[LC]

WORLD POLITICS

VOL. VIII

JANUARY 1956

No. 2

CONTENTS

The Political Attitudes of German Business

Gabriel A. Almond 157

Changing Political Attitudes in Totalitarian
Society: A Case Study of the Role of the Family

Kent Geiger 187

Some Thoughts on the Social Structure After
a Bombing Disaster

Jack Hirshleifer 206

Massive Retaliation and Graduated Deterrence

Rear Admiral Sir Anthony W. Buzzard, RN (Ret.) 228

Regionalism, Functionalism, and Universal
International Organization

Ernst B. Haas 238

The Congress of Vienna: A Reappraisal

Henry A. Kissinger 264

REVIEW ARTICLES

Concerning Strategies for a Science of Inter-
national Politics

Herbert McClosky 281

The Fall of China

Franz Michael 296

The Contributors

ii

# THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA
## A Reappraisal

By HENRY A. KISSINGER

### I

It is only natural that a period anxiously seeking to wrest peace from the threat of nuclear extinction should look nostalgically to the last great successful effort to settle international disputes by means of a diplomatic conference, the Congress of Vienna. Nothing is more tempting than to ascribe its achievements to the very process of negotiation, to diplomatic skill, and to "willingness to come to an agreement"—and nothing is more dangerous. For the effectiveness of diplomacy depends on elements transcending it; in part on the domestic structure of the states comprising the international order, in part on their power relationship.

Any international settlement represents a stage in a process by which a nation reconciles its vision of itself with the vision of it by other powers. No state can doubt its own good faith; it is the vehicle of its social cohesion. But, equally, no power can stake its survival entirely on the good faith of another; this would be an abdication of the responsibility of statesmanship. The whole domestic effort of a people exhibits an effort to transform force into obligation by means of a consensus on the nature of justice. But the international experience of a state is a challenge to the universality of its notion of justice, for the stability of the international order depends on the reconciliation of different versions of legitimacy. Could a nation achieve all its wishes, it would strive for absolute security, a world order free from the consciousness of foreign danger, and one where all problems have the manageability of domestic issues. But since absolute security for one power means absolute insecurity for all others, it is obtainable only through conquest, never as part of a legitimate settlement.

An international settlement which is accepted and not imposed will therefore always appear *somewhat* unjust to any one of its components. Paradoxically, the generality of this dissatisfaction is a condition of stability, because were any one power *totally* satisfied, all others would have to be *totally* dissatisfied and a revolutionary situation would ensue. The foundation of a stable order is the *relative* security—and therefore the *relative* insecurity—of its members. Its stability reflects, not the

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absence of unsatisfied claims, but the absence of a grievance of such
magnitude that redress will be sought in overturning the settlement
rather than through an adjustment within its framework. An order
whose structure is accepted by all major powers is "legitimate." An
order containing a power which considers its structure oppressive is
"revolutionary." The security of a domestic order resides in the pre-
ponderant power of authority, that of an international order in the
balance of forces and in its expression, the equilibrium.

But if an international order expresses the need for security and an
equilibrium, it is constructed in the name of a legitimizing principle.
Because a settlement transforms force into acceptance, it must attempt
to translate individual demands into general advantage. It is the legiti-
mizing principle which establishes the relative "justice" of competing
claims and the mode of their adjustment. This is not to say that there
need be an exact correspondence between the maxims of legitimacy
and the conditions of the settlement. No major power will give up its
minimum claim to security—the possibility of conducting an inde-
pendent foreign policy—merely for the sake of legitimacy. But the
legitimizing principle defines the marginal case. In 1919, the Austro-
Hungarian Empire disintegrated not so much from the impact of the
war as from the nature of the peace, because its continued existence
was incompatible with national self-determination, the legitimizing
principle of the new international order. It would have occurred to no
one in the eighteenth century that the legitimacy of a state depended on
linguistic unity. It was inconceivable to the makers of the Versailles
settlement that there might be any other basis for legitimate rule.
Legitimizing principles triumph by being taken for granted.

Although there never occurs an exact correspondence between the
maxims of the legitimizing principle and the conditions of the settle-
ment, stability depends on a certain commensurability. If there exists
a substantial discrepancy *and* a major power which feels disadvantaged,
the international order will be volatile. For the appeal by a "revolution-
ary" power to the legitimizing principle of the settlement creates a
psychological distortion. The "natural" expression of the policy of a
status-quo power is law—the definition of a continuing relationship.
But against a permanently dissatisfied power appealing to the legitimiz-
ing principle of the international order, force is the only recourse. Those
who have most gain from stability thus become the advocates of a
revolutionary policy. Hitler's appeal to national self-determination in
the Sudeten crisis in 1938 was an invocation of "justice," and thereby
contributed to the indecisiveness of the resistance: it induced the West-

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ern powers to attempt to construct a "truly" legitimate order by satis-
fying Germany's "just" claims. Only after Hitler annexed Bohemia
and Moravia was it clear that he was aiming for dominion, not legiti-
macy; only then did the contest become one of pure power.

The major problem of an international settlement, then, is so to relate the claims of legitimacy to the requirements of security that no power will express its dissatisfaction in a revolutionary policy, and so to arrange the balance of forces as to deter aggression produced by causes other than the conditions of the settlement. This is not a mechanical problem. If the international order could be constructed like a mathematical axiom, powers would consider themselves as factors in a balance and arrange their adjustments to achieve a perfect equilibrium between the forces of aggression and the forces of resistance. But an exact balance is impossible, and not only because of the difficulty of predicting the aggressor. It is chimerical, above all, because while powers may appear to outsiders as factors in a security arrangement, they appear domestically as expressions of a historical existence. No power will submit to a settlement, however well-balanced and however "secure," which seems totally to deny its vision of itself. There exist two kinds of equilibrium then: a general equilibrium which makes it risky for one power or group of powers to attempt to impose its will on the remainder; and a special equilibrium which defines the historical relation of certain powers among each other. The former is the deterrent against a general war; the latter the condition of smooth cooperation. An international order is therefore rarely born out of the consciousness of harmony. For even when there is an agreement about legitimacy, the conceptions of the requirements of security will differ with the geographical position and the history of the contending powers. Out of just such a conflict over the nature of the equilibrium the Congress of Vienna fashioned a settlement which lasted almost exactly a century.

For the problem at Vienna was not simply how to protect Europe against a renewed French onslaught. There was general agreement about the extent of France compatible with the peace of Europe, but this only sharpened the disagreements *within* the victorious coalition about the relative spheres of influence of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain. And this contest was made all the more intractable because each of the protagonists meant something different by the term "equilibrium" so frequently invoked: When the British Foreign Minister, Castlereagh, spoke of the equilibrium, he meant a Europe in which hegemony was impossible; but when Metternich appealed to the equi-

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librium, he included a Germany in which Prussian predominance was impossible. Russia's demand for Poland threatened the equilibrium of Europe and Castlereagh could, therefore, hardly believe that any other problem was worth discussing before the Tsar's pretensions were thwarted. Prussia's insistence on Saxony merely imperiled the balance within Germany, but this was enough to absorb the full energy of Metternich. Castlereagh was interested in creating a Central Europe which would be strong enough to resist attack from both the West and the East; Metternich desired the same thing, but he was also concerned about Austria's relative position *within* Central Europe. To Castlereagh, the Continental nations were aspects of a defensive effort; but to the Continental nations the general equilibrium meant nothing if it destroyed the historical position which to them was the reason for their existence. To Castlereagh, the equilibrium was a mechanical expression of the balance of forces; to the Continental nations, a reconciliation of historical aspirations.

This led to a diplomatic stalemate, made all the more intractable because Britain and Austria had secured most of their special objectives during the war so that few bargaining weapons were left to Russia and Prussia, a stalemate which could be broken only by adding an additional weight to one side of the scales. Since the sole uncommitted major power was France, the former enemy emerged as the key to the European settlement. Thus grew up a myth about Talleyrand's role at the Congress of Vienna, of the diabolical wit who appeared on the scene and broke up a coalition of hostile powers, who then regrouped them into a pattern to his liking by invoking the magic word "legitimacy" and from an outcast emerged as the arbiter of Europe.¹ To be sure, since the Treaty of Paris had settled France's boundaries, Talleyrand could afford perhaps the most disinterested approach. His wit and caustic comments became famous, so that Gentz could say of him that he had both the laughers and the thinkers on his side. But these efforts would have availed little, had not the threat of France been eclipsed by the danger from the East, had not the differences among the Allies become greater than their common fear of France. So long

¹ It is a legend spread by those who confuse results and causes and by professional diplomats wont to ascribe to mere negotiating skill what is possible only through the exploitation of more deep-seated factors. It has gained currency because Talleyrand, whose monarch had not come to Vienna, was obliged to write voluminous reports, and in order to cement his shaky domestic position, the former Foreign Minister of Napoleon tended to emphasize his indispensability. See, for example, Harold G. Nicolson, *The Congress of Vienna*, New York, 1946; Duff Cooper, *Talleyrand*, New York, 1932; Crane Brinton, *The Lives of Talleyrand*, New York, 1936; Guglielmo Ferrero, *The Reconstruction of Europe*, New York, 1941.

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as the Coalition still believed that the memory of the common wartime effort would provide the motive force of a settlement, Talleyrand was powerless. Once this illusion was shattered, the issue became one of the limits of self-restraint, whether a power would fail to add a factor to its side merely for the sake of the appearance of harmony. The logic of the situation provided the answer: France came to participate in European affairs, because they could not be settled without her.

II

As the plenipotentiaries were assembling in Vienna, however, the course of events seemed by no means this clear. It was still thought that the settlement would be rapid, that France would appear as but a spectator, that the rest of Europe would only be called upon to ratify an instrument drafted in relative harmony. This was reflected in the procedural scheme agreed to at preliminary conferences between Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain which placed the effective control of the Congress in the hands of the "Big Four." Talleyrand protested strenuously against the exclusion of France and the minor powers from the deliberations of the Congress, but despite his brilliance and sarcasm, he achieved only a few minor concessions. It was decided to adjourn the formal opening of the Congress until November 1, 1814, and to have the pending questions examined in the meantime by the eight signatories of the Treaty of Paris, the "Big Four" plus France, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden. The "Big Four" left no doubt, however, that they intended to continue their private discussions and to treat the "Eight" merely as a ratifying instrument or as one for settling peripheral issues.

Talleyrand's first sally failed, because a logical inconsistency is not sufficient to dissolve coalitions. Only after the claim of special righteousness, which is characteristic of coalitions, had disappeared in a conflict which indicated that the relations of the Allies among each other were simply those of contending powers, could Talleyrand emerge as an equal partner. But first one more effort to determine whether the Tsar could be induced to limit his claims without the threat of force had to be made. So well had Castlereagh established himself as the prime contender for the European equilibrium that it was he who entered the arena to try the Tsar's resolution.

