Carlsbad Decrees

About the Author

Prince Klemens von Metternich (1773–1859) is generally credited as the author of the Carlsbad Decrees. More than any other European statesman of the time, Metternich, the Austrian foreign minister, epitomized the conservative point of view. Throughout his early career as a diplomat and politician, he gained a reputation for brashness and self-assurance in a variety of posts, including Austrian envoy to the elector of Saxony, ambassador to Berlin, and Austria's minister of state. He also acquired a reputation as something of a ladies' man amid charges that he had amorous relationships with Napoléon's stepdaughter and two of Napoléon's sisters. He ingratiated himself throughout Europe, but particularly in France. Metternich played a key role in diplomatic negotiations leading to the 1814 Treaty of Paris between France and the Sixth Coalition and as a delegate to the Congress of Vienna. In 1821 he was appointed chancellor of Austria, a position he held until 1848, when he resigned in the wake of liberal nationalist revolutionary activities across the Austrian Empire and within the German states.

The Carlsbad Decrees were part of Metternich's larger approach to the management of Europe through a diplomatic system. So closely is he associated with the period from the defeat of Napoléon in 1815 until the outbreak of revolutions in 1848 that those years are often referred to as the “Age of Metternich.” Metternich used his considerable diplomatic skill to suppress revolutionary impulses that sought to disrupt the conservative status quo established after Napoléon's defeat.