Chapter 2: The International System During the Long 19 ^th Century

Revolutions and the International System

The Impact of the Industrial Revolution upon the International System

Though it is not easy to simplify the dynamics of the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution, historians agree upon its main outcome, which was a shift from an agrarian economy that had prevailed for centuries to an industrial one through the usage of new means of production and manufacturing. Though regarded as an important component in a state’s modernization, the Industrial Revolution itself laid the foundation for a globalized capitalist system. The cornerstones that the Industrial Revolution stood on can be summarized into three main topics: technological advance, improved production, and the redistribution of labor.

However, the spreading tide of Industrial Revolution also transformed the dynamics of the traditional state and the society it governed. Growing numbers of tradable merchandise created a class of investors and merchants, which weakened the older landed aristocracy’s hold on power. Yet apart from this new moneyed aristocracy, a new working class was also emerging.

As state sovereignty rested on the absolute monarchy, the Industrial Revolution gave monarchs advanced tools to enhance their state’s power. These were increased state revenues from centralized taxation, rising domestic and foreign trade, and higher military spending, which all increased military and naval might.

Though the 18th century was the belle époque of absolute monarchy-dominated state relations, the Industrial Revolution brought about evergrowing tensions in the structure of traditional societies. As the flow of capital shifted from a landbased nobility to industrialists and merchants, the notion of a traditional aristocracy based on nobility deteriorated. Moreover, the emergence of a capitalbased bourgeoisie rapidly boosted the monarchy’s resources, helping sustain traditional international power structures, or even enhance them. As a result, the king had first of all to organize a balance between the old landed nobility and the rising capitalists, which was never easy.

The Impact of the American Revolution upon the International System

When the American Revolution, also known as the United States War of Independence, began in 1775, it was seen by continental Europe as an internal conflict between Britain and her North American colonies. However, from its onset, the thirteen colonies’ struggle for freedom was based on the legacy of the Industrial Revolution. The War of Independence of the American colonies was a wellorganized uprising of subjects against their sovereign, which succeeded in overthrowing the king’s authority

The Declaration of Independence in 1776 was merely assumed as a crack in the politics of the British Empire, not a social upheaval of subjects against their kings; the role of the American bourgeoisie was neglected. Ratifying its constitution by 1791, the United States of America was declared as a federal republic, announcing a new type of sovereignty based upon the people rather than an absolute monarch. In the sight of cautious philosophers like Immanuel Kant, this was a promising achievement of humanity to determine his/her own will. In the sight of Europe’s bureaucratic monarchies, it was merely a welcomed blow to Britain’s might.

The Impact of the French Revolution upon the International System

France had long been the signature absolute monarchy in Europe and styled the customs and the traditions of almost every other continental monarchy.

However, the high expenditures of the wars France had fought since the 1750s had taken their toll on the state’s treasury, and France was on the brink of bankruptcy. Louis XVI needed a new fiscal policy to raise new taxes, and he called a meeting of the Les Etats Généraux (the Estates General), the general assembly of the French estates. Yet attempts to do so failed to win the compromise of the aristocracy (the second estate), and to a lesser degree, the clergy (the first estate), and socalled tiers-état (third estate), which included the bourgeoisie and lower classes. On the contrary, after talks continuously broke down, in June 1789, the third estate, most of which belonged to the bourgeoisie, staged a declared itself as the National Assembly calling for a constitution that limited the sovereignty of the king.

What happened in France did not immediately shake Europe. The uprising did result in a new government in which Louis XVI accepted to share power with a national assembly claiming to represent the French people. However, the following months witnessed a sharp increase in tension between the king and National Assembly, as neither could reach a lasting agreement on how to govern in tandem. After the king attempted to flee to Austria to seek political and military aid, there was no turning back: he was arrested before reaching the border, put on trial, and eventually executed. The National Assembly drew up the second constitution now declaring France a Republic.

