In Our Time - The Congress of Vienna

Episode Date: October 19, 2017

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the conference convened by the victorious powers of the Napoleonic Wars and the earlier French Revolutionary Wars, which had devastated so much of Europe over the last 25 years. The powers aimed to create a long lasting peace, partly by redrawing the map to restore old boundaries and partly by balancing the powers so that none would risk war again. It has since been seen as a very conservative outcome, reasserting the old monarchical and imperial orders over the growth of liberalism and national independence movements, and yet also largely successful in its goal of preventing war in Europe on such a scale for another 100 years. Delegates to Vienna were entertained at night with lavish balls, and the image above is from a French cartoon showing Russia, Prussia, and Austria dancing to the bidding of Castlereagh, the British delegate.With Kathleen Burk Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History at University College LondonTim Blanning Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at the University of CambridgeandJohn Bew Professor in History and Foreign Policy at the War Studies Department at King's College LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson.

This is the BBC. Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time. There's a reading list to go with it on our website, and you can get news about our programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time. I hope you enjoyed the programmes. Hello, in 1814, the great European powers met in Vienna to try to establish a new and lasting order after over 20 years of bloody catastrophic wars. Diplomats such as Castlereagh, Talleyon and Metternich,

worked to balance the power so that no one state or empire could dominate Europe, as France had done, or as Russia threatened to do. They reached agreement in June 1815, days before the Battle of Waterloo, after which they reconvened. This Congress of Vienna has been credited with the century of relative peace that followed in Europe. It's also been blamed for suppressing liberal, democratic ideas, and for creating conditions that led to the First World War and the terrible conflicts that followed that. With me to discuss the Congress of Vienna, Burke, Professor Emeritus of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London. John Buhr, Professor of History and Foreign Policy at the War Studies Department, King's College, London. And Tim Blanning, Emeritus Professor of Modern Europe in History at the University of Cambridge.

Tim Blanning, what condition was Europe in by 1814? Europe was in a terrible condition in 1814. For the past 22 years, off and on, mainly on, since April 1792, armies had crudely. crisscrossed Europe, marching, north to south, east to west, and moreover, they were very big armies, the biggest armies which had ever been seen in Europe, probably. The French in 1794 had somewhere between 800,000 and a million men underarms

in 14 different armies. Napoleon took over 600,000 into Russia in 1812. These armies could not be supplied and financed from their own resources, and so they took what they needed from the land in which they found themselves, and the devastation was accordingly enormous. And moreover, like armies at any time in human history, they misbehaved in 57 different ways again and again and again. So those parts of Europe, and there were many of them,

who were in direct line of fire from these armies, were absolutely devastated. But there's more to it than that. This is a different kind of war, a series of wars, these ideological wars. They were foreign against the propagation of the French principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. side effects have been regicide, the execution of Louis the 6th Street, Mario Antoinette,

the expropriation of the church pretty well. Every monastery in Catholic Europe had been closed, and remember they're not just places of devotion and worship, they're also the main centres of social welfare, and so it went on. And so it seemed to everyone that for the past 22 years, Europe had been turned upside down and not in a good way, although of course there were one or two who were repaired to argue in favour of what had been done. And the thousand-year-old Holy Roman Empire had been destroyed by Napoleon at a stroke? It had. Well, the French revolutionaries had started the process, to be fair. He shouldn't be given the credit for the whole credit.

I didn't necessarily go. He was credit actually in the Reefuge. 18006. This is probably the greatest own goal in human history. The French destroyed the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire which allowed the French to dominate Central Europe for the last several centuries. And yet they destroyed it. And they were the great victims.

The cows came home to roost or whatever the cows do in 1870 in the Franco-Brusian War and again in 1940 and again in 1940. Terrible mistake. We like the ideas of cows roosting. We can live with that. I'll mix up a few more later. Tim, how did the great powers come to Vienna?

How did they decide in it? How did they get there? Okay, we need a date or two, don't we? It all starts in October 1813. the great four-day battle of Leipzig when Napoleon is defeated utterly and decisively. That is the real turning point in the decline and fall of the Napoleonic Empire. And very unusually, the three sovereigns of the three main armies involved were present. Alexander the first Tsar of Russia, Frederick William the Third King of Prussia,

France is the first emperor of Austria. They are there, together with their chief ministers. And so they are able to discuss at dinner every night how they say, see a post-Napoleon Europe. They're then joined by Castleray, who arrives in January 1814, by which time they've got to bail. Indeed, the British are always

there in a sense in the background, because it was they, the British, who were paying for it all. The fabulously wealthy British, I'll just pause for a moment of incredulity on the part of listeners, but they were. They were the paymaster. So the British have a very major input into all this,

because they control the finance. of the allies, as it were, throughout. They subsidized most of, let's call them the allies throughout. They certainly did, yes. Without British money, the sixth coalition could not have been formed. Oh, shall I go on? No, I'm going to tell you to Cathy now, but thank you very much. Kathy, can you tell us who arrived in Vienna?

