Klemens von Metternich

“ The person so severely handled in two places of these letters where he is not named, is plainly enough Prince Metternich; a statesman who, whatever may be his abilities, and whatever may have been his merits—and merits in the management of German affairs—from the peace of Vienna in 1809, to that of Paris in [Pg 338] 1815, (and it were out of place to attempt discussing these points here,) was plainly in every respect the antipodes of Stein; and a man whom the hot Prussian baron could no more form a just judgment of, than Martin Luther could of Erasmus. ”

“ He is too enlightened not to perceive its most palpable defect . . . He might have courage to sacrifice himself for the institution of effective remedies, but he fears that the confiding benignity of his Sovereign might afterwards be dissuaded from the just and vigorous application of them.” (F.O. Austria. Gordon. Jan.–Dec., 1819.) Metternich’s power, after all, was limited by the goodwill of his master, the emperor Francis, and Francis trusted him precisely because he seemed to share his own fanatical hatred of all change. ”

“ The liberal views of the English Canning gave Metternich both solicitude and disgust; and he did all he could to undermine the influence of Capo D'Istrias, the Greek diplomatist, with his imperial master the Czar. He hated any man who was politically enlightened, and destroyed him if he could. The event in his long reign which most perplexed him and gave him the greatest solicitude was the revolution in France in 1830, which unseated the Bourbons, and established the constitutional government of Louis Philippe ”

“ He, it is true, was only the tool of the great statesman, not the confidant of his thoughts--he was not Metternich, no, not Metternich, but he laboured with him in working the wonderful machine--and his quick penetrating mind seized the spirit of the whole, at least in some degree. When he speaks to me, I seem to see that old, rich, many-coloured period, and to know, as if by inspiration, what Metternich would do if he still were the friend and adviser of the house of Hapsburg. I have the will, the power to work,--the courage to fight. Why is wisdom so hard? ”

“ He knew the discontent of Italy and Poland because of unfulfilled promises. He knew the intense hatred of Prussia because of the humiliations and injuries Napoleon had inflicted on her. Metternich was equally aware of the hostility of England, although Pitt had passed away; and he despised the arrogance of a man who looked upon himself as greater than destiny. "It is an evidence of the weakness of the human understanding," said the infatuated conqueror, "for any one to dream of resisting me." ”

“ The world was not deceived; but it was not until the Vienna mob, in 1848, was thundering at the door of his cabinet that Metternich himself realized the truth to which he had tried to blind himself. With his fall his system also fell; and his flight from Vienna was the signal for the revolutions by which in 1848 all the countries under Habsburg influence were convulsed.
The resignation of Prince Metternich, handed in on the 13th of March 1848, was accepted by the emperor on the 18th, and the prince and his family at once left for England. ”

“ He never was popular until he had made Prussia the most powerful military State in Europe. He never sought to be loved so much as to be feared; he never allowed himself to be approached without politeness and deference. He seemed to care more for dogs than men. Nor was he endowed with those graces of manner which marked Metternich. He remained harsh, severe, grave, proud through his whole career, from first to last, except in congenial company. What is called society he despised, with all his aristocratic tendencies and high social rank. ”

“ In November, 1819, he convened a council of German ministers at Vienna, when, under the pretext of defining the functions of the Diet, sixty-five new articles of a repressive character were introduced into the Federal Act. The general effect of the Vienna resolutions, as these measures were termed, was to impose upon the Federation the duty of defending absolutism by force of arms in small States in which the sovereigns [Pg 25] might prove incapable themselves of maintaining a despotic form of government.
Metternich’s manipulation of the Diet was the great triumph of his home policy. ”

“ If Fortune betrayed him (Napoleon) he would give up the throne: never would he sign any shameful peace. But he added: "You must see what Metternich wants: it is not to Austria's interest to push matters to the end." In the accompanying instructions to his plenipotentiary, he seems to assent to the Alpine and Rhenish frontiers, but advises him to sign the preliminaries as vaguely as possible, "as we have everything to gain by delay." The Rhine frontier must be so described as to leave France the Dutch fortresses: and Savona and Spezzia must also count as on the French side of the Alps. ”

“ And the wonder is small to those who are aware of the central principle of Metternich’s particular method of despotism. If he desired, as he did, to order and control all the circumstances of the lives of the people of Austria, what instrument could be more apt to his hand than the social system of a philosopher who professed to know how to make any man exactly what was desired, within the limits of his natural faculty? ”

“ Even at Königsberg, the seat of government, public opinion demanded the measures he had desired. Prussia was not only strong once more, but was ardent to redeem its disgrace. The reflex influence of the popular movements in Prussia and Austria upon one another had intensified both, until the more advanced leaders in the two countries cared little whether the process of German regeneration was begun under Hohenzollern or Hapsburg leadership. Into this surcharged atmosphere came Metternich with his exaggerated statements about the great reactionary party in France. ”

“ The lesser German princes, too, were quick to grasp at any means to strengthen their position against the dominant powers, and to this end they appealed to the Liberal sentiment of their peoples. Not that this sentiment was very deep or widespread. The mass of the people, as Metternich rightly observed, wished for rest, not constitutions; but the minority of thoughtful men—professors, students, officials, many soldiers—resented the dashing of the hopes of German unity aroused by the War of Liberation, and had drunk deep of the revolutionary inspiration. ”

“ Moreover Russia{316} and Austria, the representatives of autocratic power in Europe, exerted their influence on the German governments in a direction opposite to the popular aspirations, and encouraged them to ignore their pledges given under the stress of invasion. It should be remembered that the Holy Alliance, of which Metternich was the inspiring genius, had been formed not only against Napoleon, but also against the freedom and the popular rights of the nations of Europe. ”

