Nikolay Girs

Nikolai Karlovich de Gier (Russian Николай Карлович Гирс; * May 21, 1820; † January 26, 1895 ) was a Russian diplomat and foreign minister.

Life

Youth

Like its predecessor later as foreign minister, Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov, he walked in the Lyceum at Tsarskoye Selo near Saint Petersburg to school. At the age of 18 he joined the Foreign Service.

Diplomat

In the absence of influential promoters ran his career slowly at first. He spent more than 20 years on child items, mainly in South-Eastern Europe before he was transferred in 1863 to Persia. After six years in Persia, he was a diplomat in Switzerland and Sweden. In 1875, he was Director for Eastern Affairs and Assistant Secretary of State under Prince Gorchakov, whose niece he had married in the meantime.

Statesman

After the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, the new Tsar Alexander III appointed him after the resignation of Foreign Minister Gorchakov, because of the frequent absence of the minister he had performed the duties, in fact for some time. In Gier tenure Russia led no major war. In Central Asia, the expansion was as under his predecessors on, while Russia in Europe pursued a more restrained policy.

The rivalry between Austria -Hungary and Russia prevented a renewal of the Three Emperors Federal, as a substitute negotiated Germany and Russia a bilateral contract from. On June 18, 1887 de Gier and Bismarck signed the reinsurance contract which was not renewed in 1890 by the German Reich. The rapprochement between Russia and France, which had been initiated by his predecessor, Gorchakov, then led in 1892 to the military convention between France and Russia ( → Two Association ).

After Alexander's death in 1894 he remained under Tsar Nicholas II until his death in 1895 in office. He was succeeded by Prince Alexei Lobanov - Rostowski.