Metternich's German Policy, Volume II: The Congress of Vienna, 1814-1815

by Enno E. Kraehe

Overview

Using new archival sources, this book shows that Prussia sought not the unity of Germany but its partition into five masses loosely enough joined to assure her control of the North. Hardenberg, not Metternich, supported the feudalistic claims of the estates suppressed by Napoleon and the resurrection of ancient estates' assemblies based mainly on corporate orders.

Originally published in 1984.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691640846
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	04/19/2016
Series:	Princeton Legacy Library , #728
Pages:	462
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.10(h) x 1.50(d)

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Metternich's German Policy

Volume II: The Congress of Vienna, 1814-1815

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By Enno E. Kraehe

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1983 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-10133-0

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CHAPTER 1

PARIS IN THE SPRING

A CONVENIENT way of analyzing Austria's basic security interests is to imagine concentric circles with Vienna as their center marking out zones of varying importance to the survival of the monarchy. So long as Bohemia, Hungary, and the Austrian crown lands were intact, the monarchy could be said at least to exist and by the standards of the early nineteenth century to exist as a great power, though not on a par with France or Russia. In this sense the Peace of Sch6nbrunn in 1809 had brought the monarchy to a bare subsistence level. Beyond this minimum lay territories perhaps not necessary to the simple existence of the monarchy but of such transcendent strategic or economic importance that they had to be acquired if possible, regardless of the internal complications they might cause. Although the relative priorities might be debated, these territories were the Tyrol, which covered the Brenner Pass; the Salzburg-Inn District-Passau complex, which covered the Danube; Galicia with Cracow, which commanded the Carpathians and the Moravian Gateway; and the Illyrian provinces, which gave access to the sea and included the Croatian military frontier. Each of these areas had thresholds, so to speak, constituting a zone where it was imperative that Austrian influence preponderate, whether by annexation, dynastic union, or alliance. Lombardy-Venetia was in this zone as were Bavaria, West Galicia, and possibly Saxony. Still further out from Vienna was a zone where indirect Austrian hegemony was desirable, yet dispensable provided that no other great power established itself there. In this category were Germany, Italy, Poland, and the Ottoman Empire.

It should be emphasized that this model judges Austrian interests strictly from the vantage point of the state — its power, its security, its independence. It does not consider dynastic ties, sentimental yearnings, ethnic diversity, social values, or even the practical problems of internal administration. It is unconcerned with desires to repossess Emperor Francis's boyhood home in Tuscany; to preserve the social order; to restore the papacy to its former glory; to perpetuate the tradition of Kaunitz, say, or of Joseph II; or to keep the faith with former subjects, loyal still, in Belgium, the Breisgau, and the mediatized estates in Germany. These concerns might or might not be compatible with sheer interests of state rationally considered, and they most certainly related to reasons why many cared whether the monarchy existed or not. Nevertheless, they were luxury considerations, always to be evaluated in terms of the means available once the elementary conditions of security and independence had been established. The model, moreover, incorporates possible contradictions and invidious choices. Could one take the Tyrol, Salzburg, the Inn District, and Passau from Bavaria and still keep her as an ally? Could one rely on Piedmont to check France while wrangling with her over Lombardy? Was the integrity of Saxony compatible with the good relations with Prussia that were essential to stability in Germany? No policy could succeed perfectly on all fronts; still, Metternich saw it as his task to realize as many of these objects as possible and to integrate Austrian interests with a European order that would reinforce and preserve them.

The European order — here was the overriding concern, the outer framework that was the great legislator of limits and opportunity, the concern that set the former Rhinelander apart from (one could fairly say above) most other Austrians of his generation. One might conceivably achieve every goal dictated by the model, but how long would the system hold in a Europe where France and Russia were allies or Prussia was a Russian puppet? Metternich's celebrated European outlook acquired much embellishment along the way, some of it genuine, much of it rhetorical, but the foundation of it all was neither more nor less than an appreciation of the remote interests of the monarchy upon which those closer to Vienna depended. It was a vision possible perhaps only for a man of his unique experience. He knew what independence was, from the full enjoyment of it, which he had witnessed as an ambassador in Napoleon's Paris, to the complete absence of it when he took over as foreign minister in Vienna, his options confined to "tacking, evading, and flattering." The contrast remained forever imbedded in his soul.

