The Congress of Vienna and the European Peace System

The main achievement of the Congress of Vienna was the creation of a system for maintaining international peace and regulating conflict in Europe which, after the territorial and political convulsions of the Napoleonic period, lasted for a number of decades. Combined with this was a fundamental, qualitative change in the style of international politics which all `players` endorsed: the fixation on the purely individual interests of states was overcome in favour of a functioning European security order with predictable rules governing mediation and conflict management. The ambassadors` conferences and the powers` conferences held after 1814 were the first specific building blocks of this type of security order. The Austrian Empire under Metternich`s diplomatic management took a central role in the nineteenth-century European Concert of Powers with its complicated mechanisms for balancing spheres of influence, largely because of Austria`s territorial interests in the direction of the German states, Italy, and the Balkans. The development of the European state order from the Crimean War to the outbreak of the Balkan crisis in 1875, at the end of which the last European Great Power conference was held in Berlin in 1878, is well researched, but we still lack an adequate, easily accessible documentation of the Vienna Order of 1815, of central significance to European politics, and its development in the conference politics conducted well into the 1820s taking account of the systematic, international, and pan-European dimensions of this order. Thus to undertake a new project editing sources relating to the functioning of European power politics during the period 1814/15 to 1825, initially from the hitherto under-exposed perspective of the Vienna court, seems both overdue and rewarding. This task, which could be completed within the time period specified in the application, could be the starting point for a possibly long-term project on the topic `The European System of the Congress of Vienna`. The specific aim would be to produce a substantial volume which, on the basis of archival originals held in Vienna, would make available key documents on the content and the procedures of the European system of the Vienna Order. The addition of German-language summaries would ensure that the volume could be widely consulted and used in academic teaching. The intention is to use the files `Kongressakten` (46 fascicles) and `Vorträge` (37 boxes) from the holding `Staatskanzlei` in the Austrian state archives (Österreichisches Staatsarchiv - Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv) in Vienna. In view of the two hundredth anniversary of the Congress of Vienna in 2014/15, this is intended as a first concrete and widely visible step towards integrating Austrian research and research initiated in Austria into the new interest in a systematically researched `international history` of the `long` nineteenth century.

The main historical achievement of the Congress of Vienna was to create a system for maintaining international peace and regulating conflict in Europe that lasted for several decades after the wars and territorial upheavals of the Napoleonic period. Connected with this was a fundamental change in the style of international politics, reflected in the formation of the European Concert of the five great powers, Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia and France. Regular multi-lateral talks were held, working to overcome the fixation on national interests, encouraging a commitment to a functioning European security order, and developing predictable rules for mediation and conflict resolution. Institutionally, this novel architecture of peace took the shape of congresses and conferences of ambassadors which, between 1814 and 1825, served as a platform for diplomatic exchange between the European great powers. The Austrian Empire under the diplomatic direction of Metternich played an important part in these exchanges. The Congress of Vienna and the European Peace System, an FWF (Austrian Science Fund) project undertaken by the Department of History at the University of Klagenfurt between 2009 and 2013, has examined, recorded and transcribed original documents from the Congress of Vienna and the European summit conferences that followed it between 1818 and 1822. These documents have been held by the Austrian state archives in Vienna, the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, since 1815. The addition of German-language summaries of these protocols and memoranda, which are largely written in French, makes these documents widely accessible and allows them to be used in academic teaching. Selected key documents, initially relating to the negotiations of the most important body of powers at the Congress of Vienna, the Commission of Five, will be available for consultation online via the permanent website http://www.wiener-kongress.at.Three large monographs are being prepared for publication: an overview of the Congress of Vienna; an edition of documents relating to the conferences of 1818-1822; and a volume of essays containing new research findings. Along with further presentations, publications, cooperations and the preparation of a major international conference in Vienna (summer 2015), the project will contribute significantly to presenting an up-to-date view of the body of rules and regulations governing Europes political system, its financial policies and global entanglements at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The theme Two Hundred Years of a European Peace Order 2015 ensures that not only experts in the field of nineteenth century international history, but also a wider, interested public will be aware of Austria as a site of historical research.