Themes:  the German question British exceptionalism colonialism maritime versus continental hegemony the Muslim threat conditional sovereignty the Rise of Russia slavery humanitarian intervention   Lead up of classes:  Lecture 1. The emergence of the European system, 1453-1555 The emergence of the multipolar European state system following the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans. It will address developments which remained important for many centuries:  great rivalry between France and the House of Habsburg the centrality of the Holy Roman Empire to the state system the Protestant Reformation the European conquest and colonisation of the Indies.   Lecture 2. 1555-1600 During the second half of the sixteenth century, European geopolitics was characterised by several regional rivalries or balances which formed part of the overall balance of power: Franco-Habsburg rivalry and the Spanish-Dutch conflict in the west The struggle for supremacy in the Baltic Ottoman threat in south-west Europe. Where all these rivalries and conflicts intersected was the Holy Roman Empire at the centre of the European system. Its members had successfully forestalled serious sectarian civil war (unlike the French) at the Peace of Augsburg (1555), which established effective confessional co-existence for several decades. However, by the end of the century, growing confessionalisation and religious strife was beginning to paralyse this crucial polity at the heart of Europe.   Lecture 3. 1600-1634 Growing religious and political tensions within the Empire from the turn of the century and the confluence of European rivalries in central Europe explain why a local rebellion in a peripheral territory of the Empire could rapidly escalate into the greatest conflict of early modern Europe, the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). This lecture will address the origins of the war and its first half, including the interventions by Denmark and Sweden (1625 and 1630).   Lecture 4. 1635-1660 This lecture will cover the second half of the Thirty Years War: a stage when it became irreversibly internationalised, following the French intervention against Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor in 1635. The lecture will focus on the Peace of Westphalia, a result of the first multilateral peace congress, which ended most of the numerous sets of conflict constituting the Thirty Years War (the Franco-Spanish war continued and renewed war in the Baltic erupted in the later 1650s). The aftermath of Westphalia will also be discussed, including the successful application of its mutual guarantee clauses as a system of collective security for central Europe.   Lecture 5. 1660-1688 By 1660 Europe was finally peace with the end of the last major constituent conflict of the Thirty Years War (the Franco-Spanish war, 1635-59) and the conclusion of the Peace of Oliva (1660) in the North. The peace soon broke down with the rise of French King Louis XIV’s policy of aggressive geopolitical expansion towards the Low Countries and Germany from the late 1660s. This lecture will explore the early wars of Louis XIV, including the War of Devolution (1667-68), the Dutch War (1672-78), and the War of Reunions (1683-84).   Lecture 6. 1688-1714 The more epic wars of Louis XIV and the efforts of the Grand Alliance to contain the French threat during the Nine Years War (1688-97) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14) important peace settlements which ended these. Other important events such as the Dutch intervention in England (the Glorious Revolution, 1688) and the Anglo-Scottish Union (1707) were driven by the geopolitical security imperative of the French threat. The struggle for supremacy in northern and eastern Europe during the Great Northern War (1700-21) was largely fought independently of the contest in the west and south of the continent.   Lecture 7. 1715-1740 The period after the peace treaties of Utrecht-Rastatt-Baden in 1713/14 was marked by: rapidly shifting alliances, small-scale conflict and revanchism abortive congresses and numerous other peace initiatives designed to forestall cold wars becoming hot conflicts, such as the antagonism between Austria and the Anglo-French alliance and between Russia’s tsar Peter the Great and George I of Britain-Hanover (in personal union from 1714). After the death of Louis XIV, France was tamed and pursued a mainly pacific policy, but began to reassert her bid for European supremacy by the 1730s during the War of the Polish Succession. Lecture 8. 1740-1763 In 1740 a new player burst onto the scene of great power European geopolitics. Prussian King Frederick the Great’s invasion of Austrian Silesia inaugurated a long period of more or less open hostility and antagonism between the two major German powers, which was to last for over a century. This lecture focusses on the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48) and the Seven Years War (1756-63) and explains why, as in the previous century, a German civil war quickly drew in most European powers to become major systemic, and indeed global, conflicts.   Lecture 9. 1764-1792 The period after the treaties of Paris and Hubertusburg (1763):  definitive solidification of the Pentarchy (five) in the European state system, in which geopolitics were dominated by the five great powers France, Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia. International politics was driven by several key features including: - the continuing Austro-Prussian dualism in the Empire - Britain’s relative withdrawal from an active engagement in Europe - and related to this, the rise of the eastern powers Prussia, Austria, and especially Russia as the dominant forces in the European system prior to the French Revolutionary Wars.   Lecture 10. The French Bid for Mastery, 1789-1815 This lecture charts the cataclysmic impact of the French Revolution and subsequent founding of the French Empire on European geopolitics, including, perhaps most dramatically, the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire (1806). It explains how the ancien regime tried and repeatedly failed to overcome the unprecedented threat of continental domination during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.   Lecture 11: Concert of Europe, 1815-1848 This lecture will address the Concert of Europe established after the restoration of the ancien regime at the congress of Vienna, an unusually peaceful period in European history during which conservative monarchical regimes cooperated in resolving conflict and supporting each other in the suppression of their subjects’ liberal-nationalist aspirations.   Primary Sources Misc. Documents in Mack Walker (ed.), Metternich’s Europe Karl Marx, Readings from The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978) – Communist Manifesto, pp. 473-83. Secondary Sources G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars (Princeton UP, 2001 paperback), chapter four, "The Settlement of 1815", pp. 80-116. Henry A. Kissinger, A World Restored (New York, Grosset and Dunlap, 1964). ‘Introduction’, ‘The Continental Statesman’, ‘The Insular Statesman’ and ‘Metternich and the Definition of Political Equilibrium’, chapters 1- 4, and chapters, 16 and 17.   Lecture 12: The Era of Unifications, 1848-1857 This lecture addresses the co-opting of the nationalist element of the popular liberal-nationalist upheavals that shook the old regimes in 1848, by the autocratic regimes of Prussia and Piesmont-Savoy. Primary Sources “Austria, Prussia and Germany, 1806-1871”, edited by Jon Breuilly LaMartine, Manifesto to Europe   Secondary Sources Paul W. Schroeder, The international system, 1848-1862 Dennis Showalter, The Wars of German Unification (London, 2004) Frank J. Coppa, The Origins of the Italian Wars of Independence, (London and New York, 1992), chapter 6. James M. McPherson, “The Whole Family of Man’: Lincoln and the Last Best Hope Abroad,” in Robert E. May, The Union, the Confederacy and the Atlantic Rim (Lafayette, Ind., 1995). William Carr, The origins of the wars of German unification (London and New York, 1991), chapter 4. Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World (New York: Knopf, 2001), pp. 99-131, 174-263.   Lecture 13. 1858-1871 This lecture covers the wars of unification in Germany and Italy culminating in the geopolitical reordering of the centre of Europe and a major shift in its balance of power. Primary Sources The Pact of Plombieres, 1858 Misc. documents in Breuilly, Austria, Prussia and Germany Secondary Sources Paul W. Schroeder, The international system, 1862-71 Derek Beales and Eugenio Biagini, The Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy (Harlow, 2002) James M. McPherson, “The Whole Family of Man’: Lincoln and the Last Best Hope Abroad,” in Robert E. May, The Union, the Confederacy and the Atlantic Rim (Lafayette, Ind., 1995). Nancy Barker, ‘France, Austria, and the Mexican Venture 1861-64’, French Historical Studies 3, no.2 (1963). Harry Hearder, Italy in the Age of the Risorgimento 1790-1870 (London, 2013) Dennis Showalter, The Wars of German Unification (London, 2004) Geoffrey Wawro, The Austro-Prussian War: Austria’s War with Prussia and Italy in 1866 (Cambridge, 1996) Otto Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany, vol. I: The Period of Unification (Princeton, 1990)

Does revolutionary change at home inevitably lead to a revolution in foreign policy? Discuss with reference to Europe in any 5-20 years. Britain is the ‘flying buttress’ of the European system - it supports it from outside. Discuss with reference to Europe in any 5-20 years. Have the flanking powers always had the advantage over the central powers? Discuss with reference to Europe in any 5-20 years. Are northern and southern balances in Europe essentially separate? Discuss with reference to Europe in any 5-20 years. ‘Freedom needs a much greater living space than tyranny.’ Discuss with reference to Europe in any 5-20 years. The tail wags the dog’. Discuss with reference to Europe in any 5-20 years. ‘Central location gives powers the advantage’. Discuss with reference to Europe in any 5-20 years. ‘Britain is an ordering power in Europe’. Discuss with reference to any 5-20 years. ‘Ideology trumps realpolitik’. Discuss with reference to Europe in any 5-20 years. ‘The extra-European world was always the object and never the subject of European geopolitics’. Discuss with reference to Europe in any 5-20 years. ‘Britain is never as weak or as strong as it seems’. Discuss with reference to Europe in any 5-20 year period. ‘One man’s buffer is another man’s corridor’. Discuss with reference to Europe in any 5-20 year period. Ideological shifts accentuate rather than subvert strategic constants’. Discuss with reference to Europe in any 5-20 year period. ‘There is only one thing more dangerous than encirclement and that is self-encirclement’. Discuss with reference to Europe in any 5-20 year period. ‘We know that half of what we learn from the study of geopolitics is wrong. The trouble is we don’t know which half’. Discuss with reference to Europe in any 5-20 year period.

Resources to get:  Austria, Great Britain and the Crimean War : the destruction of the European concert / Paul W. Schroeder Seeley Historical Library Main Library 7.6 164  The struggle for mastery in Europe, 1848-1918 / by A.J.P. Taylor Seeley Historical Library Mezzanine D359 .T33 1971 from:D359 .T33 1971 until:D359 .T33 1971 Great power diplomacy since 1914 / Norman Rich University Library   South Wing 5 follow signs to South Staircase, Fifth Floor   214:2.c.200.339

Balance of power As the imperial game raged throughout the world, the map of Europe was changing as well. From 1815-1870, in the aftermath of Napoleon's near domination of Europe, the European power developed a system of military and political balance. The aptly-named balance of power in Europe was a system that aimed to maintain international order and peace by following any increase in strength of one nation-state with an increase in strength of his geographic or political enemy. By upholding this precarious system, the argument continued, no country would be willing to embark on a course of military expansion for fear of reprisal by an equally powerful force. The years 1870 and 1871 marked the consolidation of Italy and Germany, respectively, into viable and strong nation-states in the heart of Europe, changing the structure of the balance of power.   This balance of power program is best illustrated in Europe's relations with the so-called "sick man of Europe", or the Ottoman Empire. At its height, the Ottomans controlled the Middle East, parts of northern Africa, and territories as far north as Bosnia-Herzegovina. Since the Ottomans held dominion over the Balkans, most of Europe preferred to maintain the Ottoman Empire, no matter how weak, in order to prevent any one European state from imposing its own dominion over the Balkan peninsula. By keeping Constantinople intact, the balance of power in Europe proper could be maintained. However, it was the volatile Balkan Peninsula that threatened the very foundation of the European balance of power.   The logic behind a system of power balance dates back to Europe's reaction to the near complete domination of Europe by Napoleon's France. (The following explains its origins and seeks to address the validity of the logic, but digresses from the strong focus on World War I.) In September 1814, the great powers of Europe--then, Russia, Prussia, Austria, France, and Great Britain--met at the Congress of Vienna to redraw the map of Europe after Napoleon's defeat. The main goal: to prevent another instance of French aggression. To accomplish their goal, Austrian Foreign Minister Prince Klemens von Metternich and British Foreign Secretary Viscount Castlereagh probably developed the theory of balance of power. The manifestation of this theory was the strengthening of all of France's neighbors in an attempt to plug up a previously porous border.   The Congress united the Austrian Netherlands and the Dutch Republic in the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Great Britain gave William I, the Netherland's new king, £2 million to fortify his frontier with France. The Italian province of Piedmont--bordering Switzerland and France--was joined with Sardinia into the Kingdom of Sardinia under a new monarchy to contain France to the southeast. The bourbon royal family was re-established in Spain to secure France's southern border, and Prussia was given control over the left bank of the River Rhine, containing France on the east.   The logic was quite simple: if the countries around France are strong enough, their strength will balance out the potential military might of Paris and prevent further French aggression. This doctrine held sway for almost a century. Yet it eventually collapsed into World War One for three main reasons. 1. With all of Europe united against France, the creation of a balance against one enemy was quite simple; however, as time passed and French aggression seemed less and less likely, a more complex Europe emerged in place of the simple All versus France. 2. The consolidation of Germany and Italy as strong nation-states upset the balance completely. With new players in the game of European geopolitics, the old logic did not hold: though Europe failed to react.

