Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 2/The great congresses of Europe - Part 2
THE GREAT CONGRESSES OF EUROPE.
(Concluded from p. 386.)
THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA.
Napoleon being driven to a little island in the Mediterranean, and Louis XVIII. having made his solemn entry into Paris on the 3rd of May, 1814, there followed on the last day of the same month the signing of the Treaty of Paris, which was to serve as a basis for the arrangement of the affairs of Europe. In the 32nd Article of this Treaty, provisions were made for the opening of a Congress at Vienna in the course of the same year, and by further verbal arrangement the opening of the Assembly was fixed for the 1st of November. But so great was the attention with which the whole of Europe regarded this coming meeting of Kings, Princes, and Ambassadors, that the great diplomatic pilgrimage to Vienna began as early as the middle of August, and by the beginning of September the town was so crowded with high and distinguished visitors, that many of them were compelled to reside miles away from it, if not to take up their lodgings in a garret. The great monarchs themselves arrived before the appointed time, for already on the 25th of October Czar Alexander and Frederick William of Prussia made their solemn entry into Vienna, followed by a train of kings, in the persons of the monarchs of Bavaria, of Würtemberg, and Denmark, and a legion of ambassadors, envoys, and representatives of great and little European powers. England sent her Foreign Minister, Lord Castlereagh, his brother, Sir Charles, and Lord Clancarty; France gave Prince Talleyrand, Dolberg, Noailles, and Bernardier; Spain despatched Don Labrodar: Portugal, Prince Palmella; the Netherlands, Herr von Gagern; Denmark, Count Bernstorf; Sweden, the Baron of Lowenheim; Hanover, Count Munster; and Rome, Cardinal Gonsalvi. The King of Prussia brought with him Wilhelm von Humboldt and Prince Hardenberg; and the Czar of all the Russias was accompanied by Counts Rusmovsky, Stakelberg, and Nesselrode, besides a host of minor statesmen. The honours of the presidency of this august assembly of diplomatists fell upon Prince Metternich, one of whose first acts was a proclamation announcing a verification of credentials of all the commissioners present. The result of this so-called verification, which was in reality a secret diplomatic move, was the non-admittance to the Congress of the envoys of King Murat of Naples, the Republic of Genoa, the King of Saxony, and the—by command of Bonaparte—annihilated order of the Knights of St. John. By a further proclamation of the president, the division of labour was ordered to be arranged as follows. The five great Powers,—Austria, England, France, Prussia, and Russia,—were to take in hand the general European concerns, which were to be discussed in separate conferences, aside of the particular committee which had to occupy itself with the affairs of Germany. To the latter were admitted not only the German States, but the representatives of Spain, Portugal, and Sweden, the latter to act as umpires. Next to these two principal divisions for executing the labours of the Congress came the following eight committees, which were to hold sittings whenever time allowed it. A committee for forming a plan of a German constitution; one for the affairs of Switzerland; one for statistical purposes, and to prepare tables of the extent and population of countries and provinces to be transferred or exchanged; one on the Negro question; one on the liberty of navigation of rivers; one for determining the future rank of European powers; one on the affairs of Tuscany, in regard to the Queen of Etruria; and, lastly, one on the affairs of Genoa. The proposal of the Spanish ambassador, to constitute one more separate committee for the affairs of Italy in general, met with an immediate refusal from Prince Metternich. All this being arranged, the real work of the Congress began—or, at least, was supposed to begin.