Well, the world and his wife, more or less. Poor Vienna, well, Vienna in 1814 was 200,000 people, and during the Congress there were 300,000 people there. There were obviously the representatives of the great powers. Castleray was there. But Alexander I, the first, unusually, the head of state was actually there, which was unusual until Woodrow Wilson did the same in the Versailles Peace Conference. He had along with him two or three subordinates, such as Count Nessel Road, his foreign secretary, who was not desperately of importance. Frederick William III.

Alexander, we must just stress Russia and Russia saw it this is the opportunity to replace the Berlin as the dominating force in Europe. Absolutely, as they kept putting, as it was put down, put by one of his general of the armies, we have 600,000 men in army in occupation. We don't need to negotiate. Frederick William III, who worshipped Alexander

with a dog-like devotion was there, but his Hardenburg, his foreign minister was there and he and the Prussian generals were determined to increase the power and the land of Prussia. Francis William,

Francis I of Austria was there but Metternack, his foreign secretary, was one of the major elements of the Congress and Castleray was there of course, from January 1814, but the Prince Regents stayed at home. So Castleray, probably, along with Metternich, had more individual influence in any of the other members of the great powers. But also, it wasn't just those major people. There were, one thing about breaking up the Holy Roman Empire is that Napoleon had taken over the Germans and had coagulated a lot of them together in larger states. And 200, 15 princelings were also there. Prince bishoprics, kings, archdukes, dukes, determined to get their land back. And they brought their wives, their mistresses, their staff, their children and so forth and so on. And half the aristocratic women in Europe,

it seems like, brought their daughters in the hopes of making marriages. Because alongside the treaty negotiations that were going on, which you, in your notes, insist people worked very hard indeed. Vienna got the reputation of being the greatest partying city. Well, what do you do with 215 princelings and all their additions? Yes, a substantial portion of the Austrian budget went on parties every night, on expeditions, on plays. They had to amuse and all of these people, but it's also worth remembering that parties, although they look like parties, and Castleray hated them, It's where a word dropped in an air or a rumor substantiated or a suggestion.

Actually, we're done. How did France get through that, the defeated party? That's interesting. Talleyrand, one of the great foreign secretaries of France, although most people disliked him intensely, had been a part of Napoleon's not entourage but supporters. He backed the advent of Napoleon. But by 1814, he was... was, he saw the writing on the wall, Napoleon was not going to last. He started backing the

Broughbom. So in Napoleon, he races into Paris on the 31st of March 1841, escorted by Polish soldiers with Cusars. And the thing is that, first of all, Talley Ron says, convenes the Senate, and they deposed Napoleon. So then he's the Foreign Secretary of Louis the 18th. Can I just move on a little more swiftly, if you don't mind. How did he get there and did the British help him to get there? And did the others object or were they willing that he was there on equal terms of the other great powers? Well, he got there because he was Louis the 18th, the Bourbon King, who wanted to be re-sat on the throne. And he got to Vienna and the four allies had.

decided that they were going to run the place, that the other signers weren't going to do anything. And Halleyrand gets there and he says, you know, you say that all members of the Congress who signed the piece of Paris are going to be part of this. They had no answer. It wasn't legal. And then Talleyan says, well, I'm not, I'm not Bourbon. I'm France. But is it true?

Because I've read it, because I've read it, that the British help the French. to get that seat at the top table? Well, they helped them because Castlereagh was quite obvious that the three other European powers, Austria, Russia, and Prussia wanted to accomplish things that Britain didn't like. And eventually, as

Alexander was being so dominant and being so mystical and being so assertive and saying that he was the dominant Europe and Napoleon would not have been defeated without him, that Castle Ray eventually they put together a

coalition of Austria, France and Britain. Thank you very much. John Buu, what were British ambitions in Vienna? Well, in Castlere's rather grand phrase, he's British Foreign Secretary from 1812 to 1822, absolutely crucial period in the resettlement of Europe. And his rather grand phrase, British aims are to bring the world back to peaceful habits and not to collect trophies. Of course, this is part of the British self-image that it's a disinterested broker in European affairs. And while Tim said Britain has spent a lot of money in the, building of these six coalitions, the sixth and final one to defeat Napoleon,

it hasn't actually bled like the other European power. So this causes no end of consternation and irritation. It hasn't bled because of the money coming in from the empire. It has made a lot of money in the empire over this period. In fact, it's collected, because it's so dominant in the seas, it's collected a number of French colonial territories during the course of the Napoleonic wars as well. So Casseray turned up and his ambition was not to return to the status quo, as I understand it,

But what? Well, he was with the other European powers in the sense he wanted to restore stability in Europe and bring an end to the era of revolutions. In that sense, he supported the cause of bourbon legitimacy or monarchical legitimacy in the broadest possible terms. But actually, Kassaray had a more subtle understanding of the necessary balance of governments, partly based in the British model. So he was eager, for example, not to have an entire,

reactionary regime in Spain and France and these other portions of the world. And he was concerned that there was a tilt towards that among some of the restored bourbons. But Britain's aimed for broader than that. First of all, when he arrives in the continent, this is really when British negotiating starts. It's winding the clock back to New Year's Day, 1814. And he arrives with a series of instructions from the cabinet. The first and most important is that Britain's maritime rights, its domination of the seas, is not to be discussed at Vienna.

