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Community Under Anarchy: Transnational Identity and the Evolution of Cooperation
Bruce Cronin
1998
3. A Great Power Concert and a Community of Monarchs
International relations scholars often cite European diplomatic history as offering the strongest evidence for balance of power theory in practice. Between the shifting alliance patterns, imperial competition, continental wars, and ongoing bids for hegemonic dominance, the flow of European history appears to confirm the proposition that conflict and rivalry is the inevitable outcome of political relations in an anarchical environment.
Yet European history also shows evidence of political leaders trying to overcome these conditions. From 1815 to approximately 1854, Europe was governed by two parallel systems of collective management. The first consisted of five mutually acknowledged “great powers” who acted as trustees for European security. This system has been alternatively referred to as the European pentarchy, the confederation of Europe, the Vienna system, and the Concert of Europe. The second was a common security association of Eastern monarchies whose purpose was to uphold the interests of an aristocratic, European social order through maintaining the 1815 Settlement by means of a repressive alliance of monarchical states. 1 This has been informally labeled the Metternich system and the Holy Alliance. In both cases the balance of power was replaced by a community of power.
While the practice of consultation and collaboration that defined these systems waxed and waned, they remained cohesive for approximately four decades. 2 This presents us with a historical puzzle that cannot be explained by structural theories. The conditions leading up to the Congress of Vienna in 1815 clearly favored the development of a competitive balance of power system, particularly in central Europe. Austria and Prussia were traditional rivals, aggravated by the fact that they bordered each other and had conflicting territorial claims. 3 In fact, much of eighteenth century diplomacy focused on the growing rivalry between Austria (the Hapsburg Empire) and Prussia for the domination of the Holy Roman Empire, leading to several major wars. The introduction of Russia into the European political scene only complicated matters. Russia’s expansion southward and westward challenged the Hapsburg’s position as the dominant political force in central Europe.
Coming out of the Napoleonic wars, Britain and Austria had seen the possible expansion of Russian power as the biggest potential security problem that Europe would face after the defeat of France. 4 During this period it was common for European leaders to predict that Russia, by virtue of its size, population, and geographic advantage, would succeed Napoleonic France as the dominant power on the continent, competing with Britain for supremacy. 5 While the war against France provided a temporary unifying cause for the European powers, the reintegration of France into the European system ended the wartime alliance, and therefore traditional patterns of territorial competition should have reemerged. Thus the Concert of Europe and the Holy Alliance are “hard cases” for theories of transnational identity since there were so many factors working against group cohesion and great power unity. 6
While balance of power theory can explain why Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia would temporarily cast aside their rivalries to join the Quadruple Alliance against Napoleon, it cannot explain why this close collaboration persisted long after France was defeated. Political scientists have traditionally attributed this phenomenon to three primary causes: war weariness, strategies of reciprocity, and ideological similarity. Robert Jervis argues that concert systems form after, and only after, a large war against a potential hegemon because such a conflict produces significant ties between the allies, undermines the acceptability of war as a tool of statecraft, and, perhaps most important, increases the incentives to cooperate. 7 Applying a game theory approach, Jervis argues that changes in the payoff structure to favor cooperation and differences in the potential gains from cooperation help to explain the concert. 8 Simply put, there was an increase in gains from cooperation and a decrease in gains from exploitation. In cooperation theory terms, the explanatory variables are tit-for-tat strategies of reciprocity and an increase in the shadow of the future. 9
Tit-for-tat strategies might be able to account for the ability of the great powers to overcome mistrust and collective action problems, however, cooperation theories do not explain why the great powers would wish to pool their resources to facilitate collective management in the first place. Equally important, there is little evidence that states actually pursued tit-for-tat strategies during this period. In addition, explanations based on the idea of war weariness cannot explain why a concert system evolved in 1815 but not after previous and subsequent wars when aversion to conflict was equally strong. There have been at least four major continental or world wars and numerous other smaller but widespread conflicts since the Peace of Westphalia, yet only after the Napoleonic Wars did an effective concert system develop. While the Napoleonic wars continued for a relatively long time (twenty-five years), they did not last as long as the Thirty Years War in the seventeenth century, nor were they as destructive as either World War I or II.
Some political scientists argue that the concert was the result of ideological similarities between the great powers, who shared not only a common political ideology but also a common vision of the international order. 10 These factors were certainly important in creating a foundation for group cohesion. However, ideological compatibility can explain the Holy Alliance better than it can the concert, since it was precisely ideological issues that ultimately divided the Eastern from the Western great powers. While the concert focused on the management of continental security affairs, it was a common security association, the Holy Alliance, that embodied ideological solidarity by defending and restoring monarchy against domestic rebels. At the same time, even if ideological compatibility provided the necessary condition to explain the Holy Alliance, it does not offer a sufficient one. After the Peace of Utrich in 1714, the major powers were also all monarchies. However they did not view monarchy as a distinguishing characteristic in their definition of themselves and their neighbors. It was not until other alternatives become conceivable, principally nationalism and liberalism, that they were able to see themselves as a unique and exclusive group.
Consequently, while structural variables can account for the plurality of great powers that is necessary for a concert or common security system to form, it cannot account for their cohesion as a social group. This chapter will try to explain how and why these groups evolved.
The French Revolution as a Permissive Condition
The rise of cohesive security arrangements in nineteenth-century Europe occurred within the context of enormous social and political changes that swept the continent. Historian Paul Schreoder argues that European politics was transformed between 1763 and 1848, characterized by a fundamental change in the governing rules, norms, and practices of international relations. 11 Most scholars studying nineteenth-century European politics focus on the Napoleonic wars as the great event that altered relations among states. 12 For neorealism, in particular, war is the principal catalyst of change. This is because variations in the rules are derived from the variance in the distribution of capabilities and war is the primary means for determining relative power. 13 Thus, to the extent that the Napoleonic wars changed the balance of power in Europe and encouraged the victorious states to become status quo powers, we should be able to find a direct link between the new distribution of power and preferences for more cohesive security arrangements.
An alternative explanation, which I present in this chapter, is that the change in system rules, norms, and practices was not the result of new power distributions but rather of new identities and social relations. New identities tend to develop during periods of rapid change when traditional institutions are challenged and legitimate authority undermined. In this case the victorious powers not only needed to adapt to a new distribution of capabilities but also to a new social structure in Europe. The new social changes in Europe were not the result of hegemonic war but rather of the French revolution.
The French revolution and its expansion undermined the political foundation of absolute monarchy and destroyed the political order that had governed the continent for several generations. 14 In addition to challenging monarchic rule, it also eroded the legitimacy of the Church and the aristocracy, the pillars underlying the ruling coalitions of Europe. Up to that point legitimacy had not been an important consideration in justifying state rule. Under the ancien régime hereditary succession had been a custom, generally an uncontested one. Only after dynastic continuity had been broken and the monarch’s right to rule no longer taken for granted did it become an ideology. 15
As Napoleon’s armies swept across the continent, serfdom was abolished throughout central and eastern Europe and within the Italian peninsula. Ideas of citizenship and nationalism were institutionalized within the conquered territories through the Civil Code of Napoleon, threatening the foundations upon which most European monarchies were based. While the political elites and populations of Europe ultimately turned against Napoleon’s empire, the ideals of the French revolution had taken root throughout the continent, not least within the Russian and Prussian ruling houses and among the political classes within the German principalities. 16
The defeat of Napoleon ended the French bid for a continental empire, leaving to the victorious states the task of rebuilding the political and social structure of Europe. Twenty-five years of revolution, empire, and warfare left a very different continent from the one that had existed previously. Napoleon had abolished the Holy Roman Empire and either consolidated or reorganized most city-states and ancient republics into modern states. In all, the 234 territories that comprised the empire were reduced to 39 and placed under French rule. 17 When the Quadruple Alliance drove the French armies from the territories they had occupied, it left nearly half of Europe without government. 18 In many cases it was not clear who the legitimate rulers were or even which territories constituted states. 19
All this presented a challenge to the European state system in a way that other major wars did not: even the victorious ruling regimes were concerned about their legitimacy in the new order. 20 This was reflected in a letter from French minister Talleyrand to the newly restored King Louis:
What then is needed to give people confidence in legitimate authority?... Before the Revolution, power in France was restricted by ancient institutions, it was modified by the action of the large body of the magistracy, the clergy, and the nobility, who were necessary elements to its existence, and of whom it made use for the purpose of governing. Now that all these institutions are destroyed, and these great means of governing are annihilated, others must be found, of which public opinion will not disapprove. 21
Tallyrand may have overstated the need to command public support at this point in history, however, he accurately reflected a belief among sovereigns that state authority in the new order needed to be based on some form of social consensus that was derived from commonly accepted principles of legitimacy. The coalition between crown and altar could not accomplish this any longer. Perhaps historian Guillaume de Bertier de Sauvigny’s description of France’s dilemma could serve as a general statement on the dilemma faced by all of the European states:
The task of the new (post-Napoleonic) order in France was to fit the old monarchical, patriarchal, theocratic and feudal institution into the new Napoleonic, national, secular, and administrative state; to balance the new society emerging from the Revolution with the old privileged classes who intended to reoccupy their places along with the king. 22
Moreover, at a European level the revolution itself shook the diplomatic order like nothing else in the recent past. As Andreas Osiander argues, “If the thinking that had triumphed in the French Revolution has a basic message, it was that every custom, every social construct could be challenged. The international system, just as much as the domestic organization of the actors that made it up, was such a construct.” 23
As chaotic as the ancien régime seemed to be at times on the European level, two diplomatic institutions had provided a degree of stability and predictability in European relations: dynastic ties and the balance of power. 24 Both were severely challenged by the French revolution and Napoleon’s empire.
Dynastic ties had created political and social bonds that cut across state boundaries, while the balance of power placed limits on the degree to which rulers could use these bonds to expand their domains. To the degree that monarchs created nonterritorial transnational connections with other monarchs through marriage and family compact, dynastic ties provided the framework for peacetime alliances. Rulers were conscious of their position as part of a transnational family and of their responsibilities to it. 25 Thus, throughout the era, the principle justification for territorial claims tended to be dynastic rights, symbolized by the common names for the wars: the Wars of Spanish Succession, Austrian Succession, Polish Succession, and Bavarian Succession. 26
The balance of power provided a mechanism to restrain monarchs from using these practices to dominate the continent. This is why domestic succession disputes often escalated into European wars. Rulers recognized that the identity of a ruling house had international ramifications if that king had dynastic ties with the monarch in another state. Thus, all monarchs had an interest in the outcome of a domestic succession struggle. Monarchs who attempted to expand their domains through transnational compacts beyond a certain limit were met with opposition from other monarchs. This was the link between the dynastic and balance of power systems in the ancien régime.