There ensued a strange and unreal series of interviews between Castlereagh and Alexander; strange, because their bitterness was accompanied by protestations of unending friendship, and unreal, be-

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cause Alexander and Castlereagh could never agree on basic premises. In order to obtain a framework for negotiation, the protagonists constantly shifted positions, pretending to agree with the other's principles, but interpreting them in a manner which reduced them to absurdity. Thus Castlereagh at one stage became an avid defender of a completely independent Poland, while Alexander on another occasion defended his Polish plan as a contribution to European security. That Alexander did not propose to let protestations of Allied unity deprive him of his Polish spoils became apparent on the occasion of his first interview with Castlereagh on the day after his arrival.² For the first time, he avowed his Polish plans in detail. He proposed to keep all of the Duchy of Warsaw with the exception of a small portion to be ceded to Prussia. These claims, Alexander argued, were not the result of ambition, but the outgrowth of a moral duty and motivated by the sole desire of achieving the happiness of the Polish people. In short, since they were not advanced in the name of security, they could not threaten anyone. Castlereagh, in reply, urged that a Russian appendage extending deep into Central Europe would constitute a constant source of disquiet for the rest of Europe. But the Tsar left no doubt that he was unwilling to withdraw from his Polish possession. The interview between Castlereagh and Alexander had thus made evident that persuasiveness would not suffice and that the next stage of the negotiations would have to be based on force or the threat of force.³

### III

While Castlereagh was negotiating with the Tsar, he made every effort to assemble such a force. As an abstract problem in diplomacy his task seemed simple. But although the equilibrium might be in-divisible, it did not appear so to its components. The Tsar could not be resisted without a united front of the rest of Europe, but the powers of Europe were not at all in accord regarding the real danger. They did not wish to see the general equilibrium overturned, but they were not prepared to resist at the sacrifice of that part of it on which their historical position depended. A strong Russia might dominate Europe, but a too powerful Prussia would outstrip Austria and a united Ger-many might menace France. Hardenberg, the Prussian minister, was

² Castlereagh's report. See Charles Webster, *British Diplomacy, 1813-1815*, London, 1921, pp. 197ff., October 2, 1814.

³ The exchange continued through October in a series of memoranda: Castlereagh to the Tsar, October 12, 1814, see Duke of Wellington, *Supplementary Despatches, Correspondence and Memoranda*, 15 vols., ed. by his son, London, 1855-1872, IX, p. 332; the Tsar's reply, October 30, p. 386; Castlereagh's reply, November 8, p. 410.

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more interested in Saxony than in Poland; Talleyrand was almost as
afraid that the problem of Poland would be settled *without* him as
that it would be settled *against* him; and Metternich, while not indif-
ferent to the extension of Russia into Central Europe and of Prussia
into Central Germany, did not wish to resist openly since this would
cause the brunt of the effort to fall on Austria, the most exposed power,
while surrendering the policy of close cooperation with Prussia which
Metternich considered the key to Austrian security. "I barricade myself
behind time," Metternich told the Saxon envoy, "and make patience
my weapon."⁴

Thus Castlereagh's effort to create a united front against Russia led to an ambiguous series of constellations, of half-hearted coalitions and tentative betrayals, of promises of unyielding support coupled with hedges against bad faith. Matters were finally brought to a head by Prussia, the power which could least afford delay. For although the treaties of Kalish, Teplitz, and Chaumont had guaranteed Prussia its territorial extent of 1805, they had never specified where Prussia might find the requisite territories, particularly if it lost its Polish possessions to Russia. The available compensations, composed of former provinces or former satellites of France, primarily in the Rhineland, were inadequate. And they were undesirable because of their geographic separation from the main part of the Prussian monarchy and the Catholic religion of their inhabitants. Thus Prussia came to look toward Saxony, coveted since the time of Frederic the Great, contiguous with its own territories and with a predominantly Protestant population. But Prussia's negotiating position was the weakest of those of the major powers. Unlike Russia, it was not in possession of its prize. Unlike Austria, it had not made its participation in the war dependent on obtaining its special conditions. If now the Polish question was settled before that of Saxony, Prussia would have paid the penalty for its total commitment; of having fought the war with so much fervor that its participation had never been negotiable, of neglecting the peace because the war, in effect, had become an end in itself. And Prussia required Austrian acquiescence in the annexation of Saxony, because the organization of Germany, the indispensable condition of Prussia's security, would become illusory if Austria emerged on the Saxon issue as the protector of the secondary German powers.

It is not surprising, therefore, that on October 9, 1814, Hardenberg
submitted a memorandum agreeing to an "intermediary system based

⁴ Wilhelm Schwarz, *Die Heilige Allianz*, Stuttgart, 1935, p. 13.

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on Austria, Prussia and Britain,” and directed against Russia.⁵ But he made Prussia’s cooperation on the Polish question dependent on Austrian agreement to the annexation of Saxony and to the provisional occupation of Saxony by Prussia as a token of good faith. In its tentative quest for allies, in its pedantic effort to achieve the advantage of every course of action, the Hardenberg memorandum merely served to illustrate Prussia’s dilemma: Russian support might gain it Saxony, but not legitimacy; while Austrian support might yield it Poland, but not Saxony. The Hardenberg memorandum was a plea not to leave Prussia dependent on the good will of the Tsar; to create a European order based on Austro-Prussian friendship, but also on Prussian possession of Saxony.

But this effort to combine incompatible policies provided Metternich with the means to separate the Polish and Saxon question by one of his intricate maneuvers. On October 22, he transmitted two notes to Hardenberg and Castlereagh whose tone of grudging agreement to Hardenberg’s proposal obscured the fact that the moral framework which was being created to resist in Poland would prove equally effective to resist in Saxony, and that Hardenberg, in his effort to hedge his risks, had made his defeat inevitable. For Castlereagh in his overriding concern with the balance of power and Hardenberg in his obsession with Saxony overlooked two subtle and mutually inconsistent reservations in Metternich’s despatches: that Prussia’s annexation of Saxony should not lead to a “disproportionate aggrandizement,” a condition clearly impossible of fulfillment if Prussia regained her Polish provinces,⁶ and that Austria’s agreement on the Saxon point was conditional on the success of the effort to thwart the Tsar’s design on Poland⁷—which, in turn, would leave Prussia isolated in the inevitable contest over the interpretation of the first reservation.

But while Metternich was preparing the moral framework for an effort to separate Prussia and Russia, Castlereagh was looking only to Poland, as if the European equilibrium could be created with the necessity of a mathematical equation. On October 23, he finally succeeded in getting Prussia to agree to a common plan of action against Russia on the basis of Metternich’s memoranda.⁸ The three powers undertook to force the issue by confronting the Tsar with the threat of bringing the Polish question before the full Congress if a reasonable settle-

⁵ Comte d'Angeberg, *Le Congrès de Vienne et les Traités de 1815*, Paris, 1863-1864, II, p. 1934.

⁶ Text of note to Castlereagh, *ibid.*, II, pp. 1939ff.

⁷ Text of note to Hardenberg, *ibid.*, I, pp. 316ff.

⁸ Castlereagh's report, Webster, *op.cit.*, p. 212, October 29, 1814.

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ment could not be obtained by direct negotiations. They proposed three acceptable solutions: an independent Poland as it existed prior to the first partition, a rump Poland on the scale of 1791, or the return of the three partitioning powers to their former possessions.⁹

The threat of an appeal to Europe in Congress was the last effort to settle the European equilibrium by a combination *within* the anti-French coalition. When Metternich called on the Tsar to present the ultimatum on the Polish question, he was dismissed haughtily and even challenged to a duel. And when, on October 30, the three sovereigns left to visit Hungary, Alexander appealed to his brother monarchs against their ministers. He failed with the Austrian Emperor, but it did not prove too difficult to convince the stodgy and unimaginative Prussian King that the secret negotiations of the three ministers were an act of bad faith. When the monarchs returned to Vienna, Hardenberg was ordered, in the presence of the Tsar, to refrain from any further separate negotiations with his Austrian and British colleagues. In this manner, on November 5, the contest over Poland ended for the time being. The effort to achieve an international order based on agreement and not on force seemed to have returned to its starting point.

## IV

But this was a mistaken impression. For if Castlereagh's failure had proved that the equilibrium could not be achieved through a demonstration of its necessity, Metternich's almost imperceptible complementary effort had created the moral framework for reopening the issue by an appeal to legitimacy. The procrastination which had proved so maddening to Castlereagh had in fact been Metternich's most effective means to overcome his dilemmas, for delay strengthened Austria's chief bargaining weapon, that legitimacy can be conferred but not exacted, that it implies agreement and not imposition. So the weeks had passed while Europe complained about the frivolity of the Austrian minister and the old school of Austrian diplomats raged that their “Rhenish” minister, whom they nicknamed Prince Scamperlin, was betraying the Empire to Prussia. But in the admiration for the famous phrase of the Prince de Ligne: “Le Congrès danse, mais il ne marche pas,” it was overlooked that the Congress was dancing itself into a trap.

When Hardenberg offered Metternich his cooperation, he believed

⁹ Memorandum re procedure, *ibid*., pp. 213ff.

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that he was clinching his gains and that he was obtaining a guarantee of Saxony, however the Polish negotiations ended. But because Metternich's reply had made Austrian agreement to the annexation of Saxony conditional on the success of their common measures, the effort to connect the two issues became a means to separate them. For if the Polish negotiations succeeded, Prussia would lose her moral claim to Saxony in the eyes of Europe. If Prussia regained her Polish possessions, the annexation of Saxony would represent the "disproportionate aggrandizement" against which Metternich had warned Castlereagh. But if the Polish negotiations failed, Prussia would lose her moral claim to Saxony in the eyes of Austria. Prussia's isolation was assured none the less surely, because the fact of resistance was almost as certain to alienate the Tsar as its success. Having demonstrated Austria's European concern by yielding in Saxony, intransigence could now be defended by the requirements of the European and not the German equilibrium. And Castlereagh, having obtained Austrian support in the Polish negotiations, would no longer be able to treat the Saxon issue as an internal German affair. There could be no doubt of the attitude of France or of the smaller German states. Prussia, in its effort to obtain reinsurance, had only succeeded in achieving its isolation.

When, on November 7, Hardenberg informed Metternich of the King's orders and of the difficulty of carrying out the agreed plan with respect to Poland, Metternich finally had the moral basis for action.¹⁰ Austria was interested in the closest relationship with Prussia, he replied, but no longer at the price of the destruction of Saxony.¹¹ After being forced to tolerate Russian aggrandizement in Poland, Austria could not acquiesce in Prussian aggrandizement within Germany without upsetting the equilibrium completely. Metternich suggested an alternative plan which maintained a nucleus of Saxony, while giving a large part of it to Prussia, together with other compensations in the Rhineland. But all protestations of friendship could not hide the fact that Prussia was outmaneuvered, that Metternich had lost out in Poland only to win in Saxony and then partially to restore the situation in Poland by means of Saxony.

It did not matter that, on November 8, the Russian military governor of Saxony turned over the provisional administration to Prussia, or

¹⁰ D'Angeberg, *op.cit.*, I, p. 406 (Hardenberg's note to Metternich). There is yet another indication, although no proof, that Metternich never intended the Polish negotiations as anything but a means to isolate Prussia on the Saxon question: his dismal defeat during his interview with Alexander. At no other time in his career did Metternich choose a frontal attack, negotiate so ineffectively, or surrender so easily.

¹¹ Text, *ibid*., I, p. 505.

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that the Prussian military were threatening war. Russia, at the periphery of Europe, might rest its claim on Poland on the fact of possession, but a power situated in the center of the Continent could survive only as the component of a "legitimate" order both within Germany and in Europe. Thus, although by the middle of December the Congress of Vienna seemed to have reached a complete stalemate, behind the scene a fundamental transformation was preparing itself. A stalemate is not total until all the factors are engaged and France was still uncommitted. The contests during October and November had exploded the myth of Allied unity and the threat of France no longer loomed larger than that of the erstwhile ally. While Castlereagh was despairing about the Polish failure and accusing Metternich of never having really intended to resist,¹² a combination was forming on the Saxon question which was to give a new direction to the contest. For the coalition which could resist in Saxony was, by definition, also the coalition which could resist in Poland. And the claims of power defeated in one quarter would, almost necessarily, limit the assertions of arbitrariness in the other. So it was proved, after all, that the equilibrium was indivisible, although the solution did not come about through a consciousness of this. It was not in the name of Europe that Europe was saved, but in the name of Saxony.

