, , Edited by Christine D. Worobec For a list of books in the series, visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. From Victory to Peace Russian Diplomacy aer Napoleon • Elise Kimerling Wirtschaer Copyright © by Cornell University e text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives . International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/./. To use this book, or parts of this book, in any way not covered by the license, please contact Cornell University Press, Sage House, East State Street, Ithaca, New York . Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. First published by Cornell University Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Wirtschaer, Elise Kimerling, author. Title: From victory to peace: Russian diplomacy aer Napoleon / by Elise Kimerling Wirtschaer. 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To my soulshine, Landon and Papy • Preface xi Acknowledgments xv Abbreviations xvii Note on Dating xix Russia as a Great Power in Europe Pacication and Peace (–) Completion of the General Alliance (–) Alliance Unity and Intervention in Naples (–) ­ To Act in Concert (–) Spain and the European System (– ) Russia’s European Diplomacy Appendix. Biographies of Diplomats Notes Bibliography Contrary to Russia’s present-day position on the political and psychological periphery of Europe, the period from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the Crimean War ( –), and arguably until the Bolshevik Revolution of Octo- ber , represented a time of full integration into European society and poli- tics. During this period, the Quadruple Alliance, the general alliance, the grand alliance, and the European political system stood as cornerstones of Russian diplomacy. Russia had led the allied coalition that defeated Napoleon in –­, its armies had performed heroically and honorably in , and its emperor had come to be seen by his subjects and intimates as the divinely anointed savior of Europe. From the Russian point of view, the glorious victory of and the sub- sequent wars leading to Napoleon’s dethronement showed that Emperor Alex- ander I (ruled –) and his people, together with their allies, served as God’s instrument in human history. Not surprisingly, in the eyes of Russia’s monarch and diplomats, the peace settlement reached in ­–, and the peacemaking that continued in subsequent years, appeared equally providential. e basic contours of what contemporaries referred to as the European polit- ical system were forged at the “Congress” of Westphalia, where rulers and diplo- mats recognized state sovereignty (not empire, dynasty, or religious belief) as the foundation of European order. Based on the principle that state sovereignty gave to each government the right to choose a domestic religion and political structure, free from the threat of outside intervention, the peacemakers also embraced the principle of a balance of power between independent states that aimed to preserve European equilibrium and prevent any one country from becoming powerful enough to achieve hegemony. Ultimately, the treaties of Westphalia failed to stop revolutionary France from overturning the equilibrium or Napoleonic France from dominating Europe. us, once Napoleon had been defeated militarily, it became necessary to reconstruct the European state system. Aer roughly twen- ty-ve years of brutal warfare, fragile coalitions, and exhausting diplomacy, the continent’s rulers and diplomats were eager to establish an enduring peace and prepared to make substantive compromises to achieve that goal. In a series of multilateral treaties, conventions, and protocols—produced primarily but not xi xii Preface exclusively in Paris and at the Congress of Vienna in ­–—political leaders reconstituted the public law of Europe, which then provided the legal framework for interstate diplomacy and relations between governments and peoples. Generations of historians have researched the chess game of European politics during the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Empire, and the peacemaking that followed the victory over France. e quality of this scholarship is impres- sive, yet the diplomacy of the era continues to fascinate and bae. In recent de- cades, the reconstruction of Europe at the Congress of Vienna has been seen as a model of multilateral diplomacy and collective security arrangements that estab- lished precedents for today’s United Nations and European Union. In addition, historians have moved beyond simplistic characterizations of Russia’s actions, recognizing instead the critical and oen salutary role of Emperor Alexander I. Scholarly perspectives have become diversied; however, signicant aspects of European politics in the Restoration era remain understudied. ese include the conceptual apparatus developed in diplomatic discourse and the relationship of diplomacy to national or local political cultures. Among the great powers of Restoration Europe, the Russian Empire is the least integrated into both past and current historiography. rough study of Russian diplomacy in the years – , this book broadens the knowledge base available to historians and helps to ll a striking historiographical gap. Begin- ning in the immediate aermath of the Congress of Vienna and continuing through the Congress of Verona, Europe’s statesmen worked tirelessly to im- plement the edice of pacication and peace constructed in ­, , and . ey completed territorial negotiations, codied political arrangements, and brought a defeated France back into the alliance of great powers. Equally sig- nicant, they confronted dangerous revolts and military crises in Europe, the Ottoman Empire, and Spanish America. In response to these developments, Emperor Alexander’s hopes for peace, his pragmatic adaptability, and his com- mitment to act in concert with the other great powers came fully into focus. Close attention to Russian diplomacy, based on sources of Russian provenance, challenges characterizations of Alexander’s behavior as erratic and his foreign policy as heavy-handed and expansionist. Indeed, as historians assimilate the Russian perspective on European order (as well as the perspectives of other less well-studied countries and peoples), they encounter a multifaceted Restoration built upon the practices of enlightened reformism and direct experience of costly revolution and war. Decades have passed since European historians began to reevaluate the Eu- ropean restorations and rebalance their understanding of the achievements and Preface xiii consequences of the French Revolution. e research presented here contrib- utes in multiple ways to debates about the Restoration. As noted, this book highlights Russian diplomacy, which continues to occupy a peripheral and un- derstudied position in European historiography. It does so, moreover, not by analyzing political maneuvers in the high stakes game of diplomatic chess, but by exploring the ideas and concepts that dened Russian foreign policy. e conceptual history of diplomacy leads in turn to emphasis on the dynamics of peacemaking over more familiar themes such as empire building, the emergence of ethno-nationalism, or the struggle between “progress” and “reaction.” Finally, this book focuses on the intersection of principle and action in order to un- derstand how Emperor Alexander and his diplomatic agents presented Russian foreign policy to Europe and the world, what they thought they were doing (or wanted others to think they were doing), and how they thought they were going to establish and preserve a durable peace. Concrete investigation of what it meant to act in concert (concerter) encour- ages a deeper, more nuanced