The Balance of Power in Europe (often referred to as maintaining the balance of power) is an international relations concept that applies historically and currently to the nations of Europe. It is often known by the term European State System.
Contents |
In the 16th and 17th centuries, English foreign policy strove to prevent creation of a single Universal Monarchy in Europe, which many believed Spain or France might attempt to create. To maintain the balance of power, the English made alliances with other states—including Portugal, the Ottoman Empire, and the Netherlands—to counter the perceived threat. These Grand Alliances reached their height in the wars against Louis XIV and Louis XV of France. They often involved the British paying large subsidies to European allies to finance large armies.
In the 18th century, this led to the stately quadrille, with a number of major European powers—such as Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, and France—changing alliances multiple times to prevent the hegemony of one nation or alliance. A number of wars stemmed, at least in part, from the desire to maintain the balance of power, including the War of the Spanish Succession, War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years' War, the War of the Bavarian Succession and the Napoleonic Wars. Following Britain's success in the Seven Years' War, many of the other powers began to see London as a greater threat than France. Several states entered the American War of Independence in the hope of overturning Britain's growing strength by securing the independence of Thirteen of the colonies of British America.
During the 19th century, to achieve lasting peace, the Concert of Europe tried to maintain the balance of power. This policy was largely successful in averting a full-scale Europe-wide war for almost a century, until the First World War.[1] Specifically, during the first half of the 19th century, Britain and France dominated Europe, but by the 1850s they had become deeply concerned by the growing power of Russia and Prussia. The Crimean War of 1854–55 and the Italian War of 1859 shattered the relations among the Great Powers in Europe, however the creation and rise of the German Empire as a dominant nation restructured the European balance of power.[2] For the next twenty years, Otto Von Bismarck managed to maintain the balance of power, by proposing treaties and creating many complex alliances between the European nations.
However, after the resignation of Otto Von Bismark in the 1890s, the foreign policy of the German Empire became expansionary and the newly created alliances were proven to be fragile, something that triggered the First World War in 1914. One of the objectives of the Treaty of Versailles, the main post-WWI treaty, was to abolish the dominance of the 'Balance of Power' concept and replace it with the League of Nations.
This idea foundered as Europe split into three principal factions in the 1920s and 1930s: Liberal Democratic states led by Britain and France, Socialist states led by the Soviet Union, and authoritarian nationalists led by Germany and Italy. The failure of the Democratic states to prevent the advance of Nazi Germany ultimately led to the Second World War, which led to a temporary alliance between Britain and the Soviets.
In the post-Second World War era, a balance of power emerged in between the Eastern Bloc: affiliated with the Soviet Union and the Socialist nations of Eastern Europe; and the Western Bloc: affiliated with the Western democracies, particularly France, the United States, and Britain.