2. The Operation of the Balance.
In the first half
of the eighteenth century the Continent was not
yet
integrated and it was customary to say that there were
two
systems—a more southern or “European” one,
and
another which was described as “Northern.” In
1709
there was a momentary fear that they might come
together—the War of the Spanish Succession combin-
ing with the Great Northern War in a struggle that
would be
really general. England had separate Secre-
taries of State for the North and the South, and when
A. H. L.
Heeren produced his
Handbuch on the
European
states-system in 1809, he devoted a long
narrative to “the
balance of the South,” and a separate
one to “the
balance of the North.” After this the two
came to be combined,
for, after 1763, Russia had be-
come more
definitely a part of the European system,
though France was still disposed
to regard not only
Russia but also Britain as an outsider. It was
held,
however, that, within the general equilibrium of
Europe, there
were also local or regional balances—
one in the north, one in
the south, and perhaps a
separate one for Germany. Also, there were some
peo-
ple who thought that overseas colonies
might affect
the calculation of the balance.
Down to 1789 people were able to pride themselves
that neither in the main
part of the Continent nor in
the Baltic was there a power capable of making
a bid
for “universal dominion.” This might be
attributed to
the fact that power itself was fairly evenly
distributed;
but both F. von Gentz and Talleyrand (Charles Mauriel
de
Talleyrand-Périgord) insisted that the balance of
power did not
require nations to be roughly equal in
size—in their view the
equilibrium might be more
difficult to achieve if one had a world of
exactly equal
states. Frederick the Great and Edmund Burke noted
that
the effect of the system was to make wars general,
and they, along with
Edward Gibbon, held that it made
a plan of large-scale conquest no longer
feasible. In
the Seven Years' War, the enemies of Frederick the
Great
planned the destruction of Prussia as a power,
but the representatives of
Louis XV's “secret” diplo-
matic system—the ablest school of diplomats that the
century produced—made this an additional reproach
against the
alliance with Austria in 1756. They com-
plained that such a war objective was a breach of the
code and that
a victory in the war would have been
worse than the defeat that was
actually suffered. The
destruction of Prussia, they said, would have
restored
the Habsburgs to their former predominance.
The career of Napoleon produced, amongst his ene-
mies, a further insistence on the theory of balance, and
in 1809
Heeren suggested that, in the long run, the
system might become a global
affair. The peace treaties
with France at the end of the wars were an
excellent
demonstration of the effects of the theory. And, in the
crucial cases, the Congress of Vienna showed that it
was more attached to
the balance of power than either
to dynastic rights or to nationalism.
It has often been asserted that the balance of power
was responsible for the
partition of Poland; but it has
been said equally often that it was responsible for the
preservation of the Ottoman Empire. This raises the
issue of the local
versus the continental balance; and
there has, never been a more intensive
application of
the balance than between Russia, Prussia, and Austria
in eastern Europe after 1763. Perhaps it has always
been true that where
these bitterly rival powers could
come to an agreement about anything,
there existed
no counterpoise in Europe that could hold them in
check
in their own region. At any rate, France and
England could not have stopped
the partition of
Poland, and this might be imputed to the lack of a
wider “general balance” at that moment. France and
England were able to defend the Ottoman Empire
against Russia
because—partly through their maritime
opportunities—they were in a position to make the
general
balance effective.
