Friedrich von Gentz | |
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_-_Frederick%2c_Baron_von_Gentz_(1764-1832)_-_RCIN_400975_-_Royal_Collection.jpg) Portrait byThomas Lawrence, 1818–1819 | |
| Born | (1764-05-02)May 2, 1764 |
| Died | June 9, 1832(1832-06-09) (aged 68) |
| Occupation(s) | Publicist, statesman |
Friedrich von Gentz (2 May 1764 – 9 June 1832) was a Prussian-Austriandiplomat and a writer. With Austrian chancellorKlemens von Metternich he was one of the main forces behind the organisation, management and protocol of theCongress of Vienna.
Von Gentz was born inBreslau. His father was an official, his mother was from the distinguished Berlin Huguenot family Ancillon and the aunt ofPrussian ministerFriedrich Ancillon. On his father′s transfer fromBreslau toBerlin as director general of the royal mint, the gifted boy was sent to theJoachimsthalsches Gymnasium there. At theUniversity of Königsberg he got acquainted with the teachings and thinking ofImmanuel Kant, his intellect was sharpened and his zeal for learning quickened by the great thinker's influence. Nevertheless Kant′scategorical imperative and his ideas on the commandment of reason, from which all duties and obligations derive, did not prevent von Gentz from yielding to the taste for wine, women and gambling.[1]
When in 1785 he returned to Berlin, he received the appointment of secretary to the royalGeneraldirectorium, his brilliant talents soon gaining him promotion to the rank of councillor for war (Kriegsrath). During an illness, which kept him virtuous by confining him to his room, he studiedFrench andEnglish, gaining a mastery of these languages, which opened up for him opportunities for adiplomatic career.[1]
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His interest in public affairs was, however, first aroused by the outbreak of theFrench Revolution. As a quick-witted young man, he greeted it with enthusiasm, but its subsequent developments cooled his ardour and he was converted to more conservative views byBurke'sReflections on the Revolution in France, the translation of which into German (1794) was his first literary venture. This was followed, the next year, by translations of works on the Revolution byMallet du Pan andMounier, and he also founded and edited a monthly journal, theNeue deutsche Monatsschrift in which, for five years he wrote, mainly on historical and political questions. He maintained the principles of Britishconstitutionalism against those of revolutionaryFrance. The knowledge that he displayed of the principles and practice offinance was especially remarkable. In 1797, at the instance of English statesmen, he published a translation of a history of French finance byFrançois Divernois (1757–1842), an eminentGenevese exilenaturalized andknighted in England, extracts from which he had previously given in his journal. His literary output, all inspired by a moderateliberalism, was astounding, and it included an essay on the results of the discovery of theAmericas, and another, written in French, on the English financial system (Essai sur l'état de l'administration des finances de la Grande-Bretagne, London, 1800). Especially noteworthy, however, was theDenkschrift orMemorandum he addressed to KingFrederick William III on his accession (1797), in which,inter alia, he urged upon the king the necessity for grantingfreedom to the press and to commerce. For a Prussian official to venture to give uncalled-for advice to his sovereign was a breach of propriety not calculated to increase his chances of favour, but it gave von Gentz a conspicuous position in the public eye, which his brilliant talents and literary style enabled him to maintain. Moreover, he was from the first aware of the probable developments of the Revolution and of the consequences toPrussia of the weakness and vacillations of her policy.[1]
Opposition to France was the inspiring principle of theHistorisches Journal founded by him in 1799 and 1800, which once more held up English institutions as the model, and he became inGermany the mouthpiece of British policy towards the revolutionary aggressions of theFrench Republic. In 1801, he ceased the publication of theJournal because he disliked the regularity ofjournalism. He issued instead, under the titleBeiträge zur Geschichte, etc., a series of essays on contemporary politics. The first wasÜber den Ursprung und Charakter des Krieges gegen die französische Revolution (1801), regarded by many as Gentz's masterpiece; another important brochure,Von dem politischen Zustande von Europa vor und nach der Revolution, a criticism ofHauterive'sDe l'ėtat de la France de la fin de l'an VIII, appeared the same year.[1]