For, during the first two or three months, there was no real business of any kind even attempted, all the more important members of the great meeting being intent only on amusing themselves as much as possible. Through the liberality of the Kaiser, or rather his alter ego, Prince Metternich, not merely all the envoys and their numerous suites, but the whole of the hangers-on in the train of princes and diplomatists, were entertained at the expense of the Government, and this army of idlers naturally tried to prolong such delicious state of things to the remotest period by abstaining as much as possible from any sort of business. And even after the conferences had really begun, there were endless interruptions to them by balls, soirées, theatrical representations, and other entertainments, all fully attended by the three great monarchs and their immense train of followers. In the first months of 1815, masked balls in particular became both numerous and highly fashionable. At these fêtes, Czar Alexander, Kaiser Francis, and King Frederick William, were wont to set an example to gaiety by appearing in plain dress, civil or military, and mingling with the crowd like the humblest of their attendants. At other times, however, the same exalted personages and their friends did not despise a domino, or other mark, thus assuming an incognito, which was far from existing in reality. The figures most easily recognised in these masquerades were, according to Capefigue,[1] the colossal King of Würtemberg, who paid court to the Duchess of Oldenburg, sister of the Czar, and Christian of Denmark, remarkable for his coarse jocularity. Talleyrand was the Mephistopheles of most of these entertainments, and amid all his labours found time to amuse his new master at the Tuileries with descriptions of the various costumes, manners, gallant intrigues, and other adventures of the august and high personages. There was no lack of fair and noble damsels at any of these fêtes, and no want of high-born admirers; but the palm of all the beauties was carried by a lady neither beautiful nor noble, Madame Krüdener, the prophetess of the Assembly. She was the great favourite of the Czar, who, while others would look for partners, and waltz and whirl around in the gilded saloons of the Imperial Hofburg, preferred withdrawing into a corner to gaze into the melancholy eyes of the fair Scandinavian seer. She was usually found by him reclining upon a low divan supported by curtains of crimson velvet, which, we are assured, set off her clear complexion and the dazzling whiteness of her dress to the greatest advantage.
Talleyrand, in his memoir, gives a graphic description of one of such interviews between the prophetess and her august admirers: “On one side stood the Emperor Alexander, attired in a suit of black, with no mark of his high rank save the glittering of brilliants on his bosom. On the other side, leaning backward in the chair with the most perfect nonchalance, sat the King of Prussia. Bergasse and the sombre Jungstilling (two German illuminés) sat on a low stool at the feet of the prophetess. All on a sudden deadly silence ensued. Madame started from her seat, her long robe dropping in graceful folds about her person, and the loose sleeves falling back from the extended arms. ‘Let us pray!’ she exclaimed; and in a moment every person present, from Czar Alexander to the very footman, sank down upon their knees.”
The Congress had been assembled already more than four months, but nothing had yet been done for a settlement of the pending European difficulties, which on the contrary threatened to be embroiled more and more, when suddenly, on the 8th of March, the news arrived at Vienna of Napoleon’s landing in the Bay of Juan. What a sense of duty had not been able to do before, was now suddenly brought about by the impulse of fear—the plenipotentiaries at the Congress began to work, to work in real downright earnest. The different committee-rooms were filled at once, as if by magic; and after but a few days’ deliberation a treaty was concluded between Austria, England, Prussia, and Russia, by which each party engaged to furnish 150,000 men, with the proviso of England being allowed to give money instead of soldiers. In a declaration, issued March 31, the above-named powers further announced to the world that by entering France Napoleon had deprived himself of the protection of law, and therefore was now declared “hors des relations civiles et sociales,” an enemy and disturber of the peace of Europe, delivered up to public vengeance.
While these decrees were being promulgated, vast columns of troops kept on moving towards the French frontier, but before even their arrival the fate of Napoleon was decided a second time on the field of Waterloo. The great Congress now saw itself once more undisturbed by outward events to pursue its deliberations. This was done henceforth with more earnestness, the serious intermezzo of the Hundred Days having turned the eyes of all away from balls and masquerades; and before another month was over the fruit of these labours became visible in the gradual sketch of the new map of Europe. This new map, however, looked rather differently from what politicians had expected it to be at the beginning of the Congress. It was then generally thought that the real object of this great meeting was to efface the traces of the revolutionary wars, and to place the whole of Europe in the status quo ante bellum. Conformable to this rule, the petty Princes of Germany ought to have been called to take possession of the territories from which they were driven by force; Saxony, Russia, and Bavaria, enriched by Napoleon at the expense of Austria and Prussia, to have been stripped of their spoil; Venice called to resume her independence, again occupying the Ionian Islands and other of her colonies; and the minor Italian States to be once more parcelled out between scions of the Houses of Hapsburg and Bourbon. This would have been in accordance with the professed object of the Congress, defined by Prince Metternich in one of his first speeches as of “strictly reparatory character;” but this did not fully suit the plan of the great Continental powers who had taken the chief part in the struggles against France. They wished to be recompensed for the sacrifices they had made of men and money, and as France was not well able to reimburse them sufficiently in the shape of either cash or territory, another expedient had to be found. Poland and Saxony were discovered to be the most available objects for this purpose; and accordingly the division of these two countries was determined on, after several months’ deliberations, between the high contracting powers.
