Similar to Britain, Russia was likewise a true great power, superior to the others in several regards. It had by far the largest territory, the largest population, and the largest army. Especially its military strength was of a different order of magnitude from those of other states of Europe. However, in reality Russia’s strengths were to large extents exaggerated. Although it did play a dominant role in the eastern and southeastern parts of Europe, there were also serious impediments to what it could truly achieve. This was mainly due to the fact that Russia was losing ground on the other European powers in regard to industrial and technological development. Economic development was happening, but at much lower levels. It’s per capita income, although always trailing that of Western Europe, fell even further behind. “A general lack of capital, low consumer demand, a minuscule middle class, vast distances and extreme climates, and the heavy hand of an autocratic, suspicious state made the prospects for industrial take-off in Russia more difficult than in virtually anywhere else in Europe.” Another serious setback was the dependence on foreign technologies. Accordingly, Anderson argues that “the policies of Alexander I helped to ensure that his empire would remain for another century socially, economically, and administratively weak by comparison with most of the other great European states” and that “by the time of his death, the social and economic gap between Russia and much of western Europe was wider than ever before.” It becomes fairly obvious that Russia’s effective power was constantly eroding during the nineteenth century, although it took until the Crimean War for this fact to become clear to contemporaries. To them, the mere size of the army that was presented to the outside world still carried conviction. The reality was quite different, as Russia’s army had serious deficiencies such as poor weapons and machinery for soldiers, poor leadership, and logistical (such as a poor transportation system) and financial limitations. Succinctly, her ability to act in international affairs was blocked by several inherent obstacles that primarily came from within and not from the other powers.
Turning towards the other three great nations, commonly referred to as the middle powers, Prussia was in almost all aspects the weakest of the pentarchy – often considered a great power just as a matter of courtesy. Despite its territorial gains in the Congress of Vienna, Prussia’s industrial output and capabilities in no way compared to those of the other four, and neither did the size of its army. The situation was further complicated by far-reaching internal problems, such as ideological conflicts between its two territories. At all times, Prussia found itself constrained by the strength of the foreign powers, and its main objective was often not to offend any of those, as it could be seen in its desire to stay neutral in the Crimean War. This evidently prevented any important say in international affairs and overshadowed any merits Prussia did have: an efficient education and administrative system, a large amount of entrepreneurs and enlightened officials, and an innovative application of scientific knowledge to technological problems. Austria’s situation may have been better, but not decisively so. Apart from a lack of adequate funding, other problems were the inability of raising revenue from taxes, and a poor industrial system. Similarly, the Habsburg Empire fell behind in its productivity. Handicapped by a corrupt and inefficient administrative system, it was financially exhausted and burdened with a heavy public debt, forcing it to reduce its military spending to minimal levels. Furthermore, the ethnic diversity of its nation and army created several problems when compared to the more homogenous nations of Europe. Finally, it was at a disadvantage geographically, for its frontiers were not easily defensible. France’s position was generally better to that of the other middle powers because its population was bigger than that of Prussia and more homogenous than that of Austria. Nonetheless, “strategical, diplomatic, and economic circumstances all combined to prevent France from concentrating its resources and gaining a decisive lead in any particular sphere.” France was also plagued by slow population and industrial growth, the latter at all times below that of Britain and also under serious threat from Germany as the nineteenth century progressed. Its relative power was consequently being eroded in economic and other terms.
Not many people, I believe, will refute Schroeder’s claim that Britain and Russia were superior to the other three powers, despite the several internal problems they had to deal with. However, the same cannot be said of what he makes of this. He concludes, “The disparities in power and security among the five powers in 1815 and after are great enough to challenge the notion that the “Directory of Europe” derived from a European pentarchy of great powers.” Power certainly was distributed unevenly and in an imbalanced manner, but – and here I see one of Schroeder’s main faults – this is not enough to refute the notion of balance of power. There are more factors at play, many of which Schroeder neglects. The balance did not consist only of power, but also of size, financial and economic resources, and influence. Furthermore, the states of Europe were bound together by a “common European culture and traditions and accepting set rules for their bilateral and multilateral relations to safeguard their political and territorial independence within a new system of public law.” What we see is that the idea of balance of power, as arbitrary as it may sound, does not necessary entail an even distribution of power. Schroeder sees balance of power as meaning only one thing and neglects the existence of more varied patterns. He gives too limited flexibility to the term, something quite remarkable considering that he himself is aware of the fairly unstable nature and vagueness of the notion.
