Metternich
Absolutely at the other extreme was a man like Metternich, trained in the old school of politics, wily with the wiliness of a practised diplomatic training, naturally impatient of speculative dreamers, thoroughly practical in the only sense in which he understood the term, that is to say, determined to preserve Austrian supremacy. To a reactionary of this kind the Holy Alliance represented nothing but words. He knew, with the cynicism bred of long experience of mankind, that the rivalries and jealousies between different states would prevent their union in any common purpose, and in the long run the intensity with which he pursued his objects, narrow and limited as it was, prevailed over the large and vague generosity of Alexander's nature. To the same type belonged both Talleyrand and Richelieu, who concentrated themselves on the single task of winning back for France her older position in the European commonwealth—a laudable aim for patriots to espouse, but one which was not likely to help the cause of the Holy Alliance.
Castlereagh and Canning
Half-way between these two extremes of unpractical idealists and extremely practical but narrow-minded reactionaries come the English statesmen, Castlereagh, Wellington, and Canning. Much injustice has been done to the first of these. For many critics have been misled by Byron's denunciation of Castlereagh, just as others have spoken lightly of the stubborn conservatism of Wellington, or the easy and half-cynical insouciance of the author of the Anti-Jacobin. As a matter of fact, Castlereagh was by no means an opponent of the principles of the Holy Alliance. He joined with Russia, Austria, and Prussia as a not unwilling member of the successive Congresses, but both he and Wellington, true to their national instincts, sought to subordinate all proposals to the interests of Great Britain, and to confine discussions to immediate objects, such as the limitation of French power and the suppression of dangerous revolutionary ideas. They were not, it is true, idealists in the sense in which Alexander I understood the term. And yet, on the whole, both Castlereagh and Canning did more for the principle of nationality than any of the other diplomatists of the time. The reason why Canning broke with the Holy Alliance, after Troppau, Laibach, and Verona, was because he discerned something more than a tendency on the part of Continental States to crush the free development of peoples, especially in reference to the Latin-American States of South America. It is true that in these matters he and his successor were guided by a shrewd notion of British interest, but it would be hardly just to blame them on this account. "You know my politics well enough," wrote Canning in 1822 to the British Ambassador in St. Petersburg, "to know what I mean when I say that for Europe I should be desirous now and then to read England." Castlereagh was, no doubt, more conciliatory than Canning, but he saw the fundamental difficulty of organising an international system and yet holding the balance between conflicting nations. And thus we get to a result such as seems to have rejoiced the heart of Canning, when he said in 1823 that "the issue of Verona has split the one and indivisible alliance into three parts as distinct as the constitutions of England, France, and Muscovy." "Things are getting back," he added, "to a wholesome state again. Every nation for itself and God for us all. Only bid your Emperor (Alexander I) be quiet, for the time for Areopagus and the like of that is gone by."[8]
[8] The Confederation of Europe, by W.A. Phillips, p. 280.
Earthen Vessels
If, then, the ardent hopes of a regenerated Europe in the early years of the nineteenth century failed, the result was due in large measure to the fact that the business was committed to wrong hands. The organs for working the change were for the most part autocratic monarchs and old-world diplomatists—the last people in the world likely to bring about a workable millennium. A great crisis demands very careful manipulation. Cynicism must not be allowed to play any part in it. Traditional watchwords are not of much use. Theoretical idealism itself may turn out to be a most formidable stumbling-block. Yet no one can doubt that a solution of the problem, whenever it is arrived at, must come along the path of idealism. Long ago a man of the world was defined as a man who in every serious crisis is invariably wrong. He is wrong because he applies old-fashioned experience to a novel situation—old wine in new bottles—and because he has no faith in generous aspirations, having noted their continuous failure in the past. Yet, after all, it is only faith which can move mountains, and the Holy Alliance itself was not so much wrong in the principles to which it appealed as it was in the personages who signed it. We have noticed already that, like all other great ideas, it did not wholly die. The propaganda of peace, however futile may be some of the discussions of pacifists, is the heritage which even so wrong-headed a man as Alexander I has left to the world. The idea of arbitration between nations, the solution of difficulties by arguments rather than by swords, the power which democracies hold in their hands for guiding the future destinies of the world—all these in their various forms remain with us as legacies of that splendid, though ineffective, idealism which lay at the root of the Holy Alliance.