Carlo Felice Nicolis, conte di Robilant (8 August 1826 – 17 October 1888), Italian

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and

diplomat A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...

, was a native of

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

Life

He entered the army, and lost his left hand at

Novara Novara (, Novarese: ) is the capital city of the province of Novara in the Piedmont region in northwest Italy, to the west of Milan. With 101,916 inhabitants (on 1 January 2021), it is the second most populous city in Piedmont after Turin. It i ...

, where he was '' aide-de-camp'' to Charles Albert, king of Piedmont. He fought in 1859, and reached the grade of general in the

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n campaign of 1866, after which he served on the

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commission. He was chief of the Military Academy, and in 1867 was made prefect of

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to suppress political disorder. He was defeated at Turin in the elections for the Chambrin in 1870, and was sent in 1871 as minister plenipotentiary to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, where he subsequently became

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. He was connected with the

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

n nobility through his mother, he married an Austrian, a daughter of Prince Edmund Clary-Aldringen. In spite of the active part he had taken in driving Austria from Italy, he was a ''persona grata'' in Vienna, and his policy was steadily directed to an alliance between the two powers. This was accomplished by the secret terms of the Triple Alliance in 1882. He was recalled to

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in 1885 to become minister for foreign affairs in the Depretis cabinet. Robilant's independent attitude as foreign minister secured greater consideration for Italy from her allies, but he did not adapt himself to the exigencies of domestic politics, and his excessive unpopularity contributed to the downfall of the ministry on February 7, 1887, consequent on an adverse vote on the Massawa question. Before leaving office, he completed the negotiations for the renewal of the Triple Alliance, and for its extension to cover Anglo-Italian co-operation in the

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. In the new Depretis- Crispi administration Robilant was not included. He was sent to

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as ambassador in the next year, but died two months after his arrival.

References

Attribution: * {{DEFAULTSORT:Robilant, Carlo Felice Nicolis, Conte Di 1826 births 1888 deaths Nobility from Turin Foreign ministers of Italy Members of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy Diplomats from Turin Italian generals 19th-century Italian people 19th-century diplomats Military personnel from Turin Ambassadors of Italy to Austria-Hungary