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Introduction Rival Histories of Emer De Vattel's Law of Nations*

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Introduction Rival Histories of Emer De Vattel's Law of Nations* GROTIANA Grotiana 31 (2010) 5–21 brill.nl/grot Introduction Rival Histories of Emer de Vattel’s Law of Nations * Béla Kapossy Department of History, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland [email protected] A contextual approach to Vattel When Emer de Vattel’s Law of Nations fi rst appeared in Neuchâtel at the end of 1757, the Seven Years War had already claimed its fi rst important victim, Vattel’s employer, Frederic August II, king of Saxony who, as August III, was also the elective king of Poland. After the defeat of the small Saxon army by Prussian troops at Lobositz in October 1756, Saxony was thoroughly ran- sacked, several of its castles destroyed, the Saxon troops were forced into Prussian service, while Frederic August II together with his family had to fl ee to Warsaw where he remained for the duration of the war. 1 A citizen of Neuchâtel, Vattel was also a subject of the king of Prussia Frederic II. 2 Despite this Vattel made it perfectly clear where his sympathies lied. In a letter from February 1757 addressed to the Avoyer and the Small Council of the Republic of Bern, where Vattel was accredited as a permanent minister of the court of Saxony, he described Frederic’s act of aggression against peaceful Saxony as the worst possible violation of the law of nations. Th e principle that provided the very basis for ‘peace amongst nations’, Vattel explained, stated that any * Th e author would like to thank Hans W. Blom for proposing and overseeing this special number on Vattel, the authors for agreeing to contribute to this volume and Peter Haggenmacher for commenting on the individual articles. 1 On the eff ects of the Seven Years War on Saxony’s economy, see Karl Czok (ed.), Geschichte Sachsens (Weimar: Böhlau, 1989); Walter Fellmann, Heinrich Graf Brühl. Ein Lebens- und Zeitbild (Würzburg: Weidlich Flechsig, 1990). 2 All biographical information concerning Vattel are taken from Edouard Béguelin’s as yet unsurpassed study, ‘En souvernir de Vattel: 1714-1767’, in Recueil de travaux (Neuchâtel: Attinger, 1929), pp. 35-176. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2010 DOI 10.1163/187607510X543481 6 B. Kapossy / Grotiana 31 (2010) 5–21 sovereign who had a complaint against another sovereign had to fi rst formally present his case and demand reparation. It was only once that just satisfaction had been refused and that there was no reasonable ground left for hoping that satisfaction would ever be granted that he acquired the right to wage war. Prussia, Vattel was convinced, had not acquired this right. Not only had Saxony disarmed, thus showing its peaceful intentions, the Prussian king, even whilst preparing for war, had issued protestations of friendship and good neighbourly relations (bon voisinage). All of this served to prove that Frederic’s real motives for invading Saxony was not to obtain satisfaction but simply to ‘conquer this rich country, to take its money, its food supplies, its arms, the artillery, and (which is without precedent amongst Christian princes) even its men, the entire fl our of its youth.’ If sovereigns were permitted to fl aunt the fundamental principles of the law of nations, ‘there will be no security left on earth and no one will be able to fl atter himself of having preserved even a moment of peace’. 3 It was hence in the interest of all nations to reprimand the one who ‘tramples the rules which alone provide for their tranquillity and without which everything would become the prey of the strongest and most audacious’. 4 His forthcoming work, Vattel assured Saxony’s prime minister Count Brühl a few months later, intended precisely to prove Frederic August’s rightful claim to compensation, while in a further letter to Brühl from February 1758, he insisted that the very point of the Law of Nations was to show ‘how all the powers were obliged to form an alliance in order punish the one that wishes to introduce such sordid practices.’ 5 Vattel’s bellicose call for the punishment of egregious violators of the law of nations and his promotion of the Law of Nations as a work directed against Prussian Machiavellianism would seem to support interpretations of Vattel as an advocate of interventionism and the forceful imposition of the law of nations. 6 But these declarations sit uneasy with some of Vattel’s other posi- tions, notably his clear commitment to self-preservation through agricultural self-suffi ciency. Also, one might legitimately question the interpretative value of Vattel’s correspondence with regard to the intentionality of his Law of Nations . Vattel’s letter to Bern were primarily aimed to reassure one of Saxony’s major creditors that the considerable sum of 700,000 Reichsthaler, which the 3 Ibid., p. 172. 4 Ibid., p. 173. 5 Ibid., p. 57. 6 See e.g. Dan Edelstein, Th e Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). For an elaborate engage- ment with Edelstein’s position see the article by Isaac Nakhimovsky in this issue. .
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