The “Middle Powers”
“中等强国”
The impact of economic and technological change upon the relative position of the Great Powers of continental Europe was much less dramatic in the half-century or so following 1815, chiefly because the industrialization which did occur started off from a much lower base than in Britain. The farther east one went, the more feudal and agricultural the local economy tended to be; but even in western Europe, which had been close to Britain in many aspects of commercial and technological development prior to 1790, two decades of war had left a heavy mark: population losses, changed customs barriers, higher taxes, the “pastoralization” of the Atlantic sector, the loss of overseas markets and raw materials, the difficulties of acquiring the latest British inventions, were all setbacks to general economic growth, even when (for special reasons) certain trades and regions had flourished during the Napoleonic wars. 34 If the coming of peace meant a resumption of normal trade and also allowed continental entrepreneurs to see how far behind Great Britain they had fallen, it did not produce a sudden burst of modernization. There simply was not enough capital, or local demand, or official enthusiasm, to produce a transformation; and many a European merchant, craftsman, and handloom weaver would bitterly oppose the adoption of English techniques, seeing in them (quite correctly) a threat to their older way of life. 35 In consequence, although the steam engine, the power loom, and the railway made some headway in continental Europe, between 1815 and 1848 the traditional features of the economy remained preeminent: the superiority of agriculture over industrial production, the absence of cheap and rapid means of transport, and the priority given to consumer goods over heavy industry. 36
在1815年以后约半个世纪里，经济和技术变化对欧洲大陆大国的相对地位的影响，远非那样引人注目。这主要是因为真正发生的工业化是在远低于英国的基础上开始的。人们越往东走，当地经济就越具有封建和农业的性质。1790年以前，西欧在商业和技术发展的许多方面已经接近英国，但即使在那里，20年的战争也留下了深刻的创伤：人口的损失、改变了的关税壁垒、提高的税赋、大西洋部分的“田园化”、海外市场和原料的丧失、取得英国最新发明的困难。这些都是全面经济增长的障碍，即使（出于特殊原因）在拿破仑战争期间某些商业和地区已经繁荣起来时也是如此。可以说和平的来临意味着正常贸易的恢复，并且让大陆的企业家看到他们已经比大不列颠落后多么远，并且已经不能产生一次突然迸发的现代化浪潮。简单地说，没有足以产生一次变化的资本、本地的需要或官方的热情；许多欧洲的商人、手工业者和手织机织布者强烈地反对采用英国技术，因为他们（很正确地）看到这些技术是对他们旧生活方式的一种威胁。结果，虽然蒸汽机、动力织机和铁路使欧洲大陆取得一定的发展，但在1815～1848年，经济的传统特征依然是突出的：农业生产的地位高于工业生产的地位，缺乏廉价和迅速的运输工具，消费品优先于重工业。
As Table 7 above shows, the relative increases in per capita levels of industrialization for the century after 1750 were not very impressive; and only in the 1850s and 1860s did the picture begin to change.
前面的表7显示，在1750年以后的一个世纪，按人口计算的工业化水平的相对增长给人们的印象并不深刻，只是在19世纪的50年代和60年代，情况才开始发生变化。
The prevailing political and diplomatic conditions of “Restoration Europe” also combined to freeze the international status quo, or at least to permit only smallscale alterations in the existing order. Precisely because the French Revolution had been such a frightening challenge both to the internal social arrangements and to the traditional states system of Europe, Metternich and fellow conservatives now regarded any new developments with suspicion. An adventurist diplomacy, running the risk of a general war, was as much to be frowned upon as a campaign for national self-determination or for constitutional reform. On the whole, political leaders felt that they had enough on their hands simply dealing with domestic turbulences and the agitation of sectional interests, many of which were beginning to feel threatened by even the early appearances of new machinery, the growth of urbanization, and other incipient challenges to the guilds, the crafts, and the protective regulations of a preindustrial society. What one historian has described as an “endemic civil war that produced the great outbreaks of insurrection in 1830, as well as a host of intermediate revolts,”37 meant that statesmen generally possessed neither the energies nor the desires to engage in foreign conflicts which might well weaken their own regimes.
