Metternichs Projects For Reform In Austria

I would like to express my gratitude to the Graduate Center of the City University of New York for having received a summer grant for research in Austria. I want to thank Dr. Franz Graf Meran for permitting me to use Archduke Johann's diaries and letters in the Steiermarkisches Landesarchiv, Graz, as well as Dr. Walter Puschnigg and the other gentlemen of that archive for their kind assistance. I am also extremely grateful for the patient, friendly and unsparing helpfulness and advice from the ladies and gentlemen of the Haus-, Hof-und Staatsarchiv in Vienna. In particular I would like to thank w. Amtsrat Anton Nemeth for his aid in deciphering and transcribing numerous documents. Finally, I am most grateful for the counsel, help and encouragement by Prof. Andrew Whiteside of Queens College and City University of New York, and for the many valuable suggestions made by Profs. Robert A. Kann of Rutgers University, Paula S. Fichtner and Bela K. Kiraly, both of Brooklyn College.

I would like to express my gratitude to the Graduate Center of the City University of New York for having received a summer grant for research in Austria. I want to thank Dr. Franz GrafMeran for permitting me to use Archduke Johann's diaries and letters in the Steiermarkisches Landesarchiv, Graz, as well as Dr. Walter Puschnigg and the other gentlemen of that archive for their kind assistance. I am also extremely grateful for the patient, friendly and unsparing helpfulness and advice from the ladies and gentlemen of the Haus-, Hof-und Staatsarchiv in Vienna. In particular I would like to thank w.Amtsrat Anton Nemeth for his aid in deciphering and transcribing numerous documents. Finally, I am most grateful for the counsel, help and encouragement by Prof. Andrew Whiteside of Queens College and City University of New York, and for the many valuable suggestions made by Profs. Robert A. Kann of Rutgers University, Paula S. Fichtner and Bela K. Kiraly, both of Brooklyn College.

What Metiernich wanted at the peak of his career, why he wanted it, and the methods by which he achieved his goals are questions brilliantly answered in this survey and analysis of the Austrian chancellor's diplomacy during the period when he was the pre-eminent figure in European politics. Metternich's single-minded objective during 1820–1823 was to preserve the Austrian hegemony he had gained in Central Europe after long wars, enormous effort, and great sacrifice. If the internal security and international-power position secured by Austria at the Congress of Vienna were to be defended against the impact of widespread revolution in Europe, it was imperative that peace in Europe and the status quo be maintained. This required an unyielding opposition to all political movements that might disturb the equilibrium, especially French chauvinism and the spread of French constitutional ideas. A one-man distillate of the doctrine of absolute monarchy, Metternich was the relentless foe of any cause, just or unjust, that threatened European repose. Hence, when the revolution in Naples seriously menaced Austrian hegemony in Italy, Metternich determined that the constitutional regime in Naples must be overthrown by an Austrian armed force, an absolute monarchy restored, and an Austrian army of occupation kept there. Nor did he scruple to use duplicity, secret negotiation, trickery, or deceit against ally and adversary alike in his effort to enlist them in the common cause of all thrones. At the Congress of Troppau, Metternich succeeded not only in defeating Russian ideas for peaceful intervention and a moderate constitution at Naples, but also in converting Tsar Alexander to thoroughly conservative views, thereby making Russia a powerful supporter of Austrian policies and knowingly alienating England, formerly Austria's closest ally. Paul W. Schroeder brings to this bookexceptional scholarship and an objectivity hard to attain when dealing with a personality. Although Metternich, as Schroeder sees him, doubtless helped to maintain European peace and order, his real greatness consisted not in his European principles, but in his ability to defend Austrian interests under the guise of European principles. The evidence, gathered from documentary material in the Haus Hof- und Staatsarchiv in Vienna, has forced the author to the conclusion that Metternich was no real statesman. The very qualities that distinguished him as a brilliant diplomat—keen vision, cogent analysis, fertility of expedients, farsightedness, flexibility, and firmness of purpose—were converted into those of blindness to reality, superficial analysis, sterility of expedients, dogmatism, and failure of will when confronted with fundamental problems of state and society.

Wolfram Siemann tells a new story of Clemens von Metternich, the Austrian at the center of nineteenth-century European diplomacy. Known as a conservative and an uncompromising practitioner of realpolitik, in fact Metternich accommodated new ideas of liberalism and nationalism insofar as they served the goal of peace. And he promoted reform at home.