Klemens von Metternich

(1773–1859), Austrian statesman and diplomat, who was the dominant figure in European politics between 1814 and 1848.

Metternich was born into an aristocratic family on May 15, 1773, at Koblenz, Germany, and attended the universities of Strasbourg and Mainz. His family fled the revolutionary French armies to Vienna in 1794, and Metternich there married Countess Eleanor Kaunitz (fl. 1795–1825), whose family was prominent at the Austrian court. He served the Habsburgs first as an envoy to the Congress of Rastadt (1797) and then as ambassador to Saxony (1801), Prussia (1803), and Napoleonic France (1806).

Major Achievements.

In 1809 Metternich was appointed minister of foreign affairs for the Habsburg state, then in disarray following several defeats by the French army. He arranged the marriage of the Austrian archduchess Marie Louise (1791–1847) to Napoleon, but he planned to renew the war with France when the opportunity arose. After Napoleon’s disastrous Russian campaign in 1812, Metternich played a leading role in the formation of a new European coalition that two years later defeated the French emperor. At the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), which redrew the map of Europe after Napoleon’s downfall, he blocked Russian plans for the annexation of the whole of Poland and Prussia’s attempt to absorb Saxony. He succeeded in creating a German confederation under Austrian leadership but failed to achieve a similar arrangement for Italy. His attempt to make the postwar Quadruple Alliance (Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria) into an instrument for preventing revolution in Europe also failed. As chancellor of the Habsburg Empire (1821–48) he was, however, able to maintain the status quo in Germany and Italy, and he remained Europe’s leading statesman until driven from power by the Revolution of 1848. He died in Vienna on June 11, 1859.

Evaluation.

Metternich equally resented liberalism, nationalism, and revolution. His ideal was a monarchy that shared power with the traditional privileged classes of society. He was a man of order in an increasingly disorganized world of rapidly changing values. Vain and indolent by nature, he often assumed responsibility for policies he had not himself formulated. Some have judged him a reactionary who tried to stem the tide of democratic progress. To others he was a constructive force, misunderstood by contemporaries and later historians alike.

Robert Stewart Castlereagh

(1769–1822), British statesman, born in county Down, Ireland, and educated at the University of Cambridge. In 1790 he entered the Irish parliament as a Whig, but he joined the Tory party when he entered the British House of Commons in 1795. A year later he was created Viscount Castlereagh, a courtesy title. As chief secretary for Ireland from 1799, he energetically supported the attempt of the British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger to bring about the political union of Ireland with Great Britain. Pitt's proposed legislation, known as the Act of Union, was carried in the Irish parliament in 1800, largely through Castlereagh's skill in bribing parliamentary members. Soon after the act became law (Jan. 1, 1801), Castlereagh resigned from office because of the opposition of King George III to the passing of a Catholic emancipation act, which Castlereagh had hoped would follow the Act of Union.

Castlereagh was a member of the House of Commons from 1801 until his death, serving as leader from 1812. As secretary of state for the war and colonial department during most of the period from 1805 to 1809, he helped plan British campaigns in the Napoleonic Wars.

From 1812, as foreign secretary in the Tory cabinet of Robert Banks Jenkinson (1770–1828), 2d earl of Liverpool, Castlereagh played a leading part in the coalition of nations against Napoleon, keeping it united during the critical campaigns of 1813–14. He represented Great Britain at the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), which redrew the map of Europe after the Napoleonic Wars. At the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), he resisted Russian attempts to draw Britain into a European league to oppose revolution.

Czar Alexander I

(1777–1825), emperor of Russia (1801–25), son of Emperor Paul I (1754–1801). He abolished many barbarous and cruel punishments then practiced and in 1802 introduced a more orderly administration of government by the creation of eight ministries. He improved the condition of the serfs and promoted education, doubling the number of Russian universities by establishing those at Saint Petersburg, Kharkov, and Kazan. Alexander was for a time the ally of Prussia against Napoleon of France. In 1807, however, after the battles of Eylau and Friedland, Alexander allied himself with the French. He broke the alliance in 1812, and later that year Napoleon invaded Russia, only to lose his army in a disastrous retreat from Moscow. Alexander was prominent thereafter in the European coalition that led to Napoleon's fall. In 1815 Alexander instituted the Holy Alliance of Austria, Russia, and Prussia. The purpose of the alliance, as it was conceived, was to achieve the realization of high Christian ideals among the nations of Europe, but it soon ceased to have any real importance. The last years of Alexander's life and reign were reactionary and despotic. He was succeeded by his brother Nicholas I.