“复原的欧洲”占主导地位的政治和外交形势相互结合，把国际现状冻结起来，充其量也只容许现存的秩序做小规模的变动。这恰恰是因为法国大革命对欧洲内部的社会调整和传统的国家制度，都提出了一种令人生畏的挑战，梅特涅及其保守的同僚这时以怀疑的目光看待任何新的发展。一个冒全面战争风险的冒险主义外交活动，就像一个争取民族自决或争取修正宪法的运动那样令人讨厌。总的说来，政治领袖们感到，仅仅对付国内动乱、各部门利益集团的不安（许多利益集团甚至在新机器刚出现时就已感到了威胁）、城市化的成长和对行会、手工业以及前工业社会的保护性规章的初次挑战，手头的事情就已经够多的了。一位历史学家曾经描述的“一场产生1830年起义大爆发的地方性内战以及一批直接引起的叛乱”的情况，意味着政治家们一般既无精力也无愿望去进行可能会削弱自己政权的国外冲突。
In this connection, it is worth noting that many of the military actions which did occur were initiated precisely to defend the existing sociopolitical order from revolutionary threat—for example, the Austrian army’s crushing of resistance in Piedmont in 1823, the French military’s move into Spain in the same year to restore to King Ferdinand his former powers, and, the most notable cause of all, the use of Russian troops to suppress the Hungarian revolution of 1848. If these reactionary measures grew increasingly unpopular to British opinion, that country’s insularity meant that it would not intervene to rescue the liberal forces from suppression. As for territorial changes within Europe, they could occur only after the agreement of the “Concert” of the Great Powers, some of which might need to be compensated in one way or another. Unlike either the age of Napoleon preceding it or the age of Bismarck following it, therefore, the period 1815–1865 internationalized most of its tricky political problems (Belgium, Greece), and frowned upon unilateral actions. All this gave a basic, if precarious, stability to the existing states system.
与此有关的是，确实发生了许多军事行动，其起因正是为了保护现存的社会政治秩序，使其免遭革命的威胁。例如，1823年奥地利军队在皮埃蒙特粉碎了反抗；同年法国的军事力量进入西班牙，以恢复斐迪南国王原来的权力；最值得注意的一件事是在1848年使用俄国军队镇压匈牙利的革命。如果这些措施在英国舆论中越来越不受欢迎，那么这个国家的岛国特性意味着它也不会为了解救自由力量使之不受镇压而进行干预。至于欧洲内部的领土变动，它也只有在大国“欧洲协调”一致同意以后才能做出，其中有的可能需要用这种或那种方式来补偿。因此，在1815～1865年，大部分微妙的政治问题（比利时、希腊）国际化了，大家也讨厌单方面的行动，这不同于这个时期以前的拿破仑时代，也不同于以后的俾斯麦时代。这一切给当时的国家制度提供了一种基本的即使是靠不住的稳定。
The international position of Prussia in the decades after 1815 was clearly affected by these general political and social conditions. 38 Although greatly augmented territorially by the acquisition of the Rhine-land, the Hohenzollern state now seemed much less impressive than it had been under Frederick the Great. It was, after all, only in the 1850s and 1860s that economic expansion took place on Prussian soil faster than virtually anywhere else in Europe. In the first half of the century, by contrast, the country seemed an industrial pigmy, its annual iron production of 50,000 tons being eclipsed by that not only of Britain, France, and Russia but also of the Habsburg Empire. Furthermore, the acquisition of the Rhineland not only split Prussia geographically but also exacerbated the political divisions between the state’s more “liberal” western and more “feudal” eastern provinces. For the greater part of this period, domestic tensions were at the forefront of politics; and while the forces of reaction usually prevailed, they were alarmed at the reformist tendencies of 1810–1819, and quite panicked by the revolution of 1848–1849. Even when the military reimposed a profoundly illiberal regime, fear of domestic unrest made the Prussian elite reluctant to contemplate foreign-policy adventures; on the contrary, conservatives felt, they needed to identify as closely as possible with the forces of stability elsewhere in Europe, especially Russia and even Austria.
在1815年以后的几十年，普鲁士的国际地位显然受了这些总的政治和社会形势的影响。虽然因取得了莱茵兰而大大地扩大了领土，但这个霍亨索伦王朝的国家这时似乎远不如腓特烈大帝时期那样引人注目。只是在19世纪50和60年代，在普鲁士的国土上终于出现了比欧洲任何地方都要迅猛的经济发展。对比之下，这个国家在19世纪前半叶似乎是一个工业方面的侏儒。它每年5万吨的铁产量，不但被英、法、俄3国超过，而且也少于奥地利哈布斯堡。此外，莱茵兰的取得，不但在地理上分裂了普鲁士，并且在较“自由的”西部诸省与较“封建的”东部诸省之间加剧了政治分裂。在此时期的大部分时间里，国内的紧张形势在政治中最为突出。虽然反动势力通常占了上风，但它们对1810～1819年的改革趋势感到震惊，也被1848～1849年的革命弄得惊慌失措。甚至当军方重新把一个非常粗俗的政权强加给人民时，对国内不安定的担心使普鲁士的上层不愿去考虑对外政策方面的冒险活动；相反，保守分子感到，他们需要尽量紧密地与欧洲其他地方（特别是俄国，甚至还有奥地利）的稳定势力合为一体。
Prussia’s internal-politics disputes were complicated still further by the debate about the “German question,” that is to say, about the possibility of an eventual union of the thirty-nine German states, and the means by which that goal could be secured. For not only did the issue predictably divide the liberal-nationalist bourgeoisie of Prussia from most of the conservatives, but it also involved delicate negotiations with the middle- and south-German states and—most important of all —revived the rivalry with the Habsburg Empire that had last been seen in the heated disputes over Saxony in 1814. Although Prussia was the undisputed leader of the increasingly important German Customs Union (Zollverein) which developed from the 1830s onward, and which the Austrians could not join because of the protectionist pressures of their own industrialists, the balance of political advantage generally lay in Vienna’s favor during these decades. In the first place, both Frederick William III (1797–1840) and Frederick William IV (1840–1861) feared the results of a clash with the Habsburg Empire more than Metternich and his successor Schwarzenberg did with their northern neighbor. In addition, Austria presided over the German Federation’s meetings at Frankfurt; it had the sympathy of many of the smaller German states, not to mention the Prussian old conservatives; and it seemed indisputably a European power, whereas Prussia was little more than a German one. The most noticeable sign of Vienna’s greater weight came in the 1850 agreement at Oelmuetz, which temporarily ended their jockeying for advantage in the German question when Prussia agreed to demobilize its army and to abandon its own schemes for unification. A diplomatic humiliation, in Frederick William IV’s view, was preferable to a risky war so shortly after the 1848 revolution. And even those Prussian nationalists like Bismarck, smarting at such a retreat before Austrian demands, felt that little could be done elsewhere until “the struggle for mastery in Germany” was finally settled.
