Metternich's Diplomacy at Its Zenith, 1820-1823 by Paul W. Schroeder

Author:Paul W. Schroeder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2014-04-22T16:00:00+00:00

Pralormo denounced further the intention of the Allies to set up a ministerial council at Turin to guide the King, and the evident desire of Metternich to promote “the establishment in all the Italian states of a uniform system of organization” to be sanctioned by the next congress.107 Other Sardinian agents at other courts dwelt on the

Metternich protested vigorously against these calumnies and instructed his own agents to do everything in their power to combat the petty suspicions and intrigues generated by the Sardinians. Yet the stir they raised was sufficient not only to frustrate his ideas for setting up a ministerial council at Turin and reproducing the Neapolitan system of governmental organization throughout Italy, but also to make him consider withdrawing the Austrian occupation force from Piedmont and calling on his eastern Allies to raise one of their own to replace it, or even suspending the Laibach declaration with regard to Piedmont and leaving the kingdom to its own devices.109 Fortunately for the Austrian cause, Binder, backed up by Metternich’s protests, was able to secure support for it from the King at Modena. Foreign Minister Laval sent out a circular dispatch to his ministers rebuking and disavowing the anti-Austrian agitation, while at almost the same time, on July 24, Binder secured agreement to the Convention of Novara governing the occupation of eastern Piedmont. The Austrian force, twelve thousand strong, was to remain in the kingdom at least until the next year’s congress, when the situation would be reviewed and further action determined.110

Thus the diplomatic difficulties were smoothed over and in time the government of Piedmont settled down to a normal, quiet course. When this happened, Vienna was satisfied. Binder commended the King for his just severity against the revolutionaries and his rigid absolutist principles,111 while Metternich warmly praised his course of repression of agitation and the surveillance against revolution that he followed in late 1821 and 1822. Emperor Francis indicated his approval by bestowing upon Charles Felix the Order of the Golden Fleece and upon Delia Torre the Grand Cross of St. Stephen.112

At least one Austrian observer, Baron Daiser, who had been appointed chargé Affaires at Turin in 1821,113 doubted, however, that Charles Felix was doing much about the basic ills of his kingdom. He traced the roots of Piedmont’s recent troubles to the great changes of the previous quarter-century. Piedmont, once one of the most feudal and backward of European states, had been thoroughly transformed by the French Revolution and Napoleon. Victor Emmanuel’s halfhearted and bumbling attempts to restore the old order, he said, had succeeded only in composing a government and army half of incompetent nobles and half of dissatisfied Bonapartists and liberals. This unstable mixture was partly responsible for the easy success of the revolution, for when it broke out there was no strong openly prodynasty party to oppose it. Even the loyalist forces of Delia Torre would have readily been overthrown without foreign intervention, since the masses were at best neutral in the crisis. “Nearly

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