Historical Dictionary of the Napoleonic Era

by George F Nafziger

  MECKLENBURG-SCHWERIN AND MECKLENBERG-STRELITZ. The house of Mecklenburg was divided into two branches, Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The division of Mecklenburg between the two branches, as it existed from 1792–1815, occurred in 1695 when the branch of Mecklenburg-Gustrow became extinct. The Duchy of Mecklenburg-Gustrow was occupied by the Dukes of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who after heated debates in 1705, ceded the possession of the lordship of Stargard and the Principality of Ratzburg to a collateral branch of the extinct line, Mecklenburg-Strelitz. This division caused no alteration of the political union, in the internal regulations in the government of the states, nor in the Diet of Mecklenburg.

  During the Napoleonic Wars, the Duke, or Herzog, of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was Friedrich Franz, who was born in December 1756 and succeeded his uncle in 1780. His wife was the daughter of Prince Johann August of Saxe-Gotha.

  His eldest son, and the heir to the dukedom, served as a general in the Russian army. This son was married to Helena Paulowna, daughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia. His second son, Gustavus Wilhelm, served in the Prussian army. Karl August Christian also served in the Russian army and Adolph Friedrich served in the Prussian army.

  The Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was Carl Ludwig Friedrich. He was married to Charlotte Louisa, daughter of Prince Georg Wilhelm of Hesse-Darmstadt. He had four daughters and a son by that marriage and a second son by a second marriage after his first wife died. One of his daughters, Louisa, was married to King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia.

  The Duchy of Mecklenburg was jointly possessed by these two princes, and though divided between two sovereigns, constituted a single state under a single government. Its territories were a series of contiguous countries located between the Baltic and Pomerania on the east, the March of Brandenburg and the Principality of Lüneburg to the south, and the Duchy of Hamburg and the city of Lübeck on the west.

  Its territory was calculated as being about 6,300 square miles and was inhabited by 360,000 individuals. The Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin possessed a little more than 5,400 square miles with a population of 180,000 inhabitants. Mecklenburg-Strelitz had about 900 square miles and had 50,000 to 60,000 inhabitants.

  MÉHUL, ÉTIENNE HENRI (OR ÉTIENNE NICHOLAS) (1763–1817). Méhul was born on 24 June 1763 in Givet, Ardennes, France, of poor parents. His early training in music was achieved only with great difficulty. Méhul was received with much kindness and help by Gluck, but his first work was not presented at the Opéra Comique until 1790. After several other unsuccessful operas he had his first large success with Adrien. This was followed by Le Jeune Henri, Uthal and Joseph, all of which were great successes. Méhul became one of the four inspectors of the Paris Conservatoire. His output consists of 42 operettas and a number of songs for republican festivals, cantatas, and orchestral pieces. Méhul died in Paris on 18 October 1817. He is generally considered to have been the successor to Gluck.

  MELÉNDEZ VALDÉS, JUAN (1754-1817). Valdés became a professor at Salamanca and began a serious effort as a poet. He was so successful that he resigned from his chair and attempted to establish a career in politics. Valdés’s friend Jovellanos provided him a judgeship in Saragossa and from there he moved to a post in the chancery court at Valladolid. When Jovellanos fell in 1798, Valdés was exiled from the capital. Valdés returned in 1808 and accepted an office under King Joseph Bonaparte. Though he had previously denounced the French court, by joining them he incurred the wrath of his countrymen. When the French were driven from Spain in 1813 he fled to France. He died in poverty in Montpellier in 1817.

  MELVILLE, HENRY DUNDAS, 1ST VISCOUNT (1742–1811). Melville was born on 28 April 1742 in Edinburgh, the fourth son of Robert Dundas (1685–1753), lord president of the Scottish court. Melville was educated in Edinburgh and became solicitor-general of Scotland in 1766. When appointed to the post of lord advocate in 1775 he gradually relinquished his legal practice. In 1774 Melville returned to Parliament and joined the party of Lord North. In 1791 he was made home secretary in the cabinet and from 1794 to 1801 he was secretary of war under Pitt. In 1802 Melville was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Melville and Baron Dunira. In 1804, under Pitt, Melville again entered office as the first lord of the admiralty. In 1802 a commission of inquiry was appointed to investigate him and resulted in his impeachment in 1806. However, Melville was acquitted and nothing more than negligence was laid against him. Melville never again held office. In 1809 Melville was offered an earldom, but declined, dying on 28 May 1811.

