From Apalachicola to Wilkes-Barre:
Austria(-Hungary) and Its Consulates in the
United States of America, 1820-1917
RUDOLF AGSTNER
L
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.
This is not the place to undertake a detailed narrative or quantitative analysis of the pattern
and extent of the massive migration from Central Europe. Instead, this study will present the
development of the Habsburg consular system in the United States as an incremental process
during which Vienna's abiding disinterest was gradually overcome by the economic growth
of both countries, the emigration of over three million Habsburg subjects and, ultimately, the
challenges that nationalism posed to the monarchy's survival. Present throughout this process
were all-too-familiar structural realities, most notably a less developed commercial-industrial
infrastructure, a linguistically diverse constituency, and an inelastic fisc that so often placed the
Habsburg monarchy at a relative disadvantage vis-a-vis its Western European neighbors.
ITTLE
Chronologically speaking, the infancy of Austro-American consular relations lasted until middle
age. From the creation of the United States until the Civil War, the Ballhausplatz had so little
interest in developing commercial relations that successive emperors opted to forgo establishing
'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, see
Rudolf Agstner, From Halifax to Vancouver: Austria(-Hungary) and Her Consular and Diplomatic Presence in Canada,
Austrian History Yearbook 37 (2006): 163-180 © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota
164
RUDOLF AGSTNER
the first consulate until 1820. One reason for the delay was the monarchy's late start in establishing a consular service. Whereas the origins of the modern consular system can be traced to medieval times,2 the Austrian Habsburgs had not established their first consulate until after the Treaty
of Passarowitz (1718) gave Emperor Charles VI the right to open facilities in the ports of the
Ottoman Empire. From modest beginnings in Tunis and Tripoli, the monarchy's consular system
gradually spread across the Mediterranean to Europe's Atlantic littoral before reaching Hamburg,
Copenhagen, and Helsingor in 1782 and St. Petersburg one year later. By then Emperor Joseph II
had also established a presence in the East, with consuls in Canton (1781), Mauritius (1782), and
the Bengal and Malabar coasts of India (1787).3 Yet the "Revolutionary Emperor" was unwilling
to consider formal ties with the rebellious Thirteen Colonies, rejecting an initial offer in 1777 to
establish Trieste as the entrepot for trade between the two countries. When the Virginian William Lee arrived in Vienna in May 1778 to negotiate a treaty of friendship and commerce, he was
snubbed by the imperial government and departed empty handed a few weeks later. Until 1783,
the Hofkanzlei's files routinely referred to American officials as "rebels" and "insurgents."4
It was only after formal British recognition of American independence that the imperial
ambassador in Paris, Count Florimond Mercy dArgenteau, acknowledged a 30 June 1784 letter
from his American counterpart, Benjamin Franklin, in which the Continental Congress sought
"to cultivate the Friendship of His Imperial Majesty and to enter into a Treaty of Commerce."
On 28 September, Mercy dArgenteau informed Franklin that the emperor had approved the
proposal in principle. By then, the greffier of the financial council in Brussels, Baron de BeelenBertholff, had arrived in Philadelphia as a "trade delegate" with instructions to negotiate a treaty
of friendship and commerce as soon as the emperor had officially recognized the new republic.
Yet Beelen waited in vain for six years before his mission ended with word that the emperor
had decided against recognition. Rather than return home, Beelen opted to spend his retirement in America, dying there in 1805. When another Habsburg subject in Philadelphia, the
Milanese merchant Joseph Mussi, petitioned to succeed Beelen with the rank of consul, he was
turned down, despite the support of Trieste's governor and Stock Exchange Commission. Even
President John Adams's Christmas Eve, 1799 nomination of Philadelphian John Lamson to be
the first US consul in Trieste languished for over three years before Emperor Francis II finally
issued his exequatur in January 1802.
The pace of Austro-American engagement picked up slightly once the two countries had
concluded their parallel conflicts with France and Britain in 1815 and Austria had reacquired
its Adriatic seacoast at the Congress of Vienna. Court and State Chancellor Metternich revived
the project for a consulate to match the US trade mission that had operated in Trieste until the
loss of the Adriatic littoral to France in 1809. Metternich's first choice for the post was Bartholomaus Baron Sturmer, who had only recently been appointed Austrian commissioner in St.
1855-2005, Schriftenreihe der Landesverteidigungsakademie, 12/2005 (Vienna, 2005); Agstner, "The Establishment
of Imperial Austrian Consulates in Canada, 1850-1914," OeCulture no. 2 (2000): 3, 10; Agstner, "Austro-Hungarian
Emigration to British Columbia and the I. & R. Austro-Hungarian Consulate Vancouver," OeCulture no. 1 (2003):
5-6, 13; and Agstner, "Das k.u.k. Konsulat Winnipeg (Manitoba, Kanada) 1909-1914," Rot-Weiss-Rot. Das Magazin
fur Auslandsosterreicher (hereafter cited as RWR) no. 4 (2000): 12-13.
2
France established her first consulates in 1085, Venice in 1179, England in 1215, Genoa in 1250, the Hanseatic
States in 1300, and Florence in 1534. E. W. A. Tuson, The British Consul's Manual (London, 1856).
'Rudolf Agstner, "Du Levant au Ponant: le deVeloppement du service consulaire autrichien au XVIII siecle," in La
Fonction Consulaire a I'Epoque Moderne (Rennes, forthcoming).
4
Anna Hedwig Benna, "Osterreichs erste diplomatische Vertretung bei den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika," Mitteilungen des Osterreichischen Staatsarchivs 29 (1976): 224; Erwin Matsch, "Der Wiener Hof und die USA," in Osterreich unddieNeue Welt, ed. Elisabeth Zeilinger (Vienna, 1993), 121-27.
FROM APALACHICOLA TO WILKES-BARRE
165
Helena, where he would have been responsible for monitoring the exiled Napoleon. Although it
is easy to imagine Sturmer happily forsaking the watery exile of France's fallen First Consul to
become Austria's first consul in the United States, he delayed his departure for four years until
1820, long enough to snare the far more prestigious appointment of imperial minister in Rio
de Janeiro.5 By then Metternich had taken the necessary steps to install Alois Baron Lederer as
the monarchy's first consul to the now not so new republic.6
One of Vienna's motives for establishing an official presence in the United States was to
find alternative routes for Austrian exports to South America, which were totally dependent
on Spanish middlemen, thereby adding to the cost of Austrian merchandise. Nonetheless, it
is clear from Lederers instructions that Austria also wished to "follow the country's enormous
progress ... in all aspects of her development, particularly in the construction of steam vessels ... far surpassing other nations, especially the English,... and to report on all institutions,
ordinances and inventions which could be reasonably of any use to the Austrian monarchy."7
Since Austria would not establish formal diplomatic relations until 1838,8 Lederer was obliged
to travel between his base in New York City and Washington for a decade until the conclusion of a Treaty on Trade and Navigation on 27 August 1829.9 New vice-consulates were soon
established all along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, beginning with New Orleans (1837), Philadelphia (1841), and Boston (1841), and followed by those in Mobile, Charleston, Savannah, and
Apalachicola between 1846 and 1849. The Austrian Ministry of Commerce reacted with unaccustomed speed to the California gold rush of 1849 by creating a consulate in San Francisco in
May 1850, recognizing as it did that "the exploitation of its gold mines, which by far exceeds all
expectations, and the influx of thousands of immigrants would open new export possibilities"
for what Minister Karl Ludwig Bruck foresaw would be products of "ordinary quality."10 By the
end of that year, Bruck had persuaded Emperor Francis Joseph to complete a system of eleven
vice-consulates with the addition of Baltimore, Norfolk, and Galveston.
