The Architect of Political Balance

When the Austrian Mint issued a 20-euro commemorative coin emblazoned with the likeness of Prince Klemens von Metternich, it described him as a “great Austrian statesman.” That designation is debatable in two respects. 

Metternich, born in 1773, was a Habsburg subject all his life and the Crown’s faithful servant for over five decades, but he was a Rhinelander rather than Austrian by birth, culture, and temperament. Of more import is the issue of his greatness. Metternich was an expert foreign policy strategist and practitioner. His impact on European affairs during the first two decades of the 19th century was arguably second only to Napoleon’s. His legacy and philosophy of diplomacy and statesmanship continue to exert influence over the conduct of foreign affairs. Yet, after his greatest triumph, Metternich failed to come to terms with the rise of nationalism in Europe, and his meticulously crafted political order crumbled into the chaos of the 20th century.

On balance, the fruits of Metternich’s diplomacy outweigh his less-than-impressive attempt to deal with the forces of nationalism and liberalism that followed the conclusion of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. That event marked an early pinnacle of his long career and gave him a lasting claim to eminence. By restoring the European balance of power, his diplomatic finesse helped create the conditions for 99 years of relative peace and unprecedented flourishing within the Old Continent.

An aristocrat by birth and breeding, Metternich grew up at a splendid little court in Koblenz, where his father—a former elector of Trier in the Habsburg service—resided as an envoy. He commenced studies at the University of Strasbourg in 1788 but returned home due to the French Revolution. In 1790, he went to study at Mainz, where he acquired a cosmopolitan fluency of manner and speech by entering the society at the court of the elector chancellor. 

With Austria at war with France in 1792, Metternich moved to Brussels to work for his father, who was by then imperial minister to the government of the Austrian Netherlands. During this time, he published his first political manifesto, a pamphlet titled “On the necessity of a general arming of the people on the borders of France.” The young Metternich advocated the creation of patriotic German militias and attacked the “diplomats of the old school” as “empty heads.” 

At Mainz, Metternich was acquainted with the concept of the balance of power as the basis of enduring European peace. Well-developed as a theoretical model at that time, this notion was to greatly influence his entire career. Even more consequential was his experience of the French Revolution, which he saw as a historic disaster with worldwide effects.

In 1794, the Metternich family’s Rhineland estates were occupied and confiscated by the French, which cemented his hatred of the Revolution, a sickness that in his view had to be “burned out with a red hot iron.” Displaced from his home, he spent several months in England, where he rubbed shoulders with influential politicians, including William Pitt, Charles James Fox, and Edmund Burke, who expressed a similar view of events in his Reflections on the Revolution in France. Later that year, he found work in Vienna at the House of Habsburg, with “vengeance very much in mind,” as he later recalled in his Memoirs.

In Vienna, Metternich married Maria Eleonore Kaunitz, a highly-born young countess, thus gaining a foothold in the capital’s leading circles. His graceful appearance and the geniality of his manner soon recommended him for diplomatic service. In January 1801, he was appointed envoy at the Saxon court. After two uneventful years in Dresden, he went to Berlin in the same capacity and to St. Petersburg soon thereafter. Finally, in 1806 he was made ambassador to France in Paris—the most important post of all—where he was able to establish himself at the imperial court. 

Metternich succeeded in developing a surprisingly close rapport with Napoleon. At that time, he was impressed with the supremacy of the French Empire and considered the possibility of change only in some distant future after Napoleon’s death. Even the actions of Napoleon’s army in Spain—the merciless execution of civilian hostages, burning of churches, and the rape of women including nuns—which outraged him, did not change his attitude toward the emperor. When the war of 1809 between Austria and the French Empire ended in disaster for Austria, Metternich was appointed foreign minister. 