Secondly, Britain's at war with America simultaneously. Russia has offered to intervene, to intermediate. No one will intermediate in Britain's other disputes. Okay, so the rest of the world, if you like, is Britain's to carve up on its own. Beyond that, Britain has some quite specific aims for Europe. The first is the protection of the low countries and the preservation and strengthening of the low countries,

so they can't be run rush-shot over either from east or from west, I have happened with France or potentially Russia. Next, most important of all, for Castlereagh, something beyond that is to establish a balance of power in Europe. And that is the premise at which he brings in Talleyrand. So before the Congress convenes, he goes to Paris, he meets Talleyrand and the French ministers, and they talk about possible areas of collaboration on that. How suitable was Castlereagh as a delegate?

Well, my own view is a biographer. He's actually an extremely effective diplomat, but of course I'm perhaps slightly jaundiced in that view. He was criticised very much by many back at home, who regarded him as a little bit too willing to play the game of dancing and parties with these European aristocrats. And there was always a sort of sense of British distance from these parties. There was no royal presence of the British delegation there, although Lord Castlere's wife

certainly acted as if she was some sort of royal as well. So there was a tension and criticism of him at home in the sense he was too close to these European tyrants, and that was something that stayed with him. The image that most people have of Cassarays from the Shelley Perm on the mask of Anarchy, I met murder on the way had a most like Castlereagh. Did any of that show then? Was he thought of it to be a brutal man behind a mask of politicians and so on? Well, what you've got to remember is the British delegation, unlike most of those

from the other major European powers, was subject to intense scrutiny with a relatively free press. Castleray, when he defends the Congress of Vienna, has to do so in a four-hour debate in Parliament in which he has to go through its various terms. So there is a constant pressure from a broader public sphere. He's attacked by the anti-slavery lobby. he's attacked by the mercantile interest, who say he's too willing to give colonies back to France, for example. So there's constant pressure from all these places,

and his job is to keep that public spirit in Britain, by and large, long-width negotiations, while simultaneously crafting the basis for a new European balance of power. On the basis, Tim, it looks like mayhem, doesn't it? Europe, as you described, very vividly at the start of the programme, was catastrophically disrupted and bankrupt and so on. of all these statelets and princelings as Cathy was talking about, you have the four powers,

and yet they began to hammer out a new sense of it quite soon, which was quite lasting. Can we try to concentrate on how they did that now? And start with how did they attack the idea, approach the idea of the German-speaking peoples? Right. Well, there are two answers to that. The first answer is, in the short term, they had decided from far out from the winter,

of 1813 into 1814, that the Holy Roman Empire would not be restored. That was a decision which had been made. It was simply not possible to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. And I think there's some truth in that. What they were determined to have instead, had decided to have instead, the four powers. And it should be said that despite the plethora of princelings knocking around in Vienna, there are really only four powers plus Taliband who are making the decisions. So I'm going on, Britain, Russia, Austria and Germany.

Yes. sorry, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Britain and France. Well, that's five powers, but see, I'm not my. Five, five, yeah, four plus one, five. Yeah, very good. Okay, what they do, what the four plus one powers had decided to do was to have a German confederation. In the end, it turns out to be 39 states,

organized in a confederation, this is not, this is very important, this is not a federal state, it is a confederation of states. independent states joined together in a confederation. There was indeed a federal assembly, which was to meet at Frankfurt am Main, under the presidency of Austria. Indeed, the German Confederation was dominated by Austria, but they are very careful to make it clear

that this is not a united German state. It is a confederation of German states. Some of them are very big, like Austria and Prussia, and some of them are very small, like the city of Bremen and the little principality of Liechtenstein. But it was here that Prussia got real traction and began its rise and rise and rise, didn't it? It did. Prussia was the great beneficiary, although it wasn't very clear at the time. The Prussians were very upset because they didn't get all of Saxony.

I'm sure we shall hear about that later in the programme. They didn't get all of Saxony. But what they got instead was a huge swath of territory in the West. And that included the Ruhr, which they didn't know at the time, but very quickly was to become the great industrial heartland of Europe. So they did better than they do. And also, this is very important again for the future. Prussia has become much more of a German power than it had been in the past.

And Austria, on the other hand, has become much less of a German power. And so within the German world, the balance has been tipped decisively towards the north. Moving east, Cathy, we have the Tsar of Russia coming in. As it were, we won the war. broke Napoleon on his advance of Moscow. We want Poland, and that's what he came wanting, and he very nearly got it. Yes, when we think about that, there are two principles to keep in mind, well, not principles, two factors.