Tacking, evading, and flattering were habits he never outgrew. The less necessary they became, however, the less dignified they seemed to be, and that is why Metternich's critics were forever scandalized by his seeming neglect of affairs, his love of fêtes and frivolous conversation, the time he idled away planning trysts and penning amorous letters. Yet that was his peculiar way of relaxing and surely no less proper than, for example, the high-minded Wilhelm von Humboldt's notorious lust for lower-class girls, a passion freely, indeed exultantly, indulged in along the allies' line of march. There is a difference between acting at random and constantly making adjustments in means for the sake of ends not readily apparent to the casual onlooker, the impatient colleague, or the disappointed petitioner. The one overriding objective, the ultimate determinant of all his regional policies, including his German policy and even Austria's own territorial claims, was the establishment of an independent European center as the bulwark against the hegemony of France or Russia or, worse, the joint imperium of both. Such equilibrium was the elementary condition of Austrian independence, and from this goal his gaze never wandered, not during the grand mediation of 1813, not during the War of Liberation or the peace negotiation with France, not during the Congress of Vienna or anything that followed.

Increasingly he referred to Russia and France as "the perturbatory powers," not, it should be emphasized, because of their social and political systems, but because of their long records of seeking expansion at the expense of the weak and disorganized center. For years Austria had defended that center almost single-handedly, and in so doing had brought about her physical and financial exhaustion. Unable to bear the burden alone, she now needed the help of "the conservative powers," that is to say, those states which, like Austria herself, were presumed to have a primary interest in a stable, balanced international order regardless of what their domestic institutions were or what political ideologies they professed. The most important of these was England, and Metternich lost no time, once Castlereagh had arrived on the continent, in instructing his ambassador in London, Count Maximilian von Merveldt, on how to explain the plan there.

This principle of the conversation of order [he wrote], which should be the true maxim of state for the two monarchies, is for Austria the natural consequence of her geographical situation, for England the condition of her freedom of commerce and easy access to all the countries that form the basis of her national prosperity. ... Placed between the great monarchies of the east and west of Europe, they are called to hold the balance between these masses, which are drawn constantly toward the center, to contain them within proper limits [justes proportions], and to prevent a rapprochement between them such as has once already threatened Europe with complete ruin by crushing the intermediate states.

To this combination, Metternich went on, should be added Spain and Portugal, as counterweights to France, and Holland, Prussia, the German states, and even the Ottoman Empire to complete the grand alliance of the center.

Metternich left room in his system for Napoleon, provided he would accept the limits of France's monarchical frontiers. Indeed, as argued in the previous volume of this study, he hoped to the very end to save Napoleon, partly for Habsburg dynastic reasons but even more because, given Alexander's intent to overthrow him, Napoleon was now the best guarantee that France would be both strong and anti-Russian. True, Metternich intended that his intermediate system would be strong enough to discourage or even to withstand a union of the flanking powers, but until the system was actually built, it was imperative to keep the two apart. The fall of Napoleon, who believed to the end that Austria could not abandon him, thus created a situation of danger and uncertainty. Which was worse: a France in anarchy and dissolution, suddenly removed as a counterweight, or a France intact and seeking salvation by throwing herself on the generosity of the tsar? As with the European center, so with the installation of the Bourbons, a long transition was in store, and the ugly prospect was that the coalition partners would now rush in, each endeavoring to place his own imprimatur on the character and policies of the successor regime. The control of France was the key to all else. The contest with Alexander was in the open at last.

