DUMBA, Dr. Constantine Theodor, Aus trian diplomat:b. Vienna, Austria, 17 June 1856. Descended from a prominent and wealthy family, he was educated at the University of Vienna and the Ecole des Sciences Politiques et Morales, Paris. He entered the Austrian For eign Office in 1879, was created a privy council lor in 1908 and served for some years as Min ister to Sweden. In March 1913 he was ap pointed Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to the United States and assumed the office on 24 April. During the early stages of the European War Dr. Dumba, in conjunction with Count iternstorff. (q.v.), the German Ambassador in Washington, engaged in a widespread con spiracy to foment labor troubles among the employees of the Bethlehem Steel Works and other plants making munitions for the Allies. The plot was revealed through the detentioft by the British authorities on 30 Aug. 1915 of an American journalist, J. F. J. Archibald, a passenger on the steamship Rotterdam, which put in at Falmouth. A number of documents found in Archibald's possession were seized. Among them was a long letter written by Dr. Dumba to Baron Burian, the Austrian Foreign Minister, stating that ewe could, if not entirely prevent the production of war material in Bethlehem and in the Middle West, at any rate strongly disorganize it and hold it up for months, which, according to the statement of the German Military Attache (Captain von Papen), is of great importance,* amply out weighing the small sacrifice of money." Archibald was also the bearer of a
dispatch from von Papen to the German War Office. The publication of these documents by the British government caused a sensation in the United States and evoked general con demnation of the undiplomatic activities of Dr. Dumba in a country at that time both eneutral and friendly* to the nation which he represented. On 5 Sept. 1915. Dr. Dumba de fended his action as being nothing more than a very open and perfectly proper method to be taken to bring before men of our races (Hun garians, Croats, etc.) ... the fact that they were engaged in enterprises unfriendly to their fatherland.* Four days later Secretary of State Lansing announced that the American Ambas sador in Vienna had been instructed to demand the recall of Dr. Dumba on account of his im proper conduct. The Austrian government is sued a formal recall on 28 September ; the Brit ish government granted a safe conduct and Dr. Dumba sailed from New York on 5 Oct. 1915. Von Papen and Captain Boy-Ed, the German attaches in Washington, were dismissed from the United States a few weeks later. It sub sequent) transpired that Archibald had re ceived $5,000 from the German Embassy in Washington on 24 April 1915. The full story of the Austro-German conspiracies in America is told in The World's Work, Feb., March, April, May, et seq. 1918. See WAR, EUROPEAN.