Klemens von Metternich

1773 - 1859

Metternich was an Austrian diplomat at the center of European affairs for three decades, serving as the Austrian Empire’s foreign minister from 1809 and Chancellor from 1821 to 1848, when liberal revolutions forced his resignation. 

After Napoleon’s defeat and the end of French domination of the continent, the Congress of Vienna - an international conference of European powers - was held to organize post-Napoleonic Europe. Metternich represented Austria in the Congress and proved instrumental in creating an intricate system of alliances and power balances to keep peace going into the future. While the ambassadors at the Congress opposed liberalism and nationalism, they were unsuccessful in repressing it. Dissatisfaction with their conservative world order would eventually erupt in the liberal Revolutions of 1848, which forced both Metternich and the Austrian emperor, Ferdinand I, to step down, allowing Franz Joseph I to accede to the throne.

While Metternich’s system produced a period of relative peace for nearly a full century, the increasingly intricate and fragile sets of alliances required to maintain the status quo, as well as a rising tide of nationalism and liberalism eventually led to the eruption of the First World War, which took the entirety of Europe by storm.