Joseph Alexander, count Hübner (November 26, 1811 – July 30, 1892), was an Austrian diplomat

Diplomat

A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...

, born in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. His real name was Josef Hafenbredl, which he changed to Hübner.

Career

He began his public career in 1833 under Metternich, whose confidence he soon gained, and who sent him in 1837 as attaché to Paris. In 1841 he became secretary of embassy at Lisbon, and in 1844 Austrian consul-general at Leipzig. In 1848 he was sent to Milan to conduct the diplomatic correspondence of Archduke Rainer, viceroy of Lombardy

Lombardy

Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...

. On the outbreak of the revolution he was seized as a hostage, and remained a prisoner for some months. Returning to Austria, he was entrusted with the compilation of the documents and proclamations relating to the abdication of the Emperor Ferdinand

Ferdinand I of Austria

Ferdinand I was Emperor of Austria, President of the German Confederation, King of Hungary and Bohemia , as well as associated dominions from the death of his father, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, until his abdication after the Revolutions of 1848.He married Maria Anna of Savoy, the sixth child...

 and the accession of Francis Joseph

Franz Joseph I of Austria

Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...

.

His journal, an invaluable clue to the complicated intrigues of this period, was published in 1891 in French and German, under the title of Une Année de ma vie, 1848–1849. In March 1849 he was sent on a special mission to Paris, and later in the same year was appointed ambassador to France. His influence was in large measure due the friendly attitude of Austria to the Allies in the Crimean War

Crimean War

The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

, at the close of which he represented Austria at the congress of Paris in 1856. He allowed himself, however, to be taken by surprise by Napoleon

Napoleon I

Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...

's intervention on behalf of Italian unity, of which the first public intimation was given by the French emperor's cold reception of Hübner on New Year's Day, 1859, with the famous words, "I regret that our relations with your Government are not so good as they have hitherto been."

Hübner did not return to Paris after the war, and after holding the ministry of police in the Gołuchowski cabinet from August to October 1859, lived in retirement till 1865, when he became ambassador at Rome. Quitting this post in 1867, he undertook extensive travels, his descriptions of which appeared as Promenade au tour du monde, 1871 (1873; English translation by Lady Herbert, 1874) and Through the British Empire (1886). Written in a bright and entertaining style, and characterized by shrewd observation, they achieved considerable popularity in their time. A more serious effort was his Sixte-Quint (1870, translated into English by HEH Jerningham under the title of The Life and Times of Sixtus the Fifth, 1872), an original contribution to the history of the period, based on unpublished documents at the Vatican, Simancas and Venice. In 1879 he was made a life-member of the Austrian Upper House, where he sat as a Clerical and Conservative. He had received the rank of Freiherr (Baron) in 1854, and in 1888 was raised to the higher rank of Graf (Count). He died at Vienna on July 30, 1892.

Political ideals

Though himself of middle-class origin, Hübner was a profound admirer of the old aristocratic regime, and found his political ideals in his former chiefs, Metternich and Schwarzenberg

Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg

Prinz Felix zu Schwarzenberg was an Austrian statesman who restored the Habsburg Empire as a European power following the disorders of 1848....

. As the last survivor of the Metternich school, he became towards the close of his life more and more out of touch with the trend of modern politics, but remained a conspicuous figure in the Upper House and at the annual delegations. That he possessed the breadth of mind to appreciate the working of a system at total variance with his own school of thought was shown by his grasp of British colonial questions. It is interesting, in view of subsequent events, to note his emphatic belief in the loyalty of the British colonies—a belief not shared at that time by many statesmen with far greater experience of democratic institutions.

Other information

Ernest Mason Satow

Ernest Mason Satow

Sir Ernest Mason Satow PC, GCMG, , known in Japan as "" , known in China as "薩道義" or "萨道义", was a British scholar, diplomat and Japanologist....

 met Hübner in Japan when he visited from July to October 1871 during his world tour. Later he made Hübner's career the subject of his Rede Lecture

Rede Lecture

The Sir Robert Rede's Lecturer is an annual appointment to give a public lecture, the Sir Robert Rede's Lecture at the University of Cambridge. It is named for Sir Robert Rede, who was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in the sixteenth century.-Initial series:The initial series of lectures ranges...

 at Cambridge University in 1908, being a topic unconnected with his own career so as to avoid censure by the British Foreign Office. See Sir Ernest Satow, An Austrian Diplomatist in the Fifties (Cambridge, 1908).

His grandson, Patrick Count O'Byrne

Patrick O'Byrne (Irish politician)

Patrick S. O'Byrne was an Irish Sinn Féin politician. He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála to the 2nd Dáil at the 1921 elections for the Tipperary Mid, North and South constituency. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it. He stood as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin...

 KM

Knights Hospitaller

The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta , also known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta , Order of Malta or Knights of Malta, is a Roman Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of military, chivalrous, noble nature. It is the world's...

 (son of daughter Eleanor), was a Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...

 Teachta Dala

Teachta Dála

A Teachta Dála , usually abbreviated as TD in English, is a member of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas . It is the equivalent of terms such as "Member of Parliament" or "deputy" used in other states. The official translation of the term is "Deputy to the Dáil", though a more literal...

 in the Second Republican Dáil Éireann. Patrick was the third Count O'Byrne, his father John O'Byrne of Corville, Co. Tipperary

Tipperary

Tipperary is a town and a civil parish in South Tipperary in Ireland. Its population was 4,415 at the 2006 census. It is also an ecclesiastical parish in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly, and is in the historical barony of Clanwilliam....

 being the original grantee of the title from the Pope. During the Treaty debates Count O'Byrne supported the Irish Republic

Irish Republic

The Irish Republic was a revolutionary state that declared its independence from Great Britain in January 1919. It established a legislature , a government , a court system and a police force...

 against the British recognised Irish Free State

Irish Free State

The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...

.