One is the unwritten doctrine of compensation. If one great power gets something, the other great powers have to be compensated of equal territory or agreement on a treaty or whatever. And secondly, Poland had been partitioned 1772, 92, and 95, between Austria, Russia, and Prussia. There was no Poland. So the thing is, what is going to happen to this Poland? Prussia has a huge territory. Austria has a huge territory, so does Russia. And what Tsar Alexander wants to do in a mystical sort of way as well as real politic is to reconstitute Prussia. Oh, heavens, reconstitute Poland. Now, this is a problem. First of all,

it would bring Russian Empire quite close into Central Europe. And no. No one really wanted that. Secondly, both Prussia and Austria would lose territory. Now this nearly brought war on again. And how the Prussians and the Austrians were compensated was that Alexander got a smaller part of Poland, but it does say in the Vienna Final Act that it's under his sovereignty. So he's got Poland. What Prussia wanted was, as Tim said, all of Saxony, ideally the Rhineland.

In other words, they wanted to use this opportunity to make Prussia a really great power instead of just a sort of great power. So how are you going to compensate if Russia gets this? First of all, they wanted Saxony. The king of Saxony, stupidly, had been, in this sense, had been the ally of Napoleon. On the other hand, if you're going to have legitimacy as a principle, which I expect will be talked about later in the program, the King of Saxony should get his kingdom back.

But the problem is that the great powers were compensated by breaking up those enemies who'd been on the other side. So what's the solution to Poland and what did Russia get out of it? Russia got Napoleon's duchy of it. Warsaw, about three quarters of it. So she didn't go as far into Germany in Central Europe as she wanted. In compensation, Prussia got about 40-odd percent of Saxony, but not the two largest cities and only two-fifths of the population.

They got parts of northern Germany after that, which they linked together with roads and railways. So in that sense, I'm just trying to sort of settle the Russian question. because Russia came in saying, Russia came in saying, we're going to make a lot out of this. We did the most to kill this man off, as it were, not quite, but here,

and we're going to take Poland, we're going to become a much more powerful figure inside Europe. He behaved very badly to other people. We're told, you say you're the mystical, but discuritacy also comes into it, and so on. So did they come out of this treaty, much more powerful territorially, Russia?

Yes and no. They were stopped because Austria, Prussia and England came together in a treaty that more or less said if Alexander overstepped. They'd go to war with him. And therefore, what Russia got was a good chunk of Poland, not as much as she wanted. Austria was compensated by getting a good part of Italy.

John Muir, what constraints were placed on France? You've got Tanyaon there, an exceptional like Metternich and like Kassarov. that plays exceptional diplomats. What constraints were placed on France? Because that was one of the purposes of things, to peg France down. This is the issue in which France gets back at the table,

and Tehran basically says that diplomatic revolution has occurred, and we are one of the five powers again, around about December 1814. So the constraints in France were actually controlled as much as anything by British demands and foreign policy, in the precise sense that Britain did not want a punitive peace against France. for the fear that it would upset the balance of power again, it would open the door to, from one form of dominance

from the West of Europe in terms of the Napoleonic dominance to Russian dominance in Europe. So Britain was willing to work closely with France, bring France back into negotiations, prevents this punitive peace against France. And as Cathy says, this is the issue that France negotiates itself back into this sort of great power alliance

because Britain recognises the need for a defensive alliance with Talaran to resist, of principle as much as anything else. And here, Castleray breaks from the precise instructions he's given at the Congress of Vienna and in making a defensive alliance with France, a credible turnaround that's described by many historians

as a diplomatic revolution. He makes a defensive alliance with the country that Britain has been at war with for over two decades up to Christmas 1814 in order to, I say, preserve this broader balance apart. That's a bold thing to do. How do you get away with this? Well, he was constantly being written letters by the Prime Minister telling him, you know, what are you up to?

Come home now, there's business to attend to in Parliament. We can't afford you doing this. And he did so on the basis that Britain had fought so long, as I say, over those two decades. Cassaray had sat at the defeat of William Pitt, who was the early wartime leader from 1793, and he regarded himself as pursuing Pitt's peace plan. And in that sense, he was willing to sort of turn off the noise of public opinion at home, which veered from a desire to flatten France at one moment and secondarily just to give up on Poland

and certainly not to risk another war for the sake of a preservation of what was essentially an abstract concept, this balance of power in Europe. Tim? Yes, well, I was going to add to that, that Castle Ray gets away with it because he has a very good, close working relationship with Metternich, whom we've hardly mentioned,

but was the dominant figure together with Castleray? Historically, there's been a big rethink on the role of Metternich, which has now seen as very much more, very much more positive, much less, oppressive and negative than it had been in the past. And Metternich and Carceretre have a very good relationship. Medinick is in his home city. I'm sorry?

