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.
Further reading
Biographisches Lexicon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich, Vienna, 1856 (57 volumes)
Tranié, J., J. C. Carmigniani, Napoléon Bonaparte: 2eme campagne d'Italie, Paris: Pygmalion/Gérard Watelet, 1991
Cobenzl, L., Joseph II. und Graf Ludwig Cobenzl : ihr Briefwechsel (edited by Adolf Beer and Joseph Ritter von Fiedlern) in Fontes rerum Austriacarum. 2. Abt., Diplomataria et acta, Bd.53-54, Vienna: C. Gerold's Sohn, 1901
Correspondances intimes de l'Empereur Joseph II. avec … le comte de Cobenzl et … le Prince de Kaunitz. Puisées dans les sources des archives impériales jusqu'à présent inédites. Avec une introduction et des notes historiques par S. Brunner, Mainz, Vienna, 1871
Fournier, A., Gentz und Cobenzl. Geschichte der österreichischen Diplomatie in den Jahren 1801-1805, etc, Vienna, 1880