Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Thugut, Franz Maria von

THUGUT, Franz Maria von (1734–1818), foreign minister of Austria, was born of humble parentage at Linz in 1734, placed in the Government school of Oriental studies in 1752, and sent to Constantinople as an interpreter in 1757. At Constantinople he rose from post to post in the embassy, until in 1771 he became internuncius or ambassador. In 1776, after the war between Russia and Turkey, he obtained from the latter power the cession of the province of Bukowina to Austria. After thus crowning his long service in the East and gaining the confidence of Maria Theresa, he was sent by her without the knowledge of her son, the emperor Joseph, to Berlin, to avert by a peaceful settlement with Frederick the Great the threatened Bavarian war. In 1790 he was employed in the negotiations of Sistova, and his next mission was to Paris, where he entered into close relations with Mirabeau as the friend of Marie Antoinette. On the invasion of France by the allied armies in 1792, Thugut was sent to the scene of operations. It is well known that Kaunitz, the veteran minister of Austria, condemned the terms of the alliance with Prussia, as securing to Prussia the annexation of a great part of Poland, while only holding out to Austria an uncertain prospect of acquiring its equivalent in Bavaria. Thugut, a politician of the same school, viewed the new alliance with even greater hatred. After the failure of the campaign of 1792 he formed the deliberate opinion that persons around the duke of Brunswick had been bribed by the French, and that the retreat had been ordered in consequence. A few months later the anticipations of Kaunitz were realized. Prussia seized western Poland, while Austria remained as far as ever from gaining Bavaria. The emperor Francis now dismissed the ministers responsible for the Prussian alliance, and called Thugut to power. From this critical moment the alliance was doomed, and the allied commanders thwarted rather than assisted one another's operations on the eastern frontier of France. On the other hand, Thugut drew nearer to Russia, and negotiated at St Petersburg for the seizure of Venice by Austria. With England he desired to stand on a good footing; but, while Pitt's object was the overthrow of the revolutionary Government, Thugut's was simply the acquisition of territory for Austria. This discrepancy of aim led to results exasperating to the English ministry, such as the fall of Toulon, to which Thugut neglected to send the troops which he had promised. The evacuation of Belgium in 1794, usually attributed to Thugut's treachery, was, however, due to the incapacity or intrigues of others. In 1795, after the withdrawal of Prussia from the coalition, Thugut obtained financial help from England, gained from Russia a large share of Poland in the last partition, and prepared to carry on the war against France with the utmost energy. The campaign of the archduke Charles in 1796 drove the French from the east of the Rhine, and Bonaparte, who had conquered northern Italy up to Mantua, narrowly escaped destruction before this fortress. But for the genius of the French commander and the wretched character of the Austrian generals and officers, the immense efforts made by Thugut at this time would have turned the tide of the war. Defeat after defeat seemed to make no impression upon his "world-desolating obstinacy "; and, even when Bonaparte had advanced to within eighty miles of Vienna, it is stated that the empress had to throw herself at her husband's feet when in conference with his minister, in order to overcome the resistance of the latter to an armistice. The subsequent peace of Campo Formio was hotly condemned by Thugut, who tendered his resignation. Then followed the congress of Rastadt and the murder of the French envoys, long attributed, but without any real ground, to Thugut himself. War was renewed; the French were driven out of Italy by Austrian armies as sisted by Suwaroff; and it was determined that the allies should conquer Switzerland, and so invade France where the frontier is most open. Thugut, now at the height of his power, and far more anxious to recover Belgium than to overthrow the republic, took the fatal step of withdraw ing a great part of the Austrian forces from Switzerland at the very moment when the Russians were entering it. The result was the destruction of the Russians by Massena and the total failure of the campaign, followed by the se cession of Russia from the coalition. Still full of designs for annexation in Italy, Thugut continued the war with the help of England. On the very day when he renewed his engagements with England the news arrived of the battle of Marengo, which at one blow made an end of all that Austria had won in Italy in the preceding year. Nothing daunted, Thugut continued, during the armistice which followed, his preparation for the struggle with Moreau in the valley of the Danube; and, if he could have inspired his master with his own resolute spirit, the result of the war might have been different. But, while Thugut was actually receiving the British subsidies, the emperor, without the knowledge of his minister, surrendered the fortresses of Ulm and Ingolstadt to Moreau, in return for an extension of the armistice. Thugut's passionate indignation on learning of this miserable act is impressively described in Lord Minto's despatches from Vienna. He withdrew from office; but Lord Minto's pro tests compelled the emperor again to place in his hands the direction of affairs, which he held until the battle of Hohenlinden made all further resistance impossible. He was then, in deference to French influence, banished from Vienna, and never resumed office. In his retirement he was occasionally consulted, as after the battle of Wagram in 1809, when he recommended the emperor to make peace at any cost, stating that the existence of the Austrian monarchy was at stake and that the dissolution of Napoleon's empire was not far off. After the overthrow of Napoleon he returned to the capital, where he died May 29, 1818. Thugut possessed many of the qualities of a great man, indomitable courage, calmness in danger, devotion to public interests, enormous industry; but all this was spoilt by the persistent disregard of obligations towards allies in the greedy pursuit of Austria's own aggrandizement, and by the intriguing spirit inseparable from this policy. The materials for forming a fair estimate of Thugut's conduct of affairs from 1793 to 1801 have but recently been given to the world. Of his private life next to nothing is known.