Although the imperial government appears to have finally overcome the initial political
distaste and economic disinterest that had postponed the establishment of diplomatic and commercial relations, its engagement in the United States was still handicapped by budgetary limitations, which reflected the United States' low-priority status. Fiscal constraints most likely figured
in its decision to delay Lederers elevation from consul to consul general until 1828, despite his
insistence that this would delay conclusion of a trade and navigation treaty.11 In fact, although
Lederer received an allowance of 6,000 florins, all of the new vice-consulates were headed by
unpaid honorary consuls. Although some were assisted by paid civil servants in exceptional circumstances, the total allocation for the monarchy's expanded consular operations totaled a mere
5
In 1817 in Rio de Janeiro, the emperor's daughter Leopoldina had married Brazil's Prince (and from 1822, King)
Pedro de Braganza. State Chancery to General Court Chamber of 29 October 1818, Hofkammerarchiv (hereafter cited
as HKA), Vienna, Austria, Commerzkammer, 1818. It is interesting to note that this is the only file from 1818 and
1819 mentioning Sturmers appointment as consul general in the United States. The claim that an Imperial Austrian
Consulate General in Philadelphia headed by Stiirmer actually existed can be found in Benna, "Osterreichs erste
diplomatische Vertretung," 224.
6
Metternich to Stahl, 5 March 1820, HKA, Commerz, fasc. 1199 red.
'Folios 8-25, HKA, Commerz, fasc. 1199 red.
8
For the history of Austro-American diplomatic relations as reflected in the reports of the diplomatic representative in
Washington, see Erwin Matsch, Wien-Washington. Ein Journal diplomatischerBeziehungen 1838-1917 (Vienna, 1990).
'Folio 18, HKA, Commerz, Fasc. 1307/2 red, 1837-38; Staatskanzlei-Konsulate, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (hereafter cited as HHStA), Vienna, Austria, New York 1828-60, box 31.
10
I.R. Trade Ministry 5456/1850.
"Lederer, New York, 9 April 1821, HKA, Commerz, fasc. 17,1823.
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RUDOLF AGSTNER
12,000 florins (about €165,000) for all of North and South America.12 On two occasions (184553,1871-96), even the New York consulate was downgraded to honorary status and entrusted to
millionaires who could afford to bear the expense of maintaining the office themselves.
The reliance on honorary consuls certainly had its drawbacks, beginning with the limited
workload that could be asked of them.13 Honorary consuls could be expected to ignore the
flood of regulations emanating from the Ballhausplatz—to the detriment of the monarchy's
commercial interests and the expatriates whom the consuls were supposed to protect. As a rule,
foreign service officials did not even search for qualified candidates in cities where they wanted
to establish an honorary consular office, but simply waited for individuals to step forward, usually by citing the protection and other services that they could provide to the emperor's subjects
in their particular locality. The position doubtless offered a certain amount of prestige—though
surely more in America than it enjoyed within the Austrian consular service, where postings in
the nearby Balkans or Mediterranean were most highly valued. But most applicants sought an
appointment solely as a means of advancing their own private businesses under the umbrella
of a respected European empire.
As a rule, applicants for honorary consular posts were German nationals from the Hanseatic towns of Hamburg, Bremen, and Liibeck, or other places in northern Germany, who had
come to the United States as representatives of their German-based trading houses in major
American cities, or were US citizens of German descent. As a result, few of them spoke any of
the monarchy's many languages other than German. Although German would have sufficed to
advance the monarchy's commercial interests within the United States, consuls representing
northern German trading houses were unlikely to use their positions to promote any business
other than their own. For this reason, foreigners could only be appointed honorary consuls if
there was no Habsburg subject available who was wealthy enough and of sufficiently high social
standing—which was not normally the case, since the great bulk of immigrants were made up
of people from lower social strata. Only as the century progressed and emigration increased did
more imperial subjects even qualify to be honorary consuls. Until then it was not uncommon
for honorary consular offices to be established in places like Apalachicola and Louisville, where
there were virtually no expatriate colonies, while cities with large communities like Detroit and
Los Angeles did not get consulates.
Expatriate colonies that were served by a consulate did sometimes take a hand in the selection process, whether by protesting an appointment or expressing a preference for a consul who
spoke a particular language. In 1845, twenty-two Austrian subjects in New York sent a duly
notarized petition to Vienna seeking the appointment of a German-speaking consul, preferably the Royal Bavarian Consul Georg Heinrich Seeman. Their initiative may have been aimed
at forestalling Emperor Ferdinand's appointment of August Belmont, the scion of a prominent
Jewish landowner and moneylender from Hesse-Cassel who was, in any event, willing to
become the monarchy's first unpaid consul general.14
12
Protocols of the Council of Ministers of 18 October 1850, Nr. 407; I.R. Trade Ministry 8141/H. In December 2004,
1 florin equaled the purchasing power of €13.87; information obtained via telephone interview with Austria Statistics,
2005. Many thanks to Dr. Thomas Kletecka for this information.
l3
As early as 1770, the Intendante of Trieste concluded that "one does not notice too much zeal from the Imperial
consuls, but one could only ask more of them if they were paid a salary." Report of 6 August 1770, HKA, Litorale
Commerz, folio 195-97, fasc. 117/1, box 646 red.
"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.
FROM APALACHICOLA TO WILKES-BARRE
167
The American Civil War left Vienna without news from its numerous consulates in the South,
which had suddenly become part of the Confederate States of America. It also brought a temporary halt to the opening of new consulates in the North and East. Once the conflict had ended,
Austro-American relations stood on the threshold of a new era that greatly affected the consular
system. The remarkable economic recoveries that followed both the Civil War and Austria's own
defeats in Italy and Germany generated substantial interest in expanding commercial relations,
as well as consular facilities to service the first great wave of immigrants from the newly fashioned Dual Monarchy. The period from 1867 to 1900 therefore witnessed a host of new honorary or regular consulates, which now dealt for the first time with an expatriate population, albeit
one that was in the process of adopting a fresh national identity.
Even before these economic and demographic developments could manifest themselves, the
consular system needed to adjust to the Ausgleich's transformation of the monarchy itself. Foreign
and military affairs now became "common" responsibilities of both parts of the empire, whereas
inter alia trade and the merchant marine became the responsibility of Austria or Hungary. To
the world, Austria-Hungary presented itself through its diplomatic and consular missions as a
single entity, which was not the case when it came to matters of trade, navigation, emigration,
nationality laws, and many other matters.15 During the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, Austria
participated with a "modest" exhibition, while the Hungarian half of the monarchy was "totally
absent."16 No wonder that imports from Austria-Hungary to the Chicago area totaled only about
$600,000, a far cry from Great Britain's $15 million, Germany's $4.5 million, or France's $3 million. Oddly enough, matches exported to the United States from Austria's Bohemian Crownlands
were labeled "Made in Bohemia" as if they came from a sovereign state.