V

But before this new combination could be formed, domestic pressures on Castlereagh nearly wrecked Metternich's finely spun plan. An insular power may fight its wars in the name of the European equilibrium, but it will tend to identify the threats to the equilibrium with threats to its immediate security. Because its policy is defensive and not precautionary, it will make the cause of war depend on an overt act which "demonstrates" the danger. But the danger to the equilibrium is never demonstrated until it is already overturned, because an aggressor can always justify every step, except the crucial last one, as the manifestation of limited claims and exact acquiescence as the price of continued moderation. To be sure, Britain had entered the fray against Napoleon at an early stage and continued the contest with great persistence. But the threat to the equilibrium had become manifest through an attack on the Low Countries and a challenge to Britain's command of the seas. Now the issue was Poland, however, a "distant" country both geographically and psychologically. It was not clear until it was

¹² Webster, *op.cit.*, pp. 248ff.

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"proven" that the Rhine was best defended along the Vistula or that there existed any threat to peace except France. In this frame of mind the Cabinet considered the Polish dispute an irritating outgrowth of Continental rivalry, threatening a peace dearly won, and dealt with it primarily under the aspect of its impact on British domestic politics.

On October 14, Liverpool, the British Prime Minister, wrote Castlereagh that the "less Britain had to do with [Poland] . . . the better" and he transmitted a memorandum by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Vansittart, who simply denied the reality of the Russian danger. With the petulance of mediocrity convincing itself that the easy way out is also the course of wisdom, Vansittart argued that the absorption of Poland would add an element of weakness to the Russian state while proving conducive to British commerce.¹³ Finally, on November 22, the Cabinet sent its first instructions to Castlereagh since his arrival in Vienna: "It is unnecessary," wrote Bathurst, "for me to point out to you the impossibility of . . . consenting to involve this country into hostilities . . . for any of the objects which have hitherto been under discussion at Vienna."¹⁴

Thus, at the crucial point in the negotiations, Castlereagh was deprived of his only means of exerting pressure and at a moment when the issue was becoming one of pure power. For Prussia was being drawn by Metternich's temporizing into precipitate action. As it observed its moral and material basis slipping away, its tone became increasingly bellicose. Its military were openly speaking of war and even the more moderate Hardenberg hinted at extreme measures. But if possession without legitimacy was illusory, legitimacy through force proved chimerical. Castlereagh was merely defining Prussia's dilemma when he told Hardenberg that "he [Hardenberg] could not regard an unacknowledged claim as constituting a good title and that he never could in conscience or honor . . . make the mere refusal of a recognition a cause of war. . . ."¹⁵ In this situation Castlereagh did not propose to follow his Cabinet's instructions. To announce British disinterest would remove the major deterrent to war and, in its effort to guarantee peace, the Cabinet would have brought about what it feared most. Or else, a British withdrawal from the contest would have led to an Austrian surrender and to a complete overturn of the equilibrium.

So it happened that Castlereagh and Metternich found themselves on the same side in a battle whose moral framework had been defined

13 *Ibid.*, pp. 220ff.

14 *Ibid.*, pp. 247ff.

15 *Ibid.*, p. 255. December 7, 1814.

[L[C]

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by the wily Austrian Minister. The more intransigent Prussia's attitude, the stronger became Metternich's position. Without the necessity for abstract discussion, Austria emerged as the protector of the secondary powers. When Metternich proposed an alliance to Bavaria and Hanover and the construction of a German League without Prussia, he was simply giving expression to a general consensus. It was at this point, when the last vestiges of the Alliance were disappearing, that Talleyrand reappeared on the scene. He emerged because Metternich put him on the stage and his eloquence was but a reflection of Metternich's desire for anonymity, for Metternich was not interested in appearing as the agent of Prussia's humiliation. It was Metternich's desire that events should come about "naturally," because that would minimize the danger of personal schisms; it was Talleyrand's effort that they should appear "caused," for that would cement his shaky domestic position.

Talleyrand was given his opportunity by Metternich, who communicated to him the Austrian note to Hardenberg and thus made clear that the Big Four had not been able to settle the issue.¹⁶ Talleyrand replied in a trenchant memorandum, which asserted the superiority of the claims of legitimacy over the requirements of the equilibrium and denied the possibility of deposing kings, because sovereigns could not be tried, least of all by those who coveted their territories. It was not for Prussia to state what she would take, Talleyrand argued boldly, but for the "legitimate" King of Saxony to define how much he would yield.¹⁷ It was a masterly summary of all the inconsistencies of two months of acrimony, but this was not its significance. Talleyrand had served France better by remaining "available" than by writing memoranda. The real importance of the exchange lay in the fact that France was once again part of the concert of Europe.

Only a short step separated Talleyrand from full participation in the deliberations. Castlereagh, who had hoped to avoid so drastic a step, finally agreed on December 27. When, on December 31, Castlereagh and Metternich proposed that henceforth Talleyrand participate in the meetings of the Big Four, it was clear that the special claims of the Alliance had ceased before Prussia had gained the fruits of its war effort. Even the Tsar, in Castlereagh's words, "would not advise Prussia to resist now that he has secured his own arrangement in Poland."
Thus driven back on its last resources, Prussia threatened war.

¹⁶ Clemens Metternich, *Aus Metternichs Nachgelassenen Papieren*, 8 vols., ed. by Alfons von Klinkowstroem, Vienna, 1880, II, pp. 503ff.

¹⁷ *Ibid.*, pp. 510ff., December 19, 1814; D'Angeberg, *op.cit.*, pp. 546ff.

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277

But the reaction merely served to indicate Prussia's impotence. Castlereagh replied sharply that "such an insinuation might operate upon a power trembling for its own existence but must have the contrary effect upon all alive to their own dignity; and I added that if such a temper really prevailed, we were not deliberating in a state of independence and it was better to break up the Congress."¹⁸ That same day, Castlereagh proposed a defensive alliance between France, Austria, and Britain. To be sure, Talleyrand was required to guarantee the Low Countries and to reaffirm the provisions of the Treaty of Paris. But Talleyrand's greatest achievement at Vienna was precisely this exhibition of self-restraint, this refusal to attempt to sell French participation in the alliance for a territorial advantage, an effort which would have united all the other powers against him. As a result he gained something more important, the end of the isolation of France and the real recognition of its equality.

If the defensive alliance provided the crisis of the Congress of Vienna, it also paved the way for its resolution. In any negotiation it is understood that force is the ultimate recourse. But it is the art of diplomacy to keep this threat potential, to keep its extent indeterminate, and to commit it only as a last resort. For once power has been made actual, negotiations in the proper sense cease. A threat to use force which proves unavailing does not return the negotiation to the point before the threat was made. It destroys the bargaining position altogether, for it is a confession not of finite power but of impotence. By bringing matters to a head, Prussia found itself confronted by three powers whose determination could not be doubted, although the treaty itself remained secret. And the Tsar proved a lukewarm ally. A series of partial settlements had isolated Prussia because "satisfied" powers will not fight for the claims of another, if an honorable alternative presents itself.

Castlereagh, therefore, took up the proposal of Metternich's memorandum of December 10 by which Prussia was to obtain part of Saxony and extensive territories in the Rhineland. It soon became apparent that Prussia would not carry out her threat of war. By January 3, 1815, after Metternich and Castlereagh had refused to negotiate without Talleyrand, Hardenberg, to save face, himself recommended Talleyrand's participation.¹⁹ On January 5, Castlereagh could report that "the alarm of war is over."²⁰ The Saxon question was henceforth officially discussed by the now Big Five and was resolved largely

¹⁸ Webster, *op.cit.*, p. 278, January 1, 1815.

¹⁹ *Ibid.*, p. 280.

²⁰ *Ibid.*, p. 282.

278

WORLD POLITICS

through unofficial negotiations in which Castlereagh played the role of the intermediary between Metternich and Talleyrand on the one side and the Tsar and Hardenberg on the other.

In his endeavor to achieve a final settlement, Castlereagh had to resist an attempt by Prussia to move the King of Saxony to the left bank of the Rhine and an effort by Austria to save the Elbe fortress of Torgau for Saxony. But with the aid of the Tsar, he convinced Prussia that in the interest of the European equilibrium she would have to assume the defense of the Rhineland, and he made clear to Austria that the defensive alliance extended only to an actual attempt to overthrow the European equilibrium, not to internal German arrangements.²¹ The danger of war had also made the Tsar more pliable. When Castlereagh suggested some concessions in Poland in order to make the Saxon arrangement more palatable to Prussia, Alexander agreed to return the city of Thorn to Prussia. On February 11, a final agreement was reached. In Poland, Austria retained Galicia and the district of Tarnopol, while Cracow was constituted a free city. Prussia retained the district of Posen and the city of Thorn which controlled the upper Vistula. The remainder of the Duchy of Warsaw with a population of 3.2 million became the Kingdom of Poland under the Tsar of Russia. In Germany, Prussia obtained two-fifths of Saxony, Swedish Pomerania, much of the left bank of the Rhine, and the Duchy of Westphalia. Austria had already been assured compensation in Northern Italy and predominance in all of Italy through the establishment of dependent dynasties in Parma and Tuscany.

On June 9, 1815, the final acts of Vienna were ratified by Europe assembled in congress. It was the only meeting of the Congress of Vienna.

## VI

There are two ways of constructing an international order: by will or renunciation, by force or legitimacy. For twenty-five years Europe had been convulsed by an effort to achieve order through force and to contemporaries its lesson was not its failure but its near success. Under Napoleon Europe had been unified from the Niemen to the Bay of Biscay but its cohesion was supplied by the power of the Grande Armée. It is not surprising, then, that in their effort to create an alternative the statesmen of Vienna looked back to a period which had known stability and that they identified this stability with its

²¹ *Ibid*., p. 295, January 29, 1815.

THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA

279

domestic arrangements. Nor was this assessment as ludicrous as a
self-righteous historiography made it appear later on. For one of the
reasons which had impelled Napoleon ever further was his often
repeated conviction that the survival of his dynasty in a world of
"legitimate" monarchs depended on the success of his arms. In short,
Napoleon confronted Europe with a revolutionary situation because
he considered the unimpaired maintenance of the other sovereign
states as incompatible with his own existence.

By contrast, one of the reasons for the success of the Vienna settle-
ment was precisely the absence of such an ideological gulf. When a
power considers the domestic notion of justice of another sovereign
state a mortal threat to its own survival, no basis for negotiation exists.
Safety can then only be found in physical extent; diplomacy is re-
duced to maneuvering for position and such adjustments as do occur
have but a tactical significance: to prepare the ground for the in-
evitable showdown. This is not to say that domestic structures must
be identical before meaningful negotiations can take place. It is
enough that there exists no power which claims both exclusiveness and
universality for its notion of justice. For diplomacy the art of relating
powers to each other by agreement can function only when each
major power accepts the legitimacy of the *existence* of the others.

