Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff (22 March 1809 – 26 March 1873) was a
Prussian statesman
A statesman or stateswoman typically is a politician who has had a long and respected political career at the national or international level.
Statesman or Statesmen may also refer to:
Newspapers United States
* ''The Statesman'' (Oregon), a n ...
.
Early life
Bernstorff was born at the estate
Dreilützow (now in the municipality of
Wittendörp), in the
Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
The Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was a duchy in northern Germany created in 1701, when Frederick William and Adolphus Frederick II divided the Duchy of Mecklenburg between Schwerin and Strelitz. Ruled by the successors of the Nikloting Hous ...
. He was a son of Friedrich Graf von Bernstorff and Freiin Ferdinandine von Hammerstein Equord.
He studied
legal science
Legal science is one of the main components in civil law tradition (after Roman law, canon law, commercial law, and the legacy of the revolutionary period).
Legal science is primarily the creation of German legal scholars of the middle and late ...
in
Göttingen and Berlin, following which he joined the Prussian civil service.
Career
In 1832 he became an attaché with the Prussian legation in Hamburg. A year later he was made legation secretary in Den Haag. In 1837, he was transferred to St. Petersburg and made legation councillor. Due to the death of his father he returned to Germany that same year to settle family matters. After this, in 1838 he changed to Paris. In 1840 Bernstorff became chargé d'affaires in Naples, and in 1841 in Paris.
Subsequently, from 1842 he was an Expert Councillor (''Vortragender Rat'') in the political section of the foreign ministry. As such, he occasionally had to represent the foreign minister. In 1843 he was promoted (to ''Geheimer Legationsrat''). In 1845, he went to Munich as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.
Following many travels as a career diplomat, Bernstorff was sent to
Vienna as an envoy in May 1848
during the revolution, remaining there until 1851. He soon distinguished himself as an opponent of German unification schemes. (He later came to accept such unification, though he felt it should be under Prussian rather than Austrian leadership.) During the revolution of 1848-1849, he argued for a strong alliance between Prussia and Austria. However, differences between the two states came more to the fore under Austrian prime minister Prince
Felix zu Schwarzenberg, and Bernstorff's opposition to the Prince's German policy brought about his recall from his post at the express wishes of the Austrian side in 1851.
In 1851 and 1852, Bernstorff was a member of the first chamber of the Prussian Parliament (''Landtag''), the
Prussian House of Lords, in the Alvensleben faction. With the title of ''wirklicher geheimer Rat'', he was sent to Naples in 1852 as an envoy.
Shortly before the outbreak of the
Crimean War in 1854, he was sent as head of the Prussian embassy in London, and was successful in promoting good Anglo-Prussian relations.
["Bernstorff, Albrecht, Count von." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006.]
Prussian foreign minister
In October 1861, Bernstorff left London to become the
Prussian Foreign Minister under the
Prime Minister Charles Anthony, Prince of Hohenzollern. (He had previously been offered the position of Foreign Minister in 1848 and 1850 by King Frederick William IV without taking it up.) He thus replaced a rather passive Count
Alexander von Schleinitz
Alexander Gustav Adolf Graf von Schleinitz (born 29 December 1807 in Blankenburg am Harz; died 19 February 1885 in Berlin) was the Foreign Minister of Prussia from 1858 to 1861 and minister for the royal household from late 1861 to his death.
Li ...
(an Old Liberal) and, in the Cabinet, reinforced the more conservative grouping around
August von der Heydt and
Albrecht von Roon.
He would introduce several new policies and strategies. During this period, ideas were being discussed for the reform of the German Confederation. Bernstorff revived a project from 1849 to form a narrow Prusso-German ''Bundestaat'' in order to ward off such initiatives by Austria, and argued for a
"Lesser German" union under Prussian leadership and excluding Austria; these plans were not pursued for the time being, however, as they were undermined by mistrust of political elements.
Bernstorff also negotiated military conventions with various northern German states, concluded a free-trade agreement with France as part of changes to the ''
Zollverein'' policy to isolate protectionist Austria, and swiftly recognized the new Kingdom of Italy as a state in hopes that it would help collaborate against Austria.
[Hayes, Bascom Barry (1994). ''Bismarck and Mitteleuropa''. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 85. .] This last move meant a clear rejection of a ''Zollunion'' with Austria.
At the beginning of the Prussian constitutional crisis of 1859-1866,
Wilhelm I and his government faced the choice of continuing to govern without a constitutional budget. Von der Heydt, Bernstorff and the minister for trade, Heinrich Wilhelm von Holtzbrinck, rejected this as a violation of the constitution, and resigned. Other ministers, however, were prepared to continue in office. In this situation, the minister for war, von Roon, pushed through the appointment of Otto von Bismarck both as foreign minister and prime minister. Thus, in 1862 Bernstorff was replaced in his post; he would thereafter criticise Bismarck as having Machiavellian policies.
Later career
He was later reassigned to his position as Prussian ambassador in London, and, after 1871, as German Imperial ambassador with the rank of minister of state, which he remained until his death in 1873.
[ During this time, he also served as the Prussian delegate at the London Peace Conference of 1864, which led to the signing of the Treaty of Vienna.]Treaty of London The Treaty of London or London Convention or similar may refer to:
*Treaty of London (1358), established a truce between England and France following the Battle of Poitiers
*Treaty of London (1359), which ceded western France to England
*Treaty of ...
, which determined the status of Luxembourg.
Personal life
In 1839, while in Paris, he married Anna von Könneritz (born 23 May 1821 in Dresden), the daughter of the Saxonian ambassador at the French court, Hans Heinrich von Könneritz (1790–1863). Together, they were the parents of:German Ambassador to the United States
Germany and the United States have had diplomatic relations since German unification in 1871. Prior to that, the only German states holding diplomatic relations with the U.S. were the Kingdom of Prussia, since 1835, and the three Hanseatic citie ...
until the outbreak of World War I.
Orders and decorations
* Kingdom of Prussia:[''Handbuch über den Königlich Preußischen Hof und Staat fur das jahr 1873'']
p. 93
/ref>
** Knight of the Order of the Black Eagle, with Collar
** Grand Commander's Cross of the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern
* Ernestine duchies: Grand Cross of the Saxe-Ernestine House OrderPersian Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...
: Order of the Lion and the Sun, 1st Class
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bernstorff, Albrecht von
1809 births
1873 deaths
People from Ludwigslust-Parchim
People from the Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
Counts in Germany
Ambassadors of Prussia
Prussian politicians
Ambassadors of Germany to the United Kingdom
19th-century diplomats
Foreign ministers of Prussia
Grand Crosses of the Order of Christ (Portugal)