Dualism certainly increased the flow of instructions and regulations that now emanated from
both Vienna and Budapest. The Austro-Hungarian Foreign Ministry, as well as the Austrian
and Hungarian ministries of Trade and Agriculture, expected consulates to send numerous,
regular reports on a variety of economic issues. By 1904, the normalia on reporting consisted of
107 regulations that called for all sorts of periodical reports to be sent to both capitals in order
to give bureaucrats there greater insight into the economic situation in the United States so they
could effectively promote trade. From 1875, consulates were under instructions to report their
"observations in the field of trade policy" for the preceding year. In 1889, it was discovered in
Vienna and Budapest that statistical data on Austrian and Hungarian emigration were missing,
"the reason being mainly the difficulty in obtaining reliable and exact data on the movement of
emigrants in most important foreign ports," thereby prompting Vienna to instruct consulates
to provide detailed information on the subject. As of 1883, following an instruction issued in
German and Italian, consulates had to report on bankruptcies of foreign companies that might
affect Austrian or Hungarian business circles or creditors. In 1897, consulates were directed
to send monthly reports to the Austrian and the Hungarian Ministries of Agriculture "on the
status of seed and results of harvests in the most important countries of production," keeping
consulates busy writing myriad reports that probably often ended up unread in a drawer.
l5
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 osterreichisch-ungarischen Consularwesens nebsteinem Anhange, vol. 1, Konsularwesen, 798 pages with 30 illustrations, and vol. 2, Konsular-Normalien, 1,235
pages with 30 illustrations (Vienna, 1904). Malfatti published a first edition of one volume only in 1879.
l6
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 Worlds Fair.
168
RUDOLF AGSTNER
Although Dualism increased the need for officials who could process the Hungarian-language
directives coming from Budapest, the intensification of commercial relations also heightened the
demand for Italian, since a quarter of all regulations that dealt with maritime affairs were written
in Italian, the lingua franca of the Austro-Hungarian consular service. By 1904, when the second
edition of Josef Baron Malfatti di Monte Tretto's Austro-Hungarian Consular Manual appeared,
consuls—whether civil servants or honorary officials—were supposed to know two volumes of
regulations totaling 1,972 pages. Volume II contained the normalia, comprising a total of 506
laws, regulations, and instructions in three different languages, the oldest being Maria Theresas
venerable Editto Politico di Navigazione Mercantile Austriaca of 25 April 1774.
Despite the dramatic increase in its commercial responsibilities and paperwork, the consular system's principal raison d'etre was now shifting from commercial concerns like securing
an adequate supply of tobacco and cotton for the monarchy to protecting the ever increasing
number of Austrian and Hungarian citizens—so-called co-nationals in Austro-Hungarian consular terminology—mostly in order to keep track of those who were at least theoretically liable
for military service. Registering such citizens—and having them undergo the requisite medical
check-up—created a considerable workload, made more complicated as neither Austrians nor
Hungarians were even obliged to register with the nearest consul. Nevertheless, the registration
of prospective draftees was subject tofifty-threedetailed procedural rules and regulations.
The task was further complicated by the fact that most Austro-Hungarian consuls were at a
loss to figure out how many Austrians, Hungarians and, after 1878, Bosnians actually lived in
their consular district. Each office was instructed to maintain a register of all resident nationals.
Yet it was obvious that persons who had left the fatherland without authorization would not call
on the nearest consulate to get registered. Indeed, there was no requirement obligating AustroHungarian nationals living abroad to do so. As a result, consuls generally forewent any effort to
arrive at a precise tally of co-nationals, limiting themselves to reporting whether the numbers
were "significant," "insignificant," "growing," or "important."
Emigration from Austria-Hungary certainly took off during the closing decades of the century, totaling 353,719 in the 1880s and 592,707 in the 1890s, before surging to 2,145,261 during
the first decade of the new century; more than a half million people emigrated in 1907 alone.
Since the Civil War, the percentage of immigrants to the United States from Austria-Hungary
had risen from virtually nothing to nearly a quarter of all new arrivals (see table 1). Between
1820 and 1910, an estimated 3.5 million Habsburg subjects chose the United States as their new
home, with slightly more than half coming from the Austrian half of the Dual Monarchy. Most
of them arrived in New York harbor, with the largest number, like Hiob in Joseph Roth's famous
novel, coming from Galicia, where whole districts became greatly depopulated. They usually
traveled via Bremen or Hamburg, some also via Trieste. In 1902-3, the close to a quarter million emigrants were made up of German-Austrians (23,597), Poles (37,499), Slovaks (34,412),
TABLE I Immigrants in the US from Austria(-Hungary)
Years
1861-1870
1871-1880
1881-1890
1891-1900
1901-1910
Percentage
0.3
2.6
6.7
16.0
24.4
Note: Based on data from the US Census Bureau.
FROM APALACHICOLA TO WILKES-BARRE
169
Croats and Slovenes (32,892), Hungarians (27,113), Ukrainians (9,819), Czechs (9,557), and
Dalmatians and Bosnians (1,723).
The Austro-Hungarian consulates were wholly unprepared to bear the burden of serving
such a large constituency. Although Emperor Francis Joseph had approved a consular reorganization on 21 December 1871, it resembled the system established in 1850 in that it focused
largely on commercial and maritime considerations. This is not surprising considering that
emigration from the monarchy during the 1860s had amounted to only 0.33 percent of total
immigration to the United States. Consequently, the new organization only partially reflected
the presence of immigrants in several rapidly growing American cities, most notably through
the creation of a new vice-consulate to serve Milwaukee's large Austrian community. To make
matters worse, the consulate general in New York was downgraded to an honorary post, with
the funds saved being used to establish a commercial chancery at the Austro-Hungarian
legation in Washington, which was to oversee all honorary consulates in the United States.17
By the end of the century, it had become obvious that the Austro-Hungarian consular system in the United States was no longer adequate, particularly in New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Connecticut, where the greatest number of emigrants were
concentrated. In 1899, Francis Josephs minister in Washington, Ladislas von Hengelmiiller
zu Hengervar, reported that
our emigration to the United States has increased in an unheard-of scale since the middle of the 1880s.
Our nationals settling here now count in the millions, and with the exception of the southern and New
England states there is hardly a major town, or an industrial or mining center in the Union where
Austrians and Hungarians have not established themselves in greater numbers. While our emigrants
are taking the lead of the columns of emigrants, our consular representation in the United States has
qualitatively and quantitatively lagged behind medium-sized European states, remaining at the level of
the 1850s, when our only business in America was importing cotton from the old slavery states.18
Clearly, the time had come to replace the system of honorary consuls. Most of their number
had been wholly unprepared to deal with the constitutional intricacies of the Dual Monarchy,
which in daily consular life translated into a flood of disparate laws, regulations, and instructions for the Austrian and the Hungarian parts of the monarchy—let alone for Bosnia-Herzegovina—and their respective citizens and inhabitants. Moreover, the changing complexion
of international and domestic politics had made the reliance on German nationals untenable.
