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Austria (Vienna)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 October 2009

Extract

I have the honor to enclose a Copy of a Letter, I have just received, from His Highness Prince Metternich, together, with a Copy of the Articles of the Treaty, between Austria and Bavaria, with the Alteration and Amendments of the former Power: Your Lordship will observe, Prince Metternich's own Sentiments as to its Signature; I confess I am sorry that His Highness holds out, and stickles upon, little Points in the winding up of this Negotiation: It is both impolitick and unworthy of the Tone of Transactions which should characterize a great Nation; But there is so much narrowness on small Objects in the whole Austrian Government, that I despair of ever seeing it eradicated during the present reign. Prince Metternich's turn of mind would lead Him to a more liberal System, and to more enlightened Views, but the Circle surrounding the Emperor usurps so much influence in upholding a Stiff, close, littleminded Stile of Action, that Prince Metternich has not Power or Means to resist this Side that overwhelms him.

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Reports
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Copyright © Royal Historical Society 2000

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References

1 Cf. note 5 in Bavaria section.

2 Franz I.

3 Enclosure: Traité entre L'Autriche et la Bavière.

4 In a circular of 31 December 1815 Castlereagh had stated that it was Britain's task, in the interests of peace, to exert a firm influence and to make clear to the European states the danger they had overcome by sticking together and what threatened if they failed to remain alert. In Castlereagh's view the idea of general disarmament, which the Tsar had introduced into the debate in spring 1816, confirmed this political line. In any case, he rejected the suggestion and proposed that Russia should follow the example of Austria and Prussia and disarm unilaterally. However, in a letter to Metternich he pointed out that ‘open and firm diplomacy, which adhered to the principle of the alliance’, would probably ‘bring economic motives to bear and thus have a strong influence on Russia's armament expenditure’ (Henry Kissinger).

5 Marginal: This is nothing more than what has been publickly discussed in Parliament.

6 In the Second Paris Peace (20.11.1815) it was determined that France should pay 700 million francs in reparations and should have an army of occupation for at least three years. At the Aachen Congress of 1818 this agreement with France was brought to a conclusion when the reparations were definitively fixed and approval given for the withdrawal of the occupying troops.

7 Vide Prince Metternich's Letter enclosed.

8 Articles 93–95 of the Vienna Final Act of 9 June 1815 restored to Austria all those territories ceded to France in the peace agreements with Napoleon (1797, 1801, 1805, 1809). All in all the following territories were given to Austria: 1. four districts in western Galicia, but not including Cracow which became an autonomous republic; 2. in the Alps (from Italy): Istria, Trieste, southern Carinthia and south Tirol (from Bavaria): Tirol and Vorarlberg; the decision regarding Salzburg and the Innviertel and Hausruckviertel was initially left open; 3. in Italy the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia; 4. in western Germany the Principality of Isenburg and all the areas left and right of the Rhine that had been given to the victors in the Paris Peace, but which had not yet been allocated to a specific state. These included the departments of Fulda and Frankfurt, Saar and Donnersberg. Austria later used these acquisitions to satisfy the still-disputed territorial claims of the Electorate of Hesse, Hesse-Darmstadt, Bavaria and Baden.

9 The Duchy of Parma and Piacenza, which existed from 1545 to 1860, belonged to the former French Empress Marie Louise until her death in 1847, then to the Bourbons, who from 1849 were only able to survive with the help of Austria. As a result of a plebiscite the Kingdom was incorporated into Piedmont-Sardinia in 1860.

10 The Valteline (ital. Valtellina) a valley and wine-growing area in northern Italy — in the Middle Ages part of Lombardy, under Milanese rule in the 14th century, 1500 French, 1512 incorporated into Graubünden and 1797 part of the Cisalpine Republic — fell to Austria with Lombardy in 1814/15, but was given to the Kingdom of Sardinia in 1859 and to Italy in 1861.

11 The Simplon Pass, in the eastern Valais Alps south of Brig, where the first paved road was laid in 1807, connects the Upper Rhone Valley at Brig with the Val d'Ossola at Domodossola, Piedmont, Italy.

