An unsolved case from mediation activities of the Spanish diplomacy during World War One

Abstract

During World War One the diplomats of neutral Spain carried out important mediation activities, supporting Russian citizens on enemy territory and trying to facilitate the return of the Russian citizens from the enemy countries. The Spanish assistance consisted, among other things, in the transfer of funds to the Russians. One of the episodes of that humanitarian mission was the rescue of a Russian journalist D.G. Yanchevetsky, a correspondent for the Novoye Vremya newspaper in Vienna, who was arrested by the Austrian authorities in July 1914 on charges of espionage and sentenced to death for «high treason». A similar case is found in the memoirs of the Spanish ambassador to Russia, Anibal Morillo y Pérez del Villar, Count de Cartagena, «Memories of my Embassy in Russia», without indicating the name of the person who was assisted. The Spanish ambassador, using the example of a so-called Ivanov, reports on the pan-Slavist propaganda of the Russian Foreign Ministry on the territory of Austria-Hungary. Based on the analysis of the memoirs of the Spanish ambassador and the correlation of that information with the facts from the Spanish and Russian sources, mainly the press, the article aims to figure out whether the Spanish ambassador described the same episode of the rescue of Yanchevetsky or he meant some other person. Discrepancy in some dates urges to express various assumptions on the issue under consideration and dwell in more detail on the role of Spanish diplomacy in the return of Yanchevetsky to Russia. The article attempts to characterize this fragment of the memoirs of the Spanish ambassador and tries to comprehend the goal set by Count de Cartagena in mentioning that case in his memoirs.