Metternich, Prince Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, von

Metternich, Prince Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, von (1773-1859), Austrian statesman and diplomat, the dominant figure in European politics between 1814 and 1848.

Metternich was born into an aristocratic family on May 15, 1773, in Koblenz, Germany, and attended the universities of Strasbourg and Mainz. His family fled the revolutionary French armies to Vienna in 1794, and Metternich there married Countess Eleanor Kaunitz, whose family was prominent at the Austrian court. He served the Habsburgs first as an envoy to the Congress of Rastadt (1797) and then as ambassador to Saxony (1801), Prussia (1803), and Napoleonic France (1806).

In 1809 Metternich was appointed minister of foreign affairs for the Habsburg state, then in disarray following several defeats by the French army. He arranged the marriage of the Austrian archduchess Marie-Louise to Napoleon, but he planned to renew the war with France when the opportunity arose. After Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign in 1812, Metternich played a leading role in the formation of a new European coalition that two years later defeated the French emperor. At the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815), which redrew the map of Europe after Napoleon's downfall, he blocked Russian plans for the annexation of the whole of Poland and Prussia's attempt to absorb Saxony. He succeeded in creating a German confederation under Austrian leadership but failed to achieve a similar arrangement for Italy. His attempt to make the post-war Quadruple Alliance (Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria) into an instrument for preventing revolution in Europe also failed. As chancellor of the Habsburg Empire (1821-1848) he was, however, able to maintain the status quo in Germany and Italy, and he remained Europe's leading statesman until driven from power by the Revolution of 1848. He died in Vienna on June 11, 1859.

Metternich equally resented liberalism, nationalism, and revolution. His ideal was a monarchy that shared power with the traditional privileged classes of society. He was a man of order in an increasingly disorganized world of rapidly changing values. Vain and indolent by nature, he often assumed responsibility for policies he had not himself formulated. Some have judged him a reactionary who tried to stem the tide of democratic progress. To others he was a constructive force, misunderstood by contemporaries and historians alike.