It is a pleasure to welcome a young Czech colleague to the company of Metternich revisionists. That company has been growing in the scholarly literature, if not in the popular mind, since the 1960s. Barbora Pásztorová, like her mentor, Miroslav Šedivý, joins Enno Kraehe, Robert Billinger, Wolfram Siemann, and Alan Sked in rejecting the old clichés concerning the Coachman of Europe and his approach to German affairs between 1808 and 1848. Gone is the emphasis on political and intellectual repression in the German states for the sole purpose of preserving a moribund Habsburg Empire. Instead, as her title suggests, Dr. Pásztorová stresses Metternich's pursuit of European peace. She emphasizes the continuity of his policy of teaching the German princes that the federalism of the German Confederation was the best protection for their individual state sovereignty as well as for the stability and peace of Europe.

Pásztorová states that her book builds on the research of Enno Kraehe and Robert Billinger and continues their analysis of Metternich's German policy into the 1840s. She succeeds in this concise work of 184 pages. After reviewing the insights of earlier studies of the 1813−1840 period, she then focuses on the major problems facing Metternich in the 1840s: zeroing in on the Rhine Crisis of 1840, the Schleswig-Holstein question, economic relations between Austria and Germany, the annexation of Cracow, the Swiss Civil War, and the rising national and constitutional question in Germany. Most of these issues have been slighted by historians, so she adds new insights based on her review of the recent literature, Metternich's Nachgelassenen Papieren, and her archival research in Berlin, Copenhagen, Dresden, Munich, Prague, Schwerin, and Vienna. Naturally, she has not attempted the degree of detail represented in Wolfram Siemann's monumental Metternich biography, but her sketches of the major issues facing Metternich and Germany in the 1840s are a very useful contribution to the scholarly literature.

Any attempt to present the complexity of diplomatic negotiations requires the ability to summarize and interpret complex issues for the reader. It is easy to fall into the trap of trying to let the documents speak for themselves. Sadly, Dr. Pásztorová falls into that trap in several of her chapters. The reader may be excused from wondering what all the diplomatic verbiage is about. But, of course, diplomats are lawyers engaged in international affairs. Their complex arguments run counter to the reader's desire for straightforward analysis. A further complicating issue here may be that in addition to the author's desire for a fair presentation of diplomatic swordplay, the translator of this volume was compelled to render an English translation of Dr. Pásztorová's original Czech manuscript. Though the translation is very fluent overall, occasionally there are words and phrases a bit strange to an American reader. For example, “the issue of suppressing ruction, declared Metternich, was a matter for individual German governments” (75). And “should this be England's intention it must first of all formulate its burning desire” (96).

Despite these quibbles, this book fills “an important gap in Metternich studies,” as Alan Sked asserts on the back cover. Pásztorová's “Conclusions” are worth the price of the book: Metternich's core principles were to preserve the federally organized German Confederation, convince the German sovereigns to protect their sovereignty through prioritizing federal duties, and maintain Habsburg leadership within the Confederation in order to prevent the Prussian government from unifying Germany at the expense of the European equilibrium and peace. His efforts failed by 1848 because Prussia, like France and England, pursued its own interests at the expense of the balance created at the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15. Times were changing: the selfish interests of the European powers repeatedly threatened war, an emerging German middle class called for Germany's economic and political union, Prussia's King Frederick William IV was an incautious German romantic, and Metternich was a fading presence in his seventies. His day had passed and his fears of eventual European revolutions and new international wars were soon to be realized.

For an overview of Dr. Pásztorová´s views, see also her article, “Metternich's Peace Management, 1840–48: Anachronism or Vision?” Austrian History Yearbook 53 (2022): 75–89.