[speaker001:] Yeah erm... the other er... aspect of any discussion of Vienna... is the er, is discussion of the congress system itself.... Erm whether that was a a, a er a success... or failure. Erm... the general response to this is that it was a failure. There's an even more er perhaps er... pertinent er point on this that er... that did it... did the congress system... actually exist in any meaningful way.... Again erm perhaps we ought to refer... one, one of the... still rather good stuff on this is from er, is from Thompson's book. And indeed I see one.
[speaker002:] [LAUGHTER] Thompson Nicking books eh? [LAUGHTER]
[speaker001:] Yes there's... there's a rather good... I was recommending Thompson's book er last week.... Erm it does have a rather good section on the congress system.... And I'll, I will endeavour in, in a second to er find it.... I would say that erm... We could perhaps describe the congress system as a partial success. A partial success.... It helped to keep the peace.... So in that sense again in the language of of the old old ten sixty six and all that it was a good thing.... However... you see a tendency in... erm after eighteen eighteen... to be perhaps more serving, to be serving the interests of... the er er east European powers.... And then it became perhaps... a troublesome er... entity.... Of course they had a problem at the outset... that being... all the powers had agreed on the need for joint intervention say er vis a vis France. In eighteen, between eighteen fifteen and eighteen eighteen... er the great powers did intervene in France. They had an army of occupation in some of France's north eastern departments. France was on... in a sense France was on probation in eighteen fifteen to eighteen eighteen. Erm... and and and we could take it back to the hundred days episode when the great powers have all er decided to er er to prevent Napoleon from making a comeback in France. But the great powers had agreed upon the principle of joint intervention. But of course as far as Britain was concerned, this could only be... intervention against France.... And what you tend to see happen... is not so much joint intervention... after eighteen... er fifteen or eighteen eighteen. You tend to see individual intervention.... Erm Austria in Italy.... France in Spain.... Russia in Greece. And of course, ironically... the western powers... Britain involves herself in Portugal. Britain involves herself in Greece. So Britain intervenes as well. Even though she was hostile to intervention erm you know erm by by... say er France in Spain or whatever. Yeah? So we get a strange paradoxical situation developing....
[speaker002:] So is it like, somebody could erm... I mean work against France in that situation?
[speaker001:] In that well... yeah I mean in a sense er that's right because... if you think about it, in eighteen... in eighteen fifteen... er the great powers stayed in existence mainly because of a fear of a... of of fear of France. Yeah? Erm and er... that's what, that was the cement which held them together. When when that's no longer perhaps valid, then the powers have got their erm, have got, have got their own interests to pursue.... Erm... It all gets mixed up of course because there's, there's there's erm... erm... Russia which is seen as a power, you know the reactionary power. A power which is... concerned with the threat of revolution in Europe. Russia intervenes to help revolutionaries in Greece.... So it's ironic, you know, you do get this paradox.
[speaker002:] But wasn't that cos er it was only Turkey's revolt though?
[speaker001:] Well yeah but it was still, it was, I mean don't forget... and it it it's perhaps a point you know, erm a valid point. The Greek revolts which had been going on since the early eighteen twenties. The Greek revolt was seen by European liberals who in a sense might be having a hard time of it... in in, in those years. The Greek revolt was seen as a symbolic er event as well as just an anti Turkish er erm uprising. Erm and that's why you do get erm... er European liberals going over to Greece to support the er er the Greek revolutionaries.
[speaker002:] Yeah but Russia didn't case Russia intervened as a pro-liberal thing. It's like
[speaker001:] No. But nevertheless... the intervention was there.
[speaker002:] Yes so
[speaker001:] And I mean it was er... I accept that it's hardly that that Russia perhaps was intervening in the interests of er of... of erm of of of of er Russian policy in that area. But erm... but the fact of the matter was,which whichever way you look at it, Russia was supporting essentially a liberal nationalist revolt.
[speaker002:] Couldn't you say that about the British in Portugal?
