Klemens von Metternich

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Klemens von Metternich : biography

15 May 1773 – 11 June 1859

In May 1851 Metternich duly left for his Johannisberg estate, which he had last visited in 1845. Whilst staying there for the summer Metternich enjoyed the company of Prussian representative Otto von Bismarck. He also enjoyed a visit from Frederick William, though the king irritated Metternich by appearing to nurture him as a tool against Schwarzenberg. In September he returned to Vienna and on the journey the various German princes were keen to entertain the focus of Prussian intrigue. Metternich was reinvigorated, dropping his nostalgia and living in the present for the first time in a decade. Franz Josef asked for his advice on numerous issues (though he was too headstrong to be much influenced by it) and both of the two factions now emerging in Vienna were keen to get Metternich on side; even Tsar Nicholas called on him during a state visit. Metternich was not keen on the new Foreign Minister, Karl Ferdinand von Buol, but at least Buol was sufficiently incompetent that he would be impressionable. Metternich’s advice was of varying quality; nonetheless, some of it did give useful insights, even over modern matters. Now deaf, Metternich wrote endlessly; particularly for an appreciative Franz Josef. He wanted Austrian neutrality in the Crimean War, though Buol did not.Indeed, when Buol signed an alliance with the Western powers in December 1855—albeit one that did not commit troops—Metternich would have noted with regret how Buol had broken the bonds with Russia that he had for so long cultivated . In the meantime Metternich’s health was slowly failing and he became a more peripheral figure after the death of his wife Melanie in January 1854. After a brief resurgence in energy in early 1856, he busied himself in the arrangements for a marriage between his son Richard and his granddaughter Pauline (Richard’s step-sister’s daughter) and undertook more travel. The King of the Belgians came to visit him, as did Bismarck, and on 16 August 1857 he entertained the future Edward VII of the United Kingdom. Buol, however, was becoming more resentful Metternich’s advice, particularly over Italy. In April 1859 Franz Josef came to ask him about what should be done in Italy. According to Pauline, Metternich begged him not to send an ultimatum to Italy and Franz Josef explained that such an ultimatum had already been sent.

In this way, much to Metternich’s disappointment and to Franz Josef’s embarrassment, Austria began the Second Italian War of Independence against the combined forces of Piedmont-Sardinia and her ally France. Though Metternich could secure the replacement of Buol with his friend Rechberg, who had helped him so much in 1848, the war itself was now beyond his capacity. Even a special task given by Franz Josef in June 1859—to draw up secret papers handling the event of Franz Josef’s death—was now too taxing for Metternich. Shortly afterwards he died in Vienna on 11 June 1859, aged 86, and the last of his generation. Almost everyone of note in Vienna came to pay their tributes to him; however, in the foreign press his death went virtually unnoticed.

Legacy

Over a century-and-a-half later a sparkling wine was named after Metternich, Fürst von Metternich Riesling Sekt, and his image was selected as the main motif on the Austrian 20-euro Biedermeier Period commemorative coin minted on 11 June 2003. The reverse of the coin shows his portrait with the map of Europe that was redrawn at the Congress of Vienna after the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Notes