Klemens von Metternich
Aachen, Teplice, Karlsbad, Troppau, and Laibach

Metternich's primary focus remained on preserving unity among the Great Powers of Europe and hence his own power as mediator. He was also concerned by liberal-minded Ioannis Kapodistrias ' increasing influence over Tsar Alexander and the continual threat of Russia annexing large areas of the declining Ottoman Empire (the so-called Eastern Question). As he had earlier envisaged, by April 1818 Britain had drawn up, and Metternich pushed through, proposals to have a Congress at Aachen, then a Prussian frontier town, six months later. Meanwhile, Metternich was advised to go to the spa town of Karlsbad to treat the rheumatic tension in his back. It was a pleasant month-long trip, although it was there he received news of the death of his father at the age of 72.

He visited the family estate at Königswart and then Frankfurt in late August to encourage the member states of the German Confederation to agree on procedural issues. Metternich could also now visit Koblenz for the first time in 25 years and his new estate at Johannisberg. Travelling with Emperor Francis, he was warmly greeted by the Catholic towns along the Rhine as he progressed towards Aachen. He had arranged in advance for newspapers to cover the first peacetime congress of its kind. As discussions began, Metternich pushed for the withdrawal of allied troops from France and means for preserving the unity of the European powers. The former was agreed almost immediately, but the latter agreement extended only to maintaining the Quadruple Alliance. Metternich rejected the Tsar's idealistic plans for (among other things) a single European army. His own recommendations to the Prussians for greater controls on freedom of speech was equally hard for other powers such as Britain to support openly.

Today the greatest evil- and therefore the most immediate -is the press.

Metternich travelled with Dorothea Lieven to Brussels soon after the congress broke up, and although he could not stay more than a few days, the pair exchanged letters for the next eight years. He arrived in Vienna on 11 December 1818 and was finally able to spend considerable time with his children. He entertained the Tsar during the Christmas season and spent twelve weeks monitoring Italy and Germany before setting off with the Emperor on the third trip to Italy. The trip was cut short by the assassination of the conservative German dramatist August von Kotzebue. After a short delay, Metternich decided that if the German governments would not act against this perceived problem, Austria would have to compel them. He called an informal conference in Karlsbad and sounded out Prussian support beforehand by meeting with Frederick William III of Prussia in Teplice in July. Metternich carried the day, using a recent attempt on the life of the Chief Minister of Nassau, Carl Ibell to win agreement for the conservative program now known as the Convention of Teplitz. The Karlsbad conference opened on 6 August and ran for the rest of the month. Metternich overcame any opposition to his proposed "group of anti-revolutionary measures, correct and preemptory", although they were condemned by outsiders. Despite censure Metternich was very pleased with the result, known as the Carlsbad Decrees.

At the conference in Vienna later in the year, Metternich found himself constrained by the Kings of Württemberg and Bavaria to abandon his plans to reform the German Confederation. He now regretted having so quickly forced through its original constitution five years before. Nevertheless, he held ground on other issues and the Conference's Final Act was highly reactionary, much as Metternich had envisaged it. He remained in Vienna until the close in May 1820, finding the whole affair a bore. On 6 May he heard of the death of his daughter Princess Klementine von Metternich from tuberculosis. Journeying on to Prague, he heard that his eldest daughter Maria had also contracted the disease. He was at her bedside in Baden bei Wien when she died on 20 July. This prompted Eleonore and the remaining children to leave for the cleaner air of France.

The rest of 1820 was filled with liberal revolts to which Metternich was expected to respond. Ultimately, the Austrian Foreign Minister was torn between following through on his conservative pledge (a policy favoured by the Russians) and keeping out of a country in which Austria had no interest (favoured by the British). He chose "sympathetic inactivity" on Spain but, much to his dismay and surprise, Guglielmo Pepe led a revolt in Naples in early July and forced King Ferdinand I to accept a new constitution. Metternich reluctantly agreed to attend the Russian-initiated Congress of Troppau in October to discuss these events. He need not have worried: the Tsar gave way and accepted a compromise proposal of moderate interventionism laid down in the Troppau Protocol. Still worried by Kapodistrias' influence over the Tsar, he laid down his conservative principles in a long memorandum, including an attack on the free press and the initiative of the middle classes.

The Congress disbanded in the third week of December, and the next step would be a congress at Laibach to discuss intervention with Ferdinand. Metternich found himself able to dominate Laibach more than any other congress, overseeing Ferdinand's rejection of the liberal constitution he had agreed to only months before. Austrian armies left for Naples in February and entered the city in March. The Congress was adjourned but, forewarned or by luck, Metternich kept representatives of the powers close at hand until the revolt was put down. As a result, when similar revolts broke out in Piedmont in the middle of March, Metternich had the Tsar at hand, who agreed to send 90,000 men to the frontier in a show of solidarity. Concerns grew in Vienna that Metternich's policy was too expensive. He responded that Naples and Piedmont would pay for stability; nonetheless, he, too, was clearly worried for the future of Italy. He was relieved when able to create a Court Chancellor and Chancellor of State on 25 May, a post left vacant since the death of Kaunitz in 1794. He was also pleased at the renewed (if fragile) closeness between Austria, Prussia and Russia; however, it had come at the expense of the Anglo-Austrian entente.
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