Metternich- The First European

by Desmond Seward

  Metternich's entire policy after 1822 has been described with some truth as a series of rearguard actions to conceal the end of the Concert of Europe. Admittedly, he had at least succeeded in reviving the Triple Alliance. However, from 1835 onwards his power base grew steadily weaker, and he was to be threatened increasingly on all fronts. Nonetheless, regardless of advancing years and growing discouragement, he fought on with undiminished skill and determination.

  There was another meeting of the sovereigns of the Triple Alliance at Teplitz in September 1835, as if to emphasise that nothing had changed. Poor Ferdinand was overwhelmed and would never attend such a meeting again. Yet although Ferdinand made an unhappy impression on the Russians, who knew a madman when they saw one, the chancellor was able to build on the sound relationship which had been established at Münchengrätz. When Francis died, Nicholas had assured Vienna that he saw the 'internal tranquillity' of the Austrian and Russian empires as a matter of mutual concern, promising to safeguard it with 'all the resources and all the power with which Providence had endowed him'. He now repeated these assurances. (In 1837 he would inform Metternich, through Count Tatischev, his ambassador, that 'in any eventuality Austria can count on Russia, for the Tsar will never forget what he promised at Münchengrätz'.) There was full agreement on every aspect of international policy, and on questions nearer home. The Third Section at St Petersburg appointed an officer to liaise with Count Sedlnitsky's Polizeihofstelle at Vienna. Russia, Austria and Prussia sent an ultimatum to the tiny Polish Republic of Cracow that unless it at once restrained the activities of revolutionaries who had taken refuge there, they would send in troops to do so—as they did in 1836.

  Tsar Nicholas also insisted on visiting Vienna. 'Write to your wife and let me bring your letter to her,' he told Metternich. When he arrived, he made a point of calling on Mélanie as well as on the Empress, treating the Princess 'with the most exquisite tact and the most perfect propriety'. His visit was undoubtedly intended as a gesture of support for the chancellor.

  Metternich was encouraged by overtures from Louis Philippe. While he never ceased to distrust the 'royalty of the barricades' or the land of the Comité Directeur—where Buonarotti was training a no less terrible successor in Auguste Blanqui—he now realized that the King of the French was secretly a conservative. 'He only uses the cast-off clothes of liberalism as a covering,' he observed to Count von Hübner in July 1833. 'Having seized the throne, Louis Philippe wants to stay there,' he told Apponyi the following September. He tried to influence the King by sending him notes through the Paris embassy; even if he could not persuade him to go further right, he hoped that a closer link might make for smoother international relations. Eager for respectability and acceptance by other European dynasties, the July monarchy sought the hand of an Austrian Archduchess for the heir to the French throne. In the summer of 1836, with his brother the Duc de Nemours, the Prince Royal—the handsome and charming Duc d'Orléans—arrived in Vienna to seek a bride. When his eye lit on Archduke Karl's daughter Teresa she was horrified, saying that such a match was a death sentence, since she would undoubtedly be murdered in the next French Revolution; no one in Austria had forgotten the fate of Marie Antoinette. The entire Imperial family opposed the marriage. So did the chancellor, despite Orléans calling at the Ballhausplatz to beg Metternich not to stand in the way of his happiness. Metternich was confirmed in his view by news from Paris of an attempt to assassinate Louis Philippe.

  Meanwhile, Metternich's quarrel with Kolowrat came to a head when the chancellor took charge of the arrangements for Ferdinand's coronation as King of Bohemia at Prague on 7 September. As the minister responsible for internal affairs, and as former Grand Burgrave of Bohemia, Kolowrat was outraged by the 'Rhinelander' interfering in a matter which meant so much to his homeland. He threatened to resign but instead went off to his estates on sick leave; Metternich commented that the minister was suffering from 'piles which had mounted to his head', a reference to his love of desk work.

  The chancellor would regret that he had not insisted on Kolowrat proceeding with his resignation. Kolowrat blocked Metternich's policies in too many fields. The adjutant-general, Count Karl Clam-Martinitz, head of the army department in the Staatsrat, and General Radetzky, commander-in-chief in Italy, were constantly complaining of his economies with the military budget; inevitably an underfunded army must weaken Austria's international standing. Kolowrat's fellow Bohemian magnates, farmers on a vast scale, had persuaded him to resist any reduction in duties on imported beet sugar, a refusal which ended any hope of entering the Zollverein. Worst of all, Kolowrat stood in the way of the chancellor's plan for reforming the Empire's administration.

