THE CONGRESS OF 'VIENNA.*
Jr is strange but true that there is no history of the Congress of Vienna, which exercised a profound influence on the develop- ment of Europe after Waterloo, and whose work has now in part to be undone by the Conference of Paris. We are glad, therefore, to see this admirable sketch of the long and fateful negotiations, written by Professor Webster for the Historical Section of the Foreign Office. It is intended " for the infor- mation of officials and men of action rather than historians," but as it is based on a careful study of Castlereagh's unpublished despatches in the Foreign Office as well as of many foreign authorities, the essay is singularly fresh and clear. The author is to be commended, too, for his endeavour to do justice to Castlereagh, without whose resolute, able, and patient leadership the Congress would have ended in confusion. "It has been clearly proved," says Professor Webster, " that for courage and common-sense he has rarely been equalled among British diplomatists, and that hie influence over the settlement of 1814-15 was greater than that of any other European statesman." The author adds that Castlereagh "had not that sympathy with liberal and national ideas which Canning acquired and used later to the great advantage of England and Europe." The • The Cosorest of Vienna, 1814.15. By C. K. Webster. Word: at the ruhersity Fran. ed.
comparison is unduly favourable to Canning, who in fact con- tinued Castlereagh's policy, but was freer to expound British principles to the world in and after 1823 than Castlereagh had been in 1814-15. Moreover, the author admits on a later page that in Waterloo year the nationalist movement, except in Poland, was undeveloped in Europe, and that Castlereagh might well prefer to hold fast to the principle of the Balance of Power, which to him meant the creation of a strong Central Europe. It is one of history's little ironies that a British states- man should have striven in 1815 to aggrandize Prussia, and that but for Castlereagh, working out an idea of Pitt's, Prussia would have received far less territory than she actually obtained in Western Germany. Prussia showed no more gratitude then than she had done after the Seven Years' War, in which British help saved her from utter ruin. But it is not easy to say that Castlereagh, in the circumstances, could or should have acted otherwise. His object was to protect Europe from a revival of Napoleonic aggression, and to keep France in check he summoned Prussia to share in the watch on the Rhine. Every statesmen must meet and overcome the difficulties arising in his own time. He cannot be expected to foresee the problems that his grand- children will have to face.
It is a curious fact that the Congress, strictly speaking, never met. The Treaty of Paris of May, 1814, provided that " all the Powers engaged on either side in the present war shall within the space of two months send plenipotentiaries to Vienna for the purpose of regulating in General Congress the arrangement; which are to complete the present Treaty." Accordingly all the Kings, Princes, Dukes, and Counts, regnant or deposed, of Germany and Italy flocked to Vienna with their womenkind. The Pope and the Grand Turk were represented, with the Order of St. John of Malta, the German Jews, and other bodies or classes. But when this multitude of plenipotentiaries had assembled, the four Great Powers, Groat Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, who had won the war, could not determine what to do with them. The four Powers had procured French assent to a secret article in the Treaty of Paris providing that the ceded territories and " the relations from whence a system of real and permanent balance of power in Europe is to be derived shall be regulated at the Congress upon the principles determined upon by the Allied Powers among themselves." That is to say, the four Powers meant to devise the resettlement of Europe, and the Congress was only to ratify it formally. But when Castle- reagh and Metternich, Hardenberg and Neeselrode, met in Vienna in September, 1814, they had not reached an agreement and could not face the " General Congress." They decided that the six " leading Powers," including France and Spain besides themselves, should conduct the business. When Talleyrand arrived, he insisted that all the eight signatories of the Treaty of Paris, including Portugal and Sweden, should form the Organizing Committee, but his proposal to sell a meeting of the whole Congress was declined. The " Big Four," if we may borrow a phrase from Chicago, meant to arrange the procedure of the Congress before they invited it to meet. But this involved the settlement of awkward controversies, as in the ease of Naples. Murat, who was reigning there, and Ferdinand, who was in Sicily, both claimed the right to be represented at Vienna. It was easier to postpone the summoning of the Congress than t 3 solve these conundrums, and, although the innumerable pleni- potentiaries were invited to submit their credentials to a Com- mittee of three Powers, they never met as a Congress. In the closing days of 1814 Castlereagh and Metternich insisted that Talleyrand, for France, should join in the confidential discussion of the Polish question by the " Big Four," which thus became five. Thenceforward the real work of the Congress was done by the Five Powers, who arranged among themselves the redistribution of territories, while large questions, such as the navigation of international rivers or the slave trade, were left to the Eight Powers. The General Treaty of June, 1815, comprising one hundred and twenty-one clauses and embodying a whole series of Treaties made by the Allies, was signed by the Eight Powers—with the exception of Spain. The lesser Powers were invited to accede to it, and most of them did, except the Pope and the Sultan. The Congress of Vienna thus differed widely from the present Conference. Its object was not to impose terms upon a defeated enemy. That had been done in the Peace of Paris. The Congress was intended to be a polite formality—like the various stages of a Finance Bill in the House of Lords—by which Euro- pean potentates, great or small, might signify their approval
of a European settlement dictated in advance by the four chief Allies. If the Allies had not failed to agree, before making peace with France, as to the disposition of the non-French portions of Napoleon's Empire, Vienna would not have kept them for very long. As it was, they renewed their quarrels at Vienna, and, having agreed that France should be represented in the Congress, they could not prevent Talleyrand from taking a hand in the controversy. Thus it came about that the Four Powers, who on March 9th, 1814, formed a Quadruple Alliance for twenty years in the Treaty of Chaumont, were almost at war before the year was ended. The Tear's stubborn refusal to give up Poland, Prussia's determination to secure all Saxony as compensation for the lost Polish lands, and Austria's resolve not to have Prussian neighbours on her Bohemian borders led to a crisis. On January 3rd, 1815, Castlereagh and bfetternich made with Talleyrand a secret defensive Treaty, which would become operative if Prussia attacked any one of the three, as she had virtually threatened to do if she were asked to evacuate Saxony. Castlereagh's bold stroke succeeded. His uneasy colleagues in the Liverpool Ministry had warned him that no one here wanted to fight for Eastern Europe. Yet they ratified at once the Treaty which Castlereagh had drafted without their know- ledge. Prussia, seeing that the British Minister would stand no nonsense and knowing that she had no friends on the Continent, hastily modified her Saxon claims. The Tsar, who would subject even Metternich to a petulant scolding but who was afraid to treat Castlereagh with lees than courtesy, assumed a conciliatory air when he heard of the secret Treaty. Talleyrand was accepted without further question as a member of the inner circle of Five, which within the next few weeks laid the basis of an amicable settlement. The Five, of course, did not recognize the right of- " self-determination," but parcelled out the people of Germany as if they had been so many sheep, allotting to Prussia, for example, as many " souls " in the Rhine provinces as she had lost in Poland or failed to keep in Saxony. The only unselfish action to be credited to the Allies was that of Great Britain. To facilitate peace we gave up nearly all the colonies that we had conquered, on condition that the Allies held together and recognized our view of the " Freedom of the Seas" As for the others, " I witness every day," wrote Castlereagh, " the astonish- ing tenacity with which all the Powers cling to the smallest point of separate interest." The danger confronting them was lees great than that which threatens the Allies to-day, but that spirit of particularism is still rampant. The real work of Vienna was done in informal and secret meetings of the Five, otherwise it would never have been done at alL
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