  MESMER, FRIEDRICH (OR FRANZ) ANTON (1733–1815). Mesmer was born in Weil, near Constance, on 23 May 1733. He is known as the father of hypnotism and his name, Mesmer, has moved into the English language as “mesmerize.” Mesmer studied medicine in Vienna and became interested in astrology. He published his first work in 1766. In 1776, while in Switzerland, he observed a priest cure individuals by manipulation. Mesmer adopted this process and began holding seances in Vienna. However, the police took issue with him and forced him to leave town within 48 hours. Mesmer moved to Spa and then to Paris in 1778, where he became quite fashionable. The medical faculty of Paris, however, stigmatized him as a charlatan, despite the crowds that visited him. The government appointed a commission of doctors to investigate the phenomena observed in his seances that drew up an elaborate report admitting many of the facts, but attributing them not to magnetism as Mesmer had proposed, but to psychological effects. Mesmer had taken the phenomena, now known as hypnotism, and added to it a high degree of showmanship, but the basic phenomena is well established today. Mesmer left Paris and died in Meersburg, Switzerland, on 5 March 1815.

  METRIC SYSTEM. The Convention of Mètre, signed in Paris on 20 May 1875 established the metric system as an international system of weights and measures. However, the origins of the metric system are to be found in the French Revolution. The first proposal that formed the basis of the metric system came from Jean Picard (1620–82), an astronomer who proposed to take as a unit the length of a pendulum beating one second at sea-level at a latitude of 45 degrees. His suggestion was taken up by the National Assembly in 1790 when they appointed a committee to consider the suitability of adopting either the length of a seconds pendulum, a fraction of the length of the equator, or a fraction of the quadrant of the terrestrial meridian. The committee decided in favor of the latter and a commission was appointed to measure the arc of the meridian between Dunkirk and Montjuich, near Barcelona. A second commission was appointed to establish a series of standard weights and measures based on the length of the meter and to fix the nomenclature. It was in 1799 that a report on the length of the meter was formally presented to the French government and it was formally established by a law issued on 10 December 1799. In 1801 the new system became compulsory, but further laws had to be enacted in France in 1837 and 1840 establishing severe penalties for the use of any other weight and measurement system.

  METTERNICH-WINNEBURG KLEMENS WENZEL LOTHAR, FÜRST VON (1773–1859). Born on 15 May 1773 in Coblenz, Germany, Metternich was the son of Franz Georg Karl, Graf von Metternich-Winneburg and Countess Beatrix Kagenegg. In 1788 he entered the University of Strasbourg, where he studied diplomacy. When the French Revolution erupted he left Strasbourg and in 1790 entered the University of Mainz. Fleeing the advance of the revolutionary armies, he went to Brussels in the Austrian Netherlands, where his father was chief minister. In 1794 Metternich went on a diplomatic mission to England. During this trip he published a pamphlet calling for a general arming of the German people. In October Metternich joined his father, who had fled the advance of the French armies into the Netherlands, and gone to Vienna. Metternich resumed his studies in Vienna. On 27 September 1795 Metternich married Countess Eleonore Kaunitz, heiress and granddaughter of former Austrian state chancellor Wenzel Anton, Graf von Kaunitz. Though she would die in 1825, her marriage with him opened the path to the high office he had long sought. During the Congress of Rastatt (1797–99) he represented the Roman Catholic Westphalian counts of the Ho
ly Roman Empire. In 1801 he was appointed Austrian minister to the Saxon court. While there he formed a friendship with Friedrich von Gentz, the German publicist and diplomat. In addition, he established contacts with many important Russian and Polish families while in Dresden.

  In November 1803 Metternich’s serious diplomatic career began when he was assigned to serve as the Austrian Minister in Berlin. His principal task in Berlin was to persuade King Friedrich William III of Prussia to join Austria in the 1805 campaign, but he failed.