12 Austria was compensated for its withdrawal from Belgium and Germany by gaining northern Italy. Metternich now planned to form an ‘Italian League’, nominally under Austrian leadership, along the lines of the German Confederation, to include the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, the Habsburg secundogenitures in Modena (Este), Parma and Piacenza (Marie Louise), and Tuscany (Archduke Ferdinand III, brother of the Emperor), and the non-Habsburg states. The idea failed, however, due to opposition from the Italian princes — particularly Piedmont-Sardinia, supported by Russia and France — who, even though they had been forced to accept the peace in 1815, preferred the idea of a nation-state to the European path.

13 Cf. note 5 in Bavaria section.

14 Original not traceable.

15 Johann Philipp Freiherr von Wessenberg-Ampringen.

16 The western regions of Austria, including the Brisgau, were not returned to Austria but, in accordance with the Act of the Vienna Congress, remained with Baden.

17 Austria initially had sovereignty over the Palatinate on the left bank of the Rhine. At the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in September/October 1818 a decision was reached in the dispute between Bavaria and Baden over the Palatinate on the right bank of the Rhine. Despite commitments entered into in 1814/15 in favour of Bavaria, the European powers rejected Bavarian claims and recognised without reservation the right of succession of the Hochberg line. Bavaria protested against this decision and explicitly reserved its rights as set out in the Sponheim succession treaty and arising from the fact that it had previously owned the Palatinate. However, in Article 10 of the Frankfurt territorial transfer of 20 July 1819, which Bavaria also signed, the right of succession of the Dukes of Hochberg was confirmed once again, and the dispute thus legally settled.

18 Heinrich Baron von Bühler.

19 Großherzog Karl von Baden.

20 Jakob Weißenberg.

21 Friedrich I.

22 Wilhelm I.

23 Karoline Auguste Charlotte von Bayern.

24 Franz I., had eight brothers: Ferdinand (1769–1824), Grand Duke of Toscany 1790; Karl (1771–1847), Duke of Teschen 1822; Josef (1776–1847), Palatin of Hungary 1796; Anton (1779–1835); Johann (1782–1859), Reichsverweser 1848/1949Google Scholar; Painer (1783–1853); Ludwig (1784–1864); Rudolf (1788–1831), Kardinal and Fürsterzbischof von Olmütz 1819.Google Scholar

25 Sigismund Anton von Hohenwarth.

26 Maria Ludovika.

27 Marie Beatrix.

28 Maria Metternich.

29 Kaspar Philipp Graf Spiegel zum Desenberg.

30 Johann Rudolf Graf von Buol-Schauenstein.

31 Johann Fürst von Sehwarzenberg.

32 Joseph von Schwarzenberg.

33 Not traceable.

34 Joseph Edler von Wayna.

35 Metternich intended to make the Ambassador's Conference, set up to oversee the implementation of the Peace Treaty, into a centre where police reports from all over Europe would be collected.

36 Johann Ludwig von Jordan.

37 Johann Rudolf Graf von Buol-Schauenstein.

38 Johann Protais Ivan Osip von Anstett.

39 On 1 March 1814 a four-power agreement was reached (Treaty of Chaumont) between England, Austria, Russia and Prussia regarding a defensive alliance against France. The following points were agreed: implementation of the peace programme and defence against any attack on the new system once peace had been restored, mutual aid for the duration of the war, no separate peace to be concluded with Napoleon, France to be pushed back to within its old borders, the independence of Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland and Switzerland, and Germany to be united in a federation. The alliance of Chaumont was renewed in the four-power agreement of 25 March 1815. It was followed on 30 May by the first Peace of Paris.

40 Louis XVIII.

41 Wilhelm von Humboldt.

42 Max I. Joseph.

43 After the dispute over the oath of adherence [cf. note 27 in Bavaria section], the Bavarian king decided to do away with the constitution that had just come into force by means of a coup d'état, especially since the situation seemed favourable following the assassination by Sand. However, when he sought support from Prussia and Austria, the response was that, having introduced a constitution, Bavaria must now act according to its principles. Neither Prussia nor Austria offered assistance to break the constitution, so Max I. Joseph had to give up the plan.

44 Johann Rudolf Graf von Buol-Schauenstein.

45 Heinrich Karl Friedrich Levin Graf Wintzingerode.

46 Cf. note 84 in Prussia section.

47 Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgor.

