Karl Theodor Otto zu Salm

Karl Theodor Otto Prince of Salm

Karl Theodor Otto Prince of Salm , Wildgrave of Daun and Kyrburg, Rheingraf zum Stein (* July 7, 1645 in Anholt; † November 10, 1710 in Aachen ) was the fourth Prince of Salm , Lord of Anholt and owner of other estates. He was imperial field marshal , chief steward , educator and influential first secret councilor of Joseph I. His position at times corresponded to that of prime minister . He stood for a policy more oriented towards the Reich . In the dispute with the Austrian court party of Eugene of Savoy and others, he was defeated.

Family and property

He was the son of Prince Leopold Philipp Carl and Maria Anna, née Countess von Bronckhorst - Batenburg . Karl's mother was the heir to the glory of Anholt . In 1654, his father received a viril vote in the Imperial Council of Prince for the dignified County of Salm .

He himself married Godefrieda Maria Anna Countess von Huyn-Geleen in 1664 . She was heir to the county of Wachtendonk . Godefrieda died as early as 1667, however. Karl then married Countess Palatine Louise Marie (1647–1679). She brought an inheritance to rich estates in Champagne into the marriage. The son Ludwig Otto emerged from this connection .

With the extinction of the Rhine Count's line to Kyrburg , the County of Kyrburg also fell to him. At first he had difficulties in maintaining the virile vote in the Reichstag. Ultimately, however, this claim was recognized by the other members. When he stayed on his property, he usually resided at Anholt Castle . He had this converted from a medieval castle into a baroque palace. He appointed Thomas Thomassini from Milan as a builder . The gardens have also been redesigned in a representative way.

military service

After his father's death he was under the tutelage of the Duke of Lorraine for a few years . He was earmarked for a military career from an early age. Therefore, he studied at the Military Academy in Paris around 1663 .

He enlisted a regiment in 1667 and again in 1672. With this he fought about 1673 at the siege of Maastricht or a year later in the battle of Seneffe in Spanish service in the Spanish Netherlands against the French.

Around 1682 he changed to the rank of field marshal lieutenant in the imperial army. He took part in the liberation of Vienna in 1683 and was then appointed general of the cavalry. The following year he took part in the campaign against the Ottomans in Hungary. He won the oven .

Viennese court

In 1685 Leopold I appointed him a real secret council. At the same time he became chief steward and ajo of Joseph's heir to the throne. In 1687 he was appointed field marshal. He is also named as an Imperial Conference Councilor in 1692. Archduke Joseph's wife, Wilhelmine Amalie von Braunschweig-Lüneburg , was a niece of his wife. This made relations with Joseph even closer.

Joseph urged political influence early on and his court holding became the center of opposition to the old councilors of the increasingly less decisive emperor. One of his closest advisers was the Prince of Salm. Joseph said that his father neglected the Austrian power in favor of the imperial office. He criticized the ineffectiveness of the Councilor and pleaded for a reform of financial policy. Even the dismissal of Ludwig von Baden-Baden or the bad treatment of the Hungarian population did not approve of Joseph.

After Joseph ascended the throne in 1705, Karl Theodor Otto remained his chief steward and first private councilor. He was thus at the head of the court and exerted a great influence. In some cases his position is compared to that of a prime minister.

He brought the emperor's high opinion of the imperial dignity closer. Between 1705 and 1711 the court was torn apart by the dispute between the representatives of an Austrian great power policy and the advocates of imperial policy. Among the leaders of the court, Prince Salm was one of the few advocates of imperial politics. Eugen von Savoyen , Graf Sinzendorf , Graf Gundaker von Starhemberg and the court chancellor Johann Wenzel Wratislaw von Mitrowitz stood on the opposite side. In the dispute with the Austrian party he was defeated. Karl Otmar von Aretin judged that Prince Salm, with his quick-tempered and hurtful manner, did more harm than good to the cause of the empire.

The last trigger of his fall was the dispute over the possession of the papal rule Comacchio with Clement XI. ( Comacchio War ). With the military occupation of this area, Prince Salm, at least according to Hans Schmidt, also pursued personal interests and advised the Kaiser badly on the matter. The emperor may also fear that Prince Salm would exert too much influence. The secret conference was introduced in 1709 with the explicit reference to "contrabalancing" the authority of Prince Salm.

