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Count Karl Hatzfeld and the Bohemian Famine of 1771
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2009
Extract
In 1771, for the second year, famine wracked the once-fair Czech crownlands, and death continued to reap its sombre crop of souls among urban dwellers and peasants alike, victims of starvation, disease and violence. Maria Theresa and Joseph II acted with all the resources of their Gesamtmonarchie to end the human misery in Bohemia; in doing so, these co-rulers taxed almost to the limit the ingenuity and strength of their bureaucratic state. Among the state officials upon whom the empress and the emperor depended were Prince Wenzel von Kaunitz, Counts Philipp Blümegen, Ludwig and Karl von Zinzendorf, Leopold von Kollowrat, and Karl von Hatzfeld. While Hatzfeld's career began during an earlier period of crisis, when the empire was at war for its very existence, it was the Bohemian Famine of 1770–1772 which brought Hatzfeld real power in the Beamtenstaat for a brief term as supreme chancellor of the United Bohemian-Austrian Court Chancellery. Unfortunately, after only six months (June–December 1771), Hatzfeld was dismissed from that office because he was unable to reverse the course of the catastrophe by bureaucratic initiatives alone. Until now most historians of Theresian and Josephinian Austria have overlooked the contributions of this Bohemian aristocrat and servant to the House of Habsburg.
- Type
- The Habsburg Empire: Its People, Administration, and Art
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1984
References
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