By a secret agreement between the Czar and King Frederick William, the former consented to the incorporation of Saxony with Prussia, while the latter entirely abandoned Poland to Russia. To this however Austria, already startled at the progress of Muscovite power in Europe, showed her dissent, and pointing to the unreasonableness of the spoliation of the King of Saxony, proposed another plan for the enlargement of Prussia. A part of the Duchy of Warsaw was, under the title of Grand Duchy of Posen, to be made over to Prussia, while Austria kept her share of what was known as the province of Gallicia, and Russia received the rest. Prussia besides was to have one-half of Saxony, part of Swedish Pomerania, and several provinces in Westphalia and on the left bank of the Rhine, hitherto under Austria and Holland. The latter country was to be recompensed for this loss by Austrian Belgium and the Duchy of Luxemburgh; and Austria in its turn was to get in exchange the whole of Venice and the province extending to the Lago Maggiore, the Ticino, and the Po, including the territory of Mantua. Thus all was comfortably arranged at the expense of Italy, Poland, and Saxony; and after these and some minor points had been settled, the real secret working at the Congress was at an end, and the more formal public one had to be gone through. This consisted chiefly in the arrangement of the affairs of Germany, which was soon finished, inasmuch as the great powers were unanimous that the “heart of Europe” should remain in a state of dilapidation. Accordingly, it was settled that Germany should receive a federal organisation, with a central Diet, under the presidency of the House of Austria. The members of the Confederation, thirty-five in number, besides the four free cities, Hamburgh, Bremen, Lübeck, and Frankfurt, bound themselves by the new constitution to make no war upon each other under any pretence whatever, but to submit their differences to the Diet. As regards Switzerland, which likewise received a new constitution, three cantons, Valais, Neufchatel, and Geneva, were added to its territory, so that the Helvetic republic was made to consist of twenty-two cantons, or counties. The interests of Great Britain caused scarcely any discussion whatever at Vienna. Several settlements in the Indies, the Cape of Good Hope, Malta, the Ionian Islands, and Heligoland—minute spoils from France, Holland, the Knights of St. John, Venice, and Denmark—were, as a matter of course, awarded to the arch-enemy of the Corsican conqueror, and main purveyor of the nervus rerum during the long struggle.
It will be seen from the preceding, that the chief gainers in the re-distribution of European territory by the Congress of Vienna were the four Continental Powers,—Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Holland. France herself lost nothing and gained nothing in territory at the Congress; but was obliged by the Treaty of Vienna to give up several of her most important frontier fortresses—towards the Netherlands, on the Rhine, and at the Alps—which were delivered into the hands of an allied army of 150,000 men, for the term of three years, in order to consolidate the throne of Louis XVIII. The latter was, even to Talleyrand, the most humiliating part of the Peace of 1815, and remains as a kind of insult which the French nation has scarcely yet forgotten.
