Historically, there are laws that govern people, and people that follow those laws. One can draw parallels to this in regards to diplomacy. There are diplomatic systems that govern diplomats, statesmen, and these statesmen follow the diplomatic code of the time. In medieval Europe, there existed the chivalric code, in which knights followed. The same can be said for the statesmen of nations. There have been many diplomatic systems, particularly in Europe, that have impacted the diplomacy of many nations arguably for more than a millennium. These diplomatic systems, however, varied from time to time. There was an unofficial ‘code of the time’ so to say before there was an official system. For example, in the Middle Ages, the Pope was utilized as an arbiter and judge for various events, and in Renaissance Italy, there existed an official system of balance of power to try to protect the Italian states from foreign invaders like the French and Austrians. However, the first official diplomatic system came with the close of the Thirty Years War, resulting in the Treaty of Westphalia. With this, the old diplomacy of the Italian microcosm became something much larger, fully extending into Europe as a whole, with the whole notion of ‘balance of power’. This system lasted for quite a while, maintaining a balance in the never-ending European cycle of warfare. For example, the War of the Spanish Succession and the War of the Austrian Succession, coming at the end of the 17th century, saw European powers such as France vying for extreme power of controlling both France and Spain, but the other European powers would not have this, so there was a mutual agreement made that the Bourbon in charge of Spain would have no claims to France in any way. This system shattered when Napoleon wreaked havoc across the continent. This sole power in France conquered, at one point, the entirety of Europe, aside from Great Britain, in its Continental System. It isn’t until Napoleon is defeated, that order is restored in 1814, and finally 1815, with the final battle of Waterloo. With this defeat came peace, and with this peace there needed to be a new system in place of the old system that had crashed down a decade and a half ago. With the Congress of Vienna came the Concert of Europe system.
The diplomatic system can be analogous to a computer system. For example, a system begins to break down when said system is not operating as it was upon release. The system truly breaks down when it is no longer operational. The Congress of Vienna, and the subsequent Concert system at goals upon ‘release’ are as follows:
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- Safeguard the general security of Europe by creating a balance of power such as would render it impossible for any single nation to contemplate a successful war.
- Have periodic conferences between the great powers
- Suppress the new liberal movement and spirit of the age (nationalism).
This system, at its greatest praise, is said to have ended in 1914. However, on the other side of the spectrum, it is said to have ended only 7 years, 1822, after the signing of the Congress of Vienna. So, then the question arises, was the Concert of Europe system that resulted from the Congress of Vienna a successful method of conducting diplomacy in the 19th century? Defining some terms here, successful meaning it was able to achieve its aims substantially, as well as have a lasting effect on the diplomacy of the world.
There is one view that the Concert of Europe was not successful at all throughout the 19th century, and thus didn’t play a major role in the way diplomacy was conducted. 1822 is the exact date and the earliest which it is argued that the system broke down. In a book entitled ‘The Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity: 1812-1822’ by Harold Nicolson, he gives multiple arguments to why the system broke the way it did. One of these arguments is that the system broke down because of the withdrawal of Great Britain from the Holy Alliance, as well as the unwillingness for Great Britain to uphold any treaties in a manner that saw Britain administering any part of Europe; “The British government welcomed the method of holding periodical consultations between the main allies...beyond that they were not prepared to go” (Nicolson, 265-266). This seems rather familiar to the topics studied in history surrounding the United States and its involvement in world affairs following World War I, and suggests that perhaps Britain is the first case of a major power having the possibility to progress itself further onto the world stage—becoming a world superpower beyond all other states’ expectations—then backs down, being a humble, isolationist nation with no intent to be greedy. It seems then that this is a reason for the conglomeration of nations to come together to discuss the borders and rules and regulations of Europe that is the Congress of Vienna. And what Nicolson is trying to convey by saying that Britain will not go beyond ‘periodical consultations’ is that they were already of the mindset that Britain’s part is only to play along with the others. Using the analogy of a concert here, in a typical concert, all the instruments are playing along, and in an instrument group, for example, trombones, they all play together their part. With their part, each player assumes the role of playing what is presented in front of them, sheet music. However, occasionally, some of these players will play the wrong note at the wrong time. This seems bad at first, but only if the player is acting alone. It is with a concert, that the player’s mistake will be drowned out. Thus, in reality, most of the concert is played with mistakes, but the other players make up for the mistake by playing the correct notes. Closing in on this analogy, Britain is a player in the concert, and they view that their only role in this concert is to correct the mistakes of the other players, i.e., correct the mistakes of Troppau, or Belgium, or Greece, or Crimea. Britain will not go beyond playing the best notes—they will not have a solo.