Medinick is in his home city with this great information network around him. Absolutely right. Yes, he had lots of very good information. That's true. But actually the line-up was slightly different, I think, from what has been mentioned. And that is Russia and Prussia on one side, and Austria, Great Britain, and then France on the asylum. It's those three powers which form an alliance in January 1814, which almost brings war and forces Russia and Prussia to back down.

Just one footnote to that. By far and away, the most vindictive power wishing to impose a really punitive peace on France was always Prussia. Per Russia with the PR, Prussia had been humiliated and had been exploited ruthlessly by Napoleon after their defeat in 18106. and one red line throughout the history of the subsequent several years is that the Prussians want to destroy France to the utmost. What impact did Napoleon's return from Elba have on the Congress? Well, it galvanized them.

They didn't panic. They knew that they were, of course, they had no idea that it was only going to last 100 days and would end quickly at Waterloo. So the first thing they do, within 24 hours, the armies which had been retreating from northwestern Europe are put in motion again. And incidentally, Waterloo is really very little importance,

even if Wellington had lost at Waterloo, Napoleon would have lost the war because there were hundreds of thousands of Russians and Austrians marching in that direction. But that's another thing. We don't like to hear that way. Sorry. No, I'm going too fast for you. No, no, no, no. I can just about keep up.

I was just making a little clip about Waterloo. 13th of March, they declare. Very good. 13th of March they declare Napoleon an outlaw. Until he's back in the box, they're not going to stop, and they don't. And the result of all this is, and this I suppose is the really major impact of no Napoleon's ill-fated attempt to come back again, is that more punitive terms are inflicted on the French at the second Treaty of Paris in May 1815. They now have to pay a very large financial indemnity.

They have an army of occupation, and they have to give back territory to the German Confederation, which among other things means that Prussia gets its hands on for Zerland, another area which turns out to be economically very important. Cathy, what about trade and trade barriers? What discussion was, now we're after Elba. He's been, Napoleon's been sent to Elba. He ruled Elba for a little while, got fed up and decided to have another go. France came across, took the army right from the south of France to the north and was defeated at Waterloo.

They went back to negotiations. How important were the trade and trade, was trade and the trade barriers in those discussions? Yes, the thing is, is that trade was incredibly important, but it doesn't have quite the publicity or the grandeur of the marching armies. But one difficulty in the Germany's, for example, is that every time you wanted to take goods down the river, every little regime would impose tariffs, would insist on looking at everything.

In other words, trade was stopped and stopped and stopped and stopped. And therefore, one of the things that the Great Powers wanted to do was to facilitate this trade. There was a committee set up on international waterways. And more or less, if it's international waterways, which were rivers that either went along the border of or through separate states. So not all waterways, but international ones like the Rhine. And they said these are going to be free navigation from it. start from the mouth to where it goes, including various rivers.

They said no one on custom houses could obstruct this. You couldn't put in new tariffs, and you would police the banks. So that opened up trade, which is something that the British very much wanted. Briefly, I want to go to John. Okay, but it has a very paradoxical result. Because the navigation is now free, the rivers can be rectified, as they put it. They could be improved. Their channel could be improved.

all kinds of barriers could be physical barriers could be removed the result of this was to improve trade to promote trade make transportation easier cheaper quicker but it turns out to be an ecological disaster especially for the upper Rhine where whole swathes of flora and fauna which have been there since the beginning of time become extinct

John Buu one of the things the British brought to the table was to encourage everyone else to ban the slave trade Wilberforce, let's use him, but he was the great powerhouse. And the British were very proud of this and pursuing this. And they had, in 1802, as we know, banned the slave trade and were pursuing it to try to ban slavery or two. Now, they brought that to the table.

What was the result? The result is not quite what William Wilberforce had hoped. So first of all, in the abolition of the Slavery Act of 1807, one of the terms of that act of parliament is to commit Britain to pursue in negotiations with other powers, the further measures towards the abolition of the slave trade more broadly. Which they tried to do. Exactly. Which Casaray did try to do.

It has to be said that Cassoi was pressured to doing so by William Woborce and anti-slavery campaign, pressured in Parliament, but also pressured from the fact that William Woborce had a direct line to the British Prime Minister. Lord Liverpool was therefore passing on this pressure to Casselray, and he was frustrated by it. And in fact, Talleyand and the other negotiators said Castro was slightly hamstrung by having to extract concessions in other areas because of this need to score victories on the issue of the slave trade. So Castro was pushed into that place.

In fact, he describes the issue of slavery as a rather minor detail, incredible phrase, a rather minor detail in comparison to the resettlement of Europe. Nonetheless, he is forced to go into those negotiations to seek to extract concessions, and he does extract some important concessions. some of those are kind of nominal. So the eight main powers, including some of the smaller powers like Piedmont, all agree in the latter stage of the Congress of Vienna to condemn the slave trade. They have a sort of abstract condemnation of the case. But secondly, the real key slaving powers are France, Portugal and Spain, those with the broader maritime empires.