The international system, albeit suffering from imbalances in relative power, was still meant to maintain a balance of power and was also designed that way. Many instances prove that there was also a genuine desire to create some form of institutionalized Europe. Gruner is, in my eyes, right in saying that “the Vienna system was not designed and set up as a hegemonic great power system, despite the fact that the great powers played a leading role in the process of establishing a new European system.” The architects of the system of international relations devised in Vienna did not desire a return to the circumstances of the old regime, when the different great powers jockeyed for position, changed alliances, and went to war in the interests of their dynastic and territorial aggrandizement. The actions of the Congress were clear balance of power policies at work. France is a case in point. Its own expansionism was to some extent checked by the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne, but it was at the same time able to act as a check upon the other great powers. “Both the British and the Russian attempts to influence events in the Ottoman Empire needed to take France into account. It was France, much more than the wavering Habsburg Empire or even Britain, which posed the chief military check to Russia during the Crimean war. It was France, which to some extent ensured that the British Empire did not have a complete monopoly of influence along the African and Chinese coasts. Finally, when the Austro-Prussian “struggle for mastery in Germany” rose to a peak, both rivals revealed their deep concern over what Napoleon III might or might not do.” In turn, the Habsburg Empire also acted as a fulcrum to the balance, checking France ambitions in western Europe and in Italy, preserving the status quo in Germany against both the “greater German” nationalists and Prussian expansionists, and posing a barrier to Russian penetration of the Balkans. Austria’s desire to preserve the settlement made it a vital actor after 1815. Therefore, France and Austria show that even the weaker states were crucial for the functioning of the system – and this is one of the main ideas of the balance of power theory.
Another dubious part of Schroeder’s theory is that he not only rejects the notion of balance of power but he also replaces it with one of hegemony. According to Kraehe, “It is one thing to say that the superpowers achieved hegemony in their separate spheres, the one on the high seas, the other in Eastern Europe and northern Asia; quite another to speak, as Schroeder does, of an Anglo-Russian hegemony over the whole.” Also, as shown before, Russian and British superiority was not as profound as Schroeder wants us to believe, since there were constraints on them domestically and internationally. Whether or not Britain and Russia qualify as hegemony is probably just a matter of definition. But it is quite incorrect to imply, as Schroeder does, that their main quest was the pursuit of hegemony. It was already mentioned before that Britain’s influence was not that of military hegemony. The fact that Castlereagh did not sign the Troppau Protocol because to him it posed a threat to the stability of the continent is just one example that contradicts Schroeder’s argument. The British government was for the most part convinced that the European situation determined the country’s capacity to function not only in the domestic sphere but also in the international arena. “In order to avoid the dangers of overtaxing Britain’s strength, the government sought a European and international order that would eliminate potential conflicts as much as possible.” Great Britain indeed played the role of the “balancer.” It was not permanently identified with the policies of any European nation, and it would throw its weight at one time on one side, at another time on another side, guided largely by one consideration – the maintenance of the balance itself. And it was British supremacy that enabled it to perform this function, making the European balance of power both flexible and stable. Russia was also interested in more than just hegemony. As a matter of fact, the tsar was little interested in territorial expansion. Even Russian intervention in Poland in 1812-14 was not driven by a desire for territory but by a genuine wish to re-establish some form of Polish state. The shared interest of Russia, Prussia, and Austria in suppressing Polish nationalism was to all a far more vital issue than occasional disagreement, showing that cooperation was possible and existed. It is obvious that instability on the European continent concerned everybody, and everything else but a balance of power would pose a threat to security. The past had exposed only too clearly that nation states were affected by what happened elsewhere, and coping with such problems required some transnational reciprocity. “The purpose of balanced power is the safeguarding of the national interest. And the national interest, in turn, consists of assuring the preservation of the state in a world full of actual or potential enemy states, engaged in eternal competition for more power with each other.”
