"Metternich’s strength in law" Topic

"he legacy of Prince Clemens von Metternich (1773–1859), the Austrian foreign minister from 1809 and also chancellor from 1821 until 1848, has been a hotly debated issue among historians for decades. Was he, as Henry Kissinger and others believe, the infinitely subtle conservative master of realpolitik who brought down Napoleon and saved the peace of Europe for the next four decades? Or was he, as more progressive souls contest, a cynical arch-manipulator and reactionary who held back liberal reforms in Europe and whose sole achievement was to have been a progenitor of today's European Union?

As the subtitle of his engaging and comprehensive biography—"Strategist and Visionary"—implies, Wolfram Siemann, an emeritus history professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, believes in the Kissinger view of Metternich, and, by the end of the book's 755 pages of text, his readers will too.1 The Metternich who emerges is a figure who saved Europe from radical rather than liberal revolution over and over again, until the tsunami of unstoppable revolutions finally drowned him in 1848…"
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