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From Apalachicola to Wilkes-Barre: Austria(-Hungary) and Its Consulates in the United States of America, 1820–1917

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

Rudolf Agstner
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Extract

Little is known today of the relations between the Habsburg monarchy and the United States, or even about the millions of Habsburg subjects who emigrated to America and participated in virtually every stage of its westward expansion. We are particularly ignorant of the extensive consular system that the imperial government maintained for nearly a century before the dissolution of Austria-Hungary at the end of the Great War.1 Given the largely administrative nature of consular relations, it is not surprising that scholars have not delved deeply into the archival records. Nonetheless, in addition to a substantial cache of colorful anecdotes and less riveting administrative minutiae, the records of the Habsburg consular system in the United States offer a fresh vantage point for examining the interests and concerns of the monarchy's ruling elite and the structural challenges that limited its effectiveness during the four-decade career of Austria-Hungary.

Type
Articles
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 37 , January 2006 , pp. 163 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 2006

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References

1 This study is part of a larger research project into the history of the 725 consulates that the Habsburg rulers maintained worldwide between 1718 and 1918. On the Austrian (Austro-Hungarian) consulates in Canada,Google Scholarsee Rudolf, Agstner, From Halifax to Vancouver: Austria(-Hungary) and Her Consular and Diplomatic Presence in Canada,1855–2005, Schriftenreihe der Landesverteidigungsakademie, 12/2005 (Vienna, 2005);Google ScholarAgstner, , “The Establishment of Imperial Austrian Consulates in Canada, 1850–1914,” OeCulture no. 2 (2000): 3, 10;Google ScholarAgstner, , “Austro-Hungarian Emigration to British Columbia and the I. & R. Austro-Hungarian Consulate Vancouver,” OeCulture no. 1 (2003): 5–6, 13;Google Scholar and Agstner, , “Das k.u.k. Konsulat Winnipeg (Manitoba, Kanada) 1909–1914,” Rot-Weiss-Rot. Das Magazin für Auslandsösterreicher (hereafter cited as RWR) no. 4 (2000): 12–13.Google Scholar

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14 Court Chamber 35.574 of 30 June 1845, HKA, Commerz, fasc. 11, 1345/3 red. The petition never mentioned Belmont's Jewish pedigree. Had Seeman been appointed, he would have likely obliged the requirement that he renounce concurrent consular posts, although he could have later petitioned to accept an additional honorary consular position.Google Scholar

15 The dual character of the monarchy is also reflected in the collection of Austrian and Hungarian laws relevant for consular work by Josef Freiherr von, Malfatti di Monte Tretto, Handbuch des österreichisch-ungarischen Consularwesens nebsteinem Anhange, vol. 1, Konsularwesen, 798 pages with 30 illustrations,Google Scholar and vol. 2, Konsular-Normalien, 1,235 pages with 30 illustrations (Vienna, 1904). Malfatti published a first edition of one volume only in 1879.Google Scholar

16 The City of Vienna displayed a life-size reconstruction of the seventeenth-century Hohe Markt, which, under the name “Old Vienna,” became a favorite spot of the Chicago World's Fair.Google Scholar

17 Six months later, the emperor upgraded seven of the twelve honorary vice consulates to honorary consulates. HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 52, New York, submission Andrassy 29 May 1872, imperial resolvit 1 June 1872, FM 7909/VIII of 2 June 1872.Google Scholar

18 HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 267, North America 1/3, Leg. Washington XXX A-Ee to FM of 17 August 1899, FM 50.649/10 of 4 September 1899.Google Scholar

19 An Austro-German trade agreement of 1891 stipulated that both parties would “commit their consuls abroad to grant protection and assistance to the nationals of the other party, in case the latter are not represented in loco by a consul, in the same way and at the same fees as to their own nationals.”Google Scholar

20 HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 44, Chicago, Leg. Washington 689 to Pick, 17 October 1877. Nevertheless, Claussenius was appointed honorary consul and served until 1894, when the consular office was transformed into a regular consulate.Google ScholarAgstner, , “Eine Geschichte der Übersiedlungen—100 Jahre Österreichisches Generalkonsulat in Chicago,” Wiener Zeitung, 7 11 1997, 3;Google ScholarAgstner, , “Vom k.u.k. Konsulat zum österreichischen Generalkonsulat in Chicago,” RWR no. 4 (1998): 9.Google Scholar

