Ah Maria, There’s always a Right Man for the Job

When you think about it, Queen Maria Theresa of Austria had a truly uncanny knack for delegation.

As important as the military reforms were, Haugwitz’s civil reforms were at least as significant. He abolished the separate chancelleries of Bohemia and Austria, which had up till that point been fighting one another tooth and nail for royal recognition.

The judiciary separated from regular government administration. The judiciary became a branch of government embracing most of the empire. Judicial matters in Hungary were more or less left to the Hungarians. The courts embraced the Austrian legal code as their foundation.

Hand in hand with this was Maria’s revamping of said code. Begun in 1752 and finished in 1766, the Codex Theresianus defined civil rights within the Empire. Again, it was not her intention to be revolutionary. She wanted things done efficiently. Things were very far from efficient, or honest, when she ascended the throne. She was going to change that.

She didn’t really wish to antagonize the Estates, but as they existed they were more of a hindrance than a help, and so needed to be reined in. The jumble of courts across the empire, drawing from a variety of legal codes, was an ungainly and corrupt mess. So that had to be changed. And it was.

Of course there was not much point in making all these wonderful changes if she couldn’t find the people who would have to run them on a day to day basis. So…she totally revamped the education system as well.

For this job, she chose her personal physician, a Dutchman, Gerhard van Swieten. As a doctor, he had his talents, but he was hardly a genius. What he did have was a knack for teaching. A passion for it, actually. He also set a work schedule for himself that would have killed a lesser man.

He eventually became the guiding light for the establishment of the Vienna Medical School, which was institutionalized by Joseph II as the Vienna General Hospital. It was here that the systemization of case histories was first used. Here also was the first systematic use of the clinical thermometer.

Eventually any European doctor who was serious about his career would need a sheepskin from the Vienna School. Although van Swieten started in medicine, it wasn’t his only interest. Eventually, Maria made him her Chief Censor. He was the fellow in charge of keeping bad ideas out of the empire.

Maria had her own idea about what constituted “bad ideas.” In this she was very much the autocrat. Those Frenchmen, Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, Maria didn’t want that sort of riff-raff putting funny ideas into Austrian heads. The thing was, van Swieten had his own ideas as to what constituted a bad idea. One thing he considered a bad idea was the extent to which the Jesuits controlled the education system.

Maria rather liked them and kept them on-hand. This did not prevent her from seeing van Swieten’s side of the issue and agreeing with him that modifications needed to be made in the relation of the Jesuits with formal education. He was making very powerful enemies from which, characteristically, Maria defended him even as she disagreed with him.

Indeed, Khevenhuller came to despise him. In his diary he wrote, “This by all means cultivated, but also extremely rude and insolent medico, who has made himself uncommonly well-hated by all and sundry…” Be that as it may, he was the right man for the job. And the job, whatever it may have been, was always what came first.

Few rulers in history have identified themselves more thoroughly with their country than Maria Theresa. Many have considered themselves the embodiment of their country, a vanity that often leads to despotism. For Maria Theresa, Austria and the Hapsburg empire came first. She was simply the latest member of the family to occupy the throne. Others would follow her and her duty to them was clear.

She considered herself the Empires foremost servant. It isn’t that she was free of vanity, far from it. She very definitely had her pet prejudices. But she was able to separate her personal feelings from national policy to a degree that is astonishing even today.

To her fellow monarchs she must have been an inscrutable puzzle. She did not equate self-aggrandizement with improving the well-being of her country. It wasn’t that she was beyond aggrandizing the monarchy. Indeed, she considered, like George in England and Louis in France, that a certain amount of ostentatious display, particularly in the building of palaces, to be a public necessity.

In this Louis had certainly raised the bar with Versailles. But Maria never let herself believe she was somehow magically making Austria a stronger, better place because of her palace building. A strong empire needed strong institutions to survive. Austria was surrounded by enemies, only clear-headed thinking would save the day.

And that meant setting aside personal likes and dislikes and going with the people who could get things done. This meant being willing to learn, even from, or especially from, her enemies. As Frederick discovered to his dismay, the Austrian army had taken more than a few moves from his play-book.

As the rest of Europe was about to discover, in the cut-throat, duplicitous world of mid-eighteenth century diplomacy, honest and forthright Maria Theresa could more than hold her own. She just needed to find the right guy to do it for her. And surprise! She did! Enter, stage right, Prince Kaunitz.

— Mr. Al