Vienna, 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna by David King Read Free Book Online Page B

the French embassy a pleasant place.
     
    —T ALLEYRAND
     
    D espite the distance of the journey, the British had been one of the first official delegations to roll into town. The leader was Lord Castlereagh, tall, blond, and looking twenty years younger than his actual age of forty-five. His thin, almost frail frame was usually draped in black; his somber choice in clothes, it was said, often matched his mood. His long, angular face gave the impression of aristocratic detachment, or, as some dryly noted, made him appear to be in a state of perpetual boredom. It was certainly a champion poker face, which would serve him well both at Vienna’s diplomacy and gambling tables.
    Castlereagh and his team had reached the Austrian capital back on the thirteenth of September, and immediately hunted down their designated headquarters, a house tucked away in the narrow Milchgasse. The rooms had actually been rented some years before to a young musician named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. While living there in the early 1780s, Mozart had worked on his first full German opera, Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio), and carried on an affair with the landlady’s daughter, Constanze, whom he married in 1782. The cozy flat may have proven a happy place for Mozart and his opera, but its cramped size hardly suited the delegation representing Great Britain, proud financier of Allied victory.
    Castlereagh would indeed seek out a new place to stay, and within a week move into a twenty-two-room suite on the Minoritenplatz, an elegant cobbled square lined with aristocratic mansions and the fourteenth-century Church of the Friars Minor. The British delegation was now just a few steps away from both Metternich’s offices on the Ballhausplatz and the Hofburg Palace itself. Castlereagh and his wife, Lady Emily, were housed on the top floor, the diplomatic staff on the first floor, and the ground floor was reserved for entertainment. The Castlereaghs would enjoy setting the mood for some evening soirees with the hauntingly ethereal sounds of the glass harmonium, a musical instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin.
    Unlike the other major delegations at the peace conference, Britain was actually still at war, fighting across the ocean against the young republic of the United States. In American history, this is known as the War of 1812; in British history, it has not received its own name, generally submerged into the wider conflict with Napoleon. Battles still raged across a number of fronts in Canada, on the Great Lakes, and on the Atlantic. Indeed, just a few weeks before Castlereagh arrived in Vienna, British troops had landed at Chesapeake and burned Washington to the ground, destroying the Treasury, the Library of Congress, and even the President’s Palace. James and Dolley Madison had fled, and the war showed no signs of abating.
    While this meant that their attention would be divided between America and Europe, Britain clearly prioritized the conference at Vienna, and felt confident in its position. Castlereagh’s country had earned immense prestige as the only power that had hung on for the entire struggle against Napoleon, sometimes facing the foe all alone. They had the world’s largest navy, its richest economy, and colonial possessions already dotting the globe from South Africa to India. During the war, they had scooped up other colonies from the French and their allies. All of this would, they figured, translate into a strong negotiating position.
    National hopes were centered on securing freedom of the seas, so important to the Royal Navy, and one of the many issues in the war with the States. Castlereagh also wanted to make sure that the flatlands and coasts of the area known today as Belgium would not, under any circumstances, fall again into the hands of a hostile country. This meant, above all, that it should be kept away from France. The port of Antwerp was a potential launching pad for an invasion—“the