THE BALANCE OF POWER

 

Because the Peace of Utrecht had enshrined the idea of a European equilibrium as the sine qua non of stability for the society of states, statesmen had for a century before Vienna repeatedly invoked this idea. It is open to doubt whether the Great Article of Utrecht in fact envisaged the same sort of distribution of power as was meant by the phrase “balance of power” in Europe a century later: for one thing, the indicia of power themselves had changed, with the sheer size of populations being of much greater importance than heretofore. There are other reasons for doubt: at Utrecht, the equilibrist idea seems to have meant achieving a mathematical, Newtonian “steady state” subject to minor fluctuations, an idea that was usefully augmented by the “barrier” concept used to define French borders.25

At Vienna two new ideas were present that modified the concept: first, that the balance of power was a dynamic, developmental situation that must be maintained and adjusted by the Concert of Europe (whereas at Utrecht such minor adjustments in territory as reflected the waxing and waning of state power were left to limited wars, waged in an appropriately confined manner); and second, that the maintenance of a balance of power was a matter of collective legitimacy as much as collective security. Maintaining the balance of power would become the chief business of the great power directorate. One member's delegation to Vienna confirmed its government's intention of maintaining “that system of equilibrium which [is] placed henceforth under the protection of the powers of the first order and shielded from all preponderance.”26

The centrality of the balance was evident in the statement of all the chief actors at Vienna. Castlereagh wrote to his prime minister that he regarded his duty “to make the establishment of a just equilibrium in Europe the first object of my attention and to consider the assertion of minor points of interest as subordinate to this great end.”27 Talleyrand, in his final report from the Congress, repeated that its purpose, as recorded in the precursor Treaty of Paris, was “such as to establish in Europe a real and permanent balance of power.”28 The Declaration of Frankfurt, drawn up by Metternich as a statement of allied policy distribution, stated that the “allied powers… want a state of peace that, through a wise distribution of forces, through a just equilibrium, will henceforth preserve their peoples from the numberless calamities that, for twenty years, have burdened Europe.”29 The Congress convened a statistical committee to establish credible estimates of the number of persons in the various territories to be distributed, in order to facilitate a carefully balanced population because such a distribution was thought crucial to the Congress's work. Yet these statesmen were not so naïve as to believe that Europe could be carefully parceled into so many compensating weights. As Talleyrand wrote,

[a]djacent to large territories belonging to a single power, there are territories of similar or of smaller size, divided up among a greater or lesser number of states… Such a situation only admits of a very artificial and precarious equilibrium which can only last for as long as some large states continue to be animated by a spirit of moderation and justice that will preserve it.30

 

What was required was not simply a careful division of resources, but also the will to maintain their division. That will could be animated by the state-nation's drive for legitimacy in the absence of those customs that had fortified the territorial state. Thus Talleyrand's insight links these two principles and lays the foundation for the ultimate resolution of the new difficulties posed by the post-Vienna world. By allocating the duty to maintain the equilibrium to the directorate of great powers, the new constitution for the society of European states would both legitimate their role and protect the peace from their disturbance of it.