ABSTRACT
The question posed by the title of this essay must appear a bit unreal. However much historians have differed in interpreting various aspects of the Vienna settlement and the nineteenth-century international system founded upon it, they have never doubted that these included a balance of power as an essential ingredient. 1 Irrefutable evidence seems to come directly from the peacemakers at Vienna themselves; in everything from official treaties to private letters and diaries, they spoke of peace and stability in terms of a proper balance (“juste équilibre”) achieved by a redistribution of forces (“répartition des forces”), or in similar balance of power phrases. 2 Not only did their language seem to make the balance of power a vital goal and working principle of the settlement but so did their conduct and the outcome of their efforts. What else were the statesmen at Vienna doing if not restoring a balance of power in Europe by redistributing territories and peoples? What can account for international peace and stability after 1815 if not that the European balance of power was restored after a generation of French revolutionary expansion and Napoleonic imperialism, this time supported and strengthened through a system of alliances, treaty guarantees, 4and Concert diplomacy?