"The German Question" was a debate in the 19th century, especially during the Revolutions of 1848, over the best way to achieve the unification of Germany.[1] From 1815 to 1866, about 37 independent German-speaking states existed within the German Confederation. The Großdeutsche Lösung ("Greater German solution") favored unifying all German-speaking peoples under one state, and was promoted by the Austrian Empire and its supporters. The Kleindeutsche Lösung ("Lesser German solution") sought only to unify the northern German states and did not include Austria; this proposal was favored by the Kingdom of Prussia. The solutions are also referred to by the names of the states they proposed to create, Kleindeutschland and Großdeutschland ("Lesser Germany" and "Greater Germany"). Both movements were part of a growing German nationalism. They also drew upon similar contemporary efforts to create a unified nation state of people who shared a common ethnicity and language, such as the unification of Italy by the House of Savoy and the Serbian Revolution. Background:  On August 6, 1806, Habsburg Emperor Francis II had abdicated the throne of the Holy Roman Empire in the course of the Napoleonic Wars with France, thereby ending the loose Empire. Despite its later name affix "of the German Nation", the Holy Roman Empire had never been a nation state. Instead its rulers over the centuries had to cope with a continuous loss of authority to its constituent Imperial States. The disastrous Thirty Years' War proved especially fatal to the Holy Roman Emperor's authority, as the mightiest entities, the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy and Brandenburg-Prussia, evolved into rivaling European absolute powers with territory reaching far beyond Imperial borders. The many small city-states splintered, meanwhile. In the 18th century the Holy Roman Empire consisted of over 1800 separate territories governed by distinct authorities. This German dualism phenomenon at first culminated in the War of the Austrian Succession and outlasted the French Revolution and Napoleon's domination of Europe. Facing the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, the ruling House of Habsburg proclaimed the Austrian Empire in the lands of the Habsburg Monarchy instead, retaining the imperial title. The 1815 restoration by the Final Act of the Vienna Congress established the German Confederation, which was not a nation but a loose association of sovereign states on the territory of the former Holy Roman Empire. March Revolution In 1848, German liberals and nationalists united in revolution, forming the Frankfurt Parliament. The Greater German movement within this National Assembly demanded the unification of all German-populated lands into one nation. In general, the left favored a republican Großdeutsche Lösung, whereas the liberal center favored the Kleindeutsche Lösung with a constitutional monarchy. Those supporting the Großdeutsche position argued that since the Habsburgs had ruled the Holy Roman Empire for almost 400 years from 1440 to 1806 (the only break coming from the extinction of the Habsburg male line in 1740 to the election of Francis I in 1745), Austria was best suited to lead the unified nation. However, Austria posed a problem because the Habsburgs ruled large chunks of non-German-speaking territory. The largest such area was the Kingdom of Hungary, which also included large Slovak, Romanian and Croat populations. Austria further comprised numerous possessions with predominantly non-German populations, including Czechs in the Bohemian lands, Poles, Rusyns and Ukrainians in the Galician province, Slovenes in Carniola, and Italians in Lombardy–Venetia and Trento, which was still incorporated into the Tyrolean crown land, all together making up the larger part of the Austrian Empire. Except for Bohemia, Carniola and Trento, these territories were not part of the German Confederation because they had not been part of the former Holy Roman Empire, and none of them desired to be included into a German nation state.  Austrian prime minister Prince Felix of Schwarzenberg, only an accession of the Habsburg Empire as a whole was acceptable because it had no intention to part from its non-German possessions and dismantle in order to remain in an all-German Empire. Thus, some members of the assembly and namely Prussia promoted the Kleindeutsche Lösung, which excluded the whole Austrian Empire with its German and its non-German possessions. They argued that Prussia, as the only Great Power with a predominantly German-speaking population, should lead the unified Germany. Yet, the drafted constitution provided for the possibility for Austria to join without its non-German possessions later. On March 30, 1849, the Frankfurt parliament offered the German Imperial crown to King Frederick William IV of Prussia, who rejected it. The revolution failed and several subsequent attempts by Prince Schwarzenberg to build up a German federation headed by Austria came to nothing.   Austro-Prussian War These efforts were finally terminated by Austria's humiliating defeat in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War. After the Peace of Prague, the Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck, now at the helm of German politics, pursued the expulsion of Austria and managed to unite all German states except Austria under Prussian leadership, while the Habsburg lands were shaken by ethnic nationalist conflicts, only superficially resolved with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. At the same time, Bismarck established the North German Confederation, seeking to prevent the Austrian and Bavarian Catholics in the south from being a predominant force in a mainly Protestant Prussian Germany. He successfully used the Franco-Prussian War to convince the other German states including the Kingdom of Bavaria to stand with Prussia against the Second French Empire; Austria-Hungary did not participate in the war. After Prussia's speedy victory, the debate was settled in favor of the Kleindeutsche Lösung in 1871. Bismarck used the prestige gained from the victory to maintain the alliance with Bavaria and declared the German Empire. Protestant Prussia became the dominant power of the new state, and Austria-Hungary was excluded remaining a separate polity. The Lesser German solution prevailed.

Geopolitics of Central Europe:  Geopolitics can be described as an approach exploring the relationship of the country, or its space, and the state.3 Geopolitics examines the movement of power and strength in a geographic space, whether for military operations or strategic control in peacetime.4 Space, or territory, in international relations is understood as an independent variable, but it is interesting to look at it as a dependent variable,5 which seems to be quite relevant to the research of Central Europe and its geopolitical and geostrategic potential. Geopolitics cannot be an objective assessment of reality; it always will be subjective from the perspective of the major players, which for Central Europe means Germany and Russia. Geopolitical thinking fulfils a more political science vision of the overall analysis than the attitude of academic disciplines. Therefore there is a problem with a geopolitical analysis of Central Europe in scientific thinking. Geopolitics means working with geographic arguments in favour of political objectives, therefore having a direct relation to decisions about economic or political power objectives in the region. Central Europe is a logical buffer zone between Western and Eastern Europe, not only in geographical terms, but of course also on the grounds of security, as well as various institutional, cultural and economic aspects.   The existence of Central Europe as an independent geopolitical entity was revived by Napoleon Bonaparte and, in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, the Congress of Vienna in 1815, which raised a new geopolitical order in Europe, the result being that the Russian Empire began to be perceived as Eastern Europe. It also led to a degree of speculation and controversy over the political and geographic anchor of the Central European area33 which remains today. The Central European region was under the administration of the Holy Alliance, therefore geopolitically it occupied a subordinate position once again.     Geopolitical competition has been a feature of international relations for centuries, but it was only in 1899 that the term ‘geopolitics’ was coined, by the Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellen. The concept of geopolitics emerged as a product of imperialist rivalry during the late nineteenth century, and it still retains a connotation reminiscent of this Zeitgeist: one of power and resource politics. At this time, geopolitics was characterized by a distinctly social-Darwinist orientation, because it was applied to determine the chances of survival of different states and societies.   During the last three decades of the nineteenth century, European empires conquered 20% of the Earth’s surface and 10% of the world’s population. Together with the scramble for territory beyond the continent, the late nineteenth century also saw the rise of nationalist sentiment and the construction of national economies in Europe. The competition between European states was initially carried out in the colonies, but increasingly, imperial tensions reflected back onto the European continent.

Britain The fundamental problem for Britain has always been continental Europe. The danger to Britain was that a single, powerful entity would arise that could do two things. First, it could ally with the Scottish elite to wage war against England on land. Second, it could build a naval force that could defeat the British navy and land an invading force along the English shore of the Channel. The Romans did this, as did the Normans. Successive powers arose in Europe that saw an opportunity to defeat England and later Britain. The Spaniards attempted an invasion in the 16th century; the French in the 19th century; the Germans in the 20th century. Each was defeated by treacherous waters and the Royal Navy. Many other potential invasions were never launched because the navies didn’t exist. They didn’t exist because of the British grand strategy, the core of which was that the nearest landmass, continental Europe, would always place Britain at a demographic disadvantage in a war. The population of Europe was the base of armies vastly larger than that which Britain could field. Therefore, the central strategy was to prevent such a force from landing in Britain. Building a naval force able to challenge the British was enormously expensive. Only a very wealthy country could afford it, but very wealthy countries lacked the appetite. Other countries, seeking to increase their wealth, competed with other aspiring countries, diverting resources to land-based forces and making it impossible to build navies. The fact that the continent was fragmented first between kings and emperors, and later between nation-states, was Britain’s primary line of defense. The wealthiest nations were constantly fending off attacks from neighbors, while the poorer countries plotted strategies for enhancing their position through war. As a result, there were a succession of great continental powers: Spain, the Netherlands, France and Germany. None was strong enough for long enough to divert resources to taking Britain. British grand strategy, therefore, is to maintain a large naval force, but beyond that, to do what it can on the European continent to discourage hegemony on the mainland by preventing coalitions from forming, or by fomenting rivalries. In other words, the British grand strategy was constant involvement on the European continent, with the primary goal of diverting any nation focusing on naval development. These actions could involve trade policy, supporting various dynasties or nations, using the ability to blockade, or inserting limited ground forces to support a coalition of forces. British strategy was an endless kaleidoscope of tactics, constantly shifting relationships and actions designed to secure the homeland by maintaining insecurity on the continent. Britain didn’t create insecurity. That was built into the continental geopolitical system. Britain was successful at taking advantage of and nurturing the insecurity that was already there. Britain was always part of Europe, as for example its participation in the Napoleonic wars and the Congress of Vienna. At the same time, it stood apart from Europe because its geography gave Britain another base on which to stand. The British Empire came into being as a byproduct of this grand strategy. The various imperial naval powers that came into existence were undermined not by naval force but by land conflicts. Spain, the Netherlands and France all developed navies able to carve out empires. But diversions on the continent limited their ability to expand those empires, and drained their ability to exploit them effectively. The British, united after the early 18th century and impervious to European manipulation, were able to sustain an imperial enterprise that constantly expanded and enriched Britain. What ultimately undermined the British grand strategy was the unification of Germany and the rise of the United States. German unification created an industrial force that could rival Britain commercially and dominate the continent militarily Also weakening Britain was the emergence of the United States as a power that could field a million men in Europe and create a naval force that was second only to Britain’s.

