Karl Nesselrode

Count Karl Robert Nesselrode, also known as Charles de Nesselrode, (Lisbon, Portugal, December 14, 1780 – Saint Petersburg, March 23, 1862; Russian: Карл Васильевич Нессельроде, Karl Vasilyevich Nesselrode) was a Russian Empire diplomat of Baltic-German descent. His mother was Jewish by origin and Protestant by faith. For forty years (1816-1856) Nesselrode as foreign minister guided Russian policy; he was a leading European conservative statesman of the Holy Alliance.

He was born on a Russian frigate at Lisbon, Portugal where his father (d. 1810), a count of the Holy Roman Empire, was the ambassador of the Russian emperor. In deference to his mother's Protestantism he was baptized in the chapel of the British Embassy, thus becoming a member of the Church of England and not the Russian Orthodox Church. Nesselrode's Germanic roots were emphasized by his education in a Berlin gymnasium, his father having been appointed ambassador to the Prussian court about 1787.

At the age of 16 he entered the Russian Navy where, with his father's influence, he secured the position of naval aide-de-camp to Emperor Paul.

He then moved to the army, and entered diplomatic service under Paul I's son and successor, Emperor Alexander I. He was attached to the Russian embassy at Berlin, and transferred thence to the Hague.

In August 1806, Nesselrode received a commission to travel in southern Germany to report on the French troops there; he was then attached as diplomatic secretary to Generals Kamenski, Buxhoewden and Bennigsen in succession.

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