AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, Diplomatic Re lations. Austria, declining in European, in fluence and pecuniary esources at the time of the American Revolution, had little trade at tractions for the United States, except through the city of Ostend. Her answer to Arthur Lee and to William Lee gave evidence that she would probably be the last European power to recognize American independence; but in 1781 she joined Russia in a proposal for mediation which accepted by Congress led to negotiations resulting in peace with independence. She attracted very little attention in the United States before the meetings of the Vienna Con gress. The American government declined an invitation to participate in the meetings of the Holy Alliance, but in 1823 Monroe appointed a confidential agent to observe and report its activities. Commercial intercourse, insignifi cant at first, increased after the close of the Napoleonic wars and in 1829 resulted in the negotiation of a treaty of commerce and navigation.
Regular diplomatic relations began with the American appointment of Nathaniel Niles as agent (in 1837) to procure a modification of duties and restrictions on the importation of American tobacco, and the Austrian appoint ment of Baron de Mareschal as Envoy Extraor dinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in 1838. A treaty relating to property and consular juris diction was negotiated in 1848, followed by a treaty of extradition in 1856. Under the stimulus of democratic expansion and (mani fest destiny') at the middle of the century, the United States exhibited a deep sympathy for Hungary (in her unsuccessful struggle against Austria and Russia) which induced the American government in 1849 to send an agent, A. Dudley Mann, with a view to the recognition of the Hungarian republic, and led Congress in 1849, after Hungary was crushed, to offer an asylum to Kossuth and his fellow exiles and to give a public reception to Kossuth on his visit to Washington. The Mann mission, when it became known, was the subject of a strong protest of Austria through her chargé d'affaires, M. Huelsemann, to whom Webster made a vigorous and spirited reply and who temporarily withdrew from Washington soon after the Kossuth craze.
In 1853 new friction arose in the case of Martin Koszta, a Hungarian refugee to the United States, who, having returned to Europe after declaring his intention to become an American citizen, had been seized in a Turkish port by an Austrian cruiser. His forcible re lease from the vessel by Captain Ingraham of the United States war vessel brought from Huelsemann a demand for reparation and dis avowal which Secretary Marcy refused to give. At the close of a diplomatic warfare, Austria surrendered her claim to jurisdiction over Koszta who returned to the United States with the understanding that Austria could proceed against him in case he should ever return to Turkey. Apparently friendly to the United States at the opening of the secession struggle, Austria never accorded belligerent rights to the Confederates. In the summer of 1863 Motley reported that she was recruiting troops to accompany Maximilian to Mexico and sub mitted to the Austrian government some un authorized views in regard to the Mexican question for which Seward censured him. At the close of the war, however (in 1867), Motley was instructed to warn Austria not to send volunteers to replace the French troops in Mexico, and when he hesitated to act Seward disapproved his delay and effectively directed him to file a protest at once and to withdraw from Vienna in case the departure of the troops was permitted.
Since the Civil War, questions relating to naturalization and expatriation have been the most prominent and most persistent. Although the naturalization convention of 1870 with Austria-Hungary recognizes the right of citi zens or subjects of one country to become citizens or subjects of the other after an un interrupted residence of five years, its inter pretation has frequently been a subject of diplomatic discussion in connection with the arrest of persons who, born in Austria or Hungary, had emigrated to the United States before the performance of their military serv ice, and often to escape it, and after meeting the requirements for American citizenship had returned to their native land to reside per manently, enjoying all the privileges of the government without sharing its burdens and responsibilities, and perhaps creating discord and loudly boasting of their immunity from military service. The Austro-Hungarian gov
ernment, claiming that the citizenship of many such had been obtained in fraudem legis, or that it had never been com pleted, summoned them to military duty; in case of their refusal to serve, it arrested them; and, in some instances of ostentatious evasion, while feeling bound by treaty stipulations, it resorted to expulsion from the country under a law of 1871, asserting that the presence of the persons expelled exerted a pernicious in fluence in the community of their origin and that the treaty of 1870 gave American citizens no right to permanent residence in the country. The earlier friction arising from such cases greatly decreased by 1900, however, as a result of the steady progress made toward their satis factory settlement through more precise infor mation. Arrests became more infrequent. On the representations of the American legation in worthy cases the Austrian government ob served treaty provisions in the larger number of arrests of American naturalized citizens for alleged evasion of military service and released them from military obligations. Representa tions against expulsion were made only when its adoption appeared unduly onerous. In November 1899, on the ground that so many Austro-Hungarians had taken advantage of treaty stipulations to become nominally citi zens of the United States with the sole object of living in their native country in defiance of its military laws, the Austrian legation at Washington renewed a proposal (which had been offered as early as 1883 as a result of the military law of 1882) for a modification of the naturalization treaty of 1870 by which the American government would no longer feel obliged to extend protection to mala-fide citizens, and the Austrian government would no longer feel compelled to expel them. The American Department of State which in reply to similar prior proposals had admitted that this abuse of treaty stipulations should be dis continued, and still admitted that there were "doubtless grave abuses of the privileges of declined to accept the proposal for amendments which would have annulled beneficial treaty provisions preventing the sub jection of bona-fide naturalized citizens to mili tary service. In June 1896, the Austro-Hun garian legation at Washington suggested the necessity of using a form of naturalization oath which should "mention the fact of the existence of separate Austrian and Hungarian Among other questions affecting diplomatic relations since 1870, Austrian tariffs and trade restrictions (especially on meats and fruits) stand first. Trade relations were improved by the reciprocity arrangement of 1892, but ob structions to American imports still threatened to provoke retaliatory inspection of Austrian imports into the United States.
Still other questions arose. In 1885 Austria objected to the appointment of A. M. Keeley as American Minister at Vienna on the double round of his want of political tact and his Jewess wife—neither of which appeared valid to the American State Department. In 1891 there was considerable correspondence relating to the question of preventing the emigration of defective, dependent and delinquent classes.
Although Austria sympathized with Spain in the Spanish-American War, her authorities at Trieste gave a friendly reception to Admiral Dewey in 1899. In 1909 she agreed to an arbi tration treaty with the United States.
The American government, when it de clared war against Germany in the spring of 1917, hoped to avoid the necessity of a declara tion against Austria-Hungary, Germany's ally; but, by the conditions of the war, it finally, in the following December, found it necessary to declare war against Austria-Hungary also.