Although it was still customary for German consuls to serve temporarily upon the death of
their Austro-Hungarian counterparts, the Ballhausplatz now preferred to keep a certain distance between its consulates and those of the newly created German Empire.19 Although Germany and Austria-Hungary were allies, there were those among the monarchy's subjects who
did not share the sense of camaraderie. In October 1877, it took Chicago's Deak Association
only a few days to join Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Andrassy in protesting the interim
appointment of the Prussian H. Claussenius as honorary consul because he "distinguishes
"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.
l8
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.
"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."
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RUDOLF AGSTNER
himself only by his anti-Austrian feelings and his special hate of Hungarians."20 In 1906, New
York's Czech community petitioned the Foreign Ministry for a Czech as its next consul general. The appointment ultimately went to a Thuringian German, who nonetheless advised the
Foreign Ministry just two years later against continuing to entrust consular responsibilities in
Boston to the city's German vice-consul. Although the latter's track record and facilities were
"quite suitable," his office walls were covered "only with portraits of the German emperor and of
Prince Bismarck ... with nothing at all representing our Austro-Hungarian consular mission,"
a situation deemed rather awkward "since 80 percent of the clients of our Boston consulate are
Austrian citizens of Polish nationality."21
By the mid 1890s, the government had finally taken the remedial step of converting several
honorary consular offices located in cities with large expatriate colonies like Chicago, New
York, and Pittsburgh into regular consulates. In 1897, it even upgraded the Chicago office to
consulate general, with jurisdiction over the offices in St. Louis, New Orleans, Galveston, and
Milwaukee.22 From around 1900, alumni of Vienna's Oriental Academy23—which had assumed
the name "Consular Academy" in 1898—were appointed to head the newly established consulates in the United States, bringing with them a more professional approach to promoting trade
and looking after local Austro-Hungarian colonies.24 At the same time, the Ballhausplatz made
sure to send at least one consular or chancery official who could communicate in one or more
of the Slavic languages spoken by the colony in a given district. Despite these changes, budgetary constraints guaranteed that the prevailing system of honorary consulates remained in place
despite the emergence of new and pressing responsibilities that it could not hope to meet.
By 1900, the consular agenda was no longer concerned primarily with trade, but with the welfare
and activities of the United States' burgeoning population of Austro-Hungarian immigrants.
Admittedly, not all of the more than three million people merited the same degree of attention
from the system's underfunded honorary consuls and overburdened bureaucrats. Although the
overwhelming majority of expatriates stayed permanently in the United States, numerous consular reports suggest that as many as a third originally intended to return to Austria-Hungary,
with a significant, but indeterminate number actually doing so. Thus, roughly a million people
were classified at least initially as "migrant workers" rather than as immigrants and were at least
theoretically accorded more attention. Yet, given the heavy official workload, even members
of this group no longer merited "consular protection" or discrete supervision once they had
opted for US citizenship. Not that it was easy to distinguish between the two groups. Whereas
the number of people immigrating to the United States was easily available from the statistics
published by the Department of Commerce and Labor, Austro-Hungarian consulates did not
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. Agstner, "Eine Geschichte der Ubersiedlungen—100 Jahre Osterreichisches Generalkonsulat in Chicago,"
Wiener Zeitung, 7 November 1997, 3; Agstner, "Vom k.u.k. Konsulat zum 6'sterreichischen Generalkonsulat in Chicago," RWR no. 4 (1998): 9.
21
HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 88, C. Boston, CG New York to Emb. Washington 6-Res of 12 April 1908.
"Rudolf Agstner, "Das k.u.k. Konsulat in Milwaukee 1867-1907," RWR no. 1 (1998): 18; HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box
109, FM 49.896/10, submission Goluchowski 5 November 1897, imperial resolvit Vienna 11 November 1897.
"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).
24
Appointment of alumni from the Oriental Academy is particularly apparent in the case of the consulate in Pittsburgh.
FROM APALACHICOLA TO WILKES-BARRE
171
have the resources to determine which among them had acquired US citizenship, particularly
since these statistics were often based on ethnic group, rather than prior citizenship. Thus, an
Austrian citizen from the Trentino or Trieste was counted as Italian, while a Romanian from
Transylvania appeared as Romanian. Nor were consular officials able to ascertain the identity
or number of those who returned to the Dual Monarchy, since passports were not required and
men liable for military service often did not opt voluntarily to report their residence. Hence the
lament of one consular official that "in many cases a person who has spent many years in the
United States returns home without ever having set foot in a consular office. Apart from those
who are intent on keeping their military papers in order, the immigrant usually remembers his
status as Austrian or Hungarian citizen only in case of need, and usually only after all other
ways and means which seemed appropriate have failed."25
In many parts of the country, maintaining effective contact with the expatriate community
would not have been possible without the assistance and cooperation of trusted confidants, most
notably Catholic clergy, the editors of Hungarian-, Croatian-, and Slovene-language newspapers,
and various benevolent societies and immigrant homes that catered to the needs of their respective co-nationals.26 By 1911, two homes for immigrants from Austria-Hungary existed in New
York City. The home of the Hungarian Society was well-subsidized by the Hungarian government, whereas the Austrian government had cancelled any subsidies for the Austrian Society's
immigrants' home at the end of 1910, putting its existence in jeopardy. There were also Greater
Polish, Pan-Slav, and Jewish homes to which immigrants of Austrian or Hungarian nationality
could turn, but which generally attempted to convert immigrants to a political agenda. The board
of directors of such associations, as well as a certain percentage of its membership, had to have
US citizenship in order to run a home for immigrants or send a representative to Ellis Island. The
main purpose of the Austrian and Hungarian homes was to assist immigrants by providing room
and board, finding them jobs, and offering helpful advice. They also maintained legal counsel on
Ellis Island to facilitate the processing of new arrivals from Austria-Hungary who did not speak
English and who were often at a loss to understand the many questions asked by immigration
officials and their interpreters. Immigrants without relatives or friends waiting for them were
immediately taken to the homes "to spare them numerous unpleasant experiences," oftentimes
at the hands of former compatriots bent on defrauding them.
Nor did the hazards end here for the poor, often illiterate and overwhelmingly non-Englishspeaking multitudes who came to America. In 1910, New York City officials reported that more
Austro-Hungarian expatriates died of tuberculosis than any other immigrant group except the
Irish. Whereas the consulates could do nothing to improve their emigrants' nutrition or health,
they did try to assist families left destitute by the incapacitation or death of their principal
breadwinner, which was often the result of industrial accidents in the factories and mines where
so many found employment. Unlike its Austrian counterpart, the Hungarian government actually bore the cost of repatriating its co-nationals in an effort to "prevent the depopulation of
the Holy Crown of St. Stephen." Another group that was repatriated were those prospective
but destitute Austro-Hungarian emigrants who had, for some reason, been unable to make the
transatlantic voyage or had been refused entry into the United States at Ellis Island. By 1911, the
number had become sufficiently large to oblige the Foreign Ministry to upgrade its honorary
consular offices in Bremen and Rotterdam, while establishing a new consulate one year later in
Basel, where most agents luring emigrants to North America had their offices. Unfortunately,
25
HHStA, AR, dept. 4, personnel, box 258 Pidoll, study written by consular attache Franz Pidoll, "Oesterreichische
und Ungarische Einwanderung nach Nord-Amerika," dated New York, 3 May 1911.
