Metternich and the Suez Canal: Informal Diplomacy in the Interests of Central Europe

Abstract

Klemens von Metternich played an important role as leader of the Austrian bureaucrats and diplomats in supporting construction of the Suez Canal. He participated in many ways, often informal ones, which before 1848 resulted from his political circumspection and afterward from the fact that he was just a private individual. His so-to-speak informal diplomacy is interesting not only because it discloses the high level of interest he and other Austrian dignitaries paid to the issue but also because it reveals how accessible Metternich was to those involved in the project regardless of nationality, political leanings, and religion. Metternich's interest in the Suez Canal brought him into contact with Europeans as well as Ottomans, conservatives as well as liberals, and even Saint-Simonians: in other words, all who wished to cooperate for the benefit of central Europe and beyond.