Congress of Berlin

The Congress of Berlin (in 1878) made a watershed in the history of Europe. It had been preceded by thirty years of conflict and upheaval; it was followed by thirty-four years of peace. No European frontier was changed until 1913; not a shot was fired in Europe until 1912, except in two trivial wars that miscarried. It would not do to attribute this great achievement solely, or even principally, to the skill of European statesmen. The decisive cause was no doubt economic. The secret that had made Great Britain great was a secret no longer. Coal and steel offered prosperity to all Europe and remade European civilization. The dream of Cobden seemed to have come true. Men were too busy growing rich to have time for war. Though protective tariffs remained everywhere except in Great Britain, international trade was otherwise free. There was no governmental interference, no danger of debts being repudiated. The gold standard was universal. Passports disappeared, except in Russia and Turkey. If a man in London decided at nine o’clock in the morning to go to Rome or Vienna, he could leave at ten AM without passport or travellers’ cheques-merely with a purse of sovereigns in his pocket. Europe had never known such peace and unity since the age of the Antonines. The times of Metternich were nothing in comparison. Then men lived in well-founded apprehension of war and revolution; now they came to believe that peace and security were “normal”, and anything else an accident and an aberration. For centuries to come men will look back at that age of bliss and will puzzle over the effortless ease with which it was accomplished. They are not likely to discover the secret; they will certainly not be able to imitate it. — A.J.P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918