De prijs van de vrede. De Nederlandse inbreng in het Europees Concert, 1815-1818
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18352/bmgn-lchr.10479Keywords:
Congress of Vienna, Netherlands, diplomatie, Congres van Wenen, Nederlandse geschiedenisAbstract
Na het Congres van Wenen 1815 gingen de geallieerden niet naar huis, maar onderhandelden verder in Parijs – onder meer over de hoogte van de reparaties en achterstallige schulden die Frankrijk nog aan de overige Europese landen diende te betalen. De nieuwe vrede rustte ook op financiële zekerheid. Het Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden speelde in die onderhandelingen een grote rol, want het was via particuliere vorderingen op Frankrijk de grootste crediteur van dit land. In dit artikel laten we zien hoe als één van de bijkomstigheden van denieuwe ‘concertdiplomatie’ van 1815 kleinere mogendheden als Nederland met de ‘groten’ mee konden praten. Het politieke steekspel rondom die financiële beraadslagingen en schadeloosstellingen is nog niet eerder in kaart gebracht. Aan de hand van nog niet eerder onderzochte bronnen, de protocollen van de Parijse Ministersconferentie, laten we zien hoe groot de invloed van een ‘minder machtig’ land kon zijn, mits er goede financiële experts werden ingezet. En hoeveel politiek en financieel gewin dat kon opleveren.
After the Vienna Congress in 1815, the Allied ministers did not return home, but continued their negotiations in Paris. They deliberated on the measure of reparation payments and arrear payments that France owed to the other European states. The new peace also rested on financial securities. The United Kingdom of the Netherlands assumed a large part in these conferences, since through the mass of private claims it was France’s largest creditor. In this article we demonstrate how, as one of the essentials of the new concert diplomacy of 1815, smaller powers such as the Netherlands were allowed to weigh in on the Four Powers’ deliberations in Paris. The political conundrums regarding these financial securities and reparationshave not been charted and analysed before. Through previously unstudied sources,such as the minutes of the Paris Ministerial Conference, we discuss the influence a secondary power could exert provided they deployed smart financial experts. Under that condition large political and financial gains could be made.
* The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n.615313.
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