He gained recognition abroad and gifts of money from the British andAustrian governments, but it made his position as an official in Berlin impossible, as the Prussian government had no mind to abandon its attitude of cautiousneutrality. Private affairs also combined to urge von Gentz to leave the Prussian service; mainly through his own action, a separation with his wife was arranged. In May 1802, accordingly, he took leave of his wife and left with his friend Adam Müller forVienna. In Berlin, he had been intimate with the Austrian ambassador,Count Stadion, whose good offices procured him an introduction to theEmperor Francis. The immediate result was the title of imperial councillor, with a yearly salary of 4000gulden (6 December 1802), but it was not until 1809 that he was actively employed. Before returning to Berlin to make arrangements for transferring himself finally to Vienna, von Gentz paid a visit toLondon, where he made the acquaintance of Pitt and Grenville, who were so impressed with his talents that in addition to large money presents, he was guaranteed an annual pension by the British government in recognition of the value of the services of his pen againstNapoleon Bonaparte.[1]
From then on, he was engaged in a ceaselesspolemic against every fresh advance of Napoleonic dictatorial power and pretensions. With matchless sarcasm he lashed the nerveless policy of courts that suffered indignity with resignation. He denounced the recognition of Napoleon's imperial title and drew up amanifesto ofLouis XVIII against it. The formation of the coalition and the outbreak of war, for a while, raised his hopes despite his lively distrust of the competence of Austrian ministers. Hopes were speedily dashed by theBattle of Austerlitz and its results. Von Gentz used his enforced leisure to write a brilliant essay onThe relations between England and Spain before the outbreak of war between the two powers (Leipzig, 1806). Shortly afterwards appearedFragmente aus der neuesten Geschichte des politischen Gleichgewichts in Europa (translated asFragments on the Balance of Power in Europe, London, 1806). The last of von Gentz's works as an independent publicist, it was a masterlyexposé of the actual political situation and was also prophetic in its suggestions as to how this should be retrieved: ″Through Germany Europe has perished; through Germany it must rise again″.[1]
He realized that the dominance of France could not be broken but by the union of Austria and Prussia, acting in concert withBritain. He watched with interest the Prussian military preparations. At the invitation ofCount Haugwitz, he went at the outset of the campaign to the Prussian headquarters atErfurt, where he drafted the king's proclamation and his letter to Napoleon. The writer was known, and it was in this connection that Napoleon referred to him as a ″wretched scribe named Gentz, one of those men without honour who sell themselves for money″. Von Gentz had no official mandate from the Austrian government, and whatever hopes he may have cherished of privately influencing the situation in the direction of an alliance between the two German powers were speedily dashed by theBattle of Jena.[2]
The downfall of Prussia left Austria the sole hope of Germany and of Europe. Von Gentz, who from the winter of 1806 onwards divided his time betweenPrague and theBohemian watering places, seemed to devote himself wholly to the pleasures of society, his fascinating personality gaining him a ready reception in those exalted circles that were to prove of use to him later on inVienna. However, though he published nothing, his pen was not idle, and he was occupied with a series of essays on the future of Austria and the best means of liberating Germany and redressing the balance ofEurope, but he himself confessed to his friend Müller (4 August 1806) that in the miserable circumstances of the time, his essay on the principles of a general pacification must be taken as a political poem.[3]
In 1809, on the outbreak of war between Austria and France, von Gentz was for the first time actively employed by the Austrian government under Stadion. He drafted the proclamation announcing the declaration of war (15 April) and during the continuance of hostilities his pen was ceaselessly employed. The peace of 1810 and the fall of Stadion once more dashed his hopes and, disillusioned and hellishly blasé, he once more retired to comparative inactivity at Prague. Ofvon Metternich, Stadion's successor, he had at the outset no high opinion, and it was not until 1812 that the two men had close relations that were to ripen into lifelong friendship. However, when von Gentz returned to Vienna as von Metternich′s adviser, he was no longer the fiery patriot who had sympathized and corresponded with Stein in the darkest days of German depression and, in fiery periods, called upon allEurope to free itself from foreign rule. Disillusioned and cynical but clear-sighted as ever, he was henceforth before all things an Austrian, more Austrian, on occasion even than von Metternich.[3]
