Chapter 8 In the Shadow of Utrecht: Perpetual Peace and International Order, 1713–1815
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Abstract
This chapter examines the legacy of the conceptions of the European order that emerged in the aftermath of the Peace of Utrecht (1713) as an alternative to the traditional paradigm of universal monarchy. One option was the balance of power, which evolved in England as a doctrine of foreign policy, before being incorporated as a legal principle into the Treaty of Utrecht. The second was a controversial counter-proposal in the form of a league of European states, outlined by Abbé de Saint-Pierre in his Plan of Perpetual Peace. Despite the fact that the balance of power had its heyday in the eighteenth century and proved a flexible tool to maintain some equilibrium in Europe, it was eventually Saint-Pierre’s paradigm (albeit in altered form) that found its way into the Congress System of the post-Napoleonic era. This chapter reconnects the two post-war orders of Utrecht and Vienna, showing that part of the theoretical reflection of the eighteenth century actually influenced the later diplomatic practices of the great powers.