"Metternich: Strategist and Visionary" Topic

"Metternich has a reputation as the epitome of reactionary conservatism. Historians treat him as the archenemy of progress, a ruthless aristocrat who used his power as the dominant European statesman of the first half of the nineteenth century to stifle liberalism, suppress national independence, and oppose the dreams of social change that inspired the revolutionaries of 1848. Wolfram Siemann paints a fundamentally new image of the man who shaped Europe for over four decades. He reveals Metternich as more modern and his career much more forward-looking than we have ever recognized.

Clemens von Metternich emerged from the horrors of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, Siemann shows, committed above all to the preservation of peace. That often required him, as the Austrian Empire's foreign minister and chancellor, to back authority. He was, as Henry Kissinger has observed, the father of realpolitik. But short of compromising on his overarching goal Metternich aimed to accommodate liberalism and nationalism as much as possible. Siemann draws on previously unexamined archives to bring this multilayered and dazzling man to life. We meet him as a tradition-conscious imperial count, an early industrial entrepreneur, an admirer of Britain's liberal constitution, a failing reformer in a fragile multiethnic state, and a man prone to sometimes scandalous relations with glamorous women…"

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Amicalement
Armand

'Born at Coblenz. His father was a diplomat. Received an excellent education. In Strasbourg at the beginning of the Revolution; shocked by its excesses. Rose steadily in the Austrian diplomatic service; Ambassador to France, 1806. Urged Austrian declaration of war in 1809 because of exaggerated reports of French losses in Spain. Austrian foreign minister, 1809. His policy was directed toward strengthening Austria while retaining, insofar as possible, her international freedom of action. Favored marriage of Maria Louisa to Napoleon as a means to this end. From 1812 on, played a delicate game, seeking to make Austria the arbiter of Europe, curbing in turn French, Russian, and Prussian power. For years the most powerful European statesman. Personally conservative, and the servant of the stupidly reactionary Emperor Francis, he opposed all liberal movements. Driven from office by the Vienna revolt of 1848.'

'Handsome; 'excuisite' manners; keenly, if narrowly intelligent. Patient, patriotic, and courageous. Probably the most effective diplomat of his day, expert in the tangled intrigues and double-dealing that his position required. Occasionally, too clever.'

-A Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars by Vincent J Esposito and John R Elting, Character Sketches.

'…Metternich was aristocratic, courageous, devious as a basket of snakes, and a sworn foe of the French Revolution-'a gangrene which must be burnt out with a hot iron.''-Esposito/Elting Atlas, Introduction to the Leipzig Campaign.

Metternich's ancestral estates were lost when the French occupied and annexed the Rhineland and Metternich's serfs were freed.

This was probably the basis for his hatred of the French Revolution which he carried on when dealing with Napoleon.

Glup!…..

Amicalement
Armand