The French revolution and Napoleon’s empire undermined both systems. The effect of abolishing large numbers of states, absorbing others into the empire, and rending still others as satellites is obvious. More important, however, was the effect on the concept of legitimate statehood. The revolution introduced the concept of nationalism as a legitimizing principle for state rule, undermining not only the position of the monarchs but that of the European system as well. Raison d’état had linked the interests of the state with its monarch or dynastic family, not with any particular people or nationality. With the threat of nationalism, rulers needed to develop a new source of legitimacy, particularly in the large parts of Europe where Napoleonic administrations needed to be replaced.
Consequently, not only did the European monarchs need to develop a workable diplomatic and territorial system to regulate their relations with each other, the sovereigns themselves needed to relegitimize their rule domestically. If constitutionalism and nationalism were temporarily defeated with the victory over Napoleon, the ancien régime was so undermined that a simple “restoration” of the status quo ante was impossible. In sum, the French revolution inspired the ruling elites to seek new forms of legitimation and support to replace their domestic coalitions of crown and altar. One source was external: the monarchs could draw legitimacy from each other and from a European system that was based on what would soon be known as the “legitimist principle.” These were the conditions that made the evolution of transnational identities possible.
Europeanism and the Concert of Vienna
Concert systems and common security associations both require a high level of commitment toward a greater good that goes beyond any notion of parochial self-interest. The common experiences of the previous twenty-five years—the French revolution, the Napoleonic wars, and the social and political reorganization of Europe—convinced the members of the Quadruple Alliance that it would be necessary to adopt a more systemic approach to reconstruction after the war was over. Osiander refers to this as a high degree of “system-consciousness,” while Schroeder calls it “systemic thinking.” 27 What made this kind of thinking conceivable, however, was a growing belief that Europe not only constituted a system but also a type of political community. By this I mean a recognition by the leadership of the Quadruple Alliance and the restored French monarchy of a social interdependence, a shared history, and a common culture that distinguished Europe as a unique society of states.
The development of a European consciousness grew largely out of the changes made by Napoleon in the social structure of Europe. Unlike previous and future European conflicts, the final war against France was not a conflict between alliances or dynastic families, rather it ultimately became a collective European struggle against a common enemy. With the formation of the fifth coalition Napoleon had no allies apart from those leaders he had installed within the conquered territories; by the end of 1813 all Europe north of the Alps was at war with Napoleon. 28 Thus the conflict became a continental crusade against a conqueror. This united Europe in a manner unseen since its wars against the Ottoman Empire several centuries before. Moreover, the sheer size of Napoleon’s empire had physically united much of the continent into a single political unit. Between the French Empire, the Napleonic satellites, and Napoleon’s pre-1813 allies, only Great Britain, Ireland, Portugal, and Sweden remained physically untouched by Napoleon’s Europe. 29 By destroying the small petty states and consolidating them into large administrative units, Napoleon reduced the number of boundaries that divided the continent.
On another level the European state system provided a type of reference group that represented the values and ideals that domestic elites wished to promote and maintain within their own societies. The French revolution had made the European aristocracy increasingly conscious of their common bonds as a transnational ruling class. In the aftermath of the war the accessions of power and glory at the expense of another ruler were reduced in importance in proportion to their estimate of the threat involved in the French revolution. 30 Among the representatives at the Congress of Vienna this was particularly true of Austrian foreign minister Clements von Metternich, an aristocrat who saw Europe as representing tradition and stability in the face of radicalism and anarchy. To Metternich and others of the Austrian elite, liberalism was a transnational threat to the traditional European way of life. Moreover, Austria’s multiethnic empire contained eleven nationalities; the revolutionary idea of nationalism threatened this system. As Metternich would later remark: “The only form of government which is suited to the concentration of peoples which makes up the Empire as a whole, is the monarchical form, because the cohesion of the parties would be absolutely impossible under a republican form of government.” 31 As a result, Metternich believed that the only sure foundation of order lay in the monarchic principle and the principle of legitimacy, both of which became European concepts. 32 For Austria to remain independent and secure, Europe as a whole had to be independent and secure. 33
This was equally true of the restored French monarchy. Although French foreign policy after the war was in part aimed at breaking away from the restraints imposed on it by the Quadruple Alliance, the government also realized that the Bourbon monarchy could only survive as part of a system of European monarchies. 34 To be a French monarch meant being a European one as well.
Russia also entered the postwar era needing to greater integrate itself into Europe. Its position as a great power was tied to its participation in European affairs. For a century Russia had sought recognition as a European power equal to the other great powers. Under Peter the Great Russia began to send young Russian noblemen abroad to study European politics and languages. This practice was continued by Catherine II and Paul I, who sought to overcome a lack of trained diplomatic bureaucracy by attaching young men to Russian embassies as a kind of diplomatic apprenticeship. 35 Consequently, by the end of the eighteenth century much of Russia’s identity as a great power was conditioned upon its ties to the European state system. In this sense Russia learned how to operate as a nation-state in foreign affairs from its reference group, Europe. During this period Russian leaders began to see themselves and their country as part of a cosmopolitan aristocratic European community.
The sense of community with Europe—to which Russia was intricately bound both politically and culturally in the early nineteenth century—was internalized by the top foreign policy decision makers. As historian Patricia Kennedy Grimsted argues, “Through their common use of the French language, their similar social and cultural values, wealth and usually aristocratic blood or titles, Russia’s diplomats belonged to the socioculturally, homogeneous European corps diplomatique.” 36 It is for this reason that most of Alexander’s foreign policy advisers were drawn from other states. For example Nesselrode was German, Kapodistrias Greek, Pozzo di Borgo Corsican, and Czartoryski Polish. 37 These advisers helped to make the Russian government more European.
Evidence for the development of a European identity can be found both through diplomatic discourse and the practices adopted by the Quadruple Alliance. With the formation of the fifth coalition the focus of the war expanded toward reestablishing a European order, or, in the words of article 16 of the Treaty of Chaumont, a “European equilibrium.” This was evident in the way that the members of the alliance began speaking on behalf of Europe as a conceptual community. At the Council at Langres in February 1814, for example, the future allies claimed for the first time to be representing not only themselves but all of Europe. 38 This continued at the meeting in Chatillon, where the Quadruple Alliance was formally established. The allies issued a declaration that they had come not only as representatives of their respective states but also “as men entitled to treat for Peace with France in the name of Europe, which is but a single entity.” 39
Picking up on this theme, Prussian minister Schwarzenberg, in addressing a French gathering after the allies entered Paris in 1814, continually spoke in terms of Europe rather than of the alliance. “Europe wishes to be at peace with France,” he told the crowd. “Europe does not wish to encroach on the rights of a great nation... and (Europe) wishes to disarm.” 40 He just as easily could have spoke in the name of the alliance, since it was their armies that were then occupying France. He chose to evoke European legitimacy.
During this period Metternich had begun to develop a vision for a cosmopolitan (aristocratic) European society that equated the interests of each state with those of the continent. 41 Europe, Metternich said, “has acquired for me the quality of one’s own country.” 42 In his private papers Metternich revealed that he had seen himself as standing for the society of Europe since 1814. 43 Tsar Alexander was the most enthusiastic promoter of a Europeanist perspective. As the war ended he began to plan for a rationalized European society of states in which national governments were legitimized through constitutions granted by their sovereigns. Even French minister Talleyrand began to share this vision, describing Europe as “a society... a family... a republic of Princes and peoples.” 44
For the first time Britain had begun to see itself as politically tied to the management of peacetime continental affairs. Throughout Foreign Minister Castlereagh’s negotiations with Austria and Russia, prior to the conference at Chaumont, he regarded himself as more than just a British minister promoting British interests; he saw himself as promoting the general interests of Europe. 45 Britain’s policy would no longer be based on building alliances with particular states to prevent any single state from dominating but rather, for the first time, on participation in a general system of management in Europe. 46 For Castlereagh Europe had developed a “unity and persistence of purpose such as it had never before possessed.” 47 Toward this end Castlereagh saw Britain’s role at Vienna as that of arbiter for Europe. 48
Whether this is evidence of a growing European identity is a matter of interpretation. The reconstruction of Europe, however, suggests that state practice was consistent with the discourse that had begun to dominate diplomatic relations. The strongest evidence is the Congress of Vienna itself. The Peace of Westphalia had established the practice of calling congresses to end major wars, therefore the idea of a conference was not unique. However, this was not to be a meeting of victorious states to discuss how to divide the spoils but rather a European-wide conference that would become the most comprehensive meeting of heads of states held to date. 49
On one level the congress was a continental celebration by the aristocracy and monarchs marking what at the time appeared to be the defeat of the French revolution. Most of the event consisted of extravagant parties, formal dances, and opulent dinners. On another level it was an open meeting for the European political elites to discuss the reconstruction of the continent. Not only was the congress not restricted to the winning states, it included anyone who could claim to have an interest in the reconstruction of the continent. Besides the reigning monarchs and their ministers, a large number of diplomats representing old dynasties came to Vienna to claim their rights, bringing with them questions of succession. Even those sovereigns installed by Napoleon sent their delegates.
Such a gathering would be unnecessary, and in many ways counterproductive, if the goals were simply to reestablish a functional balance of power among the major powers and compensate the winning states. The victorious states could easily have imposed a settlement on Europe without the participation of other countries. Allowing other states to press their claims could only complicate the creation of a European balance and would certainly impinge on the ability of the victorious states to establish spheres of influence. Yet article 32 of the first Peace of Paris read, “All the Powers engaged on either side in the present war shall, within the space of two months, send Plenipotentiaries to Vienna for the purpose of regulating, in General Congress, the arrangements which are to complete the provisions of the present treaty.” 50 Since virtually every country in Europe had been either occupied by, allied with, or opposed to Napoleon, the term “on either side of the present war” was an open invitation.
Several historians have commented on the way in which the great powers created a conceptual barrier around Europe during this period. Edward Gulick, for example, argues that the primary condition that gave rise to the Vienna settlement was a common European framework based on a shared historical legacy. 51 The pervasive heritage of cosmopolitanism led Europeans to think in continental, as opposed to strictly national, terms. Similarly, Paul Schroeder argues that the powers “fenced off” the European state system from the outside world, allowing them to ignore influences and issues that did not affect the continent itself. 52 This was reflected in the attempt by the great powers to develop a Europeanist approach toward reconstruction. That is, their interests and claims would be evaluated within the context of a general European settlement. Such an approach implies a group consciousness in the sense that “Europe” became the primary unit of analysis during the deliberations.
