• Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece - Austrian Branch - 1798
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• Ludwig Cobenzl 1753-1809
• Austrian Statesman for Absolutism
• Johann Ludwig Joseph Cobenzl was Graf von Cobenzl, meaning Count of Cobenzl.
• This count of Cobenzl was born at Brussels.
• Ludwig's father was the Austrian minister Johann Karl Philipp von Cobenzl, who lived 1712-1770.
• Ludwig's famous cousin was Philipp, also a Graf von Cobenzl, but born in 1741.
• From 1801, and together with Colloredo, Cobenzl was in charge of foreign affairs. This post had been formerly occupied by the great man Thugut, who found himself fired after having frequently lost to revolutionary France. (Thugut's career became a victim of the War of the Second Coalition.)
• The careers of both men, Colloredo and Cobenzl, ended for similar reasons after the Battle of Austerlitz, which was fought on December 2, 1805, and which spelled utter disaster for Austria. (These guys had to burn their office chairs on the altar of the War of the Third Coalition.)
• This time, the calamity was of such proportion that even Emperor Francis II had to quit, which he did on August 6, 1806. It was the end of the Holy Roman Empire.
• Cobenzl had to endure the nightmare for only less than three years. He died at Vienna on February 22, 1809.
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BIOGRAPHIES

COBENZL, Ludwig

(1753-1809) Comte

Fact file

Born in Brussels, 21 November 1753, died 22 February, 1809 Austrian minister in Copenhagen, 1774 Austrian minister in Berlin, 1777 Austrian ambassador to St Petersburg, 1779 Negotiated the third treaty of the partition of Poland, 1796 Recalled to Vienna, April 1797 Negotiated the Treaty of Campo-Formio with Bonaparte, 17 October, 1797 Present at the Congress of Rastatt Interim Minister of Foreign Affairs, 30 April 1798 Again to the Congress of Rastatt Returned to his post in St Petersburg, July 1798 Recalled to Vienna, February, 1800 Head of diplomacy of the Holy Roman Empire, 25 September, 1800, in which guise he sat opposite Joseph Bonaparte in the negotiations for the Peace of Lunéville Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire, 1801-1805 Removed from office and replaced by Johann-Philipp von Stadion, 24 December, 1805

Despite the protection of Kaunitz (who considered Cobenzl as a son), Cobenzl's diplomatic career was one of difficulty and setbacks, himself living to see the territories which he had gained through Campo-Formio lost through the Treaty of Pressburg. He left behind him significant writings.