Metternich, Klemens, Fürst von

Metternich, Klemens, Fürst von

▪ Austrian statesman
Introduction
(prince of),in full  Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Fürst Von Metternich-winneburg-beilstein  
born May 15, 1773, Coblenz, Archbishopric of Trier
died June 11, 1859, Vienna
 Austrian statesman, minister of foreign affairs (1809–48), and a champion of conservatism, who helped form the victorious alliance against Napoleon I and who restored Austria as a leading European power, hosting the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15.

Early life.
      Metternich, the descendant of an old Rhenish noble family, was the son of Franz Georg Karl, Graf von Metternich-Winneburg and Countess Beatrix Kagenegg. His father was then the Austrian envoy to the Rhenish principalities of the empire, and Metternich spent his youth in the Rhine–Moselle region, for which he retained a lifelong affection.

      In 1788 he entered the University of Strasbourg, where he studied diplomacy; but the spread of the French Revolution prompted him to leave Strasbourg in 1790 and enter the University of Mainz. Before the French revolutionary troops entered Mainz, he went to Brussels in the Austrian Netherlands, where his father was then chief minister. In 1794 he undertook a diplomatic mission to England, where he published a pamphlet calling for a general arming of the German people; but in October he rejoined his father, who had in the meantime fled to Vienna as the French invaded the Netherlands. In Vienna he occupied himself with natural, scientific, and medical studies, in which he always kept a lively interest and which he later did much to encourage.

      In September 1795 Metternich married the countess Eleonore Kaunitz, heiress and granddaughter of the former Austrian state chancellor Wenzel Anton, Graf von Kaunitz. This marriage gave him the link with the high nobility of Austria and the access to high office he had long desired. After having represented the Roman Catholic Westphalian counts of the empire at the end of the Congress of Rastatt (1797–99), which ratified compensation for the German princes ousted by the French from their possessions on the left bank of the Rhine, he was in 1801 appointed Austrian minister to the Saxon court at Dresden, and there he formed his friendship with Friedrich von Gentz (Gentz, Friedrich), the German publicist and diplomat. Serving as Austrian minister in Berlin after 1803, Metternich failed to persuade Frederick William III of Prussia to join Austria in the war of 1805 against France but gained a profound insight into the internal brittleness of the Prussian state, whose speedy ruin he predicted.

Ministry during the Napoleonic Wars.
      In 1806 Metternich served as Austrian minister to France. In contact with Napoleon's sister Caroline Murat and other ladies of Parisian society, he won a reputation for licentiousness; nevertheless, from those ladies and from his relations with the foreign minister Talleyrand and with the Russian envoy, he obtained excellent reports on the state of affairs in France. Although Metternich's successes in the negotiations leading up to the Franco-Austrian Treaty of Fontainebleau were insignificant, he used his time to acquire a deep insight into the emperor Napoleon I's (Napoleon I) character. Yet he overestimated the impact of the Spanish rising of 1808 on the Napoleonic system, and his optimistic reports did much to induce Austria to undertake the disastrous war of 1809 against France. After the Battle of Wagram, he tried to obtain favourable terms in the peace negotiations but was rebuffed by Napoleon.

      On Oct. 8, 1809, the emperor Francis (at that time Francis I of Austria (Francis II) but no longer Holy Roman emperor) appointed Metternich minister of foreign affairs. Six days later the oppressive Treaty of Schönbrunn (Schönbrunn, Treaty of) was signed with France. Austria was now in urgent need of a respite, which Metternich obtained by forming the project of a marriage between the archduchess Marie-Louise, a daughter of Francis I, and Napoleon, whose vanity Metternich cleverly exploited. It is not clear how far he expected that this marriage would restrain Napoleon from further campaigns of conquest, but at least he achieved a relationship between France and Austria loose enough to preserve Austria's freedom of action: Austria neither joined the Confederation of the Rhine, a league of German princes under Napoleon's protection, nor became one of the client states of the Napoleonic system. Utterly exhausted and debt-ridden, Austria could hardly have resisted any further demands of Napoleon, but it was then no longer the main object of Napoleon's hostility.

