A treaty for peace
Following the two-decade-long Napoleonic Wars, Europe, not least France, licked its wounds and agreed “never again”. Then they set about making a lasting peace. They felt able to do it. It was the Age of Reason and they were was intelligent as one could be in 1815.
The existing map of the continent was torn up and a new one drawn at the Congress of Vienna. It was decided that differences be decide by negotiation, not war. While it didn’t turn out as amicably as hoped, it worked pretty well. There wasn’t a major conflict for 100 years.
In The Pursuit Of Power British historian Richard J Evans traces European history until the outbreak of the World War I. It’s replete with glossy illustrations, maps, bibliography and index. Never dry, keep in mind that it is a history book, not a novel.
Often, he focuses on an obscure albeit factual person and shows how he was representative of his period. The author emphasises that Ottoman Turkey played a key role in the continent’s events all through that 100 years. It occupied the Balkans, only gradually driven out.
Imperialism was in full force. Britain, the supreme sea power, had gobbled up the best colonies. Africa and Asia were considered up for grabs. Japan, opened by America, was as greedy as the rest. Minor wars were fought over this or that piece of territory.
Evans discards bringing civilisation/God/morality to the heathens as reasons for colonising them. Nor were the mother countries kind to the natives, massacres being common. In Europe the major (and minor) powers were forever faking one another out, Germany’s Bismark proving best at it.
The assassination of the Austrian grand duke and his wife by a Bosnian teenager didn’t initially seem a worthwhile reason for a mass conflagration, yet a month later, the globe burst into flame. The Treaty of Vienna was tossed into the bin of history.
It may be said that the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 did more to bring on World War II than to prevent it. Perhaps Evans will pen another history book, about the century since.