An anthology for courses dealing with great power diplomacy in the 19th century, this book raises crucial questions in the history of European foreign relations and seeks to address those questions through excerpts from the documentary record. Included are sources from conference protocol, and treaties as well as from previously untapped sources such as speeches, diary entries and correpsondence. Half the documents included have been translated into English for the first time. Each chapter is introduced by a brief paragraph placing that chapter in a larger historical context. Each document, or group of documents, comes with a head note that introduces the reader to the debates that document has generated and provides a point of departure for discussions or independent research. The text includes maps and concludes with a bibliographical essay that discusses issues of historiography and provides an extensive list for further readings.

Table of Contents:
Introduction - the art of the possible. Part 1 Foundations of the "1815 system": Metternich's statesmanship; Castlereagh's mission to the continent; the question of maritime rights; treaty of Chaumont; abdication of Napoleon; first peace of Paris; the alliance strained - the Saxon Polish crisis; the slave trade condemned; the "One Hundred Days"; act of the Congress of Vienna; Holy alliance; second peace of Paris; quadruple alliance. Part 2 The "1815 system" in operation - fissures and adjustments, 1815-39: Metternich on England and Russia; Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle; intermediary bodies and the European equilibrium - the German confederation; intervention debated - conferences of Tropeau and Laibach; intervention debated - Castlereagh on the Greek insurrection; intervention tolerated - Canning and the French "war" against Spain; the Monroe Doctrine; intermediary bodies and the European equilibrium - the neutrality of Belgium; Metternich on the Zollverein. Part 3 The Eastern question, 1774-1841: treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji; the straits question in the Napoleonic era; the European concert reinvented - St. Petersburg convention and the treaty of London; Polignac's scheme; peace of Adrianople; settlement of the Greek question; the straits question, 1833-38; to the brink of European war and back - the second Mohammed Ali crisis; aftermath of the 1840 crisis - the rebirth of German nationalism; Palmerston on the purposes of British policy. Part 4 The revolutions 1848-49: Lamartine on the purposes of revolutionary policy; l'Italia fara da se; Arnium responds to Lamartine; a European necessity - Palacky on the Habsburg monarchy; a European necessity, if retooled - Palmerston on the Habsburg monarchy; "Germany" betrayed? the Malmo armistice; "Germany" and Austria; an "emperor of the Germans"?; the Hungarian declaration of independence; Palmerston and the Hungarian revolution; Louis Napoleon on the Napoleonic ideas; the demise of the Roman republic; Prussia's "humiliation" at Olmutz; nationalism denied - the Schleswig-Holstein settlement, 1852. Part 5 The European concert wrecked - the Crimean War. Part 12 The failure of diplomacy, July 1914. Part 13 How we know what we know - a bibliographical essay. (Part contents).