The conference system laid out by the Congress of Vienna was created to involve all the great powers of Europe (in the 19th century). This was accomplished to some extent throughout the 19th century, as there were “twenty-six conferences attended by representatives of all the great powers” (Bridge and Bullen, 4). However, a key concept that Nicolson is pointing out to his readers is that all the conference system did was provide a system in which the great powers would discuss topics of significant interest, yet not act upon them, as exemplified by a statement made by a statesman from Britain at the time, Castlereagh: “The British government...were not prepared to stand by engagements beyond the text and import of the treaties signed” (Nicolson, 266). The British government was just merely standing by in anything that unfolded in the early half of the 19th century. Nicolson addresses that Canning, another statesman from Britain, “refused to accept the French theory that intervention was justifiable...he refused to even attend a Conference on the Spanish question...he similarly refused to allow Great Britain to be represented at a Conference on the Eastern question”, as well as the fact that Canning took independent steps towards foreign policy on those of the Spanish colonies and Brazil (Nicolson 275). However, as any historiographically minded individual knows, the Crimean War involved the British, so why then were they willing to get involved? One possibility is the changing in leadership and diplomatic statesmen during the years leading up to the Crimean War. For example, Hardenberg (Prussian statesman) and Castlereagh died in 1822, Tsar Alexander I of Russia in 1825, Canning in 1827, Austrian Emperor Francis in 1835, Talleyrand (French statesman) in 1838, King Frederick William III of Prussia in 1840, and in 1852 the Duke of Wellington. And to close it all off, Metternich, a prominent statesman in the Austrian empire, was no longer in power by the turn of the half-century (Nicolson, 275-276). This not only suggests to some extent why Britain was willing to be involved in the war (at least from the new perspective of new leaders), but also suggests that because of the death of all of these great diplomats and statesmen, the prospect of the conference system was not able to be further improved upon and developed in a strategic and precise manner.
Nicolson then argues that the final blow to the Concert of Europe was after the Conference of Troppau (discussed means of suppressing the revolution in Naples, 1820) wherein 170,000 Russian and Austrians entered northern Italy, which the British government replied with protest (271). This, as it seems, was the final straw for Great Britain as she entered her era of splendid isolationism. Nicolson also points out that the Greek War of Independence had begun (271). This was the Eastern question that all the powers were arguing over, and the pot finally boiled over, leaving Turkey and Greece to have a war, facilitating further nationalistic sentiment of the other peoples in the Balkans, leading to Balkanization later in the 19th century and early 20th. Britain it seemed was floating farther and farther away from Europe, which is analogous to the United States slipping into isolationist tendencies following the first world war, drawing parallels between Congress of Vienna leading to the Crimean War plus all subsequent wars following until World War I, and the Treaty of Versailles leading to the Second World War. It is possible to compare the two because impact and vivacity of war is directly proportional to the size of a country. In the 19th century having a war between four or five Great Powers wasn’t that big of a deal as they were localized and smaller. However, in the 20th century having a war between four or five Great Powers is a way bigger deal, as the size of countries (generally) got bigger, and thus resulted in bigger wars. Although rather unconventional with the view of when the concert system dissipated, the view that 1822 was the farthest the system achieved in its missions is a historiographical perspective with very little historian analysis of the case.
