Transnational Policing after the 1848–1849 Revolutions: The Habsburg Empire in the Mediterranean

Christos Aliprantis

doi:10.1177/0265691420932489

Abstract

This article investigates the policing measures of the Habsburg Empire against the exiled defeated revolutionaries in the Mediterranean after the 1848–1849 revolutions. The examination of this counter-revolutionary policy reveals the pioneering role Austria played in international policing. It shows, in particular, that Vienna invested more heavily in policing in the Mediterranean after 1848 than it did in other regions, such as Western Europe, due to the multitude of ‘Forty-Eighters’ settled there and the alleged inadequacy of the local polities (e.g., the Ottoman Empire, Greece) to satisfactorily deal with the refugee question themselves. The article explains that Austria made use of a wide array of both official and unofficial techniques to contain these allegedly dangerous political dissidents. These methods ranged from official police collaboration with Greece and the Ottoman Empire to more subtle regional information exchanges with Naples and Russia. However, they also included purely unilateral methods exercised by the Austrian consuls, Austrian Lloyd sailors and ship captains, and ad hoc recruited secret agents to monitor the émigrés at large. Overall, the article argues that Austrian policymakers in the aftermath of 1848 invented new policing formulas and reshaped different pre-existing institutions (e.g., consuls, Austrian Lloyd), channelling them against their opponents in exile. Therefore, apart from surveying early modes of international policing, this study also adds to the discussion about Austrian (and European) state-building and, furthermore, to the more specific discussion of how European states dealt with political dissidents abroad in the nineteenth century.

Highlights

Greece and Corfu have from time to time a great significance, and most probably, they will have especially in the near future because revolutionaries from different parts of Italy have repeatedly moved there
Apart from surveying early modes of international policing, this study adds to the discussion about Austrian state-building and, to the more specific discussion of how European states dealt with political dissidents abroad in the nineteenth century
Schwarzenberg and Bach unilaterally decided from that point on to make use of semi-official and unofficial Austrian networks against the emigre communities in the Eastern Mediterranean

Summary

Introduction

Greece and Corfu have from time to time a great significance, and most probably, they will have especially in the near future because revolutionaries from different parts of Italy have repeatedly moved there. As Karl H€arter has noted, this normative order of transnational criminal justice systems remained incomplete and trapped in collisions between rival national legal traditions throughout the nineteenth century.[57] Most importantly, initiatives of international policing in this era remained subject to the wider foreign policy priorities of their respective states.[58] The discrepancy between security and high politics was still not visible when single state political agendas aligned with one other, as happened with counter-revolutionary politics across Europe from Britain and France to Naples and Greece after 1848 Following this reasoning, the main reason that Austria and Greece could reach an understanding concerning the exiles is that after 1849 the Greek government itself wished to block the refugee influx and send away those who had already settled in the country. Schwarzenberg and Bach unilaterally decided from that point on to make use of semi-official and unofficial Austrian networks (e.g., consuls, secret agents, Austrian Lloyd seamen) against the emigre communities in the Eastern Mediterranean

The Austrian Consuls Versus the Exiles in the Eastern Mediterranean

Austrian Secret Agents and Austrian Lloyd Seamen Confronting the Emigres

Conclusion

Author Biography