In 1709 Karl Theodor Otto retired due to the dispute between the court parties and health problems and lived mainly in Anholt. He died in his town house in Aachen.

In the literature he is occasionally referred to as the Knight of the Golden Fleece , but he is missing from the list of members kept by the Order.

Individual evidence

1. ^ AJ Weidenbach: The Nahe valley . Koblenz, 1870, p. 152 f.
2. ↑ representation of a. to the gardens ( memento from August 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
3. ↑ Hans Schmidt: Josef I. In: Anton Schindling , Walter Ziegler (Ed.): Die Kaiser der Neuzeit. 1519-1918. Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Germany. Beck, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-406-34395-3 , pp. 186-199, here p. 189.
4. ↑ Linda Frey, Marsha Frey (Ed.): The Treaties of the War of the Spanish Succession. A historical and critical dictionary. Greenwood Press, Westport CT et al. 1995, ISBN 0-313-27884-9 , p. 397.
5. ^ Harm Klueting : Das Reich and Austria 1648-1740 (= Historia profana et ecclesiastica. 1). Lit, Münster et al. 1999, ISBN 3-8258-4280-0 , p. 105.
6. ^ Harm Klueting: Das Reich and Austria 1648-1740 (= Historia profana et ecclesiastica. 1). Lit, Münster et al. 1999, ISBN 3-8258-4280-0 , p. 102
7. ^ Harm Klueting: Das Reich and Austria 1648-1740 (= Historia profana et ecclesiastica. 1). Lit, Münster et al. 1999, ISBN 3-8258-4280-0 , p. 105; Harm Klueting: Between the Wittelsbach Empire and the Josephinian Diocesan Regulation (1742 / 45–1783): Factors in the formation of Austrian identity in the 18th century. In: Franz M. Eybl (ed.): Structural change in cultural practice. Contributions to a cultural-scientific view of the Theresian age (= The eighteenth century and Austria. 17). WUV-Universitätsverlag, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-85114-644-1 , pp. 15–44, here p. 27.
8. ^ Karl Otmar von Aretin : Das Reich. Guarantee of Peace and European Balance 1648–1806. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-608-91074-3 , p. 278.
9. ↑ Hans Schmidt: Josef I. In: Anton Schindling, Walter Ziegler (Ed.): Die Kaiser der Neuzeit. 1519-1918. Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Germany. Beck, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-406-34395-3 , pp. 186–199, here p. 198.
10. ^ Erwin Matsch: The Foreign Service of Austria- (Hungary) 1720-1920. Böhlau, Vienna et al. 1986, ISBN 3-205-07269-3 , p. 32.
11. ↑ Evidence of his membership here or here . In the "Nominal List", the list of members kept by the Order ( Nominal list des chevaliers de l'ordre de la Toison d'or, depuis son institution jusqu'à nos jours , in: The House of Austria and the Order of the Golden Fleece . Ed . from the Ordenskanzlei. Leopold Stocker Verlag, Graz / Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-7020-1172-7 , pp. 161–198), however, his name is missing from the members who were accepted between 1650 and 1700 (pp. 174–180) .

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Salm-Kyrburg, Karl Theodor Otto . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 28th part. Imperial and Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1874, p. 135 ( digitized version ).
• Max Braubach : A Rhenish prince as an opponent of Prince Eugen at the Viennese court. In: Max Braubach: Diplomacy and intellectual life in the 17th and 18th centuries. Collected papers (= Bonn historical research. 33, ZDB -ID 500545-0 ). Röhrscheid, Bonn 1969 pp. 321-336.
• Emanuel Prinz zu Salm-Salm: The emergence of the Princely Salm-Salm'schen Fideikommiss with special consideration of the trials before the highest imperial courts up to the Paris Brothers comparison of July 5, 1771 (= Ius vivens. Dept. B: Legal- historical treatises. 3) . Lit, Münster 1996, ISBN 3-8258-2605-8 , p. 31 f., (Also: Münster, Universität, Dissertation, 1995).