26
Ibid. This report provides excellent insight into the daily problems of Austro-Hungarian consulates in the United States.
172
RUDOLF AGSTNER
consular officials could do rather less for those who actually reached and remained in the United
States. Their reports reflect dissatisfaction with the separate and unequal treatment afforded to
foreign nationals both by employers and by federal, state, and municipal government officials,
whom they accused of conspiring to escape financial responsibility for workplace accidents.
Hence the lament of one officer that "it is very difficult for a foreigner to obtain justice ... in
contradiction to all trade agreements concluded with the United States ... where human life
counts for little." Not surprisingly, American authorities were less committed to protecting
Austro-Hungarian subjects who defrauded or otherwise victimized their compatriots, with the
result that consular officials were sometimes able to secure the perpetrators' deportation and
subsequent trial in Austrian or Hungarian courts.
By the turn of the century, Austria-Hungary and its representatives in the United States
were not only concerned for the well-being of their American co-nationals, but for the mettle
of their patriotism. In contrast to Irish and Italians, emigrants from a multinational empire like
Austria-Hungary were less able—or inclined—to retain their former identities and ties with
their countries of origin. In the view of one consular official, this was because there were no
intelligentsia or educated classes from the monarchy to help sustain these affinities among the
mostly unskilled, rural workers now toiling in the United States' mines and factories:
Belonging mostly to the uneducated classes, having more difficulties than Germans in adapting to the
situation in the United States, they nevertheless find many compatriots in the industrial centers, so
that they do not feel lonely and abandoned. To the newcomer they praise all advantages in an exaggerated manner, such as the absence of military duty in the United States, no direct taxation etc. Once
the immigrant has learned English (which usually is a prerequisite to get on) he is to a much higher
degree exposed to the influence of his surroundings and sees other perceived advantages, which are
offered by acquiring American citizenship.... Even if some of them do not acquire US nationality, they
cannot prevent their children from attending local schools, where they learn English better than their
mother-tongue. In such a way already the second generation becomes American.27
The absence of a substantial Austro-Hungarian upper crust left the governments in Vienna and
Budapest with few instruments for influencing the cultural trajectory of its expatriate community.
Certainly the Ballhausplatz was not willing to step into the breach, despite being well aware of the
shortcomings of the system of honorary consulates. Although it is easy to attribute its dereliction
to financial constraints, the greater reality was that the government simply did not attach a high
priority to its relations with the United States and its people, regardless of nationality. William
Godsey is doubtless right in concluding that the United States held "little political significance"
for Vienna's policymakers and that its Washington embassy was regarded as the "least acceptable"
of all the monarchy's missions. Hence the conviction of Baron HengelmuUer that his lengthy
(1894-1913) tenure as envoy was intended as punishment by his enemies within the Foreign Ministry, despite his own predictions of the prominent role that the United States was destined to play
on the world stage. Although he eventually succeeded in having the legation in Washington promoted to the status of embassy in 1903, its business continued to be entrusted to the same "Referat
IV" of the ministry's political division that handled relations with less significant European and
non-European countries until 1913, when HengelmuUer was recalled—and succeeded by Nikolaus Dumba, the only commoner ever to serve anywhere as an Austro-Hungarian ambassador.
For the consulates, Vienna's diffidence translated into a patchwork system whereby some
cities with few expatriates got honorary consuls because they were available and virtually
"Ibid.
FROM APALACHICOLA TO WILKES-BARRE
173
kostenlos, while others like Cleveland and Detroit, which had teeming expatriate communities,
were wholly ignored. As early as 1896, Cleveland's 400,000 residents included an expatriate
community of 50,000, the Austrian half of which dated back to the first wave of emigrants from
the monarchy. Moreover, as Pittsburgh Consul Dessefwy noted: "[T]hey remain very much
attached to their old fatherland.... There probably is no other place in America where the patriotic feelings of our emigrants have been kept as alive as in Cleveland; 120 national associations
(92 Czech and Polish, 27 Hungarian, 8 Slovak) and 18 churches (4 Czech-Catholic, 3 PolishCatholic, 2 Hungarian and Slovak-Catholic each, 1 Slovene-Catholic, 2 Czech-Congregational,
1 Hungarian-Reformed, as well as 2 Hungarian-Jewish and 1 Czech-Jewish synagogues) are
striking evidence thereof. There can be no doubt that the steady development of the city and its
industries will also lead to an increase of our colonies there."28 Although a consulate was finally
created in 1903, Vienna continued to ignore an even larger colony of 80,000 Poles, Czechs,
Hungarians, and Slovaks in Detroit, which was entrusted, together with the rest of Michigan's
lower peninsula, to the new Cleveland consulate. As late as 1912, Cleveland's Consul Ernst
Ludwig reported that "in the courthouse and the town hall several official announcements are
made public in English, Polish and German, or in English and Polish alone."29 Although Vienna
continued to ignore his repeated requests for a branch office in Detroit,30 the Ballhausplatz
did establish new consulates in Charleston, West Virginia (1908), Denver (1909), and St. Paul
(1912), while converting a number of honorary consulates in places with major Austrian and
Hungarian colonies to consulates, including Philadelphia, San Francisco (1911), and St. Louis
(1913). By then branch offices had even been established in smaller towns with significant expatriate communities like the Pennsylvanian mining towns of Hazleton(1909-12),31 Wilkes-Barre
(1912), and Uniontown (1911-17), as well as Clarksburg, West Virginia (1907-11) and Buffalo
(1909-16). Even tiny Proctor, Vermont, got an honorary consul for the benefit of the mostly
Slovak miners who toiled in its marble quarries.
At a time when the Austro-Hungarian consulates in the United States and elsewhere were
under increasing pressure to sustain and promote an affinity for the monarchy among the Austro-Hungarian colonies, the modest consular network was obliged to rely heavily on the assistance of others. New York's consulate general enjoyed the unique benefit of visits by warships
of the Austro-Hungarian navy. When the frigate Donau sailed into New York harbor in 1898,
Consul General Stockinger hailed its presence "as a welcome opportunity to bring Austrians
and Hungarians of the better circles who had not as yet come into contact with each other."32
He was also able to interest the city's Osterreichisch-Ungarische Zeitung in promoting that year's
Hungarian national celebration in order to establish an endowment for a Hungarian home; the
event attracted an estimated 2,000 revelers and featured a ball and banquet for 300. A visit in
1902 by the Szigetvdr provided an opportunity for Consul General Dessefwy "to arouse in New
Yorkers of Austrian or Hungarian origin the sense of belonging to their old fatherland and to
promote the feeling of belonging together among them." Yet Dessefwy despaired of mobilizing
support from the Austrian Society and the now four-year-old Magyar Segely Egylet, which ran
the city's two homes for Austrian and Hungarian immigrants. He was not only unimpressed
by their modest combined membership of under 150, but dismayed that "those people whose
28
HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 137, Hazleton, C Pittsburgh 23res to FM of 22 October 1896, FM 54.742/10 1896.
HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 120, C. Cleveland 15957 of 20 May 1912.
30
Ibid., C. Cleveland 22374A of 26 May 1914.
