[t]rue, it was scarcely possible to talk of limiting State sovereignty in favour of an international organization. Nonetheless, the results achieved at Vienna were inspired by a certain concept of international relations which excluded the use of force and which consequently represented a considerable advance on the highway robbery of the eighteenth century.39
The course of the Congress did not run entirely smooth. The tsar and the Prussians were not quite willing to abandon their goals of using the Congress to win historic territorial concessions. Tsar Alexander's ambition was to gain a Polish kingdom that would recover for Poland all of Prussia's share in the partitions of 1793 and 1795, with the tsar as king. Prussia, for its part, wished to annex the whole of Saxony.
On January 3, 1815, Castlereagh concluded a secret agreement with Austria and France to resist, by force of arms if necessary, these extreme claims. It has been questioned by historians whether this was in fact merely a bluff; Castlereagh would have been hard put to secure the approval of Parliament for such a war. However that may be, the agreement, which was quickly leaked, had the desired effects both of bringing France into the Alliance, and of persuading Prussia and Russia promptly to moderate their demands. Within six weeks the Polish and Saxon questions had been resolved by compromise, and the Final Act was signed on June 9, 1815.
Of all the powers of the coalition, Britain took away the least in territorial gains. It annexed nothing on the continent. It returned scores of overseas areas seized and occupied during the years of warfare. At Ghent, moreover, Castlereagh had concluded a treaty with the United States that ended the War of 1812 on terms so generous in light of the British capture of Washington that American students are routinely taught that the United States actually won the war. This far-sighted statesman had, more than any other person at the Congress, created a permanent system of consultation, a genuine “concert of Europe.”
On November 20, 1815, the coalition partners committed themselves for twenty years each to contribute 60,000 men should there be any attempt to overturn the settlement. In the meantime, however, Alexander had drawn up the Treaty of the Holy Alliance, a union of the tsar's religious convictions (Castlereagh called it “a piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense”40) and Metternich's reactionary intrigue. This treaty, though innocuous enough on its face, in fact sought to organize the powers of Europe for intervention against internal revolution. Such a step was viewed by Castlereagh as a subversion of the true purpose of the Congress and in a diplomatic note of October 19, 1818, Castlereagh protested that
nothing would be more immoral or more prejudicial to the character of governments generally than the idea that their force was collectively to be prostituted to the support of established power without any consideration of the extent to which it was abused.41
Confronting this nineteenth century version of the Brezhnev Doctrine, Castlereagh continued to cling to the hope that peace could be maintained among nations whose internal systems remained their own affair. Two months after the Holy Alliance was concluded, Castlereagh renewed the Treaty of Chaumont and arranged for the periodical calling of international congresses. The first of these meetings, the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in the autumn of 1818, seemed to reinforce his hopes. He and Wellington attended for Britain; for Austria, the emperor Francis I and Metternich; for Russia, the tsar and Nesselrode; for Prussia, Frederick William III; for France, Talleyrand's successor (Talleyrand having resigned to become Louis XVIII's royal chamberlain). Although the Quadruple Alliance was reaffirmed, a new agreement, the Quintuple Alliance, was formed to admit France into the society of great powers “to protect the arts of peace.” All occupation forces agreed to leave French soil; progress was made on a more generous definition of Jewish rights, the abolition of the slave trade, and mediation between Sweden and Denmark. Yet beneath this harmony, there lay a fundamental division of purpose as to the proper scope of the emerging directorate of the five powers.
The three eastern monarchies held the view that political revolutions were the responsibility of governments, like other public order problems—crime, for example, or epidemics and panics. When, therefore, a revolution broke out within the European world, it was the responsibility first of the state government, but second, if necessary, of the international directorate—the Concert of Powers, as the phrase was first used at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen)—to stabilize the situation. All this they had learned from Napoleon, who had used the rhetoric of revolution to bridge state boundaries, and had effectively exploited civil discontent as a strategic weapon.
Castlereagh did not share this view. For one thing, he knew that the British Parliament would not support a policy of constant intervention in other states, particularly to prop up repressive regimes. This meant that the directorate would proceed without British consent—that was part of the rules—and that this would gradually isolate Great Britain. Second, he saw that enlarging the agenda of the Concert moved the powers away from the two contexts of concern on which he had relied for their cooperation, for while revolutionary activity might arise from national feeling and might by contagion threaten neighboring regimes, it did not necessarily arouse a national people to arms against their neighbors. Once the focus was off this threat to international security, the states of the coalition would not need to hang together and would soon split into rival camps, in part on the basis of their differing attitudes about political reform. It was at Aix-la-Chapelle that Castlereagh condemned all efforts “to provide the transparent soul of the Holy Alliance with a body.”42 Even a new revolt in France, he added, would openly justify intervention only if it were judged that the result would be the arming of the nation for conquest elsewhere. By adroit diplomacy he was also able to prevent discussion of the question of intervention against the Latin American colonies that were in revolt against Spain.
