Richard Belcredi

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Richard Count Belcredi

Richard Graf von Belcredi (born February 12, 1823 in Ingrowitz , Moravia , † December 2, 1902 in Gmunden , Upper Austria ) was a top Austrian politician and official from the Belcredi family, originally from Lombardy .

origin

Belcredi came from a family of large landowners in the Crown Land of Moravia . His parents were Count Eduard von Belcredi (1786-1838) and his wife Countess Marie von Fünfkirchen (1793-1860).

His older brother Egbert (1816-1894), who advocated the autonomy of the countries of the Bohemian Crown from the Viennese government, administered the family entails and was politically active primarily in and for Moravia.

Life

Richard Belcredi studied law in Prague and Vienna, was appointed kk district captain in Znojmo , Moravia , in 1854 , and in 1861 he was elected to the Silesian state parliament and from there to the Reichsrat . In 1862 he became head of the Austrian-Silesian provincial government , and in 1864 he became the Privy Councilor and kk governor of Bohemia in Prague.

"Dreigrafenministerium"

After Emperor Franz Joseph I left the liberals around Prime Minister Rainer von Austria and State Minister Anton von Schmerling disappointed because of the ongoing turbulence (see History of Austria ) in 1865 , he turned to a declared conservative in the person of Belcredi and appointed him him as Minister of State and Prime Minister.

He regarded the leadership of the government as a personal sacrifice and only accepted it out of the sense of duty of a loyal official. So he wrote to his wife:

“The emperor is mad about me and said that in this sad, dangerous time he saw in me alone the honest man on whom he could absolutely rely. I should appreciate his situation and not reject his only hope. "

Belcredi presented his government program on June 15, 1865 and was appointed Minister of State by the Emperor on July 27, 1865 ( head of the entire political administration of all kingdoms and countries not belonging to the Hungarian Crown ) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers.

The new head of government, whose cabinet was also known as the “Dreigrafenministerium” (although he actually had five counts, namely Belcredi himself, Alexander von Mensdorff-Pouilly as foreign minister, Johann Larisch von Moennich (1821-1884) as finance minister, and Count Haller as provisional Head of the Transylvanian court chancellery and Moritz Esterházy as minister without portfolio ), recognized the Hungarian question as the “real crux of the Austrian imperial problem” and gave its solution the highest priority. The suspension of the February patent seemed appropriate for the negotiations , since it had not been accepted and implemented in the Hungarian countries anyway (the cabinet was therefore also referred to by historians as the “suspension ministry”). With the suspension patent of September 20, 1865, the “Basic Law on Reich Representation”, with which the Reichsrat had become parliament in 1861, was repealed.

Compensation with Hungary

In 1866, after the Peace of Prague (see Austro-Prussian War ), Austria had to leave the German Confederation, which meant that the German question no longer had to be taken into account in negotiations with Hungary . The previous Foreign Minister, Count Mensdorff, and Belcredi were among the exponents of the conservative clerical federalists and opposed the planned settlement with Hungary, as this helped the German liberals to power in the western half of the empire. Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust was appointed as the new Foreign Minister for the negotiations .

Belcredi spoke out against further restrictions on the common affairs of the monarchy and endeavored to push through a federalist solution to the nationality question aimed at achieving a compromise with the Slavic peoples. Belcredi therefore appeared to many as “too little German”. He wanted to divide Imperial Austria into its five historical areas (1. German Austria, 2. Bohemia-Moravia-Silesia, 3. Hungary, 4. Poland-Ruthenia, 5. Illyria, ie the South Slavic territories), each with its own parliament . A federal Reichsrat should be responsible for the common competences of Austria as a whole. However, this plan failed due to the bitter resistance of the Hungarians who wanted to achieve a dualistic balance. At the end of his era as prime minister there was therefore the dualism that he had set out to prevent.

There was actually no longer any basis for discussion between Belcredi and Beust, as becomes clear when reading the minutes of the Council of Ministers of February 1, 1867. There Beust thinks it is impossible to satisfy everyone's wishes. It is therefore the task of the government to "rely on those who have the most vitality [...], namely the German and the Hungarian element". Belcredi saw the decision as having been made and submitted his resignation on the same day. On February 7, 1867, he was ousted and Beust was appointed Prime Minister. The version of the settlement negotiated by Beust with the representatives of Hungary was presented to the Reichsrat, which had been convened again without Hungarian members, as a kind of dictation, but the latter took the opportunity and in return for its approval (delegation laws of December 21, 1867) set a new constitution, the December constitution 1867, by.

In retrospect, the compensation achieved by Beust was a short-term “pragmatic” solution, but its effects were fatal because it was the beginning of the growing distance between the Slavic nations and the monarchy, which lasted until Austria's disintegration in 1918. Belcredi, on the other hand, cared about international understanding within the monarchy. How much he fought against the “national agitation” can be seen from a statement in a meeting of the Council of Ministers, where he advocated teaching in German and Czech in the Bohemian elementary and secondary schools, because “extreme national tendencies can only be cured through practical experience become".

After his retirement from politics, Belcredi was appointed by the Emperor from 1881 to 1895 , President of the Imperial and Royal Administrative Court and was also appointed by the monarch in 1881 as a member of the Austrian manor for life.

family

He married Anna von Welden (1834–1918) in Graz in 1854 , the only child of General Ludwig von Welden . The couple had a son and two daughters, including:

  • Ludwig Egbert Richard (1856–1914) ⚭ July 15, 1885 Marie von und zu Franckenstein (1859–1938)

literature

Web links

Commons : Richard Belcredi  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ daily newspaper Wiener Zeitung , Vienna, no. 172, July 29, 1865 Official Section, p.1
personal data
SURNAME Belcredi, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Belcredi, Richard Graf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian lawyer and Prime Minister
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1823
PLACE OF BIRTH Ingrowitz , Moravia
DATE OF DEATH December 2, 1902
Place of death Gmunden , Upper Austria