Suchergebnisse

This article contends that diplomacy is an essential factor in the (trans)formation of 'intercommunal relations' — that is, international relations understood as social order(s) constituted by the practices of different sorts of actors. This relationship is illustrated by the regulation of ranks of diplomatic agents at the Congresses of Vienna (1815) and Aix-la-Chapelle (1818) and its effects on international order. This regulation was supposed to — and indeed did — offer a solution to some typical 'foreign policy problems' of the early nineteenth century, whereas other equally typical problems remained unsolved. Yet the effects of this innovation resulted in a significant shift, both in diplomatic practice and in notions of international order, as it 'ordered' the relations between actors and constituted specific patterns of identity recognition.

The Final Act of Congress of Vienna was signed on June 9, 1815. More accurately, because of Napoleon's escape and the consequent battle of Waterloo, the Vienna settlement was completed with the signature of the second Treaty of Paris on November 20s 1815. There is thus no doubt that last year marks the 170th anniversary of the settlement. There is equally no doubt that in many ways 1815 has come to seem very remote. There are no great historical arguments in progress about it, nor does it seem to attract any great interest from the students of international relations, unless their attention is actually drawn to it. So it may be as well to remember that the Vienna settlement has generated much more substantial debate at other times. Very soon after its making, it began to be said that the settlement represented a failed attempt to control, at worst, or suppress, at best, the two doctrines that were to be the political foundation of the 19th century: liberalism and nationalism. By the end of the century this attitude had intensified. In any case, the immense social and political changes which were moulding the modern state structure were beginning to create a new kind of international environment in which the 'unspoken' as well as deliberate assumptions of 1815 were less relevant. Approved or not, in practical terms, the settlement remained as a basis for the conduct of international politics until 1914, and thus was the obvious point of departure for discussion about the new settlement which would have to be made when the First World War ended. It is not surprising therefore to find that part of the British preparation for the Paris Peace Conference, which were made by the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office, was a study of the Congress of Vienna by C. K. Webster. It is a somewhat routine piece, and his treatment of the subject was much better based and wider ranging in his monumental study of British foreign policy under Lord Castlereagh. It contained, however, one conclusion which may have had an important effect on the way in which the 1919 settlement was arrived at. Webster said that it had been an error on the part of the allies to have permitted the French to be present at Vienna because of the successful attempt by Talleyrand to insert France into the discussions of the other great powers. It has of course been subsequently felt that one of the cardinal respects in which Vienna was more, sensible than Versailles was precisely in that the French were included and became in effect joint guarantors of the agreement. Whether anything fundamental would have been different had the same been done for the Weimar republic is open to question, but there can be no doubt that the circumstances at the time and afterwards would have been greatly easier had the agenda of post-war international politics not had to include the status of Germany as a first item.

Abstract
This article analyzes the ways that discussions regarding the abolition of the slave trade held at the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815) affected slavery in the Iberian empires. Drawing from newspaper coverage, diplomatic correspondence, and conference minutes, we reassess the conditions under which Portuguese and Spanish agents negotiated with their British counterparts; highlight the Iberian political dilemmas that surfaced at the Congress; and elucidate the plenipotentiaries' subsequent resolutions addressing the transatlantic slave trade. As a result of the talks held in Vienna, Spanish subjects in Cuba and Portuguese subjects in Brazil established political and diplomatic strategies to support slavery in order to maintain their positions in the world market of tropical goods. In other words, while slavery was undergoing reconfiguration in Brazil and Cuba, slave-owners and their political representatives were forced to engage with the hegemonic, abolitionist discourse systematically established by the British at the Congress in order to formulate their proslavery response. The article thus demonstrates that the Congress of Vienna was integral to the international consolidation of the politics of "second slavery" in the Americas. In other words, Brazil and Cuba were forced to engage with the hegemonic discourse systematically established by the British at the Congress in reconfiguring slavery and formulating their proslavery defense.