The New Europe/Volume 7/Number 80/The Career of Count Czernin

The Career of Count Czernin

[The fall of Count Czernin gives a serious check to an interesting career, of which the following account was given in the Manchester Guardian, 16 April.]

“Count Ottokar Czernin von Chudenitz belongs to a very distinguished Bohemian family and is still a comparatively young man, having been born in 1872. Like so many other members of his family, he at first entered the Diplomatic Service, and reached the post of Secretary of the Austro-Hungarian Embassy at Paris. In 1902, however, he abandoned the diplomatic career and retired to his Winartz estate, devoting himself to domestic politics. In the following year he was elected member of the Bohemian Diet, and in 1912 he was made life member of the Austrian Upper House. In this capacity he spoke often and well on the internal problems of the Monarchy, advocating a conciliatory policy towards the Southern Slavs and a working compromise between the two contending races in Bohemia, and opposing the exaggerated claims of Hungary, and, more particularly, the arrogance of the Magyars in their treatment of nationalities. In the domain of foreign affairs, during the Balkan War, he severely criticised the provocative attitude of the Monarchy towards Serbia and Montenegro, and recommended a friendly policy in the Balkans.

“In all these views he followed the programme of the late Archduke Francis Ferdinand, with whom he maintained a close friendship and to whose wife, Princess Hohenberg, née Countess Chotek, he was related. It was also on the insistence of the Archduke that Count Czernin in October, 1913, agreed to resume diplomatic work by accepting the post of Austro-Hungarian Minister at Bucarest in succession to Prince Fürstenberg. The clouds were already gathering thickly on the horizon, and Roumania in particular was exhibiting alarming signs of an inclination to change her traditional foreign policy by preparing an understanding with Russia. Count Czernin’s mission was to retain her within the Austro-German orbit, and no better choice could have been made. As an opponent of the exclusive claims of the Magyars in Hungary and of the privileged position of Hungary in the Dual Monarchy, he had a considerable sympathy with Roumanian grievances on the subject of the treatment of the Roumans in Transylvania, and did not hesitate to side with the Roumanian Government in the numerous remonstrances which it addressed in this connection to Vienna. He became, indeed, thoroughly disliked in Hungary, but he succeeded for a long time in maintaining good relations between Roumania and Austria. The well-known circumstances which attended the first two years of the war, however, proved in the end more powerful than his diplomatic art, and in August, 1916, he had to return to Vienna a vanquished man.

“To the Magyars he now became a target for most violent attacks, the main accusation against him being that he had not been able to discover the real intentions of the Roumanian Government and had continued to lavish upon it promises and concessions at the expense of Hungary. The documents which were soon afterwards published showed that all these attacks were baseless, and that seldom, if ever, had Austria-Hungary possessed a diplomat so efficient as Count Czernin. It was not surprising, therefore, that when the young Emperor, himself a political pupil of Francis Ferdinand, ascended the throne of the Habsburgs, his first thought turned toward Count Czernin as his future Foreign Minister. In December, 1916, Baron Burian vacated the post at the express desire of the Emperor Charles, and Count Czernin was appointed.”