The adoption of this approach limited the alternatives that each state could pursue. In the first place it forced each of the ministers to reconcile their national claims with the interests of the continent. If a state wanted to promote its selfish interests, its representatives would have to demonstrate how that would help or at least not disrupt the new European order. The approach also created a dynamic whereby the ministers acted as partners rather than competitors in reconstruction. This did not prevent great power representatives from pursuing their own national claims, but it did limit the degree to which they could attempt to do so at the expense of the group. Moreover, it enabled them to overcome relative gains concerns in creating a general system of security and a balance of rights and responsibilities.
The Construction of a Great Power Club
The Congress of Vienna was originally called as a general meeting to resolve the outstanding territorial and diplomatic issues that were not settled in the Treaty of Paris. However, little thought had gone into how this would be accomplished. As delegates began to arrive in Vienna, they found that there was no procedure with which to conduct the congress. Moreover, it was unclear when the meeting would even begin, how decisions would be made, or who would be represented. The first secret article of the Treaty of Paris had stated that the dispensation of conquered territories would fall to the “allies.” 53 Yet the war against Napoleon had been much broader than the members of the Quadruple Alliance, and eight countries had signed the Paris agreement. In fact, the Treaty of Chaumont itself was not exclusively an agreement among the original members of the alliance. Sweden, Spain, Portugal, and Holland all acceded to the treaty through a secret article, and thus they became signatories to the Quadruple Alliance. Consequently, it was not clear who would be defined as an allied power.
One way to resolve this question could have been through the formation of interest blocs by the principle states to increase bargaining leverage. If this avenue had been pursued, the criteria for whom to include in decision making would have been essentially ad hoc and opportunistic. The allies would seek to include those who they thought would either support their position or would cause problems for the others. During the negotiations leading to the Peace of Westphalia, for example, France and Sweden insisted that the princes of the Holy Roman Empire be included in negotiations, a move designed to weaken the bargaining position of the Hapsburgs. 54 This was a real possibility. German and Italian princes appealed to Tsar Alexander for help in realizing their national aspirations. With their support and Russia’s overwhelming military resources on the continent, the tsar could have expanded Russia’s power and become the unchallenged arbiter of Europe. 55 Moreover, the Swedish envoy, Gustavus von Löwenhjelm, was a protégé of Alexander, and was viewed as an ally. 56
A second option could have been the formation of dynastic blocs among sovereigns with family ties. Many of the princes who had traditionally ruled the German and Italian states were related by marriage to sovereigns from the Quadruple Alliance. In fact, all of the major powers had dynastic ties to princes in other states in Europe. Territorial claims could have been made on the basis of compact. Balance of power dynamics would explain either outcome.
Neither of these options were pursued, however. Rather, the necessity of relegitimizing the state and building a workable diplomatic system for Europe encouraged the members of the Quadruple Alliance to attempt a consensus rather than engage in a competition for maximum advantage. 57 This, however, would not be easy. Despite their commitment to act not only as sovereign states but also as Europeans, the early meetings were characterized by tension and mistrust. Centuries of rivalry and hostility were part of the history of their relationships, and that could not help but affect the attitudes of the sovereigns and ministers toward each other. Moreover, Alexander and Metternich had a personal animosity that dated back to the conduct of the war against Napoleon. 58 In this sense the politics of realism played an important role in the congress. However, while structural theories can explain why historic rivals would be wary of each other after the hostilities had ceased, they do not account for the conditions under which these suspicions would ultimately be overcome. Thus, the story of the congress is not only about power politics and strategic interaction but also about the way the great powers came to view themselves as an exclusive club with the unique responsibility for managing the affairs of the continent.
The distinction between great and secondary powers emerged over time as the allies tried to determine who should be involved in the process of decision making, first at the Congress of Vienna and later at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. In preparing the agenda for Vienna, the allies decided to create two decision-making bodies: a committee comprised of the self-defined “leading powers,” first held to be the original members of the Quadruple Alliance plus France and Spain, and a broader eight-person committee comprised of the signatories of the Peace of Paris, which would also include Portugal and Sweden. 59 As the deliberations continued, however, it become apparent that the final directing cabinet for the conference would not be based on the Treaty of Paris as assumed, but on a conceptual distinction between “great” and “secondary” powers. Only those designated as a leading power would share membership in what was to become an exclusive club. This decision not only foreshadowed the decision-making process for the remainder of the congress, it would consolidate into a form of governance in which the great powers would collectively make decisions for the management of European affairs.
This was the first time in European diplomacy that a distinction had been had been made between leading and secondary powers. 60 It also marked the first time that the term great power would begin to be used as part of diplomatic phraseology. 61 Until that point it was generally accepted that all sovereign states were diplomatically equal, whatever their size or resources. Perceptions of strength certainly influenced the outcome of diplomacy, but no monarch was included or excluded on the basis of whether he was classified as a leading or great power. Rather decisions regarding who to include or exclude were usually made on the basis of realpolitik, that is, stacking the meeting with allies. As historian Charles Webster argues, the concept of leading powers “was an arbitrary distinction resting on no legal basis, asserting the claim of the Great Powers to have a special position in the European polity.” 62
There was no real criteria for applying the term great power to a particular nation, nor has one been devised since (although this distinction was made in practice when the United Nations Security Council was created). While political scientists and historians have often used the term, no one has been able to distinguish between a small great power and a large secondary one. As Jack Levy points out, “Scholars have either not attempted to define the concept or made no effort to translate vague definitions into operational criteria.” 63 This is not an accident. The distinction between a great and secondary power is as much conceptual as it is structural. While there have always been strong and weak states, the Congress of Vienna was the first time this distinction had political as opposed to military or economic significance. Relying on objective structural criteria presents problems of definition. The Vienna great powers, for example, were, in Paul Schroeder’s estimation, “a pentarchy composed of two superpowers ‘Britain and Russia’, one authentic but vulnerable ‘and occupied’ great power ‘France’, one highly marginal and even more vulnerable great power ‘Austria’ and one power called great by courtesy only ‘Prussia’.” 64
The only clear criterion for greatness, then, is the one that developed during the secret deliberations at Vienna: a power achieves this rank when acknowledged by others to have it. 65 In this case the members of the Quadruple Alliance, and later France, agreed among themselves that they constituted a special group of states with a distinctive set of rights and responsibilities for the governance of Europe. To the Austrian minister Metternich and the Russian tsar Alexander, great power supervision over the small powers—extending even to measures that could hardly be considered as external—seemed obvious and natural. 66 For British minister Castlereagh the need for a union of great powers was necessary, not only to guard against the danger from France (which was soon invited to join the union) but also for the general interests of Europe. 67 While power considerations can account for the ability of the Quadruple Alliance to assume the right to collectively rule Europe, it does not explain how they overcome their rivalries in order to do so.
The establishment of a juste équilibre necessitated a division of responsibility among the members of the group and in some cases involved strengthening some of the powers so that they could assume their role. Toward this end Castlereagh advocated “a substantial enlargement of Prussia,” a suggestion accepted by all powers. 68 Under normal circumstances relative gains concerns should preclude this type of action. The argument that this was done simply to check Russian power is weak, since Prussia was Russia’s staunchest ally at the congress. Rather, Prussia had a role in maintaining the vital “center” that was so fundamental to the new European order. Consistent with this, Alexander did not insist on being included in the “German Committee” that created the German confederation and a treaty of mutual defense. This is because the committee included only the major German states (such as Bavaria and Hanover), and was therefore led by Austria and Prussia. 69 Given Russia’s traditional interest in central Europe—and its historic use of the German principalities to challenge Austrian power—Alexander’s agreement to allow its two traditional rivals to have sole influence in this key strategic region offers at least circumstantial evidence that he accepted the idea of roles and responsibilities over strategic advantage within the club of great powers. If Russia was the hegemonic power on the continent, it certainly did not act like one.
It is for this reason that Russia encouraged a close partnership between Austria and Prussia, a radical departure from its “divide and conquer” strategy of the eighteenth century. Thus, the interests of the small powers could be sacrificed to achieve an equilibrium, and no attempt was made by any of the great powers to bring them in as allies against each other. This conscious and deliberate creation of a European equilibrium by enlarging some states and giving out spheres of responsibility to others is inconsistent with Grieco’s neorealist “positional theory.” 70 I would suggest that their decision to act like Europeans and great powers helped them to overcome the relative gains problem that would theoretically preclude such an approach. Certainly there were strong differences among the great powers as to what constituted an equilibrium, however the commitment toward a collective solution constrained the possible alternatives that the powers could pursue.
As argued in chapter 2, social groups exhibit a degree of closure that ties one’s definition of self in part to that of the broader group. By conceptually dividing Europe into great (the self) and secondary (the other) powers, the great powers established a new role for themselves, based on a collective understanding that they shared a special and unique status. In this sense their prestige was tied to their membership in a collective body. This understanding would be strengthened by a variety of titles that would come to identify them as a distinct group: “Union of Principle Powers,” “Union of Great Powers,” “Leading Powers,” “Aristocracy of Great Powers,” “Union of Chief Sovereigns,” “Powers of the First Rank,” and “Powers of the First Order.” As such, the powers had begun to identify their interests with those of the group. As Prussian foreign minister Friedrich Ancillon would later comment:
The five great powers, closely united among themselves and with the others, form a system of solidarity by which one stands for all and all for one; in which power appears only as protection for everybody’s possessions and rights; in which the maintenance of the whole and the parts within legal bounds, for the sake of the peace of the world, has become the only aim of political activity. 71
Similarly, Austrian publicist Friedrich Von Gentz, the secretary of the congress, described “the five great powers as the protector of the federation of European states.” 72 This view was echoed by Castlereagh, who stated that “the Great Powers feel that they have not only a common interest, but a common duty to attend to.” 73 Exaggerated and idealistic words to be sure, but they also reflected the sentiment that had begun to develop among a select group of states.
If sovereignty, geopolitics, and historic rivalry brought the great powers into potential conflict during the congress, what brought them together as a unique social group? In the first place, they shared a common characteristic that differentiated them from other states: the political, military, economic, and geographic resources to manage the affairs of the continent. This characteristic, however, only gained meaning within the context of the group. None of the powers could individually accomplish this task, nor could they form combinations that would provide the resources necessary to oversee continental security. Systems management was a collective task in which each piece was necessary for the functioning of the whole.