And Casrae is able to extract the following from France, whereby in five years' time it agrees that it will abolish the slave trade. It's secondarily from Spain, over which Britain has quite a lot of influence because of involvement in the Peninsula Wars. There is a commitment and further follow-up treaties in 1820 to 1821 for Spain to move away from the slave trade. And laterally, Portugal, again, a country that Britain has influence of, makes this broader commitment to do more in the slave trade. But actually, it's only really Parmiston and the later anti-slavery movement that achieves that. So diplomatic progress is made. And Wilberforce does actually save Cassaray, I believe all that was done could have been done,

but not without the pressure. Jim, Tim Planning, this idea of boxing in France included bringing Belgium and the Netherlands together to give a power it was thought that would help boxing France to the West. Did it work? No, it didn't work. Boxing in is a very expressive phrase.

They're absolutely spot on. They were trying to create a buffer state to the north because that's where so many of the conflicts of the previous two or three centuries had taken place. And the British in particular, I think John mentioned this earlier, are determined that the French must never get there hands on the low countries and the Rhine Delta again. So an absolute sine qua non for the British at Vienna was to have Antwerp under their control, or to put it into this expanded

that was why they'd gone to war with France back in 1793 when Edmund Burke had told the House of Commons that the Netherlands can be regarded as much a part of England as the county of Kent. I mean, that's how intimate they thought the relationship should be. Then the French, of course, to take an Antwerp and have controlled it for the next 20 years. So they determined to have that back at a buffer stake to stop them. It doesn't work putting Belgium and the Netherlands together. Because in Belgium you have a very large French-speaking population. They are mostly Catholic.

They heartily resent being ruled by Dutch Protestants. And it ends in tears in 1830 in revolution, rather surprisingly, with very little violence. And as a result, Belgium is formed into a separate state in 1831. Kathy, the Congress of Vienna has been criticized by some supporting anti-liberal movements. What have you to say to that? Well, yes. The point of the Congress of Vienna in many people's minds,

historians, older historians in particular, that they restored sovereigns and they controlled revolutionary movements. Now, Alexander and the Tsar of Russia and Metternich of Austria were very concerned about revolutionary movements, about actually anything that shook the state. And so certainly one outcome of the, well, the Holy Alliance, one outcome of agreements between Austria, Prussia and Russia was that they would indeed suppress the movements before they got going.

These revolutionary movements. That's right. In Germany, for example, German liberals and students were keen to actually actually. they rather like the French Revolution because they like the liberty, equality, and so forth. And they liked the fact that there were states. But for Metternich, this sort of movement, which was uncontrollable, he thought, had to be squashed. And so what's called the Carlsbad decrees in 1819 were agreed saying that essentially students were, their societies were stopped.

There was no freedom of the press. Universities were going to be run by states and so forth. Now, people say it was restored, because a lot of the king of Saxony and Louis XVIth and so forth, various of heads of state were restored. But you can look at a different way, which is that it was legitimacy. How do you decide who a monarch is going to be or a head of government, a head of state? It's legitimacy. It's better than marrying and bring together. It's better than someone else deciding. And the point of legitimacy is that it's law. It's not power politics. It's law. And so this is a way to block out revolution. Is that what you're saying? No, I'm saying there's two different things. There's a suppression of revolution, especially by

the Prussia, Russia, and Austria. But there's also the idea that restoration was not just because they liked the King of Saxony. It's because there had to be a legal basis on which Europe was going to be restored. This phrase the balance of power. John Buro has been used. What sort of balance did it end up with? Did it give Europe? Actually, on that fundamental premise, and this is because Castlereagh went rogue from his own cabinet and from his own Prime Minister in the latter stages of 1814, a balance of par was restored in Europe. So in geopolitical terms, the settlement is pretty enduring. And in fact, in the simple metric of deaths lost in battle over the course of the 19th century, there was much less than it

was over the previous century. So in that simple, in that one way of measuring it, you can say that balance did give Europe that sort of sense of equilibrium. No major power war until the 1850s. It's not until Prussia unifies Germany and really rips up the geopolitical map and that that balance is upset. So for at least 50 years, if not longer, it does restore that balance in Europe. But here, to pick up what Cathy was talking about, is the problem for Britain. Britain is on a different ideological clock. It is the only country at the Congress that is not royally represented represented is the most advanced liberal constitutional monarchy. It's not, of course, a fully fledged democracy.

