Graf Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal (1854-1912). Band 1

Count Alois Lexa von Aehrenthal (1854-1912) was Austro-Hungarian foreign minister (1906-1912) during a critical time. He obviously was an important figure in Habsburg history and the empire that he served was central to problems of European power relations and of nationalism at the turn of the twentieth century. Yet, no comprehensive biography tying together his life and work exists. Apart from the Sanjak of Novibazar railroad project and the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, relatively little is known about his involvement in Habsburg internal affairs and about his grand scheme of constitutional reform to make the amorphous organs of the common government created by the Compromise of 1867 a real governing body with the foreign minister as imperial chancellor; to reshape relations between Austria and Hungary; and to resolve the South Slav problem by creating an autonomous South Slav unit within the empire. The failure of his reform efforts shows the severe limitations placed on all reform efforts by dualism and the neo-absolutist character of the imperial elite and the Habsburg court. The biography offers a multilevel analysis that integrates material from the psychological, political, social, economic, diplomatic, and cultural sides of Aehrenthal`s life. It illuminates his sociopolitical consciousness and, beyond that, the larger society and political processes in which he was a participant. Two themes run throughout the biography. The first is the indissoluble connection between the monarchy`s foreign and internal affairs. The second is the political anxiety of the imperial bureaucratic and aristocratic elite which stimulated their awareness of the fragility of the empire`s political structure. In a more general sense, Aehrenthal`s life and career offer revealing perspectives on Arno J. Mayer`s thesis of the persistence of aristocratic influence and its retarding effect on the development of industrial society and democratic politics, and Hans Ulrich Wehler`s thesis of social imperialism used to describe the use of foreign policy to divert domestic pressures outward into the international arena. The first volume of the Aehrenthal biography covers the history of the Aehrenthal family, his education and early years, his social and political outlook, the psychological influence of his relations with his parents , his diplomatic career (1878-1906 ) and his involvement in internal affairs in Austria, Bohemia , and Hungary (1897-1906).