Metternich was furious, but the reality was that he had no good solution. If the Swiss really went all out and blew up the Saint Gallen Pass and the two little roads in Ticino, then the Austrian Empire could send a hundred thousand troops and still wouldn't be able to get in.
In the past, the Swiss Confederation had been able to push back the Holy Roman Empire and even defeat Austria so badly that it lost its ancestral lands. Aside from the great powers kicking it when it was down, the Swiss mountains made it difficult to deploy troops, and keeping them supplied was a major problem too.
Note: The House of Habsburg originated in Eagle Castle, in Switzerland's Aargau canton.
Though he couldn't take the place by force, Prince Metternich was known as the "Chancellor of Europe." He had his own way of solving problems.
That's right! He would hold a meeting! Never underestimate the power of an international conference. It was a blade that killed without drawing blood.
Compared with sending tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of troops into battle, this approach was cheap, efficient, and elegant.
As a seasoned old hand who had spent more than half a century in diplomatic circles, Prince Metternich knew exactly what he could touch and what he couldn't.
He planned to spend a month preparing for a diplomatic conference. The actual meeting might not be held for another two months after that.
After all, it was still winter, and Saint Petersburg was inaccessible by sea. It could take a month for the message to reach the Russians. By the time they had chosen their representatives and sent them over, it might already be April 1847.
This might be the largest diplomatic conference in the world since Napoleon's