And it's uncomfortable with the number of the implications of this restorationist emphasis on legitimate government. Now, Kasselry is a conservative foreign secretary, by and large, his instincts are with Metternich, but he sits in a parliament that is rambunctious and difficult and will challenge him in all these key issues. So Britain, I think, was not fighting a counter-revolutionary war and did not want to counter-revolutionary peace

with a simple reactionary return to the pre-French revolutionary status quo. And it tried in all of the places where it had a hand to strike some sort of balance. When Wellington's Ambassador in Paris, he's constantly saying to the restored bourbon regime, you must broaden out the balance of government. Again, the same in Spain

with the restored bourbons as well. So Britain does have this more sort of advanced position on what constitutes stable legitimate government. Tim Blaney, what? What problems in this treaty can create for the future in Europe? It's difficult to say, there's all kinds of problems afflicting Europe after 18, 14, 15. It's difficult to say how many of those stem directly from the Congress of Vienna. For example, the Congress of Vienna is not responsible for the eruption of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia,

one of the biggest volcanic eruptions in human history, which led to all kinds of problems right across the globe because the ash cloud covered the globe in 1816, the year without a summer. The Congress of the end, it wasn't responsible for that. Well, I say, I think there are three, really. They'd lift real problems in Poland. You know, I mustn't get stuck into Poland policy. But it's probably inevitable that because Russia had a firm grip on Poland, even though it was an autonomous kingdom within the Russian Empire,

it had a constitution, it had an elected assembly, the Russian grip was such that sooner or later the Poles were going to rise in revolt, and they did in 1830. There's also a serious problem in Italy about which we haven't talked. Metternich wanted to turn that into a confederation rather like Germany. He was overruled by his emperor, Francis I first, who wanted to turn it into a kind of source of outdoor relief for his friends and relations. That clearly was going to be a problem when France revived.

And then, of course, the great problem in Germany, which I keep coming back to, and that is as a direct result of the Congress of Vienna and the settlement, that soft centre of Europe, which had been kept soft for a millennium, or half a millennium by the Holy Roman Empire has now suddenly become quite a bit harder. We've gone from 350-odd principalities to 39. And once that process has started, once the centre of Europe has started to get hard,

is it not very likely, if not inevitable, it will get harder still. Like a Roche de Brons by 1870, by, oh, I better not trans... John. Go into the 20th century. Cassaray does actually say something about this. It has been...

British policy during the course of the war to build up these central European powers and Prussia in particular and he does actually reflect after the Congress in 1815 and he says well this is what we wanted and it prevents the opportunity for France and future to ride roughshod over Europe again so in that sense it's good but he

does sort of raise the alarm in the back of his mind about what he calls a uniquely militaristic power that's now been strengthened in the heart of Europe so there is a kind of sense that this may develop into something thereafter Cathy Berg Was there any way in which this was a progressive treaty that from this, we've heard that it guaranteed

much less bloody 19th century in Europe than the 18th century had been, for example, it held for much longer than people had thought, but was there any way in which progressed things? Tim's pointed out that what it progressed was the hardening of the Prussian state into the German state and up comes Bismarck later in the day. But was there any other way in which it was progressive? Yes. I mean, the question was the question. question of the balance of power, as John has mentioned, was that you have powers that will not go to war because they would be

endangered. What Castleray does and what the Congress does is substitute an equilibrium. In other words, you don't go with power, with armies. You institute law. And one of the real transformations the Congress makes is having these things based on norms and, and, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, legal reasons rather than just power. So you have, for example, a growth of international law coming out of the Congress. You have the fact that those who make agreements now are not the sovereigns, but they're states. In other words, those who the actors in international relations change entirely. You have better waterways and trade relations. But I think the essential thing is a transfer of ideas and the way they do it from the question. of military power to norms of legal power. Briefly, John, do you think the long-term legacy was? Well, just to say to pick up on what Cathy said, exactly right.

And Castorad, as most enthusiastic, says this has reduced European affairs to the simplicity of a single state. It's quite a visionary sort of position. What becomes actually clear thereafter, however, is that other European powers, and particularly Russia, Austria, and Prussia are prepared to go beyond that in a problematic way. and already by 1815, 1816, there's talk of a holy alliance,

so kind of a Christian layer on top of this that goes beyond the existing law, and that is something that Casaray says, John Bull, i.e. Britain cannot maintain. Well, thank you very much, John Bue, Tim Blanning, Cathy Burke. Next week we'll be discussing feathered dinosaurs, and they'll link to modern birds. Thank you very much for listening. And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests.

You're sort of let rip now. You can let rip now. Yeah, fine. Okay, I was going to add a message to our Swiss listeners. One of the most beneficent results to the Congress of Vienna. I'm sure we have many. A beneficent result was the guarantee of Swiss neutrality. That's not unimportant.

And Swedish neutrality, de facto, as well. What I really wanted to add is kind of the elephant in the room, really, which is Metternich. We didn't have an opportunity to talk about Metternich. I know we couldn't do that. It's not a criticism. Metternich is so interesting and so important a character, and he's been the subject of major historical, historiographical revision. Published last year, was it the year before?

No, last year. A book nearly a thousand page by Volta Rams-Zeman, German historian now retired, had been Professor in Munich, which for the first time made full use of the Metternich family archives, which are in Prague. And this is completely transformed the way in which we regard Metternich, or at least it ought to.