  In 1806 Metternich served as Austrian minister to France. As a result of dealings with Napoleon’s sister Caroline Murat and other ladies of Parisian society, he developed a reputation for licentiousness. Nonetheless, he also used these contacts to gather information on French state affairs. While in France he represented Austria in the negotations of the Treaty of Fontainebleau and worked to gain an understanding of the goals of Napoleon. Metternich’s judgement, however, was not perfect. He miscalculated the impact of the war in Spain and encouraged Austria to launch the 1809 invasion of Bavaria. Metternich was arrested as a reprisal for the internment of two members of the French embassy in Hungary. In June 1809, after Napoleon had captured Vienna, he was escorted there under military guard. Metternich was exchanged at Komarom for the French diplomats and was with Francis I during Wagram.

  Metternich succeeded Stadion on 8 July 1809 and became the Minister of State on 4 August. His offices were totally discredited with Napoleon and when he attempted to negotiate favorable terms for Austria after the battle of Wagram, Napoleon rejected them out of hand. He was absent at the Altenburg peace conference where Francis I signed the Treaty of Schönbrunn and had nothing to do with it. On 8 October he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, a post he would hold for the next 40 years.

  After the disastrous 1809 campaign, in order to relieve the pressure on Austria, Metternich arranged for the marriage of Archduchess Marie-Louise, a daughter of Francis I, and Napoleon. By this marriage, Metternich hoped to soften Napoleon’s heart toward Austria, to preserve Austria’s independence and save it from the dismemberment that Prussia had suffered. He succeeded in keeping Austria out of the Confederation of the Rhine and prevented it from becoming a client state to France.

  As Napoleon planned his invasion of Russia he demanded that Austria provide a contingent to support this operation. Metternich was responsible for establishing this contingent (Hilfkorps) as an independent contingent under the command of Prince Karl Schwarzenberg.

  When the disaster of the Russian campaign became known to Metternich he was, no doubt, joyful at the news. He supported the indefinite armistice that Schwarzenberg negotiated with the Russians on 30 January 1813, but because Austria was so exhausted and unprepared for renewed hostilities with France, he strove to keep Austria neutral as long as he could. He fought off the various calls for a national uprising, not only to allow Austria to rebuild her strength, but also to minimize the growth of nationalism that could threaten the very roots of the Austrian Empire.

  The victories of Lützen and Bautzen stiffened Napoleon’s attitude toward Austria and shocked Metternich. Despite the weakened situation of the Allies, on 27 June 1813, Metternich signed the Treaty of Reichenbach, by which Austria undertook to enter the war against France if Napoleon rejected the peace terms offered by Metternich.

  Metternich did not seek to destroy France as a power. He would hold out conciliatory offers of peace to Napoleon through the spring of 1814. He, no doubt, feared the growth and strength of Prussia and wanted France to balance the threat that Prussia was toward Austria and Austrian goals. Metternich was also surely thinking about the ongoing conflict and race between Russia and Austria in the Balkans. Russia could also play a dominant role in the post-Napoleonic Europe and that needed to be countered as well. The balance of power in Europe required France as a strong and active player.

  When war returned to Europe on 15 August 1813, Metternich had won for Austria, by his skill as a diplomat, the controlling hand in allied affairs. Schwarzenberg, an Austrian field marshal, would command the allied armies in the field. Austria also was the leader of the political alliance. For his achievements, in October 1813, Francis II, Emperor of Austria, bestowed upon Metternich the hereditary title of Prince (Fürst).

  On 9 September Metternich signed the treaty of Töplitz with Russia that committed Austria more closely to the Allies’ policies. He sought to control the course of events and not allow the balance of power to swing too far, nor strengthen overmuch either Prussia or Russia. Unfortunately for him, the course of events were beyond his control and he was forced to agree to the restoration of the Bourbons. However, in other respects, the Treaty of Chaumont (1 March 1814) was a real triumph for him, since it set down the basis on which Germany was to be constituted as a confederation of sovereign states and it also eliminated much of the concerns over a Russian dictatorship when it established the principle that action in Europe would be by consensus of the great powers: Russia, Prussia, Britain and Austria. Metternich promised to the members of the Confederation of the Rhine that if they came over to the Allies they would maintain the gains they had made under Napoleon. Specificially, this included Württemberg and Baden, which had enlarged their territories and consolidated their boundaries.

