Graaf The Legacy of the Wars for the International System

Question 1

How would you characterise the European Concert?

Answer 1

Graaf argues the concert of Europe is “a truly collective, but imperial invention with global impact, including notions of hierarchy and patterns of inclusion and exclusion. It was, in sum, an ordering principle and narrative for the ‘affairs of the world’ after Napoleon.”

Question 2

Like the European Union, was it a real organisation with a headquarters in one of the European capitals?

Answer 2

No, the Concert of Europe was not a formal organization with a headquarters like the European Union. Instead, it was an informal and flexible system of international cooperation.

Question 3

Was it a partnership between equals?

Answer 3

• The other great powers (assisted by some of the secondary powers) could lay claim to being an equally essential part of the treaty system – albeit locked in a hierarchical order
• First-level powers- The four great powers/ Quadruple Alliance- Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia and later France
• Second-level powers- Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland and the German principalities
• Third-level- ‘separate petty sovereignties’ better off entirely without independence and autonomy and could be wiped off the map of Europe since they could not make any ‘claim, either of justice or liberality

Question 4

Did the Congress and the EU have similar members?

Answer 4

The Concert of Europe and the European Union have some overlap in members, such as Austria, France, and Germany (successor to Prussia), but the EU has 27 member states, including many nations that were not independent or did not exist in their current form during the Concert of Europe.

Question 5

To what extent did Napoleon’s victors manage to return to the world before 1789? And to what extent did they really want that?

Answer 5

Napoleon’s victors gathered at the Congress of Vienna, aimed to roll back the revolutionary changes and restore the pre-1789 European order. They endeavoured to reinstate monarchies and redraw territorial boundaries to their pre-Napoleonic configurations.

For instance, Austria regained control over Lombardy and Venetia, and the Bourbon monarchy was reinstated in France.

However, their efforts faced challenges exemplified by the Greek War of Independence. Despite the Concert of Europe’s reluctance to intervene, public sympathy and pressure compelled Britain, France, and Russia to join forces at the Battle of Navarino, resulting in Greece gaining independence in 1830.

This illustrated the tension between restoring old boundaries and accommodating new nationalist aspirations.

Additionally, Belgium’s emergence as an independent state in 1830 highlighted the limits of the Congress of Vienna’s influence in the face of rising nationalism.

While some victors, like Metternich’s Austria, aimed for stability through conservative policies, others, like Britain, sought to maintain the balance of power to safeguard their interests.

Thus, while the victors sought to return to the pre-revolutionary status quo, the complexities of post-Napoleonic Europe ensured that the world after 1815 blended old and new, shaped by continuity and change.