“ Therefore, when they were set forth to the allies at Reichenbach, they were unfavourably received, and for some days suspicion of Austria overclouded the previous goodwill. It was removed only by the labours of Stadion and by the tact which Metternich displayed during an interview with the Czar at Opotschna (June 17th) .
Alexander came there prejudiced against Metternich as a past master in the arts of double-dealing: he went away convinced that he meant well for the allies. "What will become of us," asked the Czar, "if Napoleon accepts your mediation?" ”

“ The famous manifesto of Frankfort, issued on behalf of the Allies (Dec. 4, 1813) , contained no such offer of acceptable terms; but Metternich’s object was attained; for Napoleon refused to be drawn into the trap, and the French people cursed the emperor’s infatuation in refusing a settlement which, from what had leaked out of Saint-Aignan’s mission, they believed would have satisfied the legitimate ambitions of France. On the other hand, Metternich did his best to oppose a too rapid advance of the allied forces on Paris, which would have played into the hands of Russia and Prussia ”

“ Though on the look-out, however, for any chance of weakening the French emperor’s power, Metternich was not at first sanguine of success, for he believed Napoleon to be invincible. For Austria the best policy seemed to him to be to temporize; he was willing, therefore, to co-operate with France in the agreement made between Napoleon and Alexander I. of Russia at Tilsit for the partition of the Ottoman Empire; failing the success of the efforts of Austrian diplomacy to break the Franco-Russian alliance, this would at least secure for the Habsburg monarchy a share of the spoils. ”

“ This did not mean, of course, that no progress was made during this long period in realizing the ideals of the liberal party in the various European states, or that one man can block the advance of nations for a generation. The very fact that Austria had, after the Congress of Vienna, assumed the leading rôle in Europe that France had played during the period following the Revolution of 1789, is a sufficient indication that Metternich's aversion to change corresponded to a general conviction that it was best, for the time being, to let well enough alone. ”

“ In politics it is often better to do well than to do a great deal, to act after due deliberation than to act hastily, and then return to deliberate. Prince Metternich is not an enemy to any form of government that has order for its basis; and this offers an explanation of his conduct since the revolution. When the Propaganda was heard every where, he decided strongly in favour of war, and his expression to the French ambassador at Vienna is well known: "If we must perish, it is just as well to die of apoplexy as to be suffocated with a slow fire; we will declare for war." ”

“ At the conference of ministers which met at Vienna, on the 20th of November, for the purpose of “developing and completing the Federal Act of the congress of Vienna,” Metternich found himself face to face with a more formidable opposition than at Carlsbad. The “middle” states, headed by Württemberg, had drawn together, to form the nucleus of an inner league of “pure German States” against Austria and Prussia, and of “Liberal particularism” against the encroachments of the diet. With Russia and, to a certain extent, Great Britain sympathetic, it was impossible to ignore their opposition. ”

“ No man knows better than Prince Metternich, the shallowness, and even the shabbiness, of the partisans of overthrow, their utter incapacity for rational freedom, the utter perfidy of their intentions, and the selfish villany of their objects. He knows, as every man of sense knows, that those Solons and Catos of revolution are composed of lawyers without practice, traders without business, ruined gamblers, and the whole swarm of characterless and contemptible idlers, who infest all the cities of Europe. ”

“ They proved that his had never been a policy of peace at any price. He had besieged Antwerp without the consent of England; he had sent an army to Ancona, though Metternich had declared that a Frenchman in Italy would be war in Europe. His government had always acted boldly and firmly, and had been respected. Why, only a few weeks before February, the great powers of Europe had asked of France to settle with her alone, and without consulting England, some of the questions which might compromise the equilibrium of Europe. Such was the consideration in which France was then held. ”

“ The Turkish ministers, however, were little disposed to show mercy to a fallen enemy who, in the days of his strength, had caused them so much anxiety. Nor were the British ambassador and the Austrian internuncio in favour of treating Mehemet Ali leniently. But Metternich had been terribly alarmed by the French armaments, and had sent strict instructions to his agent at Constantinople to terminate the eastern question with as little delay as possible. Baron Stürmer was, in consequence, reluctantly obliged to counsel the Porte to confer upon the Pasha the hereditary tenure of Egypt. ”

“ But it was not his policy to allow reforms of any kind to be introduced into Italy, and he was fully resolved that the deliberations should lead to no results of any consequence. “We risk nothing,” he [Pg 67] wrote to Apponyi. . . . “Count Lützow [109] is a man of character, he knows what is practicable.” [110]
But the good effect of Metternich’s consent to confer with the Powers, upon the condition of affairs, in the Papal States, was dispelled by a false report which reached Paris of the conclusion of a treaty between Austria and His Holiness. ”

“ CHAPTER XVI. Of all my reminiscences of Vienna, and those I saw there, the most interesting are those connected with my introduction to Prince Metternich.
The present generation is perhaps hardly aware—or not habitually so—of the largeness of the space Metternich occupied in the political world half a century ago. It is not too much to say that Europe in those days thought as much about Metternich as it does in these days about Bismarck. ”

“ Louis of Bavaria resigned the crown to his son Maximilian. The Grand Duke of Baden agreed to the demands of a popular convention at Mannheim, and he placed a liberal ministry in control of the government. Prussia and Austria were thoroughly disturbed by the movement for freedom and national unity. A rising in Vienna (March 13-15) , headed by the students, compelled Metternich to depart for safety to England, the asylum of political exiles of every creed. The emperor summoned a Diet to be chosen by popular suffrage, and went for safety to Innsbruck among his faithful Tyrolese. ”