  On 20 October 1813 Metternich was created an hereditary Prince of the Austrian Empire. He also received the unique right to quarter his coat of arms with those of the house of Austria-Lorraine. On 21 April 1814 he was given the countship of Drauvar. On 30 May 1814 he signed the Treaty of Paris and then set out with Czar Alexander I and King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia to visit England. By 18 July he had returned to Vienna to make preparations for the Congress of Vienna. He then had the dignity of a Hungarian magnate bestowed upon him.

  The Congress of Vienna was Metternich’s greatest triumph. He ruled over it with charm of manner and his social gifts, which gave him tremendous influence on the procedings. His diplomatic skills were visible to all and readily admired, even though he was not above a little intrigue and disingenuousness that led to a breach with Czar Alexander I.

  When Napoleon was removed to St. Helena, Metternich stood by the promises he had made to the smaller German states and rejected the unrealistic proposals of Baron Stein and others for the reestablishment of the Holy Roman Empire.

  In contrast, Metternich attempted to reestablish the status quo antebellum in northern Italy. Here he encountered the growing sense of Italian nationalism that would lead to future wars for Austria. In addition, Francis I chose to join two incompatible regions in a completely unhistorical “Lombardo-Venetian kingdom” that ended Metternich’s hopes of counteracting pan-Italian nationalism.

  Between 1817–18 Metternich encouraged the German states to introduce constitutions and establish provinces with their own diets instead of a central parliament. In the summer of 1818 Baden and Bavaria chose to establish constitutional monarchies similar to those established in the French charter of June 1814. The revolutionary stirrings of 1819 and the unmanageable liberal politics of the Baden and Bavarian assemblies drove Metternich to convince Prussian chancellor Prince Karl August von Hardenberg that his preference for provincial diets was the correct course for the German states. Prussia moved away from constitutional monarchy as the states of the liberal German princes moved toward political chaos.

  Politicially, Metternich began to seek common ground with those liberal princes rather than attempting to undo the new constitutions of their states. In doing so, Metternich established Austrian predominance in the German confederation.

  In order to hold a lid on European politics, Metternich pulled together a system of congresses, at which the great powers would concert their actions, and maintain order and peace in Europe. Metternich was at the height of his career during the Congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), Troppau (1820), Laibach (1821) and Verona (1822). Through these congresses the great powers intervened in revolutions in the smaller powers. This system collapsed when Britain aba
ndoned Metternich’s system.

  Viscount Castlereagh began the process for this during the Congress of Troppau and George Canning, who replaced Castlereagh, ended Metternich’s influence on western Europe when he insisted on the right of national self-determination for the colonists in South America who had revolted against Spain and again during the Greek war of independence.

  When Alexander I died in 1825 Metternich’s influence on Russia began to wain. The growing resentment of Prussia for Austrian domination of European politics caused further difficulties. However, the July 1830 Revolution in France, which was quickly followed by insurrections in Belgium, Poland and Germany, soon convinced Austria, Prussia and Russia that they should stand together by Metternich’s principles for at least a while longer. The Berlin Convention (15 October 1833) reaffirmed the divine right of intervention and temporarily reaffirmed Metternich’s system, but his system had already passed away.

  On 25 May 1821 Metternich was appointed state chancellor in Austria. However, in 1826 Franz Anton, Graf von Kolowrat, was appointed minister of state and head of the cabinet conferences. Kolowrat had great influence over Emperor Francis I and steadily supplanted Metternich’s influence in Austrian affairs.

  Perhaps it was an effort to regain power and influence and perhaps it was simply bad advice, but Metternich convinced Francis I to recognize his feebleminded eldest son, the Archduke Ferdinand, as heir to the throne. It is possible that Metternich felt he could influence the feebleminded Ferdinand when he ascended the throne and that would restore him to power. Things did not, however, work out as Metternich had hoped. In 1835 Metternich’s presumed ally, Archduke Ludwig, abandoned him, joined Archduke John and together they sided with Kolowrath. Metternich’s authority was quickly restricted to external affairs.