Austria was allied to France for the entire period from 1756 until the revolution; an alliance which directly produced one political outcome which you yourself touch on; the marriage of an Austrian princess to the then dauphin. It was only trotted out once for the fairly obvious reason that there was only one major European war in that period. It still held in peacetime though.
This alliance largely came about precisely because of the matter at hand here; because Austria wanted to regain Silesia, and viewed France as the best partner in pursuing that. Austria still wanted to regain Silesia here. France had the power to do that under Napoleon, and doing it would have delighted the Austrians and made them allies.
There was an alignment of interest here while lasted to a degree during the period. However not aware of any cases where the Austrians supported the French during the AWI or France supported Austria during its clashes with Prussia later on.
Simply because Austria was allied to royalist France and had a member of its own royal family killed by the republicans, was an important reason why it was a bitter early enemy of republican and then imperial France.
Austria did want Silesia back but it also had other concerns. As I said above I did read that Austria turned down Silesia because of the wider circumstances. Not saying it is accurate but it was a mention in a history book I read. However it could be that leadership in Vienna had a wider view of their empire's needs.
Yes; an enemy in wars almost always directly provoked by Napoleon’s excessive demands on Austria, not by some sort of dogged Austrian ideological opposition, as you seem to believe.
I never said that it was a purely ideological opposition, although the killing of Marie and the conservative nature of the Austria regime played at least a part. However also Austria was the established power in Italy, the southern Netherlands and much of Germany so the two inevitably clashed. France won those battles so it gained lands that Austria wanted back. [As well as the matters of prestige and revenge]. Actually I largely agree about your comments about Napoleon, especially in his later days, but even if he had been more far-sighted it would still have been a rocky relationship.
More to the point what I objected to, several posts back, was you saying that Austria had been less opposed to Napoleon. As I have pointed out it was by far his most persistent opponent on the continent, for whatever reason.
This is simply untrue; Metternich was perfectly prepared to accept French hegemony but Napoleon’s Hitler-like inability to moderate his foreign policy made such a policy impossible. See Paul Schroeder for details. It was never a real alliance, but then neither was any other great power relationship. Napoleon certainly had a better hand with the Austrians than with any of the rest.
I agree about Napoleon's character flaws. As I said above that's not that relevant to the point we started discussing. He probably had a bit better relation with Austria after the Marie-Louise marriage simply because there was a blood link.
Napoleon only had one policy - provoke his opponents into war, smash them, grab bits of territory, repeat. This did not make for a lasting settlement. If he had been a bit less stupid, he could easily have made one with Austria, particularly through the demise of Prussia at Tilsit.
Possibly, although it was Russia that was defeated at Tilsilt? Or did you mean that formally ended the war that had started with his attack on Prussia?
An open ally for five years? Uh? When? I hope you don’t mean after Tilsit, because that relationship collapsed almost as soon as the ink was dry.
The two were allied for several years, agreeing on a number of matters. Unlike with the other powers there was at least some degree of consent to this as Russia, while defeated on the field of battle had not been totally crushed like Napoleon's other continental opponents.
The Cons are that Russia's strength for the last two hundred years had depended on a weak Poland; that Austria and Prussia had colluded in destroying Poland a decade previously and consequently had no real interest in it returning.
The Pros are, well, ambiguous.
Pretty much