      As early as 1811, in order to promote Austria's internal development, Metternich wanted the state to be reorganized on federal lines instead of continuing under the centralized system that the emperor Joseph II had imposed. Yet Metternich could never overcome the objections of his strictly absolutist emperor. At the same time the enthusiasm for arming the nation and for a German national rising against Napoleon, which he had felt as late as 1809, began to be superseded by a firm dislike for all popular movements. Agreeing with the Emperor on this, he now came to regard these manifestations as a menace to the multinational Habsburg (Habsburg, House of) state. He became the strictest exponent of the doctrine of the balance of power (power, balance of) in Europe—a doctrine instilled into him originally by Koch, latterly by his diplomat friend Gentz.

      When Napoleon launched his invasion of Russia in 1812, Metternich obtained the status of an independent contingent for the Austrian forces under Prince Karl Schwarzenberg (Schwarzenberg, Karl Philipp, Prince zu) that accompanied the French Army. The disaster that befell Napoleon's army came as a surprise to Metternich. On Jan. 30, 1813, Schwarzenberg concluded an indefinite armistice with the Russians. But in view of the inadequacy of Austria's armaments, Metternich could not make up his mind to change over to war on Russia's side against Napoleon. Resisting all ill-considered projects, in particular those of the archduke John (who was put under house arrest for planning a premature anti-French rising in the Alps), Metternich firmly adhered to neutrality while Austria secretly rearmed. He even drew Saxony into the neutral camp for a time. When, later in 1813, Saxony's return to the French side and Napoleon's victory over the Russians and Prussians at Bautzen shook Metternich's will to make war and stiffened Napoleon's attitude, Metternich mediated an armistice between France, Russia, and Prussia. Even so, in the subsequent Treaty of Reichenbach, June 24, 1813, between Austria, Prussia, and Russia, Metternich undertook to bring Austria into the war against France if Napoleon rejected the peace terms that he was offering.

      By dominating the negotiations with the French during the summer of 1813, Metternich gained more time for rearming. At this point he was not interested in the annihilation of Napoleon's power, which the emperor Francis likewise, out of consideration for his daughter Marie-Louise, was unwilling to destroy altogether. Metternich also distrusted the Russian emperor Alexander I and feared that after the collapse of France, Europe would be at Russia's mercy. Napoleon's obstinacy frustrated the attempt at a settlement; but when in August Austria finally declared war on France, Metternich, by his superior conduct of negotiations, had won for his country the leadership both in the political and in the military field. In October 1813 the hereditary title of prince was bestowed on him by the Austrian emperor.

      In opposition to the plans of the Prussian minister Karl, Freiherr vom Stein, and of the Russian emperor, Metternich promised the South German states of the Confederation of the Rhine that if they went over to the allies they would not forfeit the position they had achieved on Napoleon's side. This promise alone showed that, while he was striving for a solution compatible with the interests of all parties, he also wanted to gain the South German states as allies against the Prussian–Russian designs of aggrandizement. After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo and abdication, Metternich rejected as unrealistic the proposals of Baron Stein and others for the resuscitation of the Holy Roman Empire. The first Treaty of Paris (May 30, 1814) stipulated nothing more for Germany than a loose confederation of states.

Leadership of the Congress of Vienna (Vienna, Congress of).
      The Congress of Vienna (September 1814–June 1815) was the climax of Metternich's work of reconstruction. The very fact that it was held in Vienna was in itself a great success for him. He had precise ideas about the basis for a new order in Europe but knew from the start that he would have to modify them substantially if he was to salvage even a small part of his plans against the opposition of self-interested princes. He wanted to secure Austria's predominance by forming two confederations, one German and the other Italian, with Austria as the leading power in both. Within Germany, he proposed the creation of a hereditary German imperial title, and he thought that Austria and Prussia should share the task of protecting Germany's western frontier. Friendship with Prussia on the one hand and with Bavaria on the other thus seemed to him to be the prerequisite of success. Supported by the British foreign secretary, Lord Castlereagh (Castlereagh, Robert Stewart, Viscount), Metternich sought to prevent the elimination of France, which he saw as a necessary counterweight against Russia. Likewise, he resisted the territorial aggrandizement of Russia and Prussia and objected in particular to Prussia's designs for annexing all of Saxony.

