The nephew of Prince Karl Philipp of Schwarzenberg (1771–1820), commander of the Austrian armies in the last phases of the Napoleonic wars, Schwarzenberg after a short military interlude entered the diplomatic service, where he became a protégé of State Chancellor Prince Klemens von Metternich and served in several Austrian embassies[2] at Saint Petersburg, London, Paris, Turin, and Naples. During his time as a London attaché in 1828 he had an affair with Jane Digby, whom he deserted after causing her then-husband – Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough – to divorce her, and making her pregnant. This episode led to the nickname of "Prince of Cadland" being applied to him in London.
Together with the new Emperor, Schwarzenberg called in the Imperial Russian Army to help suppress the Hungarian revolt, and thus give Austria free rein to attempt to thwart Prussia's drive to dominate Germany. He undid democratic reforms and re-established monarchist control in Austria, with the 1849 March Constitution that transformed the Habsburg Empire into a unitary, centralized state. In matters of German dualism, he was able to impose the Punctation of Olmütz on Prussia, forcing it to abandon, for the moment, its plan of unifying Germany under its own auspices, and to acquiesce in the reformation of the old German Confederation.[2] At the same time his government initiated substantial administrative, juridical, and educational reforms.
Schwarzenberg died in office at Vienna, suffering a stroke in the early evening of Monday, April 5, 1852.
Legacy
Schwarzenberg achieved substantial respect in Europe as an able statesman (some called him the "Austrian Bismarck"), although he was not much trusted, even by his emperor. His own statement (or alleged statement: according to historian Edward Crankshaw, it is apocryphal) following the Russian intervention in Hungary, that Austria would "shock the world by the depth of its ingratitude" was bitterly remembered in the Crimean War, a war which had the effect of marring his posthumous reputation. Varying between the ideas of constitutionalism and the revival of an absolute monarchy, Schwarzenberg managed to disappoint both liberal and conservative circles. Nevertheless, his intelligence and powers of application were great; and his sudden death has generally been seen by historians as a grave setback to Austria, given that none of his successors in the emperor's reign possessed his European renown or political skill.
The honorary citizenship of Budapest bestowed on Schwarzenberg during his lifetime was officially revoked in 2011 by the local government under Mayor István Tarlós.