48 Ernst Friedrich Herbert Graf von Münster.

49 Cf. note 35 in Frankfurt section; and note 84 in Prussia section.

50 An important outcome of the Carlsbad Conferences of 1819 was the decision to meet again soon in Vienna to continue the work that had been started. At the Vienna Conferences (November 1819 to May 1820) a second basic federal law was agreed, which stood along with the Federal Act as the Vienna Final Act. The aim of the conferences was to finish the process of reversing the constitutional development along conservative-restorative lines started in Carlsbad.

51 Friedrich von Gentz, cf. FO 07/143: Charles W. Stewart to Viscount Castlereagh, No 2, Vienna, 10 October 1819 ‘Proposition du ministre de S.M.I, et R. Ap., présidant la Diète germanique’; translation ‘Propositions of the Minister of His Imperial and Royal Apostolick Majesty's President of the Diet of Germany’; not included in this volume.

52 Heinrich Karl Friedrich Levin Graf von Wintzingerode.

53 Ulrich Lebrecht Graf von Mandesloh.

54 Ferdinand von Degenfeld.

55 Cf. note 75 in Prussia section.

56 Enclosure: Address of the Officers of the Garrison of Ulm to H.M. The King of Wurtemberg: ‘The Wurtemberg Nation is proud and grateful, that the King in giving them a free Constitution, has thus at the same time elevated them to the first Rank among the enlightened Nations in Europe …’; translation.

57 Cf. note 8 in Frankfurt section.

58 As well as the sovereign princes and Germany's Free Cities, Austria and Prussia, which owned non-German territories, also belonged to the German Confederation, as did foreign rulers with German territorites: until 1837 the King of England as King of Hanover, until 1864 the King of Denmark as Duke of Holstein and Lauenburg, and until 1866 the King of the Netherlands as Grand Duke of Luxemburg. Only those parts of Austria and Prussia that were formerly part of the German Empirc belonged to the Confederation. In the case of Austria this meant that Hungary, Transylvania, Galicia, Croatia, Slavonia, Damatia, Lombardo-Venctia and Istria did not belong to the Confederation, while the Archdukedom of Austria, Steiermark, Carinthia, Carniola, Friuli, Trieste, Tirol (with Trient and Bressanone) and Vorarlberg, Salzburg, Bohemia, Moravia and Austrian Silesia did belong. In the case of Prussia, the provinces of East and West Prussia and Posen, and the principality of Neuenburg which was only linked to the Prussian crown through personal union, did not belong to the Confederation. The provinces of Pommerania, Brandenburg, Silesia, Saxony, Westphalia and the Rhine Province, however, did belong. The segregation of the areas of Prussia and Austria that did not belong to the Confederation implied that Confederation decrees did not apply to the non-member territories. The Confederation could not intervene or take action in these areas. The Confederation's guarantee of territorial integrity did not apply to these areas. There was therefore no obligation on the part of the Confederation or its member states to offer military support in the event of an attack by a foreign power, for example on Hungary or Neuenburg. The Confederation could also not be approached in the case of internal disturbances in these non-member regions.

As sovereigns of member-states of the Confederation the foreign rulers were subject to the Confederation's decrees in those of territories which belonged to the Confederation. In the event of the Confederation going to war, these territories were obliged to take part. The Confederation could only intervene or take action in these territories.

59 Since 1820 civil war had been raging in Spain. The country had forced King Ferdinand VII to grant a constitution and the radical members of the Cortes treated him almost like a prisoner. He turned to the European powers for support, which they deliberated at their great congresses. At the Congress of Verona it was decided that there should be armed intervention in Spain by France, which occurred in 1823.

