Book contents
- The Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars
- The Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars
- The Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume III
- Introduction to Volume III
- Part I The Experience of War
- Part II The Experience of Imperial Rule
- Part III War, Culture and Memory
- Part IV The Aftermath and Legacy of the Wars
- 21 Demobilisation, Veterans and Civil Society after the Empire in France
- 22 Women, the Nation and the Collective Memory of the Napoleonic Wars
- 23 Jomini, Clausewitz and the Theory of War
- 24 The Legacy of Counter-revolution: Conservative Ideology and Legitimism in France
- 25 Bonapartism
- 26 The Legacy of the Wars for the International System
- 27 The Dislocation of the Global Hispanic World
- 28 Global Empire: Britain’s Century, 1815–1914
- 29 The Napoleonic Wars and Realms of Memory in Europe
- Bibliographic Essays
- Index
26 - The Legacy of the Wars for the International System
from Part IV - The Aftermath and Legacy of the Wars
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2022
- The Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars
- The Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars
- The Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume III
- Introduction to Volume III
- Part I The Experience of War
- Part II The Experience of Imperial Rule
- Part III War, Culture and Memory
- Part IV The Aftermath and Legacy of the Wars
- 21 Demobilisation, Veterans and Civil Society after the Empire in France
- 22 Women, the Nation and the Collective Memory of the Napoleonic Wars
- 23 Jomini, Clausewitz and the Theory of War
- 24 The Legacy of Counter-revolution: Conservative Ideology and Legitimism in France
- 25 Bonapartism
- 26 The Legacy of the Wars for the International System
- 27 The Dislocation of the Global Hispanic World
- 28 Global Empire: Britain’s Century, 1815–1914
- 29 The Napoleonic Wars and Realms of Memory in Europe
- Bibliographic Essays
- Index
Summary
In 1819, the disgruntled French archbishop Dominique de Pradt, who went into early retirement to continue a prolific career as expert and commentator on the affairs of the world, summarised the post-Napoleonic state of affairs in international relations as follows: ‘Two colossal powers have risen upon Europe, England and Russia … There existed, it is true, previously to the new order, preponderant powers, but not powers exclusively preponderant; whose force was so disproportional to that of others, as to reduce them to a state of absolute vassalage; unable to sustain them without a continual league’. The system of states of Europe could therefore no longer be considered a system propelled by the principle of the balance of power, since there was no longer any balance of multiple forces, only a hegemony of two ‘colossi’.1 This contemporary analysis precedes Paul Schroeder’s, one of the most incisive historians on the Congress System, by almost two centuries in interpreting the Vienna Settlement of 1815 as the hegemonic triumph of tsarist Russia and the British Empire.2 In recent years, most historians have followed Schroeder’s (and unwittingly also De Pradt’s) lead in subscribing to an analysis of the not-so-balanced treaty system after 1815.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars , pp. 532 - 549Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022