Categotry Archives: Mr. Al
Ah Maria, She Must Direct Society Too
When we left off, Mr. Al had just explained the ins and outs of Queen Maria Theresa’s expectations for her diplomat, Kaunitz. Although the faults in Kaunitz’s foreign affairs logic would take some time to become evident,other matters closer to home quickly showed, or should have, that a command from the Queen didn’t necessarily fix problems. Maria had gotten a bee in her bonnet concerning public morals. It wasn’t that public morals had suddenly declined, but her husbands bad habits […]
Ah Maria, Long Range Plans Can Be Obscure
Queen Maria Theressa of Austria put a lot of faith in her diplomat, Count Kaunitz. She fully expected the impossible from him, and he was eager to give it. Arriving in Paris, Count Kaunitz settled in to play the roll of courtier/diplomat. Sparing no expense, he surrounded himself with “the utmost splendor.” He was careful to invite all the right people to his extravagant dinner parties. On one point, Kaunitz’s realistic assessment of the situation stood him in good stead; […]
Ah Maria, How Badly Do You Want It?
In order to save Austria, Queen Maria Theressa was willing to part ways with centuries of tradition. Witness what happened when she made Wenzel Anton Kaunitz a diplomat. Wenzel Anton Kaunitz was a native Austrian. The sixth of sixteen children to an aristocratic father who served the crown as an ambassador. Raised in Morovia, where the family estates were located, young Wenzel was groomed for a career in the church. After giving it a go he decided on a different […]
Ah Maria, There’s always a Right Man for the Job
When you think about it, Queen Maria Theresa of Austria had a truly uncanny knack for delegation. As important as the military reforms were, Haugwitz’s civil reforms were at least as significant. He abolished the separate chancelleries of Bohemia and Austria, which had up till that point been fighting one another tooth and nail for royal recognition. The judiciary separated from regular government administration. The judiciary became a branch of government embracing most of the empire. Judicial matters in Hungary […]
Ah Maria, That’s How to Raise an Army
In order to save Austria, Queen Maria Theressa had to humble herself to the Hungarian. She gladly thumbed her nose at her own nobles. Then peace came. Peace. For the first eight years of her reign all had been war. Things had not gone particularly well in that department. Overall though, things hadn’t gone particularly badly either. Only a small bit of Silesia remained in Austria’s hands. As bitter a pill as this was to swallow, she had the consolation […]
Ah Maria, How to Run a Court
In order to save Austria, Queen Maria Theressa had to take the job of “queen” much more seriously than her predecessors. For instance, she chose a wise courtier to teach her the ropes, and another to run her Imperial Court, stunning them both. As Count Tarouca found himself in the unenviable position of having to take charge of the Queen’s personal life, an equally important job needed doing. Running the Imperial Court. This became the job of Count Khevenhuller-Metsch. He […]
Ah Maria, Welcome to Prague
Hey, I haven’t said a word to him about all the battle stuff he’s been covering. Honest. If it seems that I have been focusing on the wars that Maria fought to the exclusion of all else, that is because, alas for Maria, that is what she was forced to deal with in the first years of her reign. As we have seen, defeat was far more common than victory. She never regained Silesia, she finally did get the crown […]
Ah Maria, From the Brink of Ruin
In the first few month of Queen Maria Theresa of Austria’s reign, she faced invasion, world war, and noble Hungarians. She cut a deal with king Frederick of Prussia that would have allowed her to defeat her enemies, if not for her husband’s military incompetence. How does Frederick respond? If Maria had few illusions as to what a tricky “friend” Frederick could be, his behavior after their deal, the Klineschnellendorf Convention (Yes, I had to spell check that BY HAND!) […]
13 Pieces to a Puzzle
If you mentally re-arrange these images and put them all together you get a picture that was taken from a post that I posted in the last two weeks. Can you guess which post? Extra points if you can guess the person depicted. In order to get the permalink from this post you must both put your URL in the Mr. Linky thing and leave a comment The hub is here As always, I welcome the link to your Thursday […]
Ah Maria, “But That All Lay in the Future.”
It has been said that the War of the Austrian Succession was, in fact, the first world war. By the time it ended with the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in October of 1748, not only had all of Europe been pulled into it to one extent or another, but fighting had taken place all over the globe. Because of Spanish involvement there was fighting in South America. Fighting between France and England in North America and Asia. Most of this fighting […]
Ah Maria, Hungarians and the Underdog
Queen Maria Theresa of Austria faced her first year as queen with an invasion. Sweet young thing as she was, everyone assumed she would roll over and hand her kingdom off. Silly men should have known better. Maria, in the face of the intense opposition of nearly all her advisors, traveled to Pressburg, the then capital of Hungary. The Hungarians were, to put it mildly, an unruly lot. Their leaders were fervently nationalistic, fond of fighting among themselves and your […]
Ah Maria, the Whole World is Against Her!
Queen Maria Theressa of Austria took over an empire already teetering on the brink of ruin. Her crown had hardly warmed to her head before Frederick of Spain decided to take a chomp out of her kingdom. This sweet young girl with no formal training had to face a bevy of enemies, including the ambassador from England. One remarkable fact began to impress it itself on everyone at the time of Sir Thomas Robinson’s meeting with Her Majesty; they weren’t […]
Ah Maria, It’s War!
Queen Maria Theresa began her rule with giants breathing down her neck, all quite interested in her loss of Silesia to Frederick. . Frederick’s invasion of Silesia, the opening move in what became known as the War of the Austrian Succession, was rather modest as eighteenth century European battles went. Considering that it would become a war that would end up involving England, Russia, Spain, France, Sweden, Bavaria, The Dutch Republic, the kingdoms of Sardinia, Naples and Sicily, Saxony and […]
Ah Maria, A Girl Takes The Throne
The struggles of Marie Antoinette’s mother, Queen Maria Theresa, included a shaky start. “I do not think anyone would deny that history hardly knows of a crowned head who started his rule under circumstances more grievous than those that attended my accession.” Maria Theresa wrote this many years after the fact, but she was hardly exaggerating. The ministers surrounding her were the men who served her father and even her grandfather. They were old, old men who had grown adept […]
Ah Maria, What Did Daddy Do?
The story of Marie Antoinette’s mother: If Maria Theresa was unschooled in the finer points of empire management she was not unprepared. Although her father, Charles VI, had excluded her from public affairs he could not prevent her from observing them. She was also very conscious of something her father chose to willfully and unrealistically ignore for years; the fact that mom would never bear a male child. Maria Theresa knew she would one day be queen. If not as […]
