The Austrian Vice-Consulate in Rousse and the Hungarian Revolution (1848 – 1849)

Abstract

The present study reveals the activities of the Austrian vice-consulate in Rousse along the Danubian coastline in the wake of the Hungarian Revolution (1848 – 1849). The Austrian vice-consul in the city, Emmanuel von Rössler, developed diligent intelligence and public service activities in Rousse, Vidin and Shumen, with which he privileged Habsburg loyalists and hindered the activity of separatist defectors in the Ottoman Empire. In the spirit of “new” diplomatic history, the contribution pays particular attention to the relationship between the vice-consul and the many disaffected soldiers and emigrants who relied on his instructions and resources in the tense political situation after the revolutionary 1848. Also, the article rethinks the place of consular institutions in the world of international relations through the lens of transnational history, emphasizing their relative independence and presenting a more accurate picture of the active interactions between different consular missions and units. Last but not least, the study uses the methodology of “entangled” history to rethink the role of local events in the Ottoman lands between Stara Planina and the Danube in the context of the global Age of Revolutions, analyzing the processes in this region as an integral part of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary dynamics in the middle of the “long” XIX century.