Andrássy was a conservative; his foreign policies looked to expanding the Empire into Southeast Europe, preferably with British and German support, and without alienating Turkey.

The son of Count Károly Andrássy and Etelka Szapáry, he was born in Oláhpatak (present-day Vlachovo, Rožňava District, Slovakia), Kingdom of Hungary.

[2] When the Croats under Josip Jelačić attempted to have Međimurje, which was then part of Hungary, returned to Croatia, Andrássy entered military service.

He had never petitioned for an amnesty, and had steadily rejected all the overtures both of the Austrian government and of the Magyar Conservatives (who would have accepted something short of full autonomy for the kingdom).

Emperor Franz Joseph for the first time consulted Andrássy, who recommended the re-establishment of the constitution and the appointment of a responsible foreign and defence ministry.

[4] On the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Andrássy resolutely defended the neutrality of the Austrian monarchy, and in his speech on 28 July 1870 warmly protested against the assumption that it was in the interests of Austria to seek to recover the position it had held in Germany before 1863.

But its loss of influence in Italy and Germany, and the consequent formation of the Dual State, had at length indicated the proper, and, indeed, the only field for its diplomacy in the future – the Near East, where the process of the crystallization of the Balkan peoples into nationalities was still incomplete.

First he approached the German emperor; then more satisfactory relations were established with the courts of Italy and Russia by means of conferences at Berlin, Vienna, St Petersburg and Venice.

In order to avert the risk of a general conflagration, therefore, he urged that the time had come for concerted action of the powers for the purpose of pressing the Porte to fulfil its promises.

When, however, the Treaty of San Stefano threatened a Russian hegemony in the Near East, Andrássy concurred with the German and British courts that the final adjustment of matters must be submitted to a European congress.

[5] At the Congress of Berlin in 1878 he was the principal Austrian plenipotentiary, and directed his efforts to diminish the gains of Russia and aggrandize the Dual Monarchy.

The Sanjak preserved the separation of Serbia and Montenegro, and the Austro-Hungarian garrisons there would open the way for a dash to Salonika that "would bring the western half of the Balkans under permanent Austrian influence".

[5] On 28 September 1878 the Finance Minister, Koloman von Zell, threatened to resign if the army, behind which stood the Archduke Albert, were allowed to advance to Salonika.

In the session of the Hungarian Parliament of 5 November 1878 the Opposition proposed that the Foreign Minister should be impeached for violating the constitution by his policy during the Near East Crisis and by the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

[8] On 10 October 1878 the French diplomat Melchior de Vogüé described the situation as follows: Particularly in Hungary the dissatisfaction caused by this "adventure" has reached the gravest proportions, prompted by that strong conservative instinct which animates the Magyar race and is the secret of its destinies.

This vigorous and exclusive instinct explains the historical phenomenon of an isolated group, small in numbers yet dominating a country inhabited by a majority of peoples of different races and conflicting aspirations, and playing a role in European affairs out of all proportions to its numerical importance or intellectual culture.

This instinct is to-day awakened and gives warning that it feels the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina to be a menace which, by introducing fresh Slav elements into the Hungarian political organism and providing a wider field and further recruitment of the Croat opposition, would upset the unstable equilibrium in which the Magyar domination is poised.

Count Gyula Andrássy's granddaughter, Klára, married the Hungarian nobleman and industrialist Prince Károly Odescalchi.

[10] Many rumors suggest that Count Andrássy had a long lasting romance with Elisabeth, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, also known as Sisi, the wife of Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria-Hungary.