In Vienna, of course, the consensus went further than this. There
existed a general agreement about the nature of "just" domestic ar-
rangements, which by limiting risks made for flexibility of relation-
ship. The problem of relating a state's vision of itself to the vision of it
by the powers, defined in the beginning as one of the key problems
of an international settlement, was rarely simpler than at Vienna.
This was the reason for the success—for the possibility—of "secret
diplomacy," that intangibles were understood in the same manner. To
be sure, the results of the Vienna Congress reflected to no small degree
the skill of the diplomats in making use of their opportunity. Both
Metternich and Castlereagh were extraordinary negotiators capable of
shaping a conference to their ends: Castlereagh through his ability to
reconcile different points of view and a singlemindedness which
enabled him to keep discussions focussed on essentials; Metternich
through the art of defining a framework which made concessions
appear, not as surrenders, but as sacrifices to the common cause. But
whatever the skill of the diplomats, the second reason for the success
of the Congress is no less fundamental: that in the face of all protesta-
tions of friendship and of a real measure of ideological agreement the
importance of power-relationships was never lost sight of. The con-

280

WORLD POLITICS

viviality of the statesmen must not obscure the fact that the European order emerged from the threat of war and the formation, however temporary, of two hostile alliances. The issue was decided not only by the persuasiveness of the statesmen but by the relative strength of the opposing camps.

The settlement proved all the more lasting because the negotiators at Vienna did not confuse the atmosphere of the conference table with the elements of stability of the international system. A statesman cannot make the survival of his charge entirely dependent on the continued good will of another sovereign state; not only because he has no control over the continuation of this good will, but more importantly because the best guarantee for its remaining good is not to tempt it by too great a disproportion of power. The Vienna settlement took into account this relationship of security and legitimacy. It did not rest on unsupported good faith, which would have put too great a strain on self-limitation; nor on the efficacy of a pure evaluation of power, which would have made calculation too indefinite. Rather, there was created a structure in which the forces were sufficiently balanced, so that self-restraint could appear as something more than self-abnegation, but which took account of the historical claims of its components, so that it met general acceptance. No power felt so dissatisfied that it did not prefer to seek its remedy *within* the framework of the Vienna settlement rather than in overturning it. Since the international order did not contain a "revolutionary" power, either ideologically or in power terms, its relations became increasingly spontaneous, based on the growing certainty that a catastrophic upheaval was unlikely. The result was a century without a major war.

WORLD POLITICS

*A Quarterly Journal of International Relations*

WOODROW WILSON HALL
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

May 6, 1955

Mr. Henry A. Kissinger
10 Weld Hall
Harvard University
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

Dear Mr. Kissinger:

The editors have asked me to express their interest in your article on "The Congress of Vienna." Although, in general, the policy of the journal is to eschew coverage of subjects of concern primarily to historians, they do not feel that your article falls within this category; and they would like to publish it if you could give them freedom of action as to the date of publication, and if you could be persuaded to undertake certain revisions.

What they have in mind by way of revision is as follows: first, a shortening of the manuscript by about seven pages, to be accomplished by summarizing and giving the salient results and characteristics of the negotiations at Vienna; secondly, a new conclusion which would show how the negotiations at Vienna support the hypotheses about the settlement which you set forth in your introduction; and finally, a substitution of full titles for the present abbreviations in the footnotes.

It is always difficult for me to suggest revisions, not only because I dread making them myself, but also because I realize how difficult it is to translate general editorial recommendations into specific textual changes. However, I return the manuscript in the hope that you will undertake the task. Although our July and October issues are committed, there is a possibility that we might fit the article in the January number; and we would certainly expect to do so by April

I would greatly appreciate hearing, at your convenience, if and when we might count on you for the suggested revision.

WWK:ms

CENTER OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES • PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

3. As the plenipotentiaries were assembling in Vienna, however, the course of events seemed by no means this clear. It was still thought that the settlement would be rapid, that France would appear as but a spectator, that the rest of Europe would only be called upon to ratify an instrument drafted in relative harmony. This was reflected in the procedural scheme agreed to at preliminary conferences between Austria, Prussia, Russia and Great Britain which placed the effective control of the congress in the hands of the "Big Four". To be sure, Talleyrand protested strenously against the inclusion of France and the major powers from the deliberations of the Congress. no. para

There are two ways of constructing an international order: by will or renunciation, by force or by legitimacy. For twenty-five years Europe had been convulsed by an effort to achieve order through power and to contemporaries its LESSON was not its failure but its near success. Under Napoleon Europe had been unified from the Niemen to the Bay of Biscay but its cession was the power of the Grande Armée. It is not surprising then that in their effort to create an alternative the statement of Vienna looked back to a period which had known stability and that they identified this stability with its domestic arrangements. Nor was this assessment as ludicrous as a self-righteous historiography made it appear later on. For one of the reasons which had impelled Napoleon ever further was his often repeated conviction that the survival of his dynasty in a world of "legitimate" monarchs depended on the success of his arms for a new generalization. But Napoleon confronted Europe with a revolutionary situation because he considered the unimpaired maintenance of the other sovereign states as incompatible with his own existence.

By contrast, one of the reasons for the success of the Vienna settlement was precisely the absence of such an ideological gulf. When a power considers the domestic notion of justice of another sovereign state a major mortal threat to its own survival no basis for negotiation. Safety can then only be found in physical power and such adjustments as do occur have but a tactical significance.

THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA

Henry A. Kissinger

It is only natural that a period anxiously seeking to wrest peace from
the threat of nuclear extinction should look nostalgically to the last great,
successful effort to settle international disputes by means of a diplomatic
conference, the Congress of Vienna. Nothing is more tempting than to ascribe
to Diplomatie schill its achievements to the very process of negotiation, to be "good faith" and to
"willingness to come to an agreement" and nothing is more dangerous. For negotiation cannot be an end in itself; its success depends on elements transcending it; in part in the domestic structures of the components of the international order, in part on their power relationship.

Any international settlement represents a stage in a process by which a
nation reconciles its vision of itself with the vision of it by other powers.
No state can doubt its own good faith; it is the vehicle of its social cohesion.
But equally no power can stake its survival entirely on the good faith of an-
other; this would be an abdication of the responsibility of statesmanship.
The whole domestic effort of a people exhibits an effort to transform force
into obligation by means of a consensus on the nature of justice. But the inter-
national experience of a people is a challenge to the universality of its notion
of justice for the stability of the international order depends on the reconciliation of different versions of legitimacy. Could a nation achieve all its
wishes, it would strive for absolute security, a world order free from the con-
sciousness of foreign danger and where all problems have the manageability of
domestic issues. But since absolute security for one power means absolute in-
security for all others, it is obtainable only through conquest, never as part
of a legitimate settlement.

THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA -

A REAPPRAISAL

Henry A. Kissinger

It is only natural that a period anxiously seeking to wrest peace from the threat of nuclear extinction should look nostalgically to the last great, successful effort to settle international disputes by means of a diplomatic conference, the Congress of Vienna. Nothing is more tempting than to ascribe its achievements to the very process of negotiation, to diplomatic skill and to "willingness to come to an agreement" and nothing is more dangerous. For the effectiveness of diplomacy depends on elements transcending it; in part in the domestic structures of the components of the international order, in part on their power relationship.

Any international settlement represents a stage in a process by which a nation reconciles its vision of itself with the vision of it by other powers. No state can doubt its own good faith; it is the vehicle of its social cohesion. But equally no power can stake its survival entirely on the good faith of another; this would be an abdication of the responsibility of statemanship. The whole domestic effort of a people exhibits an effort to transform force into obligation by means of a consensus on the nature of justice. But the international experience of a people is a challenge to the universality of its notion of justice for the stability of the international order depends on the reconciliation of different versions of legitimacy. Could a nation achieve all its wishes, it would strive for absolute security, a world order free from the consciousness of foreign danger and where all problems have the manageability of domestic issues. But since absolute security for one power means absolute insecurity for all others, it is obtainable only through conquest, never as part of a legitimate settlement.

-4

national order could be constructed with the clarity of a mathematical axiom,
powers would consider themselves as factors in a balance and arrange their ad-
justments to achieve a perfect equilibrium between the forces of aggression and
the forces of resistance. But an exact balance is impossible, and not only be-
cause of the difficulty of predicting the aggressor. It is chimerical, above all,
because while powers may appear to outsiders as factors in a security arrangement,
they appear domestically as expressions of a historical existence. No power will
submit to a settlement, however well-balanced and however "secure," which seems
totally to deny its vision of itself. There exist two kinds of equilibrium then:
a general equilibrium which makes it risky for one power or group of powers to
attempt to impose their will on the remainder; and a special equilibrium which
defines the historical relation of certain powers among each other. The former
is the deterrent against a general war; the latter the condition of smooth coopera-
tion. An international order is therefore rarely born out of the consciousness
of harmony. For even when there is an agreement about legitimacy, the conceptions
of the requirements of security will differ with the geographical position and
the history of the contending powers. Out of just such a conflict over the
nature of the equilibrium the Congress of Vienna fashioned a settlement which
lasted almost exactly a century.

For the problem at Vienna was not simply how to protect Europe against re-
newed French onslaught. There was general agreement about the extent of France
compatible with the peace of Europe, but this only sharpened the disagreements
within the victorious coalition about the relative spheres of influence of Aus-
tria, Prussia, Russia and Great Britain. And this contest was made all the more
intractable because each meant something different by the term equilibrium so
frequently invoked.

-5

When the British Foreign Minister, Castlereagh, spoke of the equilibrium, he meant a Europe in which hegemony was impossible; but when Metternich appealed to the equilibrium, he included a Germany in which Prussian pre-dominance was impossible. Russia's demand for Poland threatened the equi-librium of Europe and Castlereagh could, therefore, hardly believe that any other problem was worth discussing before the Tsar's pretensions were thwarted. Prussia's insistence on Saxony merely imperiled the balance within Germany and this was enough to absorb the full energy of Metternich. Castlereagh was interested in creating a Central Europe which would be strong enough to resist attack from both the West and the East; Metternich desired the same thing, but was also concerned about Austria's relative position within Central Europe. To Castlereagh, the Continental nations were aspects of a defensive effort; but to the Continental nations the general equilibrium meant nothing if it destroyed the historical position which to them was the reason for their existence. To Castlereagh the equilibrium was a mechanical expression of the balance of forces; to the Continental nations, a reconciliation of historical aspirations.

This led to a diplomatic stalemate, made all the more intractable because Britain and Austria had secured most of their special objectives during the war so that few bargaining weapons were left to Russia and Prussia, a stalemate which would be broken only by adding an additional weight to one side of the scales. Since the sole uncommitted major power was France, the former enemy emerged as the key to the European settlement. Thus grew up a myth about Talleyrand's role at the Congress of Vienna, of the diabo-lical wit who appeared on the scene and broke up a coalition of hostile

(continue page 5a)

-21

which had known stability and that they identified this stability with its
domestic arrangements. Nor was this assessment as ludicrous as a self-righteous
historiography made it appear later on. For one of the reasons which had im-
pelled Napoleon ever further was his often repeated conviction that the survival
of his dynasty in a world of "legitimate" monarchs depended on the success of his
arms. In short, Napoleon confronted Europe with a revolutionary situation be-
cause he considered the unimpaired maintenance of the other sovereign states as
incompatible with his own existence.

By contrast, one of the reasons for the success of the Vienna settlement
was precisely the absence of such an ideological gulf. When a power considers
the domestic notion of justice of another sovereign state a mortal threat to its
own survival no basis for negotiation exists. Safety can then only be found in
physical extent; diplomacy is reduced to maneuvering for position and such ad-
justments as do occur have but a tactical significance: to prepare the ground
for the inevitable show-down. This is not to say that domestic structures must
be identical before meaningful negotiations can take place. It is enough that
there exists no power which claims both exclusiveness and universality for its
notion of justice. For diplomacy the art of relating powers to each other
by agreement can function only when each major power accepts the legitimacy of
the *existence* of the others.