[speaker001:] Yeah but Britain... Britain ideologically at least well I'm I'm not sure about that. I mean... er Britain, Britain was er er er Britain's concerns out there... were to maintain British influence in the area. Yeah? Erm it so happened that that the group that that Britain was supporting perhaps were constitutionalists although Canning was almost erm was always rather scathing about... how liberal they were and how constitutionalist they were.
[speaker002:] So is it almost like this thing which is like... by... by chance?
[speaker001:] . Possibly so, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Erm... Okay so that's er that's some of the erm er... major aspects of er of... of the congress system. By the way, just getting back to these interventions. Erm... er the intervention of France in Spain. Er France interv intervened in Spain initially to put down... a liberal revolt. Ironically... because you know French public opinion was very hostile to that intervention. Ironically in many respects the French intervention paved the way for the success of the liberals in Spain. It's a strange you know. It it it it's... it is paradoxical.... By the eighteen twenties perhaps the congress had become somewhat er... divisive. Possibly it was increasing tension between the great powers, the congress system....
[speaker002:] Was that in?
[speaker001:] I'm suggesting that by perhaps the eighteen twenties the congress system was becoming somewhat divisive.... Yeah... erm... course the other problem the congress system had I suppose a te a a technical problem. There was no bureaucratic machinery erm er to support it. There was no kind of permanent... congress house like you know, or congress building. Er... and of course obviously... there was no congress army.... Perhaps it was over-ambitious.... And again I I suppose though its main problem was... the the the misunderstandings or the er different interpretations... er that the great powers had. Notably of course between Britain... and the other powers.... Couple of other points about the erm er er about the er Vienna settlement in general. Let me erm, let me refer to erm the holy alliance erm... people I'm sure will come across this in their... in their reading.... The holy alliance.... It was established in September eighteen fifteen.... Erm... it
[speaker002:] Sorry. When was it established?
[speaker001:] September eighteen fifteen. It it it came from an initiative by Tzar Alexander.... It was signed erm... er it was signed er first by Austria, Prussia and Russia. And in a sense... the holy alliance came to be seen as representing their interests. ie... anti-liberalism... anti-nationalism. Why it was called the holy alliance was because erm er the signatories agreed that they would er, that they would rule their states and treat er... er policy erm... er according to christian principles. They would, they would rule their states and conduct policy according to christian principles.... Interestingly... all erm er most of the European powers came to sign this erm... It wasn't, it wasn't as ex. It wasn't exclusive like the quadruple alliance of eighteen fifteen.... There's a couple of points er er perhaps worth making about it.... Er Britain didn't sign it.... Britain refused to sign it.... It would seem that... Tzar Alexander was sincere... in in his er in his notions of christian... brotherhood and principles.... Erm... it's been er... it's been suggested as well that in some extent it reflects the religious revival in Europe that that that that was taking place. Erm... I think you know it's was one of the cliches of history that er that that intellectual movements developed counter-intellectual movements and even while... one intellectual movement is fading out like the er... er it's counter is rising. And if we can put this into simplistic erm er... er nay almost Mickey Mouse terms that the enlightenment was based upon rationalism. Erm er er cosmopolitan attitudes and such like and in the enlightenment was a strong... very very strong element of... of opposition to religion... erm and traditional religious beliefs. Ironically erm er er erm even towards the end of the eighteenth century... you see some of the revival of... religion. And and... and romanticism which is seen as the... as the movement which replaces the enlightenment in a sense. There's a very strong religious tinge er er to this and it's argued that the holy alliance is perhaps an expression of... of a significant religious revival that's going on... erm in Europe in the early nineteenth century. Erm amongst intellectuals er... Er there's one... there've been suggestions made about the holy alliance. Britain was very suspicious of it.... Because of course erm ah well which European leader could not sign the holy alliance?... For a very obvious reason. Don't forget that the holy alliance erm... enjoined it's signatories to to to conduct their affairs on christian principles.