It would seem that Metternich's most consistent course, the one offering a natural opening for asserting Austrian influence in Paris, would have been the establishment of a regency under Marie Louise. This was the favorite plan of loyal Bonapartists, including most of the army and indeed almost anybody else who had reason to fear the return of the Bourbons. Napoleon himself opted for this solution, if only at the last minute. An immediate upsurge of Austrian influence and the long-term possibility that the emperor Francis's grandson would ascend the throne of France — should this prospect not have dazzled the man who in i810 had himself conducted the Habsburg princess to Paris? In one of the most profound decisions of his career he gave a negative answer. Part of the trouble was in the timing. By the time solid offers in this direction came from Napoleon, Metternich was already drinking to the Bourbons. What credit would Austria have if she changed course daily, like the wildly fluctuating bourse in Vienna? There were more enduring considerations as well. Metternich did not confuse external symbols with reality. The mystique of Napoleon was not transferable; it was his alone, and even as he himself maintained, it required the stimulus of continual victory to be sustained. At bottom, however, considerations of diplomatic alignment were most important. A solution of this kind would be considered a concession to Austria's own particular interests, something to be subtracted from her other claims. It would also be an exceedingly poor precedent to set before Alexander, whose aspiration to form a dynastic union with a restored Poland was commonly taken for granted. Finally there was England. A Bourbon France, which had been Castlereagh's hope from the beginning, would, if warmly embraced by Austria, strengthen the bond between London and Vienna; and a bond with the impervious rock across the channel now seemed more reliable and more predictable than any French connection could be. For these reasons Metternich not only did not encourage the regency movement; he took every opportunity to dissociate the Habsburgs from the Bonaparte cause, even, alas, at the cost of family anguish comparable only to the original sacrifice of 1810.

Thus, although expecting a struggle for influence in France, Metternich did not mean to start it himself. While fearing Franco-Russian entente, he intended no exclusive ties of his own with France. He would be satisfied if the new regime was reasonably stable, reasonably independent, and relatively inactive in its external relations. If France stood still, so to speak, he could pursue his goal, described to his subordinates at home as "the establishment of a solid system combining Austria, England, Spain, and Prussia, to which system I undertake to gain the complete adherence of Bavaria as a bulwark against France."

By an accident of war Metternich, along with Castlereagh, Hardenberg, and the emperor Francis, was stranded in Dijon while the tsar and the king of Prussia found themselves with Marshal Schwarzenberg at the headquarters of the main allied army which took Paris. Given the meek devotion of Frederick William and the subordinate position of the allied commander, it was Alexander who shone in solitary splendor at the grand military review on the Champs Elysees and received the full force of acclaim and adulation from the war-weary populace. He alone could speak for the allies in dealing with both Napoleon's emissaries and Talleyrand's senatorial provisional government. Where solemn interallied understandings existed, he could interpret them; where there were none, he could improvise his own. He was the man of the hour, the liberator of Europe, the benefactor of mankind.

At first the group in Dijon was content to leave matters this way. Castlereagh, the author of the Bourbon restoration, doubted its popularity and preferred to have the tsar appear to bear the onus of it. Metternich was not so sanguine, but Austria faced a situation of unique delicacy. In a capital that was idolizing the hero of Moscow the sight of Emperor Francis, the man who had bartered his daughter away in 181o and was now turning on her family, was likely to arouse disgust or perhaps refurbish the hopes of those who still favored a regency under Marie Louise. For this reason and for the sake of his own dignity Francis believed that when he entered Paris, it must be as the sponsor of the Bourbons, with the count of Artois, surrogate for Louis XVIII, at his side. When Francis's offer to this effect was refused — did the Bourbons need anyone to vouch for them? — his next plan was to have Metternich induce the king's brother to invite him to Paris as a gesture of gratitude. Such maneuvering took time, and in the absence of news there seemed no need to rush. Metternich was able to write his adored friend, Wilhelmina von Sagan, duchess of Courland, about his love of repose and his "envy of people who are always in motion and never feel." Even the hardworking Humboldt kept one of the town strumpets in his room while applying his pen to the working draft of a German constitution. Dijon, he confided to Metternich, was the best of places "because of the complaisance of the women."

