Burián replaces Berchtold

On 13 January 1915 Count Leopold Berchtold ceased to be foreign minister of Austria-Hungary. His successor was a Hungarian, Baron István Burián, a close associate of the Hungarian prime minister, Count István Tisza. The change at the head of the Habsburg monarchy’s diplomacy was the result of a dispute over how to respond to Italy’s demands.

The dispute over compensation

Italy, formally an ally of Austria-Hungary and Germany in the Triple Alliance, had declared neutrality in August 1914. It soon began to bargain over the price of maintaining it. At the beginning of December 1914 the new foreign minister, Sidney Sonnino, invoked Article VII of the alliance treaty in a note to Vienna. Under it, if Austria-Hungary altered the status quo in the Balkans, even by a temporary occupation, Italy was entitled to compensation. In Rome’s view the war with Serbia was exactly such a case. Rome made no secret that what it wanted above all were the Austrian lands inhabited by Italians, especially Trentino.

Vienna long delayed. The Germans, on the other hand, applied pressure, fearing that Italy would join the Entente. In the second half of December the former chancellor Bernhard von Bülow, who openly favoured concessions, arrived in Rome as a special envoy. Berchtold finally gave way. At the turn of the year he came to the conclusion that the cession of Trentino was a price worth paying for Italian neutrality.

Berchtold’s fall

He met with fierce opposition. Tisza, one of the most influential politicians in the monarchy, believed that territorial concessions would set a dangerous precedent, also with regard to Romania, which had its eyes on Hungarian Transylvania. The Chief of the General Staff, Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, was also against. Berchtold, who lacked the political strength to force his view through, had to resign. On Tisza’s recommendation Emperor Franz Joseph I appointed Burián in his place, reportedly without enthusiasm. The same man who in the summer of 1914 had led the monarchy towards war with Serbia left office tired and disheartened. Afterwards he held only court posts, among them that of Obersthofmeister of the household of the heir to the throne, Archduke Karl.

Tisza’s man

Burián was born in 1851 in Stomfa (today Stupava in Slovakia). He was a career diplomat, consul general in Sofia and minister in Athens, and in 1903–1912 joint finance minister of the monarchy, who also administered Bosnia and Herzegovina. From 1913 he was minister to the King’s person in Tisza’s government, that is, the representative of the Hungarian government at the court in Vienna, and the prime minister’s adviser on foreign affairs. His appointment meant that Budapest’s influence on the monarchy’s foreign policy grew even further.

The new minister took a hard line. He argued that Article VII applied only to the Balkans and could not be the basis for a demand for Austrian lands. He dragged out the negotiations with Rome, counting on victories at the front. Only in March 1915, under strong German pressure and in the face of the bad situation in the Carpathians, did Vienna agree to talk about ceding part of Trentino, and only after the war. By then it was too late. In April 1915 Italy concluded the secret Treaty of London with the Entente, at the beginning of May it renounced the Triple Alliance, and on 23 May it declared war on Austria-Hungary.

Burián headed the monarchy’s diplomacy until December 1916, when the new emperor, Karl I, replaced him with Count Ottokar Czernin. He returned to the post in April 1918 and held it almost until the end of the war.