As a result, each power was given a sphere of responsibility. Austria and Prussia’s identity as German states would enable them to jointly manage the German confederation, Austria’s dynastic ties to several of the Italian princes helped it to manage the north Italian states, Russia’s size and historic ties to eastern Europe made them the obvious power to oversee eastern and southeastern Europe, and Britain’s historic role as protector the low countries and the Iberian peninsula made it the pillar in the west.
Second, the great powers recognized a positive interdependence among themselves. For the British there was a new recognition that they were politically tied to the management of peacetime continental affairs, a radical departure from Britain’s historic insular relationship with Europe. As Castlereagh noted in a letter:
In the present state of Europe it is the province of Great Britain to turn the confidence she has inspired to the account of peace, by exercising a conciliatory influence between the Powers, rather than put herself at the head of any combinations of Courts to keep others in check.... The immediate object to be kept in view is to inspire the States of Europe, as long as we can, with a sense of the dangers which they have surmounted by their union... and that their true wisdom is to keep down the petty contentions of ordinary times, and to stand together in support of the established principles of social order. 74
For Austria, Prussia, France, and Russia there was a positive interdependence based on a form of monarchic solidarity. Recognizing the impact of the French revolution on the legitimacy of monarchy and the aristocracy, the great power monarchs realized that their fortunes were linked. For Tallyrand, a European equilibrium required that the legitimacy of all thrones be acknowledged and recognized. 75 A European order based on this “legitimist principle” would strengthen the institutions of monarchy domestically against the transnational movements of nationalism and liberalism. By making a conceptual distinction between traditional monarchic states (the self) and radical liberal ones (the other), the monarchies developed a transnational bond that united them.
Metternich, long regarded as one of the great masters of realpolitik, believed that the ultimate survival of the Austrian monarchy rested in a close association with other monarchies. Metternich preferred the maintenance of strong monarchies to the maintenance of treaties as a way to guarantee stability. 76 “Political repose rests on fraternization between monarchs,” Metternich argued, “and on the principle of maintaining that which is. To oppose these fundamental principles would be to shake the edifice to its very foundation.” 77 For this reason Metternich and Prussian minister Hardenberg both agreed that the agenda of the congress would include the regulation of relations between rulers and subjects and other social questions running across Europe. 78
These shared characteristics were highlighted by their common experience in dealing with the aftermath of the French Revolution and the subsequent war against Napoleon. Even before the rise of Napoleon, the major powers recognized the threat of the revolution to the established order and deployed troops to restore the deposed monarch. In 1793 the armies of the German princes invaded France from the north and east, and British forces attacked from the south and west. 79 While the Prussian and Russian ruling houses initially sympathized with the revolution, they too eventually turned against the Jacobins and joined the great power crusade.
The final war against Napoleon had brought the great power leaders together in an unusually close collaboration. The allied sovereigns lived a common life for almost two years, and there existed between them something of the spirit of connection and obligation that binds individuals and nations together when faced with a common task or threat. 80 During this period they became accustomed to close cooperation; they traveled together for hundreds of miles, saw each other daily, and grew accustomed to dealing with foreign affairs much in the same way as they were used to tackling domestic affairs. 81 As Metternich noted in his Memoirs:
By a coincidence which was not only singular at the time but without example in the annals of history, the chief personages in the great drama found themselves together in the very same place. The Emperors of Austria and Russia, the King of Prussia, and their three cabinets, were really never separated. The leader of the English cabinets had also generally been with his colleagues of Austria, Russia and Prussia. 82
Moreover, in assuming the leadership of the final coalition and subsequently the responsibility for facilitating the reconstruction of Europe, they acted as “trustees” for the continent. This created a unique relationship between the powers that was not shared by any other state.
None of this is to imply that the congress was free of conflict. During discussions over the most controversial issue, the dispensation of Poland and Saxony, the great powers threatened to form rival blocs. For a short time mutual animosity was great and tension was high. Yet neither question broke up the congress or divided Europe. Nor did they have any lasting effects on the relations among the great powers, who continued to work at a collective approach toward reconstruction. A compromise was reached within a month of the crisis, and the issue was never revisited again. This suggests that even under the most adverse conditions the great powers were able to maintain their essential unity.
The Concert of Europe and the Congress System
If the Concert of Europe was a security regime formed on the basis of mutual self-interest, its development should have been the result of multilateral negotiation and strategies of reciprocity. Moreover, one should be able to demonstrate that the institution was designed to fulfill anticipated functions. 83 In the alternative, if it was the outcome of power politics, we should be able to trace the process through which hegemonic powers imposed it on the others or at least explain how it was designed to counter anticipated threats. Neither of these conditions, however, were present.
The concert was not formed either through a negotiated agreement or a treaty of alliance. Nor was it imposed on Austria, Prussia, and France by the dominant powers of Europe, Britain, and Russia. Rather, it emerged over time from a general practice of consultation and a recognition by the great powers that they shared a common relationship that defined them as a social group. Specifically, it was through their practice of dealing with European-wide issues collectively from 1814 through 1823 (and beyond) that the general nature of their relationship became increasingly clear. As Richard Elrod argues, concert diplomacy actively cultivated the conception of the great powers as a unique and special peer group. 84 In this sense the congresses (the practice) created the concert (the institution), rather than the other way around, a phenomenon not accounted for in liberal institutionalist theory.
While the possibility of holding periodic meetings was provided for in both the treaty of the Quadruple Alliance and the Second Peace of Paris, their conception was vague, and there were no plans to call any. 85 Article 5 of the Second Peace of Paris (which called for a future meeting of the allies) was inserted to provide a method for ending the occupation of France. In fact, the original idea of holding meetings was primarily a convenient diplomatic expedient for facilitating the common action of the allies on specific questions; they were not considered as part of an ongoing system. 86 Moreover, with the restoration of King Louis to the throne of France, the revolutionary threat from France diminished. There was no apparent security threat or convergence of interest that can account for the evolution of the concert.
The Concert of Europe was an unintended outcome of the political dynamics that emerged during the period surrounding the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, whose purpose was to end the occupation of France. By 1818 France had paid off its indemnity and established domestic stability under a set of monarchic institutions. With the expiration of the three-year occupation provided for in the Treaty of Paris, Russia proposed a congress to discuss terminating the occupation of France and other general issues relating to the European community. The other powers were eager to end the occupation and agreed with the need for a meeting to finalize the terms. 87 Although there was some discussion about allowing the secondary states to participate, ultimately all the great powers agreed to maintain the closed club that they had established at Vienna. Informally, they decided to act as trustees for European security by initiating a series of ongoing meetings and congresses to deal with all issues of European importance. This, I would argue, displays a collective consciousness of themselves as an exclusive and cohesive group.
The decision to maintain great power unity would later be reinforced at the conference through a series of public and private declarations that Europe would be governed by the five great powers. The protocol adopted by the powers on November 15, 1818, sounded more like a group compact than a collective defense agreement or treaty of alliance. The fact that this protocol was a secret, rather than a public, statement issued by the great powers suggests that it was not dispatched for public relations purposes. For example:
The five Powers... are firmly resolved never to depart, neither in their mutual Relations, nor in those which bind them to other states, from principles of intimate union which hitherto presided over all their common relations and interests, a union become more strong and indissoluble from the bonds of Christian brotherhood which join them. 88
As great powers, they would continue to speak in terms of their collective trusteeship over the continent. In a joint declaration publicly issued to the European community they stated that:
The intimate Union established among the Monarchs, who are joint parties to the System, by their own principles, no less than by the interests of their peoples, offer to Europe the most sacred pledge of its future tranquillity. 89
The fact that they spoke in lofty idealistic terms is not in and of itself significant; few nations justify their actions in terms of their own interests alone. What is interesting is the fact that they saw an “intimate union” of the great powers as the vehicle for achieving these seemingly idealistic goals. This union was not to be a traditional balancing alliance; all the major powers were grouped together. As Austrian adviser Friedrich Gentz described it:
‘The Great Power princes are’ the protectors and preservers of public order; their intimate union... is the counterpoise to the disorder which turbulent spirits try to bring into human affairs; the nucleus of organized strength which this union presents is the barrier which Providence itself appears to have raised to preserve the old order of society. 90
This was at least a rhetorical departure from the doctrine of realpolitik, which holds that ultimately only self-reliance can guarantee one’s security and independence. Instead, these statements identify their interests as sovereign states with those of great powers as a group, an indication of a group consciousness that can not be explained by realpolitik. Bringing an outside state into the inner circle of the group would diminish the distinction between great and secondary powers. It was this exclusivity that made group cohesion possible, and it became an accepted norm never to break the “magic circle of the elite and powerful.” 91 Over the next few decades three more congresses and many more great power consultations were held to discuss issues relating to European politics. In each case, the great powers maintained their solidarity against involving the secondary states, even in the face of strong disagreements among themselves.
In the post-Napoleonic order being a great power meant accepting certain norms of behavior and principles of conduct in one’s relations with other great powers. Where did these norms come from? The answer to this question suggests which interpretation of the concert is most accurate. Norms can emerge from a variety of sources. First, they can be imposed on the system by hegemonic powers. I would call these realist norms in the sense that they are derivative of power relations. 92 Second, they can be negotiated by coequal partners seeking to develop a workable system of cooperation and collaboration. 93 These are regulative norms and are most consistent with institutionalist theories, particularly regimes. Finally, they can develop organically within a community or social group as a reflection of the identity of the group itself. These are social or constitutive norms. 94
The norms that defined acceptable behavior within the concert were of the third type. There is no evidence that these standards of behavior were imposed on the group by either Britain or Russia, the two dominant powers. It is not even clear why such norms would reflect their interests apart from a belief in group solidarity. Nor is there any indication that the five powers explicitly negotiated them for some functional purpose. Moreover, they were not codified as legal rules but rather developed over time through ongoing practice, in particular through the interactions of the great powers at Vienna and Aix-la-Chapelle. The norms and principles that were the foundation of the concert system reflected the identity of the group. As argued in chapter 2, social identities carry with them a certain range of prerogatives and obligations that an actor who is accorded that identity may carry out. The common transnational identity of great powers facilitated certain expectations of behavior from which more explicit rules eventually developed.
