Balance of Power vs. Perpetual Peace: Paradigms of European Order from Utrecht to Vienna, 1713–1815

Over the course of the eighteenth century, two major models of European international order emerged as alternatives to universal monarchy: one was based on the balance of power; the other centred on the idea of perpetual peace. This article traces each back to its 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 Abbé de Saint-Pierre's Plan of Perpetual Peace and the objections it raised. It then shows how Saint-Pierre's 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 flaws inherent in the early model of Saint-Pierre.     

LATE GALLEYS: The Fredriksvern Naval Shipyard and the coastal defence in Norway 1750–1814

From the early 18th century the Mediterranean galley experienced a new golden age in the Baltic Sea, as it was well adapted to the shallow sea with the islands and skerries found there. In Norway the Fredriksvern naval shipyard was founded in 1750 to build a galley fleet. For various reasons progress was slow, and when the galley fleet finally was built in the 1760s, it was probably the last one in Europe. New and more efficient inshore vessels were soon developed in the neighbouring countries, but they were not put into use in Norway in the 18th century. The explanation for Norway’s poor performance was probably too much peace: when Denmark-Norway became involved in the Napoleonic Wars, naval development was dramatically improved.