The European Balance of Power

The allied powers were concerned first and foremost with the defeated enemy, France. Agreeing to the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty (see “The Grand Empire and Its End” in Chapter 19), the allies offered France lenient terms after Napoleon’s abdication. The first Treaty of Paris, signed before Napoleon escaped from Elba and attacked the Bourbon regime, gave France the boundaries it had possessed in 1792, which were larger than those of 1789. In addition, France did not have to pay war reparations. Thus the victorious powers avoided provoking a spirit of victimization and desire for revenge in the defeated country.

Representatives of the Quadruple Alliance (plus a representative of the restored Bourbon monarch of France) fashioned the peace at the Congress of Vienna from September 1814 to June 1815, with minor assistance from a host of delegates from the smaller European states. One of the main tasks of the four allies was to raise a number of formidable barriers against renewed French aggression. The Low Countries — Belgium and Holland — were united under an enlarged Dutch monarchy capable of opposing France more effectively. Prussia received considerably more territory on France’s eastern border so as to stand as the “sentinel on the Rhine” against France. In these ways, the Quadruple Alliance combined leniency toward France with strong defensive measures.

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Adjusting the Balance This French cartoon captures the essence of how the educated public thought about the balance-of-power diplomacy resulting in the Treaty of Vienna, the last page of which was signed and sealed in 1815 by the representatives of the various European states (inset). In the cartoon, the Englishman on the left uses his money to counterbalance the people that the Prussian and the fat Metternich are gaining in Saxony and Italy. Alexander I sits happily on his prize, Poland. (cartoon: Bibliothèque nationale de France; treaty: Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Paris, France/Archives Charmet/The Bridgeman Art Library.)

Self-interest and traditional ideas about the balance of power motivated allied moderation toward France. To Klemens von Metternich (MEH-tuhr-nihk) and Robert Castlereagh (KA-suhl-ray), the foreign ministers of Austria and Great Britain, respectively, as well as their French counterpart, Charles Talleyrand, the balance of power meant an international equilibrium of political and military forces that would discourage aggression by any combination of states or, worse, the domination of Europe by any single state.

The Great Powers — Austria, Britain, Prussia, Russia, and France — used the balance of power to settle their own dangerous disputes at the Congress of Vienna. The victors generally agreed that each of them should receive compensation in the form of territory for their successful struggle against the French. Great Britain had already won colonies and strategic outposts during the long wars. Austria gave up territories in Belgium and southern Germany but expanded greatly elsewhere, taking the rich provinces of Venetia and Lombardy in northern Italy as well as former Polish possessions and new lands on the eastern coast of the Adriatic. Russian and Prussian claims for territorial expansion were more contentious. When France, Austria, and Great Britain all argued for limited gain, Russia accepted a small Polish kingdom and Prussia took only part of Saxony in addition to its gains to the west (see Map 21.1). This compromise fell very much within the framework of balance-of-power ideology.

Unfortunately for France, Napoleon suddenly escaped from his “comic kingdom” on the island of Elba and reignited his wars of expansion for a brief time (see “The Grand Empire and Its End” in Chapter 19). Yet the second Treaty of Paris, concluded after Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo in 1815, was still relatively moderate toward France. Fat, old Louis XVIII was restored to his throne for a second time. France lost only a little territory, had to pay an indemnity of 700 million francs, and had to support a large army of occupation for five years. The rest of the settlement concluded at the Congress of Vienna was left intact. The members of the Quadruple Alliance, however, did agree to meet periodically to discuss their common interests and to consider appropriate measures for the maintenance of peace in Europe. This agreement marked the beginning of the European “Congress System,” which lasted long into the nineteenth century and settled many international crises peacefully, through international conferences or “congresses” and balance-of-power diplomacy.