The Long Peace
In 1815, representatives of the Great Powers, most notably Prince Metternich of Austria, had met in Vienna to engineer a lasting postwar settlement. The resulting "Concert of Europe" was based on the restoration and maintenance of a European balance of power. After much diplomatic maneuvering it was agreed that France, its monarchy restored, would be readmitted to European society as a full partner rather than remaining a pariah state. War would be avoided by an informal balance of power among five roughly equal Great Powers: France, Great Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia. The great-power concert crafted in Vienna functioned remarkably well for nearly a century, interrupted only by the Revolutions of 1848 and the Crimean War of 1854-56.
Even during the long peace, though, forces were at work to shatter the European balance. Conservative regimes attempted to restrain liberalism and nationalism forcibly, most notably when they crushed the Revolutions of 1848. Resentment smoldered throughout Europe. New ambitious regimes no longer saw their national interests served by the provisions of the Vienna settlement and attempted forcible revision of its terms. Meanwhile, the ongoing Industrial Revolution resulted in a shift of economic power to Central Europe, frightening the other nations and eroding the Continental balance of power. Additionally, the rapid pace of technological innovation added frightening new dimensions to warfare. Victory in the mid-nineteenth-century wars went to the power which best harnessed new technology.
With altered circumstances, peace did not long endure. Under the masterful leadership of Otto von Bismarck, Germany emerged as Europe's dominant power. The Prussian Chancellor used a series of limited wars against Denmark, Austria and France from 1864 to 1871 to weld the patchwork of German states into a powerful, unified nation. Bismarck was expert at limiting the scope of war to achieve limited objectives. He initiated war only after diplomatically isolating his opponent and terminated it before other European powers were tempted to intervene. Moreover, he never yielded to his Generals bent on total victory. Prussian forces, for example, could have crushed and occupied the Austrian state in 1866, but the Iron Chancellor declined to destroy a potentially useful ally. Although Bismarck claimed never to have read Clausewitz, his use of war for political aims ranks as, perhaps, history's best example of Clausewitzian principles in action.
After 1871 and the Treaty of Frankfurt, a rigid and precarious system of bipolar alliances and alignments temporarily restored the military balance among the major European states. The great-power Concert, however, was gone forever. Bismarck's policy was to avoid provocations, reassure neighbors, and divide potential adversaries. The result--even with two small and one fairly important war--was a period of general peace. Unfortunately, Bismarck's less-talented successors lacked his ability to impose a favorable peace on Europe or the desire to do so. After Emperor Wilhelm II fired the Iron Chancellor in 1890, the Continent drifted inexorably toward war.
Between 1890 and 1914, Europe drifted from a loose multipolar arrangement to a rigid and precarious bipolar system. Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a young power, sensitive about status and slights. It was not democratic: unification under Prussian auspices had meant the crushing of the once-powerful liberal German patriotic movement. Partly for this reason--the need to burnish legitimacy--Berlin was eager to show its people that it could be a "great power."
After Bismarck's forced retirement in 1890, German leaders, spurred by the new Emperor, Wilhelm II, decided to embark on a more ambitious policy that would enhance Germany's position and prestige as both a continental and a world power. The Kaiser and his advisers embarked on a program of national assertion, based on jealously of England and the vague demand for a "place in the sun" that quickly stirred conflict. Brash and even reckless, the Emperor's policy resulted in the creation of countervailing alliances. To compound the problem, Bismarck's successors proved much less adept than the Iron Chancellor at manipulating the balance of power to German advantage. Where Bismarck had usually been able to dominate Wilhelm I in matters of policy, Wilhelm II invariably held the upper hand after 1890. Germany's actions stimulated international rivalries and provoked a series of great-power confrontations that ultimately resulted in war.
Berlin embarked on the building of a High Seas Fleet, based on the famous "risk fleet" concept, under which no power would want to risk battle with a German navy which could not beat them, but could harm them seriously. Aimed at intimidating Britain from participation in any European war, Bismarck had warned that building a navy would drive Britain into an alliance with France, which is exactly what happened. Berlin sought confrontations, as with France over Morocco. The German calculation was either that the other Powers would back down in a direct confrontation, or that Germany would win a lightning victory by dint of operational brilliance. The outbreak of World War I -- and Britain's rapid decision to join in -- disproved the first part of that calculation; four years of tragic bloodshed ending in German defeat disproved the second.
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