The Russian diplomat Count Karl Robert Nesselrode (1780-1862) served as minister of foreign affairs from 1814 to 1856.

Karl Robert Nesselrode was born on Dec. 14, 1780, in Lisbon, Portugal, where his father was Russian ambassador. Young Karl received his education in Berlin, Germany. At the age of 16 he entered the Russian navy, where he became naval aide-de-camp to Paul I. He then went into the army, received another court appointment, and at last entered the diplomatic service.

Count Nesselrode served at Russian embassies in The Hague and Berlin. In 1806 he went on a mission to southern Germany. His assignment was to report on French troops to Alexander I, who was turning away from Napoleon in his foreign policy. Nesselrode assisted Alexander I at the Peace of Tilsit in 1811, which, according to Mikhail Speranski, contained practically all the ingredients for a future war between Russia and France.

On June 24, 1812, the French army, without a declaration of war, crossed the Neman River and entered Russian territory. During the Franco-Russian War, Nesselrode served as diplomatic secretary to generals Mikhail Kamenski, Friedrich von Buxhowden, and Levin August Bennigsen. During the negotiations at the Congress of Vienna, Nesselrode succeeded Count N. P. Rumiantsev in August 1814 as Russian minister of foreign affairs.

Russia's design on Poland met with opposition from other powers, especially England and Austria. Nesselrode played a subordinate role and was seldom consulted by Alexander I on major issues. By the end of 1814, the discussions of the Polish and Saxon problems having reached an impasse, England and Austria made preparations for war against Russia. A compromise, however, averted another war. By the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna (June 1816), the greater part of the former duchy of Warsaw was given to Russia.

In November 1831 Mohammed Ali, Pasha of Egypt, revolted against Sultan Mahmud II, and by the following year Ibrahim Pasha, commander of the insurgent army, had conquered Syria and was threatening Constantinople. The Sultan asked the Western powers for help but met with indifference. Russia, however, was eager to provide Turkey with military assistance because the Turko-Egyptian War offered a golden opportunity for the consolidation of Russia's hold over Turkey. Nicholas I and Nesselrode, moreover, saw in Mehemet Ali a rebel against his suzerain (Mahmud) and a puppet in the hands of revolutionary France. Sultan Mahmud accepted Russia's military aid, which alarmed France and England. Peace was achieved between Mohammed Ali and Mahmud at the Convention of Kintayah, negotiated in April and May 1833.

Several months later Russia signed the Treaty of Unkiar Skellesi with Turkey on July 8, 1833. The importance of the treaty was the provision by which the two monarchs "promise to come to agreement without reserve on all matters concerning their respective tranquility and safety and for this purpose, mutually to lend each other material aid and most effective assistance." Nesselrode then wrote that "our intervention in the affairs of Turkey has acquired a basis of legality."

Nesselrode tried unsuccessfully to avert the Crimean War (1853-1856). After he concluded the Treaty of Paris, he retired as foreign minister but continued as chancellor, a post he had held since 1844. He died on March 23, 1862, in St. Petersburg.

Further Reading

For background on Count Nesselrode see Andrei Lobanov-Rostovsky, Russia and Europe, 1789-1825 (1947) and Russia and Europe, 1825-1878 (1954); A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848-1918 (1954); Barbara Jelavich, A Century of Russian Foreign Policy, 1814-1914 (1964); and Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I (1969).

For more information on Karl Robert Vasilyevich Count Nesselrode, visit Britannica.com.

(1770 - 1862), Russian foreign minister equivalent, 1814 - 1856; chancellor, 1845 - 1856.

