Count Johann Bernhard von Rechberg und Rothenlöwen () (17 July 1806 – 26 February 1899) was an Austrian statesman and a member of an old Swabian House of Rechberg. Early life Born at Regensburg as the second son of the Bavarian statesman Count Aloys von Rechberg und Rothenlöwen zu Hohenrechberg (1766–1849) and his wife, Countess Maria Anna Amalie Friederike von Schlitz gen. von Görtz (1778-1825). Biography Johann Bernhard was destined for the Bavarian public service, his elder brother being a hereditary member of the Upper House in the parliament of Württemberg. He was educated at the universities of Strassburg and Munich, but he incurred the displeasure of King Ludwig I of Bavaria by the part he played as second in a duel, and in 1828 he transferred himself to the Austrian diplomatic service. After being attached to the embassies in Berlin, London and Brussels, he was appointed envoy at Stockholm (1841) and at Rio de Janeiro (1843). Returning to Europe in 1847, on the outbreak of the Revolution of 1848 in Vienna he was of great service to State Chancellor Prince Klemens von Metternich, whom he accompanied and assisted in his flight to England. In July 1848 he was appointed Austrian plenipotentiary in the German Frankfurt Parliament, in 1851 became Austrian internuncius at Constantinople, and in 1853 Radetzky's civilian colleague in the government of Lombardy-Venetia. In 1855 he returned to Frankfurt as Austrian representative and president of the federal diet. As a pupil of Metternich he would have wished to preserve the good understanding with Prussia which seemed the necessary foundation for a conservative policy; he was, however, made the instrument for the anti-Prussian policy of Buol, the foreign minister; this brought about constant disputes with Bismarck, at that time Prussian envoy at the diet, which were sharpened by Rechberg's choleric temper, and on one occasion nearly led to a duel. Bismarck, however, always expressed a high appreciation of his character and abilities. In May 1859, on the eve of the Second Italian War of Independence (1859), he was appointed Austrian minister of foreign affairs and minister-president, surrendering the latter post to the Archduke Rainer in the following year. The five years during which Rechberg held the portfolio of foreign affairs covered the war with Piedmont and France, the insurrection in Poland, the attempted reform of the German Confederation through the Frankfurt Fürstentag, and the Austro-Prussian war with Denmark. After