[speaker002:] Oh Turkey
[speaker001:] Erm obviously the, presumably the Sultan of Turkey as a, as erm as a Muslim could not be expected to sign the holy alliance. And there was a suspicion in Britain... that it was all a bit of a plot to... er to kind of isolate Turkey. And sort of exclude Turkey... from European er consideration. It it would be, in a sense it was leading to a kind of psychological isolation of Turkey. And there was this view in Britain that maybe it was some kind of Russian er you know that it was a Russian manoeuvre. A tsarist manoeuvre to isolate Turkey.... Erm... Metternich interestingly... Metternich er later regarded the er holy alliance as meaningless. Metternich said that he signed it to please the Tsar.... Erm and yet perhaps erm it's. Perhaps it was important erm because as as as erm, as I'm I'm fond of saying that in history perhaps... what you believe is more important than what actually happened. And the holy alliance became part of, in a sense, liberal demonology. To European liberals the holy alliance was a sinister plot directed against the liberals.... Okay. So er a few other little aspects of the er of of er... the... congr of of of the holy all... of of of the er Vienna settlement which is sometimes underplayed.... Er... the Vienna settlements er contained... other elements. For instance it agreed to abolish the slave trade. At the Vienna settlement the great powers, all the great powers agreed to take no further part in the slave trade. They agreed to abolish it.... Erm various trade agreements were made. Er the river Danube was largely erm erm er largely became a kind of er... free trade river. You know it was bombing through all these different boundar er different boundaries. There was the freeing up of trade on the Danube.... Erm... So there were try er we we might describe some of the elements in the Vienna settlement as confidence building measures. Erm attempts at international... a a greater international economic co- operation.... So maybe we shouldn't be er er so quick as to er just er erm... dismiss er the Vienna settlement... entirely.... Right I'll be back in a tick. Just want to say a couple of Right. Erm... if you check with the er, if you check with the... erm handout on you know er the the topic areas. Erm... what we've been dealing with on Vienna is dealt with... in section... forty six reaction and revolution in Europe. What I'll erm, what I'll do next week on... this is a rather problematic topic this one erm... it's in the general section.... And there's an overlap with with question twenty six, French history eighteen fifteen to seventy one. Erm... er I'll try to deal with the erm... it's it's very very difficult to separate these topics out and and teach that one as a topic in, in a sense. What I'll do next week erm... we'll perhaps through concentrating on France we'll do a quick gallop through Europe eighteen... erm about eighteen fifteen to forty eight. And I'll focus in on the eighteen thirty and forty eight revolutions. But that will involve erm erm er France. Now erm more to the point... and I'll erm I'm reminding myself here. I haven't set any essays on Napoleon have I?
[speaker002:] No. Erm Didn't you? Oh
[speaker001:] No? No.
[speaker002:] You said you weren't going to.
[speaker001:] Well why on earth should I say that.
[speaker002:] I dunno. It's, I thought it was odd when you said it.
[speaker001:] It's a major topic. It's question twenty four on the old er... topic list. I will, I'll set essays on Napoleon on erm on er on... next time we meet on Monday. Erm... And let me remind everybody... because I don't intend erm... erm er waiting for for people to cough up on this so I would like to remind people to get, it it's the thirteenth today. So I want, I'd like everybody's erm... payment for the conference thing... next week if poss.
[speaker002:] How much is it?
[speaker001:] How much is what? No the rail, I'll check that out today or tomorrow and I'll be able to say, to say on Monday. But I'll let, let's imagine for the moment that it's still that six fifty. So we're looking at... we're looking at nine fifty. Let's call it ten quid. if the rail fare's gone up as I expect it may well have done.
[speaker002:] So do you want the rail fare money next week as well?
[speaker001:] Erm
[speaker002:] Might as well.
[speaker001:] No I don't need the rail, I don't the rail money in er... Cos I presume if you pay the seven quid you'll be more or less committed then to paying the... I'll I'll get the rail money a bit later than.
[speaker002:] Is it... a Wednesday?
[speaker001:] Erm It's a Thursday.... It's Thursday the nineteenth of March. Normal time.
[speaker002:] What about five o'clock?
[speaker001:] About fiveish.