How, then, has geopolitical competition in Europe evolved over the past 200 years? We identify four key events that fundamentally shaped the geopolitics of Europe in this timeframe: 1) The conclusion of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, which restored a multipolar balance of power to the continent following the Napoleonic wars; 1815: The Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna established a balance of power on the European continent following the political and military upheavals of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. Paul Schroeder defines a balance of power as a system in which “the power possessed and exercised by states within the system is checked and balanced by the power of others.” A balance of power system aims to preserve the sovereignty of individual states by preventing the rise of a hegemon. A multipolar balance of power was effectively institutionalized by the Congress of Vienna, which also established a precedent for diplomacy to be conducted via congressional debate rather than bilateral negotiation. Its purpose was to prevent the political and military upheavals of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era from reoccurring. Ultimately, it rested on three pillars: the containment of France, Habsburg leadership in Central Europe, and the supporting integrity of the Ottoman Empire in the East. At first, this arrangement was maintained by the collective efforts of the European powers, but, as the century progressed, the balance of power evolved as its initial format proved unsustainable.   A second issue was the maintenance of the territorial arrangements of the treaties that closed the Napoleonic Wars at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Metternich’s spies and generals also worked to keep this part of the post-Napoleonic world intact; that is, the boundaries that often linked (or separated) national groups in order to buttress dynastic interests. Except in Belgium, the surge of national, as distinct from liberal, aspirations throughout Europe was unsuccessful in the 1830s. Defeats only strengthened resolve, particularly in Germany and Italy, where the repeated invasions by the French during the revolutionary period had led to reforms and stimulated alike royal and popular ambitions. In these two regions, liberalism and nationalism merged into one unceasing agitation that involved not merely the politically militant but the intellectual elite. Poets and musicians, students and lawyers joined with journalists, artisans, and good bourgeois in open or secret societies working for independence: they were all patriots and all more or less imbued with a Romanticist regard for the people as the originator of the living culture, which the nation was to enshrine and protect.   Congress of Vienna, assembly in 1814–15 that reorganized Europe after the Napoleonic Wars. It began in September 1814, five months after Napoleon I’s first abdication and completed its “Final Act” in June 1815, shortly before the Waterloo campaign and the final defeat of Napoleon. The settlement was the most-comprehensive treaty that Europe had ever seen.   Preliminaries Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain, the four powers that were chiefly instrumental in the overthrow of Napoleon, had concluded a special alliance among themselves with the Treaty of Chaumont, on March 9, 1814, a month before Napoleon’s first abdication. The subsequent treaties of peace with France, signed on May 30 not only by the “four” but also by Sweden and Portugal and on July 20 by Spain, stipulated that all former belligerents should send plenipotentiaries to a congress in Vienna. Nevertheless, the “four” still intended to reserve the real decision making for themselves.   Delegates Representatives began to arrive in Vienna toward the end of September 1814. All of Europe sent its most-important statesmen. Klemens, prince von Metternich, principal minister of Austria, represented his emperor, Francis II. Tsar Alexander I of Russia directed his own diplomacy. King Frederick William III of Prussia had Karl, prince von Hardenberg, as his principal minister. Great Britain was represented by its foreign minister, Viscount Castlereagh. When Castlereagh had to return to his parliamentary duties, the duke of Wellington replaced him, and Lord Clancarty was principal representative after the duke’s departure. The restored Louis XVIII of France sent Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand. Spain, Portugal, and Sweden had only men of moderate ability to represent them. Many of the rulers of the minor states of Europe put in an appearance. With them came a host of courtiers, secretaries, and ladies to enjoy the magnificent social life of the Austrian court. Procedure The procedure of the congress was determined by the difficulty and complexity of the issues to be solved. First there was the problem of the organization of the congress, for which there was no precedent. The “four” were determined to keep the management of the main problems entirely in their own hands, but since they had rather rashly summoned a congress, they had to pay some attention to it. Thus, the ministers of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain assembled early for discussions and finally agreed, on September 22, 1814, that the “four” should be those to decide the future of all the conquered territories. They were then to communicate their decisions to France and Spain. The full congress was to be summoned only when all was ready.   Such was the situation that Talleyrand found when he arrived on September 24. He refused to accept it and was supported by Spain’s representative, the marqués de Labrador. Talleyrand denied that either the “four” or the “six” (including France and Spain) was a legally constituted body and desired that the congress should be summoned to elect a directing committee. If any other body had rights in the matter, it was the group of powers—Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal—that had signed the 1814 Treaty of Paris with France (thus, the “eight”), which ended the Napoleonic Wars for the first time. The core four were much disturbed, knowing that the smaller powers would support Talleyrand if they gave him the chance of appealing to them. They had no intention of giving way, however, and refused to summon a meeting of all the representatives. The opening of the congress was postponed until November 1. No solution could be found, however, and after a meeting of the “eight” on October 30, the opening was again postponed.   Meanwhile, work proceeded without the sanction of the main body of plenipotentiaries. The “four” discussed the main territorial problems informally among themselves. The “eight” assumed the formal direction of the congress; a committee of German states met to draw up a constitution for Germany, and a special committee on Switzerland was appointed by the “four.” Talleyrand was thus excluded from the main work of the congress, but his protests on behalf of the smaller powers grew fainter as he realized that the “four” were not in agreement; Castlereagh and Metternich gradually won his confidence and at last insisted on Bourbon France’s being admitted to the core group. It was that committee of five that was the real Congress of Vienna. Between January 7 and February 13, 1815, it settled the frontiers of all territories north of the Alps and laid the foundations for the settlement of Italy. Meanwhile, the committee of eight dealt with more-general matters. The congress as a representative body of all Europe never met. Decisions Of The Congress The major points of friction occurred over the disposition of Poland and Saxony, the conflicting claims of Sweden, Denmark, and Russia, and the adjustment of the borders of the German states. In general, Russia and Prussia were opposed by Austria, France, and England, which at one point (January 3, 1815) went so far as to conclude a secret treaty of defensive alliance. The major final agreements were as follows. In return for acquiring Poland, Alexander gave back Galicia to Austria and gave Thorn and a region around it to Prussia; Kraków was made a free town. The rest of the Duchy of Warsaw was incorporated as a separate kingdom under the Russian emperor’s sovereignty. Prussia got two-fifths of Saxony and was compensated by extensive additions in Westphalia and on the left bank of the Rhine River. It was Castlereagh who insisted on Prussian acceptance of the latter territory, with which it had been suggested the king of Saxony should be compensated. Castlereagh wanted Prussia to guard the territories of the Rhine region against France and act as a buttress to the new Kingdom of the Netherlands, which comprised both the former United Provinces and Belgium. Austria was compensated by Lombardy and Venice and got back most of Tirol. Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden on the whole did well. Hanover was also enlarged. The outline of a constitution, a loose confederation, was drawn up for Germany—a triumph for Metternich. Denmark lost Norway to Sweden but got Lauenburg, while Swedish Pomerania went to Prussia. Switzerland was given a new constitution. In Italy, Piedmont absorbed Genoa; Tuscany and Modena went to an Austrian archduke; and the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza was given to Marie-Louise, consort of the deposed Napoleon. The Papal States were restored to the pope, and Naples went to the Sicilian Bourbons. The Final Act of the Congress of Vienna comprised all the agreements in one great instrument. It was signed on June 9, 1815, by the “eight” (except Spain, which refused as a protest against the Italian settlement). All the other powers subsequently acceded to it. As a result, the political boundaries laid down by the Congress of Vienna lasted, except for one or two changes, for more than 40 years. The statesmen had successfully worked out the principle of a balance of power. However, the idea of nationality had been almost entirely ignored—necessarily so because it was not yet ready for expression. Territories had been bartered about without much reference to the wishes of their inhabitants. Until an even greater settlement took place at Versailles after World War I, it was customary for historians to condemn the statesmen of Vienna. It was later realized how difficult their task was, as was the fact that they secured for Europe a period of peace, which was its cardinal need. The statesmen failed, however, to give to international relations any organ by which their work could be adapted to the new forces of the 19th century, and it was ultimately doomed to destruction.   The question is how to account for the overall peaceful stability of 19th-century European international politics from 1815 on.   The need to coordinate the military struggle against France eventually produced closer cooperation between the great powers, and, finally, the notion of permanent consultation and concerted diplomatic action. The famous Congress System after 1815, with its implicit belief that statesmen could control and even shape events, rather than merely respond to them, had its origins in the long wars against France.    McKay:  France was to be contained by a ring of states around her frontiers. But instead of feeble neighbours which had collapsed so completely in 1792-93, strong buffer states were to guard against French aggression in the future. britain argued most for this settlement. Netherlands and Prussia - which was given new territory in Rhineland stood guard on France's northern and north-eastern borders.  South: strengthened kingdoms of Sardinia (comparising island of Sardinia, SAvoy, Nice, Genoa, Piedmont) and Austria with new dominance in Italy.  In this way the areas France had most often threatned in 7th and 18th century were strengtheend against any future aggression.    Why keep france a great power, albeit sharing, because monarchy was the best remedy to squish revolution and also to keep counteract Russia. France always remained trapped between continental desires and the fight with britain in colonoal world.  Russia emerged the greatest winner, especially in Poland. Was a dominant power in manpower and military might. her challenge to the declining Ottoman empire was more apparent than ever. austria and prussia could not halt russian encrouchment: fear of russia was central to metternich's policy. the only constraints on russia were her own extensive committments in Asia and Europe, economic condition, and the change of foreign polciy based on the whim of her ruler.    Prussia gained substantial territory as part of the Rhine barrier against France, Swedish pomeranian posen and two-fifths of Saxony.    Austria was weakened. Superficially the recovery of Habsburg was complete. Despite numerous defeats at the hands of the French, they recover she retained Galacia, and Bavaria ceded to her those territories acquired in 1805 and 1809. Austria also made signficiant acquisitions in Italy, principlally for compensation for Prussian and Russian gains elsewhere, and to replace Belgium. she gained venetia and regaiend lombardy, and influence over the other restored italian rulers. this gave metternich control over italy, the final realization of austrai's ambitions in the peninsula. until the crimean war she was seen as a barrier against russia. and by russia as a barrier agaisnt france. the central problem was that austria's commitments outran her resources, especially in italy, In germany, austria was at best equal of prussia, together they dominated the new german confederation established in 1815 with austria as permanent chairperson. but prussia's gain in western germany finally signaled the end of austria's traditional role as defender of the rhine agaisnt france and they were to help the growth in prussian power which ultimately led to austria's expulsion from germany. Austrias had to be concerned with italy and eastern eruope where russia's advencements in 1815 threatened their interests and security. primary cvhallenge was to resist russian challenge although also feared French power. russia's dominance in poland nad close links with prussia her new position on the danube and the threat she posed to the ottomans were all against vienna's interests, thus austrai remained a great power status responsbility without the means to be one.

Why studying the 19th century matters:  These commonly held ‘turning points’ are not so much wrong as misleading. They emphasize the distribution of power without focusing on underlying modes of power, and they focus on the impact of wars without examining the social developments that gave rise to them. Once the magnitude of the changes initiated during the 19th century is recognized, it becomes clear that we are not living in a world where the principal dynamics are defined by the outcomes of 1500, 1648, 1919, 1945, or 1989. We are living now, and are likely to be living for some time yet, in a world defined predominantly by the downstream consequences of the 19th century. the emergence and institutionalization of modern international order. Our argument is first, that a set of dynamics established during the 19th century intertwined in a powerful configuration that reshaped the social bases of international order; and second, that this configuration continues to serve as the underpinning for much of contemporary international relations By rational state-building, we mean the process by which many administrative and bureaucratic competences were ‘caged’ within national territories. This process was not pristine: processes of imperialism and state-building were coimplicated. Finally, by ‘ideologies of progress’, we mean symbolic schemas such as modern liberalism, socialism, and nationalism which were rooted in ideals of progress and, in particular, associated with Enlightenment notions of improvement and control. By around 1800, it is possible to speak of a major shift from a ‘polycentric world with no dominant centre’ to a core-periphery hierarchical international order in which the leading edge was in north-western Europe, a previously peripheral part of the Eurasian trading system (Pomeranz 2000: 4; Bayly 2004: 2; Hobson 2004: ch. 7; Darwin 2007: 194; Morris 2011: 557).   What is balance of power:  Despite the significant role it played in the history of 19th century Europe, the balance of power is theoretically simple: Whenever a multistate system arises in a given area, that is, whenever you have a number of independent states in close proximity and frequent contact, the best way both to prevent violent conflict and to protect states' individual independence and security is to work for an equilibrium of power. to work for an equilibrium of power. How such a balance is initially achieved depends on historical circumstances -by postwar settlements, by peaceful terri- torial arrangements, by using a principle of compensation so that whenever any one state gains territory, others are similarly compensated, and so on. Once established, the balance of power must be actively maintained by member states; they must refrain from dan- gerous, unbalancing, unilateral gains themselves and present a common front against states which do threaten the balance. The deterrent power of the system lies in this threat of a coalition against a would-be aggressor or domi- nating power.