When the following year, however, military revolts occurred in Spain itself and in Naples—a rising of the Cadiz regiments against Ferdinand VII, a revolt of the Carbonari against Ferdinand I—there was no deflecting the debate over intervention. By means of the diplomatic note of May 5, 1820, Castlereagh was able temporarily to prevent intervention in Spain. With regard to the Neapolitan uprising, which alarmed the Austrians, who held significant and restive territories in Italy, Metternich was able to win consent of the other powers to a military expedition, and a new conference was promptly proposed by the tsar. Castlereagh did not oppose Austrian intervention, but strongly opposed intervention by the alliance, and he tried to avoid the convening of a new conference.
The tsar insisted, however, and Castlereagh was forced to be content with sending low-level representation. The Congress of Troppau, in October 1820, met in Silesia to consider the revolutions then in progress against the Bourbon monarchs of the Two Sicilies and Spain. On November 19, Metternich laid before the congress a document, already signed by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, which dealt with the question of revolutions in general and the right of the alliance to deal with them by force. This Protocole had been drawn up by the Russians, and announced the intention
to prevent the progress of the evil with which the body social is menaced, and to devise remedies where its ravages have begun or are anticipated… When States [which have undergone a change due to revolution] cause by their proximity other countries to fear immediate danger… the Allied Powers… will employ… measures of coercion if the employment of such coercion is indispensable.
From London, Castlereagh acted quickly. He called in the Russian ambassador and stated:
On viewing… the spectacle now presented by the Troppau reunion, it is impossible not to consider the right which the Monarchs claim to judge and to condemn the actions of other States as a precedent dangerous to the liberties of the world…. [N]o man can see without a certain feeling of fear the lot of every nation submitted to the decisions and to the will of such a tribunal.43
Then he rewrote the State Paper of May 5, 1820, which had come straight from his own pen. Phrased in sometim
es lengthy and complex sentences, it nevertheless goes directly to the heart of the matter with two lucid arguments. First, are the great powers prepared to apply such principles for intervention to themselves? Second, while it was true that the revolution that brought Napoleon to power had unleashed a conflict with an entire nation in arms, this was due to the particular state involved, France, and not simply to the fact it was triggered by a revolution: of “that spirit of military energy which was the distinctive and most formidable character of the French Revolution… the late revolutions have as yet exhibited no symptom.” Indeed the massed opposition of the great powers to a national revolt was precisely what could evoke such a force: “The apprehension of an armed interference in their internal affairs may excite them to arm, may induce them to look with greater jealousy and distrust than ever to the conduct of their rulers…” Finally, he concluded:
What hope in such a case of a better order of things to result from the prudence and calm deliberations among a people agitated by the apprehensions of foreign force, and how hopeless on the other hand the attempt to settle by foreign arms or foreign influence alone any stable or national system of government!44
It was possible, Castlereagh believed, for a nation to create “a better order of things” —a state-nation—without terrorizing one's neighbors. Britain had done so. But this was only possible if the nation was not menaced by foreign threats.
The reader will recognize from this paper the two wellsprings of Castlereagh's policy described earlier—the consequences of provoking a nation in arms, and the danger of nationalism—as well as his conclusion that, in such an historical context, peaceful change in one state need not jeopardize the interests of others. Tying these ideas together implied that intervening to arrest change was actually the surest route to a general conflagration. Moreover, Castlereagh's first point suggests that the great powers are in some sense obliged to obey the same rules they would prescribe for others, a dimension of collective security regimes that is often overlooked. If it was strategically shrewd to avoid a massive intervention in order not to unite a nation in arms, it was also a strategic consequence of the constitutional objectives of the Coalition: to preserve a society of states that were secure from territorial trespass.
The Protocole was withdrawn. Metternich was able to deflect Russian offers of assistance in dealing with the Neapolitan revolt, and a new venue, Laibach, was chosen for the concluding stages of the conference. The Congress of Laibach, which in January 1821 authorized Austrian intervention, is often taken as marking the ruin of Castlereagh's project. As Sir Harold Nicolson wrote, “The Great Coalition was thus finally dissolved; the Concert of Europe had disintegrated; the Holy Alliance had succeeded in destroying the Quadruple Alliance; the Congress system had failed.”45 This was not Castlereagh's view at the time, however, and in any case, it tends to overemphasize the purely formal aspects of his program.
At Troppau, Britain had opposed any project for sending troops into either Spain or Naples, and the allies had deferred to British objections regarding a proposed intervention in Madrid. But the other powers at the congress had also voted to authorize military action by Austrian forces in Italy and to ask that a Russian army of 90,000 men stand by to march there from Poland if necessary. At Laibach, Ferdinand himself appeared before the conference and Metternich sought and obtained permission for Austria to act alone in Italy. Austrian troops—not, it must be emphasized, troops from the coalition—restored the regime in Naples. When the Circular of December 8, 1820, out of Laibach reiterated the claims of the alliance to intervene against revolutionary activity, Castlereagh responded with his own paper, the British Circular of January 19, 1821. In it the allies read that
the British government would… regard the principles on which these measures rest to be such as could not be safely admitted as a system of international law…. [The government does] not regard the Alliance as entitled, under existing treaties, to assume, in their character as allies, any such general powers.