A baptized Anglican son of a Catholic West-phalian in Russia's diplomatic service, a Berlin gymnasium graduate, and briefly in the Russian navy and army, Karl Nesselrode began his diplomatic career in 1801. Posted in Stuttgart, Berlin, and the Hague and attracted to the conservative equilibrium ideas of Friedrich von Gentz even more than Metternich was, Nesselrode became an advocate of the Third Coalition, yet assisted in the drawing up the Treaty of Tilsit (1807) and served in Paris. He played a major role in the forging of the 1813 - 1814 coalitions and the first Treaty of Paris (1814) and became Alexander I's chief plenipotentiary at Vienna (1814 - 1815). Sharing the direction of Russia's foreign affairs from 1814 to 1822 with the more liberal state secretary for foreign affairs, Ioannes Capodistrias, Nesselrode participated in the Congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), Laibach (1821), and Verona (1822). His European approach to the Eastern Question won over Alexander and led to the compromises after the Greek Rebellion of 1821.

Nesselrode's wide knowledge, clarity, complete loyalty to the crown, and earlier briefings of Nicholas I before 1825 led to retention by the latter in 1826. Though Nicholas often directed policy himself, Nesselrode remained the single most influential Russian in external affairs. He shepherded the London Protocol (with Britain, 1826) and the Convention of Akkerman (with Turkey, 1827), convinced Nicholas I to accept the moderate Treaty of Adrianople (with Turkey, 1829), and helped dissuade Nicholas from trying to depose Louis-Philippe of France (1830). Partially behind the defensive Russo-Turkish Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi (1833), he promoted the Conventions of Münchengrätz and Berlin (1833), which associated Austria and Prussia with a status quo policy regarding the Ottoman Empire.

Nesselrode subsequently helped prevent rising tensions with Britain from turning violent in 1838 by blocking a scheme to send warships into the Black Sea and removing Russia's belligerently anti-British envoy to Tehran. Promoting compromises with Britain during the entire Eastern crisis of 1838 - 1841, Nesselrode blocked support of Serbian independence in 1842 - 1843 and limited the damage from Nicholas's indescretions during his 1844 visit to England. Fearful of liberalization in Central Europe, Nesselrode supported the full restoration of monarchial power and the status quo there in 1848 and 1850 against both popular and Prussian expansionist aspirations.

During the Eastern Crisis of 1852 - 1853, Russia's nationalists achieved the upper hand. Nessel-rode alerted the emperor about the dangers of undue pressure on the Ottomans but abetted the deceptions perpetrated by Russian's mission in Istanbul and his own ministry's Asiatic Department. Although he was one of the best "spin doctors" of his era, his eighteenth-century logic, devotion to the 1815 settlement, and impeccable French prose could not prevail over the determination of Nicholas and the nationalists to risk war with Britain and France and have their way with Turkey regarding the Holy Places and Russia's claimed protectorate over the Ottoman Orthodox. Nor could he convince Austria to back Russia, but in the course of the Crimean War he continuously promoted a compromise and helped convince Alexander II to end hostilities in 1856.

Bibliography

Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. (1969). The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ingle, Harold N. (1976). Nesselrode and the Russian Rapprochement with Britain, 1836 - 1844. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Walker, Charles E. (1973). "The Role of Karl Nesselrode in the Formulation and Implementation of Russian Foreign Policy, 1850 - 1956." Ph.D. diss., University of West Virginia, Morgantown.

—DAVID M. GOLDFRANK

(kärl rō'bĕrt nyĕsĕlrô'dyĭ) , 1780–1862, Russian statesman of German descent, b. Lisbon. He entered diplomatic service under Czar Alexander I, became state secretary in 1814, and attended the Congress of Vienna (1814–15). In 1816, he became Russian foreign minister, sharing influence with Count Capo d'Istria until the latter's retirement in 1822. Guiding Russian policy for 40 years, Nesselrode, a leading conservative statesman, favored the Holy Alliance and in 1849 dispatched Russian troops to help Austria crush the Hungarian revolt led by Louis Kossuth. His efforts to expand Russian influence in the E Mediterranean at the expense of the Ottoman Empire and his miscalculations of British and French tolerance of this policy contributed decisively to the outbreak of the Crimean War. Nesselrode also served as chancellor from 1845 to 1856. His autobiography was published in 1866.

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