17 Facts About Karl Nesselrode

For 40 years, Nesselrode guided Russian policy as foreign minister.

Karl Nesselrode was a leading European conservative statesman of the Holy Alliance.

Karl Nesselrode's father Count Wilhelm Karl von Nesselrode, a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, served at the time as the ambassador to Portugal for the German-born Russian empress.

Karl Nesselrode's mother was Louise Gontard, whose family belonged to Huguenot noble families from Dauphine that fled from France to Germany in 1700.

Karl Nesselrode then transferred to the Imperial Russian Army, and entered diplomatic service under Paul I's son and successor, Emperor Alexander I Karl Nesselrode was attached to the Russian embassy at Berlin, and transferred thence to The Hague.

Karl Nesselrode was present at the inconclusive Battle of Eylau in January 1807, fought by Count von Bennigsen, and assisted at the negotiations of the Peace of Tilsit, for which he was commended by Spanish Bonapartist Diego Fernandez de Velasco, 13th Duke of Frias.

Karl Nesselrode sought to persuade Alexander to open negotiations with Napoleon, if only to throw the onus of breaking the peace entirely on the French side.

Karl Nesselrode joined the tsar's headquarters at Vilna in March 1812 and, though Rumiantzov was still foreign minister, it was Nesselrode who directed the foreign policy of Russia from this time forward.

Karl Nesselrode was present at the battle of Leipzig and accompanied the invading army to Paris; he negotiated the capitulation of Auguste de Marmont and Edouard Mortier at Clichy, and signed the Treaty of Chaumont on 1 March 1814.

Karl Nesselrode became State Secretary in 1814 and was the head of Russia's official delegation to the Congress of Vienna, but for the most part Alexander I acted as his own foreign minister.

In 1816, Karl Nesselrode became Russian foreign minister, sharing the position with Count Ioannis Kapodistrias until the latter's retirement in 1822.

For forty years, Karl Nesselrode guided Russian policy and was a leading European conservative statesman of the Holy Alliance.

Karl Nesselrode was a key contributor in the construction of the peaceable congress system after the Napoleonic Wars.

Karl Nesselrode is credited as the person who first coined the name "Tournament of Shadows", which was the Russian name for the long rivalry that existed between the Russian Empire and the British Empire beginning in the late 18th and lasting well into the 19th centuries, caused primarily by border tension in Central Asia and India.

In 1849 Karl Nesselrode sent Russian troops to aid Austria in putting down the Hungarian Revolution led by Lajos Kossuth.

One frequently-overlooked facet of Karl Nesselrode's activity involved his attempts to penetrate Japan's self-isolation.

Karl Nesselrode was married to Russian noblewoman Maria Guryeva and had issue:.