Abstract
The question posed by the title of this essay must appear a bit unreal. However much historians have differed in interpreting various aspects of the Vienna settlement and the nineteenth century international system founded upon it, they have never doubted that these included a balance of power as an essential ingredient.1 Irrefutable evidence seems to come directly from the peacemakers at Vienna themselves; in everything from official treaties to private letters and diaries, they spoke of peace and stability in terms of a proper balance (“juste équilibre”) achieved by a redistribution of forces (“répartition des forces”), or in similar balance of power phrases.2 Not only did their language seem to make the balance of power a vital goal and working principle of the settlement but so did their conduct and the outcome of their efforts. What else were the statesmen at Vienna doing if not restoring a balance of power in Europe by redistributing territories and peoples? What can account for international peace and stability after 1815 if not that the European balance of power was restored after a generation of French revolutionary expansion and Napoleonic imperialism, this time supported and strengthened through a system of alliances, treaty guarantees, and Concert diplomacy?
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Notes
This approach is quite common. Both Gulick’s and Kissinger’s works employ it, as does F. H. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace (Cambridge, 1963); and Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society (New York, 1977). Richard Little, “Deconstructing the Balance of Power: Two Traditions of Thought,” Review of Lnternational Studies, 15 (1989), 87–100
E. B. Haas, “The Balance of Power: Prescription, Concept, or Propaganda,” World Politics, 5 (1953), 442–77
P. W. Schroeder, “The Nineteenth Century System: Balance of Power or Political Equilibrium?” Review of International Studies, 15 (1989), 136–37.
Frank A. J. Szabo, “Prince Kaunitz and the Balance of Power,” International History Review, 1 (1979), 399–408.
Various efforts to measure power and power relationships quantitatively undertaken by political scientists, including such distinguished scholars as Robert North, Richard Rosecrance, A. F. K. Organski, J. David Singer and Melvin Small, and others, have encountered grave conceptual and methodological problems— e.g., how to quantify and weigh the impact of such factors as industry, natural resources, level of education, technological advancement, and national unity and morale on state power. William B. Moul, “Measuring the ‘Balances of Power’: A Look at Some Numbers,” Review of International Studies, 15 (1989), 101–21
See, for example, Carsten Holbraad, The Concert of Europe: A Study in German and British International Theory 1815–1914 (London, 1970); Richard B. Elrod, “The Concert of Europe: A Fresh Look at an International System,” World Politics, 28 (1976), 159–74.
For an example of such rationalization, see Michael Sheehan, “The Place of the Balancer in Balance of Power Theory,” Review of International Studies, 15 (1989), 123–34.
John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt, Vol. 1, The Tears of Acclaim (New York, 1969); Paul L. C. Webb, “Sea Power in the Ochakov Affair of 1791,” International History Review, 2 (1980), 13–33.
Besides Webster and Bourne on Palmerston’s policy (n. 8 above), see Charles H. Pouthas, “La politique de Thiers pendant la crise orientale de 1840,” Revue historique, 182 (1938), 72–96
Besides Ingram, Great Game in Asia, see G. D. Clayton, Britain and the Eastern Question (London, 1971); and David Gillard, The Struggle for Asia, 1828–1914 (London, 1977). For evidence of how Russia exploited British collaboration for its own ends in 1826–1829, see Loyal Cowles, “The Failure to Restrain Russia: Canning, Nesselrode, and the Greek Question, 1825–1827,” International History Review, 12 (1990), 688–720
August Fournier, “Zur Geschichte der polnischen Frage 1814 und 1815,” Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 20 (1899), 444–75
Fournier, “Londoner Präludien zum Wiener Kongress,” Deutsche Revue, 43 (1918), 1: 125–36
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© 2004 Paul W. Schroeder
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Schroeder, P.W. (2004). Did the Vienna Settlement Rest on a Balance of Power?. In: Wetzel, D., Jervis, R., Levy, J.S. (eds) Systems, Stability, and Statecraft: Essays on the International History of Modern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-06138-6_3
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