Herceg Esterházy Pál a Batthyány-kormányban
Prince Pál Esterházy in the Batthyány Government

Summary/Abstract: Prince Pál Esterházy was the oldest and wealthiest member of the first Hungarian respon-sible government formed in April, 1848. When Lajos Batthyány announced the members of his cabinet on March 23, he introduced the prince as the minister of “relations with Aus-tria”. Yet, in the minutes of the first meeting of the council of ministers held on April 12 Esterházy is referred to as the minister of foreign affairs. It was as such that he was com-missioned to call the attention of Viscount Ponsonby, the British ambassador in Vienna to the dangerous movements in the Lower Danube provinces (Moldavia, Wallachia), which favored the Russian interests and posed a threat to both Hungary and the monarchy as a whole. In mid-April, the Prince declared in a memorandum his responsibilities as a minis-ter of foreign affairs and proposed that the Austrian and Hungarian ministers clarify their common issues through keeping regular contacts with each other. This, however, was re-jected by the council of ministers, which declared that such matters were to be dealt with “exclusively by the Hungarian ministry of foreign affairs”. At the same time, Ferenc Pul-szky (originally in like capacity under Lajos Kossuth) was appointed Esterházy’s under-sec-retary. So Esterházy was regarded as a minister of foreign affairs by the Hungarian govern-ment (with the Austrian side accepting this title as well) but he did little more than getting in touch with the British and Russian ambassadors in Vienna. When the government de-cided to send delegates to the German constituent assembly meeting in Frankfurt he did not participate in writing and signing their letters of commission. The delegates reported to Batthyány, who had countersigned the letter of commission signed by the palatine. That is: beside getting in touch with the mentioned ambassadors, the task of the minister of foreign affairs delegated to Vienna was to maintain correspondence between the Hungarian gov-ernment and the court as well as with the ministers. When the court fled to Innsbruck after the novel revolution in Vienna in May, the Hungarian government told Esterházy to follow the ruler. This further reduced the scope of his duties as the routine work was carried out by Pulszky, who remained in Vienna (and who was the authorized signatory in the minis-ter’s absence). At the temporary residence of the court, Esterházy participated in the nego-tiations between Batthyány and Archduke Franz Karl held between June 8 and 10, where decision was made about the ratification of Hungary’s union with Transylvania as well as about the removal of Jelačić Ban of Croatia from all of his civil and military offices.[...]

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