Then the news began to trickle in from Paris, first of the capitulation of the city on 30 March and then of the manifold activities of the tsar. Everything indicated that although he did not flatly violate interallied understandings, he far exceeded his mandate. It was quite in order, for example, to issue a manifesto declaring that the French themselves should determine their form of government. Nothing, however, required him to grant in advance an allied guarantee of whatever constitution they might adopt, let alone to encourage the Senate "to give France strong liberal institutions in line with current ideas," or to permit his own general, Count Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo, and his own foreign secretary, Count Karl Nesselrode, to sit on the committee of twenty that was drafting a new constitution. Similarly, whereas the allies were agreed on the boundary of 1792, Alexander could not resist adding that they would do still more since "the welfare of Europe" required France "to be great and strong," a declaration that led many Frenchmen to expect the Rhine frontier. Toward Napoleon, long the archenemy, the tsar was equally generous, offering him the island of Elba in full sovereignty, an annual allowance of 2 million francs, and the retention of his imperial title. Metternich, who had contemplated an island in America, was aghast at the thought of having the restless genius just off the shores of France and Italy, a rallying point for subversive movements of all kinds and in easy invasion distance of the mainland. It was time to get to Paris and to try to repair the damage.8

Metternich, Castlereagh, and Hardenberg left Dijon on 7 April and arrived in the capital in the evening of the 10th, an Easter Sunday. Though Metternich's entries into the City of Light were never political triumphs, Paris in the spring still had its charms. The boulevards, he observed, were full of carriages and well-dressed people mingling cordially; everywhere there were hussars and cossacks, ladies wearing masks, friends greeting one another, and Napoleonic marshals suddenly sporting the white cockade of the Bourbons. Rushing immediately to the tsar's quarters, which were in Talleyrand's private residence, he found a host of familiar faces — Talleyrand, representing the provisional government; Armand Caulaincourt, Marshal Michel Ney and Marshal Alexandre MacDonald, all speaking for Napoleon; and the tsar himself with Nesselrode at his side. They had already agreed on the terms of a treaty and needed only the signatures of the ministers just arrived. Scanning the draft handed him by the Nesselrode, Metternich found the reports about Napoleon's fate confirmed and equally generous terms for his family included. Marie Louise was to receive the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla for herself and son. Most of the others were to receive annual allowances, and even Napoleon's stepson, Eugene Beauharnais, viceroy of Italy, was promised "a suitable establishment outside of France." The Polish legion, still at Fontainebleau with Napoleon, was to be free to return home in honor with all standards and decorations — this at Napoleon's insistence, to be sure, but who could doubt that the legion would thereby pass into the service of Russia? "Do you know whom your fine emperor likes best in the world at the present time?" Metternich asked Sagan: "The Bonapartes. He would give them the impossible if he could."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Metternich's German Policy by Enno E. Kraehe. Copyright © 1983 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents

• FrontMatter, pg. i
• Preface, pg. vii
• Contents, pg. xiii
• Abbreviations used in Footnotes, pg. xv
• Map, pg. 1
• Chapter I. Paris in the spring, pg. 3
• Chapter II. Peacemaking and the Future of Germany, pg. 18
• Chapter III. Stalemate in London, pg. 53
• Chapter IV. Dress Rehearsal in Baden, pg. 80
• Chapter V. All Europe in My Anteroom, pg. 118
• Chapter VI. From Forty-one Articles to Twelve, pg. 144
• Chapter VII. The Road to Decision, pg. 174
• Chapter VIII. The Front against Russia, pg. 205
• Chapter IX. The Front Collapses, pg. 234
• Chapter X. The Crisis over Saxony, pg. 264
• Chapter XI. The German Question between Crises, pg. 299
• Chapter XII. The Impact of the 100 Days, pg. 327
• Chapter XIII. The Founding of the Bund, pg. 366
• Appendix A. Hardenberg's Ten Articles of London, pg. 401
• Appendix B. King Frederick's Precis of Conversation with Metternich, 30 September 1814, pg. 405
• Bibliography, pg. 409
• Index, pg. 431