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175 Or 235 Years of Austrian-American Relations? Reflections and Repercussions for the Modern Day." Austria and America: 20Th- Century Cross Cultural Encounters

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175 Or 235 Years of Austrian-American Relations? Reflections and Repercussions for the Modern Day. Singerton, Jonathan W. "175 or 235 Years of Austrian-American Relations? Reflections and Repercussions for the Modern Day." Austria and America: 20th- Century Cross Cultural Encounters. Ed. Joshua Parker and Ralph J. Poole. Vienna: LIT Verlag, 2017. 13-30. ISBN 978-3-643-90812-4 (pb). 175 OR 235 YEARS OF AUSTRIAN-AMERICAN RELATIONS? REFLECTIONS AND REPERCUSSIONS FOR THE MODERN DAY 1 JONATHAN W. SINGERTON A feature common to both Austrians and Americans is the love of celebrat­ ing the past. The year 2015, for example, witnessed the 150th anniversary of the opening of the famous Ringstrasse in Vienna and at the same time marked the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War. 2017 will witness the 300th anniversary of Maria Theresa and the I 00th anniversary of John F. Kennedy. It is no surprise then, that during 2013 the governments of the Republic of Austria and the United States of America seized the oppo1tunity to celebrate the 175th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations. This celebration reflected the beginning of the Austrian-American relationship with the exchange of representatives in 1838. For the occasion the U.S. Embassy in Vienna developed a multimedia exhibition to demon­ strate the tenacity of the relationship. It was comprised of a series of panels filled with historical memorabilia, a printed booklet, an accompanying video (with the coincidental timing of 17.5 minutes), and even commemorative mugs filled with Tootsie Rolls-the invention, we were reminded, of an Austrian-American. Events were held throughout Austria, from Innsbruck in the West to Klagenfurt in the South. The most extravagant was held at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna with then U.S. Ambassador William C. Eacho and Federal President of Austria Heinz Fischer in attendance. Both sides re­ counted how their lives have been shaped by the strong interrelation of Austria and the United States in the twentieth century, but in his remarks Ambassador Eacho noted how "From the outset, we knew it would be impossible to compile a full historical documentation of the relationship." 1 The author wishes to thank his supervisors, Professor Francis D. Cogliano, Dr. David Silkenat, and Dr. David Kaufman at the University of Edinburgh for their support and grate­ fully acknowledges the generosity of the Dietrich W. Botstiber Foundation and the Institute of Austrian-American Studies which made the archival research for this chapter and the wider doctoral project possible. 14 JONATHAN W. SINGERTON "Our intention," he continued, "is to focus on the building, and at times, rebuilding of this relationship which has brought us to the continued cooperation and recognition of shared values on which our two countries th.rive today." Perhaps these comments help to explain the most glaring omission in the celebration of Austrian-American relations: the foundingperiod itself. Whilst the 2013 anniversary commemorated 1838, this is only the official date that relations began. The real story of Austrian-American, or rather U.S.­ Habsburg, relations extends some sixty years earlier. This period witnessed with the first diplomatic attempts between the Habsburg Monarchy and the new American republic sta1iing with the mission of William Lee to Vieru1a in 1778 and ending with the five-year mission of Baron Frederick Eugene de Beelen-Bertholf from 1784-1789. These missions and this period are the focus of this chapter but are sadly something that has, until now, received relatively little historical and popular attention. The lack of inclusion of this earlier interaction into the official commemoration has compounded this state of scholarly and popular amnesia. As a consequence our historical understanding of the founding of the United States in Europe is still incomplete, our vision of the Habsburg Monarchy is limited, and naturally how we view Austrian-American relations today is overtly narrowed by this omission. It is for these reasons that we should ask ourselves: should we be celebrating 175 years or 235 years of Austrian-American relations? "A STORY OF BENIGN NEGLECT" This chapter aims to bring to light the relevance and richness of eighteenth­ century U.S.-Habsburg relations despite their marginalisation both in popular and scholarly circles. ln addition, it considers how reinstating this historical narrative alters our understanding of the present-day Austrian-American relationship. This should not only provide us with a greater insight into the history of Austrian-American relations but at the same time reveal something about the current relationship which, to borrow the phrase of Gtinter Bischoff, typically consists of "the American giant and the Austrian dwarf' (Bischoff 167). When we turn to the eighteenth century, however, we find this situation reversed. rt was Austria, as a component of the vast Habsburg Monarchy, that was the giant; and in 1776, the dwarf was the newly declared-but far 175 OR 235 YEARS OF AUSTRIAN-AMERICAN RELATIONS? 