Amidst the dejection that reigned in Vienna after the Treaty of Schönbrunn—in reality, a brutal dictate in which defeated Austria lost its Mediterranean ports and large chunks of its territory—Metternich was the right man at the right place. He understood that the power of France, coupled with Napoleon’s violent and treacherous character,  put every state not subservient to France in peril. He knew it was hopeless to maintain normal relations with Napoleon in the long run. Yet Metternich’s deliberative mind, devoid of passion (or even verve), did not allow his emotions to govern his calculus. Behind what one contemporary called his “external grace, worldly education, and insinuating amiability” lay a quick intellect, icy self-control, and a cynical assessment of human nature.

In August 1809, Metternich told Emperor Franz that Austria, in its weakened condition, “must limit itself to evasion and flattery to survive until the day of general redemption.” The French had to be placated. In 1810, he arranged the marriage of Archduchess Marie Louise, daughter of the Austrian monarch, to a much older Napoleon, hoping that this union would buy Austria some years of peaceful recovery. All along, he remained convinced that l’empereur would not give up his striving for hegemony. He thought France was the power “whose exclusive intention was the destruction of the previous order of things.”

Metternich’s strategy during the 1812 French invasion of Russia was to keep all options open. As he later admitted, the outcome surprised him: he had neither expected the tenacious Russian resistance nor the steadfastness of Emperor Alexander. The French debacle opened up the unexpected prospect for Vienna to play a major role in world affairs. Metternich’s maneuvering enabled Austria to detach itself from the alliance with France and to announce its “armed mediation” in May 1813.

A month later, Metternich met Napoleon in Dresden. This was a key encounter, after which he no longer hoped for a negotiated peace between France and the Allied powers. On the other hand, he did not want French hegemony to be replaced by an overwhelmingly powerful Russia. In the end, Metternich led Austria to switch sides, joining Britain, Russia, and Prussia in an alliance to defeat Napoleon. But he instructed his protégé Karl Philipp, the prince of Schwarzenberg—who commanded the Allied armies in the field—not to follow the strategy of direct advance on Paris, which his new Russian and Prussian allies advocated. In this way, he preserved considerable maneuvering space, intending to weaken Napoleon but to prevent or delay an outright Russian triumph.

Utilizing all his diplomatic maneuvering skills, Metternich even managed to transform the war of national liberation started by German patriots against the Napoleonic yoke into a conventional war led by the German territorial princes. This was light years away from his youthful support for the arming of patriotic German militias, but it was in line with his already evident dislike of both grassroots activism and romantic nationalism.

The Congress of Vienna in 1814 and 1815 was the pinnacle of Metternich’s career. Dubbed the “coachman of Europe” due to his role in the driver’s seat of international affairs, Metternich brilliantly mastered the dual task of social representation and political leadership. He also made a decisive contribution to a new world security framework based on consultation among the great powers—a novelty replicated 130 years later by the United Nations Security Council. 

In the process of restoring an orderly world, Metternich made Austria appear important well beyond her means. Continuing his balancing act during the final year of the war against Napoleon, he also succeeded in reintegrating France into the European system—a key element in his strategy of establishing a balanced multipolarity beneficial to Austria’s precarious geopolitical position.

The Congress of Vienna system was based on supranational monarchical solidarity embodied in the so-called Holy Alliance between the conservative monarchies of Austria, Prussia, and Russia. All national and liberal stirrings, which were “revolutionary activities” in Metternich’s view, were to be suppressed by the Allies, who were obliged to intervene against all revolutions.

The system lasted just a decade in its original form. Nevertheless, the foundation of the relative peace that reigned in Europe between 1815 and 1914 was laid in Vienna.

Metternich always regarded the results of the Congress of Vienna as his own work. He believed the reordering of Europe to be final. What remained was the management of European affairs within the framework of the legitimist principle. He absorbed these convictions completely, allowing little room for new political ideas.

Metternich’s ideas are summarized in his Political Confession of Faith. This brief tract was written in 1820, when he was at the peak of his powers, and later included in his Memoirs. He asserted that human institutions “conforming to the laws of man’s nature” also have stages of maturation: infancy, youth, an age of strength, and an age of decay. Two elements alone remain permanent: the precepts of morality, religious as well as social, and the necessities created by locality. 

