Vienna, 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna (23 page)

Despite the hope that a change of environment would ease tensions, the problems had simply moved 150 miles down the Danube. The Russian tsar continued his uncooperative behavior, at odds with prevailing diplomatic etiquette. Rude and crude, he exploded unpredictably, and spies reported a rage of door slamming in the Hungarian palace where they were staying. They also reported that he was insulting his fellow sovereigns by spending most of his time with “pretty women.”

The tsar, it was also said, took every opportunity to disparage Metternich and the diplomats he so detested. Alexander told the Austrian emperor that he wanted the two of them, along with the king of Prussia, to band together, in a sort of sovereign’s league, to reach solutions about Europe themselves. He wanted to begin by having Metternich removed from office.

But that would not happen, at least not yet. What saved Metternich was undoubtedly the support of Emperor Francis. The Austrian emperor liked his foreign minister and trusted his opinion, no matter what the tsar or Metternich’s growing legion of critics had said. Besides, the tsar’s domineering behavior showed, if the emperor needed a reminder, how difficult it could be to work with him.

In fact, during this trip to Hungary, Francis suggested that everyone would be better served if the monarchs left the complicated negotiations to their foreign ministers. As diplomats at later conferences would also learn, the differences in rank between a head of state and a foreign minister strained the normal give-and-take consensus-building procedures of the conference room.

So despite Alexander’s efforts, Metternich would continue to have his emperor’s support and would remain Austrian foreign minister. Emperor Francis, for his part, returned to Vienna, even more wary of the tsar, while the king of Prussia emerged from the royal trip more loyal to Alexander than ever, earning a new sobriquet: the tsar’s valet de chambre.

Chapter 14

D
INNER WITH THE
T
SAR

It would be difficult to have more intelligence than Tsar Alexander, but there is a piece missing. I have never managed to discover what it is.

—N
APOLEON

P
ublic opinion about the Vienna Congress, meanwhile, was falling to a new low. “Our conference is not progressing at all,” one member of the Bavarian delegation grumbled. “Nothing is decided, nothing is agreed on.” The paralysis was blamed on a simple cause: “Far too few meetings are held; the whole time being consumed with these nauseating, never-ending fetes.” Even the king of Prussia was overheard at a ball complaining, “We only seem to be here to amuse ourselves.”

It was Metternich’s fault, some said: He was devious, deceitful, and, above all, distracted with his love affair. How on earth could he be Austria’s foreign minister, let alone president of the congress? Rumors circulated, too, that Metternich would soon resign, be sacked, or even succumb to a nervous breakdown. Others blamed the tsar and his bullying, boasting style of negotiation. Still others, however, traced the ultimate cause for all the discord back to salon intrigues orchestrated by the Duchess of Sagan and Princess Bagration, who, it was said, were playing the leaders of the world like chess pieces.

After the last postponement two weeks before, the congress’s new opening date, November 1, was also quickly approaching, and once again there was no sign of an official opening. Many feared that the congress might not take place at all. The peacemakers had never seemed so far apart.

For most of the delegates outside the Big Four, all this wasted time was infuriating and intolerable. How ironic it seemed that the representative of the defeated power, Talleyrand, was emerging as the most prominent spokesman for an immediate opening of the peace congress.

True, Castlereagh, Metternich, and Hardenberg had secretly agreed to threaten the tsar by summoning the assembly of states and throwing the question of Poland before them. But this was Castlereagh’s urging, and he really was the only minister inclined to look favorably on the opening of a congress. Talleyrand, of course, realized this fact and saw a potential ally in Castlereagh.

The two foreign ministers related fairly well, both professionally as diplomats and socially as cosmopolitan gentlemen. Both could look over the fact that their countries had been at war the past 20 years, which in turn was part of a larger pattern of hostility that stretched back almost 150 years. Britain and France were used to being enemies, and Talleyrand, at least, hoped to change that.

At Vienna, the biggest difference between the two delegates was a question of priorities. For Castlereagh, the main challenge lay in resisting the growth of Russia, led by a tsar who acted like “another Bonaparte.” Talleyrand, on the other hand, was less concerned about an idiosyncratic tsar than angry and belligerent Prussians who might truly launch another war. As he saw it, Castlereagh’s views were naive and rather simpleminded, based on the luxury of being a secure island power defended by a strong navy and a stormy English Channel.

Castlereagh, for his part, thought that Talleyrand was overreacting, consumed with unnecessary fears of his German neighbor. “France need never dread a German league,” Castlereagh concluded, “it is in its nature inoffensive.”

So once again Talleyrand’s task, as he saw it, was to set Castlereagh straight and show how dangerous Prussia would become if it gained Saxony. At a private meeting at English headquarters on the Minoritenplatz in late October, Talleyrand limped over to the maps on the table and gave a history lesson to the British minister: “I pointed out to him how that, Saxony and Silesia being in the same [Prussian] hands, Bohemia might be taken in a few weeks.”

This was something that Prussia had done three times previously in conflicts with Austria under Frederick the Great, and later that century Prussia would do so again under Otto von Bismarck. And should Bohemia be exposed, then “the heart of the Austrian monarchy would be laid bare and defenseless.” As Talleyrand described it, an “astonished” look crept over Castlereagh’s long face.