  What Metternich proposed was that the Ministerkonferenz should be replaced by a ministerial cabinet in the modern sense, with the chancellor as 'prime minister'. It would be detached from the Staatsrat, which was to become a purely advisory Reichsrat with members from the regional Landtage; this too would be under the chancellor's presidency. The new system meant an end of the old Kabinettsweg or loose ministerial council, now rudderless in the absence of a firm ruler. Had the plan been adopted, Metternich would have become effectively regent of the Empire. Yet his object was not so much personal power as efficiency—to put an end to the confusion between the consultative and executive spheres of government. In retirement he wrote, 'One of the great obstacles with which I have had to battle during my ministry has been the lack of energy in the internal administration.' Indeed he considered Kolowrat 'fundamentally honest'; his real objection to Kolowrat was that the latter was at bottom no more than a hidebound bureaucrat.

  Similarly, there was more to Kolowrat's hostility to the chancellor's plan than mere personal dislike. He was not just a dull bureaucrat who disliked change but a convinced centralist in the tradition of Joseph II. He genuinely feared that Metternich's foreign policy might endanger Austria, through spending too much on 'the forest of bayonets' or by embarking on a war. He was certain that he himself was far better qualified to run the Monarchy.

  After learning at the end of October 1836 that Archduke Ludwig had approved the plan, Kolowrat contacted Archduke Johann, who hastened to Vienna. There began a partnership between the two men which would survive until 1848. They had the tacit support of Archduke Karl, who was very angry at Metternich's refusal to let him become commander-in-chief in place of his lunatic nephew. Johann swiftly rallied the chancellor's many enemies and won over Ludwig, after which he confronted Metternich in a three-hour meeting at the Ballhausplatz. Abandoned by all save Clam-Martinitz, the chancellor gave way.

  Johann and Kolowrat then produced an alternative scheme, which was adopted. A Ministerkonferenz was established, but with a committee of four at its head instead of the chancellor—Archdukes Ludwig and Franz Karl, Kolowrat, and Metternich. Ludwig was nominally president, while Kolowrat remained effective head of the Staatsrat, with control of the treasury and official appointments.

  Many observers were surprised that the chancellor did not resign. Some historians suggest that he could not afford to do so because of his extravagant private life. Yet if a severe blow, both for himself and the Monarchy, it was far from being total defeat. Kolowrat had not emerged as a 'prime minister', even if he succeeded in dominating Archduke Ludwig. 'It is true that he [Kolowrat] held control of the purse-strings in the Monarchy just as before 1835, but the man who really controlled the higher imperial police was Metternich, who likewise had the leading voice in the affairs of Italy and Hungary' is the verdict of the Austrian Empire's latest historian, Alan Sked. 'There is a strong case to be made out, therefore, that, given his control of defence and foreign affairs also, Metternich's position was stronger than Kolowrat's.'

  Even so, after 1836 the chancellor gave up hope of reforming the Austrian administration. He had placed great hopes on his plan; Mélanie records sleepless nights during the negotiations. The new regime was still slower and less enterprising than that of the Emperor Francis in his last year
s. Ludwig, who presided over the Ministerkonferenz, was too limited and indecisive to offer any sort of leadership, insisting on the submission of written reports on almost all items on the agenda, while Franz Karl could barely understand the proceedings at all. The chancellor and Kolowrat were frequently at loggerheads.

  Nevertheless, Metternich had survived Francis's departure with much of his power intact. Outside observers received the impression that nothing had changed, that he was still the most powerful man in Europe. Even his critics among the Archdukes and the bureaucrats still considered him indispensable for Austria's wellbeing. The exception was Kolowrat, who nursed an implacable hatred for the chancellor. However, this was not reciprocated by Metternich, who tried to work with Kolowrat as best he could. He knew very well that the Monarchy's finances were unsound, admitting that economies in the army were unavoidable. He was thinking of finance when he confided to General Clam-Martinitz in the summer of 1838, 'We cannot sack Kolowrat—he would only come back as a ghost.' (One reason for the chancellor's seeming serenity during this difficult time may have been the birth of his youngest son, Lothar, in 1837, forty years after the birth of his first child.)

