6.5 - The Concert of Europe and European Conservatism

The Rise of Conservative Ideology in Europe

• The rise of conservative ideology in Europe after 1815 was a direct reaction to the events of the French Revolution and the radical changes that followed.

• The French Revolution saw the people demand liberal reforms and ultimately take over the government when their demands were not met. This period led to significant gains in rights for the people and the end of monarchical tyranny.

• However, the Reign of Terror during the radical phase of the Revolution led to widespread violence, including the execution of the king, and created fear among the surrounding nations.

• Napoleon's expansionist ambitions spread the revolutionary ideals across Europe, but his defeat led to a strong conservative backlash.

• Conservatism in 19th century Europe was a political belief that stability in government is achieved by upholding traditional norms and cultural institutions.

• Conservatives believed that humans are inherently flawed and untrustworthy, and therefore, power should not be placed in the hands of the masses. Instead, society should be built on established institutions like monarchy, aristocracy, and religion.

• This rejected the Enlightenment and revolutionary belief that reason could make people and society better and better. Conservatives argued that human nature is not perfectible: because people are selfish and driven by passions, they need traditional authorities (kings, nobles, and churches) to restrain them. Sudden change based on abstract ideas, like the French Revolution's "rights of man," would lead to chaos and terror.

• Edmund Burke (Britain): Argued that authority and hierarchy were part of the natural order, and society should be governed by a small group of elite leaders.
• In Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), he argued that institutions built up over generations hold wisdom, so each generation should carefully improve them, not tear them down for abstract ideas (see 5.5).
• Burke did not oppose all change. He favored slow, careful reform that kept what worked, which became a model for British conservatism.

• Joseph de Maistre (Savoy): A writer from Savoy, which was then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, not France. He at first welcomed the chance for reform in 1789 but became horrified by the Revolution's violence and secularism, especially after French revolutionary armies took over Savoy in 1792. He advocated for a return to monarchy, rooted in religious and moral principles.
• In works like Considerations on France and On the Pope (1819), he argued that kings and the Catholic Church got their authority from God, that people needed order and obedience more than freedom, and that the pope should be the highest authority in Europe.

• After Napoleon’s defeat, conservative leaders from Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia met at the Congress of Vienna to restore Europe to its traditional structures.

• This period, known as the Concert of Europe or the Congress System, was marked by relative peace and stability, driven by the conservative principles established by Austrian Foreign Minister Klemens von Metternich.

• The great powers agreed to work together to keep the status quo (the way things were after 1815). In the Quadruple Alliance (1815), Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia promised to meet regularly to settle problems, and France joined in 1818. Russia, Austria, and Prussia also formed the Holy Alliance (1815), promising to rule by Christian principles and to help one another against revolution.

• At a series of meetings called congresses, the powers used collective action to crush revolutions. At Troppau (1820), Austria, Prussia, and Russia claimed the right to step in against revolutions in other states, and Austrian troops then crushed revolts in Naples and Piedmont (1821). At Verona (1822), the powers approved a French invasion of Spain, which restored King Ferdinand VII to full power in 1823.

• Britain refused to help interfere in other countries' internal affairs and pulled away from the congresses after 1822, so the system came to depend mostly on Austria, Prussia, and Russia.

• Metternich's goals included:
• Restoring the balance of power by reinstalling legitimate rulers on European thrones.
• Upholding the rights and prerogatives of the landed aristocracy.
• Reinforcing organized religion as a stabilizing force in society.

• Metternich, the architect of the Concert of Europe, used it to stop liberalism and nationalism, which he saw as threats to Austria above all. The Austrian Empire ruled Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, Poles, Italians, and many other peoples, so if each nation demanded its own state, the empire would fall apart.

• The conservative reaction included the suppression of liberal and nationalist movements across Europe:
• Carlsbad Decrees (1819): After a nationalist student murdered the conservative writer August von Kotzebue, Metternich pushed the German Confederation to pass these decrees. They aimed to suppress liberal and nationalist movements in the German states by banning nationalist student groups (the Burschenschaften), removing liberal professors from their posts, and censoring newspapers and books.
• Russia: Under the conservative rule of the Tsars, who claimed divine right, the state employed secret police to suppress dissent and maintain the existing order.
• Under Nicholas I (1825-1855), this secret police was called the Third Section (created in 1826), and the government's official motto, "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality," tied loyalty to the tsar to the Orthodox Church.
• Britain: Even Britain's Tory government cracked down. In 1819, cavalry charged a peaceful crowd demanding parliamentary reform in Manchester, killing about 15 people (the Peterloo Massacre), and Parliament then passed the Six Acts, which limited public meetings and radical newspapers.
• France and Spain: Restored Bourbon kings strengthened the Church. Ferdinand VII of Spain threw out the liberal Constitution of 1812 and brought back the Inquisition in 1814, and in France, Charles X backed the Catholic Church so strongly that a law of 1825 made some kinds of sacrilege punishable by death.
• Religion: Across Europe, conservatives saw churches as a pillar of order. Pope Pius VII restored the Jesuit order in 1814, and governments supported official churches as teachers of obedience.