Diplomatic Negotiation

216 Diplomatic Negotiation
stabilize the continent: small states should be united in some kind of regional federation;
an acceptable law of the nations should be established; and an international arbitration
authority should be created in order to mediate disputes between states. In addition,
the 1814 Treaty of Chaumont ruled that ‘the signatories were obliged, even after a treaty
of peace, actively to promote an international peace’ (Gruner, 1993: 24). ‘Vienna’ had a
positive effect on peace and stability in Europe, or at least on the balance of power among
the powers. Notwithstanding local uprisings and wars, the balance among the sovereigns
was largely maintained for seven decades after Metternich lost control: ‘The European
balance worked untrammelled in the seventy years between the fall of Metternich and
its several repudiations by Lenin and Wilson’ (Taylor, 1954: xxi). This did not mean,
however, that ‘Vienna’ could be seen as the beginning of a series of effective international
conferences to secure the peace: ‘The Great Coalition was thus finally dissolved; the
Concert of Europe had disintegrated, the Holy Alliance had succeeded in destroying the
Quadruple Alliance, the Conference System had failed’ (Nicolson, 1946: 271). Vienna
did not yet provide the world with a ‘conference system’, which came into being at the
very end of the nineteenth century with – as a first step – the Convention for the Pacific
Settlement of International Disputes (1899), the so-called ‘The Hague System’ (Karns and
Mingst, 2010: 67).