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

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