      The congress became a splendid social event. By an unbroken chain of festivities Metternich kept the visiting monarchs in a mood that made them disinclined to interfere very persistently in the real work of the statesmen. Facile and not averse to amorous adventures, Metternich brilliantly mastered his dual role of social representation and political leadership.

      Yet Metternich only partly succeeded in his plans: the German imperial project came to nothing because Francis steadfastly refused to support it; the Italian confederation did not materialize; and the German confederation, when it at last did come into being in June 1815, was based only on a brief and noncommittal federal act derived from a Bavarian compromise proposal. In European affairs, however, Metternich was more successful: he achieved equality of status for France; he obtained a reduction of the Prussian demands on Saxony; and, in particular, he blocked the farther reaching demands of Russia. Both Russia and Prussia, in fact, were held in check by the common front of Austria, England, and France that Metternich had created.

      Metternich's moderation produced a long-lasting European order. This, however, must be ascribed to his diplomatic capability rather than to his political foresight. Austria's status in the German confederation had been strengthened; but the Emperor's refusal of the German crown meant that Prussia, with equal status in the confederation, would be able to counterbalance Austria.

Role in the German confederation.
      Not even within the Austrian Empire was Metternich able to prevail with the idea (already at the root of his plans of 1811) of overcoming the spirit of national revolution by revitalizing the old historical regions and the privileges they enjoyed in preabsolutist times. His attempt to organize the newly acquired Italian provinces according to historical principles was frustrated by the emperor Francis, who, though accepting Metternich's ideas, united two incompatible regions in a completely unhistorical “Lombardo-Venetian kingdom” and so destroyed Metternich's hopes of counteracting pan-Italian nationalism. Moreover, as Metternich had feared, the initially strong pro-Austrian mood turned into its opposite.

      The reconstruction of Austria took shape entirely in the spirit of the emperor Joseph II, on centralist and absolutist lines, without regard to national differences and without the establishment of departmental ministries, which Metternich had demanded. After many futile remonstrances Metternich eventually yielded to the obstructionism of the Emperor, who detested innovation and stood jealously on his dignity. The reestablishment of the ancient diets of the estates of Tirol and Galicia complied to some extent with Metternich's idea of resurrecting the provincial diets in order to create a counterweight against the growing forces of liberal and nationalist opinion that was demanding a central parliament. He condemned, however, the repressive measures by which the police minister tried to achieve these aims.

      The domestic affairs of Austria created difficulties for Metternich at the Frankfurt am Main Bundestag (federal assembly), which opened in 1816. He had originally intended to use this assembly to oppose revolutionary thought all over Germany. Pointing to the examples of Tirol and Galicia, he attempted in 1817–18 to encourage the German states to introduce constitutions resurrecting the historical provinces and to set up their own diets instead of a central parliament. In summer 1818, however, Bavaria and Baden promulgated constitutions that reflected not Metternich's ideas but those of limited monarchy similar to that outlined by the French charter of June 1814; and in 1819, when revolutionary activity culminated in the murder of the dramatist August von Kotzebue and when the opening sessions of the Bavarian and Baden assemblies proved stormy, Metternich decided to stifle these unmanageable liberal currents.

      He managed to convince the Prussian chancellor Prince Karl August von Hardenberg that his prescription for provincial diets was right. Then, assured that Prussia would not follow the South German example, he could quietly watch how parliaments created against his advice fulfilled his predictions and discouraged the liberal inclinations of German princes. Consequently, at the ministerial conferences of Carlsbad and Vienna in 1819–20, Metternich, to the surprise of the South German states, did not attempt to undo the new constitutions but simply curtailed the activity of the federal assembly, which had become an inconvenience to him. Reorienting his German policy, he began to rely not on the assembly but on the common interest of the princes whom he led to share his point of view by personal contact. Henceforth it was no longer the privileges of Austria as granted by the federal act, but Metternich's personality that guaranteed Austria's predominance in the German confederation.

