As an opponent of Otto von Bismarck, he attempted to conclude a common policy of the German middle states between Austria and Prussia.

[1] On Beust fell also the chief responsibility for governing the country after order was restored, and he was the author of the so-called coup d'état of June 1850 by which the new constitution was overthrown.

The vigor he showed in repressing all resistance to the government, especially that of the university, and in reorganizing the police, made him one of the most unpopular men among the Liberals, and his name became synonymous with the worst form of reaction, but it is not clear that the attacks on him were justified.

He was the leader of that party which hoped to maintain the independence of the smaller states, and was the opponent of all attempts on the part of Prussia to attract them into a separate union.

[1] He was thus thrown into opposition to the policy of Bismarck, and he was exposed to violent attacks in the Prussian press as a particularist, i.e., a supporter of the independence of the smaller states.

On the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, Beust accompanied King John of Saxony on his escape to Prague, and thence to Vienna, where they were received by allied Emperor Franz Joseph with the news of Königgrätz.

[1] After the victory of Prussia there was no office for Beust in an emerging Lesser Germany, and his public career seemed to be closed, but he quite unexpectedly received an invitation from Franz Joseph to become his foreign minister.

Despite the opposition of the Slavs who foresaw that "dualism would lead Austria to downfall, negotiations with Hungary were resumed and rapidly concluded by Beust.

[...] Beust deluded himself that he could rebuild both the [Germanic Federation] and the Holy Roman Empire and negotiated the Ausgleich as a necessary preliminary for the revanche on Prussia.

He also carried on the negotiations with the Pope concerning the repeal of the concordat, and in this matter also did much by a liberal policy to relieve Austria from the pressure of institutions which had checked the development of the country.

The failure of all attempts to bring about an intervention of the powers, joined to the action of Russia in denouncing the Treaty of Frankfurt, was the occasion of his celebrated saying that he was nowhere able to find Europe.

Bismarck accepted his advances with alacrity, and the new entente, which Beust announced to the Austro-Hungarian delegations in July 1871, was sealed in August by a friendly meeting of the two old rivals and enemies at Gastein.

[1] Beust had great social gifts and personal graces; he was proud of his proficiency in the lighter arts of composing waltzes and vers de société.

He was apt to look more to the form than the substance, and attached too much importance to the verbal victory of a well-written dispatch; but when the opportunity was given him he showed higher qualities.

If he was defeated in his German policy, it must be remembered that Bismarck held all the good cards, and in 1866 Saxony was the only one of the smaller states which entered on the war with an army properly equipped and ready at the moment.

Yet it remains the fact that in a struggle of extraordinary difficulty he carried to a successful conclusion, a policy which, even if it were not the best imaginable, was possibly the best attainable in the circumstances seen from a contemporary perspective during that fatal pre-war crisis.