Such was the work of the Congress of Vienna, as far as regards the strictly political and diplomatic result. But this was not all. The Congress of Vienna, in fact, consisted of two assemblies—an assembly of more or less responsible ministers, and an assembly of completely irresponsible Sovereigns. While the former were deliberating on a peace among nations, the latter were discussing the bases of a peace among themselves; and the result of the latter consultations was that most singular union known as the Holy Alliance. The first impulse to this compact came from Czar Alexander, who in his turn, it is said, was inspired by the before-mentioned Madame Krüdener. The Autocrat of Russia—all his life long a secret admirer of the German school of mystics, known as the “Illuminated”—had been so struck with the prophetic inspirations of this lady, that he invited her to follow in his suite during the latter part of the war of 1813. Accordingly, Madame Krüdener set out with the Russian army, was present at the battle of Leipzig, and entering France made herself conspicuous by publicly imploring benediction for the Russian arms, at a grand review held by the Czar on the Plaine des Vertus. On this occasion the Imperial coach brought the prophetess from the Château Mensil to the front of the defiling host, where she knelt in prayers, surrounded by the Autocrat and his generals, who were lying prostrate on the ground, overwhelmed with devotion. Arrived at Paris, the “prayer-meetings” were continued with greater ardour than ever, and on these occasions the Czar was inspired with what afterwards became the groundwork of the Holy Alliance. Some German historians assert that the draft of the Act was actually drawn up between Alexander I. and Madame, and that the latter gave it the final touch, entreating her “white angel” to implore God to dispose his allies to give it their heartfelt assent. This, as far as is known, proved no very difficult task; placid Frederick William and good-humoured Kaiser Francis assenting without much ado to the proposals of their mighty brother and ally. Thus the three monarchs signed on the 26th of September, 1815, the Act of the Holy Alliance, the beginning of which ran as follows:
In consequence of the great events by which the last three years were signalised, and especially in consideration of the benefits which Divine Providence vouchsafed to confer on their States, their Majesties, having arrived at the perfect conviction of the necessity henceforth to be guided in their mutual intercourse solely by the sublime truth taught by the eternal religion of God, declare that this present act has no other object except to manifest to the universe their unshaken determination to take no guide, either in their internal administration, or in their political relations with other States, but the precepts of the holy religion,—precepts of justice, charity, and peace, which, far from being applicable merely in private life, ought, on the contrary, to influence still more the works of princes, and guide all their steps, as the sole means of consolidating human institutions, and of remedying their imperfections.
In consequence of which, after some further preamble, the three following articles were agreed upon:
Firstly. The three contracting monarchs, according to the Holy Scriptures, ordaining men to regard each other as brethren, will remain indissolubly united by the bonds of fraternity, look upon each other as compatriots, and hasten to each other’s assistance on any occasion; regard themselves in relation to their subjects and armies as family-fathers, and direct them on the same path of fraternity, for the defence of religion, peace, and justice.
Secondly. The same principle shall be maintained mutually among the subjects of the three sovereigns, who will thus be taught to recognise that the only ruler is He to whom alone belongs power, and in whom are all the treasures of love and wisdom.
Thirdly. All persons willing solemnly to accept the sacred precepts of this act, and convinced of how much importance they are for the happiness of nations, will be received with as much readiness as affection into the Holy Alliance.
All the European Sovereigns, except three, successively entered the Holy Alliance. The exceptions were Pope Pius VII., Sultan Mahmud II., and King George IV. The first two declared their positive unwillingness to sign the Act; and the last named notified that he was not allowed to enter the princely union on account of its being contrary to the spirit of the English Constitution.
So passed the Congress of Vienna—the greatest and most important peace-meeting the world had ever seen. Munster and Osnabrück had settled the fate of Germany, Utrecht that of Spain, Rastadt that of France; Vienna fixed for near half a century that of the whole of Europe. It was left to the successor of the prisoner of St. Helena to draw the first important stroke through the political map thus arranged, so as to make it necessary to look to another Congress for the renewed settlement of European affairs. This Congress, already fixed upon once, then indefinitely postponed, and now again spoken of in diplomatic circles, belongs as yet to an unwritten future; but it is certain nevertheless that, although we know not exactly when and where, this international meeting must take place before long. Our age cannot exist without periodical Congresses. As cannons have been called the final arguments of Kings, so Congresses, with still more truth, may be denominated the last arguments of Nations. The latter are the necessary counterbalance of the former—more than ever necessary in our days of rifle guns, Whitworth and Armstrong machinery, and other scientific improvements in the art of men-killing.
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- ↑ Histoire de la Restauration.