After his father became the Russian ambassador to the
Prussian court about 1787, Nesselrode's education in a
Berlin gymnasium reinforced his Germanic roots. Even though Nesselrode would work for the Russians for the next few decades of his life, he could neither read nor write
Russian and spoke it only brokenly. In 1788, at the age of 8, he officially entered the
Imperial Russian Navy. With his father's influence, he secured the position of naval
aide-de-camp to Emperor
Paul (). Nesselrode is credited as the person who first coined the name "
Tournament of Shadows", which was the Russian name for the long rivalry that existed between the
Russian Empire and the
British Empire beginning in the late 18th and lasting well into the 19th centuries, caused primarily by border tension in Central Asia and India. In 1849 Nesselrode sent Russian troops to aid
Austria in putting down the
Hungarian Revolution led by
Lajos Kossuth. One frequently-overlooked facet of Nesselrode's activity involved his attempts to penetrate
Japan's
self-isolation. In 1853 he dispatched
Yevfimiy Putyatin with a letter to the
shōgun; Putyatin returned to
Saint Petersburg with the favorable
Treaty of Shimoda (signed 1855). Nesselrode's efforts to expand Russia's influence in the
Balkans and
Mediterranean led to conflicts with the
Ottoman Empire,
Britain,
France, and the
Kingdom of Sardinia, which all became allies opposing Russia in the
Crimean War (1853–1856). Britain and France, unhappy with Russia's growing influence, determined to support Turkey and so restrict Russia. Nesselrode's autobiography was published posthumously in 1866. == Marriage and issue ==