UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT


Course: History 326


PAPER


Toward World War I

Count Aehrenthal and the Annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908


by

Sven-Ole Andersen

(student)


In October 1908 the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy proclaimed the annexation of the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the same time, Bulgaria declared its independence of the Ottoman Empire. Both actions involved no change in either the territorial or the political arrangements of the Balkan peninsula. Austria-Hungary had occupied and administered the two provinces for thirty years, and the Sultan of Turkey had never exercised the slightest control over the autonomous principality of Bulgaria set up in 1878. However, the policy and action taken by the two governments constitute violations of the Treaty of Berlin because other signatories were not consulted. As a result, a diplomatic crisis followed the events of October 1908. Moreover, memories of what happened between October 1908 and April 1909 were not without bearing on the events of July 1914, when Austria-Hungry declared war on Serbia which ultimately ended in the outbreak of World War I (Schmitt Preface).

The architects of the plan for annexation, and the following crisis also, were the Russian foreign minister Alexander Petrovic Izvolsky and the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister Alois Lexa Graf von Aehrenthal. The latter was the most intriguing and most crucial figure of both.

Aloys Leopold Johann Baptist Graf Lexa von Aehrenthal was born on 27 September 1854, at Gross-Skal in Bohemia. He began his career in 1877 as an attaché in Paris in the foreign service of the k.u.k. Monarchy. After that, he became the diplomatic counselor to Russia (1888), ambassador to Bucharest (1895), and Austria's ambassador to St. Petersburg (1899). In 1906, Baron (later Count) Aehrenthal replaced Graf Goluchowski as foreign minister. His intention was to revive the foreign policy of Austria-Hungry and to ensure a more active role of the Monarchy in...