130 The Century of Peace
29.1: The Century of Peace
29.1.1: The European Continent After Vienna
Post-Napoleonic Europe was characterized by a general lack of major conflict between the great powers, with Great Britain as the major hegemonic power bringing relative balance to European politics.
Learning Objective
Compare post-Napoleonic Europe to the pre-French Revolution continent
Key Points
- At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the European powers came together at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to reorganize the political map of Europe and develop a system of conflict resolution aiming at preserving peace and balance of power, termed the Concert of Europe.
- From this point until the outbreak of World War I, there was relative peace and a lack of major conflict between the major powers, with wars generally localized and short-lived.
- The British and Russian empires expanded significantly and became the world’s leading powers. Britain’s navy had supremacy for most of the century, leading to the period often called the Pax Britannica (British Peace).
- From the 1870s onward, many nations experienced a sort of “golden age,” known as the Belle Époque, which coincided with the Gilded Age in the U.S.
- European politics saw very few regime changes during this period; however, tensions between working-class socialist parties, bourgeois liberal parties, and landed or aristocratic conservative parties increased in many countries. Some historians claim that profound political instability belied the calm surface of European politics in the era.
Key Terms
- hegemonic
- The political, economic, or military predominance or control of one state over others.
- Concert of Europe
- Also known as the Congress System or the Vienna System after the Congress of Vienna, a system of dispute resolution adopted by the major conservative powers of Europe to maintain their power, oppose revolutionary movements, weaken the forces of nationalism, and uphold the balance of power. It is suggested that it operated in Europe from the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) to the early 1820s, while some see it as lasting until the outbreak of the Crimean War, 1853-1856.
- Belle Époque
- A period of Western European history conventionally dated from the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 to the outbreak of World War I around 1914. Occurring during the era of the French Third Republic (beginning 1870), it was characterized by optimism, regional peace, economic prosperity and technological, scientific and cultural innovations. In the climate of the period, especially in Paris, the arts flourished.
- Pax Britannica
- The period of relative peace in Europe (1815–1914) during which the British Empire became the global hegemonic power and adopted the role of a global police force.
The 19th century was the century marked by the collapse of the Spanish, Napoleonic, Holy Roman, and Mughal empires. This paved the way for the growing influence of the British Empire, the Russian Empire, the Un