War and Great Power Diplomacy after Napoleon.

AuthorQuainton, Tony
PositionBook review

The Congress of Vienna and its Legacy: War and Great Power Diplomacy after Napoleon by Mark Jarrett, I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2014, ISBN-13: 978-1780761169, 522 pp., $117.17 (Hardcover), $22.31 (Paperback), $31.02 (E-Textbook).

The outbreak of the First World War one hundred years ago this summer began the definitive unravelling of the security system created at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, a process which continued across the ensuing century through two world wars, the creation of the European Union and most recently the dismemberment of Ukraine at the hands of Russia. Professor Jarrett tells the story of how that world was created by a handful of brilliant men intent on undoing the system which France, under Napoleon's leadership, had tried to put in place over the previous twenty years and on preserving Europe from the threat of future revolution. The book chronicles in detail the congresses (Vienna, Aix la Chapelle, Troppau, Laibach and Verona) and the ambassadorial meetings that came between them. Professor Jarrett examines the issues that preoccupied the four victorious powers in the Napoleonic wars. These issues ranged from the containment of revolution in Naples and Spain to the preservation of the Turkish Empire, the slave trade and Spain's American territories. At its heart the system, which came to be known as the Concert of Europe, was designed to maintain the monarchical status quo, contain French ambitions, and define the territorial boundaries of the post Napoleonic state system. Professor Jarrett is fascinated by the personalities who worked to achieve these outcome and he describes vividly the relationships among the three principal actors, Viscount Castlereagh of England, Prince Metternich of Austria and Czar Alexander I of Russia.

The book begins with a thumbnail sketch of the various states of Europe on the eve of the Napoleonic era and an analysis of the 18th century intellectual underpinnings of what was first the Holy Alliance and later the Quadruple Alliance as the basis of a new European security system. He reviews the history of Napoleon's rise to power and the events that led to his eventual defeat. But at its heart this is a book about the efforts to create and sustain a common approach to European security by the European monarchies, to maintain the territorial status quo by guaranteeing after much debate the frontiers of all the European states including those that were redrawn in Germany, France, Italy and...

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