  The menacing figure of Buonarotti left the scene in September 1837. The republican demonstration at the old Robespierrist's funeral was a chilling reminder of the continuing hold of Messianic socialism, of the threat of revolution. A thousand French and Italian workers followed the cortège of 'the friend of equality'. (Blanqui, under police surveillance, was prevented from attending.) Yet 'Buonarettism' was split. Metternich had observed shrewdly in 1834, after Young Italy's abortive invasion of Savoy, that the 'head of the committee'—Buonarotti—did not approve of the plans of 'this bold conspirator'—Mazzini. 'The old conspirator [Buonarotti] could not conceive the Day of Judgement without fire and gnashing of teeth,' says J. L. Talmon. 'Dictatorship and terror were, in his opinion, the inescapable necessity of the Revolution.' Buonarotti had therefore 'excommunicated' Mazzini, who believed that a wave of brotherly love would accompany the revolution in Italy, making terror unnecessary. Nor had Buonarotti approved of his unruly disciple's recruitment of members of the Italian aristocracy. But in January 1837 Mazzini had gone to London, where he would spend a decade in exile.

  Since Ferdinand had performed so well during his crowning at Prague, the chancellor decided to have another coronation at Milan. The Emperor was crowned as King of Lombardy in September 1838 with the hallowed Iron Crown (hammered out of a nail from the True Cross. Save for Napoleon's gaudy usurpation in 1805, the ceremony had not been performed for centuries). There was an amnesty for political prisoners and the occasion typified the chancellor's strategy of giving the separate peoples of the Monarchy an illusion of independence and national identity. For a week the Metternich salon was the centre of social life in the northern Italian capital, Rossini playing the piano while the great tenor Prince Belgiojoso sang his songs.

  The Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia was ruled as an Austrian province, not as a separate state. The Viceroy's role was basically ceremonial, his powers negligible. Nor did the 'Aulic Council' at Vienna have any real independent existence. The Kingdom was administered from the Imperial capital by Austrian government departments. Moreover, Metternich had a special official stationed in Milan whose function was to provide a direct link between the chancellor and the governor, as well as reporting on the political situation—especially on any symptoms of popular unrest. Metternich had scant respect for Italians. 'Italy is full of idlers and proletarians who pour out words in cafés and the other public places which customarily pass for home among them,' he commented to Apponyi in 1831. As for the northern Italians, he told a Milanese at about the same time, 'The Lombards have never been more pro-Austrian than when they were under the [Napoleonic] Kingdom of Italy, and they have never been more opposed to Austria than when under our government.'

  Even so, his attitude was very far from being hostile. Many Italian as well as Austrian officials were employed. He was most anxious to develop the Kingdom's economy, and in 1841 urged the building of railways to link it to Vienna. His purpose was not just to integrate Lombardy-Venetia more closely into the Empire, but to demonstrate to other Italian states that its government was the most efficient and beneficial in the entire peninsula. He was optimistic that after a period of 'quarantine' from revolutionary politics, and the rooting out of secret societies, there would be no more need for excessive police surveillance or for Marshal Radetzky's garrisons to be quite so watchful.

  Unfortunately, although Metternich loved Italy, he never understood any of its inhabitants. In Lombardy-Venetia he antagonised not so much the professional classes, who benefitted from what was undoubtedly the most efficiently run and most prosperous economy in the peninsula, as the aristocracy. He insisted on the vetting of all titles and pretensions in nobility, applying strict Austrian standards to what had always been a much more easygoing system. No one except those with sixteen quarterings was admitted to the Vice-Regal court at Milan (and only after the quarterings had been checked), while many a duke or prince found himself demoted to a mere count. In the end, most of the northern Italian aristocracy boycotted the Metternichs' receptions, and the Jockey Club of Milan, the younger Lombard nobles' favourite meeting place, bristled with hostility. Another irritation was the Austrian civil law code, in itself excellent but which required a working knowledge of German if precedents were to be cited. In addition, there were frequent grumbles at the arrogance of the military, although this contained many Italian officers.

