Restoring Europe :: essays research papers

After Austria was crushed by Napoleon in 1809, Metternich was created Austrias foreign Minister, and replaced Johann Philipp von Stadion. He pursued a pro-French policy, going so far as to manage the marriage of Napoleon to Marie-Louise, Emperor Franciss daughter.Following Napoleons surpass in Russia in 1812, Metternich turned to a policy of neutrality, and attempted to mother peace between Napoleon and his Russian and Prussian enemies. In June 1813 he famously met with Napoleon at Dresden , and by his own account came out telling the intolerant Emperor that he was lost. Soon after, mediation having failed, Metternich brought Austria into the state of war against France.As the war came towards its inference in the spring of 1814, Metternich quickly came to the conclusion that no peace with Napoleon was possible, and abandoning ideas of a Bonapartist regency below Marie Louise, came to support a Bourbon restoration, which brought him closer to Castlereagh, the British Foreign Secretary.Metternich was one of the principal negotiators at the carnal knowledge of Vienna. During this period, Metternich came to have a bitter personal hate with Tsar black lovage I of Russia, whose cultivation plans Metternich deeply feared, and who competed with the womanizing Metternich for the affections of the beautiful Wilhelmina von Sagan. Metternichs attempts to form a join front with Viscount Castlereagh and Hardenberg, the Prussian chancellor, to oppose black lovages plans for a constitutional Kingdom of Poland under his own rule, came to nothing due to Prussias unwillingness to stand up to Alexander. Metternich thence shocked the Prussians by signing an alliance with Castlereagh and Tallyrand, the French ambassador, on January 3, 1815, to interdict Prussian takeover of Saxony, which was to be Prussias payment for giving up Polish land to Alexander. While this was successful in saving the King of Saxony, Alexander managed to get most of what he wanted in Poland.At the alike time, Metternich worked hard in negotiations with Prussia, Hanover, Bavaria, and Wurttemberg to resolve the organization of Germany, and the Germanic Confederation that resulted drill hole much of the stamp of Metternichs ideas.Metternichs most notable achievement in the years that followed the Congress was his conversion of the Tsar, who had seen himself as a protector of liberalism, to the protection of the ageing order, which culminated by the Tsars decision at the Congress of Troppau in 1820, when the Tsar concur to Metternichs termination of a Neapolitan rebellion and refused to aid Greek rebels against the footstool Empire.