Transcript The Congress of Vienna and the European Settlement

The Congress of Vienna and the
European Settlement
• Robert Stewart, the British foreign secretary played a
key role in signing an agreement, the Treaty of
Chaumont.
. The treaty included the following clause:
. Restoration of the Bourbons to the
French throne and
. the contraction of France to its
frontiers of 1792.
. Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia would
form an alliance for twenty years to
preserve the status quo (however it would
have been shaped)
Territorial Adjustments
• The Congress of Vienna was convened in September
1814 and continued through November 1815.
• All agreed that no single state would dominate Europe
(including France, of course)
• Strengthen the states around France’s borders to serve
as barriers (the kingdom of the Netherlands, Prussia
was given territories along the rhine river, Austria
gained full control of Northern Italy)
• The rule of legitimate monarchs was re-established
• Territorial adjustments over Eastern Europe was not an
easy issue to resolve
• Tsar Alexander I wanted all of Poland; Prussia was
content with such ambition if it could get in return all
of Saxony
• Austria reacted to both Russian and Prussian interests
• Talleyrand, the foreign secretary of defeated France,
proposed a solution to this deadlock: an alignment
among France, Britain, and Austria could lead tsar to
change his goals concerning Poland.
• Then, tsar agreed to rule a smaller part of Poland, and
Prussian has to be content with only a part of Saxony.
The Hundred Days and the Quadruple
Alliance
• Napoleon returned from Elba on March 1, 1815. French
solders were loyal to him, and many people were loyal
to him.
• The quadruple coalition was shattering in Vienna.
• He escaped to France and promised to institute a
liberal constitution, which was not found convincing by
the allied countries.
• Napoleon was declared an ‘outlaw’ (a device
introduced into the international law)
• Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo (in Belgium on
June 18, 1815). He was exiled on Saint Helena (an
Atlantic island near Africa. He died in 1821.
Hundred Days
• The period that is called to refer Napoleon’s return
from Saint Helana is called Hundred Days.
• Tsar Alexander called to form an Holy Alliance;
Castlereagh thought it absurd, and England abstained.
• On Novemner 20, 1815 Quadraple Alliance was
renewed: it was redefined as a coalition for
maintaining peace in Europe. It was the first in
diplomatic history of Europe.
• Joint action was necessary because European
population and armies were affected by the French
invasion.
The Congress of Vienna
• To prevent a repeat of the Napoleonic nightmare and arrange a
lasting peace
• A framework for stability, not just punish France
• Each members would respect the frame and not use force to
change it
• The settlement was successful.
– France accepted the deal, as it recognized France a great power.
– Treaties to be made between states, not monarchs. (when a monarch
dies the treaty would continue to be binding)
Redefinition of the nature of political power:
- that goes beyond balance of trade, but taking into account
natural resources; systems of education; possibility of a win-win
situation in the case of an improvement in agriculture, commerce, and
industry
Did the Congress fail to predict the power of nationalism and
democracy?
• Nationalist was relatively rare.
• The settlement remained intact for almost half
a century and prevented a general war (i.e.
Word War I)
Romantic questioning of the
Supremacy of Reason
• Source of the Romantic movement:
– Individualism of the Renaissance
– Protestant devotion and personal piety
– Sentimental novels of the eighteenth century
– Dramatic German poetry of the Sturm and Drang
(‘storm and stress’)
– Jean Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant
Rousseau and Education
• Society and material prosperity corrupted human nature
• Emile (1762): This novel about how to live a good and
happy life uncorrupted by society
• Children be raised with maximum freedom, in trial and
error method, like a plant
• Carer must provide only the most necessary for the kid and
protect her from harms
• Rousseau also suggested that men and women would grow
differently
• Romantic stressed the rights of nature over those of
artificial society. (note: this implies that the life and human
experience were ‘pure’ but they were corrupted by society)
The Romantic Movement
• Romanticism was a reaction against the
Enlightenment.
• Remember, the key to the Enlightenment was
reason (science, observation. Romanticism
suggested that there were things beyond the
reach of reason, which cannot be explained by
reason but make us human--dreams,
hallucinations, intuition, imagination, etc…)
• Romantics liked the art, literature, and the
architecture of the mediaeval era
Kant and Reason
• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) wrote The
Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and The
Critique of Practical Reason (1788).
• He appreciated the Enlightenment’s emphasis
on reason, but he claimed that reason alone
could not be sufficient to understand the
immortality, human freedom, and the
existence of God.
•
Kant suggested that knowledge cannot be rooted in sensory experience alone.
There should be a subjective character of human knowledge. (What does this
mean? What you learn at school is that scientific knowledge is objective? What is
the argument of Kant then?)
•
The following is one of the most challenging statement you might heard of since
you started your university education. Do not worry if the idea immediately does
not make sense. “For Kant, human mind does not simply reflect the world around
it like a passive mirror; rather, the mind actively imposes on the world of sensory
experience of ‘forms of sensibility’ and ‘categories of understanding’. The mind
itself generates these categories.” (page 645)
•
This simply means: when we saw an apple we know that it is an apple because in
the language it is called an apple. If it would have been something else, such as
‘sphere’, we would still see the fruit (sensory experience). Or, if you would say that
you want an Apple (ipad), your grandmother would go to the fridge and bring you
the fruit instead of the MacAir Book you so wanted to have for sometime. That is,
the subjective reflection of your grandmother led her perceive your demand to
understand something different than you would like her to understand.