In contrast to the view that the Concert of Europe system broke down very quickly, there is a second view which suggests that it is more lenient than its counterpart in regard to the requirements for the system to succeed. However, there is no general consensus of a given date in which the system broke down immediately. There are some historians that hold the belief that it was the first war that destroyed the system—the Crimean War—while there are some that hold the belief that it was much later, with the start of the first World War. Starting with the Crimean War in 1853, prior to it, Europe experienced a peace that was generally not seen in the history of the continent. There were revolutions, such as those in France in 1830 and in 1848 revolutions all over Europe. However, these revolutions did not really do anything to upset the scale of equilibrium. Even so, in 1853 Crimea was a far-away place for most countries, even for the country it took place in—Russia. Russia is a country that all of the European powers are afraid of. That is why the countries of France and Britain, with the help of the Ottomans, go against Russia’s expansionism in and around the Black Sea, which can be summed up by Russia’s natural gravitation towards warm water ports. However, still, the Crimean War was a war, and that is what the Congress of Vienna, with the creation of the Concert of Europe system, tried to prevent. One historian, Richard B. Elrod, in his journal article entitled ‘The Concert of Europe: A Fresh Look at an International System’, goes as far to say that “the European concert...constituted an essential ingredient for peace and stability between the Congress of Vienna and the Crimean War” (Elrod 160), thus he is assuredly of the belief that the concert system ended with the Crimean War. He goes further and states that it was a “functioning and promising system of international relations” (160), contrasting completely with Nicolson. Elrod lays out that the rules of concert diplomacy were first to “consist only of the great powers”, secondly that “territorial changes in Europe were subject...to the great powers”, and finally that “the great powers must not be humiliated” (163-166). With this rule set the system did fully sustain its rules. Rule number one was maintained throughout the first half of the 19th century, and even beyond (Japan beating Russia may be a miscalculation however). The second rule is a bit harder to come to a conclusion. On one hand, it could be said that this rule was maintained throughout the years, especially up to the Crimean War. However, as when 1861 rolls around, with the formation of Italy, then there are some questions. Italy was not a great power in the sense of being accepted as a great power by the other great powers. However, France helped Italy secure land in Austria in exchange for the provinces of Savoy and Nice, which legitimizes Italy as a nation and its prospect for gaining land. By the time the Balkan states declared their independence wars from the Ottomans, the concert system was but a shadow of its former self, only there as some sort of tradition on the part of the great powers. The final rule put forth by Elrod can be clearly seen in history whether a nation humiliates another. For example, with Prussia and Austria, in their war in 1866, utterly defeated Austria and maintained a greater control over the German peoples in Germany. In the Franco-Prussian war it is a clear distinction that Prussia humiliates France, even occupying Paris for quite some time before relinquishing control of it. With these rules, there are varying time frames in which the concert system appeared to have fallen apart, so it’s not clear what rules one should use to define when the concert system collapsed.
Maybe one shouldn’t use rules at all and look at the failure of the system from a systemic viewpoint. Elrod says that “the Concert dealt with the symptoms rather than the causes” (169). There were underlying problems with the Concert that were invisible to the people creating the system. These problems were that the Concert was not able to adhere to the changes that Europe was about to face, i.e., nationalism and liberalism. There was some pushback from the Holy Alliance, an alliance that was intended to be a reactionary force to nationalism and liberalism. However, this did not really accomplish anything, as by the turn of the half-century, the alliance was in shatters with the outbreak of the Crimean War. The Concert was not able to adapt to the nationalism and liberalism that Europe was being swept over by because, for the most part, nationalism tips the balance of power in a way that it is almost impossible to adapt. For example, the independence wars in the Balkans create an Ottoman Empire that is crumbling at the seams. This creates a dynamic power shift in the region, as before there was a stable entity keeping the region together, but now there was a region that seemed to be a disaster waiting to happen. The Concert was not able to keep up with this power dynamic because the nationalism involved in both the countries which declared independence, as well as the nation-states that were now forming a majority on the European continent, meant that the countries were acting out of pure self-interest for the most part. An example with the formation of Italy is with France only helping them in exchange for territories—pure self-interest in the nation of France. Historian Paul W. Schroeder, in his article entitled ‘The ‘Balance of Power’ System in Europe, 1815-1871’, mentions that it is an anomaly of sorts for there to be a prolonged peace which Europe experienced in the first half of the 19th century, as war, Schroeder maintains, is the norm for Europe from the 15th to the 18th century (Schroeder, 21). Schroeder asks the question of how this is possible, and one possibility is with the introduction of an idea by W. N. Medlicott who says that “it was the peace which maintained the Concert and not the Concert that maintained peace” (qtd. in Elrod, 260). The creation of the concert system was untenable at its foundations. The foundational integrity of the system didn’t have any strong backing. As previously mentioned, the system was somewhat abandoned by one of the statesmen that had an integral part in the creation of the system—Castlereagh. The system they created was akin to a boat with holes in it, or a boat that used very thin wood for the hull. There was something there that they made that looked like it could float, it looked like it could maintain stability in Europe, however, once actually put out into the water, it slowly started to sink, eventually leading to a point wherein it started to collapse in on itself.
Thus, a new question emerges if the great powers at the time were following a structured and efficient diplomatic system, or were they just extemporizing, making new rules along the way. Was the system intentional or functional? The great powers improvising could be a good explanation for the creation of Weltpolitik by Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. Maybe Metternich, conservative statesman from Austria, maintained his diplomatic stance from the way he viewed his country—a conservative, somewhat authoritarian empire. Maybe even then the diplomatic system put in place by the Congress of Vienna did nothing to shape the way those that conducted diplomacy conducted their diplomacy. Maybe Cardinal Richelieu’s raison d’etat was still in effect even after Napoleon conquered half of Europe.
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