Metternich- The First European

by Desmond Seward

  In April 1835 Princess Mélanie had written in her journal, 'We had a sort of dinner party for the learned. Among the merry-makers were Mme von Goethe, the poet's daughter-in-law, and Mme Jameson, a blue-stocking in every sense of the word . . . As it was, these two persons, of whom I had been really frightened, talked in the easiest and most agreeable way, so that one is completely at ease with them.' (Mrs Jameson, born Anna Murphy and a former governess, was the author of the highly fashionable Diary of an Ennuyée.)

  Another British writer who met the Metternichs was Anthony Trollope's mother, the novelist Frances Trollope, who recorded her impressions of them in Vienna and the Austrians (1838). 'The Prince is of medium height and slim.' He 'normally has a gentle and kindly expression, but his pale blue eyes give the impression of a profoundly thoughtful man. He is gracious and dignified, both innately and in manner; he imparts by his whole bearing an air of tranquility, of philosophic calm'. She was struck by his love of poetry and much admired 'a felicitous choice of words and a clarity which stamped all his thought with a remarkable precision'. He told her that 'political science can be reduced to terms as exact as those of chemistry; if only men would refrain from theorising and take the trouble to note the similar nature of results traceable to identical causes'. As for Mélanie, 'She is young and full of charm. Her humorous and animated expression is not entirely without a touch of disdain. But one can pardon a pretty young woman, especially when she tempers it, as does this seductive creature, with a deliciously sweet smile that plays around her lips at the very moment of her most outrageous sallies.' Mrs Trollope was moved by the affection which the couple showed for each other—'that conjugal affection more often encountered in novels than in life'.

  Like some modern politicians, the chancellor was only too well aware of the value of a flattering profile in print and prepared to pay the price for such gushing testimonies as that of Frances Trollope. For once one has the impression made by the interviewer on the interviewed. 'Clemens, Hermione and I dined at the English ambassador's,' Mélanie writes. 'Among the guests was mistress [sic] Trollope. She is a worthy woman, very simple and straight-forward, who listens to one attentively and is grateful for the least hint of sympathy. She must be between forty and forty-five and has a slightly vulgar look, although her conversation suggests she has been impeccably brought up. She made a conquest of my husband while for his part he gave me the feeling that he had done the same with her.'

  'He was the sort of man that nowadays would be equally a favourite with the ladies in the drawing-room and with the men in the smoking-room,' an Edwardian biographer suggests. 'The former he would probably have delighted with descriptions of the dresses worn at the Court of Napoleon in 1809 and at the Congress of Vienna in 1815; the latter with anecdotes of Napoleon and perhaps a vivid account of the famous interview in the Marcolini Palace.' Even so, he had at least one disconcerting trait, according to Baron Meyendorff, who was the Russian ambassador to Vienna during the 1830s. After paying tribute to his distinguished bearing and good looks, to his 'stiff grace', the baron tells us how all this changed if Metternich laughed. 'There was something Mephistophelian in the grimace, while the prince's voice, normally a drawl, grew harsh and high pitched when he joked.'

  The couple went out a good deal, enjoying the pleasures of Biedermeier Vienna to the full. They saw Schuster at the Leopoldstadt Theatre, the comic genius Nestroy at the Wieden (once 'in a new, very pretty little piece called "Lumpazivagabundus" ') and heard the first Viennese performance of Hérold's Zampa at the Kärntnerthor. They walked in the Helenenthal, listening to the elder Strauss's orchestra and a regimental band greet Emperor Francis with the Gotterhalte and then serenade him. Occasionally they drove out into the country in the evenings, visiting Dommayer's Restaurant at Hietzing, where they danced to an excellent band.

  Despite such relaxations and his wife's unfailing support, Metternich suffered a good deal from strain caused by worry and too much work. Even in the first weeks of their marriage Mélanie noted, 'Clemens is overwhelmed by business and his nerves are affected—he is sick of finding so much work mount up because of his ambassadors' mistakes.' In January 1834 she records that he has had to stay in bed and how she has read him an article from the Révue de Paris about Bonny Prince Charlie. He told her that he had persuaded George IV to erect a monument to the Prince (Canova's in St Peter's?). And then he burst into such a violent fit of weeping that she was very frightened. He had other nervous crises of the same sort.