Phenomena and Noumena
•
•
•
Phenomenal world: sensory world, here ‘pure reason’ masters
Noumenal world: sphere of moral and ascetic reality, here ‘practical reason’, or
conscience, dominates.
Now, it is time to spell out the most important concept of Kant: ‘categorical
imperative’.
– ‘…all human beings possess an innate sense of moral duty or an awareness…’ (page, 645)
– ‘an inner command to act in every situation as one would have all other people always to act
in the same situation’
– Incontrovertible proof of humankind’s natural freedom
– Kant postulated the existence of God, eternal life, and future rewards and punishments.
•
Kant influence many romantics, because art could help transcend the limits of
reason (consider when you hear a sentimental piece, see a powerful painting, or
read an influential novel. You feel like that the artistic piece has an influence on
you, emotionally, but you have difficulties to translate such influence into words.
You think that the song is beautiful, but how would it be possible to describe such
beauty objectively.
Romantic Literature
• Neoclassical writers defined romantics of
being unreal, sentimental, or excessively
fanciful
• Romantic and Gothics is often used
interchangeably
• The movement had been influential in
Germany and Britain, before it spread to
France
The English Romantic Writers
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): “artist
imagination was God at work in the mind”.
• William Wordsworth (1770-1850): childhood was an
important period because the child is not distorted by
worldly experience
• Lord Byron (1788-1824): He was not a very much liked
man. He was man of personal liberty, an embodiment
of the new person the French Revolution had created.
He is the writer of Don Juan (1819). He supported the
independence of Greece and participated in the war
against the Ottoman rule.
German Romantic Writers
• Friedrich Schlegel (1767-1845): He wrote
Lucinde (1799), where he attacked prejudices
against women.
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832): He
is author of Faust (1808), the masterpiece you
should all know about its content. Faust
makes a pact with the devil: he will exchange
his soul for greater knowledge than other
human beings.
Romantic Art
• The Rococo artists had looked to Renaissance
models and Neoclassical painters to the art of
the ancient world
• Romantic painters were fascinated by
medieval life
The Cult of the Middle Ages and NeoGothicism
• John Constable (1776-1837). Salisbury
Cathedral, from the Meadows. See the
painting in page 648. Why do think this
painting is characterised as a romantic art?
Why do you think that the weather is both
gloomy and there is a rainbow at the same
time? What does this medieval castle stand
for?
• The castle of Neuschwanstein was constructed
in the nineteen century, probably the most
remarkable example of the Ne-Gothic
arhitecture
Nature and Sublime
• Romantics concentrated on the mysterious and
unruly side of nature—rather than the rational
Newtonian order (this might remind you of the
contemporary fame of vampires, zombies, or
supernatural stories).
• Romantics wanted to portray the sublime
• Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840): The Polar
Sea
• Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851). Rain,
Steam and Speed—The Great Western Railway
Religion in the Romantic Period
• The foundation of the authority was the church during the middle
ages.
• The Reformation leaders appealed to the authority of the Bible.
• Many Enlightenment thinkers tried to derive religion from
rationality
• Romantic thinkers –in contrast— found the foundations of religion
in the inner emotions of humankind.
• Church } Bible } Reason } Emotions of the human (careful: this
process does not imply any progress, but aims to depict the
difference of Romantics from other line of thought that tried to
explain the authority of religion. Do you notice? There is a clear
emphasis on the notion of authority.
Methodism
• Methodism is a result of the revolt against
deism and rationalism. The leader of the
Methodist movement was John Wesley (17031791).
• How did Wesley, once an Anglican priest,
chose to be a Methodist?
• Methodism stressed the following: inward,
heartfelt religion, and the possibility of
Christian perfection in this life.
New Directions in Continental Religion
• A Roman Catholic revival took place in France.
• The most important book of the period was
The Genius of Christianity (1802) by Viscount
Francois Rene de Chateaubriand (1768-1848).
Romantic Views of Nationalism and
History
• Romanticism both glorified individual persons and individual
cultures. This view was in parallel to German idealism, a view that
the world was created was subjective egos.
• Herder and culture: Herder adopted an organic view of culture:
societies were developing like plants. He collected and preserved
and German songs in order to revive the German folk culture.
Herder was against the emergence of French as the lingua franca of
then period because a universal language would eliminate the
distinctive features of each culture (e.g. German, Italian, Austrian
etc.)
• Hegel and history: Periods of history receive their character from
the patterns of thought that predominate during them. All periods
of history and all cultures were equally valuable because each
contribute to the clash of values and ideas.
Islam, Middle East, and Romanticism
• The importance of Christianity rejuvenated, so as the
conflict between Islam and Christianity.
• Tales of the Crusaders (1825) by Sir Walter Scott
• Ottoman Empire was not depicted in a favourable
manner. Intellectuals supported the Greek
independence
• Some Romantics thought about the Ottoman Empire
more positively. Publication of The Thousand and One
Nights (1778). In 1859 Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883)
published the translation of Ruabiyat of Omar
Khayyam of Nishapur, a famous Persian poet of the
twelfth century.