  In June 1839 Metternich had once more to attend the opening of the Hungarian Diet at Pressburg, which had had to be summoned because of the Empire's financial problems. The Magyars had a genuine constitution, however archaic—a larger percentage of the population possessed the vote than in Orléanist France. Magyar had replaced Latin as the language of debates, which were frequently noisy, the lesser nobility which provided most of the deputies being especially aggressive. The Diet's formal consent had to be obtained before taxes could be levied or troops conscripted, and it was often vociferous in criticising the policies of the Palatine's Council—which in practice meant attacking the Hungarian Chancellery at Vienna. There were formidable opposition leaders, such as Barons Wesselényi and Eötvös, Count Batthyányi, Déak and Lajos Kossuth. The latter, a half-Slovak petty noble turned journalist, advocated a programme of reform which included everything most dreaded by Metternich; if implemented, it would create a liberal Hungary all but independent of Austria. The chancellor considered Kossuth and his followers to be subversives, telling the Palatine Archduke Joseph that 'the Hungarian polity is a monarchical-aristocratic one; it cannot be accommodated to democratic institutions'. He foresaw civil war and in 1837 had secured from the Tsar a written guarantee that he would intervene if there was a revolt—'At all costs Austria could depend on Russia.'

  The situation in Hungary had been made still more difficult by Kolowrat, who in 1836 had used his control of official appointments to make his son-in-law Count Pálffy head of the Hungarian Chancellery. Although Pálffy bore one of Hungary's greatest names, he could not speak a word of his native language. For a time, Metternich lost control of Hungarian affairs—which was one of Kolowrat's motives for making the appointment—and under Pálffy's inept and brutal handling the situation grew critical. Kossuth and Wesselényi were arrested, accused of treason and sent to prison. However, by then everyone realized that Pálffy had lost his head and would have to go.

  By 1841, the chancellor had accepted that Hungary could only be ruled through the Diet. When Pálffy's successor had been appointed and Metternich regained control, he began to work with the conservative party, while he had Kossuth and Wesselény released from prison under a special amnesty for political prisoners which he had introduced in 1840. He recognised that a 'quarantine' of the sort employed in Italy was out of the question, that a subtler approach was needed. Throughout he kept in touch with Isztvan Széchenyi, although rejecting his offer to media
te with the Diet. Széchenyi led a group of deputies who saw themselves as Hungarian Whigs and whose political position was between those of the conservative Count Dessewffy and Kossuth; they were dedicated to administrative and economic reform—their aims being well symbolised by the new suspension bridge inspired by their leader, which was to join Buda to Pest—but they never had any hope of winning power. The future lay with the fiery Kossuth and his Magyar gentry.

  In June 1839 the Eastern Question flared up again, when Mehemet Ali's troops under their French officers inflicted a total defeat on the Ottoman army at Nisib in Syria. Sultan Mahmud II, who had sent the expedition to reconquer Syria for him, died of drink just before news of the disaster reached the Porte. The entire Turkish fleet defected to the Egyptians, who were now in a position to attack Constantinople. Once again Metternich fell back on the Concert of Europe. He had already proposed a conference of the five great powers, to meet at Vienna and discuss the problems of the Porte. This time even Palmerston accepted. No reply was received from Russia, but Austria, Prussia, Britain and France sent a note to the Turks, guaranteeing the survival of their empire. However, in August Tsar Nicholas—always suspicious—sent word that Russia would not be represented at the Vienna conference. He implied that the chancellor had deserted him in order to ally with France.

  In mid-August, worn out by work and worry at the prospect of the end of the Triple Alliance, Metternich had a total physical and nervous breakdown. He collapsed—a stroke was feared. He was forced to rest completely for six weeks. Count Fiquelmont, ambassador at St Petersburg and a man whom he regarded as the ablest of his subordinates, took over while he convalesced at Johannisberg.

  During his absence there was a new and astonishing alignment, between the Tsar and Palmerston. A new conference was to take place at London early in 1840. It was hoped that the five great powers would reach an agreement and settle the problem of Egypt and Turkey once and for all.