15 from independent-United States of America. It was under these circum­ stances that the original effortto establish a diplomatic dialogue between the two states was first attempted. From the American perspective, the resolution to create a 'separate and equal station' for the thirteen colonies required the acknowledgement of other states in order to gain political legitimacy and international validity. The exigencies of the war with Great Britain also necessitated trade with foreign powers for war supplies not readily available on the American continent such as gunpowder and military uniforms. The Habsburg Monarchy had the potential to serve all these needs of the American confederacy and more. Joseph ll's dual role as Holy Roman Emperor would also benefit the Americans, who sorely needed to supress the British procurement of Gennan mercenaries. Thus the appointment of William Lee as envoy to the Courts of Vienna and Berlin on I July, 1777 was made with these aims in mind: to propose a treaty of friendship, estab­ lish necessary commerce and to utilise the Habsburg position to quell the flow of Hessian troops into British ranks. It is important to remember then that it was the American dwarf which firstreached out towards the Habsburg giant. The challenge presented to the American 'militia diplomats' was stagger­ ing, especially as they were breaking the traditional conventions of European diplomacy by soliciting at courts uninvited. As an unrecognised state in the throes of revolutionary tunnoil and amid a war against one of the greatest sovereign powers in Europe, the American diplomats could not have been on a less equal footing with those in the European circles, most of all at the highly dynastic Habsburg court in Vienna. The choice of William Lee as envoy did not help matters. Though no stranger to pageantry fromhis time as Sheriffand later Aldem1an of the City of London, Lee was neither a noble­ man nor a diplomat and was completely unfamiliar with the conduct of Viennese society. To make matters worse, he spoke little French and no German whatsoever. So how did revolutionaries think the 'American dwarf could win over the 'Habsburg giant' onto their side? These circwnstances should excite us as scholars, as historians, but most of all as Austro-Americanists. After all, they echo the words of Lonnie Johnson, the current director of the Austrian-American Fulb1ight pro­ gramme, who said during the 2013 anniversary: "The [most) interesting thing about Austrian-American relations is of course the asymmetries which exist between a very very large superpower and a small state." The same is true for the eighteenth century as today. Yet this feature has failed to capture 16 JONATHAN W. SrNGERTON the fascination of numerous historians, especially those of the American Revolution. One academic, for example, recently summarised the situation: "If you teach a survey course on the history of American foreign relations, chances are that you don't spend very much time on the Habsburg Empire. As Rodney Dangerfield may have put it, the Habsburgs get no respect" (Schwartz 6). This lack of 'respect' forthe Habsburg element in early American diplo­ macy has been particularly acute in American scholarship, where the most comprehensive work in English appeared in 1978, two hundred years after Lee's mission, by Karl Roider in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. Roider's assessment, however, failed to appreciate the numerous perspectives through which we can view Lee's mission and the different ways to measure its success. Instead the focus on wider geopolitical events in Europe and the personal deficiencies of William Lee as a diplomat skew the conclusion towards one centred on a failureof the mission. This obscures the fact that there was substantial interest for the American Revolution and its agent in Vienna and without being able to discern such interest, we are left with a false impression of outright rejection of both William Lee and American revolutionary ideals by the Habsburgs in 1778. The real story, in essence, was not as straightforward as we may think. This more compli­ cated-and ultimately more intriguing-Habsburg reaction has not only been downplayed but has also come to dominate American interpretations of this early relationship. Historians such as Samuel Flagg Bemis, Jonathan R. Dull and Richard Morris have all emphasised an icy diplomatic climate that Lee unsuccessfully confronted in Vienna. A similar supposition can be found amongst the conclusions of Gennan­ speaking academics such as, for example, A11J1a H. Berma and Paula S. Fichtner. The preliminary research completed by Hans Schlitter as head of the Haus-Hofund-Staatsarchiv in Vienna towards the end of the nineteenth­ century points to a rich body of evidence but fails to situate an analysis in a balanced and unbiased way. 2 Horst Dippel in his groundbreaking work Germany and the American Revolution, J 770-1800 (1977) contributes to this sense of malaise by stating: "The sporadic appearance of American negotia­ tors in Vienna and Berlin does not seem to have had any noteworthy influ­ ence" (39).
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