Philipp Ludwig Wenzel von Sinzendorf

Philipp Ludwig Wenzel Sinzendorf (26 December 1671 – 8 February 1742) was an Austrian diplomat and statesman who for nearly four decades served as Court Chancellor responsible of foreign affairs of the Habsburg Monarchy.

He was born in the Austrian capital Vienna, the son of Count Georg Ludwig von Sinzendorf (1616–1681), member of the Upper Austrian Sinzendorf noble family, and his wife Dorothea Elisabeth, Duchess of Holstein-Wiesenburg. His father served as president of the Habsburg court chamber under Emperor Leopold I. After the emperor led a thorough examination of his financial irregularities, Georg Ludwig was sentenced to life imprisonment, but his wife managed the commutation of the sentence into house arrest in one of the palaces of the family. As a younger son of this marriage, Philipp Ludwig was designated early for an ecclesiastical career and joined the cathedral chapter in Cologne.

After his brother's death in the Battle of Mohács (1687), he returned to secular life. Philipp Ludwig von Sinzendorf initially entered military service. The emperor noticed him and appointed him in 1694 as treasurer. As a result, he was entrusted with various diplomatic missions. In 1696 he married the Countess Rosina Katharina von Waldstein. With here he had four children. Among them was the later Cardinal Philipp Ludwig von Sinzendorf.

In 1699, hardly 28-year-old, he was appointed ambassador to the court of Versailles. After the beginning of the War of Spanish Succession, he had to leave France. In 1701 he was appointed Privy Council. Along with the future Emperor Joseph I, he participated in the siege of Landau, one of the longest in the War of the Spanish Succession. After that, he was commissioner in Liege. Here, he dismissed the Prince-bishop of Liège Joseph Clemens of Bavaria, whose brother fought with France against Austria, and introduced a new government. In 1704, he concluded the Imperial Evacuation Treaty with the Elector of Bavaria after the great victory in the Battle of Blenheim.

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