At this point, Talleyrand targeted his appeal more directly to British self-interest: Did they really want to hand over Saxony, with the rich trading city of Leipzig, home to great markets and fairs since the Middle Ages, to a country like Prussia, whose allegiance they could not count on for sure? This was robbing the friendly disposed state of Saxony in order to reward a power whose policy was uncertain at best.

Talleyrand had pounced on a basic problem in British foreign policy: Castlereagh’s whole strategy was based on the assumption that Prussia would act as an independent sovereign power and not be subjected to any undue outside influence. But that was simply not the case. Given the king of Prussia’s dependence on the tsar, Castlereagh was basically pursuing a policy that would likely end in what he feared most: a much stronger Russia.

Yet it would take more than a few arguments for Talleyrand to change Castlereagh’s mind. By the end of the conversation, the French minister began to suspect that there must be another reason for Britain’s support of Prussia. Castlereagh was not only preparing for a threat coming from Russia, but he also still harbored a fear of France. Talleyrand tried to assure him that his country posed no threat whatsoever. France would be insane, he argued, to launch another war.

As Castlereagh remained unconvinced, Talleyrand tried yet another line of argument. There was, of course, one way to stop Russian expansion once and for all: Open the Congress. Dare the tsar to make his outrageous demands in front of an assembly of all the delegates. He cherished his image as a war hero, a liberator, and an enlightened thinker too much for that.

There were difficulties in calling a congress, the British statesman said vaguely. When Talleyrand pressed him to specify what exactly those might be, Castlereagh urged him to talk to Metternich. “I conclude from this,” Talleyrand wrote, “that something has been agreed to between them,” and the two leaders “would not have kept [that agreement] secret from me if they had no reason to believe that I should object to it.”

O
N
O
CTOBER
30, as if on cue, Talleyrand received an invitation for a confidential interview with Prince Metternich that evening at eight o’clock. This was immediately before a meeting of the Committee of Eight, which now had to figure out what to do about the congress. Its proposed opening was, as promised, a mere two days away.

Clearly, Metternich was starting to wonder if opening a congress might not be such a bad idea after all. It was the lesser of evils, compared to the risks of a Russian empire creating a satellite Kingdom of Poland and extending its influence all the way to central Europe. His colleagues on the committee likewise felt such a great pressure that they had decided to ask Talleyrand to submit his ideas for the organization of the peace conference.

Ready for this request, Talleyrand brought along his plan to the meeting. His proposal called for a main directing committee that would organize all negotiations and also, interestingly, appoint a series of subcommittees to deal with the more specialized problems the diplomats faced. He proposed three such committees: one dealing with Saxony, another Italy, and the last with Switzerland. As for the tricky problem of who could participate, there would also be a “Commission of Verifications” to examine credentials of the aspiring delegates. The congress of all the states, which would ratify everything, should open immediately.

Castlereagh supported this plan, of course, and now he was joined by Metternich. Russia’s Count Nesselrode, however, protested that he could not vote for it because he was not yet well enough informed. The Prussian delegates were even more adamantly opposed; Chancellor Hardenberg, in particular, was said to have a special “horror” at the thought of a congress. By the end of the meeting, with Russia and Prussia sticking together, Talleyrand’s proposal was tabled. On the eve of its opening, the congress was postponed once more. A few weeks later, it would be postponed one last time, never in fact to open. The congress, in a sense, would never meet. The Directing Committee and the subcommittees, however, were not scrapped, and the real work of the Congress of Vienna was going to be done there, in small groups meeting behind closed doors.

I
T WAS DURING
this minor crisis, when it seemed to many that the Great Powers could not agree on anything, that Metternich apparently received a curious, anonymous note. It was probably the same night of the meeting, October 30, at a masquerade in the Hofburg Palace. A masked figure had approached the Austrian foreign minister, handed him a folded paper, and then promptly disappeared into the crowded ballroom.

Opening the note, which was sent from an unnamed source identified only as “a person of the highest distinction” with whom he had recently quarreled, Prince Metternich was promised a handsome sum, if only he would be more cooperative on a certain matter. The rest of the offer must have been much more tempting. The unidentified sender claimed to be in a position to help Metternich solve his problems with “a woman of rank” in whom he was very much interested. All of this was admittedly vague, but the author of the note reassured Metternich: “Your Highness will understand.”

Now, of course, Metternich understood perfectly well. The mystery “person of the highest distinction” that he had quarreled with was almost certainly the tsar, and there was only one “woman of rank,” at that time, that he was interested in: the Duchess of Sagan. As one of Castlereagh’s assistants described the episode, the Austrian foreign minister simply took the note, “tossed it aside [and] pretended not to understand.” Later, Metternich regretted that he did not hang on to the paper as proof of the tsar’s cheap tricks.

Talleyrand, about the same time, was also receiving some information that might prove useful in future negotiations. This concerned Britain’s Castlereagh, who, however helpful with respect to the congress, was proving a tough nut to crack when it came to his Prussian policy. Perhaps that would soon change, Talleyrand hoped, with good reason.

According to Talleyrand’s sources, Castlereagh was hiding a secret that, if disclosed, would leave him in a compromising position. Castlereagh apparently had no government sanction for his policy of supporting Prussia. In fact, it seemed that the British foreign secretary was acting in defiance of his own government’s orders.