Karl Max, Prince Lichnowsky

Karl Max, Prince Lichnowsky (German: Karl Max Fürst von Lichnowsky) (Kreuzenort, Upper Silesia (now Krzyżanowice, Poland), 8 March 1860 – Kuchelna, 27 February 1928) was a German diplomat who served as Ambassador to Britain during the July Crisis and who was the author of a noted pamphlet of 1916 that deplored German diplomacy in mid-1914 that, he argued, directly caused the outbreak of the First World War.

He was the 6th Prince and 8th Count Lichnowsky. He succeeded his father in 1901. His father was Carl Faustus Timoleon Maria, 5th Prince and 7th Count Lichnowsky, a general of cavalry, and his mother was Marie, Princess of Croy. He was the head of an old noble Bohemian family and of immense wealth, possessing estates at Kuchelna in Silesia and Graz in Austria. As an hereditary member of the upper house of the Prussian Diet, Lichnowsky played some part in domestic politics, adopting in general a moderate attitude and deprecating party legislation. Though a Roman Catholic, he avoided identifying himself with the clerical party in Germany.

Entering the diplomatic service, Lichnowsky was appointed an attaché at the London embassy in 1885 and later served as legation secretary at Bucharest. He became German Ambassador to Austria-Hungary in 1902, replacing Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg-Hertefeld, but was forced into retirement in 1904, accused of too much independence from the Foreign Office after several conflicts with Friedrich von Holstein, head of the political division. In 1904, he also married Countess Mechtilde von Arco-Zinneberg (Schönburg, 8 March 1879 - London, 4 June 1958).

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