31
Rudolf Agstner, "Konsulat fur Osterreichs Bergleute—K.u.K. Expositur in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, um die Jahrhundertwende," Wiener Zeitung, 7 August 1998, 3.
"HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 180, CG New York Adm. CXLIV of 7 March 1898.
29
174
RUDOLF AGSTNER
participation would have been especially desirable kept their distance."33 In the end he was left
to his own devices in arranging "adequate festivities" that included a banquet for the ship's officers.34 Of course, there was also a plethora of private clubs, which were usually organized around
a particular national group. For example, the fifty thousand Czechs living in New York sustained
no fewer than twenty-one associations in 1906, including bicycle clubs, rowing clubs, and choral
societies. Yet many private associations were more nationally conscious than kaisertreu. One
official complained that "numerous Austrian and Hungarian associations carry flowery patriotic
names, yet they serve only the momentary interests of their members in the US and are rarely
taken to keep up patriotic feelings among their members. A lack of patriotism, and even more
so a lack of comprehension and understanding is to be found with the many who dodge military
service and thus deprive themselves forever of the possibility to return home."35
Clergy from the Habsburg lands tended to be a more loyal and reliable surrogate. In some
places, Hungarian clerics conducted evening or Sunday school classes for children in Hungarian
in order "to keep alive the knowledge of their mother-tongue." Not infrequently, they assisted
in maintaining contact between the Habsburg military and prospective expatriate conscripts.
In 1912, Cleveland's new Vice-Consul Pelenyi relied on a tandem of Protestant ministers Boros
and Szilagyi and Catholic Bishop Schrembs to meet with prospective recruits in Toledo.36 The
following year he prevailed upon the priest of the Czech St. Wenceslaw Church, Franz Hajek,
to brief him on developments and conditions in Detroit's Polish community. And barely three
months before the first shots were fired in Sarajevo, the local priesthood in Lorain, Ohio
assisted him in arranging a session day, or Amtstag, to muster those liable for military service
to the point of announcing it "from the pulpit." The vice-consul acceded to the request of the
priests "that the inspections take place before church services, and consequently the medical
checks began in the early hours of the morning." Moreover, after mass an ecumenical array of
Hungarian, Slovak, and Uniate priests converged to discuss "various matters of concern of our
co-nationals, who had appeared in large numbers."37
Perhaps it was inevitable that the nationalities question would consume much of the consular
agenda after 1900, much as it did other government institutions throughout Austria-Hungary.
Just as consular officials were under pains to cultivate patriotic feeling, they were also enjoined to
keep close tabs on certain "anti-dynastic elements" within the expatriate community, including
US citizens who had long since ceased to qualify as "migrant workers." Even as they reported on
suspicious activities and "unreliable" members of the colony, they attempted to influence their "conationals" through newspapers published by various groups of emigrants. In the years immediately
before and during World War I, the task of supervising subversive elements and newspapers and
subsidizing those of pro-Habsburg orientation had become such a high priority that the AustroHungarian embassy in Washington assumed overall control over the consulates' activities.
One of the important tasks of the consulate general in Chicago was to supervise the numerous newspapers published in Czech, Hungarian, or Croat in Chicago by emigrants from the
33
HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 180, CG New York 3res to FM of 20 February 1902, FM 18.320/10 1902.
HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 180, CG New York 28/Res to FM of 22 April 1902, FM 33.243/10 1902.
35
Pidoll, "Oesterreichische und Ungarische Einwanderung."
36
HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 239, Toledo, C. Cleveland No. CV of 17 February 1913 and attached report Petenyi of
15 February 1913.
37
HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 160, Lorain, vice-consul Pelenyi to consul Ludwig, Cleveland 12 March 1914.
34
FROM APALACHICOLA TO WILKES-BARRE
175
monarchy. Newspapers that were well disposed toward the monarchy, like the Croat newspaper
Branik (Protection) were subsidized by the consulate, which bought 200 copies of each edition,
while the anti-Austrian Sloboda (Freedom) was not. But they were not the only partisans in this
struggle. The prominent Hungarian MP Albert Count Apponyi found this out the hard way in
1907 when he was touring the United States and slated to speak in Chicago alongside former
President Theodore Roosevelt. Apponyi's lecture was cancelled on short notice. Although the
American hosts gave no reason, the count pursued the matter, later recording in his memoirs
that "Chicago is—or has been in those days—the focal point of Czech and Slovak immigration.
In Chicago, the political sentiments of our Slovak emigrants were systematically 'czechified.'
What happened to me is proof enough of the dimension this agitation had already reached in
those days. The Czech and Slovak element, estimated at 400,000 souls, was of great importance
to the political life of Chicago, its municipal and state elections."38
The problem was there to stay. As a result of the First and Second Balkan Wars (1912-13),
Austro-Hungarian consulates in the United States were keeping an ever watchful eye, especially on South Slav activities. In January 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Embassy in Washington
instructed all consulates to report anything suspicious. Consul Schwegel (Svegl) in Denver, a
Slovene from Veldes/Bled, duly responded about "the political sentiments among the Slavs living in Pueblo [where] our Slavs ... have organized themselves into three groups: 1. a SloveneCatholic group, 2. a Slovak-Czech-Polish group, 3. a Croat-Serb-Russian group. None of the
three groups maintain contact with each other.... The interest in common national questions
has dwindled since the depression of economic conditions during the last few years, as more or
less anybody has to fight for his daily bread."39 He also expressed concern that the local Italian
consulate general had been courting Italian-speaking Austrians from Tirol and elsewhere, but
offered a measure of reassurance by attaching the Italian-Tirolese "Franz Josef I" associations
fulsome account of the previous year's birthday celebrations for the emperor "which serves as
proof of the interest of our co-nationals and which should not be overlooked."40 Consul Hauser
in Pittsburgh, which Pennsylvania's large numbers of Czech and Slovak miners had turned
into a hotbed of anti-Habsburg activities, assured the embassy that his staff was monitoring all
South Slav newspapers and would report on their content. He also promised to keep track of
any agitators who returned to the monarchy and attempt to obtain personal photographs that
would assist in identifying them once they had arrived.41 It goes without saying, however, that
the best efforts of Austria-Hungary's consular and embassy officials proved futile at a time when
the monarchy was about to fight and lose a much bigger struggle.
On 28 July 1914, exactly one month after the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand,
Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Within a week, all of the great powers had become
belligerents in a conflict that presented insurmountable communication and security problems
for the Dual Monarchy's foreign service. On 5 August, just one day after the United Kingdom's
own declaration of war on Germany, the British cable ship Teleconia cut the two cables that
linked Germany—and Austria-Hungary—to New York via the Azores.42 That same day, the
caretaker of the Austro-Hungarian consulate general in New York alerted the embassy's summer residence in Manchester, Massachusetts that all telephone calls would likely be bugged by
38
Count Albert Apponyi, Erlebnisse und Ergebnisse (Berlin, 1933), 170-71.
HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 200, Pueblo, C Denver 1273res/1914 of 17 February 1914; Court and State Archive, AR,
dept. 15, box 49, C. Denver 2/pol of 20 February 1914.
40
HHStA, AR, dept. 8. Box 242, Trinidad, Cons. Denver No. 1273 of 17 February 1914 to Embassy Washington.
