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 cold as to manage the marriage of Napoleon to Marie-Louise, Emperor Franciss daughter. by-line Napoleons defeat in Russia in 1812, Metternich turned to a policy of neutrality, and move to make peace between Napoleon and his Russian and Prussian enemies. In June 1813 he famously met with Napoleon at Dresden , and by his own news report came away telling the intolerant Emperor that he was lost. Soon after, mediation having failed, Metternich brought Austria into the war against France.As the war came towards its conclusion in the spring of 1814, Metternich readily came to the conclusion that no peace with Napoleon was possible, and abandoning ideas of a Bonapartist regency under Marie Louise, came to foul a Bourbon restoration, which brought him closer to Castlereagh, the British Foreign Secretary.Mette rnich was one of the principal negotiators at the Congress of Vienna. During this period, Metternich came to have a bitter personal hate with tzar Alexander I of Russia, whose Polish 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 united front with Viscount Castlereagh and Hardenberg, the Prussian chancellor, to oppose Alexanders plans for a constitutional country of Poland under his own rule, came to nothing due to Prussias unwillingness to stand up to Alexander. Metternich then shocked the Prussians by signing an alliance with Castlereagh and Tallyrand, the French ambassador, on January 3, 1815, to prevent Prussian takeover of Saxony, which was to be Prussias payment for giving up Polish land to Alexander. While this was successful in saving the force of Saxony, Alexander managed to get most of what he wanted in Poland.At the same time, Metternich worked hard in negotiations with Prussia, Hanover, Bavaria, and Wurttemberg to resolve the organization of Germany, and the Germanic partnership that resulted bore much of the stamp of Metternichs ideas.Metternichs most notable achievement in the years that followed the Congress was his conversion of the tzar, who had seen himself as a protector of liberalism, to the tax shelter of the old order, which culminated by the Tsars decision at the Congress of Troppau in 1820, when the Tsar agreed to Metternichs termination of a Neapolitan rebellion and refused to aid Grecian rebels against the Ottoman Empire.