The first principle held that the management of European affairs was a collective responsibility and therefore no power could attempt to settle a European question by an independent initiative. 95 This was the principle of group cohesion. This held even in cases where a state’s traditional interests were at stake, such as Austria in Italy and Russia’s relationship with the Ottoman Empire. The members of the concert accepted constraints on their right to self-help because their role as a great power required them to do so. To do otherwise would have threatened the very system they sought to maintain. As trustees over European affairs, they defined their interests partly in terms of the common good.
Great power cohesion was maintained in part through the newly developed concept of grouping. Grouping was a mechanism to restrain destabilizing adventures and aggressive behavior, not by balancing potential threats with a blocking alliance but by committing all powers to adhere to group norms and restraints. As Jervis argues, the great powers decided that potentially menacing states could best be contained by keeping them close to the group. 96 Thus whenever an issue of European interest arose it became natural to call a meeting or congress to discuss a collective response. Sometimes the response would involve action by only one of the powers, as in the cases of the Spanish and Italian revolutions, but in virtually every instance the support and sanction of the group was required.
While each of the powers at one time tried to avoid the constraints of the group by attempting unilateral action, the norms of the great power concert eventually forced them to seek collective approval before any action was taken. In fact, the only way a power could avoid group involvement was to convince the other great powers that the issue was local rather than European in nature. Thus, the way in which the powers defined each situation largely determined their expected behavior and their range of options. For example, when Austria and Prussia responded to unrest in the German states by issuing the Carlsbad Decrees in 1819, the other powers saw them as acting within their roles as co-leaders of the German confederation and therefore did not get involved. 97 Thus their situated identities proscribed a specific range of expected behaviors.
This is related to a second primary norm: that great powers must not be humiliated and that they must not be challenged either in their vital interests or in their prestige and honor. 98 While this was in part a functional mechanism for preventing the rise of dissatisfied powers, it was also fundamental to group cohesion. No such concern was evident for nonmember states whose potential dissatisfaction could lead to war. For example, during the Eastern crises in the 1820s, the great powers were not concerned to avoid a humiliation of the Ottoman Empire. Their only concern was to avoid its destruction. 99 Similarly, when the great powers intervened to support Belgian independence from the Netherlands, they did not offer compensation to the Dutch the way they did to Prussia and Austria at the Congress of Vienna.
Third, great powers were expected not to pursue territorial ambitions, not to take advantage of the short-run vulnerabilities of each other, not to form rival blocs or combinations in opposition to other great powers, and not to consort with secondary powers to support their positions. In short, as trustees of continental stability and order, they could not act to disrupt it for national gain. In this sense the great powers collectively acted as a reference group from which individual state leaders could evaluate each other’s actions. Metternich’s declaration of the need to maintain “the most absolute solidarity ‘among the great powers’ in all questions of general interest” 100 was a reflection of this group consciousness.
The greatest test of group cohesion came in 1821 in an area of vital interest to Russia: the principalities within the Ottoman Empire. In March of that year Aleksandr Ipsilantis led a nationalist revolt against the Ottoman government in the Danube Principalities, hoping to spark a war that would destroy the Ottoman Empire and gain Greek independence. At first all five great powers opposed the rebellion as another threat to established authority. 101 This view changed after the Turkish authorities publicly executed the Christian patriarch of Constantinople on Easter Sunday. Russia had assumed the role of protector of the Eastern Orthodox Christians within the Ottoman Empire ever since the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kainardji in 1774. The Ottoman Empire was an Islamic theocracy, and thus the execution of a major Christian religious leader turned the conflict into a holy war. Within two months Russia had broken off diplomatic relations with the Ottomans.
At that point the great powers were convinced that war would soon follow, a course of action that all except Russia wished to avoid. Alexander wanted to help the Greeks but only on the basis of a European mandate, much as the one given to Austria in Naples (which I discuss later in this chapter). 102 Thus, when Alexander accepted Metternich’s suggestion for a meeting of great power ministers at Vienna to discuss the affair, he was abandoning a principle of Russian diplomacy observed since the time of Catherine II—the principle of not permitting the interference of foreign powers in the relations between Russia and Turkey. 103 In fact, Russia did not go to war against Turkey in 1822, despite widespread provocation. Instead it agreed to treat the Greek issue within a general European settlement. 104 The willingness of Russia to acquiesce to the collective against its traditional interests is perhaps the strongest evidence of group loyalty. As Paul Schroeder argues, Alexander acted mainly to save the European alliance and for this he was willing to forego the likely gains of a legally justified war and accept the risk that Russia’s influence would decline in the Near East relative to Austria and Britain. 105
As an institution of great power collaboration, the Concert of Europe continued in at least a weak form until the Crimean War in 1854. While the practice of holding formal congresses among all five great powers declined after 1823, the key ingredients that helped to define the concert remained: the great powers did not pursue unilateral action, they consulted each other on all issues of European importance even where their vital issues were involved, and they did not form military alliances or rival blocs even after the Russian-Turkish war of 1828. What changed was not great power rule per se, but rather the form of rule. The rise of the Holy Alliance as a common security association promoting monarchic solidarity became the dominant institution in European politics.
Monarchic Solidarity and the Holy Alliance
While the Concert of Europe had provided for a form of governance based upon Great Power rule of Europe and political equilibrium among states, the Holy Alliance was designed to maintain a particular social structure within Europe based on monarchic solidarity. It clearly fits the definition of a common security association discussed in chapter 1. The treaty of the Holy Alliance, concluded in Paris on September 26, 1815, stated in part that
the three contracting Monarchs ‘Austria, Russia and Prussia’ will remain united by the bonds of a true and indissoluble fraternity, and considering each other as fellow countrymen, they will on all occasions and in all places lend each other aid and assistance. ‘They’ consider themselves all as members of one and the same Christian nation; the three allied Princes looking on themselves as merely delegated by Providence to govern three branches of the One family, namely, Austria, Prussia, and Russia. 106
Unlike a treaty of alliance, the Holy Alliance was to be a general association promoting the unity of Christian monarchs and the sanctity of royal institutions. The goals as written were as broad as they were vague. While Castlereagh derided the document as “a piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense,” and Metternich initially referred to it as a “high sounding nothing,” 107 it would later become the symbolic representation of an evolving transnational identity among absolutist monarchs. Its goal would be to provide mutual assistance to monarchs challenged by nationalist and liberal rebellions.
The Holy Alliance was originally one of the most advanced ideas of its time. 108 The many references to religion, Christian brotherhood, and “exalted truths” should not obscure the political impact of the document. In Alexander’s mind the alliance would bind the monarchs together in a general association for the purpose of guaranteeing the principles of public law, that is, the state of possession and the legitimacy of thrones. 109 Reflecting this bond, the document states:
Considering each other as fellow countrymen, they will on all occasions and in all places lend each other aid and assistance. In consequence, the sole principle in force whether as between the said Governments or as between their subjects, shall be that of doing each other reciprocal service. 110
Its purpose, then, was not to promote state power but rather monarchic power, a transnational value that tied specific domestic institutions to those of other states.
The evolution of the Holy Alliance into a union for the preservation of absolute monarchy against liberal change is all the more interesting considering that until 1819 Alexander insisted that granting liberal constitutions was the logical outcome of the sacred principles to which the signatories had subscribed. 111 Prior to the final signing, however, Metternich succeeded in altering the original text by eliminating some of the religious references and changing the thrust of the document into an attack on the transformations brought about by the French revolution. 112 Interestingly, only the three Eastern monarchs were sponsors of the treaty, although all monarchs except the sultan of the Ottoman Empire were invited to adhere to it. This was the first indication that the three powers who were bitter enemies for at least a century would find among themselves a special bond not shared by the other states.
It was not only the rule of law and the demands of necessity that guided the Holy Alliance; it was a belief in a duty to aid any legal and legitimate—that is monarchic—authority that was challenged by liberal and/or revolutionary forces. As Metternich stated in a letter to Prussian minister Wittgenstein: “Political repose rests on fraternization between monarchs ‘rather than military alliance’ and on the principle of maintaining that which is. To oppose these fundamental principles would be to shake the edifice to its very foundation.” 113 The idea of a common monarchic identity by the three Eastern powers as the basis for a coalition was articulated by Metternich in a letter to Alexander:
Respect for all that is; liberty for every government to watch over the well-being of its own people; a league of all governments against factions in all states; refusal on the part of every monarch to aid or succor partisans under any mask whatever—such are the ideas of the great monarchies.... Union between the monarchs is the basis of the policy which must now be followed to save society from total ruin. 114
...
The first principle to be followed by the monarchs, united as they are by the coincidence of their desires and opinions, should be that of maintaining the stability of political institutions... let the great monarchs strengthen their union and prove to the world that if it exists, it is beneficent, and ensures the political peace of Europe. 115
In another letter he continued his thoughts on the solidarity of monarchs:
Never has the world shown examples of union and solidarity in great political bodies like those given by Russia, Austria, and Prussia in the course of the last few years. By separating carefully the concerns of self-preservation from ordinary politics and by subordinating all individual interests to the common and general interest, the monarchs have found the true means of maintaining their holy union and accomplishing the enormous good which they have accomplished. 116
While discourses are often manipulated for strategic reasons, they also reflect a trend in the way political leaders conceptualize themselves and their neighbors. 117 In this case we see a clear pattern among the ministers and sovereigns of the Eastern powers that indicates some consciousness of commonality around monarchic solidarity. Their national interests were at least partly tied to the institutions of monarchy, which were European in nature. In this sense the Holy Alliance was a reference group through which the ruling monarchs could justify their form of state to potential domestic challengers. This corresponds to the tone of political discourse that had begun to characterize this period. The three Eastern monarchies spoke of the peace of Europe in terms of preventing social revolution rather than guarding against the ambitions and aggressions of other states.
In reality, the Holy Alliance, as it came to be known in European politics, did not emerge from either a treaty or an idea but rather from political practice. Like the Concert of Europe, the Holy Alliance evolved over time. The transformation of the alliance from a “high sounding nothing” into an institution representing monarchic solidarity was the result of an ongoing interaction among the original signers. Once again, the practice preceded the institution. In fact, Russia continued to view the Holy Alliance as a vehicle to promote constitutionalism throughout Europe until at least 1819. 118 It was not until the Holy Alliance began to manifest itself in actual practice—in Spain, Piedmont, and Naples—that Alexander would eventually move away from his advocacy of constitutionalism toward support for Eastern absolutism.