Most scholars would agree that Europe was more stable from 1815 to 1854 than during any equivalent era in the entire 18th century, and that, taken as a whole, the 19th century was more peaceful than the 18th. Various explanations have been offered: the widespread exhaustion, warweariness, fear of revolution, and desire for peace produced by a generation of war and upheaval from 1787 to 1815; a moderate peace settlement, a stable balance of power, a system of diplomacy by conference, a Concert of Europe, and other diplomatic devices; the prevalence of monarchial conservative ideology; international cooperation to preserve the existing social order; and prudent, skillful statesmanship. First, the 1815 settlement is commonly interpreted as a restoration of an i8th-century-style balance of power, a con-scious return to classical 18th-century political principles.1 Second, most if not all historians see the post-1815 change in the character of international politics as temporary, with stability and harmony beginning to fade by 1820 and in definite decline by 1830, and normal political competition back in force after 1848.2 Third, peace and stability are usually explained as volitional and dispositional rather than structural—i.e., a matter of what statesmen chose to do and were inclined to do in international politics, rather than what the prevailing system constrained them from doing or permitted them to do.   Nineteenth-century international peace and stability derived mainly from systemic change, reflected in major institutionalized arrangements and practices divergent from the 18th-century norm. The 1815 settlement did not restore an i8th-century-type balance of power or revive 18th-century political practices; the European equilibrium established in 1815 and lasting well into the 19th century differed sharply from so-called balances of power in the 18th. The systemic change, moveover, proved enduring; it lasted into the latter part of the century, despite the upheavals of 1848- 1850 and the wars of 1854-1871. Furthermore, 19th-century political patterns of conduct differed from their 18th-century counterparts not so much because of the more pacific, conservative dispositions, aims, and desires of most statesmen—this difference, if it existed, tended to disappear quickly—but because the two prevailing systems afforded different systemic constraints and possibilities for action.   To start with, the most impressive aspect of post-1815 European politics is not simply the virtual absence of war. More notable is an array of positive results achieved in international politics in this era, of problems settled and dangers averted by diplomacy. Leaving the remarkable record of the Vienna Congress in this respect aside entirely, a short list of the accomplishments would have to include the following: the speedy evacuation of Allied armies from France and France's quick reintegration into the European Concert; the completion and implementation of the federal constitution of Germany; the suppression of revolutions in Naples, Piedmont, Spain, and the Danubian Principalities by international action, without serious European quarrels; the recognition of Latin American independence; the prevention of war between Russia and Turkey for seven years (1821 to 1828), and a moderate end to that war after it did break out; the creation of an independent Greece; the prompt recognition of a new government in France after the revolution of 1830; the creation of an independent, neutralized Belgium, despite major dangers of war and obstacles to a settlement created mainly by quarrels between the Dutch and the Belgians; the prevention of international conflict in 1830-1832 over revolts in Italy, Germany, and Poland; the managing of civil wars in Spain and Portugal without great-power conflict; and two successful joint European rescue operations for the Ottoman Empire.   One need not accept that all these outcomes represented long-range gains for domestic and international peace and stability in Europe; nor would anyone claim that they were reached without crises, tensions, and crosspurposes. Nonetheless, it remains remarkable that such results could be achieved at all—that 19th-century statesmen could, with a certain minimum of good will and effort, repeatedly reach viable, agreed-upon outcomes to hotly disputed critical problems. The 18th century simply does not record diplomatic achievements of this kind. To the contrary, enormous efforts were repeatedly expended by 18th-century statesmen not so much to solve problems as simply to keep them under control and avert breakdown—usually in vain. Consider, for example, how England and France struggled fruitlessly to control Elizabeth Farnese's Spain, and tried not to get into war with each other in 1739-1741 and 1754-1756; how much useless effort Charles VI put into securing the peaceful accession of Maria Theresa in Austria; how Austria and France unsuccessfully attempted to keep Russia from dominating Poland and the Ottoman Empire or from partitioning them. The list could readily be extended.   Of course, we are told that European statesmen after 1815 were in a different mood. But were they? How much so? Previous European wars, allowing for differences in population and level of economic development, had been almost as costly and exhausting as those of 1792-1815— the Thirty Years' War had probably been worse3—and had left behind comparable legacies of war-weariness and fear of revolution. After the conclusion of every great war, in 1648, 1713-1714, 1763, 1783, 1801, 1807, and 1809, there had been statesmen who desperately yearned for peace, wanting not just peace treaties but durable peace settlements. The results achieved in this direction in the early 18th century alone by George I, Stanhope, the Abbe Dubois, Baron Miinchhausen, Carteret, Cardinal Fleury, Townshend, Walpole, Bernstorff, and others in no way compare with the will and energy expended, or with the record of 1815-1848. The presence or absence of good will and peaceful intentions clearly does not suffice to explain this phenomenon.* Moreover, the conservative "Holy Alliance" spirit of 1815 cannot mainly account for 19th-century international stability, for this spirit, never universal in Europe, clearly did not survive the revolutions of 1848, while the structural changes in the states system established in 1815 largely did. The upheavals of 1848-1850 affected European international politics in three main ways. First, the revolutions discredited the so-called Metternich system, the attempt to repress liberalism, nationalism, and revolution purely by authoritarian preventive measures. After 1850, even governments that were still basically authoritarian, such as those of Austria, Prussia, and Louis Napoleon's France, tried to deal with national discontent and revolution by active policies of modernization and economic development directed from above; these policies tended to promote rivalry between states, especially in the economic arena.' Second, the Holy Alliance between the three Eastern powers was undermined. Prussia and Austria once again became open rivals in Germany, and Russia and Austria were concealed rivals in the Balkans, while France under Louis Napoleon and to some extent Britain under Palmerston looked for chances to exploit and widen the rifts. Third, European conservatism itself made long strides away from the pacific, legalistic internationalism of Metternich's generation, and toward its own union with nationalism. The new generation of leaders, though often almost as conservative in domestic politics as Metternich had been, hoped to defend the existing order not so much by preserving international peace and monarchial solidarity as by maintaining a strong army and an active foreign policy that would attach the masses to the regime.   In other words, the events of 1848 generally undermined the old monarchial-conservative spirit of 1815 and liberated new forces of nationalism and liberalism, even in Eastern Europe, thereby changing the tone and character of international politics. With the old motives for a peaceful, stable international system in decline or in disrepute, the system itself should presumably have been overthrown. Yet, despite revolutions in 1848-1850 more widespread than those of 1789-1793 and almost as radical; despite clashes between insurgents and police or armies almost everywhere in Central and Southern Europe, and serious civil conflicts in France, Prussia, Saxony, Southwest Germany, Naples, Lombardy, Venetia, Lower Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia, Transylvania, and the Rumanian Principalities; despite two wars in strategically vital areas, one in Northern Italy, the other in Schleswig-Holstein, each involving one major power in combat and other major powers in political complications, what actually happened in international politics was that, when everything was over, not one war between Great Powers had broken out, not one international boundary had been altered, and not one treaty had been torn up. In short, though all the factors that were said to have produced peace and stability after 1815 had been suspended or destroyed, peace had been maintained, and the international crises had been managed.    But, the critic will reply, not for long. When the Crimean War (1853- 56) broke out, it wrecked the European Concert and paved the way for the greater convulsions of 1859-1871.6 True enough, but not perhaps the most important truth. A.J.P. Taylor indicates the salient fact, without exactly explaining it, in his essay entitled "Crimea: The War that Would Not Boil."7 Considering the explosive elements in it, this war should in the normal course of events have become a general European conflict. It was the first war between European great powers in 39 years. Britain and Russia, world rivals and the strongest powers in Europe, were pitted against each other. Public opinion, mass passions, and hostile ideologies figured prominently in the outbreak and conduct of the war. It involved the most complicated, persistent, and dangerous question in European politics, the Eastern Question. And above all, two of the major combatants, Britain and France, persistently employed every means at their command to make it a general war by drawing Austria, Prussia, the German Confederation, and other neutrals into it. The leader in that effort, Lord Palmerston, pursued a typical 18th-century war aim, a sweeping reduction of Russia's territory and power, ostensibly to restore the balance of power in Europe. And what were the results, after two years of costly fighting and unremitting diplomatic pressure? No neutral joined the war except Sardinia-Piedmont, which came in almost as a mercenary auxiliary for reasons of its own.8 Despite his great energy and popularity in Britain, Palmerston could not even carry his own cabinet along in his extreme war aims; in the end, Britain was persuaded by France, with Austria's help, to end the war and make peace before it wanted to. The war had some profound domestic and international consequences, without a doubt. Russia was humiliated and weakened internally; Austria was left isolated and vulnerable, and the Italian, German, and Balkan questions were thrown open. But France won only a prestige victory, and Britain not even that, .while the map of Europe and the treaty system remained almost unchanged. The only real winners, it turned out, were those who could later exploit the war for their individual purposes: Sardinia-Piedmont, Prussia, and the nationalists in the Rumanian Principalities. To be sure, the wars of Italian and German unification quickly followed, and profoundly altered the map and the treaty system of Europe. They had significant effects upon the European states system, particularly the long-range impact of the so-called unification of Germany.9 Yet this very period of upheaval in some ways demonstrates the persistent strength of the European system, showing how even in its decline it continued to inhibit conflict and promote international arrangements and stability in a way that could hardly have occurred in the 18th century. Two striking features of these wars were the difficulties Cavour and  Bismarck encountered in getting them started under the right conditions, and the relative ease and speed with which they were ended. By 1859, Austria and Sardinia-Piedmont had been waging a cold war for a decade; their diplomatic relations had been suspended for a year, and both powers were poised in armed confrontation; Cavour had concluded a conspiratorial agreement for war with Napoleon III; revolutionary nationalist agitation was rife in Italy and tension was high in Europe; and Austria had almost no friends and many enemies. Despite all this, Cavour was at the point of resigning in despair in April 1859 because his quest for war had been foiled by European diplomacy; at the last moment, Austria rescued him with its fatal ultimatum to Sardinia. When Bismarck became Minister-President of Prussia in 1862, Austria's position was even worse and the prevailing conservative restraints upon the exercise of Machtpoliti\ were still weaker. Bismarck matched or possibly exceeded Cavour in skill, daring, and lack of scruple, and he operated from a far stronger base of power. Yet it took him four years before he could maneuver Austria into war under the right conditions. When he chose to confront France four years later, only a combination of amazing luck and French blunders saved him from political defeat and enabled him to conduct a German national war against France without European interference. In other words, in both 1866 and 1870, despite the undoubted decay of the European system, there remained enough residual resistance to the kind of ruthless 18th-century Realpoliti\ Bismarck frankly espoused to make his task difficult Like Palmerston's efforts in the Crimean War, the record of 1866 and 1870 illustrates how 18th-century politics worked when tried in the 19th century. Cavour and Bismarck were in many respects i8th-century-style Kabinettspoliti^er, pursuing the traditional expansionist policies of the Houses of Brandenburg and Savoy. Their 18th-century predecessors, Frederick the Great and the Dukes of Savoy, had had different problems, however: their wars were easy enough to start, but difficult to control and to end. Historians have often noted the remarkably limited extent, duration, and violence of the wars between 1859 and 1871, considering how much was at stake in them, and have often explained this as resulting from the skill and moderation of Bismarck and Cavour. Leaving aside the question of whether the aims and tactics of either statesman can be called moderate (Cavour's almost certainly were not and Bismarck's only in a limited sense),12 that kind of explanation is clearly inadequate systemically. Cavour did not end the war in 1859; France and Austria did, in good part because of European pressure. Cavour was not responsible for the European response to his actions in 1860-1861, and was not even alive to see Italian unity completed. As for Bismarck, remarkable though his fertility in expedients was, he clearly was working within a framework of limits and opportunities set by the European system, and he always knew it.  