Nicht erst seit 1848, sondern bereits vor diesem revolutionären Jahr, wurde Europa Zeuge des missbräuchlichen Vorgehens der Großmächte, das die Funktionsfähigkeit der postnapoleonischen ...internationalen Ordnung schwächte. Schlimmer noch, ihr Machtmissbrauch in europäischen und überseeischen Angelegenheiten provozierte ein Gefühl des Misstrauens, des Pessimismus und der Angst und führte bei einer beträchtlichen Anzahl von Europäern zu Diskussionen über die verschwindende Gerechtigkeit in der Welt. Es waren insbesondere Angehörige der gebildeten Mittel- und Oberschicht, die unter dem Einfluss verschiedener Krisen und Konflikte in den 1840er Jahren neue Fragen zum Zustand der internationalen Politik, zu Gerechtigkeit, Sicherheit und Nationenbildung stellten. Dieser Prozess war in Italien umso wichtiger, als die Suche nach größerer Sicherheit gegen externe Bedrohungen zur entscheidenden Triebkraft für die Verbreitung einer Idee wurde, das Land von den Alpen bis nach Sizilien politisch zu vereinen. Diese Einheit sollte, zusammen mit gut verteidigbaren Grenzen, einer starken Armee und Marine sowie reichen materiellen Ressourcen, einschließlich kolonialer, eine sicherere Position innerhalb des Systems der europäischen Politik gewährleisten, und damit bessere Aussichten für eine friedliche Zukunft, gemäß der Formulierung: "Si vis pacem, para bellum“. Diese machtorientierte Reaktion hatte jedoch verheerende Konsequenzen für den allgemein geteilten Wunsch, in Frieden mit anderen Nationen zu leben, der zu einem weiteren Bestreben führte, das tief in der nationalen Bewegung verwurzelt ist: Die Schaffung einer besseren internationalen Ordnung. Die Analyse dieses wichtigen Prozesses am Beispiel Italiens in den Jahren 1830–1848 ist das Hauptziel dieses Buches.
Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the 'Congress System' became the primary instrument of diplomacy in Europe. So central was the Austrian Chancellor Metternich to the political-legal Congress ...System that the period has often been referred to as the 'Age of Metternich'. In this book, Miroslav edivý analyses Metternich's policy towards the pre-united Italian states from 1830 to 1848. With an emphasis on geopolitics and international law and drawing attention to the unsettled role of the Italian states within European diplomacy in the period, this book explains why the Italian peninsula never developed into the stable region that Metternich hoped to establish at the heart of the Congress System. Owing to the self-interested policies of some European Powers as well as the larger of the Italian states. Metternich proved unable to bring about 'the transformation of European politics' in Italy. Using a thorough analysis of the role that Italy played in the Congress System and based on extensive research in 18 European archives, this book explains why it was in Italy that the first war broke out after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, an event representing the first brutal blow to the Congress System.
The article’s goal is to introduce the thesis that not only the constitutional and socio-economic agendas of states but also international affairs strongly influence the formation of various human ...communities and their political programmes, and that this interaction was often no less important than these other factors in the rise of 19th century nationalism. By combining the history of international politics, international law, social history and ethics the article reveals a completely new story of the Italians’ reception of and response to diplomatic affairs in the 1840s. At that time a considerable number of them felt that the heritage of the Congress of Vienna was being eroded and that the world was becoming increasingly insecure. This conviction was primarily caused by the abuse of power by the most powerful states at the expense of weaker ones in Europe as well as the former’s imperialist policies in more remote regions. The increasing mistrust in the great powers’ policies and in the stability of the whole structure of the post-Napoleonic states system gave rise to a conviction that the security of their own countries in the world where the rule of force dominated was to be best preserved by material strength, which also made the Italians more willing to accept whatsoever kind of political unity based upon the concept of nationality.
