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Of Lions and Eagles: A Timeline

In 1749, Maria Theresa,
Empress Consort of the Holy Roman Empire and sovereign of the Habsburg Monarchy, convened a meeting of the Privy Council (Geheime Konferenz) to conclusively solve the problems caused by and preceding the loss of Silesia during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748). The young Count Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz, previously the ambassador to Sardinia and briefly in charge of the government of the Austrian Netherlands, advocated something completely different from the traditional Anglo-Austrian Alliance. He believed that rapprochement with France and the Bourbons would better serve the Habsburg Monarchy’s ambition to reclaim Silesia from Prussia under Frederick II. Conservative factions, including Holy Roman Emperor Francis I of Lorraine, opposed such a radical new direction.
Maria Theresa accepted von Kaunitz’s diplomatic theory, which matched her own beliefs, and it became state policy to pursue an alliance with Russia and France. Von Kaunitz was made the ambassador to France in 1750. He would serve until 1753, working to drastically realign the alliances of Europe (1).
That year, the forty-three year-old diplomat fell off of his horse in Paris, sustaining a fatal head wound (2). With the talented von Kaunitz’s death, the foremost advocate for a Habsburg-Bourbon alliance ceased to be. Conservative Austrians were able to exploit this power vacuum in the pro-French lobby to take control again of foreign policy. The Anglo-Austrian Alliance would stand, for better or for worse.



A posthumous portrait of Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz by J. G. Haid, 1755 (3).


(1)Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia (1600-1947)
(2)This is the point of diversion. In our timeline von Kaunitz’ returned to Austria in 1753 and became the state chancellor with control over foreign policy, essentially Metternich’s predecessor.
(3)This was of course not posthumous at all in our timeline.
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