Proclaimed a republic, France now stood in firm contrast to the monarchies of Europe. Antithetical to the traditions of the European political system, the monarchies initially failed to establish diplomatic ties with France. By 1795 the new French Republic had not only proved her survivability, but also her capability to bid for mastery of the European system. In that sense, France was able to carve a new map in which she maintained her mastery of Western Europe under her new political system. It could be argued that the Revolutionary Wars effectively ended the era in which the European political system was based on monarchical values. As the French Republic introduced new values like social equality, citizenship, and above all nationalism, any victory that the republic achieved meant a deeper penetration of such values within Europe. the Revolutionary Wars are usually divided into two periods in which two coalitions stood against France. While the First Coalition was led by Austria and Prussia, which fought against France between 1793-1797, the second was led by Britain, Russia, and Austria, and the Ottoman Empire from 1798-1802.

Proclaimed as the Consul of the French Republic for life in 1802 and coronated as Emperor of France in 1804, Napoleon was the key figure in the final phase of the French Revolution. Owing both his military and political career to the fluctuating environment of the revolutionary republic, he was determined to alter Europe’s system by imposing the ideas of the French Revolution and employing the military might of France. Both Napoleon’s domestic reforms and foreign ventures gave France high esteem, transforming the republic into an empire which dominated continental Europe. However, this domination was costly in both economic and military terms— and could only last if both were materialized.

The End of Napoleonic Europe: The Congress of Vienna

It took seven coalitions to beat back the French Empire born of the Revolution. By the end of 1814, four major powers (Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia) had joined an alliance to fight until Napoleon was defeated. The Treaty of Chaumont, signed in March 1814, was the major achievement of the anti-Napoleonic coalitions and paved the way for the conference in which post-revolutionary Europe would be forged. When Napoleon finally abdicated in May 1814, the Bourbon monarchy was restored with the Peace Treaty of Paris. However, it was the Congress that met in Vienna in November 1814 that laid the foundations of the post-war European system. The Congress of Vienna aimed to redraw the map that Napoleon had redesigned on national terms. Its intention was to redraw the European map in ways that would benefit the major powers and bind them against any further attempt at hegemony over Europe. After the final defeat of Napoleon, the Holy Alliance and later the Quadruple Alliance were created.

Even though the leaders of the old system took charge in the fight against an enemy threatening to transform Europe, it could not undo the damage wrought by the French Revolution or Napoleon. Revolution remained the principal threat to Europe, and a stronger one than a largescale European war. This led the major powers to form the Concert of Europe, an outgrowth of the Holy and Quadruple alliances that saw two threats facing Europe. The second threat was more abstract but no less dangerous: the newfound sense of nationalism and selfdetermination bubbling up beneath the surface of so many European streets.

The Metternich System and The Concert of Europe

It is usually stated that Klemens von Metternich of Austria was the architect of the Concert of Europe. The Congress of Vienna showed that every state, even France, had got at least part of what they wanted, and the collaboration that had united the anti-French bloc was no longer necessary. Britain and Russia had other interests elsewhere, and the central European states were finally settled in a new uneasy peace. As such, the problem rested on building a consensus which would appease major powers focused on their own interests without creating conflict while maintaining a hierarchy that dictated each state’s role within the system.

There is a strong tendency to observe Britain in the 19th century as the balancer of the post-Napoleonic period, despite disagreements about precisely what kind of ‘balance’ this was. Though there is much evidence that British foreign policy was continuously successful in doing just that, the system was also based on consensus. Indeed, it was both Metternich’s success and perhaps only choice to lay the burden for finding such a consensus on Austria’s back. In this sense, it can be argued that the Concert of Europe rested on a set of Austrian responsibilities within a defined geography: Austria was the central political and geographical actor who was supposed to check Prussia’s ambitions to unite the German states; Piedmont’s ambitions to unite Italy; and France’s continental ambitions. Austria was the only European state who could put forth a set of interests actually shared by other powers, whether in a positive or a negative sense.

The problem facing Metternich was the lack of a common cause among European powers. To counter this, he developed a two-tiered value system based on antiliberalism and antinationalism, each of which was to be bolstered by absolutism.