41
HHStA, AR, dept. 8. Box 242, Trinidad, C. Pittsburgh 15-Res/P of 11 February 1914.
42
Peter de Rosa, Rebels: The Irish Rising of 1916 (Dublin, 2000), 37.
39
176
RUDOLF AGSTNER
"unauthorized persons" and that attempts would be made "by illegal means" to read official
correspondence.43 The embassy promptly bought a safe in which to keep its official despatches,
but exercised very little control over their security while in transit to and from Central Europe.
Indeed, working conditions for Austro-Hungarian diplomats and consuls in America deteriorated
dramatically, despite the US governments strict observance of neutrality. Diplomatic mail shipped
on neutral streamers to neutral harbors such as Rotterdam took four to five months to reach
Vienna. Although both the consul general in New York and Ambassador Dumba sought a safe
alternative means of communication, the result was a catastrophic security breach and a public
scandal similar in substance and consequences to Germany's infamous Zimmermann Telegram.
At its roots was a decision by the German government in May 1915 to buy shrapnel and
ammunition made in the United States to prevent it from being exported to England. The plan
called for Germany and Austria-Hungary to acquire the Union Metallic Cartridge Company
(a.k.a. Remington), which exported 50 percent of its total production to the Allies. For this purpose, the two Central Powers would surreptitiously finance the creation of an American company
by Germany's Krupp and Austria's Skoda and Steyr companies, which would then buy Remington.
Although such a purchase was not strictly illegal or intrinsically harmful to American interests,
the Austro-German plan also contemplated organizing strikes in the US arms and ammunition
industries, which would directly involve the German and Austro-Hungarian consulates. On 11
June 1915, Dumba, then in New York en route from Washington to the embassy's summer residence in Lenox, Massachusetts, reported having instructed the consulates
to establish the number of our nationals employed in the main plants.... I have no doubt that, when the
occasion arises, the Magyars will enthusiastically join the strike movement. We have to proceed with
extreme caution, as due to some local strikes yesterday already all newspapers were reporting on the
provocative activities of German agents in the major arms and ammunition factories. I intend to wait for
some statistical data concerning the number of our nationals in question, before our agent will resume
his talks with the workers' representative. The whole matter will be ripe in a few weeks. I consider it to be
of utmost importance for us and our allies, and what is more, with regard to Russia. Even several hundred thousand or even a million dollars would be a small sacrifice, if we and the German government
were to succeed in disrupting the whole American production of ammunition. The movement would
have to emanate ostensibly voluntarily from the labor union, which now has a unique opportunity to
improve the conditions of workers. If a senator or a labor leader of Irish descent takes the lead, the political motive could openly be admitted. We have to remain completely in the background.44
On the 28th, Dumba requested telegraphic authorization for the purchase, if it could effect a
"considerable delay" in the delivery of American materiel to the Allies. It was only eight weeks
later that the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Ministry cabled the one-word answer: "Agreed." Yet
the instructions appear never to have reached Dumba in far away Lenox.45
By then the tragedy had begun to unfold. On 19 August, Dumba, then in New York, received
from Consul General Nuber de Pereked a Magyar-language pro-memoria written by the editor
of the New York-based Szabadsdg, a newspaper of considerable importance within the local
Hungarian community. The case had all the ingredients of an ill-conceived cloak and dagger
43
HHStA, AR, dept. 8, box 16, CG New York 25278 to FM of 4 August 1914.
^HHStA, PA I, Liasse Krieg 7, Amerika b, box 897, Emb. Washington 25 c/pol New York 11 June 1915. For a possible Irish link, see Emmet Larkin, James Larkin: Irish Labour Leader, 1876-1947 (Cambridge, MA, 1965), 192-93; the
author is indebted to Dr. Jer6me Aan de Wiel, Reims, for this information.
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.
FROM APALACHICOLA TO WILKES-BARRE
177
operation where the Austro-Hungarian consul general in New York and the ambassador in
Washington played a tragicomic role. The editor suggested the preparation of strikes in Bethlehem Steel and ammunition factories and in the Midwest.
Although Ambassador Dumba did not know Magyar, he received a German translation of the
pro-memoria the following morning. As there was no time to code the whole text, Dumba wrote
a short accompanying letter to the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Baron Burian de Rajecz, a
Hungarian, requesting authorization to entrust a Szabadsdg journalist with up to $15,000 to organize a strike in the Bethlehem Steel Works and in the Midwest. Dumba outlined the "desperate
working conditions in Bethlehem, with 12-hour workdays, 7 days a week; the white slaves working there would, within a few years, fall victim to tuberculosis. It would therefore be a commandment of humanity to procure a shorter work day and higher wages for our Hungarian workers,
making best use of the present situation. This could be done by organizing them in a union and by
strikes; the main purpose of the strike would, however, be to disrupt the work of the whole arms
and ammunition production in Bethlehem etc.; even a gain of three weeks would be valuable."46
In the meantime, Dumba hoped to work with the German placement bureau to find jobs for the
strikers in other, German-American-owned industrial establishments in the event of a prolonged
strike or their replacement by other workers.47 Given the matter's urgency, Dumba's letter to Baron
Burian and the pro-memoria were entrusted to an American journalist, Mr. Archibald, who was
traveling the same day by the neutral steamer Rotterdam, which left New York at midnight for the
Netherlands, wherefrom Archibald would proceed to Berlin and Vienna.
Dumba realized that he had committed a serious blunder on 2 September, when the Sun
reported that his "secure means" of communication, Mr. Archibald, had been searched in
Falmouth by the British, who had found and confiscated an official despatch from German
Ambassador Count Bernstorff. He immediately informed Burian that he had reason to fear that
his letter and the pro-memoria had also been discovered by the British. Dumba's apprehension
was well-founded, since the despatch to Baron Burian had indeed been confiscated and the US
government instantly informed.48
Washington's official reaction was prompt and severe. On 11 September, US Ambassador
Penfield in Vienna addressed a sharply worded letter to Baron Burian: "By reason of the admitted purpose and intent of Mr. Dumba to conspire to cripple legitimate industries of the people
of the United States and to interrupt their legitimate trade, and by reason of the flagrant violation of diplomatic propriety in employing an American citizen protected by an American passport as a secret bearer of official despatches through the lines of the enemy of Austria-Hungary,
the President directs me to inform your Excellency that Mr. Dumba is no longer acceptable to
the Government of the United States as the Ambassador of His Imperial and Royal Apostolic
Majesty at Washington."49 Whereas the US government had expected Dumba to be recalled,
Emperor Francis Joseph merely granted him an extended leave of absence, with Counselor
Erich Baron Zwiedineck-Sudenhorst acting as charge d'affaires. On 5 October 1915, Dumba
boarded the New Amsterdam, leaving Austria-Hungary with no ambassador in Washington.50 Two weeks later, Vienna quietly recalled Philadelphia's consul general, Georg Ritter von
"6HHStA, AR, dept. 4, box 76, personnel, file Dumba, letter Dumba to Burian of 20 August 1915.
47
HHStA, PA 1, Liasse Krieg 7, Amerika b, box 897, Emb. Washington 36/C pol, Lenox, of 24 August 1915.
•"'HHStA, AR, dept. 4, box 78, personnel, file Dumba, chiffre telegram Dumba to Burian of 2 September 1915.