The first opportunity for action by the Holy Alliance was in response to the Spanish revolution. In January 1820 Spanish troops destined for duty in the rebellious South American colonies revolted against King Ferdinand VII. Within two months the rebels had established a new government, compelling the king to restore the ultraliberal constitution of 1812. While Alexander still held sympathy for constitutionalism, his support for such charters was based on the idea that they would emanate from royal will not revolution. Thus, in April, the tsar proposed that the great powers jointly intervene in Spain to return the legitimate king to his throne and called for a congress to discuss this action.
The Spanish revolution embodied Metternich’s worst fears of liberalism and anarchy. At the same time, he believed that the location of Spain at the farthest western reaches of the continent and the probability that the revolution would burn itself out mandated caution. 119 Castlereagh similarly opposed joint action on the grounds that the Spanish revolution was not a threat to the peace of Europe and was thus a local, not a European, issue. There was not a consensus to call a congress.
However, a military revolt in Naples four months later caused Austria to reevaluate its initial classification of the Spanish revolution as a local issue. Although the Congress of Vienna had designated Italy as part of Austria’s sphere of responsibility, Metternich wanted to crush the rebellion with the support (but not the participation) of the other European great powers. Russia and France agreed to support Austria, but argued that this, like Spain, was a revolutionary challenge to the European order and therefore required a joint response, even if the troops used were to be Austrian. 120 Austria tried to deal with the issue by more informal means, however the norms of the great power concert clearly placed this issue on the European agenda. 121 Thus, although Austria did not want the other powers to place constraints on its ability to act, consultation was mandatory and the Congresses of Troppau and Laibach were born. Now Austria would be grouped.
Britain supported Austrian intervention but wanted it to act unilaterally on the basis of its treaties rather than as the head of an antirevolutionary European force. 122 The British thereby indicated that they would only send an observer to the congress. This presented a dilemma for Austria. Metternich and Emperor Francis knew that holding the congress would alienate England as a potential ally. Yet Austria chose to maintain its ties with the union of Eastern monarchs over the potential benefits of a British-Austrian alliance because, as Metternich stated, “of all the evils, the greatest would be to see Emperor Alexander abandon the moral tie which unites us and thus to set himself up again as the power protecting the spirit of innovation,” that is, liberalism. 123 In this sense Austria valued the monarchic union over a potential strategic relationship with England, and this would help to reinforce the cohesion of the group.
At the Congress of Troppau the monarchs determined that the nature of a state’s domestic institutions would be a key criteria for maintaining membership in the European system. They justified intervention on the grounds that domestic revolution was by definition a breach of the peace. 124 It is interesting to note that the Holy Alliance held revolution itself to be a breach, not just revolutions that threatened to expand. The rebellions that had recently occurred were not within countries that could pose a military threat. Spain, Portugal, Naples, and Piedmont were hardly states that could launch a Napoleonic-type war against Europe. However, Gentz argued that the European federation of states was like a body and revolution a disease that, once it had established itself in any part, might spread to the rest of the organism. As Metternich said, “The principle sovereigns were protector and keepers of the existing public order.” 125 In the view of the Eastern powers, the social conflict in Europe transcended the political issues between states. 126
Britain was at least as concerned as the Eastern powers with European stability and with maintaining the territorial arrangements forged at Vienna. However, it did not view liberal revolution as inherently destabilizing, a reflection of the strong support for liberalism that existed within the British Parliament. In his famous state paper issued prior to the congress, Castlereagh argued that the Quadruple Alliance had opposed France during the war not because of the democratic principles of the French Revolution but because of the military character it had assumed. The great powers, he urged, should confine its activities to protecting the peace and security of Europe, not protecting domestic monarchies. 127 This was the issue that divided Britain from the Holy Alliance.
While Metternich had hoped to maintain the unity of the great powers, it became clear at Troppau that he and Emperor Francis would have to choose between the support of Britain and that of Russia. They opted for a “special partnership” between the three Eastern monarchs. 128 Thus the Holy Alliance would now take on a practical political expression as a bond of absolutist monarchs. The identity of “European great power monarch” had an existence independent of the states that shared it. Metternich instinctively understood this when he later stated that “the Alliance in its true acceptation is indestructible, it is political morality.... The alliance cannot perish; it would exist without allies.” 129 The function of the alliance was to preserve the social structure of Europe by maintaining domestic political regimes. 130 This would require the three powers to expand their definitions of national interest to include a commitment toward maintaining European monarchy.
The nature of discourse that began to dominate the internal discussions and public pronouncements of the Holy Alliance suggests that its members did indeed share a common identity as great power monarchs. Their shared identity was facilitated by a conceptual cleavage between monarchy and liberalism, tradition and revolution. Thus, Gentz spoke of the “solidarity of monarchs against the universal character of revolutionary movements,” thereby superseding the vertical divisions between the members of the state system. 131 Similarly, in a letter to French prime minister Richelieu, Russian minister Capo d’Istria defined the cleavage as follows: “On the one side we see a consoling prospect of a real fraternity between the states and the gradual perfections of social institutions; on the other there appears the formidable empire of anarchy and revolutionary despotism.” 132 This served as the basis for intervention by the Holy Alliance in suppressing several revolutions.
As a result, the political center of Europe shifted toward the Troppau alliance and its objective to support all “legitimate” governments against revolutionary movements. 133 The circumstances surrounding the interventions by the Holy Alliance are quite revealing in demonstrating how participation in the alliance changed the states’ willingness to act as a group. The agreement by the alliance to sponsor an Austrian interventionary army into Naples to suppress the revolution and restore the original government showed a deference to Austria’s sphere of responsibility. However, the sponsorship of its intervention in Piedmont soon after was more interesting, since Piedmont was not part of Austria’s sphere. In another time it would have been extremely unlikely that the other powers, particularly Russia, would support an extension of Austrian military power outside of its domain.
At the same time, although Austria prized its hegemony in Italy, Metternich and Emperor Francis asked Tsar Alexander to supplement Austrian forces by providing ninety thousand Russian soldiers to crush an insurrection in Alesandria and Turin. This would have involved Russian troops crossing through Austria, a bold move requiring trust from a state that was still wary of Russian power. 134
As it turned out, Austria did not need Russian help; they defeated the rebels within a matter of weeks. Yet the idea of Austria asking Russia to march its troops through central Europe into its sphere of responsibility was unprecedented in peacetime. Moreover, whatever Metternich’s private ambitions may have been, Austria did not use its intervention to try to annex territory or bring Piedmont into Austria’s sphere. 135 Following the restoration of the king, Austrian troops left.
Meanwhile the situation in Spain became more precarious for King Ferdinand, who asked the Holy Alliance to restore the power of the monarchy. Although Austria initially tried to discourage united allied action in Spain, it soon abandoned that position. 136 The post-Restoration liberal period in France had abruptly come to an end in December 1821 when the moderate Richelieu regime fell, bringing in a new ultraroyalist government. Thus, when King Ferdinand asked France for assistance in regaining power, the Ultras pressured the ministry to aid the royalist forces. 137 While the French elites welcomed the opportunity to reassert themselves in Europe, the government was badly split between the ultraroyalists—such as Foreign Minister Viscount Montmorency, who wanted to intervene—and the moderate royalists—like Prime Minster Jean Villèle, who believed that intervention would compromise French interests. 138
They were also split on the degree to which the Spanish revolution should become a European issue. Villèle did not want France’s decisions to be constrained by the Holy Alliance, however, Montmorency wanted the moral support of Europe before engaging in action in Spain. 139 For the Ultras the Holy Alliance was a reference group from which they could draw legitimacy. A European intervention on behalf of monarchy would help to justify and strengthen their monarchic position. Ultimately, however, it did not matter. Like Austria in Italy, this was a European issue and France would thus have to obtain the support of the other great powers to take action. The cost of France’s membership in the European great power pentarchy was adherence to group norms. Once again the norms would prevail, and it was France’s turn to be grouped. The result was the Congress of Verona.
The new French government sent Montmorency to the conference with instructions to keep the issue from being framed as a European question. It was not to be. Tsar Alexander had proposed the creation of a European army to invade Spain on behalf of the Holy Alliance. While there was little support for this proposal, Russian representative Dmitri Talischev, Metternich, and Prussian representative Gunther von Bernstorff agreed among themselves that “France must consider herself an agent of the Grand Alliance and that the question of Spain was entirely European.” 140 Representing the Ultras more than the prime minister, Montmorency agreed and stated that France was “above all convinced that the concurrence of the great powers is necessary in order to preserve that unanimity of views which is the fundamental character of the alliance, and which it is of the utmost importance to maintain and emphasize as a guarantee for the repose of Europe.” 141 While Villèle viewed this as a violation of his instructions, Montmorency enjoyed the support of the French delegation at Verona as well as most of the cabinet. 142
Although the meetings were contentious, Metternich was determined to preserve the intimate alliance of the Eastern monarchies at any cost. 143 Citing the legitimist principle, the four powers formally attending the Congress of Verona (Britain sent representatives as observers) pledged action in the case of “a formal act of the Spanish (rebel) government infringing the rights of the legitimate succession of the Royal family.” 144 With a European mandate to restore the royal government, France was now free to invade Spain without opposition from the other powers. 145 For the second time in a decade France invaded Spain, but this time the intervention was considered legitimate and approved by the monarchic alliance (although France claimed to be acting on its own). By August the French prevailed, and the liberal experiment in Spain came to an end.
Why did the European powers allow Bourbon France to invade Spain in order to restore another Bourbon to power? Theoretically, such an act should have sparked a balancing coalition against France. In fact, the European War of the Spanish Succession in the eighteenth century was fought over this very issue. In the same vein, why did the great powers support a French invasion of its neighbor less than five years after it was released from great power tutelage? Technically the treaty of the Quadruple Alliance was still in force, committing the other four powers to respond to such an action through military force.
What made this action possible was the sanction by the union of absolute monarchs. This was a war for the preservation of monarchy, not one of expansion. Once again, it was the definition of the situation, rather than an abstract concern with relative power, that identified the action as nonthreatening to the other powers. Although France conducted the war on its own, it was acting within its prescribed role as a great power monarch. Relative gains concerns were not a factor, and thus the other states did not react to an assertion of French power.
The preceding case illustrates how the development of common social identities can help states to overcome long-standing rivalries and establish cohesive security arrangements. None of the prevailing theories in security studies—balance of power, hegemony, alliance, deterrence, or regime—can adequately explain why a concert system and a common security association emerged in nineteenth-century Europe. The Napoleonic wars changed the distribution of capabilities in Europe in favor of Britain and Russia at the expense of France, but there is no evidence that either security arrangement was derivative of the hegemons’ interests. While hegemony theories could explain why the Eastern states would sign Alexander’s Holy Alliance document, they can not explain why the alliance ultimately reflected the interests of Austria more than Russia.
