Prince Metternich
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Prince Metternich
He was Austria's foreign minister in the period 1809-48. He negotiated Napoleon's marriage to Marie Louise of Austria(1808), arranged Austria's alliance with France, and kept Austria out of the Franco-Prussian War (1812-13). Then, turning against Napoleon and the forces of change that he was bringing to Europe, Metternich had Austria join with the Allied Powers (Napoleon's enemies), Prussia and Russia, against France.
He was the chief player in the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) and the Holy Alliance.
Metternich was a conservative and a diplomatic realist, who believed in the maintenance of a "balance of power" in Europe.
He advocated the restoration of the monarchies of Europe after the turmoil of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic period. He stood firmly against the rising tides of liberalism, nationalism and socialism during the first half of the nineteenth century. For these reasons he supported repressive measures in Austria.
He was forced to abdicate during the Revolution of 1848.
Paris
""When Paris has a cold, all Europe sneezes."
-- Prince Metternich
A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-1822
A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-1822
Amazon Price: $23.43 (as of 02/17/2012)
The Napoleonic Wars were followed by an almost unprecedented century of political stability. A World Restored analyses the alliances formed and treaties signed by the world's leaders during the years 1812 to 1822, focussing on the personalities of the two main negotiators: Viscount Castlereagh, the British foreign secretary, and Prince von Metternich, his Austrian counterpart. Henry Kissinger explains how the turbulent relationship between these two men, the differing concerns of their respective countries and the changing nature of diplomacy all influenced the final shape of the peace.
Congress of Vienna - 1815
Metternich: The Autobiography, 1773-1815
Metternich: The Autobiography, 1773-1815
Amazon Price: $9.31 (as of 02/17/2012)
Throughout Prince Metternich's glittering and successful career he sought to free Europe from the forces unleashed by the French Revolution. He was an enemy of change, despised by republicans and feared by radicals. Metternich's acute skill for diplomacy was instrumental in creating alliances to reverse dangerous republicanism and restore Europe's legitimate monarchies to their thrones.
This fascinating autobiography covers Metternich's early years from his school days in Strasbourg and his meteoric rise in the service of Austria to the defeat of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Metternich was at the heart of Europe's diplomatic community and he paints revealing portraits of such key figures as Napoleon, Czar Alexander, Talleyrand and the Bourbons. He also reveals much about the political life of a continent convulsed by the French Revolution and by the ambition of the Emperor Napoleon.
Metternich's observant eye and sharp intellect reveal themselves in a book which is crucial to an understanding of the man who played such a significant role in reshaping Europe.
History
"The men who make history have not time to write it."
-- Prince Metternich
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"The word 'Italy' is a geographical expression, a description which is useful shorthand, but has none of the political significance the efforts of the revolutionary ideologues try to put on it, and which is full of dangers for the very existence of the states which make up the peninsula."
-- Prince Metternich
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