  He lived in constant fear of revolution, relying heavily on police intelligence and censorship. This is frequently cited as the darkest side of the 'Metternich System'—a misused phrase—and has been consistently exaggerated. Admittedly he worked closely with Count Josef Sedlnitsky, who was head of the Polizeihofstelle (Imperial Police Department) from 1816 until 1848 and did exactly what the chancellor told him. Indeed, in 1817 Metternich boasted, 'In me you behold Europe's chief minister of police.' Beyond question Austria was a police state. The Polizeihofstelle, founded by Joseph II, had been expanded by Francis during the wars with France and had bureaux all over the Empire, together with agents and informers. In 1801 it took over the censorship, including the Geheime Zifferkanzlei (Cipher Office) in the Hofstallburg. Not only were books, plays and newspapers censored, but letters too.

  Foreign as well as diplomatic correspondence was intercepted by the Geheime Zifferkanzlei. One expert claimed to have cracked 85 codes; the French cypher was broken by 'borrowing' it from the ambassador's son while he slept. Opening, copying and resealing took the Postlogisten under two hours, between a letter's arrival at the central post office in Vienna at 7.00 a.m. and its return in time for the mail, which left at 9.00. Code experts accompanied the chancellor everywhere, even to Johannisberg or Königswart.

  Metternich created a species of 'Interpol' to combat international revolution. Intelligence reports reached him from every Austrian embassy and consulate. There was an 'Investigation Centre' at Mainz for Germany, aided by the Rothschilds' information service. The Italian states were helpful, especially Parma and Modena. If Prussia and Bavaria were not always so cooperative, General Benckendorff's Third Section at St Petersburg was in constant touch. France assisted sometimes until 1830, while even Britain occasionally sent in reports about Mazzini. In addition, embassy staff in every European capital gathered information about the opinions and weaknesses of public figures and the whereabouts of revolutionaries and political refugees. A British observer had commented in 1819, 'Nothing can surpass Prince Metternich's activities in collecting facts and information upon the inward feelings of the people.'

  All this gave the chancellor a sinister reputation, which was magnified out of all proportion by his liberal opponents. But, as he saw it, he was defending not just Austria but all Europe from revolution and war. There were very few political prisoners in the Empire and certainly no torture. The total police force in Vienna was 700 (including a mounted detachment and a 'civic guard'), which was less than a quarter of the number of regular constables in London. There were only 22 Postlogisten. (Even in Britain the Home Office censored the letters of dangerous radicals, albeit on a smaller scale.)

  A very modern feature of Metternich's approach to politics was his attitude to the press, at home and abroad. As has been seen, the Österreichischer Beobachter was the government's mouthpiece. The British ambassador reported, 'Every day the editor of this journal, Josef-Anton von Pilat, comes to the Chancellery and, after receiving the master's orders, settles down in the antechamber to write the article for the next day, the text of which is immediately submitted to the Chancellor.' Metternich suggested many of the articles, continuing to provide some himself; they dealt with current affairs, internal and external, from his own special point of view. Gentz was sadly missed, as to a lesser extent were Adam Müller and Friedrich von Schlegel, who had both died before Gentz. To some degree Gentz's place was filled by another Prussian, Karl Ernst Jarcke, the 'mini-Gentz'; born in Danzig, a former pro
fessor of criminal law at Berlin University who became a fanatical Catholic and Ultra, Dr Jarcke joined the chancellery at Vienna in 1838 when he was thirty-seven, advising Metternich on publicity for the next decade. Intellectual journals, such as the Wiener Zeitung, also published articles on lines suggested by the Ballhausplatz in return for secret subsidies.

