Stürgkh descended from a Styrian noble family (originally from the Bavarian Upper Palatinate region), which had been elevated to the status of Imperial Counts in 1721.

Gautsch resigned when rising prices led to bloody unrest in Vienna and even a shooting in parliament (the bullets just missed Stürgkh), whereafter Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria appointed him Austrian Minister-President (Prime Minister) on 3 November 1911.

He went on to rule the Cisleithanian lands autocratically: On 16 March 1914 he used the continuous filibustering in parliament to indefinitely adjourn the convenings of the Imperial Council and to pass laws by emergency decrees.

This de facto elimination of the legislature turned out to be fatal in the following July Crisis, when upon the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria the deputies were not able to interact with the government on the way to World War I. Stürgkh together with Foreign Minister Leopold Berchtold and Chief-of-Staff Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf advocated a preventive strike against Serbia, mainly for internal reasons, in order to defy Pan-Slavism in the Bohemian, Carniolan and Croatian crown lands.

[1] Emperor Franz Joseph appointed Ernest von Koerber as Stürgkh's successor, one of his last official acts, as he died four weeks later.