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.
50
For Dumba's version, see Constantin Dumba, Dreibund- und Entente-Politik in derAlten und Neuen Welt (Vienna,
1931), 402.
178
RUDOLF AGSTNER
Grivicic, who had been compromised, while the US State Department considered withdrawing
the exequatur of Consul General Nuber in New York, who had played an important role in the
case.51 To make matters worse, a former Austro-Hungarian consul in San Francisco, Goricar,
who had defected to the South Slav cause in October 1914, decided to profit from the scandal
by telling the newspapers that Austrian and German spies had flooded the country, spending $30-$40 million to disrupt the export of munitions by sabotaging factories and, soon, by
attacking railways and harbors. The media sensation attracted prosecutors on both sides of the
Atlantic, with the US Department of Justice investigating Goricar s claim and military authorities in Styria initiating proceedings against him, albeit with no apparent result.52 By 1916, the
US government had taken over control of the radio-telegraph, thereby cutting the Central
Powers' ciphered communication with Berlin and Vienna. From now on, the US Department
of State was aware of the content of all despatches. At a time when access to the president of
the United States would have been of utmost importance, the most delicate relations were now
handled by a counselor. Finally, on 1 February 1917, Polish Count Adam Tarnowski arrived in
New York to serve as Austria-Hungary's new ambassador, only to learn, to his surprise, that
Germany had launched unlimited submarine warfare against the United States.
Tarnowski's tenure as the Dual Monarchy's third and last ambassador ended before he could
present his credentials. Two days after President Wilsons 6 April declaration of war against
Germany, Austria-Hungary broke off formal diplomatic relations with the United States, closing its Washington embassy and what had grown to thirty consulates general, consulates, vice
consulates, consular agencies, and branch offices (see table 2).53
From the very beginning, the Habsburg foreign service was handicapped by a lack of funds,
forcing it to rely to a larger extent than other consular services on honorary consular officials.
Since few Austrians and even fewer Hungarians had the means and social standing to qualify
for the post of honorary consul, many of these positions went to German nationals. As late as
1900, Austria-Hungary maintained only two consulates general (New York and Chicago) and
one consulate (Pittsburgh) in the United States, alongside fifteen honorary consular offices.54
Thereafter, the Dual Monarchy tripled the number of consulates, so that nine of its thirty
consular facilities, or 30 percent, were no longer honorary and were staffed by professionally trained officials with a genuine service record. This actually compared favorably with the
Dual Monarchy's worldwide system of 474 offices by 1914, of which all but 19 percent were
honorary. Yet these changes were too little and too late to stem the tide of ethnic nationalism
51
Jim Larkin had met Grivicic "at the Manchester Martyrs meeting in Philadelphia on 15 January 1915, when Irish
and German-Americans spoke from the same platform." Larkin, James Larkin, 192-93.
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.
"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.
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).
FROM APALACHICOLA TO WILKES-BARRE
TABLE 2 Consulates of Austria(-Hungary) in the United States, 1819-1917
City
Post Status and Opening Dates
Apalachicola, FL
Baltimore, MD
honorary vice consulate (1849)—closed 1888
honorary vice consulate (1855)
honorary consulate (1872)
honorary consular agency (1841)
honorary vice consulate (1850)
honorary consulate (1874)
Expositur—branch office of New York consulate general (1909)—closed 1916
honorary vice consulate (1848-1907)
Expositur—branch office of Pittsburgh consulate (ca. 1903)
vice consulate (1908)
honorary consulate (1871)
consulate (1894)
consulate general (1897)
honorary consulate (1871)—vacant from 1880
Expositur—branch office of Pittsburgh consulate (1907)—closed 1911
consulate (1903)
consulate (1909)
honorary vice consulate (1855)
honorary consulate (1872)
honorary consular agency (1898)—closed 1902
Expositur—branch office of Pittsburgh consulate (1909)—closed 1912
honorary consulate (1869/71)
honorary vice consulate (1855)—never activated
honorary consulate (1868)—vacant from 1891, closed 1909
honorary vice consulate (1867)
honorary consulate (1872)—vacant from 1907
honorary vice consulate (1846)
honorary consulate (1872)—closed 1914
honorary consulate (1837/1841)
consulate (1819)
consulate general (1830)
honorary consulate general (1845)
consulate general (1853)
honorary consulate general (1871)
consulate general (1896)
honorary vice consulate (1857)—vacant from 1866, closed 1909
honorary vice consulate (1888)
honorary vice consulate (1841/1850)
honorary consulate (1892)
consulate (1911)
honorary consulate (1875)
consulate (1894)
honorary consular agency (1909)—vacant from 1910
honorary vice consulate (1855)
honorary consulate (1872)
honorary consulate (1850)
consulate (1911)
honorary consulate (1859)
honorary vice consulate (1849)
honorary vice consulate (1855)
honorary consulate (1872)
consulate (1913)
consulate (1912)
Expositur—branch office of Pittsburgh consulate (1911)
Expositur—branch office of Pittsburgh consulate (1912)
Boston, MA
Buffalo, NY
Charleston, SC
Charleston, WV
Chicago, IL
Cincinnati, OH
Clarksburg, WV
Cleveland, OH
Denver, CO
Galveston, TX
Hazleton, PA
Honolulu, HI
Key West, FL
Louisville, KY
Milwaukee, WI
Mobile, AL
New Orleans, LA
New York, NY
Norfolk, VA
Pensacola, FL
Philadelphia, PA
Pittsburgh, PA
Proctor, VT
Richmond, VA
San Francisco, CA
San Juan, PR
Savannah, GA
St. Louis, MO
St. Paul, MN
Uniontown, PA
Wilkes-Barre, PA
179
180
RUDOLF AGSTNER
that was already sweeping though the expatriate community in the United States, particularly
once the outbreak of the Balkan Wars and World War I had added even more responsibility
for supervising South Slav elements to the workload of Austro-Hungarian consuls. Although
the consulates were successful in keeping "patriotic feelings" alive among a portion of the
emigrants—mainly Germans, Hungarians, Slovenes, and Poles—until well into World War I,
they could do little to stem the tide of unfolding events. The consulates were less successful in
supervising "anti-dynastic" elements like Czech and Slovak emigrants, whose activities in the
United States helped to bring about the end of the monarchy. An unfortunate development that
facilitated this process was the decision in 1915 to move beyond perfectly legal supervision of
"co-nationals" to illegal clandestine operations intended to sabotage the US armaments industry. Whereas a more extensive and muscular consular system would have been better equipped
to counter the tide of "antidynastic" discourse, it would be naive to suggest that any amount of
funding would have significantly dampened either the seductive appeal of nation-states within
the expatriate community or the legitimacy it earned within the White House. Yet, not unlike
the legions of government officials who served across Austria-Hungary, the small number of
consular officials in the United States soldiered on until the very end in a mission that may
have been impossible.
is Minister Plenipotentiary and, since 2005, Director of the Bonn office of the Austrian Embassy in Germany; he joined the Austrian Foreign Service in 1977. Research would not have
been possible without the generous support of Michaela Follner, Gerhard Gonsa, and Ernst Petritsch of
the Austrian State Archive.
RUDOLF AGSTNER