Men occasionally attempt to rebel against these sovereign arbiters of their destinies. Society then suffers from a malaise, which leads to political upheaval. With the French Revolution clearly in mind, he wrote, “One seeks in vain for an epoch when an evil of this nature has extended its ravages over such a vast area as it has done at the present time.”

One of the causes of the “deplorable intensity with which this evil weighs on society” is the feebleness and the inertia of governments. “Not one among them was ignorant of the evil or of the crisis towards which the social body was tending” at the end of the 18th century. “The revolution was already completed in the palaces of Kings, in the drawing-rooms and boudoirs of certain cities,” Metternich wrote, while it was still only fermenting among the masses. 

The horrors that followed prevented the spread of the Jacobin propaganda. The seed of revolution nevertheless had penetrated every country under Napoleon, whose conquests displaced laws, institutions, and customs:

It followed that the revolutionary spirit could in Germany, Italy, and later on in Spain, easily hide itself under the veil of patriotism… Society can no longer be saved without strong and vigorous resolutions on the part of the Governments… if the Governments face the truth… and take their stand on a line of correct, unambiguous, and frankly announced principles. By this course the monarchs will fulfil the duties imposed upon them by Him who, by entrusting them with power, has charged them to watch over the maintenance of justice, and the rights of all, to avoid the paths of error…

The monarchs must be united in their purpose in order to save society from total ruin, Metternich added. Their first task is to maintain the stability of political institutions against the “disorganised excitement which has taken possession of men’s minds.” The governments should be wary of reform “not imperatively claimed by the needs of the moment.”

Let them not confound concessions made to parties with the good they ought to do for their people… Let them be just, but strong; beneficent, but strict… In short, let the great monarchs strengthen their union, and prove to the world that if it exists, it is beneficent, and ensures the political peace of Europe… To every great State determined to survive the storm there still remain many chances of salvation, and a strong union between the States on the principles we have announced will overcome the storm itself.

Despite his adroit political mind, Metternich was not an inspired thinker who devised a new political theory. The best of all forms of government, he believed, was time-tested autocratic absolutism, upheld by a loyal army, a decently efficient bureaucracy, a reliable police machine, and trustworthy churchmen.

Due in part to his devotion to monarchic tradition, Metternich misjudged political events following the Congress of Vienna, as the rise of nationalism was irreversibly underway. He mistakenly identified this “patriotism” in Germany, Italy, and elsewhere as a mere veil for revolutionary malice. Thus it is somewhat ironic that a young Metternich had reproached the Ancien Régime for its passivity in the face of the crisis preceding the French Revolution, since he would become oblivious later in his own life to the changing political winds.

Despite the rise in nationalistic fervor, Metternich rejected any restructuring of the Habsburg edifice which had been deeply shaken by two decades of wars. The time was less suitable for reforms than any other, he told Emperor Franz in 1817, thus reinforcing that monarch’s already chronic antipathy to change. The recovery of Austria proceeded in the spirit of centralism and absolutism. It would do so without any regard for the aspirations of the Empire’s non-German nationalities: Magyars, Slavs, Italians, and others, who made up over three-quarters of its people. 

As for the German Confederation created in line with his 1815 concepts, Metternich held that “nothing should be changed.” The vigorous nationalistic movements of the German youth at the universities and the parallel rise of the liberal press were not necessarily threatening to the regime, yet Metternich chose repression over accommodation. The murder of August von Kotzebue, a conservative German writer, by a deranged student radical in March 1819, provided an opportunity for a clampdown.

The Carlsbad Decrees of 1819 were Metternich’s domestic equivalent of the Holy Alliance, and focused on coercive measures and laws concerning the universities, the press, and “demagogic activities.” It included an order for the military enforcement of federal decisions. The decrees provided a blunt instrument against all opposition movements. It was used extensively in the years to come and represented a key pillar of the “Metternich system.” Its author was delighted with this “great deed, the greatest work of my life.”