To press smaller players into the consensus, Metternich designed a new map and set of alliances. A German Confederation was established that would rest on an Austrian-Prussian balance of power to serve as a barrier against German unification or French ambitions over the Catholic German States. Austria would also prevent any northern Italian state from attempts to unify Italy. Yet these responsibilities were too much for a single state to bear, especially one whose powers had been greatly weakened in all but diplomacy. Hence the Quadruple Alliance. With the conference of Aixla-Chappelle in 1818, France was also brought into the group, thus establishing the Quintuple Alliance.

At this point, Paul Schroeder’s arguments over the structure of the Concert of Europe gains importance. Schroeder rejects the claims of balance of power theorists, referring to this period instead as a state of “political equilibrium” among great powers (Schroeder, 1989: 135- 153). If the Concert of Europe is taken into consideration, distinguishing between ‘great powers’ and the overall ‘balance of powers’ is difficult. Though the Concert appears at first glance to be a balance, there is also a strong argument for a state of bipolarity between Britain and Russia. However, they were collaborators rather than antagonists. Nor was there multipolarity, as the hierarchy was not flexible enough for states to seek individual gains within its domain. Instead, he argues, the Concert was a unipolarity in which every state accepted a common value and rigid hierarchy. Regardless of their relative capacities, each state was a great power in its own right, a status mutually acceptable because of the “great power” status they bestowed on one another. Likewise, for new entrants to be recognized in this hierarchy, a state of consensus was needed at the top.

Challenges to the Concert of Europe

by 1820, the unhappy populations of Europe who had experienced a form of liberalism began to raise their voices against the absolutist rules forced upon them. Uprisings broke out in Naples and in Spain in 1820. To counter these, the major powers convened meetings that settled upon international intervention. The uprisings ended with the Austrian intervention in Naples and French intervention in Spain, and the restoration of monarchy in both.

These were internal crises of the European Concert. However, when the Greeks rose up against the Ottoman rule, the major powers were unaware of what collective action to take. It was evident that the Ottoman Empire was not included in the domain of the European Concert.

The concert was further damaged in 1830 when Europe saw a wave of revolutions. Though the main event started in France in July 1830, this merely replaced the Bourbon with the Orleans monarchy. Despite a fragile peace in France, concurrent uprisings started in Belgium, Italy, and Poland. It could be said that the independence of Belgium effectively divided the Concert of Europe into two: Britain and France representing the liberal western bloc, and Russia, Austria, and Prussia its conservative eastern bloc. It was clear the level of cooperation between the major states was in decline.

In February 1848, the Concert faced a huge set of challenges from a series of revolutions which sprung up almost everywhere in Europe. Every major power except Britain and Russia saw regime change. France once again became a republic, while Prussia was transformed into a constitutional monarchy. It was Austria that experienced the worst of the 1848 revolutions. The Revolutions of 1848 clearly demonstrated that the fundamentals of peace that had been accepted in 1815 were no longer valid. Neither the signatories of the Holy nor Quintuple Alliance were in power. Nor did the absolute monarchical regimes restored make it past 1853.

1848 were best for France, both restoring her revolutionary energy by overthrowing the monarchy and breaking the coalition which had stood against her revolutionary values since the signature of the Holy and Quadruple Alliances in 1815. Though France once again proclaimed to be a republic, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, staged a coup d’état in 1851 and made himself the Emperor of France.

Napoleon III’s strategy was put into action in 1854 when he was involved in the Crimean War. The Crimean War was a huge success for Napoleon III, who not only weakened Austria’s cooperation with Russia and isolated both of them, but also got the necessary British support in doing so. While it was Britain who designed the new status quo of the East at the Congress of Paris convened to end the Crimean War in 1856, it was France who benefited the most from the war. The Treaty of Paris signed in March 1856 demilitarized the Black Sea and secured the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, all strategies put forward by Britain at the expense of Russia. On the other hand, France was the greater beneficiary of both the war and the peace. Throughout the former, she found the chance to demonstrate both her military and naval might. At the end of the war, France appeared as the most powerful state in Europe.

Napoleon III was well aware that France needed to act according to three strategies:

• a set of nationalist ideas that reflected historical realities in places like Italy, the Rhine, and Poland;
• a perfect military machine to support any venture;
• an atomized great power structure unable to coalesce against any attempt to dominate Europe.

