Austro-Hungarian policy towards Serbia 1867-1871 with special reference to Benjámin Kállay

This study analyses the effect the Hungarian government had on Austro-Hungarian policy towards Serbia in the four years after the 1867 Ausgleich. Benjámin Kállay, at the request of the Hungarian minister president, Andrássy, was appointed consul at Belgrade in 1868, and thereafter pursued specifically Hungarian objectives at variance with those of the chancellor and foreign minister, Beust. The Hungarian influence on the Monarchy's relations with Serbia was ultimately responsible for a deterioration in those relations. After the Introduction, which outlines the subject, with reference to the existing literature and sources consulted, the first chapter concentrates on the situation in 1867. Chapter 2 deals with Kállay's background and the initial effect of his appointment, while Chapter 3 charts the effect of Prince Michael Obrenovic's assassination. Chapters 4-8 concern the two questions which dominated relations: the Hungarian commitment to prosecute ex-Prince Alexander Karadordevic for Michael's murder, and the scheme, promoted by Andrássy and Kállay, whereby Serbia would be secured the administration of most Bosnia-Hercegovina, under nominal Turkish suzerainty, in return for a firm economic and political commitment by Serbia to the Monarchy. This Bosnian scheme also involved some acquisition of Bosnian territory by the Monarchy itself. Both the Karadordevic prosecution and the Bosnian plan failed. The impossibility of securing Karadordevic's conviction, and the implausibility of the Bosnian plan, convinced the Serbian government that the Hungarian policy had been insincere from the start, designed to divert Serbia from its plans for revolt in the Ottoman Empire. Andrássy, in turn, was convinced by the Serbs' reluctance to commit themselves to the Monarchy, and their swing towards Russia after the Franco-Prussian War, that they too were negotiating in bad faith. The Monarchy's future policy, according to Andrássy, therefore should be to coerce Serbia's economic and political subordination