Neither were these institutions consciously designed by the great powers to solve specified coordination problems, the key condition that would support a liberal institutionalist explanation. Rather, they evolved over time from specific forms of interaction by states that began to view themselves as an exclusive group. Both the patterns of discourse and the observed behavior of the great powers were consistent with a social group sharing a common identity. While the politics of realism continued to play a role in their relationships, the five states continually approached the major issues as Europeans, great powers, and monarchs rather than only as Britains, Russians, Prussians, Austrians, and French.
If the system was structurally bipolar, as some historians argue it was, neither Russia nor Britain acted like bloc leaders. 146 They did not compete for supremacy in Europe, nor did they attempt to balance each other’s power. Most important, Europe never broke up into rival power blocs, for example, liberal and monarchical, even when opportunities to do so presented themselves. 147 Instead, for a time the hegemons pooled their capabilities to facilitate collective continental management. Even after the Holy Alliance emerged as the political center of Europe, Britain never attempted to counter it by creating a liberal common security association with Spain, Portugal, and France. In short, Russia’s and Britain’s behavior was more consistent with the role of trustee than hegemon.
The success of the Congress of Vienna in establishing a stable international order that satisfied all the major powers and avoided the construction of antagonistic blocs met the conditions I articulated as evidence of a group identity. First, during most of the deliberations, the great powers did indeed act as partners rather than adversaries in the face of enormous political pressures. Second, there was a clear concept of a group interest among the participants, even as the individual powers continued to recognize their own national interests. Finally, the representatives approached the question of European reconstruction largely from European and great power perspectives.
Endnotes
Note 1: Alan Sked, “The Metternich System, 1815&-;1848,” in Alan Sked, ed., Europe’s Balance of Power, 1815–1848 (London: Macmillan, 1979), p. 98. Back.
Note 2: Historians and political scientists date the life of these systems in a variety of ways, depending upon how they characterize them. The congress system declined after 1823 when Britain decided not to continue attending, although great power congresses continued to be held through the end of the century. However the system of collective great power consultation, cooperation, and management that characterized the Concert of Europe lasted until the Crimean War in 1854. See, for example, Richard Elrod, “The Concert of Europe: A Fresh Look at an International System,” World Politics, vol. 28 (January 1976) and Gordon Craig and Alexander George, Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems of Our Time (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), chapter 3. Hajo Holborn goes further, arguing that the system of collective management and consultation lasted until the First World War. Hajo Holborn, The Political Collapse of Europe (New York: Knopf, 1966), p. 27. The Metternich system lasted until the European revolutions of 1848. Back.
Note 3: See Jeremy Black, The Rise of the European Powers, 1679–1793 (New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1990). Back.
Note 4: Harold Nicholson, Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity, 1812–1822 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946) p. 28; Walter Alison Phillips, The Confederation of Europe: Study of the European Alliance, 1813–1823 (London: Longmans, Green, 1920), p. 98. Back.
Note 5: Paul W. Schroeder, “Containment Nineteenth-Century Style: How Russia Was Restrained,” South Atlantic Quarterly vol. 82, no. 1 (Winter 1983), p. 1. Back.
Note 6: Waltz argues that “if we observe outcomes that the theory leads us to expect even though strong forces work against them, the theory will begin to command belief.” Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979), p. 125. Back.
Note 7: Robert Jervis, “From Balance to Concert: A Study of International Security Cooperation,” in Kenneth A. Oye, ed., Cooperation Under Anarchy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 60–61. Back.
Note 9: See Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic, 1984); and Robert Axelrod and Robert Keohane, “Achieving Cooperation Under Anarchy: Strategies And Institutions,” World Politics, vol. 38 (October 1985), pp. 226–54. Back.
Note 10: Charles Kupchan and Clifford Kupchan, “Concerts, Collective Security, and the Future of Europe,” International Security, vol. 16, no. 1 (Summer 1991); Richard Rosecrance, Action and Reaction in World Politics: International Systems in Perspective (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963), p. 56; Benjamin Miller, “Explaining the Emergence of Great Power Concerts,” Review of International Studies, vol. 20, no. 4; Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), pp. 225–27. Back.
Note 11: Paul Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. vii. Back.
Note 12: See, for example, Gordon Craig and Alexander George, Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems of Our Time (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), chapter 3; and Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Problems of Peace, 1812–1822 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1959). Back.
Note 13: Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), chapter 5. Back.
Note 14: There are numerous political/historical works examining the impact of the French revolution on the ancien régime. Three classics include Albert Sorel, Europe and the French Revolution: The Political Tradition of the Old Régime, trans. Alfred Cobban and J. W. Hunt (Fontana Library, 1969 ‘1885’); Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Régime and the French Revolution (New York: Anchor, 1955); and E. J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution: 1789–1848 (New York: New American Library, 1962). Back.
Note 15: See Stephen Holmes, “Two Concepts of Legitimacy: France After the Revolution,” Political Theory, vol. 10, no. 2 (May 1982), p. 166. Back.
Note 16: See, for example, Robert Gildea, Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 61. Back.
Note 17: Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution, p. 114. Back.
Note 18: Guglielmo Ferrero, The Reconstruction of Europe: Talleyrand and the Congress of Vienna, 1814–1815 (New York: Putnam, 1941), p. 141. Back.
Note 19: Enno Kraehe describes the situation as “unrest in the kaleidoscopic world of the third Germany ‘the territories apart from Prussia and Austria’ where millions of ‘souls’ waited uneasily from one day to the next wondering where new boundaries would be drawn and who their new sovereigns would be.” See Enno E. Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 18. Back.
Note 20: Michael Broers argues that the deepest, most intractable problem facing the majority of governments in the early nineteenth century was the legacy of the revolution, particularly how governments could make themselves respected and how newly restored rulers would prove themselves to their subjects. See his Europe After Napoleon: Revolution, Reaction, and Romanticism, 1814–1848 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), particularly p. 15. Back.
Note 21: Report from Talleyrand to King Louis during his journey from Ghent to Paris, Duc de Broglie, ed., The Memoirs of the Prince de Talleyrand (New York: Putnam, 1891), vol. 3, p. 147. Back.
Note 22: Guillaume de Bertier de Sauvigny, The Bourbon Restoration (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1966), p. 57. Back.
Note 23: Andreas Osiander, The States System of Europe, 1640–1990: Peacemaking and the Conditions of International Stability (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), p. 232. Back.
Note 24: Osiander (ibid.) argues that the balance of power was the primary outcome of Utrecht. While he holds that dynastic legitimacy was not institutionalized until after Vienna, others such as David Armstrong and E. N. Williams, argue that it provided the foundation for the eighteenth century European order. See David Armstrong, Revolution and World Order: The Revolutionary State in International Society (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), p. 89; and E. N. Williams, The Ancien Régime in Europe: Government and Society in the Major States, 1648–1789 (London: Penguin, 1988 ‘1970’). Back.
Note 25: Jeremy Black, The Rise of the European Powers (New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1990), p. 150. Back.
Note 26: Derek McKay and H. M. Scott, The Rise of the Great Powers, 1648–1815 (London and New York: Longman, 1983), p. 210. Back.
Note 27: Osiander, The States System of Europe; and Paul Schroeder, “The Transformation of Political Thinking, 1787–1848,” in Jack Snyder and Robert Jervis, eds., Coping with Complexity in the International System (Boulder: Westview, 1993). Back.
Note 28: Sir Charles Webster, The Congress of Vienna, 1814–1815 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1934), p. 21; Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, chapters 10 and 11. Back.
Note 29: In 1810 Spain, most of Italy, the Confederation of the Rhine, and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw were considered satellites. Russia, Prussia, and Austria were either occupied by, allied to, or forced into an alliance with Napoleon. See McKay and Scott, The Rise of the Great Powers, map 8, pp. 368–69. Back.
Note 30: See H. G. Schenk, The Aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars: The Concert of Europe, an Experiment (New York: Howard Fertig, 1967), p. 120. Back.
Note 31: Quoted in Guillaume de Bertier de Sauvigny, Metternich and His Times (London: Darton, Longmann and Todd, 1962), p. 161. Back.
Note 32: C. A. Macartney, The Hapsburg Empire, 1790–1918 (London: Widenfeld and Nicholson, 1969), p. 191. Back.
Note 33: Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, p. 527. Back.
Note 34: Schenk, The Aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars; Kissinger, A World Restored; and Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics. Back.
Note 35: Andrei Lovanov-Rostovsky, Russia and Europe, 1789–1825 (New York: Greenwood, 1968), introduction. Back.
Note 36: Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I: Political Attitudes and the Conduct of Russian Diplomacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 15. Back.
Note 38: Charles Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, 1812–1815: Britain and the Reconstruction of Europe (London: G. Bell, 1931), p. 206. Back.
Note 39: G. A. Chevallaz, The Congress of Vienna in Europe (Oxford: Perganmon, 1964), p. 123. Back.
Note 40: Richard Metternich, ed., Memoirs of Prince Metternich, 1773–1815, 5 vols., vol. 2 (New York: Howard Fertig, 1970), p. 607–8. This work is not actually comprised of his memoirs, as the term is commonly understood in modern literature. It is actually a collection of documents, letters, and diaries rather than a book of his recollections. Back.
Note 41: Nicholson, Congress of Vienna, p. 23–24. Back.
Note 42: Jacques Droz, Europe Between the Revolutions, 1815–1848 (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), p. 17. Back.
Note 43: Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, vol. 1, p. 148. Back.
Note 44: Nicholson, Congress of Vienna, p. 48. Back.
Note 45: Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, p. 199. Back.
Note 46: Carsten Halbraad, The Concert of Europe: A Study in German and British International Theory, 1815–1914 (New York: Longman, 1970). Back.
Note 47: Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, p. 480. Back.
Note 48: This theme consistently appears in Castlereagh’s correspondence with Liverpool and Wellington. See his letters in Charles Webster, ed., British Diplomacy, 1813–1815: Select Documents Dealing With the Reconstruction of Europe (London: G. Bell, 1921), pp. 189–338. Back.
Note 49: Craig and George, Force and Statecraft, p. 26. Back.
Note 50: Sir Augustus Oakes and R. B. Mowat, eds., The Great European Treaties of the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon, 1930), p. 24. Back.