The distinction is crucial:* Castlereagh was prepared to accept Austrian intervention as the act of a state that had, after all, substantial security interests that were jeopardized by events in the Italian peninsula. A great power was permitted to intervene in its sphere of influence, acting on its own behalf. He was not prepared to agree to the alliance acting in concert on Austria's behalf in order to pacify an Austrian possession. Metternich professed horror that the December circular had been leaked; he presaged Nicolson in his exclamation, “Les bienfaits de l'Alliance Européenne etaient suspendus.” He could not resist including in the final declarations from Laibach a ban by the allied sovereigns on all revolutions. Yet it was also announced that another conference would be summoned the next year at Florence (it was actually held at Verona) to reconsider the occupation of Naples and Piedmont. Castlereagh responded to this declaration on the floor of the House of Commons on June 21, 1821. He reiterated his objections but stated that he did not think a new protest was required. He subsequently made clear, and Metternich confirmed, that each regarded the alliance as the best means of preventing aggressive action by a great power. Both men planned to convene a new Congress of Vienna to discuss the Spanish question, following the ministerial meeting in Verona that was devoted to Italian affairs.
There Metternich hoped to collaborate with Castlereagh to prevent Russia from supporting French intervention in Spain. The tsar, whose close relations with Castlereagh were unique in the diplomatic world, had asked to meet with him in Vienna. It is clear that the latter dreaded the upcoming meetings in Verona, where he would be required to repeat the British position on what was no longer a live question, and at one time he entertained a proposal by Metternich that he simply skip Verona and come to Vienna in late August, before the sovereigns met, in order to have preliminary conversations with Metternich.
Castlereagh was, at this time, perhaps the most unpopular man in English public life. He had for a long time been forced to carry pistols to protect himself, and his life had often been threatened. To Liberals he was the embodiment of repression abroad; in his own party, of which he was effectively the prime minister during this period, he was isolated by his long-standing hostility to Canning, and indeed to the whole world of public relations that Canning represented, and his closest connections in public life were confined to the king and the Duke of Wellington.
On August 9, he seems to have had something like a breakdown. That day he saw both the king and the duke—the latter said, in his characteristic way, “I am bound to warn you that you cannot be in your right mind,” to which Castlereagh replied, rather pathetically, “Since you say so I fear it must be so.” The duke offered to stay with him, but Castlereagh would not consent to this. Wellington then tried without success to contact Castlereagh's doctor. Castlereagh paid a visit to the king, who was preparing to leave for Scotland. The king, also alarmed, alerted Liverpool, the titular prime minister, who refused to credit the report that Castlereagh, always so notably self-possessed, had become deranged. An interview with the doctor ensued; he was not greatly concerned. Castlereagh went to his country house and was kept in bed during the 10th and 11th. He was bled and given “lowering” drugs, which might be called tranquilizers nowadays; however, they had the effect of inducing a violent delirium. The next morning, the 12th, he cut his throat with a small knife and died immediately. At his burial in Westminster Abbey, large hostile crowds filled the streets, and malicious cheers were given as the coffin was carried into the Abbey.
This event utterly changed all that followed. At Verona, Metternich was isolated—Castlereagh's replacement at the conference, the Duke of Wellington, having arrived only when the issues had already been decided. At Vienna, there was no powerful influence to divert Russian support from France, which wished to take the initiative of intervening in Spain where a fresh revolt at Cadiz had broken out. Chateaubriand, the architect of French intervention in Spain, understood this.
I believe that Europe (and i
n particular France) will gain by the death of the first minister of Great Britain. Castlereagh would have done much harm at Vienna. His connections with Metternich were obscure and disquieting; Austria deprived of a dangerous support will be forced to come near to us.46
Moreover, Castlereagh was replaced at the Foreign Ministry by Canning, who despised the Congress system, had no relationship with the tsar, whom he loathed, and who was determined to reduce the Alliance to its component parts. In support of his policy, he had decided to enlist public opinion, which he did in a series of declarations that inspired liberal reformers throughout Europe.
Whether or not Castlereagh could have achieved the legal and strategic point at Vienna on which he insisted—that the Alliance could not intervene as an Alliance in domestic affairs—can we agree that his system basically failed? Ford's conclusion that “[a]fter Verona, now one and then another major state took the initiative, employing means and encountering responses most of which would have been familiar to 18th century statesmen”47 suggests a reversion to the diplomacy of territorial states.
This remark, like Nicolson's, implicitly dismisses much of the point of Castlereagh's efforts, and in any case bears only glancingly on the subject of our inquiry. Whatever the form of the congresses—and these have lingered on to our own day and were a prominent feature of the nineteenth century—Castlereagh's great innovations were not procedural only. This fact is made clearer if we appreciate the difference between Castlereagh's objectives and those suggested by the phrase balance of power, so often associated with the Vienna settlement.
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