Gastein Convention

Gastein Convention

Hotel Straubinger, Bad Gastein
Type	Treaty
Signed	14 August 1865
Location	Bad Gastein, Salzburg, Austria
Signatories	Austrian Empire  Kingdom of Prussia

The Gastein Convention (German: Gasteiner Konvention), also called the Convention of Badgastein, was a treaty signed at Bad Gastein in Austria on August 14, 1865. It embodied agreements between the two principal powers of the German Confederation, Prussia and Austria, over the governing of the so-called 'Elbe Duchies' of Schleswig, Holstein and Saxe-Lauenburg.

The Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein had been united under Danish rule since 1460. While Schleswig north of the Eider River was a Danish fief, the Duchies of Holstein officially remained an estate of the Holy Roman Empire which the Kings of Denmark held as an Imperial fief. In 1815 King Frederick VI of Denmark also acquired the adjacent Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg. Both Holstein and Lauenburg were member states of the German Confederation since 1815.

When in 1858 the Danish national liberal Council President Carl Christian Hall drafted the 'November Constitution' in order to link Schleswig more closely to the Danish kingdom, he sparked German protests, and troops of the German Confederation eventually occupied Holstein and Lauenburg in 1863. In the following Second Schleswig War, Denmark was defeated and according to the Treaty of Vienna signed on 30 October 1864 had to cede the Elbe Duchies to victorious Prussia and Austria.

After the war, the two powers faced the issue of governing the provinces formerly held by the Danish royal House of Glücksburg in personal union. Prussia aimed at the annexation of the territories as provinces with her state territory, against the strong resistance of the Austrians, who persisted on the status of autonomous duchies of the Confederation ruled as a condominium. To ease tensions, the Prussian minister-president Otto von Bismarck met with the Austrian envoy Gustav von Blome at the spa town of Bad Gastein in the Austrian Alps.