Introduction
Looking back in 1915 over the causes of the Great War (which had broken out the previous year) Sir Sidney Low blamed not the nationalism of small states but Europe’s meddlesome political elite. Wrapped up in their own concerns, jealous of their own privileges, and wise in their own conceit, the Powers had imposed an artificial order that they could maintain only by rising violence.
THE Europe which sought to rearrange its affairs after the revolutionary and Napoleonic era* was seething with the ferment of democracy and nationality. Unhappily the soldiers and diplomatists who reconstructed the map* in haste at the Congress of Vienna* thought more of the rights of kings than of the rights of peoples; they feared democracy much more than despotism; they looked upon a nation as the result of treaties and royal marriages rather than the product of natural and spiritual forces; they endeavoured to restore the highly artificial system, based on “scraps of paper,” themselves often the result of successful force, dynastic intrigue, and historical accident, which was the legacy of the nineteenth century from the eighteenth. They refused to repair the misdeeds of the past, or to provide for the evolutionary growth of the future, considering — no doubt honestly enough — that a mechanical external order was more likely to secure the welfare of the various communities than the satisfaction of those perilous aspirations which so often lead to turmoil and unrest. So they left the larger part of Europe a chaos of divided peoples, imperfect states, and subject nationalities. [...]
Low probably has in mind the famous remark of the ailing William Pitt (1759-1806), Prime Minister during the early years of the Napoleonic Wars, who after Napoleon’s emphatic victory at Austerlitz over a combined Austrian and Russian force on December 2nd, 1805, glanced at a map of Europe hanging on the wall and said “Roll up that map; it will not be wanted these ten years!”
From 1803 to 1814, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte threw Europe into turmoil with a series of military conquests that redrew the map of Europe. His humiliating Retreat from Moscow led to defeat and banishment to the island of Elba, but in March 1815 he reappeared in Paris to resume his career. He was finally overcome at Waterloo in Belgium by a combined British and Prussian force, leaving behind a chaos of bloodied and broken European states which had lost their hereditary rulers and were unsure how best to proceed. See posts tagged Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) (21).
The Congress of Vienna was a series of discussions aimed at remaking Europe following the banishment of Napoleon Bonaparte to Elba in 1814. It did not take the form of a formal political summit in plenary session, but was spread over many months, and delegates often met in select groups at glittering Vienna’s famous balls. The Treaties of Chaumont (March 1814) and Paris (May 1814) had already been signed before Napoleon’s spectacular escape from Elba; the Congress began in September that year, and deals were were still being made on June 9th, 1815, just nine days before the decisive Battle of Waterloo at which Napoleon’s dream ended. As Low indicated, the Congress was an Oriental bazaar of European lands bartered among princes and potentates, conducted with little consideration for their peoples and on the assumption that propaganda and the gendarmerie would eventually reconcile them to the new order arranged for them by their betters.
Précis
Sir Sidney Low laid the blame for the outbreak of the Great War on the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15. He argued that the military and diplomatic figures who had sought to restore order to Europe after the Napoleonic Wars had consulted their own self-interest rather than public sentiment, leaving the Continent resentful and still divided. (56 / 60 words)
Sir Sidney Low laid the blame for the outbreak of the Great War on the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15. He argued that the military and diplomatic figures who had sought to restore order to Europe after the Napoleonic Wars had consulted their own self-interest rather than public sentiment, leaving the Continent resentful and still divided.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 60 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 50 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: although, despite, just, may, must, not, since, unless.
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