By the early 1820s, the successes of Metternich’s diplomacy and the apparent ease with which he imposed repressive measures on the German world raised his already considerable self-esteem to a dizzying height. “Why must I, among so many millions of people,” he wondered, “be the one to think where others do not think, to act where others do not act, to write because others cannot.” Yet the decline of the Concert of Europe in its original form already started in 1822, with Britain ditching the policy of intervention against nationalist revolutions. London recognized the right of self-determination based on the principle of nationality—anathema to Metternich—during Bolivar’s revolutions in South America and the Greek uprising against the Ottomans. 

Focused on the suppression of national and liberal forces and fearful of pan-German nationalist tendencies, Metternich opposed the creation of an all-German customs union. In 1834, however, one was duly created under Prussia’s leadership. As the Industrial Revolution was gathering steam in the Ruhr, the Saarland, and Silesia, Metternich thereby effectively abdicated Austria’s leadership in an increasingly vital economic area of the German world.

Emperor Franz’s death in 1835 could have been the moment for an energetic man to seize the reins of government and push for indispensable political reforms, but Metternich was not that man. In a resigned tone, he judged that Austria was no longer being governed, that it was merely administered; but he did little to remedy the situation. His growing domestic weakness was due in part to the fact that he was never a true insider in the imperial capital. He was never able to make his standing within the establishment match with his meteoric social and financial rise. Meanwhile, Metternich’s Czech arch-rival Franz Anton von Kolowrat, who sat at the helm of the state council responsible for the finances, constantly plotted against him and ultimately engineered his downfall.

German historian Wolfram Siemann, in his major biography of Metternich (see my review of Metternich: Strategist and Visionary in the August 2020 issue of Chronicles), stressed that he had a well-honed sense of strategic timing and prioritizing policy objectives. This may have been true at a tactical level, but Siemann did not prove his parallel claim, that he was capable of foreseeing momentous events and adjusting his policies accordingly. While it is wrong to caricature Metternich as a reactionary prince of darkness, it is equally mistaken to present him as a “visionary,” or even an early Euro-integralist, ahead of his time in his mistrust of nationalism and populism.

As his wife’s diaries show, Metternich became melancholy late in life. Shortly before the Austrian revolutions of 1848, he indulged in gloomy complaints. “The world is sick,” he wrote, “the cancer is eating away at it.” He felt the ground was disappearing from under his feet and that Austrian power had become a “phantasmagoria,” “a spirit without a body.” His hasty departure from Vienna in March 1848 marked the end of an era for Austria. He went to England and thence to Brussels, where he lived in quiet seclusion until May 1851.

As Prussia boomed and Austria stagnated, a Germany united without Austria still remained as unthinkable to Metternich as a constitutionally elected government. He returned home in 1851 an embittered old man. “I am no longer anybody,” he complained. “I have nothing more to do, nothing more to discuss.” He died in 1859, long after his heyday. “I was a rock of order,” he told his friend Alexander von Hübner, a week before his death.

That assessment, while characteristically immodest, was not incorrect. Metternich’s pursuit of an intricate balance of power strategy was logical for Austria, a great power no longer in its prime, which had a vested interest in allowing neither France in the west nor Russia in the east to achieve continental hegemony.

The art of political balance is sadly absent in today’s Europe. Germany—in geopolitical terms, today’s heir to the early 19th century Austria—has abdicated its sovereign decision making in foreign and security affairs to the neoconservative-neoliberal cabal in Washington, D.C. This situation is bizarre, historically unprecedented, and contrary to the rationally defined interests of the region, of Europe as a whole, and of a peaceful world.

Metternich would be horrified by the spectacle of the U.S. dictating European affairs in its increasingly hazardous conflict with Russia. He would appreciate the fact that his spirit seems to live on in Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia, where there is a modicum of resistance to the D.C. cabal. These countries once were the heartland of the Empire he served with great dedication, and mostly with distinction.