and Russia. Poincaré pointed out in his memoirs that even if Crozier had managed to buy Austrian neutrality in the event of a German attack on France, France could not remain neutral in an Austro-German war against Russia because of the Franco-Russian alliance .

On Poincaré's behalf, Finance Minister Louis-Lucien Klotz (who, like Poincaré, had refused the Austro-Hungarian loans) had given Crozier a position on the board of directors of Société Générale instead of a new ambassadorial post . The Société represented Crozier on the supervisory board of the Austrian Agricultural Bank and the Austrian Länderbank until 1914 and in various other positions ( Compagnie franco-espagnole du chemin de fer de Tanger à Fès , Banque franco-japonaise, Compagnie générale du Maroc, Compagnie des Phosphates) until 1943 de l'Océanie).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} G. Luffy: Qui êtes-vous? In: Annuaire des contemporains - notices biographiques , pages 38 and 57 ( PDF ). Ed. Delagrave, Paris 1924
2. ^ Bibliothèque nationale de France : Philippe Crozier (1857-1944)
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Bibliothèque nationale de France : La Revue diplomatique of November 10, 1907
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Ralph H. Picket: An Effort for Franco-Austrian Rapprochement , pages 46 - 49 . Pi Gamma Mu Publishing House, University of Bridgeport 1957
5. ^ Bibliothèque nationale de France : Journal officiel de la République française of April 11, 1895
6. ^ ^{A b} French Embassy in Vienna : Les Ambassadeurs de France du XVIIIème siècle à nos jours
7. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Raymond Poincaré : Memoirs - The prehistory of the world war (1912-1913) , pages 160-186. Paul-Aretz-Verlag, Dresden 1928

predecessor	Office	successor
Felix de Bourqueney	Chef du protocole de la République française 1895–1902	Armand-Joseph Mollard
Jean Jules Jusserand	French ambassador in Copenhagen 1902–1907	Comte Charles-Prosper-Maurice Horric de Beaucaire
Marquis Jacques Frédéric de Reverseaux de Rouvray	French envoy in Vienna 1907–1912	Alfred Chilhaud-Dumaine