Philipp, count von Cobenzl

Philipp, count von Cobenzl (born May 28, 1741, Laibach, Carniola, Austrian Empire [now Ljubljana, Slovenia]—died August 30, 1810, Vienna [Austria]) was an Austrian statesman and chancellor who unsuccessfully attempted to gain Bavaria for Austria in exchange for the Austrian Netherlands. He was a cousin of Ludwig, Graf von Cobenzl, an Austrian foreign minister.

Rising rapidly under the patronage of Chancellor Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz, Cobenzl negotiated the Treaty of Teschen (1779), in which Austria concluded the War of the Bavarian Succession by renouncing its claim to Bavaria in return for territorial concessions. Appointed vice chancellor, he was sent to pacify the rebellious Austrian Netherlands in 1787. Replacing the retiring Kaunitz as chancellor in 1792, he advocated a policy of cooperation with Prussia to win that power’s agreement to Austria’s ambitions to absorb Bavaria in exchange for the Austrian Netherlands. Prussia never explicitly agreed to this proposition, and Cobenzl’s policy was discredited after Russia and Prussia, excluding Austria, acquired extensive Polish territories in the Second Partition of Poland of 1793. After his dismissal in March of 1793, Cobenzl served as Austrian ambassador to Paris from 1801 to 1805.