Years of decline.
      Metternich had hoped that a system of congresses, at which the great powers would concert their actions, would maintain order and peace in Europe. At the congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), of Troppau (1820), of Laibach (1821), and of Verona (1822) his international reputation was at its zenith, but the disruption of the forum of great powers became evident when Great Britain abandoned the policy of intervention against revolutions in other countries: Viscount Castlereagh prepared the way for this change at Troppau, and George Canning (Canning, George), his successor as British foreign secretary, brought Metternich's influence on western Europe to an end by insisting on the right of national self-determination for the South American colonists in revolt against Spain and for the Greek insurgents against Turkey. With Alexander I's death (1825) it seemed likely that Metternich's influence on Russia would likewise come to an end; and Prussia's jealousy of Austria's dominance was causing further difficulties, when in 1830 the July Revolution in France, followed by insurrections in Belgium, Poland, and Germany, appeared to justify again Metternich's dismal prognoses and served to convince the eastern powers, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, that they should stand together by his principles.

      Metternich had been appointed Austrian state chancellor on May 25, 1821, but his influence in Austria was decisively restricted by the appointment of Franz Anton, Graf von Kolowrat (Kolowrat, Anton, graf von), as minister of state and head of the Cabinet conferences (1826). Kolowrat opposed an orderly governmental organization and won great ascendancy over the emperor Francis. Metternich, as his influence dwindled, yielded to an increasingly irritating vanity and to a passion for theorizing that caused his utterances to become increasingly prolix and, at times, to verge on the ridiculous. For the sake of legitimacy and despite general apprehensions, he gave Francis the disastrous advice to recognize his feebleminded eldest son, the archduke Ferdinand (Ferdinand (I)), as heir to the throne. In 1835, therefore, when Ferdinand succeeded his father, Metternich, at first together with the archduke Louis (Ludwig), took the chair at the “conference,” or council of state that assumed the functions of a regency. In 1836 it seemed as if he would at last be able to carry out his idea of well-ordered government, but at the decisive moment Kolowrat managed to convert the archdukes John and Louis to his own theories. Thenceforth Metternich's authority was confined to external affairs. His vanity tempted him to disguise the waning of his influence by accepting responsibility for decrees that neither came from him nor accorded with his views. He thus became a hated symbol of repression and reaction and, eventually, on March 13, 1848, had to resign, as the first victim of the revolution. He made his way with difficulty into exile in England but returned to Vienna in 1851, where he died eight years later.

      After his first wife's death in 1825, Metternich married Baroness Antoinette Leykam in 1827. After her death in 1829, he married Countess Melanie Zichy-Ferraris in 1831, who died in 1854. His son by his second marriage, Richard, Fürst von Metternich, was Austrian ambassador in Paris from 1859 to 1870 and one of the foremost diplomats of his time.

Karl Otmar, Baron von Aretin Ed.

Additional Reading
Standard biographies include Alan W. Palmer, Metternich (1972); and Desmond Seward, Metternich: The First European (1991). E.L. Woodward, Three Studies in European Conservatism: Metternich, Guizot, the Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century (1929); A. May, The Age of Metternich, 1814–1848 (1933); and A. Cecil, Metternich, 1773–1859 (1933), pursue lines of inquiry opened up by a German-language biography: Heinrich, Ritter von Srbik, Metternich, der Staatsmann und der Mensch, 3 vol. (1925–54). Several modern studies have offered various other views of Metternich. Among them are Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Problems of Peace, 1812–1822 (1957, reissued 2000); Enno E. Kraehe, Metternich's German Policy, 2 vol. (1963–83); Enno E. Kraehe (ed.), The Metternich Controversy (1977); and Robert D. Billinger, Metternich and the German Question: States' Rights and Federal Duties, 1820–1834 (1991). The dominant position of Metternich in Europe is treated in P.W. Schroeder, Metternich's Diplomacy at Its Zenith, 1820–1823 (1962); H.F. Schwarz (ed.), Metternich, the Coachman of Europe (1962); D.E. Emerson, Metternich and the Political Police: Security and Subversion in the Habsburg Monarchy (1815–1830) (1968); and A.G. Haas, Metternich, Reorganization and Nationality, 1813–1818 (1963), which describes a fundamental aspect of Metternich's plans for internal reform in Austria.

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Universalium. 2010.

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