Even more surprising than the limited extent and duration of these wars is the rapid integration of their results into the European system. Two states that had aggrandized themselves by methods widely condemned in Europe, defeating and humiliating other European great powers in the process, now sought recognition and acceptance. One leaped in a decade from last to first place in the European pentarchy; the other, though still essentially a second-class state, now demanded recognition as a great power. One was widely feared as being militarist and ruthless, the other generally despised as weak and unreliable. Yet both were readily accepted into the great-power club and, more important, no effort was ever made to reverse this outcome. For the other powers, this involved not merely coming to terms with accomplished facts and present realities. It meant putting aside deeply rooted traditions and goals, and incurring real risks. Austria, for example, has been accused of hoping after 1859 to reverse the outcome in Italy (which is largely true) and, after 1866, of plotting revenge on Prussia for Sadowa (which is almost wholly false). What needs explanation and ought to catch the attention of historians is instead the astonishing readiness of Austria to come to terms with the new states of Italy and Germany. It involved seeking good relations in the south with a state that was bound to be its rival in the Adriatic and its potential competitor in the Balkans, and that still harbored claims to Austrian territory. At the same time, Austria sought an actual alliance with its historic rival to the north, now expanded into a national state that threatened Austria militarily, jeopardized the loyalty of its most important national group, and undermined its raison d'etre as a multinational state and European great power. In a similarly myopic fashion, historians have concentrated their attention on France's refusal to accept the loss of Alsace-Lorraine in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War, and the fatal effect this is supposed to have had on Franco-German relations.13 Actually, while the war was still going on, France accepted something that proved to be vastly more dangerous for French security and power than the loss of Alsace-Lorraine— namely, the union of South Germany with the North under Prussian control; now, a militarily superior Germany would directly face France along a greatly extended Franco-German frontier. Russia, in accepting German unification under Prussia, swallowed the loss of its most important security asset, a defensive glacis to the west, the cornerstone of which had always been a federal, divided structure for Germany and a rivalry between Austria and Prussia that Russia could rely upon and exploit. The question is not whether the European powers were wise in thus accepting the fails accomplis presented to them by Sardinia-Piedmont and Prussia. My own view is that in many ways this was a fatal error, and that Italian and German national unification needed at least to be controlled and legalized by Europe in concert, even if after the fact. The important consideration here is that this kind of peaceful accommodation to drastic changes in the system did not happen, and could not have happened, in the 18th century. One only needs to remember, by way of contrast, how long and determinedly Austria resisted the loss of Silesia to Prussia, and France the loss of colonial supremacy to Britain. Some systemic change is required to account for it. There is another important and general phenomenon of 19th-century international politics; it is suggested in the title of A.J.P. Taylor's The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918.1 * Actually, for most of the period covered, up to 1890 or 1900 at least, there was no such struggle for mastery in the sense of a conscious drive to achieve preeminent position and dominant power. Although it makes sense to speak of a struggle for mastery in Germany and Italy, no one state ever tried for, much less achieved, such mastery in Europe as a whole, and it is questionable whether any coalition did. Britain enjoyed command of the seas, and for a long while was preeminent in empire, industry, and commerce. But so far as continental Europe is concerned, what Lord Salisbury said was always true and well known: "We are fish." Russia was the strongest member of the Holy Alliance up to the 1850s, but never dominated Europe as a whole, or even Central Europe; after the Crimean War, it no longer even led the Eastern bloc.  After 1815, Russia never was the arbiter of Europe or exercised the dominant influence in Germany that Catherine II or Paul I had enjoyed for a time, and the young Alexander I had aspired to. France, Austria, and Italy were never serious candidates for mastery. That leaves only Bismarck's Germany. What it enjoyed (or rather, possessed without really enjoying it) was, in Andreas Hillgruber's phrase, a labile half-hegemony in Europe, an unintended result of Bismarck's policy.'6 Basically, he had not wanted to control Europe, but to disentangle Prussia and Germany from extraneous European quarrels. Instead, as Lothar Gall's excellent biography shows, he became a sorcerer's apprentice, overwhelmed by his own success, compelled to manage and manipulate European problems he had hoped to be able to ignore.'7  The same thesis applies to 19th-century coalitions and alliances: in contrast to 18th-century ones, they were not bids for mastery in Europe. The dominant coalition of 1815 was strictly a defensive one against France (and tacitly against one of its members, Russia); it quickly broke down. After 1820, the Holy Alliance could not control events in Western Europe, and the Western powers could not control those in Central and Eastern Europe. Near Eastern alignments frequently crossed and shifted. Britain and France could not create a dominant coalition against Russia in the 1850s. Napoleon III toyed with the idea of a dominant Franco-Russian or Franco-Prussian-Italian coalition, but never seriously pursued it. Bismarck's alliance system after 1879 was a reluctant defensive coalition intended to keep France from seeking revenge, and Austria and Italy or Austria and Russia from fighting each other. The rival alliances of the 1890s were basically blocking coalitions in Europe; they were used as bases to compete for world position Bids by various powers for hegemony or supremacy, met ultimately by defeat and the restoration of a balance of power. That thesis may fit other eras (though even here one can have serious doubts). It does not suit the 19th century, which contains no Charles V, Philip II, Louis XIV, Chatham, Catherine the Great, Napoleon, Hitler, or Stalin. The reason is not that 19th-century statesmen were wiser or more restrained, but that the 19th-century system inhibited bids for mastery in Europe.   Certainly there was serious competition in 19th-century international politics. It was essentially competition for advantage, like the competition for shares of the market in an oligopolistic industry. The main advantage sought was the ability to profit from the international system at little cost, to enjoy freedom and choices others did not, and to escape burdens and payments that others had to bear. "Being the arbiter of Europe," "having a free hand," and "holding the balance" were code terms for this advantageous situation. The critical consideration, in any case, is that in the 19th century, unlike in others, the competition for advantage went on for a long time without degenerating into a struggle for mastery.   Thus, a prima facie case exists that a profound, durable change occurred in international politics after 1815. Three features introduced into international politics in 1813-1815, which became constitutive elements of the system, help to account for this change, and make it systematic in character. They made it possible for 19th-century statesmen to manage three central and perennial problems of international politics in the face of which the 18th century system had been relatively helpless. The three problems were: how to assure a reasonable amount of mutual security and status for all the great powers how to insulate Europe from extra-European sources of conflict and how to reconcile the legitimate requirements of smaller states for a secure independence with the equally legitimate and unavoidable quest of great powers for spheres of influence beyond their frontiers.   The three new elements of international politics that served to meet these problems were the treaty system of 1815 and the European Concert; the "fencing off of the European state system from the extra-European world; and the establishment of a system of intermediary bodies between the great powers   The treaty system of 1815 and the European Concert are the bestknown elements, and the easiest to define and illustrate. Beginning with the Vienna settlement, the 19th-century international system guaranteed the existence, security, status, and vital interests of all the European great powers. Between 1813 and 1815, the members of the final coalition against France worked out Europe's boundaries in a way mutually tolerable to all the important powers, including France, and then guaranteed these territorial arrangements by a series of interlocking treaties and a general great-power alliance, from which France was initially excluded, but which it soon joined. A variety of procedures and devices strengthened this network of treaty guarantees, including a system of diplomacy by conference and some general principles of a European Concert. The latter protected the rights, interests, and equal status of the great powers above all, but they also committed these powers to the performance of certain duties connected with those rights—respect for treaties, noninterference in other states' internal affairs, willingness to participate in the Concert's decisions and actions, and a general observance of legality and restraint in their international actions.20 This system of guarantees for the rights, status, and existence of the great powers, though egregiously violated and badly strained in the mid-century wars, managed to make something of a comeback and to endure after a fashion till the turn of the century. By contrast, though 18th-century statesmen and theorists had often talked about such a system,21 the rights, status, vital interests, and very existence of great powers were never safe at that time, and were often deliberately attacked. Attempts to partition the territory of other major powers and to reduce them to second- or third-rank status were a normal part of 18th-century politics22—constitutive and necessary features of the system rather than its accidental products.^ Thus, the total destruction of the European balance during the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars represents merely the climax of a process begun much earlier, rooted in the conviction shared by all great powers and many smaller ones that, in order to preserve their status and security, they not only needed to aggrandize themselves but also to eliminate the threats posed by the existence of their rivals.   The second major element is not as obvious. In the 19th-century system, international politics within Europe was essentially separated from colonial, maritime, and commercial competition between European powers in the non-European world. In Gustav Adolph Rein's phrase, Europe was hedged in, fenced off from the rest of the world.24 The most striking evidence of this change from the 18th century is what happened to maritime and colonial questions in the peace settlement and after it. Like the major 18th-century wars, the wars of the Revolution and Napoleon were world contests fought around much of the globe. The main stakes in the struggle between France and Britain were maritime and colonial su-premacy which, after 1807, became almost the only reason for continuing the war. While France's most effective propaganda weapon in Europe was to denounce Britain's tyranny on the seas, Napoleon's attempt to counter British seapower through the Continental System may have done more than anything else to hasten his ultimate downfall. The maritime and colonial conflict had enormous world-historical results. Among other things, it brought the United States into the war and helped confirm its independence, led to the revolutionary liberation of Latin America, and laid the foundations of Britain's territorial empire in India. Moreover, maritime and colonial issues were heavily involved in European international politics; a good part of the diplomacy of the various allied coalitions, including the final one, consisted of efforts by various continental powers to get Britain to make colonial and maritime concessions to France and its allies in the interests of continental peace. Yet before the war was over, this intimate, seemingly indissoluble connection between European and overseas wars and politics had been severed.   Britain flatly barred the issue of maritime law from discussion at the peace table and firmly rejected any Russian or allied mediation of its war with the United States. As to the colonial settlement, the British insisted that though they would be generous (and on the whole they were), in principle they would not make colonial concessions in return for France's agreement to continental peace terms. First Britain's major allies, then France, and finally its client Holland accepted the terms Britain offered, and that ended it. The only overseas issue discussed at Vienna concerned the slave trade, which involved morality and prestige more than power or material interests. In other words, Europe accepted British naval and colonial supremacy, choosing to live with it and, so far as strictly European politics was concerned, to ignore it. Something similar happened with regard to the Ottoman Empire, which had become a major zone of European conflict in the late 18th century and the Napoleonic wars. Proposals were made to include it in the general settlement and its guarantees, but they were not pursued. Russia had unsettled grievances against the Turks which it did not want to submit to European control; Metternich—who viewed the Balkans as part of Asia, and Austria's southeastern border with Turkey as equivalent to a sea frontier—wanted the Ottoman Empire left as it was. Other parts of Asia (India, Persia, the Middle East) also underwent major changes in the Napoleonic wars; some historians have traced the origins of Anglo-Russian world rivalry back to 1815 or earlier. The post-Vienna period, in fact, witnessed the abatement of both rivalry and intimacy in Anglo-Russian relations. Before 1815, Catherine II, Paul I, and Alexander I had each at various times been avowed enemies and close allies of Britain. After 1815, the two powers were neither one nor the other—never enemies until 1853, and never close allies, despite the efforts of Nicholas I and his advisers to reach a partnership with England on European and Near Eastern questions.27 In the typical post-Vienna manner, each power saw the other as a potential rival to be managed by ostensible friendship. In any case, the Eastern powers—especially Austria and Prussia, but Russia as well—did not let extra-European questions seriously affect their policies in Europe.   Nor, in the main, did the English and French. Their rivalry overseas never disappeared entirely after 1815, and flared up on occasion over various issues, such as the slave trade, Britain's right of search, Latin America, Madagascar, Tahiti, and Algeria. But this was more an irritant than a serious danger; it kept the two powers from genuine entente but never threatened the peace. In Europe, Britain and France were able to cooperate in a wary fashion in the Iberian Peninsula, Belgium, Greece, and the Near East. The only serious crisis between them, in 1840, arose over a European Concert issue, the Eastern Question, where a perceived insult to France's honor was deemed more important than any blow to her interests.29 In a similar way, Britain and the Netherlands remained friends in Europe despite their commercial and colonial rivalries and disputes in the Far East.   To dismiss this shielding of European politics from extra-European quarrels as unimportant, or to attribute it simply to Britain's unchallenged superiority overseas, is to ignore or underrate the sharp contrast between the 18th and 19th centuries in this respect, as well as the change in outlook that made it possible. The 18th century was filled with wars in North America, the West Indies, India, and on the high seas, which spilled over into Europe, and vice versa. Eighteenth-century statesmen had often tried, without success, to separate European from extra-European quarrels—witness Walpole's failure in 1739-1740, and Newcastle's in 1754-1756. Nineteenth-century statesmen not only could separate the two if they wished, but found it relatively easy and normal to do so. Europe's acceptance of British maritime and overseas domination does need explanation; it was not automatic. During the latter part of the 18th century and the Napoleonic Wars, British naval practices aroused much resentment of Britain on the continent, as British statesmen were well aware; several major efforts at united action were promoted against them (the Leagues of Armed Neutrality led by Russia in 1780 and 1800-1801, and the Continental System). No such anti-British continental combination was ever contemplated in the 19th century until Russia proposed one during the Boer War, and then it came to nothing. One major reason was that Britain made its maritime and colonial supremacy far more tolerable to other powers, and even advantageous to them in some respects, than it had been in the 18th century. Thus the position advanced by Friedrich von Gentz and other defenders of Britain during the Napleonic wars— that the anti-British arguments about maritime law and neutral rights were spurious and that Britain's control of the seas, though vital to Britain's existence, threatened no one else—was made good in the postwar era. With the gradual transition from a mercantilist to a free-trade empire, British maritime supremacy became at worst only an irritant and a latent threat to others, and in some ways even an asset. British naval vessels cleared out pirates in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf to the advantage of all nations,32 guarded sea lanes all could use, and held colonies with whom all could trade. Moreover, while expanding its own empire, Britain did not for most of the century seriously interfere with imperial expansion and consolidation by other states, especially France and the Netherlands.    