The Lost Fruits of Waterloo

by John Spencer Bassett

The tsar thought the situation warranted calling another conference of the Quintuple Alliance. Metternich objected, being chiefly concerned by the seeming certainty that the tsar would wish to carry into the situation his well-known views in support of liberalism. To him it seemed sufficient that the powers should agree severally to give their arms to the suppression of revolution, without meeting in conference. After much discussion a conference was called, at Troppau, but it was regularly attended by only three of the five powers. The suppression of constitutional government was not popular in Great Britain, and her government took no official part in the conference. France held aloof also; she was so much under the protection of Great Britain that she did not dare risk British displeasure by allying herself with the forces of repression.

Did the absence of two nations from Troppau presage the dissolution of the Alliance? Castlereagh gave a negative reply. His nation, he said, was not bound beyond her treaty obligations, the terms of which were clear and specific. They were embodied in the Treaties of Chaumont and Paris. He considered the project of dealing with revolution in its present form as beyond the meaning of these agreements. “If,” he said, “it is desired to extend the Alliance so as to include all objects present and future, foreseen and unforeseen, it would change its character to such an extent and carry us so far, that we should see in it an additional motive for adhering to our course at the risk of seeing the Alliance move away from us without our having quitted it.” These frank words show that the Alliance was strained but not broken. It would seem that a system like that of which we speak should have at bottom some broad common principles. In purpose it should be harmonious. As between the prevailing British idea of liberty and Metternich’s ideas of legitimacy there was no ground for mutual support; and out of this divergence of views was to grow the disruption of the Alliance, as we shall soon see.

Up to this time the two ideas that had run side by side were the tsar’s plan for a league to secure coöperation of a general nature and the British plan limiting common action to a few specific matters, chiefly connected with the repression of France in case she wished to return to a policy which would threaten the peace of Europe. As it became increasingly apparent that France was no longer a menace this type of union became less important, and the British ardor for it cooled, especially since it was becoming more and more certain that the Alliance was being used to support repression.

At the same time a change was passing through the mind of the tsar. In all he had done he had been supported by liberal ministers, against whose influence at his court Metternich did not hesitate to intrigue. Alexander’s conversion to the cause of repression came suddenly and completely in 1820, when there was a mutiny in a favorite regiment of his guard. Sober advisers pointed out to him that the action of the regiment had no political significance, but he would not be convinced. He insisted he would not countenance revolt abroad, lest it encourage insurrection at home. All the fervor he had shown in behalf of liberal ideas he now manifested in behalf of repression. At Troppau he met Metternich in a spirit of profound repentance for what he had done in the past, saying with an outburst of emotion: “So we are at one, Prince, and it is to you that we owe it. You have correctly judged the state of affairs. I deplore the waste of time, which we must try to repair. I am here without any fixed ideas; without any plan; but I bring you a firm and unalterable resolution. It is for your Emperor to use it as he wills. Tell me what you desire, and what you wish me to do, and I will do it.” The speech astonished the Prince as much as it pleased him. All his schemes had lost in the defection of Castlereagh, and probably more, was made up in the accession of his new ally. Not only was the cause of legitimacy, as he advocated it, made safe; but the danger was removed of a Franco-Russian alliance, always a thing to be dreaded by the great Powers in the center of Europe.

In the conference at Troppau, Austria, Russia, and Prussia now acted together. Up to that time Metternich had ignored the Holy Alliance. He now brought it out as his stalking horse. The three sovereigns, controlling the conference, issued a declaration suspending from the Alliance any state that tolerated revolution in its borders and declaring that the other Powers in the Alliance would bring back the offending state by force of arms. Under the indefinite terms of the instrument this was a legal interpretation of power, but it was not in the spirit of the benevolent sovereign who made the Holy Alliance possible.

Those of us who now favor a league or federation of states as a means of preserving peace perpetually may well study the crisis to which a similar system had come in the development of international relations in 1820. The tsar’s ideal was a thing of glory thrown before a sordid world. Not even he, as we see, was proof against the debasement of his surroundings. If his plan had been adopted by all the nations, it is likely that the time would have come when the confederation thus formed would have become an agency for reaction against which liberal views would have been unable to contend.

On the other hand, we must not ignore the weight that a confederation would have had as an idea in promoting respect for liberal government. If it had been established under the protection of the tsar, it may well have been that Metternich would not have taken up the crusade of legitimacy, that the tsar and Castlereagh acting together in behalf of liberal institutions would have insured a steadier attitude on the part of the former, and that under such circumstances the kings of Spain and Naples would have been less inclined to the severe measures which provoked revolution. Of course, these are mere conjectures, but it is only fair to mention them as things to be said for the other side of the question.

When we come to apply the lessons of 1815–1820 to the present day, we must not forget that conditions are now very greatly changed. It was the supremacy of arbitrary government in Europe that made the hopes of 1815 come to naught. Of all the agents who then controlled affairs in the great states of Europe, Castlereagh, next to the tsar, was the most liberal. If a plan of union were adopted after the present war, it might not be a success, but the failure would not be for the same reasons as those that brought the Alliance of 1815 to a nullity.

Castlereagh made a protest against the purposes of the three Powers at Troppau in which were some telling arguments against such a league as was threatening. They were well made and would be applicable to the situation today, if it were proposed to establish a league like that which found favor at Troppau. The plan proposed, said he, was too general in its scope. It gave the projected confederation the right to interfere in the internal affairs of independent states on the ground that the general good was concerned, and if carried out the Alliance would, in effect, be charged with the function of policing such states. Against all this he protested, and he pointed out that so many grounds of dissatisfaction lay in the scheme that to try to enforce it would surely lead to counter alliances, the end of which would be war. It ought to be said, also, that Castlereagh was opposed to giving up war as a means of settling disputes. “The extreme right of interference,” he said, “between nation and nation can never be made a matter of written stipulation or be assumed as the attribute of an alliance.” If a man takes that position he can hardly be expected to see good points in any scheme to preserve peace perpetually.

The evils he pointed out are largely eliminated in the modern plans that are offered. For example, the jurisdiction of the proposed leagues or federations is strictly limited to the enforcement of peace. A supreme court held by eminent judges would pass upon cases as they come up and say whether or not the central authority should employ force. Under the plan it would be hard to bring a purely internal question before the court, and if brought there it would not be considered by the judges, since the pact of the federation would specify that such cases were not to be tried. The pact would be the constitution of the federation, and the court would be expected to pass on the constitutionality of measures from the standpoint of that instrument. Under a system like that recently advocated a revolution in Naples would have to be submitted to a court whose members were appointed from states in which free institutions are in existence. It could not be the tool of a Metternich. Under such a system the whim of a tsar, if such a ruler ever again wears a crown, could not make or mar a question like that which underlay the calling of the Conference of Troppau. So many are the differences that it is, perhaps, not profitable to dwell longer on this point. The study of the peace problem and the attempt to solve it a hundred years ago is extremely interesting to one who considers the situation now existing, but it is chiefly because the mind, having grasped the development of the former problem and become accustomed to see the process as a whole, is in a better state to understand the present and to know wherein it differs from the past and in what respect old factors are supplemented by new factors. Such lessons from the past are open to all who will but read.