Anton Ritter von Schmerling (23 August 180523 May 1893) was an Austrian statesman. Life Von Schmerling was born in Vienna, where his father held a high position on the judicial side of the civil service. After studying law at Vienna, in 1829 Schmerling entered the public service, and during the next eighteen years was constantly occupied, chiefly in Lower Austria. In 1847, as a member of the lesser nobility, he entered the Estates of Lower Austria and took an active part in the Liberal movement for administrative and constitutional reform of which they were the center. On the outbreak of the revolution in Vienna in March 1848, when the mob broke into the Assembly, Schmerling was one of the deputation which carried to the palace the demands of the people, and during the next few days he was much occupied in organizing the newly formed National Guard. At the end of the month he was sent by the ministry to Frankfurt as one of the men of public confidence. He soon succeeded Count Colloredo as president of the Confederate Diet, and in this capacity officially transferred to Archduke John, who had been elected regent of Germany, the powers of the Diet on 12 July 1848. For this he was violently attacked in the National Assembly by the extreme Radicals; but on this and other occasions (he had himself been elected to the National Assembly) he defended himself effectively because he depended not on eloquence but on a recognition of what has been called the irony of facts to which the parliament as a whole was so blind. Schmerling was the first and the most influential member of the ministry which the Regent formed; from 15 July he held the ministry of the interior and foreign affairs, and it was almost entirely due to him that, at least for while, this phantom government maintained some appearance of power and dignity. With the resignation of Prince Carl zu Leiningen on 5 September 1848, the Regent requested Schmerling to form a new ministry after Frederick Dahlmann had failed to do so. A defeat in the parliament when he defended the armistice of Malmö led to his resignation; but he was immediately called to office again, with practically dictatorial power, in order to quell the revolt which broke out in Frankfurt on 18 September. His courage and resolution averted what nearly became a terrible