Nineteenth-century Britain is often praised for maintaining peace and the balance of power within Europe, and criticized for greedy imperialism outside it. So far as the European states system is concerned, the verdict could well be reversed. Britain, in my view, did not really maintain the European balance and more than once endangered the peace of Europe, but the way Britain ran its empire contributed much to making the 19th-century system work.  The third element is the least recognized, but quite possibly the most important. The settlement of 1815 established a broad system of intermediary bodies in Europe: smaller states situated and organized to serve as buffers and spheres of influence. While they separated the great powers, making it more difficult for them to fight, they also linked them by giving them something in common to manage. The importance of intermediary bodies in the 19th-century system has been little recognized— not because the facts about them are unknown, but because these facts have been interpreted in a different framework. The arrangements made concerning smaller powers in the Vienna settlement have traditionally been viewed in terms of balance-of-power politics, or a barrier system designed to contain France, or territorial deals and compensations negotiated to meet rival state and dynastic claims. None of these explanations is wrong. Statesmen thought and acted according to these ideas, as the documents show, though they also talked about intermediary bodies and their uses. But here is where one must distinguish between what the leaders intended to do and what they actually did. The system of intermediary bodies emerging from the Vienna settlement was less a product of deliberate planning than it was the ultimate outcome of arrangements reached mainly for other, more immediate purposes. The most important historic results are often unintentional. Mazzini once said of the Italian Risorgimento, "We aimed for ten and achieved two." In 1815, European statesmen aimed for two and achieved six or seven.   The Kingdom of the United Netherlands, formed of the Dutch provinces, Belgium, and Luxemburg, is a good case in point. It was of course designed to be the keystone of the proposed defensive barrier against France. In its actual role and function, however, it was no more simply a barrier state than Poland or Czechoslovakia after World War I were simply part of the French cordon sanitaire against Germany and Russia. King William I intended his kingdom to be an independent power playing a meaningful general role in European politics; that is the main reason he fought so stubbornly against the loss of Belgium after 1830.33 Metternich specifically called the Netherlands an intermediary body linking Austria  to Britain, through South and West Germany, forming a conservative phalanx to keep the restless powers, Russia and France, from weighing on the European center.34 Prussia, once its own conflicts with the Dutch were settled, considered the Netherlands a sphere of influence to be shared with England, linking Prussia and Britain. The other German princes looked at William, a member of the German Confederation as Grand Duke of Luxemburg, as their ally in preserving the independence of middle-sized and small states against Austria and Prussia.35 Even Russia considered its influence in the Netherlands important and for this reason promoted a marriage between the Dutch Crown Prince and a Russian Grand Duchess. In short, the United Netherlands served a number of functions as an intermediary body; most of these survived when its role as a barrier against France disappeared with the Belgian revolt of 1830.    Scandinavia (Denmark and Sweden-Norway) represents another intermediary body after 1815, but one to which balance-of-power and barrier-system considerations hardly apply at all. Once the territorial struggle between Sweden and Denmark over Norway was settled in 1814, the Baltic was opened to general, peaceful trade. None of the three neighboring great powers, Russia, Prussia, and Britain, tried to dominate it exclusively, but all were anxious to maintain free access through the straits and preserve the status quo. Scandinavia was thus effectively removed from great-power politics, ending the centuries-old Northern Question, which had been a major arena of conflict throughout the 18th century and the Napoleonic wars.   Neutral Switzerland is the clearest and most familiar example of an intermediary body in the peace settlement. It is important to correct an impression fostered by some Swiss historians that, in restoring and neutralizing the Swiss Confederation in the Vienna settlement, the great powers merely reestablished a traditional Swiss arrangement, with the intention of removing Switzerland entirely from European politics. Although the allies certainly based their work on Swiss tradition, the Swiss Confederation of 1815 was distinctly a great-power accomplishment something the cantons themselves, riddled by internal rivalries, could never have achieved on their own.38 Moreover, in guaranteeing the Swiss federal constitution, the allies were not attempting to remove Switzerland from the European states system, but to ensure that the Swiss played certain important roles within it. An independent, neutral, loosely federated Switzerland was intended to be part of the barrier system, to hold the Alpine passes, to provide a bulwark against revolution, and to afford a safe sphere of influence for its neighbors. Including the Swiss constitution in the Final Act of Vienna did not mean that no power could say anything about Swiss affairs, but that no one power could have an exclusive say; all had the right to hold Switzerland to the performance of its international obligations. From 1815 to 1848, Switzerland's neighbors made considerable use of their right of intervention in Switzerland, sometimes illegitimately, sometimes with good reason.   The German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) was an even more important intermediary body than Switzerland. The conventional textbook view is that the Bund represented a good way of organizing Germany for external defense against France and Russia without making it a threat to its neighbors. For internal purposes, however, it was considered unsatisfactory, since it kept the German territory divided into many small states dominated by Austria and Prussia, who used their control to repress liberalism, constitutionalism, and nationalism. This liberal-nationalist view contains some truth, but also considerable distortion, as scholars have long recognized. For one thing, the main foreign policy problem of Germany was not the external threat from France or Russia, but the internal rivalry between Austria and Prussia. Their 18th-century conflicts and wars had devastated Germany, destroyed all chances for reform in the old Empire, promoted both French and Russian influence in German affairs, and ultimately led to conquest by the French. The partnership between Austria and Prussia and their joint victory in the War of Liberation and the final campaign against France temporarily overcame this rivalry, but did not itself solve the problem. It remained alive during the Congress of Vienna, reaching a climax in the Polish-Saxon question; in 1814-1815, both French and Russian leaders still entertained ideas about regaining their former influence in German affairs by exploiting Austro-Prussian differences. Thus, from the standpoint of the European system, the main function of the German Confederation was to make the problem of Austro-Prussian rivalry manageable, which it did for almost half a century— a remarkable achievement. The whole of Germany became an intermediary body for Europe generally and for Austria and Prussia in particular. It was neither divided into separate Austrian and Prussian spheres, as Prussia wanted, nor was the Empire restored under Habsburg leadership. Instead, Germany was united into a princely confederation of independent states which Austria and Prussia had to manage jointly. This same approach served to make Germany's other foreign policy problems, also internal in origin, similarly manageable—it settled rivalries and territorial disputes between various smaller states, between estates and princes, between the beneficiaries and the victims of Napoleonic rule, between Catholics and Protestants, and even between different factions of Catholics and Protestants. It is equally mistaken to assume that the main forces that the German Confederation of 1815 needed to accommodate, but chose instead to repress, were liberal and nationalist ideas and movements stimulated by the French Revolution and the War of Liberation. These ideas were indeed repressed, especially in 1819-1820 and after; but they had only a narrow following in Germany anyway—among some students, intellectuals, and enlightened state officials. The prevailing political sentiment among rulers and masses alike was much more conservative in 1815 than in 1792. The War of Liberation was fought and won overwhelmingly by regular standing armies; as for the people (i.e., the peasants), they either did not rise at all in 1813 or did so mainly for God, king, and local country—not for a free and united Germany.t" Therefore the main realities of 1792- 1813 in Germany with which allied statesmen had to deal—aside from considerable destruction, residual Francophobia, and a heightened aversion to revolution42—were the results of the destruction of the old Empire and Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine.  The princely revolution of 1803 and after, not the French Revolution of 1789 or the German uprising of 1813, represented the dominant political fact of post-Napoleonic Germany. Lacking even the rudimentary bond of the old Empire and its ideal of government based on law rather than power, Germany now included centralized, territorially integrated states, run by new bureaucracies and supported by a new state-consciousness.   These states had already swallowed up the ecclesiastical principalities, mediatized and absorbed the small semi-independent princes, incorporated most free cities, and were working to uproot old estate, religious, local, and tribal loyalties.43 This not only cleared the stream bed of German history (as German historians say); it also created divisions more than unity, and promoted state patriotism more than German nationalism, at least in the short run.44 The main task of German statesmen in 1813-1815, rather than satisfying a popular cry for German unity, lay in bridging conflicts, not merely between states, but especially between the old dispossessed and the new bead possidentes   A further problem: although Germany was intended to be the main component of the defensive system against France, neither Austria nor Prussia wanted that direct responsibility. Both tried to put other states on the front line, distancing themselves from France as much as possible. Witness Austria's refusal to take back its former holdings in the Netherlands, its readiness to shed its old Southwest German territories, and its steady rejection of new territory or obligations on the Rhine; recall also Prussia's effort to annex the whole of Saxony and to compensate the King of Saxony with a new kingdom made up partly of Prussian territory on the Rhine. The rest of Germany, in other words, was supposed to be a buffer and intermediary body between France and Austria and Prussia. As a result, while the Bund was certainly designed to hold France in check, it did not take sensible Frenchmen long to realize that it might be penetrated politically, thereby restoring France's old influence. For years after 1815, French diplomats continued to consider Bavaria as France's natural ally, for example; some leading Bavarians, including the King, agreed with them.45 To be sure, France failed to exploit the opportunities. it had, and German public opinion even in formerly pro-French circles turned nationalist and Francophobe, as proved by the crisis of 1840.46 Yet, even after France lost its chance to regain its former influence and friends, the Bund never threatened France, and actually contributed to its security. Certainly it was a safer arrangement than a Germany united under either German great power, or under both of them. If Frenchmen resented the Confederation, it was for the same reasons they resented the whole settlement of 1815: not because it was a danger to France, but because they somehow considered it an insult and a humiliation. When all this is added up, it becomes clear that the Bund really functioned as a great multipurpose intermediary body in Central Europe. It both linked and separated all the parts of Germany, preserving their individual independence while enabling them to exist in the same space. It separated Germany as a whole from the rest of Europe, preventing the sort of outside intervention common in the 18th century, while linking it to Europe in various ways—to the other great powers, guarantors of the federal constitution through the Final Act of Vienna; to the Netherlands and Denmark, who were part of the Bund as owners of Luxemburg and Holstein; to Italy (Istria, Trieste, and the South Tyrol were members); and even to the Slav world (Bohemia and Carinthia). The Prussian and Austrian territories that were not part of the historic Reich (East and West Prussia, Posen, Galicia, Hungary, Dalmatia, Illyria, and Lombardy-Venetia) were not included, however, so that Austria's and Prussia's roles as European great powers were consciously separated from their functions as leaders of Germany. The Bund did not unify Germany; that would have been impossible in 1815, and dangerous at any time. But it did a reasonable job of providing for Germany, in Metternich's words, "Einigfeit ohne Einheit" concord without union.   In three areas of Europe—Italy, the Balkans, and Poland—the intermediary body interpretation of the 1815 settlement does not seem to work. Even here, however, closer examination alters the initial impression. Italy supposedly came under direct Austrian control in 1815. True, Austria gained Lombardy-Venetia and enjoyed strong dynastic and treaty links to much of the rest of Italy. Metternich used all his diplomatic skill, both in 1814-1815 and later, to try to exclude French and Russian influence. At the same time, Italy was deliberately organized to separate France and Austria, and Austria's leading influence never developed into exclusive control. Various attempts by Metternich to make it so (for ex ample, his efforts to create a Lega Italica, an Austrian-led Italian Confederation) failed in the face of Piedmontese and papal resistance.4 ? British influence and naval power remained important. The fact that Austria retained the lead in Italy for two decades after 1815 was due not so much to the peace settlement or Austrian power as to the fact that most Italian governments were even more conservative and fearful of revolution than Austria, and sought Austria's help in time of trouble. France had chances to compete successfully, but threw them away. Had Napoleon not come back from Elba and overthrown Louis XVIII in March 1815, the Bourbons would have been restored at Naples under royal French sponsorship, giving France the lead in southern Italy. In this and other ways, Napoleon's last adventure set back French policy in Italy for a generation. In any case, independent entities such as Sardinia-Piedmont and the Papal States functioned as intermediary bodies, separating France and Austria, making it harder for them to go to war (which was of considerable importance in 1831-32), and giving them common problems that they somehow had to approach jointly. By 1831, France and Austria were involved in an international conference over the Roman question. By the mid-1830s, Metternich was trying to limit French influence rather than to exclude it; and by the mid-i84os, he was actively trying to work with France in Italy. Although the Ottoman Empire in southeastern Europe was not formally included in the peace settlement, it functioned as an intermediary body between Austria and Russia. It is clear why no formal arrangement was reached: after three generations of growing rivalry in the Balkans48—a rivalry that reached its most dangerous stage for Austria in 1809-1812 with Russia's attempt to annex the Rumanian Principalities— both great powers found it wiser to leave the issue alone, since their relations were strained enough by other questions. Besides, any formal arrangement, such as a guarantee of Turkish territory, would run afoul of Russia's residual territorial claims on Turkey, as well as of traditional Russian interests, ambitions, and claims to a protectorate over the Orthodox Church in the Balkans. Moreover, throughout the first half of the 19th century, Russia's position vis-a-vis Turkey was far stronger than Austria's—militarily, strategically, and on ethnic and religious grounds. Thus, the only possible basis for general Austro-Russian cooperation in Europe (wanted by both sides) was conservative nonintervention in Turkey. So long as Russia was content to preserve the Ottoman Empire as a weak, inoffensive neighbor (which was most of the time), and to accept Austria as a junior partner in this, the two got along well. Whenever Russia seemed headed toward destroying Turkey or dominating it exclusively, it caused an Austro-Russian breach which, as in 1853-1855, could lead to the brink of war. The Balkans served as an intermediary body for other powers as well. In the new kingdom of Greece after 1830, Britain, France, and Russia competed and cooperated as supervisors,^ while internal Ottoman crises in the 1830s and 1840s made Turkey the central object of Concert diplomacy.   