During the final stages of the campaign of 1814, he expressed the hope that von Metternich would substitute Austria for Europe in his diplomacy and, despite his opposition to Napoleon and of France, secure an Austro-French alliance by maintaining the husband ofMarie Louise on the throne of France.[3]
For ten years, from 1812 onward, von Gentz was in close touch with all the great affairs of European history as a writer and diplomat. He was the right hand, confidant and adviser of von Metternich. He accompanied the chancellor on his journeys and was present at all the conferences that preceded and followed the war. No political secrets were hidden from him, and his hand drafted all important diplomatic documents. He was secretary to theCongress of Vienna (1814–1815) a series of meetings to design a longterm peace plan for Europe, which meant he was state of affairs manager and head of protocol. His vast knowledge of men and affairs made him a power. He was under no illusion as to their achievements, and his memoir on the work of the Congress of Vienna is at once an incisive piece of criticism and a monument of his own disillusionment. He notes that at the Congress he received £22,000 throughTalleyrand fromLouis XVIII, whileCastlereagh gave him £600, accompanied by ″les plus folles promesses″; his diary is full of such entries. Yet he never made any secret of these gifts. Von Gentz did attend all the congresses and conferences that followed until theCongress of Verona (1822).[3]
However, the liberalism of his early years was gone, and he had become reconciled to von Metternich's view that in an age of decay, the sole function of a statesman was to prop up mouldering institutions. It was the hand of the author of that offensiveMemorandum toFrederick William III of Prussia on the freedom of the press that drafted theCarlsbad Decrees. It was he who inspired the policy of repressing the freedom of the universities, and he noted in his diary as a day more important than that ofLeipzig the session of the Vienna conference of 1819, which decided to make the convocation of representative assemblies in the German states impossible, by enforcing the letter of Article XIII of the Act of Confederation.[3]
In private life, von Gentz remained to the last a man of the world, but he was tormented with an exaggerated terror of death. He never saw his wife again since their parting at Berlin – she died in December 1802, a few months after his departure. His relations with other women, mostly of the highest rank, were too numerous to record. However, passion tormented him to the end, and his infatuation forFanny Elssler, the celebrateddanseuse, forms the subject of some remarkable letters to his friendRahel, the wife ofVarnhagen von Ense (1830–1831).[3]
Von Gentz remained aProtestant and never converted toCatholicism, although this step would have made his political and social life in the Austrian Empire easier.
Von Gentz died in Vienna on June 19, 1832. He has been described as a mercenary of the pen, and no other such mercenary has ever carved out for himself a more remarkable career. To have done so would have been impossible, in spite of his brilliant gifts, had he been no more than the ″wretched scribe″ sneered at by Napoleon. Though by birth he belonged to the middle class in a country of hide-boundaristocracy, he lived to move on equal terms in the society of princes and statesmen, which would never have been the case had he been notoriously bought and sold. Yet that he was in the habit of receiving gifts from all and sundry who hoped for his backing is beyond dispute. Von Metternich was aware of them, and he never suspected von Gentz of writing or acting in consequence against his convictions. As a matter of fact, no man was more free or outspoken in his criticism of the policy of his employers than this apparently venal writer. The gifts and pensions were rather in the nature of subsidies than bribes. They were the recognition by various powers of the value of an ally whose pen had proved itself so potent a weapon in their cause.[3]
It is, indeed, the very impartiality and objectivity of his attitude that make the writings of von Gentz such illuminating documents for the period of history which they cover. Allowance must of course be made for his point of view but less so perhaps than in the case of any other writer so intimately concerned with the policies which he criticizes. Apart from their value as historical documents, von Gentz′s writings are literary monuments, classic examples of nervous and luminous German language prose and of French as a model for diplomatic style.[3]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Phillips, Walter Alison (1911). "Gentz, Friedrich von". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 11 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 606–607.