Metternick has presented as a much more sympathetic, a much more constructive character, much less reactionary, much more of a reform conservative than any English historian has presented past. So I hope perhaps we might sometimes have a program on Metternich. There's plenty of enough material. And he lived on and on and on and on, didn't it, late 159. So plenty of time to see the results of his work. Yes, he saw the results of his work and then the transfor, the overturning of his work, because just before he dies, he hears that Napoleon the third has reached Milan.

Fortunately, he died before Solferino. So in that sense, all of his work, the Bonaparts came back. Indeed. So one could say that the whole 23 years had been for naught. One doesn't, of course. The thing about the Congress of Vienna, it is so detailed and it mattered so much. And we haven't put in, oh, for example, Metternach and Alexander I, first, we're trying for the same woman as mistress all during October 1814, and this shouldn't

matter, but it did very much because Metternet lost control of what he was doing at that time. So I think that we haven't put enough emphasis, so we didn't have time, on the actions and inactions and weaknesses and strengths of various individuals, because that mattered, remembering that it was sovereigns and their ministers who were negotiating, and on the whole, public opinion did not have the influence it does now. Two things I'd like to mention. First of all, the legacy of the Treaty of Vienna is absolutely crucial, not in terms of today's politics, but actually in terms of the 20th century. So at the time of the Treaty of Versailles, at the end of the First World War, many of those

involved in the Treaty of the Treaty, are trying to avoid, as they say it, the mistakes of Vienna. And the British historian Charles Webster, who's a delegate at Treaty of Versailles, Hans, Woodrow Wilson and paper are saying, this is what we learn from Vienna. And Wilson says, I want no whip of Vienna. And actually you can say, of those two peace treaties after the Napoleonic War versus after the First World War, there's unquestionate one becomes regarded

as more stable and enduring thereafter. And secondly, even when you get to the Cold War... I did have a lot to learn for Vienna. If he'd read his history at the time. And the echoes of Vienna and Kassaray and also Metternich echoed through the Cold War in the sense that Henry Kissinger wrote his doctoral thesis on Metternik as well as Caseret.

At the time of Dayton, Richard Nixon talked about adopting the position that the Britain had in the 19th century of always playing off the stronger against the weaker at any time. So these do echo through history. So that's my kind of worthy long jury perspective. The other thing I want to mention, we didn't talk about Metternich enough, but it's the anti-Casselray

who is Casselray's brother, Charles Stewart, who is an aide-de-camp to Wellington, fantastically self-important, pompous, difficult. Castle-ray fights one jewel in his life. Charles fights six jewels. He's He's known Vienna as the Scarlet Pumperninkle. Metternich, he wears these yellow boots

and the military outfits from different countries that he's been involved with. At one stage, he gets in a fight with a Hackney Trab driver and tries to throw them into the river Danube. He's arrested at various points as a massive Austrian secret service file on his various activities of the flesh, as he describes it. He has a hugely expensive house

and in foreign office money actually spends something like £2,000 in British furniture to rival, quite deliberately talleyrand. So some people say that Casaray is kind of the model for Phileas Fogg, this calm, distinguished, reserve, English gentleman. Another say that Charles Stewart, his brother is the model for the kind of Brits abroad,

drunk, difficult, pompous individual thereafter. Which, in a sense, sums up my argument that individuals make a difference because Caseret, no one could imagine why, thought very highly of Stuart, his half-brother, and actually gave him responsibilities that no one in their right, mind, once they would do. I would also like to say that there is an argument that the Congress of

Vienna was the most successful peace conference in history. Not Utrecht, not Westphalia, not Fersailles, not after the Cold War. It was the most successful because they had ideas that transformed the world and one might say insured peace for most of the 19th century. I wish we said that in the program actually. But then I keep doing that when we have this extension. Just very briefly there's a great scene where Wellington arise. You replace Casserer as a negotiator, actually when Casserer is forced to go back to London

in January 1815 and he arrives, he gets up his horse in Metternich greets him and he says, what have you done, gentlemen? And Metacin says nothing, nothing at all. And they all laugh and pat each other in the back. Tim. Oh, I was just going to add that one of the achievement was that

after 1815 there is very little revisionism. I mean, this is the difference between 1815 and 1919 is that the French after 1815, probably because they have been defeated so emphatically, are not revisionist for a couple of generations. And the really decisive moment comes in 1848, December 1848 when Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is elected or crowned because he had 75% of the popular vote as president of France. And so for the first time a revisionist is in charge of a major power.

But after 1919, revisionism is so strong in not just in Germany, but in Hungary and many other countries, leads to the catastrophes of the 1930s. And for that, the peacemakers of 1815 really deserve a posthumous pat on the back. I think we're going to get an offer, post-program offer. No, post-programme, I got mixed up there. And for more podcasts on arts and ideas from the BBC. Follow the link on our website to the best of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Program.