In Vienna, of course, the consensus went further than this. There existed
a general agreement about the nature of "just" domestic arrangements, which by
limiting risks made for flexibility of relationship. The problem of relating
a state's vision of itself to the vision of it by the powers, defined in the
beginning as one of the key problems of an international settlement, was
rarely simpler than at Vienna. This was the reason for the success

-22

indeed for the possibility of "secret diplomacy," that intangibles were
understood in the same manner. To be sure, the success of the Vienna
Congress reflected to no small degree the skill of the diplomats in making
use of their opportunity. Both Metternich and Castlereagh were extra-
ordinary negotiators capable of shaping a conference to their ends:
Castlereagh through his ability to reconcile different points of view and
a singlemindedness which enabled him to keep discussions focussed on essen-
tials; Metternich through the art of defining a framework which made
concessions appear, not as surrenders, but as sacrifices to the common cause.

But whatever the skill of the diplomats, the second reason for
the success of the Congress is no less fundamental: that in the face of
all protestations of friendship and of a real measure of ideological agree-
ment the importance of power-relationships was never lost sight of. The
conviviality of the statesmen must not obscure the fact that the European
order emerged from the threat of war and the formation, however temporary,
of two hostile alliances. And the settlement proved all the more lasting
because the negotiators at Vienna did not confuse the atmosphere of the
conference table with the elements of stability of the international system.

A statesman cannot make the survival of his charge entirely de-
pendent on the continued good will of another sovereign state; not only
because he has not control over the continuation of this good will, but more
importantly because the best guarantee for its remaining dood is not to
tempt it by too great a disproportion of power. The Vienna settlement took
into account this relationship of security and legitimacy. It did not rest
on unsupported good faith, which would have put too great a strain on self-
limitation; nor on the efficacy of a pure evaluation of power, which would
have made calculation too indeterminate. Rather, there was created

(continue page 22a)

-22a

-6

To be sure, since the Treaty of Paris had settled France's boundaries, Talleyrand could afford perhaps the most disinterested approach. His wit and caustic comments became famous, so that Gentz could say of him that he had both the laughers and the thinkers on his side. But these efforts would have availed little, had not the threat of France been eclipsed by the danger from the East, had not the differences among the Allies become greater than their common fear of France.
As long as the Coalition still believed that the memory of the common war-time effort would provide the motive force of a settlement, Talleyrand was powerless. Once this illusion was shattered, the issue became one of the limits of self-restraint, whether a power would fail to add a factor to its side merely for the sake of the appearance of harmony. The logic of the situation provided the answer. France came to participate in European affairs, because they could not be settled without her.

## II

As the plenipotentiaries were assembling in Vienna, however, the course of events seemed by no means this clear. It was still thought that the settlement would be rapid, that France would appear as but a spectator, that the rest of Europe would only be called upon to ratify an instrument drafted in relative harmony. This was reflected in the procedural scheme agreed to at preliminary conferences between Austria, Prussia, Russia and Great Britain, which placed the effective control of the Congress in the hands of the "Big Four." To be sure, Talleyrand protested strenuously against the exclusion of France and the minor powers from the deliberations of the Congress. But despite his brill

currency because Talleyrand, whose monarch had not come to Vienna, was obliged to write voluminous reports, and in order to cement his shaky domestic position, the former Foreign Minister of Napoleon tended to emphasize his indispensability. See, for example, Nicolson, *Congress of Vienna*; Cooper, *Talleyrand*; Brinton, *Talleyrand*; Ferrero, *The Reconstruction of Europe*.

-8

occasion defended his Polish plan as a contribution to European security. That Alexander proposed to rest his claims on the sanctity of his maxims became apparent on the occasion of his first interview with Castlereagh on the day after his arrival. For the first time, he avowed his Polish plans in detail. He proposed to keep all of the Duchy of Warsaw with the exception of a small portion to be ceded to Prussia. These claims, Alexander argued, were not the result of ambition, but the outgrowth of a moral duty and motivated by the sole desire of achieving the happiness of the Polish people. In short, since they were not advanced in the name of security, they could not threaten anyone. Castlereagh, in reply, urged that a Russian appendage extending deep into Central Europe would constitute a constant source for disquiet for the rest of Europe. But the Tsar left no doubt that he was not prepared to withdraw from his Polish possession. The interview between Castlereagh and Alexander had thus made evident that persuasion would prove unavailing and that relations would have to be based on force or the threat of force.

### III

While Castlereagh was negotiating with the Tsar he made every effort to assemble such a force. As an abstract problem in diplomacy his task seemed simple. But although the equilibrium may be indivisible, it does not appear so to its components. The Tsar could not be resisted without a united front of the

2. Castlereagh's report. See Webster, Charles, *British Diplomacy, 1813-1815*, London, 1921; p. 197f., October 2, 1814.

3. The exchange continued through October with an exchange of memoranda: Castlereagh to the Tsar, October, 12, 1814, see Wellington, Duke of, *Supplementary Dispatches, Correspondence and Memoranda*. XV volumes, ed. by his son, Vol. IX, p. 332; the Tsar's reply, October 30, p. 386; Castlereagh's reply, November 8, p. 410.

-10

Thus Prussia came to look towards Saxony, coveted since the time of Frederic
the Great, contiguous with its own territories and with a predominantly Protestant
population. But Prussia's negotiating position was the weakest of the major
powers. Unlike Russia, it was not in possession of its prize. Unlike Austria,
it had not made its participation in the war dependent on obtaining its special
conditions. If now the Polish question was settled before that of Saxony, Prussia
would have paid the penalty for its total commitment, of having fought the war
with so much fervor that its participation had never been negotiable, of neglecting
the peace because the war, in effect, had become an end in itself. And Prussia
required Austrian acquiescence in the annexation of Saxony, because the organi-
zation of Germany, the indispensable condition of Prussia's security, would be-
come illusory if Austria emerged on the Saxon issue as the protector of the
secondary German powers.

It is not surprising, therefore, that on October 9, Hardenberg submitted
a memorandum agreeing to an "intermediary system based on Austria, Prussia and
Britain," and directed against Russia. But he made Prussia's cooperation on
the Polish question dependent on Austrian agreement to the annexation of Saxony
and to the provisional occupation of Saxony by Prussia as a token of good faith.
In its tentative quest for allies, in its pedantic effort to achieve the advan-
tage of every course of action, the Hardenberg memorandum merely served to illus-
trate Prussia's dilemma: Russian support might gain it Saxony but not legitimacy,
while Austria support might yield it Poland, but not Saxony. The Hardenberg
memorandum was a plea not to leave Prussia dependent on the good will of the Tsar;
to create a European order based on Austro-Prussian friendship, but also on
Prussian possession of Saxony.

5. Angeberg, Comte d', *Le Congrès de Vienne et les Traites de 1815*, Paris, 1863-64, volume II, p. 1934.

maneuvers. On October 22, he transmitted two notes to Hardenberg and Castlereagh, whose tone of grudging agreement to Hardenberg's proposal obscured the fact that the moral framework which was being created to resist in Poland would prove equally effective to resist in Saxony, and that Hardenberg, in his effort to hedge his risks, had made his defeat inevitable. For Castlereagh in his overriding concern with the balance of power and Hardenberg in his obsession with Saxony overlooked two subtle and mutually inconsistent reservations in Metternich's dispatches: that Prussia's annexation of Saxony should not lead to a "disproportionate aggrandizement," a condition clearly impossible of fulfillment if Prussia regained her Polish provinces, and that Austria's agreement on the Saxon point was conditional on the success of their Polish measures - which, in turn, would leave Prussia isolated in the inevitable contest over the interpretation of the first reservation.

But while Metternich was preparing the moral framework for an effort to separate Prussia and Russia, Castlereagh was looking only to Poland, as if the European equilibrium could be created with the certainty of a mathematical equation. On October 23, he finally succeeded in getting Prussia to agree to a common-plan of action against Russia on the basis of Metternich's memoranda. The three powers undertook to force the issue by confronting the Tsar with the threat of bringing the Polish question before the full Congress if a reasonable settlement could not be obtained by direct negotiations. They proposed three acceptable solutions: an independent Poland as it existed prior to the first partition, a rump Poland on the scale of 1791, or the return of the three partitioning powers to their former possessions.

10. Text of note to Castlereagh, D'Angeberg, op. cit., vol. II, p. 1939f.

11. Text of note to Hardenberg, D'Angeberg, op. cit., vol. II, p. 316f.

12. Castlereagh's report, Webster, op. cit., p. 212, October 29, 1814.

13. Memorandum re procedure, Webster, op. cit., p. 213 f.

The threat of an appeal to Europe in Congress was the last effort to settle the European equilibrium by a combination *within* the anti-French Coalition. When Metternich called on the Tsar to present the ultimatum on the Polish question, he was dismissed haughtily and even challenged to a duel. And when, on October 30, the three sovereigns left to visit Hungary, Alexander appealed to his brother monarchs against their ministers. He failed with the Austrian Emperor, but it did not prove too difficult to convince the stody and unimaginative Prussian King that the secret negotiations of the three ministers were an act of bad faith. When the monarchs returned to Vienna, Hardenberg was ordered, in the presence of the Tsar, to refrain from any further separate negotiations with his Austrian and British colleagues. In this manner, on November 5, the contest over Poland ended for the time being. The effort to achieve an international order based on agreement and not on force seemed to have returned to its starting point.

## IV

And if defeat in Poland could be translated into victory in Saxony, perhaps victory in Saxony might provide a means to extort concessions in Poland. The procrastination which had proved so maddening to Castlereagh had in fact been Metternich's most effective means to overcome his dilemmas, for delay maximized Austria's chief bargaining weapon, that legitimacy can be conferred but not acted, that it implies agreement and not imposition. So the weeks had passed while Europe complained about the frivolity of the Austrian minister and the old school of Austrian diplomats raged that their "Rhenish" minister, whom they nicknamed Prince Scamperlin, was betraying the Empire to Prussia. But in the

V

But before this new combination could be formed, domestic pressures on
Castlereagh nearly wrecked Metternich's finely-spun plan. An insular power may
fight its wars in the name of the European equilibrium, but it will tend to iden-
tify the threats to the equilibrium with threats to its immediate security.
Because its policy is defensive and not precautionary, it will make the cause of
war depend on an overt act which "demonstrates" the danger. But the danger to
the equilibrium is never demonstrated until it is already overturned because an
aggressor can always justify every step, except the crucial last one, as the
manifestation of limited claims and exact acquiescence as the price of continued
moderation. To be sure, Britain had entered the fray against Napoleon at an
early stage and continued the contest with great persistence. But the threat
to the equilibrium had become manifest through an attack on the Low Countries
and a challenge to Britain's command of the seas. Now the issue was Poland,
however, a "distant" country both geographically and psychologically. It was
not clear until it was "proven" that the Rhine was best defended along the
Vistula or that there existed any threat to peace except France. In this frame
of mind the Cabinet considered the Polish dispute an irritating outgrowth of
Continental rivalry, threatening a peace dearly won and dealt with it primarily
under the aspect of its impact on British domestic politics.

