Felix Schwarzenberg, Military Diplomat
1975; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 11; Linguagem: Inglês
10.1017/s0067237800015320
ISSN1558-5255
Autores Tópico(s)Central European national history
ResumoAt nine o'clock in the evening of March 13, 1848, Prince Clemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von Metternich resigned as imperial chancellor. With the “coachman” in absentia, Central Europe's peoples struggled to gain more freedom in that remarkable revolutionary movement of 1848. The Habsburg monarchy, although teetering on the verge of dissolution, survived the mid-century's most tumultuous year. Despite weakness at the helm of government, improvement of dynastic fortunes had gathered momentum by mid-summer as the imperial army under Prince Alfred Ferdinand zu Windischgrätz, Count Joseph Wenzel Radetzky, and Count Josip Jelačić od Bužima advanced irregularly but steadily on the peripheries of the realm. By autumn provision of a coherent Habsburg policy to be applied throughout the far-flung empire became mandatory. To provide a strong man to enforce the policies, Field Marshal Windischgrätz recommended for minister-president his forty-eight-year-old brother-in-law, Prince Felix Ludwig zu Schwarzenberg, an individual who possessed both the confidence of the army and considerable diplomatic experience.
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