Klemens von Metternich

Source: Thomas Lawrence ca. 1820–1825

I no longer read today’s shysters, those grubby-fingered leeches called journalists, mostly because they’re as far removed from fairness and the truth as I am from LGBQTVMGM. The fact that Trump has won has not reminded them of their primary duty, which is to inform, not to convert. Most of them are envious creatures who erroneously believe in their moral superiority and their left-wing ideology, which is par for the course. One such jerk, writing in The New York Review of Books after November 7, announced the following: “There will be mass round ups and treason trials….” In other words, Stalin- and Hitler-like methods in the Land of the Free. The author of such rubbish is one Fintan O’Toole, probably the kind of wokester who thinks opening a door is unpaid labor.

Never mind. There are a few who have remained old-fashioned and tell it like they see it, not how they wish it were. One who comes to mind offhand has a tongue twister for a Christian name, Srdja Trifkovic. Basically he’s an academic, not a hack, as I call journalists.

Here’s Srdja on Metternich: “His impact on European affairs during the first two decades of the 19th century was arguably second only to Napoleon.” He then goes on to explain how the great Rhinelander became the architect of political balance following the Congress of Vienna in 1815. “By restoring the European balance of power, his diplomatic finesse helped create the conditions for 99 years of relative peace and unprecedented flourishing within the Old Continent.”

Hear, hear! Ninety-nine years of peace. We could use a few Metternichs these days. Instead we have midgets: Macron instead of Talleyrand, Scholz instead of Hardenberg, and the biggest joke of them all, Lammi instead of Castlereagh. Metternich, like most great men, was a swinger. He was happily married but was always in love with various grand ladies and mistresses. Wilhelmina, Duchess of Sagan, was his favorite, but she fell in love and ran off with the best-looking young Austrian nobleman, Frederick von Windischgraetz. Freddy had challenged Tsar Alexander to a duel over the Russian’s compliments to Wilhelmina, and the tsar was forced to make a public apology to the Austrian.

“I am no longer good for anything, I have lived in the space of two years through more torment, pain and sorrow than would be found in 20 years of lives lived by the majority of humans,” wrote Metternich to Wilhelmina, but to no avail. Such was Metternich’s torment over the duchess that both his wife and Talleyrand advised him to perk up and stop feeling sorry for himself.

He did just that. He spent a night with the fabulously beautiful Russian princess Katya Bagration, widow of the hero of Borodino, General Prince Bagration. The aged general had taken a cannon shot that partly took his leg off and was bleeding heavily. Urged by his staff to dismount and be attended to, he replied in the negative: “If they see me get off they’ll run.” His troops held fast, and the old general bled to death. His widow received the honors and was invited to Vienna for the congress by her then lover Tsar Alexander (whose Tsarina wife was also in the throes of love with the Polish prince Adam Czartoryski).

In the late morning after his tryst with Katya, Metternich was informed that he had missed an opportunity to settle an important border dispute with the Prussians. That is when he gave one of the loveliest responses where hanky-panky is concerned: “Ah, but she was worth it.” Tana and Milana Windishgraetz, direct descendants of Freddy’s, are great friends of mine and are both married to grand Italian and German princes. Adam Czartoryski’s direct descendant, also called Adam, was a contemporary of mine, and I begged him time and again when we were young to hit and run but not fall desperately in love each time. (He never listened and is now dead.) But I repeat: Between all the fooling around, the drinking, the dancing, and the debauch, Metternich, Castlereagh, Alexander, Talleyrand, and Humbold managed to seal a deal that kept the peace for 99 years in Europe. Perhaps that’s what’s missing from today’s diplomatic missions: more debauch.

Perhaps with more debauch among these numbskulls who conduct our foreign policy nowadays, a more realist reassessment of America’s alliance with Israel might benefit us. This alliance is strictly one-way. Uncle Sam pays and Israel disobeys the few times the good uncle asks for anything. “Israel has shown little moral restraint with scant regard for international law,” according to Trifkovic, as true and valid a statement as I can remember about that perennially troublesome country. He then goes on to say that Israel has interests potentially or actually different from those of the United States. Hooray, finally a serious person with no ax to grind says it out loud.

Where I totally agree with him is that the current government has never wanted a two-state solution and now sees the formula for making it permanently defunct. This is where I go much further than Srdja. Israel has committed genocide in Gaza but has won big-time over Iran and Syria. The Palestinians have been permanently removed from the equation, and the West Bank will one day be Israel proper. Lastly, Israel will try its best to drag the U.S. into a war with Iran while it blasts away the latter’s nuclear facilities. We need Metternich and more debauch among the diplomats.