'That Base Pageant' in Vienna

"The biggest since the Congress of Vienna" is already certain to become the enduring cliche about the Helsinki Conference. The glittering Vienna assembly of world leaders, who met in what was then Europe's most magnificent city after Paris, was far more resplendent than this week's Helsinki meeting promises to be. There are, however, many compelling, if superficial resemblances. In their own way both events can be seen as attempts to legitimize postwar balances of force in Europe--the one in the wake of the devastating Napoleonic Wars, the other a long-delayed sequel to the equally disastrous imperial quest of Adolf Hitler.

The Congress of Vienna convened in 1814, four months after Napoleon's exile on the island of Elba. It continued for much of the following year, even while the French Emperor made his last futile effort, in the famous Hundred Days, to recapture the glory that had been his France. After Wellington put an end to that dream at Waterloo, the leaders of Europe's Quadruple Alliance --Czar Alexander I of Russia, Frederick William III of Prussia, Lord Castlereagh of Britain and, above all, Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich of Austria --were free to determine in Vienna the future of the Continent.

Like Ford and Brezhnev, Europe's Big Four representatives had an impressive supporting cast. Although France was a defeated power, it was ably served by its adroit, persuasive Foreign Minister, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord--whom Napoleon had once called "a piece of dung in a silk stocking," presumably because of his tendency to shift allegiances. Also present were some 32 minor German princes, representatives of the Pope, the Sultan of Turkey and numerous special interest groups (including the Jews of Frankfurt). They were accompanied by an extravagant collection of wives, mistresses and servants, and so much time was spent at entertainments that the Congress never shed its image as, in Lord Byron's phrase, "that base pageant."

The Big Four ministers did manage some remarkably durable diplomatic achievements. During months of intricate maneuvering, in an atmosphere marred by constant intrigue and espionage, they redrew the map of Europe, rewarding the states that defeated Napoleon with new territories and restoring ruling families, like the Bourbons, to thrones from which they had been ousted by the French Revolution and Bonaparte's conquests. The Final Act, signed in an unostentatious ceremony on June 9, 1815, created what Castlereagh called "a great machine of European safety" that was to endure, more or less intact, for 40 years. It was a supremely conservative document, reflecting its signatories' belief that aristocratic authority would ensure stability, and that the then radical ideas about liberalism, democracy and nationalism would lead inevitably to chaos. It was that conservative consensus that enabled Metternich and company to subordinate their differences in creating what they and later generations called the "Concert of Europe." At Helsinki, by contrast, there will clearly be no such consensus and thus, in all likelihood, no agreement as binding or enduring as the one signed in Vienna 160 years ago.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.