The International History Review

ISSN: 0707-5332 (Print) 1949-6540 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rinh20

Balance of Power vs. Perpetual Peace: Paradigms

of European Order from Utrecht to Vienna,
17131815

Stella Ghervas

To cite this article: Stella Ghervas (2017) Balance of Power vs. Perpetual Peace: Paradigms
of European Order from Utrecht to Vienna, 17131815, The International History Review, 39:3,
404-425, DOI: 10.1080/07075332.2016.1214613

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2016.1214613

Published online: 08 Nov 2016.

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THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY REVIEW, 2017
VOL. 39, NO. 3, 404!425
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2016.1214613

Balance of Power vs. Perpetual Peace: Paradigms of European

Order from Utrecht to Vienna, 1713!1815
Stella Ghervas

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Over the course of the eighteenth century, two major models of balance of power; perpetual
European international order emerged as alternatives to universal peace; Treaty of Utrecht;
monarchy: one was based on the balance of power; the other centred Congress of Vienna; Holy
on the idea of perpetual peace. This article traces each back to its Alliance
origins in debates around the moment of the Peace of Utrecht in
1713. In particular, it examines the evolution of the doctrine of balance
of power in early eighteenth-century English political thought and
then as a legal principle incorporated into the Treaty of Utrecht, before
proceeding to the counter-proposal in the form of the Abb! e de Saint-
Pierres Plan of Perpetual Peace and the objections it raised. It then
shows how Saint-Pierres paradigm of a league of European states
found (albeit in altered form) its way into the Treaty of the Holy
Alliance (1815) proposed by Tsar Alexander I after the defeat of
Napoleon. It concludes by highlighting the fundamental soundness of
the idea of European league, as well as the aws inherent in the early
model of Saint-Pierre.

I. Introduction
Since no broader, more beautiful and useful pursuit ever occupied the human mind than a
perpetual and universal peace among all peoples of Europe, no author ever deserved more
attention from the public, than the one who proposed means to implement such a plan.
e de Saint-Pierre)1
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (on the Plan of Perpetual Peace of Abb!

How to establish lasting peace and tranquillity in Europe? Such was the question posed in
early 1713, when plenipotentiaries from the European powers assembled in Utrecht to
settle a political issue, the Spanish Succession, which had threatened to destabilise the
whole political order of Europe. That there had been a bloody military conict, and now
festive celebrations of reconciliation was, however, in the order of things: since time
immemorial, the function of war between European states had been to settle disputes
that could not nd a resolution otherwise. The novelty of the gathering lay elsewhere. It is
not only the invocation of a topos to state that the Treaty of Utrecht sought to re-establish
the balance of power of Europe as a mutually acceptable state of affairs among the great
powers of Europe. It was also the emergence of a new paradigm of continental relations.

CONTACT Stella Ghervas sghervas@fas.harvard.edu

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Conference The Art of Peace Making in Utrecht, the Harvard Interna-
tional and Global History Seminar, and the Law and Global Justice Seminar at Durham Law School. I am particularly grateful
to David Armitage, Marco Basile, Laurent Franceschetti, William Graham, Mark Jarrett, George Liber, Robert Schutze, and
Brian Steele for their precious comments. It was completed with the generous support of the Fondation des Archives de la
Famille Pictet and the European Research Council (FP/2007-2013 ! ERC Grant Agreement n. 312304).
2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group