GENTZ, FRIEDRICH VON 2 ), German pub licist and statesman, was born at Breslau on May 2, 17 64. His father was an official, his mother an Ancillon, distantly related to the Prussian minister of that name. On his father's transference to Berlin, as director of the mint, the boy was sent to the Joachimsthal gymnasium there ; his brilliant talents, however, did not develop until, at the university of Konigsberg, he fell under the influence of Kant. But though his intellect was sharpened and his zeal for learning quickened by the greater thinker's influ ence, Kant's "categorical imperative" did not prevent him from yielding to the taste for wine, women and high play which pursued him through life. In 1785 he received the appointment of secret secretary to the royal Generaldirectorium in Berlin.
His interest in public affairs was first aroused by the outbreak of the French Revolution, which he greeted at first with en thusiasm ; but its subsequent developments cooled his ardour and he was converted to more conservative counsels by Burke's Essay on the French Revolution, a translation of which into German was his first literary venture. This was followed, next year, by translations of works on the Revolution by Mallet du Pan and Mounier. He also founded and edited a monthly journal, the Neue deutsche Monatsschri f t, in which for five years he wrote, mainly on historical and political questions, maintaining the prin ciples of British constitutionalism against those of revolutionary France. The knowledge he displayed of the principles and prac tice of finance was especially remarkable. His literary output at this time, all inspired by a moderate Liberalism, included an essay on the results of the discovery of America, and another, written in French, on the English financial system (Essai sur l'etat de Pad ministration des finances de la Grande-Bretagne, London, i800). Especially noteworthy, however, was the Denkscliri f t or Missive addressed by him to King Frederick William III. on his accession (1797), in which, inter alia, he urged upon the king the necessity for granting freedom to the press and to commerce. Opposition to France was the inspiring principle of the Historisches Journal founded by him in 1799-180o, which once more held up English institutions as the model, and became in Germany the mouthpiece of British policy towards the revolutionary aggressions of the French republic. In 18o1 he ceased the publication of the Journal, and issued instead, under the title Beitrage zur Geschichte, etc., a series of essays on contemporary politics. The first of these was fiber den Ursprung and Cbarakter des Krieges gegen die f ranzos ische Revolution (18o1), by many regarded as Gentz's master piece.
This activity brought him reputation and gifts of money from the British and Austrian governments ; but it made his position as an official in Berlin impossible, for the Prussian government had no mind to abandon its attitude of cautious neutrality. A separa tion from his wife also made it desirable for Gentz to leave the Prussian service. In May 1802, accordingly, he took leave of his wife and left with his friend Adam Muller for Vienna. In Berlin he had been intimate with the Austrian ambassador, Count Sta dion, whose good offices procured him an introduction to the em peror Francis. The immediate result was the title of imperial councillor, with a yearly salary of 4,000 gulden (December 6th, 1802) ; but he was not actively employed until 1809. Before re turning to Berlin to make arrangements for transferring himself finally to Vienna, Gentz paid a visit to London, where he made the acquaintance of Pitt and Granville, who guaranteed him an annual pension by the British government in recognition of the value of his writings against Bonaparte. From this time forward he was engaged in a ceaseless polemic against every fresh advance of the Napoleonic power and pretensions ; he denounced the recog nition of Napoleon's imperial title, and drew up a manifesto of Louis XVIII. against it. The formation of the coalition and the outbreak of war for a while raised his hopes, in spite of his lively distrust of the competence of Austrian ministers; but the hopes were speedily dashed by Austerlitz and its result's. Gentz used his enforced leisure to write a brilliant essay on "The relations be tween England and Spain before the outbreak of war between the two powers" (Leipzig, 1806) ; and shortly afterwards appeared Fragmente aus der neuesten Geschiclite des politischen Gleichge wichts in Europa (trans. Fragments on the Balance of Power in Europe, London, 18o6). This latter, the last of Gentz's works as an independent publicist, was a masterly expose of the actual political situation, and at the same time prophetic in its sugges tions as to how this should be retrieved : "Through Germany Europe has perished, through Germany it must rise again." He realized that the dominance of France could only be broken by the union of Austria and Prussia, acting in concert with Great Britain. He watched with interest the Prussian military prepara tions, and, at the invitation of Count Haugwitz, he went at the outset of the campaign to the Prussian headquarters at Erfurt, where he drafted the king's proclamation and his letter to Napo leon. The writer was known, and it was in this connection that Napoleon referred to him as "a wretched scribe named Gentz, one of those men without honour who sell themselves for money." In this mission Gentz had no official mandate from the Austrian government, and whatever hopes he may have cherished of privately influencing the situation in the direction of an alliance between the two German powers were dashed by the campaign of Jena.
The downfall of Prussia left Austria the sole hope of Germany and of Europe. Gentz, who from the winter of 18o6 onwards divided his time between Prague and the Bohemian watering places, occupied himself with a series of essays on the future of Austria and the best means of liberating Germany and redressing the balance of Europe.