Poland does not fit the general pattern of 1815, of intermediary bodies separating and linking great powers. It was partitioned in 1772-1795 by Russia, Austria, and Prussia, although these powers knew this would cause trouble by giving them long common frontiers; in 1814-1815, it was re-partitioned in an even more dangerous way, bringing Russia deep into Central Europe. Everyone knew that the partition of Poland violated the rules and made Poland a problem for Europe. Many Austrian leaders admitted privately that the original partition had been a great mistake, and Castlereagh and Talleyrand argued in principle for restoring an independent Poland. But no one really believed in this possibility, and for good reasons. The weaknesses that had promoted Poland's demise in the 18th century had grown worse through war, devastation, and internal divisions. More important still, in 1815 an independent Poland would not have been a barrier to Russian expansion, but an integral part of it, just as an independent Ukraine would have served German imperialism if Germany had won the First World War. The plan Prince Adam Czartoryski presented to Alexander I in 1813 proposed, in fact, to join the kingdom of Poland permanently to Russia and to make it Russia's junior partner in dominating Central Europe.   Poland thus was not restored for much the same reasons as those for which the Holy Roman Empire was not restored: the attempt could not have succeeded, and would have constituted a dangerous power play by one state against the others. What Russia and Prussia actually tried to do in relation to Poland and Saxony was bad enough. The only way the Polish lands could serve intermediary functions after 1815 was the one actually employed: each of the partitioning powers promised to respect Polish nationality and culture and to grant its Polish territories a separate. 0 So far as international politics was concerned, while Poland represented a European problem and a danger to peace, especially in the revolts of 1830-1831 and 1863, in a curious and tragic way it was also a source of stability—the cement that helped hold the Holy Alliance powers together while simultaneously keeping them potential rivals. Even apparent exceptions like Poland, then, show how the 1815 settlement involved a network of intermediary bodies in Europe, designed to inhibit great-power conflict and to promote flexible interaction. The system did not make the smaller powers of Europe simply the tools and pawns of the great ones, as some have believed. One of the more striking aspects of the 1813-1815 negotiations is the genuine concern of the allies to ensure the independence of all states, including the smaller ones. The charge of greedy expansionism fits some smaller states (the United Netherlands, Bavaria, Sweden, Sardinia-Piedmont) better than any of the bigger ones. Nor did the European Concert and great-power solidarity, when they existed, mean that the desires and interests of small states could be ignored. Small states could get away with much resistance and obstruction, even in the face of united European pressure. Witness how Bavaria and Wurttemberg resisted the great powers in 1814-1816 with regard to the Bund and territorial questions, and how Holland and Belgium did so from 1831 to 1839. There has never been an era in European history before 1815-1848 or since that time when a small state could feel so confident that it would not be the target of conquest or annexation by some great power. This respect for small-state independence was not based on legitimist dogma, self-denial, or moral sentiments, but on a healthy realism—the recognition that buffers and barriers were needed all round, not just against France, and that the independence of great powers was intertwined with that of lesser states. In the 18th century, by contrast, smaller states had been pawns on the great-power chessboard, continual objects of compensation, exchange, and conquest, while those intermediary bodies that were in existence (the Holy Roman Empire, Scandinavia, Poland, Italy, Turkey) were spongy, riddled with internal weaknesses and rivalries, and thus were vulnerable targets for takeover or arenas of all-out conflict. https://www-cambridge-org.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/BE5FD9FE0FFEB389DC30A0493FA7B5CD/S0043887100010455a.pdf/19thcentury_international_system_changes_in_the_structure.pdf

Britain in 1815

Quotes:  The French Revolution had dealt a perhaps mortal blow to the divine right of kings; yet the representatives of this very doctrine were called upon to end the generation of bloodshed. In these circumstances, what is surprising is not how imperfect was the settlement that emerged, but how sane; not how “reactionary” according to the self-righteous doctrines of nineteenth-century historiography, but how balanced. It may not have fulfilled all the hopes of an idealistic generation, but it gave this generation something perhaps more precious: a period of stability which permitted their hopes to be realized without a major war or a permanent revolution. —Henry A. Kissinger

Concert of Europe:  Moreover, the realist claim that the European Concert rested on little more than traditional “balanceof-power” thinking—a grand strategic maxim that had already dominated European diplomacy for at least 100 years prior to the Concert—is a position that is no longer regarded as tenable in the vast majority of Concert scholarship. As Jennifer Mitzen recently put it, the realist perspective overlooks the fact that the leaders themselves intended to manage Europe together. They did not think that their redrawing of the map of Europe and redistribution of territory and political control . . . had the force to keep the peace. That is precisely why they chose to renew the alliance in November 1815 and insert an article in that treaty that called for consultation.   For all their ongoing disagreements over the Concert, diverse scholars have generally agreed that its architects viewed what they were doing as, in many ways, a repudiation of balance-of-power diplomacy, not a reaffirmation of it   Scholars of the liberal international relations persuasion, by contrast, treat the Concert as a primitive but successful version of a conflict-mediating international organization. Specifically, liberals characterize the Concert as either (1) a multilateral forum that decreased the difficulties of negotiation among many parties (transaction costs) while increasing the reliable information each could learn about one another in these negotiations (transparency) or (2) a particularly institutionalized version of a military alliance that contained novel provisions for limiting the exercise of raw power by its most-dominant members, Great Britain and Russia.   Against the liberals, characterizing the Concert as even a primitive international organization comparable to the United Nations or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) seems problematic. The Concert had no formal or permanent bureaucracy and— outside of the initial treaties and whatever notes, minutes, or declarations individual delegations decided to write down—codified virtually nothing about its procedures, processes, and principles. In fact, a number of scholars attribute the Concert’s effectiveness not to robust collective security guarantees or institutionalized commitments but to a distinct lack of these features that allowed it to remain flexible and adaptive to changing circumstances   The Concert of Europe was thus a collection of often informal but nonetheless influential rules agreed to by the great powers of Europe—Great Britain, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and, later, France—after the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.15 Great Britain was the dominant power in terms of wealth and actualized resources, while Russia was destined to play a large role in the post- Napoleonic system as the polity with the most potential power. Although Austria could not rival either of these states in material power, its centrality to the fate of the German states in the heart of Europe, combined with the famous diplomatic tact of its foreign minister, Prince Klemens von Metternich, assured it a first-tier position at the peacemaking table. Along with Metternich, the Concert’s principal architects included Great Britain’s powerful foreign secretary, Viscount Castlereagh, and the eccentric and unpredictable tsar of Russia himself, Alexander I. The chief minister of Prussia, Prince Karl August von Hardenburg, played an important but comparably lesser role in negotiating the final settlements, as did the foreign minister to the newly restored Bourbon Monarchy in France, Prince Charles Maurice de Talleyrand.   In crafting a settlement following the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, these leaders sought to address and forestall two interrelated concerns for the future: (1) subsequent bids for continental hegemony that could be as destructive and nearly as successful as Napoleon’s had been and (2) radical, revolutionary movements that might externalize aggression and trigger system-wide regime change, as France’s had during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. In reality, the first was merely the latest manifestation of an old and recurring fear of a single power dominating all of Europe, addressed previously in the major peace settlements of Westphalia in 1648 and Utrecht in 1713. Yet that fear had been given new life by the more novel and potent threat of revolutionary nationalism that had transformed revolutionary France into a menace that had almost achieved total hegemony over Europe   The leaders who first gathered in 1814 to forge a settlement that would end those wars were resolved to prevent anything like this from happening again. Collectively, the foundational principles produced in these negotiations are known as the “Vienna System,” a reference to the famous Congress of Vienna of 1813–1814. That monthslong meeting of the major foreign policy representatives of Europe’s polities produced only a small portion of the rules that came to define the Vienna System. But it fostered much of the spirit that led to the remarkable instances of cooperation in the decades thereafter.17 The major landmarks of the Vienna System and their significance for the emergent order now referred to as the Concert of Europe are summarized in Table 1 What Were the Concert’s Foundational Principles? Much ink has been spilled attempting to capture the European Concert’s most-important principles, and one could easily cull a list of ten or 20 distinct rules from a handful of Concert sources. Nonetheless, this paper highlights only four such rules—for two reasons. First, I contend that these rules were the most general and foundational and laid the groundwork for smaller, morecontext-specific ones. Second, the four I highlight are the principles that have the firmest grounding not only in the best-known secondary historical sources but also in the texts of the treaties themselves. The first foundational principle of the Vienna System involved designating special status for the most- powerful actors in the system in the first place. Although it is now commonplace to differentiate “great powers” from other states, this differentiation would not have been recognized in Europe prior to the 19th century. But in the post- Napoleonic settlements, and for the first time as a collectivity in history, (1) the great-power victors of the wars officially granted themselves new status as a separate, more important class of states uniquely fit to dictate the fate of Europe. Only they would be responsible for maintaining peace on the continent and determining what that peace would look like.18 This principle was first consecrated in a secret clause added to the First Treaty of Paris (May 1814), which noted that “the relations from whence a real and permanent Balance of Power in Europe shall be derived, shall be regulated . . . by the principles determined upon by the Allied Powers amongst themselves.”19 This differentiation was not a mere abstraction born in the heads of statesmen. It also reflected a new material and social reality in which vast military power could be harnessed by the regimes with the largest populations, for the first time in modern history, through the advent of mass conscription.   If the first rule accomplished a necessary preliminary task, the second articulated what was to become the single most important principle at the core of the Concert: (2) an acknowledgement by the great powers that only together would they establish, defend, and redefine as necessary the political and territorial status quo on the continent. Simply put, no unilateral territorial changes would be permissible without consent from (or at least consultation with) the great powers acting in concert. This principle was codified across a number of the important agreements and was historically novel in many ways. In the Treaty of Chaumont (March 1814), the four great powers pledged to only negotiate a final peace with France as a collective, single unit. They also committed to this collective for at least 20 years after the war’s conclusion should the French revolutionary threat reemerge—a commitment of unprecedented length for any state, let alone the most powerful states, to make at the time.21 The Congress of Vienna produced the Vienna Final Act (June 1815), an agreement that was notable for packaging all of the smaller territorial settlements negotiated at the congress into a single larger treaty. As Jennifer Mitzen has argued, “each individual agreement was given the additional endorsement of being part of the overall plan for continental peace and stability. Through the Final Act, European stability was made indivisible, and it was made the responsibility of all signatories.” Yet the great powers also recognized that acknowledging their responsibility to act in concert was only a first step, not the last, in ensuring perpetual stability on the continent. They therefore built into this system (3) a loose mechanism for consultation and dispute resolution through periodic great-power meetings. 23 Specifically, the Quadruple Alliance (November 1815) stated, To consolidate the connections which at the present moment so closely unite the Four Sovereigns for the happiness of the world, the High Contracting Parties have agreed to renew their Meetings as fixed periods, under either the immediate auspices of the Sovereigns themselves, or by their respective Ministers, for the purpose of consulting upon their common interests, and for consideration of the measures which at each of those periods shall be considered the most salutary for the repose and prosperity of Nations and for the maintenance of the Peace of Europe   If conflicts arose, the great powers would meet and then negotiate among themselves to reach some resolution, resorting to the use of force only as agreed to together and only when necessary to contain a larger disruption 7 to the status quo.25 At the first of these meetings in 1818, held in Aachen, Prussia,26 the powers formally expanded their commitment to remain united on matters related to the French threat to all European security concerns more generally.   It was at this same 1818 congress that the great powers formally ended the occupation of France, mandated under the Second Treaty of Paris (November 1815). More significantly, they welcomed their former revolutionary adversary—now safely under the rule of the restored monarchy—into their great-power consortium. The nowfive great powers then jointly declared that “[t]he intimate union established between the Monarchs, who are joint parties to this System, by their own principles, no less than by the interest of their peoples, offers to Europe the most sacred pledge of its future tranquility.”28 This declaration not only reiterated their previous pledge to act only in concert but also indicated the addition of another general principle to the Vienna System: (4) in assessing polities across Europe that would seek the recognitions of sovereignty and the protections built into the Vienna System, the great powers would henceforth look favorably only upon those with nonrevolutionary and conservative (non-liberal) domestic political institutions.   