60 Ferdinand I.

61 Erzherzog Franz Karl.

62 Clementine von Metternich.

63 Enclosure: Beilage zum Protokolle der 26ten Sitzung; Schluß=Acte der über Ausbildung und Befestigung des deutschen Bundes zu Wien gehaltenen Ministerial=Conferenzen; Translation. Especially marked is Article 7 (The Diet, being composed of Deputies from all the members of the Confederation, represents the League in the aggregate, and is the perpetual Constitutional Organ of its Resolutions and Proceedings) and Article 8 (The Plenipotentiaries, individually, continue in absolute dependence upon their committents, being responsible to them alone in regard of the faithful compliance with the Instructions furnished them, as well as with the duty of discharging their functions in general); and Article 32 (As every federal Government is under an obligation to watch over the fulfilment of the Decrees of the Confederation, and as the Diet is not competent to interfere directly in the domestic Administration of the federal States, an executorial process can, by right, be employed only against the Government itself. Exceptions to this rule are justifiable when any federal Government, in Default of sufficient means of its own, applies to the confederation for assistance, or, when the Diet, under the circumstances specified in Art. 26, sees occasion to come forward, unsolicited, for the purpose of restoring general order and security. It is necessary, however, in the former case, to act uniformly in concurrence with the opinions of the Government to which is afforded the succour consistent with the League, and, in the second case, to observe the same precaution, as soon as the Government in question re-assumes the exercise of its Authority); and Article 53 (The Independence, guaranteed to the individual States of the League by the federal Act, undoubtedly excludes, in genera!, every influence of the confederacy upon the domestic policy and Administration of the State; but as the members of the League have, in Sect. 2.d of the federal Act, agreed upon some particular provisions, relative party to the Guarantee of rights assured to them, and partly to defined relations of the subjects, it is the duty of the Diet to enforce the performance of the engagements, entered into by virtue of these provisions, whenever it shall appear from sufficiently authenticated information supplied by the parties concerned, that such performance has not taken place. The application, however, of the general Regulations, made in accordance with these engagements, to particular cases, rests solely with the Governments); and Article 56 (Such constitutions of the States of federal countries as are acknowledged and of long standing cannot be altered except in the manner sanctioned by those constitutions); and Article 61 (Except in the case of having undertaken the particular Guarantee of a constitution of the States and of maintaining the provisions of the present Act, relative to the 13th Article of the federal Act, the Diet is not competent to interfere in the concerns of the States of a federal country, or in disputes betwixt the Sovereigns and the States of their Dominions, unless such disputes assume the character indicated in Article 26, in which case the enactments of Articles 26 and 27 are applicable also to those concerns and disputes. Still, however, the 46th Art. of the Act of the Vienna Congress passed in 1815, respecting the Constitution of the free city of Francfort, shall not thereby be affected).

64 Added in pencil: ‘should be Dynasties’.

65 In 1820 the Spanish king had been forced to reinstate the liberal Spanish constitution of 1812. When news of this spread to Naples there was a great demand for a constitution to be granted here and an uprising forced the king to do so.

66 At the congress of the European powers in Troppau in 1820 the principle of intervention against all national and liberal aspirations was agreed, though not by Britain. In the protocol of 19.11.1820 Russia, Austria and Prussia pledged not to recognise revolutionary changes such as those in Spain, Italy, Greece and South America, but to act against them, first by diplomatic means but if necessary by force of arms. England refused to commit itself in principle to a policy of intervention. The Troppau Congress brought a split in the alliance dangerously near.

67 Ferdinand I.

68 Cf. note 55 in Bavaria section.

69 Grand Duke Michael and Princess Charlotte.

70 Dimitri Parlowitch Tatischef.

71 Wilhelm Johann von Krauseneck.

72 In Baden in 1819, and again in 1822, the idea was considered of a coup d'état for which the help of the Confederation, particularly Austria and Prussia, was sought in vain. At a meeting in October 1822 in Innsbruck on the tense state of affairs within Baden Metternich and Bernstorff both urged the Baden minister Berstett to oppose the Landtag energetically, within the confines of what was constitutionally possible. By means of a reactionary policy (‘Innsbruck System’) attempts were now made to curtail the Chambers' rights of influence as far as legally possible. When the Landtag was closed because of the dispute over the military budget the government hoped that the constitutional reason it has chosen as a pretext in this conflict would now finally persuade the Bundestag to intervene in the constitutional conflict in favour of the crown. However, this would only have been possible if the Confederation had explicitly undertaken to guarantee the regional constitution, which was not the case. Since no intervention could therefore be expected, in December 1824 the Grand Duke ordered the dissolution of the Landtag and new elections, which ended in victory for the government and brought only three liberal Deputies into the Second Chamber. With the assent of both Chambers Grand Duke Louis passed a law to change the constitution on 14 April 1825, which gave the government greater independence from parliament. This was maintained until 1831.

73 After the dispute over the military budget the Bavarian government again toyed with the idea of a coup d'état in 1822, for which it sought Austrian and Prussian support. However, it had to abandon these plans after the discouraging meeting Foreign Minister Rechberg had with Metternich and Bernstorffin October 1822.

74 Cf. note 35 in Frankfurt section.

75 Enclosure: Oesterreichischer Beobachter, No 10, Thursday, 10 January 1828; translation.