  Ambassadors had the task of making Austria's views known abroad by infiltrating articles into the foreign press. Editors often helped without realizing, by publishing unsigned copy of mysterious provenance. Sometimes these contributions contained blatant untruths so that the Austrian government could then refute them—as in London in 1827 when Esterházy succeeded in placing several such pieces in the Morning Chronicle. The Ballhausplatz provided all its embassies with suitable material. The Journal de Francfort, a French language publication financed by Vienna which covered international affairs, circulated in every European capital and its articles were always available for copy—like syndicated articles today. Ironically, Metternich despised journalism. He once said of a French lawyer, who seems to have been a journalist, 'You might say that he was born from dung, just as Venus was born from sea-spray.'

  Metternich's relations with his ambassadors and diplomatic staff were unusually warm. He liked envoys to stay en poste, sometimes for over twenty years. He was not bothered by sexual or financial peccadilloes, by bad manners, even by inefficiency. He let Baron Vincent remain at Paris so that he could reach retiring age and not be disgraced, despite his unpopularity with the embassy as well as the French. Such an attitude earned the chancellor genuine loyalty while his men gained a deeper understanding of local conditions. Vincent, Apponyi, Esterházy, Neumann, Zichy, Ficquelmont, Mercy, Floret, Wessenberg, Lebzeltem, Ottenfels, all did him remarkable service. The Austrian diplomatic corps was the most professional and the most dedicated in Europe.

  Sometimes Metternich sent someone like Floret to find out just what was happening in the embassies. If shortcomings emerged, he reacted tolerantly. He was sympathetic. Bertier de Sauvigny cites Metternich's reply of March 1846 to the Austrian minister at Florence, Baron Neumann, who had asked for permission to visit Rome:

  Go or don't go, depending on whether you feel you can do so without harming the service. You are much too reliable and experienced a diplomatist to need advice, particularly advice from 300 leagues away. I authorise you to do what you want, and at whatever time you think proper or convenient.

  Clearly he was a pleasant man to work for—'His manner towards colleagues was always charming,' Prokesch-Osten tells us.

  However, all Metternich's envoys were swamped by reams of verbose advice. In despatches he was alarmingly garrulous, a failing of which he was well aware; he once said that he knew how to bore men to death. But the essence of what he had to say was invariably to the point.

  The chancellery at the Ballhausplatz was not only the centre of Metternich's official life but his principal home. 'You cannot think how beautiful my rooms are when the sun shines through them,' he wrote once. Always careful about the impression he made on visitors, there was a vast antechamber in which they waited for their audience. 'It is a really magnificent room, eighteen foot high, the walls covered with books up to the ceiling. There are some 15,000 volumes in fine mahogany bookcases without glass.' As for his study, it too was large—'I like to be able to move about'—with three windows and huge chests-of-drawers. During May and June he worked at his villa on the Rennweg, luxuriating in its beautiful garden.

  Ironically, in view of his love of the Czech countryside, Metternich's principal rival at this time was a Czech, Count Anton Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky, former Burgraf (Governor) of Bohemia. This bad-tempered, aggressive nobleman, a curious combination of great landowner and bureaucrat who became what in effect was minister of the Interior, has been mistakenly claimed as a liberal because of his sympathy for all Slavs and dislike of Metternich. Admittedly he told the chancellor that his policies amounted to no more than 'a forest of bayonets' and 'leaving things as they were', that he was playing into the revolutionaries' hands. But on the same occasion he assured Metternich, 'I am an aristocrat by birth and conviction and agree totally with you that one must strive for conservatism . . . We differ only about methods.' From 1828–48 Kolowrat was head of the Staatsrat's political and financial departments. He had found favour with the Emperor by sending in a list of Bohemian freemasons with his own father's name at the top; he confirmed this good impression by balancing the Monarchy's budget for 1829. Quite apart from natural antipathy, Kolowrat undermined Metternich by a ruthless paring of the defence budget; he described the Imperial army as 'a shield which weighed down the rider'. The chancellor had a chance to demand Kolowrat's dismissal at the end of 1829, after he had been insufferably rude, but refrained, telling the Emperor that Kolowrat was 'a useful tool'. Metternich had nothing to fear from him while Francis lived.