On October 1r, Liverpool, the British Prime Minister wrote Castlereagh
that the "less Britain had to do with Poland ... the better" and he trans-

-17

So it happened that Castlereagh and Metternich found themselves on
the same side in a battle whose moral framework had been defined by the
wily Austrian Minister. The more intransigent Prussia's attitude, the
stronger became Metternich's position. Without the necessity for abstract
discussion Austria emerged as the protector of the secondary powers. When
Metternich proposed an alliance to Bavaria and Hannover and the construction
of a German League without Prussia, he was simply giving expression to a gen-
eral consensus. It was at this point, when the last vestiges of the Alliance
were disappearing, that Talleyrand reappeared on the scene. He emerged because
Metternich put him on the stage and his eloquence was but a reflection of
Metternich's desire for anonymity, for Metternich was not interested in appear-
ing as the agent of Prussia's humiliation. It was Metternich's desire that
events should come about "naturally," because that would minimize the danger
of personal schisms; it was Talleyrand's effort that they should appear
"caused," for that would cement his shaky domestic position.

Talleyrand was given his opportunity by Metternich, who communicated
to him the Austrian reply to Hardenberg of December 10 and thus made clear
that the Big Four had not been able to settle the issue. Talleyrand
replied in a trenchant memorandum, which asserted the superiority of the
claims of legitimacy over the requirements of the equilibrium and denied
the possibility of deposing kings, because sovereigns could not be tried,
least of all by those who coveted their territories. It was not for Prussia
to state that she would take, Talleyrand argued boldly, but for the "legitimate"
king of Saxony to define how much he would yield. It was a masterly summary

16. Metternich, Clemens: Aus Metternich's VIII volumes, edited by vol. II, p. 503f. Vienna, 1880.

17. Metternich, op. cit., p. 510f., December 19, 1814; D'Angeberg, op.cit., p. 546f.

-20

In his endeavor to achieve a final settlement, Castlereagh had to resist an attempt by Prussia to move the king of Saxony to the left bank of the Rhine and an effort by Austria to save the Elbe fortress of Torgau for Saxony. But with the aid of the Tsar, he convinced Prussia that in the interest of the European equilibrium she would have to assume the defense of the Rhineland, and he made clear to Austria that the defensive alliance extended only to an actual attempt to overthrow the European equilibrium, not to internal German arrangements. The danger of war had also made the Tsar more pliable. When Castlereagh suggested some concessions in Poland in order to make the Saxon arrangement more palatable to Prussia, Alexander agreed to return the city of Thorn to Prussia. On February 11, a final agreement was reached. In Poland, Austria retained Galicia and the district of Tarnopol, while Cracow was constituted a free city. Prussia retained the district of Posen and the city of Thorn which controlled the upper Vistula. The remainder of the Duchy of Warsaw with a population of 3.2 million became the Kingdom of Poland under the Tsar of Russia. In Germany, Prussia obtained two-fifths of Saxony, Swedish Pomerania, much of the Left Bank of the Rhine, and the Duchy of Westphalia. Austria had already been assured compensation in Northern Italy and predominance in all of Italy through the establishment of dependent dynasties in Parma and Tuscany.

There are two ways of constructing an international order: by will or renunciation, by force or by legitimacy. For twenty-five years Europe had been convulsed by an effort to achieve order through power and to contemporaries its lesson was not its failure but its near success. Under Napoleon Europe had been unified from the Niemen to the Bay of Biscay but its cohesion was supported by the power of the Grande Armée. It is not surprising then that in their effort to create an alternative the statesmen of Vienna looked back to a period

21. Webster, op. cit., p. 295, January 29, 1815.

THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA

Any international settlement represents a stage in a process by which a nation reconciles its vision of itself with the vision of it by other powers. No state can doubt its own good faith; it is the vehicle of its social cohesion. But equally no power can stake its survival on the good faith of another; this would be an abdication of the responsibility of statesmanship. The whole domestic effort of a people exhibits an effort to transform force into obligation by means of a consensus on the nature of justice. But the international experience of a people is a challenge to the universality of its notion of justice for the stability of the international order depends on the reconciliation of different versions of legitimacy. Could a nation achieve all its wishes, it would strive for absolute security, a world order free from the consciousness of foreign danger and where all problems have the manageability of domestic issues. But since absolute security for one power means absolute insecurity for all others, it is obtainable only through conquest, never as part of a legitimate settlement. Not for nothing does the domestic scene of so many nations exhibit an almost hysterical rebellion against an policy which leaves the travail inherent in striving at decision to the double standard which considers what is defined as "justice" domestically, merely an object for negotiation internationally.

For the present, an international settlement which is accepted and not imposed will always appear somewhat unjust to any one of its components. Paradoxically, the generality of this dissatisfaction is a

new international order. It would have occurred to no one in the 18th
century that the legitimacy of a state depended on linguistic unity.
It was inconceivable in the 20th century that there might be any other
basis for legitimate rule. Legitimating principles triumph by being taken
for granted.

Although there never occurs an exact correspondence between the
maxims of the legitimizing principle and the conditions of the settlement,
stability depends on a certain commensurability. If there exists a sub-
stantial discrepancy and a major power which feels disadvantaged, the
international order will be volatile. For the appeal by a "revolutionary"
power to the legitimizing principle of the settlement creates a psycho-
logical distortion. The "natural" expression of the policy of a status
quo power is law — the definition of a continuing relationship. But against
a permanently dissatisfied power appealing to the legitimizing principle
of the international order, force is the only recourse. Those who have most
to gain from stability thus become the advocates of a revolutionary policy.
Hitler's appeal to national self-determination in the Sudeten crisis in
1938 was an invocation of "justice," and thereby contributed to the
indecisiveness of the resistance. Nor was it strange that the Western powers
should have attempted to construct a "truly" legitimate order by satisfying
Germany's "just" claims. Only after Hitler annexed Bohemia and Moravia
was it clear that he was aiming for dominion, not legitimacy; only then
did the contest become one of pure power.

The major problem of an international settlement, then, is so to
relate the claims of legitimacy to the requirements of security that no
power will express its dissatisfaction in a revolutionary policy and so to
arrange the balance of forces as to deter aggression produced by causes

-4

other than the conditions of the settlement. This is not a mechanical
problem. If the international order could be constructed with the clarity
of a mathematical axiom, powers would consider themselves as factors in
a balance and arrange their adjustments to achieve a perfect equilibrium
between the forces of aggression and the forces of resistance. But an
exact balance is impossible, and not only because of the difficulty of
predicting the aggressor. It is chimerical, above all, because while
powers may appear to outsiders as factors in a security arrangement,
they appear domestically as expressions of a historical existence. No
power will submit to a settlement, however well-balanced and however
"secure," which seems totally to deny its vision of itself. There exist
two kinds of equilibrium then: a general equilibrium which makes it risky
for one power or group of powers to attempt to impose their will on the
remainder; and a SPECIAL equilibrium which defines the historical relation
of certain powers among each other. The former is the deterrent against
a general war; the latter the condition of smooth cooperation. An inter-
national order is therefore rarely born out of the consciousness of harmony.
For even when there is an agreement about legitimacy, the conceptions of
the requirements of security will differ with the geographical position
and the history of the contending powers. Out of just such a conflict over
the nature of the equilibrium the Congress of Vienna fashioned a settlement
which lasted for almost exactly a century.

For the problem at Vienna was not just the simple one of the
status quo powers, Britain and Austria, confronting the acquisitive Russia
and Prussia, while Talleyrand was gleefully watching at the periphery of
events. Neither the claims of the acquisitive powers nor the resistance

- 5

of the conserving states were of the same order. Russia's demand of Poland threatened the equilibrium of Europe; Prussia's insistence on Saxony merely imperiled the balance within Germany. When Castlereagh spoke of the equilibrium, he meant a Europe in which hegemony was impossible; but when Metternich invoked the equilibrium, he included a Germany in which Prussian predominance was impossible. Castlereagh was interested in creating a Central Europe which would be strong enough to resist attack from both the West and the East; Metternich desired the same thing, but he was also concerned about Austria's relative position within Central Europe. To Castlereagh the Continental nations were aspects of a defensive effort; but to the Continental nations the general equilibrium meant nothing if it destroyed the historical position which to them was the reason for their existence. To Castlereagh the equilibrium was a mechanical expression of the balance of forces; to the Continental nations, a reconciliation of historical aspirations.

This led to a diplomatic stalemate, all the more inflexible because Britain and Austria had secured most of their special interests, so that few bargaining weapons were left for Russia or Prussia; a stalemate which would be broken only by adding an additional weight to one side of the scales. Since the sole uncommitted major power was France, the former enemy emerged as the key to the European settlement. Thus grew up a myth about Talleyrand's role at the Congress of Vienna, of the diabolical wit who appeared on the scene and broke up a coalition of hostile powers, who then regrouped them into a pattern to his liking by invoking the magic word "legitimacy" and from an outcast emerged as the arbiter of Europe.

1. It is a legend spread by those who confuse results and causes and by professional diplomats wont to ascribe to mere negotiating skill what is possible only through the exploitation of more deep-seated factors. It has gained currency because Talleyrand, whose monarch had not come to Vienna, was obliged to write voluminous reports, and in order to cement his shaky

- 7

II

As Castlereagh was preparing to leave for the Continent, dispatches from British representatives in the most different parts of Europe were painting a picture of Russian intrigue too consistent to be ignored. From Berlin, Jackson reported the remark of a Russian general that, with 600 thousand men under arms, there was little need to negotiate.² And from Palermo, A'Court complained about Russian interference in the domestic affairs of Sicily.³ Whatever the Tsar's real intentions, the actions of his representatives gave rise to a fear that one conqueror might have been overthrown merely to ease the task of another. In these circumstances there could no longer be any doubt that the issue of Poland would be contested and that Britain would emerge as one of the chief protagonists.

But Castlereagh left Britain with three misconceptions: He hoped that Alexander's claim to Poland might be limited by exhibiting its unreasonableness. If persuasion failed, he preferred to assemble the requisite force against Alexander *within* the anti-French Coalition and he thought this a relatively simple matter, at least as simple as demonstrating the threat to the equilibrium represented by Russia's possession of Poland. Finally, in case a contest was unavoidable, he believed that he could use France as a reserve to bring forward when a stalemate was reached, as if France would be content with so passive a role. The lengths to which Castlereagh was willing to go were revealed in a dispatch on August 7 to Wellington, who served as British ambassador to Paris. Wellington was instructed to inquire whether France "was prepared to support her views on the [Polish] question by arms" and to ask for French support

2. C.C. X, p. 96, August 19, 1814

3. C.C. X, p. 75, August 6, 1814.

in urging Prussia to resist Russian claims in Poland. On August 14, Castlereagh suggested that on his way to Vienna he stop at Paris for an exchange of views with Talleyrand. "The situation of the world," Wellington replied to this proposal, "will naturally constitute England and France as arbitrators of Europe, if these powers understand each other; and such an understanding may preserve the peace."

Castlereagh arrived in Vienna on September 13 and immediately began discussions preliminary to the formal Congress which was to open on October 1. He still hoped that the basic decisions might be taken before that date and that he could use the fact of his sojourn in Paris to bring the Russian minister to terms. As things turned out, however, most of the preliminary discussions were taken up by procedural questions. It soon became apparent that Castlereagh's overture to Talleyrand had been premature and that the other powers were willing to admit France into their concert only as a last resort and after all other combinations had failed. For the memory of war-time harmony still provided the impetus for international relationships. And since allied unity had been produced by the threat of France, any attempt to include the erstwhile enemy in allied deliberations seemed to the continental powers at least a contradiction in terms. It was agreed, therefore, that decisions would be taken by the "Big Four," but that they would be submitted to France and Spain for their approval and to the full Congress for ratification. If the Allies were in accord, opposition would be of no avail. What would happen in case of

4. C.C. X, p. 76, August 7, 1814

5. C.C. X, p.93, August 18, 1814

6. B.D., p. 192, September 3, 1814

-9

disagreement was not even considered, because it would have represented an
admission that the requirement of unity did not supersede all other considera-
tions. The only dispute arose over the manner in which this procedure was
to be made effective, whether it should be embodied in a formal resolution
by the Congress, as Prussia proposed, or simply carried out as an informal
arrangement as Castlereagh preferred. At this point, on September 23,
Talleyrand arrived in Vienna, prepared to use the legitimizing principle
of the anti-French Coalition in order to dissolve it.

