Karl Ferdinand von Buol (; 17 May 1797 – 28 October 1865) was an Austrian diplomatist and statesman, who served as Foreign Minister of Austrian Empire from 1852 to 1859. Early life Karl was born in Vienna, a scion of a Grisons noble family descending from Fürstenau. His father Count Johann Rudolf von Buol-Schauenstein (1763–1834) from 1816 until 1823 chaired the Austrian delegation to the Bundesversammlung of the German Confederation. His mother was Countess Alexandrine von und zu Lerchenfeld (b. 1769). Biography He joined the Austrian foreign service and served successively as envoy to Baden at Karlsruhe (1828–1838), to Württemberg at Stuttgart (1838–1844), to Sardinia-Piedmont at Turin (1844–1848), to Russia at Saint Petersburg (1848–1850), to the German ministerial conference at Dresden 1850/51, and to the United Kingdom at London (1851–1852). He became an increasingly close associate of the Austrian Minister-President, Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg, and when Schwarzenberg suddenly died in April 1852, Buol succeeded him as foreign minister, although not as Premier, as the young Emperor Franz Joseph himself now took a more direct role in directing cabinet affairs than he had previously. As foreign minister, Buol soon had to deal with the Near Eastern crisis which had erupted by early 1854 into the Crimean War, as France and Britain had declared war on Russia in an effort to support the Ottoman Empire. In this crisis, Austria's position was a tenuous one. Russia's intervention to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, and its subsequent intervention on behalf of Austria against Prussia leading to the Punctation of Olmütz in 1850, put the Austrians substantially in the debt of the Tsar Nicholas I. Furthermore, the geographical positions involved meant that in any war with Russia, Austria, even if allied with France and Britain, would bear the brunt of the fighting. On the other hand, permanent Russian control of the Danubian Principalities (later part of Romania) would greatly endanger Austria's strategic position, and the Austrians were more generally opposed to any expansion of Russian influence in the Balkans. Thus, Buol attempted to pursue a middle course, trying to mediate between the belligerent parties. Soon, however, this did not prove enough, and Buol, who was noted in Austria as an Anglophile, soon cast his lot more clearly with the western powers. An ultimatum was sent to Russia to demand that it evacuate the Principalities. The Russians agreed, and Austria occupied the Principalities for the