Book Review – The Congress of Vienna, Adam Zamoyski

Excellent. As ever Zamoyski is, by and large, pretty pithily concise, nearly always managing to keep even the most serpentine and potentially dull intricacies of politics and administration sufficiently exciting to maintain interest. His narrative is partially pepped up by the colourful characters themselves, as well as by the rumblings of conflict and the creaking of bed springs. 

Of the three Zamoyski titles I’ve read so dar (the others being 1812 and Warsaw 1920) this was the toughest: let’s face it, the Byzantine contortions and horse-trading of international diplomacy don’t make for light, easy, or even very stimulating reading. But the shambolic so-called Congress of Vienna was both interesting – or perhaps intriguing would be a more apt word? – and of course very important, so hats off to Zamoyski for rendering a readable English language account. 

I disagree with the criticisms that the seamier aspects of this narrative, in particular the sexual stuff (there’s not as much of this as some reviewers imply), cheapen the account – they certainly make it more readable – or that Zamoyski, being of Polish extraction himself, gives either the Polish aspect of the story too much weight, or is otherwise off-balance in some partisan way. In fact he stays remarkably on-topic throughout, even sticking resolutely with the diplomatic threads through the 100 Days segment.

I believe I agree with his underlying idea that post-Vienna Europe was a doomed King Canute-like attempt to hold back (or ‘arrest’, in Zamoyski’s terms) the general direction of socio-political movement that had preceded the Napoleonic-era. And within this that Napoleonic Europe was, despite all the conflicts, a less retrograde entity.

Nearly all the central protagonists who comprise the ‘architects’ of the Congress, from Tsar Alexander via Wellington to Metternich, are reactionary ‘ancien regime’ types, and, as many contemporary observers noted, including some of the participants, appeared to be carving up the new Europe according to old interests, and just as self-interestedly (even more so, perhaps?) as Boney had, and yet with less consideration of the ordinary ‘souls’ over whom they ruled, and who they would reads like cattle during the Congress. 

The only thing that ultimately united the major powers was fear of change driven from ‘below’. This stance underpinned not only their roles in the Napoleonic wars but also their pursuit of the peace: whether it was the mob-rule of ‘Jacobin’ France or the despotism of the Corsican ‘upstart’ Buonaparte, any and all perceived threats to their own supposed ‘legitimacy’ were to be crushed. Certainly they held up the enlightenment tide, but ultimately they failed to stem it. 

From that vantage point, I feel inclined to join Hazlitt in reaching for the post-Waterloo wine to drown sorrows rather than celebrate.

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