For if "legitimate" rulers represented the guarantee for the
repose of Europe, no reason existed for excluding a Bourbon France from the
discussion. And if "legitimate" rule was sacrosanct, Prussia had no
"right" to dispossess the traditional King of Saxony by annexing his
territory. To be sure, the Allies had developed an ingenious subterfuge
for this violation of their legitimizing principle by accusing the hapless
King of treason for his failure to join the Allied side in time. But
Talleyrand had no difficulty exposing the tenuousness of this argument;
"Treason," he said acidly, "is evidently a question of dates."

Talleyrand's heaviest fire was concentrated on the Allied
procedural scheme, however. He protested against the exclusion of France
and the minor powers from the deliberations of the Congress. He denied the
legal existence of the "Big Four," and he threatened to transform France
into the advocate of all the secondary powers chafing under their direction.
But despite his brilliance and sarcasm, Talleyrand achieved only a few
minor concessions. It was decided to adjourn the formal opening of the
Congress until November 1, and to have the pending questions examined by

7. For full discussion of procedural questions, see Webster, *Congress of Vienna*, pp. 149-165.

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Russian national interest. The Tsar left no doubt that he was not prepared to withdraw from his Polish possession and to create a truly independent Poland. The first interview between Castlereagh and Alexander had merely served to demonstrate the duality of the Tsar's nature and the incommensurability of the two positions.

The contest was renewed on October 13 with Alexander attempting to refute Castlereagh's assertion that the possession of Poland represented a threat to the equilibrium. He advanced the curious argument that his Polish scheme, far from extending Russian power, would actually ameliorate it by leading to a withdrawal of Russian troops beyond the Niemen. It was in vain that Castlereagh emphasized Alexander's inconsistencies; his moral claims on one side of the partition line but not on the other; his duty limited by the claims of Russian national interest. When Castlereagh declared that it "depends exclusively upon the temper of your Imperial Majesty... whether the present Congress shall prove a blessing to mankind or only exhibit... a lawless scramble for power," he merely revealed the exasperation induced by their inability to agree on what constituted a reasonable claim. When the Tsar replied that the Polish question could end only in one way since he was in possession, it was clear that a stalemate had been reached. The dispute between the Tsar and Castlereagh had thus made evident that persuasion would prove unavailing and that relations would have to be based on force or the threat of force.

### III

9. Castlereagh's report, B.D., p. 206f., October 14, 1814.

10. The exchange continued through October with an exchange of memoranda: Castlereagh to the Tsar, October 12, 1814, W.S.D. IX, p. 332; the Tsar's reply, October 30, W.S.D. IX, p. 386; Castlereagh's reply, November 8, W.S.D. IX, p. 410.

- 14

to Russia. The available compensations, composed of former provinces
or former satellites of France, primarily in the Rhineland, were
inadequate. And they were undesirable because of their geographic
separation from the main part of the Prussian monarchy and the Catholic
religion of their inhabitants. Thus Prussia came to look towards Saxony,
coveted since the time of Frederic the Great, contiguous with its own
territories and with a predominantly Protestant population. But Prussia's
negotiating position was the weakest of the major powers. Unlike Russia,
it was not in possession of its prize. Unlike Austria, it had not made
its participation in the war dependent on obtaining its special conditions.
If now the Polish question was settled before that of Saxony, Prussia
would have paid the penalty for its total commitment; of having fought
the war with so much fervor that its participation had never been
negotiable, of neglecting the peace because the war, in effect, had
become an end in itself. And Prussia required Austrian acquiescence in the
annexation of Saxony, because the organization of Germany, the indispensable
condition of Prussia's security, would become illusory if Austria emerged
on the Saxon issue as the protector of the secondary powers.

It is not surprising, therefore, that on October 9, Hardenberg
submitted a memorandum agreeing to the wisdom of an "intermediary system
based on Austria, Prussia and Britain," ¹⁰ But he made Prussia's cooperation
on the Polish question dependent on Austrian agreement to the annexation
of Saxony and to the provisional occupation of Saxony by Prussia as a token
of good faith. In its tentative quest for allies, in its pedantic effort to
achieve the advantage of every course of action, the Hardenberg memorandum
merely served to illustrate Prussia's dilemma: Russian support might gain

¹⁰. Text, D'Angeberg II, p. 1934.

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it Saxony but not legitimacy; while Austrian support might yield it
Poland, but not Saxony. The Hardenberg memorandum was a plea not to leave
Prussia dependent on the good will of the Tsar; to create a European order
based on Austro-Prussian friendship, but also on Prussian possession of
Saxony.

But this effort to combine incompatible policies provided
Metternich with the means to separate the Polish and Saxon question by one
of his intricate maneuvers. On October 22, he transmitted two notes to
Hardenberg and Castlereagh, whose tone of grudging agreement to Hardenberg's
proposal obscured the fact that the moral framework which was being created
to resist in Poland would prove equally effective to resist in Saxony,
and that Hardenberg, in his effort to hedge his risks, had made his defeat
inevitable. For Castlereagh in his overriding concern with the balance of
power and Hardenberg in his obsession with Saxony overlooked two subtle and
mutually inconsistent reservations in Metternich's dispatches: that
Prussia's annexation of Saxony should not lead to a "disproportionate
aggrandizement," a condition clearly impossible of fulfillment if Prussia
regained her Polish provinces, and that Austria's agreement on the Saxon
point was conditional on the success of their Polish measures — which,
in turn, would leave Prussia isolated in the inevitable contest over the
interpretation of the first reservation.

13. Text of note to Castlereagh, D'Angeberg II, p. 1939f.

14. Text of note to Hardenberg, D'Angeberg I, p. 316f.

- 16

Prussia to agree on a common plan of action against Russia on the basis of Metternich's memoranda. The three powers undertook to force the issue by confronting the Tsar with the threat of bringing the Polish question before the full Congress if a reasonable settlement could not be obtained by direct negotiations. They proposed three acceptable solutions: an independent Poland as it existed prior to the first partition, a rump Poland on the scale of 1791, or the return of the three partitioning powers to their former possessions. It was clear that Polish independence was advanced primarily for British domestic consumption, because the Tsar was not likely to agree to surrender territory considered Russian for two generations.

The threat of an appeal to Europe in Congress was the last effort to settle the European equilibrium by a combination within the anti-French Coalition. When Metternich called on the Tsar to present the ultimatum on the Polish question, he was dismissed haughtily and even challenged to a duel. And when, on October 30, the three sovereigns left to visit Hungary, Alexander appealed to his brother monarchs against their ministers. He failed with the Austrian Emperor, but it did not prove too difficult to convince the stodgy and unimaginative Prussian King that the secret negotiations of the three ministers were an act of bad faith. When the monarchs returned to Vienna, Hardenberg was ordered, in the presence of the Tsar, to refrain from any further separate negotiations with his Austrian and British colleagues. In this manner, on November 5, the contest over Poland ended for the time being. The effort to achieve an international order based on agreement and not on force seemed to have returned to its starting point.

15. Castlereagh's report, B.D., p. 212, October 29, 1814.

16. Memorandum re procedure, B.D., p. 213f.

- 17

IV

But this was a mistaken impression. For if Castlereagh's
failure had proved that the equilibrium could not be achieved through a
demonstration of its necessity, Metternich's almost imperceptible
complementary effort had created the moral framework for reopening the
issue by an appeal to legitimacy. And if defeat in Poland could be trans-
lated into victory in Saxony, perhaps victory in Saxony might provide a
means to extort concessions in Poland. The procrastination which had proved
so maddening to Castlereagh had in fact been Metternich's most effective
means to overcome his dilemmas, for delay maximized Austria's chief
bargaining weapon, that legitimacy can be conferred but not exacted, that
it implies agreement and not imposition. So the weeks had passed while
Europe complained about the frivolity of the Austrian minister and the
old school of Austrian diplomats raged that their "Rhenish" minister,
whom they nicknamed Prince Scamperlin, was betraying the Empire to
Prussia. But in the admiration for the famous phrase of the Prince de
Ligne: "Le Congres danse, mais il ne marche pas," it was overlooked
that the Congress was dancing itself into a trap.

When Hardenberg offered Metternich his cooperation, he may
have believed that he was clinching his gains and that he was obtaining
a guarantee of Saxony, however the Polish negotiations ended. But
because Metternich's reply had made Austrian agreement to the annexation
of Saxony conditional on the success of their common measures, the effort
to connect the two issues became a means to separate them. For if the
Polish negotiations succeeded, Prussia would lose her moral claim to
Saxony in the eyes of Europe. If Prussia regained her Polish possessions,
the annexation of Saxony would represent the "disproportionate
aggrandizement" against which Metternich had warned Castlereagh.

- 18

But if the Polish negotiation failed, Prussia would lose her moral claim to Saxony in the eyes of Austria. Prussia's isolation was assured none the less surely, because the fact of resistance was almost as certain to alienate the Tsar as its success. Having demonstrated Austria's European concern by yielding in Saxony, intransigence could now be defended by the requirements of the European and not the German equilibrium. And Castlereagh, having obtained Austrian support in the Polish negotiations, would no longer be able to treat the Saxon issue as an internal German affair. There could be no doubt of the attitude of France or of the smaller German states. Prussia, in its effort to obtain reinsurance, had only succeeded in achieving its isolation.

When, on November 7, Hardenberg informed Metternich of the King's orders and of the difficulty of carrying out the agreed plan with respect to Poland, Metternich finally had the moral basis for action. He waited until November 18 before he rejected Hardenberg's argument that a Polish kingdom would prove an element of weakness for Russia and insisted on the fulfillment of the three conditions of the memorandum of October 22. He suggested that, since the King's command had made it impossible to utilize Castlereagh as an intermediary, Hardenberg conduct the negotiations with the

17. D'Angeberg I, p. 406. (Hardenberg's note to Metternich.) There is yet another indication, although no proof, that Metternich never intended the Polish negotiations as anything but a means to isolate Prussia on the Saxon question; his dismal defeat during his interview with Alexander. At no other time in his career did Metternich choose a frontal attack, negotiate so ineffectively or surrender so easily.

Tsar himself. But this only served to supply Metternich with yet another "proof" of Austrian good faith and another "reason" for resisting in Saxony, because, in view of the Tsar's dominance over the Prussian king, there could be no doubt about the fate of a solitary Prussian overture. Hardenberg was obliged to report that the Tsar had again invoked the purity of his intentions, but that he was willing to declare Thorn and Cracow free cities in order to reassure Austria and Prussia. Although Alexander had slyly made this concession dependent on Austrian acquiescence in the annexation of Saxony, the Saxon negotiation thus became a means to restore fluidity to the Polish issue. For the Tsar's offer, however contingent, was his first admission that the territorial extent of Poland was not irrevocably settled after all.

Metternich submitted the final Austrian reply on December 10.

Austria was interested in the closest relationship with Prussia, but not at the price of the destruction of Saxony. Having been forced to tolerate Russian aggrandizement in Poland, Austria could not acquiesce in Prussian aggrandizement within Germany without upsetting the equilibrium completely. Metternich suggested an alternative plan which maintained a nucleus of Saxony, while giving a large part of it to Prussia together with other compensations in the Rhineland. But all protestations of friendship could not hide the fact that Prussia was outmaneuvered, that Metternich had lost out in Poland only to win in Saxony and then partially to restore the situation in Poland by means of Saxony.