  Meanwhile, Austria's position in Germany was threatened by a new phenomenon, the Zollverein. This had originated in a number of separate customs unions which grew up within the confederation after Prussia made her territories a tariff-free zone in 1818. Her new possessions in the Rhineland and Westphalia had given her control of many of Germany's most important trade routes and waterways, and in 1828 she began a trade war to force the other unions to join her in a single union. Six years later, the Zollverein was formally inaugurated; by 1836 the only German states outside it, apart from Austria, were the Hanseatic ports and the Hanoverian customs union. Metternich warned the Emperor of the danger of economic domination by Prussia. If no economist, Metternich was eager for Austria to accept the Zollverein's repeated invitations to lower her tariff barriers and join. But Kolowrat and Austrian business interests refused to allow any reduction in tariffs.

  The winter of 1834–5 was a bitter one. 'I was terribly upset this morning to hear from Clemens that the Emperor was dangerously ill,' Mélanie recorded on 23 February. Francis had caught a chill after going to the Burgtheater which turned into pneumonia. Five days later, Mélanie wrote, 'We see death approaching.' The Emperor was conscious until almost the last moment. His chancellor persuaded him to sign a document, addressed to the heir to the throne, which had been drafted by Gentz for just such a crisis; it was taken in to the dying man by his confessor, in case Metternich's opponents should try to prevent it reaching him. The key sentences read, 'Give to Prince Metternich, my most faithful servant and best friend, the confidence which I have shown him over so many years. Do not take any decision concerning public affairs or about people without first hearing what he has to say.'

  During Francis's last agony, two days after signing the document, Metternich took the Archdukes and Kolowrat into an adjoining room and told them, 'In future the throne will be occupied not by a man but by a symbol, as on an altar. We must serve it like priests in order to fulfill our duty. The Emperor Ferdinand will be a species of Dalai Lama.'

  Emperor Francis died on 2 March 1835. There is no need to doubt the chancellor's grief. However, he assured Count Apponyi in Paris that 'no innovation in policy or principle will take place during the new reign'.

  16

  'A Continuous Chain of Rearguard Actions,' 1835–43

  . . . a continuous chain of rearguard actions to delay, to cover, and to argue away the breakdown of the Concert of Europe and all it stood for.

  R. A. KANN, 'Metternich,

  a Reappraisal of his Impact . . .'

  Metternich is only a shade of his former self.

  TSAR NICHOLAS I in 1845

  His Royal, Apostolic and Imperial Majesty Ferdinand I was a physical and mental defective, known popularly in Vienna as Ferdy the Fool—Nandl der Trottel. Yet he spoke several languages fluently, performed ceremonial roles adequately and possessed a naïve charm which inspired affection. He was touchingly supported by his beautiful and saintly wife, Maria Anna of Savoy. As he was childless, there had been talk of replacing him by his younger brother, the Archduke Franz Karl (father of the future Emperor Francis Josef) bu
t Franz Karl was almost as ineffectual. Baron von Kübeck, a senior official in the financial department, wrote gloomily that Austria was now a monarchy without a monarch. This did not worry Metternich. He had always supported Ferdinand's succession, partly from respect for the legitimist principle of primogeniture, and had urged his coronation as King of Hungary. No doubt too he hoped that someone so amiable and so easy to manage would enable him to control Austrian policy more completely than he had under Francis. Indeed, on seeing his employer return from the Hofburg, flushed and with glistening eyes, to announce, 'The Rubicon has been crossed—Ferdinand is Kaiser,' Dr Jäger asked himself, 'Had I before me, I wondered, a new Richelieu, or a new Mayor of the Palace of the sort there used to be in the time of the Merovingian Kings?'

  Francis I had bequeathed a species of triumvirate. In his will he stipulated that, besides the chancellor, his brother Archduke Ludwig should advise on 'important matters of domestic administration', and for the moment it would be difficult to remove Kolowrat. Even so, for a time it really did seem as if Metternich had a chance to make himself all-powerful. He reckoned without Ludwig's elder brothers. Archduke Karl, the hero of Aspern-Essling, and the Liberal Archduke Johann (who had married Fräulein Plochl, daughter of a Styrian postman), were mortified by their exclusion from power. At first, however, they did not appreciate that they had an ally in Kolowrat.