21 HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 88, C. Boston, CG New York to Emb. Washington 6-Res of 12 April 1908.Google Scholar

22 Rudolf, Agstner, “Das k.u.k. Konsulat in Milwaukee 1867–1907,” RWR no. 1 (1998): 18;Google ScholarHHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 109, FM 49.896/10, submission Goluchowski 5 November 1897, imperial resolvit Vienna 11 November 1897.Google Scholar

23 Oliver, Rathkolb, ed., 250 Jahre Von der Orientalischen zur Diplomatischen Akademie in Wien—250 Years from the Oriental to the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna (Innsbruck, 2004).Google Scholar

24 Appointment of alumni from the Oriental Academy is particularly apparent in the case of the consulate in Pittsburgh.Google Scholar

25 HHStA, AR, dept. 4, personnel, box 258 Pidoll, study written by consular attaché Franz Pidoll, “Oesterreichische und Ungarische Einwanderung nach Nord-Amerika,” dated New York, 3 May 1911.Google Scholar

26 Ibid.This report provides excellent insight into the daily problems of Austro-Hungarian consulates in the United States.Google Scholar

27 Ibid.

28 HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 137, Hazleton, C Pittsburgh 23res to FM of 22 October 1896, FM 54.742/10 1896.Google Scholar

29 HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 120, C. Cleveland 15957 of 20 May 1912.Google Scholar

30 Ibid., Cleveland, C. 22374A of 26 May 1914.Google Scholar

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32 HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 180, CG New York Adm. CXLIV of 7 March 1898.Google Scholar

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37 HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 160, Lorain, vice-consul Pélenyi to consul Ludwig, Cleveland 12 March 1914.Google Scholar

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40 HHStA, AR, dept. 8. Box 242, Trinidad, Cons. Denver No. 1273 of 17 February 1914 to Embassy Washington.Google Scholar

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42 Peter de, Rosa, Rebels: The Irish Rising of 1916 (Dublin, 2000), 37.Google Scholar

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45 HHStA, PA I, Liasse Krieg 7, Amerika b, box 897, Emb. Washington 32 D (recte: 33 d) Lenox 18 June 1915 resp. tel. no. ref, Burian to Dumba.Google Scholar

46 HHStA, AR, dept. 4, box 76, personnel, file Dumba, letter Dumba to Burian of 20 August 1915.Google Scholar

47 HHStA, PA 1, Liasse Krieg 7, Amerika b, box 897, Emb. Washington 36/C pol, Lenox, of 24 August 1915.Google Scholar

48 HHStA, AR, dept. 4, box 78, personnel, file Dumba, chiffre telegram Dumba to Burian of 2 September 1915.Google Scholar

49 HHStA, AR, dept. 4, box 78, personnel, file Dumba, Embassy of the United States of America No. 3065, Vienna, 11 September 1915, letter from Frederic C. Penfield to Baron Burian.Google Scholar

50 For Dumba's version, see Constantin, Dumba, Dreibund- und Entente-Politik in derAlten und Neuen Welt (Vienna, 1931), 402.Google Scholar

51 Jim Larkin had met Grivičič “at the Manchester Martyrs meeting in Philadelphia on 15 January 1915, when Irish and German-Americans spoke from the same platform.”Google ScholarLarkin, , James Larkin, 192–93.Google Scholar

52 HHStA, AR, dept. 4, box 110, file Dr. Josef Goricar. On 20 December 1914, Goricar had requested permission to leave the Austro-Hungarian consular service; Emperor Francis Joseph granted the request on 27 January 1915.Google Scholar

53 Breaking off relations at this stage was unnecessary, as the United States declared war on Austria-Hungary only on 7 December 1917. It has to be recalled, however, that Germany broke off relations with Italy when the latter declared war on Austria-Hungary on 23 May 1915. It was only on 23 August 1916 that Italy declared war on Germany. By 1917, the US presence in Austria-Hungary had grown to include an embassy in Vienna, consulates general in Vienna and Budapest, consulates in Prague, Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary), Reichenberg (Liberec), Trieste, and Fiume—where a then unknown Fiorello H. La Guardia had started his career as US consular agent—as well as a consular agency in Haida (Novy Bor), a village of 300 inhabitants in the district of Boehmisch-Leipa.Google Scholar

54 The figures for Canada were, in 1900: two honorary consulates (Halifax, Montreal), one honorary vice consulate (St. John), and one honorary consular agency (Port of Picton).Google Scholar