Count Gustav Kálnoky

Kálnoky was born in Letovice (Lettowitz), Moravia to an old Transylvanian family which had held comital rank in Hungary from the 17th century.

After spending some years in a hussar regiment, in 1854 he entered the diplomatic service without giving up his connection with the army, in which he reached the rank of general in 1879.

His success in Russia procured for him, on the death of Baron Heinrich Karl von Haymerle in 1881, the appointment of minister of foreign affairs for Austria-Hungary, a post which he held for fourteen years.

In 1885 he interfered after the battle of Slivnitsa to arrest the advance of the Bulgarians on Belgrade, but he lost influence in Serbia after the abdication of King Milan.

[1] Though he kept aloof from the Clerical party, Kálnoky was a strong Catholic; and his sympathy for the difficulties of the Church caused adverse comment in Italy, when, in 1891, he stated in a speech before the Delegations that the question of the position of the Pope was still unsettled.