Note 51: Edward V. Gulick, Europe’s Classical Balance of Power (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1955), p. 185. Back.
Note 52: Paul Schroeder, “The Nineteenth-Century International System: Changes in the Structure,” World Politics, vol. 39, no. 1 (October 1986), pp. 12–13. Back.
Note 53: According to this article, “The relations from which there is to arise in Europe a true and lasting system of equilibrium shall be regulated to the Congress on the bases concluded by the allied powers among themselves.” See Arnold Toynbee, ed., Major Peace Treaties of Modern History, 1648–1967, vol. 1 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967). Back.
Note 54: Stephen Krasner, “Westphalia and All That,” in Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane, eds., Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions and Political Change (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), p. 240. Back.
Note 55: See Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, p. 520. Back.
Note 56: Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, p. 142. Back.
Note 57: Osiander, The States System of Europe; and Paul Schroeder, “Did the Vienna Settlement Rest on a Balance of Power?” American Historical Review, vol. 97 (June 1992). Back.
Note 58: See Memoir by Frederick von Gentz, February 12, 1815, in Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, vol. 2, p. 555. Back.
Note 59: Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, p. 337. Back.
Note 60: Nicholson, The Congress of Vienna, p. 137; and Webster, The Congress of Vienna, p. 80. Back.
Note 61: Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, p. 229. Back.
Note 62: Ibid., p. 337. A similar observation was made by Nicholson, The Congress of Vienna, p. 135. Back.
Note 63: See Jack Levy, War in the Modern Great Power System, 1495–1975 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1977), p. 10. Back.
Note 64: Schroeder, “Did the Vienna Settlement Rest?” p. 688. Back.
Note 65: Waltz himself acknowledges this intersubjective criterion by arguing that President Nixon “made” China into a superpower by conferring this status upon her. This leads one to question to value of structural variables such as polarity for either predicting or explaining the behavior of states. See Theory of International Politics, p. 130. Back.
Note 66: Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, p. 73. Back.
Note 68: Ferrero, The Reconstruction of Europe, 177. Back.
Note 69: See Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, chapter 20. Back.
Note 70: Joseph Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation: a Realist Critique of the Newest Liberal Institutionalism,” International Organization, vol. 42 (Summer 1988), pp. 485–507. Parenthetically, the relative gains issue did come back to haunt Austria when it ultimately went to war against Prussia during the period surrounding German integration. See chapter 5. Back.
Note 71: Halbraad, The Concert of Europe, p. 37. Back.
Note 72: Quoted in ibid., p. 20. Back.
Note 73: Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, p. 160. Back.
Note 74: Robert Stewart Castlereagh, Correspondence, Dispatches, and Other Papers of Viscount Castlereagh, 3d series, vol. 11 (London: H. Colburn, 1850), p. 105. Back.
Note 75: While there is an obvious self-serving aspect to this principle, it was also a recognition that the stability of the Bourbon restoration was highly dependent upon external legitimation. See his letters and dispatches in Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, vol. 2, especially pp. 132–33, 226–27, and 230–33. Back.
Note 76: Harold Temperley, The Foreign Policy of Canning, 1822–1827, England, the Neo-Holy Alliance, and the New World (Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1966), p. 387. Back.
Note 77: Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, vol. 3, p. 199. Back.
Note 78: Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, p. 48. Back.
Note 79: Hobsbawn, The Age of Revolution, p. 91. Back.
Note 80: Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, p. 64. Back.
Note 81: See Schenk, The Aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, p. 125. Back.
Note 82: Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich vol. 1, pp. 172–73. Back.
Note 83: As Robert Keohane argues, it is not enough to show that it was functional, but that it was designed to solve specified coordination problems. See Robert Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 80–83. Back.
Note 84: Elrod, “The Concert of Europe,” p. 167. Back.
Note 85: Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh. Back.
Note 86: Phillips, The Confederation of Europe, p. 148. Back.
Note 87: Bertier de Sauvigny, The Bourbon Restoration, p. 155. Back.
Note 88: Protocol of Conference, between the Plenipotentiaries of Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia and Russia. Signed at Aix-la-Chapelle, November 15, 1818. René Albrecht-Carrie, ed., The Concert of Europe (New York: Walker, 1968), document 3. Back.
Note 89: Declaration of the Five Cabinets, Signed at Aix-la-Chapelle, November 15, 1818. Albrecht-Carrie, The Concert of Europe, document 4. Back.
Note 90: Memoir by Friedrich Gentz, Aix-La-Chapelle, November 1918, Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, vol. 3, pp. 191 and 194. Back.
Note 91: This phrase is from Elrod, “The Concert of Europe,” p. 167. Back.
Note 92: See, for example, Stephen Krasner, “Sovereignty, Regimes and Human Rights,” in Stephen Krasner and Volker Rittberger, eds., Regimes and International Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 93: See the essays by Arthur Stein and Robert Keohane in Stephen Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983). Back.
Note 94: For the distinction between regulative and constitutive norms, see John Heritage, “Ethnomethodology,” in Anthony Giddens and John Turner, Social Theory Today (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1987), pp. 240–44. Back.
Note 95: Elrod, “The Concert of Europe,,” p. 164. Back.
Note 96: Robert Jervis, “A Political Science Perspective on the Balance of Power and the Concert,” American Historical Review, vol. 97, no. 3 (June 1992), p. 723. Back.
Note 97: The Carlsbad decrees were issued by Austria and Prussia to combat liberalism and student radicalism in the German Confederation by suppressing free expression throughout the Bund. See Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, pp. 599–606. Back.
Note 98: Elrod, “The Concert of Europe,,” p. 166. Back.
Note 99: For an overview of great power involvement in Greek independence, see Harold Temperley, The Foreign Policy of Canning; Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics and Metternich’s Diplomacy at Its Zenith: 1820–1823 (New York: Greenwood, 1962); and Ward and Gooch, The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy. Back.
Note 100: Quoted in Elrod, “The Concert of Europe,” p. 164. Back.
Note 101: Charles Breunig, The Age of Revolution and Reaction: 1789–1850 (New York: Norton, 1970), p. 143. Back.
Note 102: Ward and Gooch, The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, p. 95; Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, p. 620. Back.
Note 103: Lovanov-Rostovsky, Russia and Europe, p. 421. Back.
Note 104: Ward and Gooch, The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, p. 87. Back.
Note 105: Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, p. 621. Back.
Note 106: Oakes and Mowat, The Great European Treaties of the Nineteenth Century, p. 35. Back.
Note 107: Ibid., p. 189. Back.
Note 108: At least this is the view of Paul Schroeder in Metternich’s Diplomacy at Its Zenith, p. 6. Back.
Note 109: Ward and Gooch, The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, p. 35. Back.
Note 110: Oakes and Mowat, The Great European Treaties of the Nineteenth Century, p. 36.nbsp; Back.
Note 111: Phillips, The Confederation of Europe, p. 142. Back.
Note 112: Alan Palmer, Metternich (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), p. 153. Back.
Note 113: Metternich to Prince Wittgenstein, Prussian Minister of State, November 14, 1818, Enclosure no. 1, Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, vol. 3, p. 199. Back.
Note 114: Metternich to the Emperor Alexander, Troppau, December 15, 1820, Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, vol. 3, p. 471. Back.
Note 115: Ibid., pp. 473 and 475. Back.
Note 116: Metternich to the Emperor Alexander, a private Memorandum on the Formation of a Central Commission of the Northern Powers in Vienna, 1823, 1820, Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, vol. 3, p. 672. Back.
Note 117: Realist historians, such as Bertier de Sauvigny and Henry Kissinger, argue that Metternich was simply a master manipulator who tailored his philosophy to whomever he was trying to sway, in this case, Tsar Alexander. Back.
Note 118: Kissinger, A World Restored, p. 217. Back.
Note 119: Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, pp. 226–36; Kissinger, A World Restored, pp. 26–27; Schroeder, Metternich’s Diplomacy at Its Zenith, p. 26. Back.
Note 120: Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, pp. 50–51. Back.
Note 121: Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, p. 609. Back.
Note 122: Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, p. 151; and Ward and Gooch, The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, p. 29. Back.
Note 123: Schroeder, Metternich’s Diplomacy at Its Zenith, pp. 54–55. Back.
Note 124: See the “Preliminary Protocol of Troppau, presented by Metternich to the Congress of the Powers at Troppau, November 15, 1820,” in Mack Walker, ed., Metternich’s Europe, p. 127. Back.
Note 125: Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, vol. 3, p. 175. Back.
Note 126: Halbraad, The Concert of Europe, p. 30. Back.
Note 127: See Lord Castlereagh’s Confidential State Paper of May 5, 1820, printed in appendix A of Ward and Gooch, The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, p. 623. Back.
Note 128: Schroeder, Metternich’s Diplomacy at Its Zenith, Back.
Note 129: Quoted in Bertier de Sauvigny, The Bourbon Restoration, pp. 148–9. Emphasis mine. Back.
Note 130: Halbraad, The Concert of Europe, p. 22. Back.
Note 132: Quoted in Lovanov-Rostovsky, Russia and Europe, p. 394. Back.
Note 133: See Bertier de Sauvigny, Metternich and His Times, p. 145. Back.
Note 134: Extracts from Metternich’s private letters, March 15, 1821, in Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, vol. 3, p. 490. Back.
Note 135: Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, p. 613. Back.
Note 136: Schroeder, Metternich’s Diplomacy at Its Zenith, p. 219. Back.
Note 137: Bertier de Sauvigny, The Bourbon Restoration, p. 189. Back.
Note 138: Roger Bullen, “Russia and the Eastern Question, 1821–41,” in Sked, Europe’s Balance of Power, p. 64; Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, p. 624. Back.
Note 139: Irby Nichols, The European Pentarchy and the Congress of Verona: 1822 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1971), pp. 34–36. Back.
Note 142: Schroeder, Metternich’s Diplomacy at Its Zenith, p. 222. Back.
Note 143: Ibid., p. 212. Back.
Note 144: Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, vol. 3, p. 651. Back.
Note 145: Britain did not support the intervention, but did not attempt to stop the French from invading. Back.
Note 146: For the bipolarity argument, see Enno Kraehe, “A Bipolar Balance of Power,” American Historical Review, vol. 97 (June 1992), pp. 707–15; Schroeder, “Did the Vienna Settlement Rest?”; and F. R. Bridge and Roger Bullen, The Great Powers and the European States System (Oxford: Westview, 1980). Back.
Note 147: See Alan Sked, The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire: 1815–1918 (New York: Longman, 1989), pp. 18–23. Back.
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