The most promising strategy seemed to establish satellite states in Italy and the Rhine at the expense of Austria.

Losing control over his Italian strategy and realizing that his moves had triggered a transformation in Europe he was unable to control, Napoleon III offered peace to Austria with the hope of restoring its position and winning her support in his future scenarios. Immediately after the Battles of Solferino and Magenta, the Peace of Villafranca (1859) was signed, which allowed the Austrians to save some face after a succession of military defeats.

As the monarchies of Europe were restored after the fall of Napoleon, the German provinces were organized into a new political structure, the German Confederation, at the Congress of Vienna. It was to be composed of 39 German states organized on the basis of a loose political association and mutual defense pact.

The first call for a united Germany came from a selfconstituted committee of German liberals in 1848, who called for the convention of a preliminary parliament in which all Germans would be represented, regardless of their government.

From 1853 onwards, Prussia struggled with domestic political crises, but from the beginning of the 1860s onward, she had developed both an efficient military organization and civil-military bureaucracy. Within the latter, two names stood out: Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and the Chief of the Staff of the Imperial Army, Helmuth von Moltke. Fueled by their motivation to unite Germany, Bismarck took the responsibility to organize both domestic and foreign policy, while Moltke stood ready to employ the army as needed.

Bismarck waged three successive wars. The first was with Denmark in 1864 in order to test the new Prussian military machine. The second was with Austria in 1866 and took Austria out of the German Confederation. The third, and perhaps most important, was with France in 1870. As a preemptive move against Napoleon III’s bid for mastery of Europe, especially in the wake of Austria’s demise, it also greatly boosted his position back home. Apart from formally ending the FrancoPrussian War, the Treaty of Frankfurt in May 1871 would also proclaim the unification of Germany.

The Bismarck System and its Downfall

While the unification of Germany was the final outcome of the dissolution of the concert system of 1815, it was also the beginning of a new European system. Contrary to Napoleon III’s ambitions, Bismarck was cautious in his approach to do so. With Germany now the most powerful state in Europe, Bismarck had to choose carefully between a strategy of domination or reconciliation for this new European system.

Bismarck’s first diplomatic attempt aimed once again at the galvanization of the conservative bloc. Hence he convened the first Three Emperors’ League (Dreikaisrbund) in 1872 in which the emperors of Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary agreed to collaborate under nearly the same terms as the Holy Alliance of 1815.

It was evident that with the crisis of 1875, the Three Emperors’ League was over. Yet the Congress of Berlin paved way for the formation of a new conservative front in the east. Bismarck took the chance and guaranteed an alliance with Austria in 1879 in which both parties agreed to support each other in case of a war against a third party. Though the Dual Alliance was of a defensive nature, it gave a concrete guarantee to Austria-Hungary that Germany was willing to support her position in the Balkans. To Bismarck, the alliance meant two things: forcing Austria-Hungary to bandwagon with Germany, and isolating France.

After securing Austria-Hungary’s cooperation, Bismarck moved to add Russia to the AustroGerman cooperation. Though he failed to extract a formal alliance, he succeeded in reforming a second Three Emperors’ League in 1881. In 1882, Bismarck included Italy in the Dual Alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary, thus transforming the accord into the Triple Alliance. He brokered the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia in 1887, in which both sides agreed to remain neutral if either should go to war with a third party. The Reinsurance Treaty was to be renewed every three years. With its signature,Bismarck had achieved what he most hoped for: a new concert of Europe in which Germany, and above all, Bismarck, was in the driver’s seat.

Perhaps the weakest side of Bismarck’s complex alliance system was Bismarck himself. While Wilhelm died in 1888, Bismarck readied himself to work with his heir, Frederick III. Yet the latter succumbed to a mortal illness three months later. His son, 29 years old, soon became Emperor Wilhelm II. Before long it was evident that Bismarck was too old and the emperor too young to work together. After a series of misunderstandings, Bismarck resigned in 1890.

The first crack appeared in Bismarck’s system in 1890, immediately after his resignation, when the Reassurance Treaty was not renewed by Germany.