Note 27 — Chapter I

Charles Robert, Comte de Nesselrode, born in 1780, died in 1862; a most able Russian diplomatist. After having filled several posts in Germany and at the Hague, he was Councillor of Embassy in Paris in 1807. As early as 1810 he was enabled to warn his sovereign with regard to the secret armaments of Napoleon in view of a rupture with Russia, and from that moment his credit with Alexander I. grew immensely. Nesselrode was called to the Chancellorship of State, and subsequently shared with Capo d’Istria the direction of Foreign Affairs. It was he who inspired the Coalition against France in 1813, and signed the Convention of Breslau, the Treaty of Subsidies with England, and the League of Toeplitz. In 1814, he accompanied the Czar to France, signed the Treaty of Chaumont, and negotiated the capitulation with Marmont. He played an important part at the Congress of Vienna. Subsequently at Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), at Laybach (1821), and at Vienna (1822) he exercised a preponderant influence. Under Nicholas I., who maintained him in his functions, Nesselrode practically established Russia’s influence on ‘young’ Greece, and was the author of two treaties humiliating to Turkey, viz., that of Adrianople (1829) and that of Unkiar-Skelessi (1833). In 1840 his diplomatic skill kept France excluded from the European Concert. He succeeded in preventing the European Powers from intervening in the affairs of Poland (1830–31), and in 1848, after for some time merely preserving a watchful attitude in Hungarian affairs, he finally flung Russia’s power in the balance in Austria’s favour, and increased his master’s influence in the East. He was a partisan of a peaceful settlement of the difficulties cropping up in 1854, and endeavoured to avoid a conflict between France and Russia. His last political act was the conclusion of peace and the Treaty of Paris, after which he retired, though preserving the titular Chancellorship of the Empire. His despatches are models of conciseness.