Prince Karl August von Hardenberg

(1750–1822), chancellor of Prussia (1810–17), who reformed the Prussian state and played a leading role in the coalition that defeated Napoleon. Born on May 31, 1750, in Hannover, Hardenberg entered the service of the king of Prussia in 1792. In 1795 he negotiated the Treaty of Basel, ceding Prussian territory west of the Rhine to revolutionary France. He was foreign minister from 1804 to 1806, when Napoleon, after defeating and occupying Prussia, had him removed from office. Appointed chancellor in 1810, Hardenberg carried out extensive reforms, imposing a uniform system of taxation, abolishing restrictions on internal trade, easing the condition of the peasantry, and granting equality to Jews. His attempt to establish a consultative representative assembly, however, was thwarted by opposition from the aristocracy. After Napoleon's hold on Europe was weakened by the failure of his Russian campaign, Hardenberg formed an alliance with Russia (1813), beginning Germany's War of Liberation against the French. In 1814–15 he represented Prussia at the Congress of Vienna, where the allies redrew the map of Europe after Napoleon's downfall. His collaboration with Great Britain and Austria in opposing Russian plans for the annexation of Poland was repudiated by Prussia's King Frederick William III, but he secured compensation for Prussia, which received parts of Saxony and the Rhineland. In Germany he agreed to a confederation of states under the presidency of Austria. Hardenberg died in Genoa, Italy, on Nov. 26, 1822.

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord

(1754–1838), French statesman and diplomat, who flourished through the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars and played a major part in the outcome of the Congress of Vienna.

He was born on Feb. 2, 1754, in Paris. Educated in theology at the seminary of Saint Sulpice, he was ordained a priest in 1779, became abbot of Saint-Denis, and in 1780 was appointed agent-general of the French clergy. In 1789 he was named bishop of Autun. He resigned his see in 1791, after subscribing to the new civil constitution of the clergy drawn up by the national constituent assembly, and was subsequently excommunicated. In 1792 he was sent by the French government to London, where he conducted informal negotiations for a British-French alliance.

After the overthrow of the French monarchy in September 1792, Talleyrand returned to England as a private citizen. Following the outbreak of hostilities between France and Great Britain in 1793, he was listed as an émigré by the French authorities, and after being expelled from England in 1794, he went to the U.S. He was permitted to return to France in 1796, and the following year he was appointed foreign minister under the Directory. In July 1799 he resigned this office, and subsequently he was instrumental in effecting the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire that established the rule of the Consulate under the first consul Napoleon Bonaparte. He served as Bonaparte's foreign minister from 1799 to 1807, when he resigned because of his opposition to the wars against Austria, Prussia, and Russia in 1805–6. After the fall of Napoleon, he represented France at the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15, where he obtained advantageous terms for France from the victorious Allies, including the restoration of the boundaries of 1789.

During the July Revolution of 1830, Louis Philippe, duc d'Orléans, was persuaded by Talleyrand to accept the French crown offered to him by the Paris revolutionaries. Talleyrand served as the French ambassador to Great Britain from 1832 to 1834 and helped bring about an era of good relations between the two nations. He also took part in the negotiations that in 1839 led to the general recognition of the independent kingdom of Belgium. He died in Paris on May 17, 1838.

Congress of Vienna

Prominent Delegates.

Representatives of all the European powers, except Turkey, assembled at the Congress, which was interrupted in February 1815 by Napoleon's escape from Elba. Most conspicuous among the numerous monarchs who attended the Congress was Alexander I, emperor of Russia, who supported such generally unpopular causes as the unification of the German states and the establishment of a constitutional government in Poland. Of the diplomats, Prince Klemens von Metternich, the Austrian minister of state who acted as the president of the Congress, played what was probably the most prominent part in the negotiations. Although the major powers—Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria—had agreed that neither France nor Spain, nor any of the smaller powers, should be party to any important decisions, the French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, who represented the restored French king Louis XVIII, succeeded in securing for France an equal share in the deliberations. Great Britain was represented mainly by its foreign minister Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, and by the general and statesman Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington. The principal delegate from Prussia was Prince Karl August von Hardenberg.

Major Decisions.

As a result of the negotiations at the Congress, France was deprived of all the territory conquered by Napoleon; the Dutch Republic was united with the Austrian Netherlands to form a single kingdom of the Netherlands under the house of Orange; Norway and Sweden were joined under a single ruler, Charles XIV John of Sweden; and the independence and neutrality of Switzerland were guaranteed, with the union of its cantons reconstituted as a loose confederation. In addition, Russia received the major part of the former duchy of Warsaw as the kingdom of Poland, with Alexander I as king; Prussia received West Prussia, Posen (now the Polish province of Poznan), the northern half of Saxony, and the greater part of the provinces of the Rhine and Westphalia; Hannover received territorial additions and became a kingdom; Austria was given back most of the territory it had recently lost and was compensated in Germany and Italy (Lombardia and Venice) for the loss of the Austrian Netherlands. The formerly Venetian part of Dalmatia (now in Croatia) also went to Austria; Britain kept Cape Colony (now Cape Province), in South Africa, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Mauritius, Helgoland, and Malta; the king of Sardinia recovered Piedmont, Nice, and Savoy and received Genoa; the Bourbon king Ferdinand I was restored to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies; and the duchy of Parma was bestowed on Napoleon's wife, Marie Louise (1791–1847) of Austria. A territorial commission was convened at Frankfurt, and by 1819 it had established the Germanic Confederation, uniting 39 sovereign states, including Prussia, under the presidency of Austria.