Schroeder’s notion that both superpowers were “not dependent on alliances for their basic security, [and] could always make them when they wished” does not appear highly convincing either, especially when one considers the historical evidence. The assumption neglects, for instance, the fact that it was above all the tsar of Russia, Alexander I, who was determined to create some form of alliance to mutually guarantee the European frontiers and hence keep the balance of power intact. His first proposal was that the four great powers that had defeated France should assure one another’s borders and take responsibility in controlling the internal policies of smaller European states to prevent any revolutionary waves. Castlereagh seriously opposed the proposal and the result was the Quadruple Alliance that only guaranteed the French borders. As pointed out by Anderson, “Alexander’s grandiose schemes for the forcible regulation of the affairs of Europe by the great conservative powers had been seriously checked in 1815.” In October 1818, a similar fate awaited his suggestion of a “general alliance,” which should be open to all states and become the basis of a system of collective guarantee of the status quo by the contracting powers. The British government opposed the unlimited right of interfering in the affairs of smaller states. Yet, Austria and Prussia were more and more in favor of such a policy, and signed with Russia the Troppau Protocol in November 1820. This shows that Russia could not do everything on its own and needed allies, even if only for legitimizing its policies.
In the last section of his essay, Schroeder analyses three potential arguments that could be used to reject his thesis and to support the theory of balance of power – the language of the period, the peaceful nature of Europe, and that such peace could not be produced by hegemony since it had not done so in the past either. However, I see no great reason in analyzing them more closely because they simply try to explain why the flawed idea of balance of power has prevailed for so long – and to me it is not flawed at all. Instead, I would like to finish on a different note and introduce a famous term from political science: the shadow of the future. It was shown that in the period after the Vienna Congress, European states saw themselves as autonomous decision makers, and commonly had to adjust their behavior to preferences of others. Even Russia and Britain were not able to act on pure self-interests because they knew that they could be dependent on the other states again at some later point. It is unlikely that such cooperation between states, as envisaged by Axelrod, was created by hegemony. Balance of power just makes more sense to me.
Paul W. Schroeder, “Did the Vienna Settlement Rest on a Balance of Power?” AHR, 97 (June 1992): 684.
For a detailed description, see Ernst B. Haas, “The Balance of Power: Prescription, Concept, or Propaganda” World Politics, 5 (1952): 442-77.
Schroeder, “Did the Vienna Settlement,” 685.
Schroeder, “Did the Vienna Settlement,” 686.
M.S. Anderson, The Ascendancy of Europe 1815 – 1914, Harlow: Longman, 2nd ed., 7.
Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000, New York: Vintage/Random House, 1989, Chapter 4, 197.
Kennedy, The Rise and Fall. 221.
Anderson, Ascendancy of Europe. 6.
Kennedy, The Rise and Fall. 214.
Schroeder, “Did the Vienna Settlement,” 688.
Wolf D. Gruner, “Was There a Reformed Balance of Power System or Cooperative Great Power Hegemony?” AHR, 97 (June 1992): 726.
Gruner, “Was There a Reformed Balance,” 725.
Kennedy, The Rise and Fall. 217.
Enno E. Kraehe, “A Bipolar Balance of Power” AHR, 97 (June 1992): 712.
Gruner, “Was There a Reformed Balance,” 728.
Ernst B. Haas, “Balance of Power and Policy-Making” The Journal of Politics, Volume 15, Issue 3 (Aug. 1953): 377.
Schroeder, “Did the Vienna Settlement,” 687.
Anderson, Ascendancy of Europe. 2.