18. D'Angeberg I, p. 418, November 18, 1814; also B.D., p. 238.

19. D'Angeberg II, p. 1941, December 2, 1814; also B.D., p. 248.

20. Text, D'Angeberg I, p. 505.

nor that the Prussian military were threatening war. Russia, at the periphery of Europe, might rest its claim on Poland on the fact of possession, but a power situated in the center of the Continent could survive only as the component of a "legitimate" order both within Germany and in Europe. Thus, although by the middle of December the Congress of Vienna seemed to have reached a complete stalemate, behind the scene fundamental transformation was preparing itself. A stalemate is not total until all the factors are engaged and France was still uncommitted. The contests during October and November had exploded the myth of Allied unity and the threat of France no longer loomed larger than that of the erstwhile ally. It was becoming plain that the memory of a common effort would not suffice to restrain any power from attempting to add France to its side of the scale. The dispute among the Allies paradoxically made possible a European policy which took into consideration all relationships and which did not exclude one factor in the balance through an assertion of superior morality.

While Castlereagh was despairing about the Polish failure and accusing Metternich of never having really intended to resist, a combination was forming on the Saxon question which was to give a new direction to the contest. For the coalition which could resist in Saxony was, by definition, also the coalition which could resist in Poland. And the claims of power defeated in one quarter would, almost necessarily, limit the assertions of arbitrariness in the other. So it was proved, after all, that the equilibrium was indivisible, although the solution did not come about through a consciousness of this. It was not in the name of Europe that Europe was saved, but in the name of Saxony.

B.D., p. 248f.

V/1

But before this new combination could be formed, domestic pressures on Castlereagh nearly wrecked Metternich's finely-spun plan. An insular power may fight its wars in the name of the European equilibrium, but it will tend to identify the threats to the equilibrium with threats to its immediate security. Just because its policy is defensive and not precautionary, it will make the cause of war depend on an overt act which "demonstrates" the danger. But the danger to the equilibrium is never demonstrated until it is already overturned, because an aggressor can always justify every step, except the crucial last one, as the manifestation of limited claims and exact acquiescence as the price of continued moderation. To be sure, Britain had entered the fray against Napoleon at an early stage and continued the contest with great persistence. But the threat to the equilibrium had become manifest through an attack on the Low Countries and the balance of power had come to be identified with the possession of Antwerp. Now the issue was Poland, however, a "distant" country both geographically and psychologically. It was not clear until it was "proven" that the Rhine was best defended along the Vistula or that there existed any threat to peace except France. In this frame of mind the Cabinet considered the Polish dispute an irritating outgrowth of Continental rivalry, threatening a peace dearly won and dealt with it primarily under the aspect of its impact on British domestic politics.

On October 14, Liverpool, the British Prime Minister, wrote Castlereagh that the "less Britain had to do with [Poland]. . . the better" and pointing out that from the Parliamentary point of view, the Tsar's plan was preferable to a new partition because it preserved the principle

- 23

merely defining Prussia's dilemma when he told Hardenberg that "he
[Hardenberg] could not regard an unacknowledged claim as constituting a
good title and that he never could in conscience or honor. . .make the mere
refusal of a recognition a cause of war. . . ." In this situation
Castlereagh did not propose to follow his Cabinet's instructions. To
announce British disinterest would remove the major deterrent to war and,
in its effort to guarantee peace, the Cabinet would have brought about
what it feared most. Or else, a British withdrawal from the contest
would have led to an Austrian surrender and to a complete overturn of the
equilibrium.

So it happened that Castlereagh and Metternich found themselves
on the same side in a battle whose moral framework had been defined by
the wily Austrian Minister. The more intransigent Prussia's attitude, the
stronger became Metternich's position. Without the necessity for abstract
discussion Austria emerged as the protector of the secondary powers. When
Metternich proposed an alliance to Bavaria and Hannover and the construction
of a German League without Prussia, he was simply giving expression to a
general consensus. As the contest was becoming transformed into a test of
power, Metternich had achieved a position where he was resisting claims
which could be represented as exorbitant and unjust. It was at this point,
when the last vestiges of the Alliance were disappearing, that Talleyrand
reappeared on the scene. He emerged because Metternich put him on the
stage and his eloquence was but a reflection of Metternich's desire for
anonymity, for Metternich was not interested in appearing as the agent of
Prussia's humiliation. It was Metternich's desire that events should come about
"naturally," because that would minimize the danger of personal schisms; it was

25. B.D., p. 255, December 7, 1814.

- 24

Talleyrand was given his opportunity by Metternich, who
communicated to him the Austrian reply to Hardenberg of December 10 and
thus made clear that the Big Four had not been able to settle the issue.
Talleyrand replied in a trenchant memorandum, which asserted the superiority
of the claims of legitimacy over the requirements of the equilibrium and
denied the possibility of deposing kings, because sovereigns could not be
tried, least of all by those who coveted their territories. It was not for
Prussia to state what she would take, Talleyrand argued boldly, but for
the "legitimate" king of Saxony to define how much he would yield. It
was a masterly summary of all the inconsistencies of two months of
acrimony, but this was not its significance. Talleyrand had served France
better by remaining "available" than by writing memoranda. The real
importance of the exchange lay in the fact that France was once again part
of the concert of Europe.

In desperation Prussia now proposed to transplant the King of
Saxony to the Rhineland into territories earmarked for Prussia. But
neither Metternich nor Castlereagh were ready to acquiesce: Metternich
because it would have transformed the King of Saxony from an ally of
Austria into a Prussian vassal; Castlereagh because he wanted to see a
power of the first order protect the Rhineland and back up Holland. And
all the time the balance was shifting against Prussia, because Castlereagh
and Metternich were slowly insinuating France into the Allied councils.
Since part of the dispute between Austria and Prussia dealt with the

26. N.P. II, p. 503f.

27. N.P. II, p. 510f., December 19, 1814; D'Angeberg p. 546f.

28. W.S.D. IX, p. 483, December 17, 1814.

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at Vienna was precisely this exhibition of self-restraint, this refusal
to attempt to sell French participation in the alliance for a territorial
advantage, an effort which would have united all the other powers against
him. As a result he gained something more important, the end of isolation
of France and the real recognition of its legitimacy.

Thus, almost exactly one year after he first sailed for the Continent, Castlereagh, in direct violation of his instructions, dissolved the Alliance he had striven so hard to create for the sake of the very equilibrium it was supposed to perpetuate. That it was Castlereagh who took this step marked the measure of Metternich's success not only in isolating his opponents but in doing so in the name of universal reason and not of Austrian reason of state. For while the worst-risk-of-British-foreign policy was isolation, that of Austria was disintegration. Because Castlereagh could withdraw across the Channel after a conference, he considered a settlement the end of a diplomatic campaign. Because a continental power can not choose its point of commitment or fight only its own battles, Metternich conducted a policy of establishing "claims," of creating a framework in which there were no basic antagonisms or at least a maximum number of potential allies. Castlereagh thought in terms of marshalling a superior force against his antagonists, Metternich in terms of building golden bridges for them, so that the resolution of the conflict would appear as an act of volition and not of surrender. Saxony saved by an assertion of Austrian power was the start of unending conflict; saved in the name of Europe it created a wound which could heal.

VI

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understood that force is the ultimate recourse. But it is the art of
diplomacy to keep this threat potential, to keep its extent indeterminate
and to commit it only as a last resort. For once power has been made
actual, negotiations in the proper sense cease. A threat to use force
which proves unavailing does not return the negotiation to the point
before the threat was made. It destroys the bargaining position altogether,
for it is a confession not of finite power but of impotence. By bringing
matters to a head, Prussia found itself confronted by three powers whose
determination could not be doubted, although the treaty itself remained
secret. And the Tsar proved a lukewarm ally. A series of partial settlements had isolated Prussia, because "satisfied" powers will not fight for
the claims of another, if an honorable alternative presents itself.

Castlereagh, therefore, took up the proposal of Metternich's
memorandum of December 10 by which Prussia was to obtain part of Saxony and
extensive territories in the Rhineland. It soon became apparent that
Prussia would not carry out her threat of war. By January 3, after
Metternich and Castlereagh had refused to negotiate without Talleyrand,
Hardenberg, to save face, himself recommended Talleyrand's participation.
On January 5, Castlereagh could report that "the alarm of war is over."
The Saxon question was henceforth officially discussed by the now Big Five
and was resolved largely through unofficial negotiations in which
Castlereagh played the role of the intermediary between Metternich and
Talleyrand on the one side and the Tsar and Hardenberg on the other.

26. B.D., p. 280.

29. B.D., p. 282.

In his endeavor to achieve a final settlement, Castlereagh had to resist a new attempt by Prussia to move the king of Saxony to the left bank of the Rhine and an effort by Austria to save the Elbe fortress of Torgau for Saxony. But with the aid of the Tsar, he convinced Prussia that in the interest of the European equilibrium she would have to assume the defense of the Rhineland, and he made clear to Austria that the defensive alliance extended only to an actual attempt to overthrow the European equilibrium, not to internal German arrangements. The danger of war had also made the Tsar more pliable. When Castlereagh suggested some concessions in Poland in order to make the Saxon arrangement more palatable to Prussia, Alexander agreed to return the city of Thorn to Prussia. Metternich immediately used this opportunity to attempt to lure Alexander into another series of adjustments and to shift on him the onus for Prussia's unsatisfactory boundaries. He offered to cede the district of Tarnopol to Russia in exchange for further concessions to Prussia. Although the Tsar refused, the Saxon question had become a means to limit Russia's Polish aspirations. What could not be exacted for the sake of the general equilibrium of Europe was obtained through a number of concessions which made local arrangements possible. The Tsar still obtained the major part of Poland, but in a manner which symbolized his dependence on the recognition of Europe.

No R On February 11, a final agreement was reached. In Poland, Austria retained Galicia and the district of Tarnopol, while Cracow was constituted a free city. Prussia retained the district of Posen and the city of Thorn which controlled the upper Vistula. The remainder of the

32. B.D., p. 295, January 29, 1815.

33. D'Angeberg I, p. 676.

Duchy of Warsaw with a population of 3.2 million became the Kingdom of Poland under the Tsar of Russia. In Germany, Prussia obtained two-fifths of Saxony, Swedish Pomerania, much of the Left Bank of the Rhine, and the Duchy of Westphalia. Austria had already been assured compensation in Northern Italy and predominance in all of Italy through the establishment of dependent dynasties in Parma and Tuscany.

④ Thus, the equilibrium of Europe was established after all and with a modicum of harmony. Whatever one may think of the moral content of this solution, it excluded no major power from the European concert and therefore testified to the absence of unbridgeable schisms. The settlement did not rest on ungood faith, which would have put too great a strain on self-limitation; nor on the efficacy of the pure evaluation of power, which would have made calculation too indeterminate. Rather, there was created a structure in which the forces were sufficiently balanced, so that self-restraint could appear as something more than self-abnegation, but which took account of the historical claims of its components, so that its existence could be translated into acceptance. There existed within the new international order no power so dissatisfied that it did not prefer to seek its remedy within the framework of the Vienna settlement rather than in overturning it. Since the political order did not contain a "revolutionary" power, its relations became increasingly spontaneous, based on the growing certainty that a catastrophic upheaval was unlikely.

On June 9, 1815 the Final Acts of Vienna were ratified by Europe assembled in congress. It was the only meeting of the Congress of Vienna.