This principle is more difficult than the others to pinpoint in the official treaties. Yet careful examination reveals its influence—even as an undercurrent—on many of the era’s most-important documents.29 Concert scholarship most frequently highlights the so-called “Holy Alliance” (November 1815), a brief and vague agreement formalized by Austria, Russia, and Prussia while they were in Paris to negotiate the second peace with France. The document makes seemingly little reference to regime type.30 Yet Concert historians identify its significance not in what it actually says but in the way it was later repurposed by Metternich as a justification for great-power intervention against liberal revolution.31 Whatever form it took across different documents, this general principle represented an important break from past practice in that it sanctioned great-power interference in the domestic affairs of other European states. As Andreas Osiander explains, it was the first attempt in the history of the states system of Europe to provide an abstract criterion for membership of that system—the earlier criterion of Christianity had only been a If conflicts arose, the great powers would meet and then negotiate among themselves to reach some resolution, resorting to the use of force only as agreed to together and only when necessary to contain a larger disruption to the status quo. 8 necessary, not a sufficient, condition for membership. It was in this capacity that, at Vienna, the concept did have a certain impact: the prominence given to it contributed, perhaps decisively, to the non-re-establishment of earlier non-dynastic actors (Genoa, Venice, Poland). At the same time, it helped to prevent the destruction of another (Saxony).   The episodes Osiander refers to are illustrative: In and after the peace negotiations, the rejection of unilateral conquest (Concert rule 2) was often applied selectively to protect only the autonomy of “traditional” regimes (Saxony, for example), while liberal regimes (Genoa, for instance) were either left to fend for themselves or absorbed by larger autocratic states.    When combined with the rule of great-power supremacy, then, this membership principle provided the powers justification for near-constant involvement in the domestic affairs of polities across Europe.34 Yet events would soon reveal that not all the powers were as enthusiastic about this principle as others. In hindsight, it appears that its ambiguity in the codified agreements obscured a divide between the two more-liberal western states, Great Britain and France, and the three conservative eastern powers, Austria, Russia, and Prussia—but specifically between Castlereagh and Metternich—over how to interpret a stated preference for traditional regimes and how far to push its implementation.   Input:  Order as great-power agreement on a set of informal rules 1. Great powers are designated special status 2. Great powers pledge to uphold territorial status quo in concert and refrain from unilateral territorial opportunism 3. Great powers agree to keep their collectivity together through periodic future meetings where necessary 4. Great powers privilege nonrevolutionary conservative regimes as the most legitimate polities worthy of autonomy and protection (not universal)   Output:  Order as patterned and self-reinforcing behaviors or outcomes 1. Frequent staging of great-power diplomatic meetings to address crises or settle great-power disputes a. Avoided open humiliation of great powers b. Rapid assimilation of new or reconstituted polities into the system 2. Low incidence of armed conflict 3. High territorial stability a. Many instances of individual great-power restraint b. Development of great-power spheres-of-influence policing c. Successful creation of novel neutral or buffer zones 4. Frequent uncertainty and disagreement over the Concert’s relationship with revolution and regime type (selfdestabilizing)   Given the first two demonstrable effects of the Concert’s principles on behavior, the third effect likely comes as little surprise: an unprecedented degree of territorial stability in Europe. Simply put, between 1815 and 1853, Europe’s political borders changed very little, especially when compared with similar eras in the 18th and 20th centuries, as well as the later 19th century. Yet we can also observe three more specific patterns associated with this broader outcome.49 First, each great power repeatedly restrained itself from territorial opportunism in favor of preserving Concert unity.50 Instances of the individual great powers practicing restraint are abundant.51 Russia repeatedly refrained from taking advantage of the declining Ottoman Empire at the urging of its Concert allies, most notably exercising restraint during the Greek Wars of Independence, in the Mehemet Ali crises in Egypt, and in the settlement terms of the numerous Russo-Turkish Wars throughout the century.52 Great Britain endorsed the neutralization of the Netherlands when it could have easily taken it as a satellite.53 Even France—the great power most vocal about overturning major elements of the 1815 settlement as the century wore on—often demonstrated remarkable control in the conduct of its foreign policy, especially given its leaders’ publicly stated territorial ambitions. Second, a de facto spheres-of-influence system emerged among the great powers, a development that was a major component of the Troppau and Laibach congresses of 1820–1821.55 Charles Kupchan elaborates on what this arrangement looked like in practice: The power in question did not have a free hand in these spheres, but other members tended to defer to its preferences. Britain oversaw the low countries, Iberian peninsula, and North America, while Russia’s sphere extended to parts of eastern Europe, Persia, and Ottoman territory. Austria held sway in northern Italy and jointly managed the German confederation with Prussia. France’s reach was initially curtained after its defeat, but it gradually came to enjoy special influence in the southern and eastern Mediterranean. By recognizing that individual members had particularly salient interests in specific areas, the designation of spheres of influence preempted disputes that might have otherwise jeopardized group cohesion. Such spheres helped manage and contain crises in the periphery by effectively apportioning regional responsibilities among Concert members.56 The end result was a system in which each power maintained a sphere, and other Concert members recognized that state’s legitimacy to act as it deemed necessary within that sphere.57 And because the size of these spheres “tracked rather closely [with] their relative military capabilities,” each power felt relatively satisfied most of the time with the amount of territory entrusted to its control by the great-power consortium.   That the great powers were particularly successful in setting up buffer zones between them is a third and final component of the Concert’s larger territorial stability. In creating political entities to serve as buffers, the architects of the Vienna System sought to strike the right balance between forging polities weak enough to not threaten the powers’ security but strong enough to deter the powers from the temptations of unilateral opportunism. The best-known and most-important success story here was the creation of the German Confederation at the Congress of Vienna.59 Yet the powers achieved similar successes with neutral buffers in the form of the Swiss Confederation, Scandinavia, and the Kingdom of the United Netherlands   These three patterned outcomes—frequent meetings, low violence, high territorial stability—all fed back into strengthening the Concert system and great-power adherence to its core principles. The fourth did not. Instead, this outcome—an increasing divide between the powers over whether and how to respond to liberal revolutions across the continent—likely played at least some part in the Concert’s eventual demise. It stemmed, as discussed earlier, from a lack of clarity in the initial agreements regarding the anti-liberal membership principle, as Castlereagh and Metternich each likely believed that his own interpretation had won the day in the 1815 settlements. Yet this only served to temporarily mask what were actually significant differences over the Concert’s role in shaping domestic outcomes as much as international ones.   These differences became alarmingly clear once liberal revolutions broke out across multiple European polities in 1820.61 The eastern powers immediately demanded a congress to organize a concerted response. Yet Great Britain (through Castlereagh) demurred, arguing that unless revolutions clearly threatened international tranquility, they were outside of the Concert’s purview. With Castlereagh’s absence at the Congresses of Troppau and Laibach (Ljubljana), Metternich led the eastern powers in making sure their own interpretation carried the day. They jointly declared in the Troppau Protocol that States which have undergone a change of Government due to revolution, the results of which threaten other states, ipso facto cease to be members of the European Alliance, and remain excluded from it until their situation gives guarantees for legal order and stability. If, owing to such situations, immediate danger threatens other states, the Powers bind themselves, by peaceful means, or if be by arms, to bring back the guilty state into the bosom of the Great Alliance.6   Uk didnt agree: This constituted a clear break between the Concert’s two foremost architects over one of its foundational principles, a difference of opinion and interpretation between the eastern and western Concert powers that would never be reconciled.   From this point on, the three eastern powers continuously (though often only sporadically) used the Concert to justify a doctrine of conservative and anti- revolutionary intervention. Likewise, this doctrine was continuously opposed (though not always loudly) by Great Britain and, soon thereafter, France. France’s revolution in 1830—coupled with the significant 1832 Reform Act in Britain—installed considerably more-liberal governments in Paris and London. In Great Britain, this included Lord Palmerston, the bombastic and powerful foreign and then prime minister who would almost singlehandedly control British foreign policy for the next 35 years. Palmerston was an unapologetic liberal and an interventionist. Accordingly, he not only continued Castlereagh’s tradition of opposing concerted anti-liberal interventions but also began lending rhetorical and even material support to pro-liberal revolutionary causes abroad. These actions, often undertaken with the support of France, unsurprisingly provoked Metternich and the eastern powers to double down on their anti-revolutionary interventionist practices, eroding at least some of the powers’ trust in the Concert system and each other.6   Why did it end? Undeniably, an ideological rift did develop between East and West from the 1820s onward, and the Holy Alliance and nonintervention became convenient symbols and slogans in the resulting debate. Yet concert diplomacy continued to function. It did so because a great-power consensus persisted that transcended political ideology. . . . Despite ideological divergences, the European powers still agreed upon the necessity of peace among themselves and accepted concert diplomacy as the means to manage crises that might jeopardize that peace. Furthermore, some of the Concert’s greatest successes— for example, fostering Russian restraint in the Greek and Turkish Wars, deterring unilateral great-power opportunism against the crumbling Ottoman Empire, and successfully limiting the system-wide effects of additional liberal revolutions in France—came in the years after the Troppau and Laibach congresses where this rupture supposedly occurred. Instead, the strongest perspective on the Concert’s demise splits the difference between the others and focuses on two mid-century events: the liberal wave of revolutions across Europe in 1848 and the Crimean War of 1853–1856.71 The 1848 revolutions seemed almost perfectly designed to fulfill Metternich’s worst fears about the possible effects of liberal uprisings. While France had already succumbed to a liberal revolution once before in the Concert era (in 1830), at least a version of the monarchy had once again been restored (albeit a more liberal and limited one). This was not to be in 1848, as France declared itself a republic for the first time since Napoleon’s wars, and in fact installed that leader’s nephew—the erratic populist, Louis Napoleon—as its first president. Uprisings in Vienna forced Metternich’s resignation and flight from Austria, an event that galvanized additional liberal successes in Prussia, Italy, Hungary, and elsewhere.   The revolutions mortally wounded the Concert in several ways. They completed the cycle of pushing the last of its architects from power, thus entrusting the Vienna System to leaders who had little prior experience with it or trust in one another. This setback would have been surmountable except for the fact that this new generation of leaders was the first in the Concert era significantly more accountable to—and thus often preoccupied with—their domestic publics. Concert-like conferences continued in the decades after the 1856 peace settlement—and often even succeeded in resolving conflict. Yet the system left in place was no longer capable of forging consensus on those issues that were the most controversial and important to the great powers. A shell of the Vienna System remained—agreement over great-power supremacy and a weakened version of the norm for continuing multilateral meetings, two of the system’s four foundational principles. But transnational liberalization had, by this time, rid the system of any conservative solidarity between the Concert’s elites, thus destroying one Concert principle.77 Most importantly, the principle most central to the system’s effectiveness—that of settling European political and territorial questions in concert—had clearly withered away by 1856.   Explanation of congresses: http://www.historydiscussion.net/world-history/europe/history-of-the-concert-of-europe-1815-22-world-history/1426

19th century flashcards: 1. Nation-states were dedicated to conservatism after Napoleon. What is conservatism? Conservatism emphasizes traditions such as monarchy, aristocracy, and religion as society's bedrocks. European conservatives in the 19th century believed in gradual change and supported hierarchical rule by birth and wealth, strongly rejecting the principle of natural rights and social contract theory.   2. Romantism: Predominant from 1800-1850, Romantism was a European cultural reaction to the Enlighthenment's emphasis on reason. Distinctly optimistic rather than coldly calculating. Romantisim appealed to emotion and feeling. The romantic cultural movement emphasized change, progress and the individual.    3. How did the Congress of Vienna restore the governments of states who'd had their leaders deposed by the French Revolution or Napoleon?  The Congress of Vienna was dedicated to the principle of legitimacy. This meant restoring the crown of France to the Bourbons in the form of Louis XVI's younger brother Louis XVIII. In addition, the House of Orange was restored in Holland, Bourbon kings were returned to their thrones in Naples and Spain, and the House of Savoy was restored in Sardinia-Piedmont.    4. What punitive measures did the Congress of Vienna take against France? The Congress of Vienna wanted to weaken France's offensive military capability, while avoiding any action which could breed resentment among the French and lead to further warfare. The Congress returned France to its pre-revolutionary borders and imposed an indemnity of 700 million francs. It did not require France to give up its army or overseas territories.  5. What territorial arrangements did the Congress create to keep France contained? The Congress surrounded France with strengthened nations. The Dutch Republic and Austrian Netherlands were united into a single kingdom. In Italy, Piedmont, Savoy and the kingdom of Sardinia were united to establish a check on France's southern frontier. The congress recognized Switzerland as an independent nation. Prussia gained territories along the Rhine to check French incursions into Germany.  6. What was the German Confederation? Established at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the German Confederation was a cooperative agreement comprising 39 German states, and was dominated by Austria and Prussia. The purpose was to coordinate policy and mutual protection in Germany.  7. Who was the Quadruple Alliance?  Prussia, Austria Russia and Britain