Abstract
The annexation of the Free City of Cracow by Austria in November 1846 has been regarded by historians as one of the most important international events in the period before the outbreak of ...revolutions in 1848. The annihilation of an independent state has been seen as a flagrant violation of international law that led to a weakening of Europeans’ faith in the justice of the post-Napoleonic order. Consequently, it is surprising that even as this evaluation has become rooted in historical scholarship, the public response to this affair has scarcely been analysed. The aim of this article is to reveal the impact of the annexation on the broad public in the German Confederation and the decline in people’s trust in justice in international relations. Germans across various political camps primarily perceived the annexation of Cracow not from the perspective of political modernization but in terms of geopolitical security. Their concern was not just with the position of the individual German states in relation to Prussia, Austria, Britain, France and Russia or the position of the entire German Confederation in relation to France, Britain and Russia, but also with their position within the political-legal system of European politics. The ensuing debate on the necessity for external security against threats from other European powers and nations became the most important outcome of this affair in Germany, with an egoistic, power-oriented response to the annexation of Cracow paving the way for conflicts among the Germans, Poles and other nations in 1848.
In reaction to numerous international disputes, crises, and wars, trust in the strength of the written law in the relations amongst European countries began to weaken before the mid-nineteenth ...century. One reaction to this gradual loss of faith in international justice was the rise of the power-oriented nationalist movements in Germany and Italy advocating not only national unity but also the creation of strong national armed forces and defensible frontiers. This response to international insecurity also contained the seeds of imperialist and colonial aspirations during the 1840s in both disunited Germany and Italy. It was for this reason that the growth of Italian nationalism during that decade remained closely connected with colonial ambitions. A colonial policy would bring Italians additional material strength to enable them to achieve a sufficiently strong and therefore safer place in a world seen as increasingly predatory.
Abstract
Before 1848 not merely democrats and liberals criticized the post-Napoleonic order for their growing mistrust of its ability to protect the sovereignty of smaller countries and preserve the ...general peace. The predominantly conservative ruling elite, namely rulers, statesmen, and diplomats, raised the same criticism when the law-breaking and abuse of power made them similarly mistrustful of the state of European politics during the 1830s and 1840s. This became true even for some of the order's authors like Austrian chancellor Metternich who serves as a prominent example of this mistrust with his project of a league to preserve peace in Europe in August 1840. Metternich, who helped to create this order in 1815, found it defective and in need of improvement only a quarter of a century later. He certainly did not want to create a completely new international order and law of nations as some liberals and democrats desired at that time, but his idea was still, in a certain sense, revolutionary since its realization would have fundamentally modified the pillars on which the order had been founded at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
During the 1840s Italian society began to see the Mediterranean region as a dangerous place to live, owing to what was regarded as threats represented by Austria, Great Britain, France, and even ...Russia and the United States. This conviction resulted from various affairs both within and outside Europe, where the same powers were accused of behaving in an overtly aggressive way, which was used as an argument for the political unity of Italy's various states in order to give them greater strength for defence. Since danger was seen all around, this unity became important for both the peninsular Italians and the Sicilians, who agreed on the need to establish an Italian league with federal land and naval forces. The principal objective of this paper is to show that the question of Sicily's future was seen as a question of not only Italy's security, but also of its future position in the Mediterranean as a whole, and that the de facto unanimous support of Sicily's membership in the league in 1848 resulted from this self-protecting response that, moreover, already contained proto-imperialist tendencies in which for geostrategic reasons the island played an important role.
The revolutionary year of 1848 is considered a watershed in Czech-German relations. The aim of the study is to point out the fact that these relations were characterised by greater continuity and ...their deterioration occurred gradually from the end of the 1830s at the latest. The main cause of this process was the influence of international events on the attitude of the German public, who eventually came to believe that relations between states and nations were increasingly defined by jus manuarium (law of the jungle) instead of the written law. One of the consequences of this feeling of insecurity was the tendency to perceive other states and nations as potential threats. In the end, the Czechs also became a potential threat, and therefore the question of their own security became a fundamental factor in the formation of the German attitude towards the Czech nation and at the same time the Czech lands.
The aim of this article is to explain the long-term process leading to the decision of Sardinian King Charles Albert to wage war against Austria in March 1848. Moving beyond the normal stress on ...Italian national consciousness, the article focuses more on the King’s attitude towards the conduct of European powers in Italian affairs and attempts to prove that repeated illegal and aggressive actions of the European powers after 1830 destroyed the King’s faith in the fairness of the political-legal system established at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, leading also to his loss of faith in the strength of law and increasing his belief in the power of armed force in international relations. All this significantly contributed to his final decision to start a war of conquest against Austria, which he regarded as weak and thus no longer respected, much like his attitude towards the existing political-legal order in general.