The Congress took the important step of condemning the slave trade and also provided for freedom of navigation on rivers that traversed several states or formed boundaries between states. Its chief accomplishment was in reestablishing a balance of power among the countries of Europe, with the result that the peace remained practically undisturbed for 40 years.

Directions: We will answer the following questions by working at stations in groups for five minutes a piece.

Metternich

  1. How did Metternich ruin Russia and Prussia’s plans at the Congress of Vienna?
  2. Who made up the Quadruple Alliance?
  3. Metternich was chancellor of what empire and when?
  4. What was Metternich’s ideal form of government?

Castlereagh

1.What was Castlereagh a member of from 1801 until his death?

2.From 1805-1809, Castlereagh was what position

3.After 1812, Castlereagh was what position?

4.What country did Castlereagh represent?

Alexander I

  1. When was Alexander the Czar of Russia?
  2. What did Alexander create in 1815?
  3. What countries joined the answer to #2?
  4. What was the goal of answer #2?
  5. Who succeeded Alexander I?

Karl August von Hardenberg

  1. Hardenberg was leader of what country?
  2. Who did Hardenberg form an alliance with in 1813?
  3. Who was Prussia’s king at this point?
  4. What two pieces of land did Prussia receive at the Congress of Vienna?

Talleyrand

  1. Where did Talleyrand go in 1792 after the monarch was overthrown?
  2. What country did Talleyrand serve at the Congress of Vienna?
  3. What did Talleyrand disagree with Napoleon about?

4. What boundaries did France go back to? (what year?)

Congress of Vienna

  1. Which country did not go to the Congress of Vienna?
  2. What happened to Norway and Sweden?
  3. The Congress of Vienna condemned what?
  4. The Congress of Vienna allowed for freedom of what?
  5. What was the chief accomplishment of the Congress of Vienna?

Metternich

  1. How did Metternich ruin Russia and Prussia’s plans at the Congress of Vienna?
  2. Who made up the Quadruple Alliance?
  3. Metternich was chancellor of what empire and when?
  4. What was Metternich’s ideal form of government?
  1. Block Russia’s plan to annex Poland and Prussia’s attempt to absorb Saxony
  2. Great Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria
  3. Habsburg Empire 1821-1848
  4. A monarchy that shared power with privledged classes of society

Castlereagh

5.What was Castlereagh a member of from 1801 until his death?

6.From 1805-1809, Castlereagh was what position

7.After 1812, Castlereagh was what position?

8.What country did Castlereagh represent?

  1. House of Commons
  2. Secretary of War
  3. Foreign secretary
  4. Great Britain

Alexander I

  1. When was Alexander the Czar of Russia?
  2. What did Alexander create in 1815?
  3. What countries joined the answer to #2?
  4. What was the goal of answer #2?
  5. Who succeeded Alexander I?
  1. 1801-1825
  2. Holy Alliance
  3. Austria, Russia and Prussia
  4. To have high Christian ideals across Europe
  5. His brother Nicholas I

Karl August von Hardenberg

  1. Hardenberg was leader of what country?
  2. Who did Hardenberg form an alliance with in 1813?
  3. Who was Prussia’s king at this point?
  4. What two pieces of land did Prussia receive at the Congress of Vienna?
  1. Prussia
  2. Russia
  3. Frederick William III
  4. Saxony and the Rhineland

Talleyrand

  1. Where did Talleyrand go in 1792 after the monarch was overthrown?
  2. What country did Talleyrand serve at the Congress of Vienna?
  3. What did Talleyrand disagree with Napoleon about?
  4. What boundaries did France go back to? (what year?)
  1. England
  2. France
  3. War with Austria, Russia and Prussia around 1805-1806
  4. 1789

Congress of Vienna

  1. Which country did not go to the Congress of Vienna?
  2. What happened to Norway and Sweden?
  3. The Congress of Vienna condemned what?
  4. The Congress of Vienna allowed for freedom of what?
  5. What was the chief accomplishment of the Congress of Vienna?
  1. Turkey
  2. Joined under a single ruler
  3. The slave trade
  4. Navigation on rivers that traversed several states
  5. Re-established a balance of power