A bölcs, de félénk Fabius Cunctátor: gróf Esterházy Móric
The Wise but Timid Fabius Cunctator: Count Móric Esterházy

Summary/Abstract: Count Móric Esterházy was an influential minister in the 1860s, a confidant of the Emperor Francis Joseph I, whose oeuvre was quickly forgotten by his contemporaries after 1867. The paper surveys the stations of the count’s diplomatic career between 1830 and 1856, and then explores the process by which between the summer of 1861 and the autumn of 1866 he had emerged as the most dangerous political rival of state minister Anton Schmerling. Esterházy played an active role in convincing Francis Joseph to start bargaining with the Hungarian liberals in 1865, but overestimated the political weight of the Conservative camp in Hungary, and had consequently become by late 1866 an obstacle to the successful conclusion of the negotiations by compromise. He was and remained attached to the policies of Metternich in a world that had been radically transformed after the revolutions of 1848, and was thus doomed to failure.

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