Nationalism from the Congress of Vienna

Today’s installment concludes The Congress of Vienna 1814-15,
our selection from Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815 by Henry M. Stephens published in 1900.

If you have journeyed through all of the installments of this series, just one more to go and you will have completed a selection from the great works of six thousand words. Congratulations! For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The Congress of Vienna 1814-15.

Time: 1814-15
Place: Vienna

The final overthrow of Napoleon and his exile to St. Helena allowed the new system for the government of Europe as laid down by the Congress of Vienna to be tried. That system may be roughly designated as the system of the Great Powers. Before 1789, certain states, such as France and England and Spain, were, from fortuitous circumstances or the course of their history, larger, more united, and therefore more fitted for war than others, but the greater part of the Continent was split up into small, and in the case of Germany into very small, states. Several of these small states, such as Sweden and Holland, had at different times exercised a very considerable influence and the policy of Frederick the Great had added another to them, in the military state of Prussia. At the Congress of Vienna the tendency was to diminish the number and power of the secondary states and to destroy minute sovereignties. Sweden and Denmark were relegated to the rank of third-rate powers; the petty principalities of Germany were built up into third-rate states. Austria and Prussia were established as great powers, but the increase of their territory brought with it dissimilar results. Prussia became the preponderant state of Germany, while Austria, whose imperial house had so long held the title of Holy Roman Emperor, became less German, and now depended for its strength on its Italian, Magyar, and Slavonic provinces. The irruption of Russia into the European comity of nations was another significant feature. By its annexation of the greater part of the grand duchy of Warsaw, Russia thrust itself between Prussia and Austria territorially, while its leading share in the overthrow of Napoleon made its place as a European power unassailable. It may be doubted if the policy of Peter the Great and the Empress Catherine was thus carried out. The tendency of those rulers was to make the Baltic and the Black Sea Russian lakes, and to build up an empire of the East; affairs in Central Europe interested them only in so far as they prevented interference with their Eastern designs and did not lead to the erection of powerful states on the Russian border.

Nothing is more remarkable in the settlement of Europe by the Congress of Vienna than the entire neglect of the principle of nationality. Yet it was the sentiment of national patriotism which had enabled France to repulse Europe in arms and had trained the soldiers with whom Napoleon had given the law to the Continent and had overthrown the mercenary armies of his opponents. It was the principle of nationality which had crippled Napoleon’s finest armies in Spain, and which had produced his expulsion from Russia. It was the feeling of intense national patriotism which had made the Prussian army of 1813 and enabled Prussia after its deepest humiliation to take rank as a first-class power. But the diplomatists at Vienna treated the idea as without force. They had not learned the great lesson of the French Revolution, that the first result of rousing a national consciousness of political liberty is to create a spirit of national patriotism. The Congress of Vienna trampled such notions under foot. The partition of Poland was consecrated by Eu rope; Italy was placed under foreign rulers; Belgium and Holland, in spite of the hereditary opposition of centuries, were united under one king. The territories on the left bank of the Rhine, which were happy under French rule, and had been an integral part of France for twenty years, were roughly torn away, and divided between Prussia, Bavaria, and the house of Orange, under the fancied necessity induced by the exploded notion of maintaining the balance of power in Europe, of building up a bulwark against France. Such short-sighted policy was certain to be undone. Holland and Belgium separated; Italy became united, Poland maintained the consciousness of her national unity, and has more than once endeavored to regain her independence; France has never ceased to yearn after her natural frontier, the Rhine; the states of Germany have developed a national German patriotism which has led to the creation of the modern German Empire. This feeling of conscious nationality was the result of the French Revolution and the wars of Napoleon; its existence is the strength of England, France, Russia, and Germany; its absence is the weakness of Austria. In so far as the spirit of nationality was neglected at the Congress of Vienna, its work was but temporary; in its resurrection, which has filled the history of the present century, the work of the French Revolution has been permanent.

But after all, the growth of the spirit of nationality is only a secondary result of the French Revolution upon Europe; it did not arise in France until foreign powers attempted to interfere with the development of the French people after their own fashion; it did not arise in Europe until Napoleon began to interfere with the development of other nations. The primary results of the French Revolution — the recognition of individual liberty, which implied the abolition of serfdom and of social privileges; the establishment of political liberty, which implied the abolition of despots, however benevolent, and of political privileges; the maintenance of the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, which implied the right of the people, through their representatives, to govern themselves — have also survived the Congress of Vienna.

When Europe tried to interfere, the French people sacrificed these great gains to the spirit of nationality and bowed before the despotism of the Committee of Public Safety and of Napoleon; they have since regained them. The French taught these principles to the rest of Europe, and the history of Europe since 1815 has been the history of their growth side by side with the idea of nationality. How the two — liberty and nationality — can be preserved in harmony is the great problem of the future.

This ends our series of passages on The Congress of Vienna 1814-15 by Henry M. Stephens from his book Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815 published in 1900. This blog features short and lengthy pieces on all aspects of our shared past. Here are selections from the great historians who may be forgotten (and whose work have fallen into public domain) as well as links to the most up-to-date developments in the field of history and of course, original material from yours truly, Jack Le Moine. – A little bit of everything historical is here.

More information on The Congress of Vienna 1814-15 here and here and below.

We want to take this site to the next level but we need money to do that. Please contribute directly by signing up at https://www.patreon.com/history