In 1809, on the outbreak of war between Austria and France, Gentz was for the first time actively employed by the Austrian government under Stadion; he drafted the proclamation announc ing the declaration of war (April 15), and during the con tinuance of hostilities his pen was ceaselessly employed. But the peace of 1810 and the fall of Stadion once more dashed his hopes, and he once more retired to Prague. It was not till 1812 that there sprang up between him and Metternich the close relations that were to ripen into life-long friendship. But when Gentz returned to Vienna as Metternich's adviser and henchman, he was no longer the fiery patriot who had sympathized and corresponded with Stein in the darkest days of German depression and in fiery periods called upon all Europe to free itself from foreign rule. Disil lusioned and cynical, though clear-sighted as ever, he was hence forth before all things an Austrian, more Austrian on occasion even than Metternich; as, e.g., when, during the final stages of the campaign of 1814, he expressed the hope that Metternich would substitute "Austria" for "Europe" in his diplomacy and secure an Austro-French alliance by maintaining the husband of Marie Louise on the throne of France.
For ten years, from 1812 onward, Gentz was in closest touch with all the great affairs of European history, the assistant, con fidant, and adviser of Metternich. He accompanied the chancellor on all his journeys; was present at all the conferences that pre ceded and followed the war; no political secrets were hidden from him; and his hand drafted all important diplomatic documents. He was secretary to the congress of Vienna (1814-1815) and to all the congresses and conferences that followed, up to that of Verona (1822), and in all his vast knowledge of men and affairs made him a power. He was under no illusion as to their achieve ments; his memoir on the work of the congress of Vienna is at once an incisive piece of criticism and a monument of his own dis illusionment. But the liberalism of his early years was gone for ever, and he had become reconciled to Metternich's view that, in an age of decay, the sole function of a statesman was to "prop up mouldering institutions." It was the hand of the author of that offensive Missive to Frederick William III., on the liberty of the press, that drafted the Carlsbad decrees; it was he who inspired the policy of repressing the freedom of the universities; and he noted in his diary as "a day more important than that of Leipzig" the session of the Vienna conference of 1819, in which it was decided to make the convocation of representative assem blies in the German states impossible, by enforcing the letter of Article XIII. of the Act of Confederation.
As to Gentz's private life there is not much to be said. His love affairs are too numerous to record. Passion tormented him to the end, and his infatuation for Fanny Elssler, the celebrated danseuse, forms the subject of some remarkable letters to his friend Rahel, the wife of Varnhagen von Ense (183o-1831). He died on June 9, 1832.
Gentz has been described as a mercenary of the pen, but he was more than the "wretched scribe" sneered at by Napoleon. Though by birth belonging to the middle class in a country of hide-bound aristocracy, he lived to move on equal terms in the society of princes and statesmen ; which would never have been the case had he been notoriously "bought and sold." Yet that he was in the habit of receiving gifts from all and sundry who hoped for his backing is beyond dispute. He notes that at the congress of Vienna he received 2 2,000 florins through Talleyrand from Louis XVIII., while Castlereagh gave him £boo, accompanied by les plus folles promesses; and his diary is full of such entries. Yet he never made any secret of these gifts; Metternich was aware of them, and he never suspected Gentz of writing or acting in consequence against his convictions. No man was more free or outspoken in his criticism of the policy of his employers than this apparently venal writer.
Indeed, the very impartiality and objectivity of his attitude make the writings of Gentz such illuminating documents for the period. Allowance must of course be made for his point of view, but less so perhaps than in the case of any other writer so inti mately concerned with the policies which he criticizes. And, apart from their historical value, Gentz's writings are literary monu ments, classical examples of nervous and luminous German prose, or of French which is a model for diplomatic style.
A selection of Gentz's works (Ausgewahlte Schriften) was published by Weick in 5 vols. (1836-38) ; his lesser works (Mannheim, 1838-40) in 5 vols. and Hemoires et lettres inedites (Stuttgart, 1841) were edited by G. Schlesier. Subsequently there have appeared Briefe an Chr. Garve (Breslau, 18J7) ; correspondence (Briefwechsel) with Adam Muller (Stuttgart, 185 7) ; Briefe an Pilat (2 vols., Leipzig, 1868) ; Aus dem Nachlass Friedrichs von Gentz (2 vols.), ed. Count Anton Prokesch-Osten (Vienna, 1867) ; Aus der alten Registratur der Staats-Kanzlei: Briefe politischen Inhalts von and an Friedrich von Gentz, edited by C. von Klinckowstrom (Vienna, 1870) ; Depeches inedites du chev. de Gentz aux Hospodars de Valacfiie 1813-1828 (a correspondence on current affairs commissioned by the Austrian government), ed. Count Anton von Prokesch-Osten the younger (3 vols., Paris, 1876), incomplete, but partly supplemented in Oesterreichs Teilnahme an den Befreiungskriegen (Vienna, 1887), a collection of documents of the greatest value ; Zur Geschichte der orientalischen Frage: Briefe aus dem Nachlass Friedrichs von Gentz (Vienna, 1877), ed. Count Prokesch-Osten the younger; Briefe von and an Friedrichs von Gentz, ed. F. C. Wittichen (4 vols., 1909-13) . Finally Gentz's diaries, from 1800 to 1828, an invaluable mine of authentic material, were edited by Varnhagen von Ense and published after his death under the title Tagebiicher, etc. (Leipzig, 1861; new ed., 4 vols., ib. 1873) . For the biography of Gentz see K. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Friedrich von Gentz (1867) ; E. Guglia, Friedrich von Gentz (19o1) ; M. Pfliiger, Friedrich von Gentz als Widersacher Napoleons (19o4)• E. Guglia, Friedrich von Gentz (Vienna, 19o1).