普鲁士国内的政治争端因关于“德意志问题”的争论（即关于39个德意志邦最终联合的可能性以及达到这一目标的手段的争论）而更加复杂化了。因为这个争论的问题，不但可以预料会把普鲁士具有自由和民族主义思想的资产阶级从大部分保守分子中分离出来，而且它还涉及与德意志中部和南部诸邦微妙的谈判，而最重要的是，它又恢复了与奥地利哈布斯堡从1814年就撒克逊问题的激烈争吵以来的敌对行动。虽然普鲁士是从19世纪30年代起发展起来的日益重要的德意志关税同盟无可争辩的领袖（奥地利因受本国工业家的保护主义压力，未参加该同盟），但在这几十年中，政治优势一般掌握在维也纳手中。首先，腓特烈·威廉三世（1797～1840年在位）和腓特烈·威廉四世（1840～1861年在位）对与奥地利哈布斯堡冲突后果的担心，更甚于梅特涅及其继任者施瓦岑堡对与其北方邻国冲突的后果的担心。其次，奥地利主持了法兰克福的德意志邦联会议，它获得了许多较小的德意志邦的同情，更不用说普鲁士的旧保守分子的同情了；它看来是一个无可争辩的欧洲大国，而普鲁士不过是一个德意志大国。维也纳具有更大影响的最值得注意的迹象，体现在1850年的《奥尔米茨协定》上，它暂时结束了它们对德意志问题优势的争夺，当时普鲁士同意遣散其军队并放弃它自己的统一计划。腓特烈·威廉四世认为，外交上的屈辱比一场在1848年革命以后不久的冒风险的战争更为可取，甚至一些像俾斯麦那样的民族主义者，虽然对在奥地利的要求面前后退深感刺痛，但也感到在“争霸德意志的斗争”最终解决之前，不妨少有作为。
One quite vital factor in Frederick William’s submission at Oelmuetz had been the knowledge that the Russian czar supported Austria’s case in the “German question. ” Throughout the entire period from 1812 until 1871, in fact, Berlin took pains to avoid provoking the military colossus to the east. Ideological and dynastic reasons certainly helped to justify such obsequiousness, but they did not fully conceal Prussia’s continued sense of inferiority, which the Russian acquisition of most of Congress Poland in 1814 had simply accentuated. Expressions of disapproval by St. Petersburg over any moves toward liberalization in Prussia, Czar Nicholas I’s wellknown conviction that German unification was Utopian nonsense (especially if it was to come about, as was attempted in 1848, by a radical Frankfurt assembly offering an emperor’s crown to the Prussian king!), and Russia’s support of Austria before Oelmuetz were all manifestations of this overshadowing foreign influence. It was scarcely surprising, therefore, that the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854 found the Prussian government desperately eager to stay neutral, fearing the consequences of going to war against Russia even while it worried at losing the respect of Austria and the western powers. Given its circumstances, Prussia’s position was logical, but, because the British and Austrians disliked Berlin’s “wavering” policy, Prussian diplomats were not allowed to join the other delegates at the Congress of Paris (1856) until some way into the proceedings. Symbolically, then, it was still being treated as a marginal participant.
使腓特烈·威廉在奥尔米茨屈服的一个很重要的因素是，他知道俄国的沙皇支持奥地利在“德意志问题”上的方案。从1812年直至1871年的整个时期，柏林尽力避免激怒这个东方军事巨人。思想意识和力量上的原因当然有助于为这种奉承的态度进行辩解，但却不能完全掩盖普鲁士继续存在的自卑感。俄国在1814年维也纳会议上获得了大部分波兰，更加深了普鲁士的这种自卑感。圣彼得堡对普鲁士的任何自由化行动表现出不赞成的态度。沙皇尼古拉一世认为，德意志统一是一个愚蠢的空想（特别是像1848年的企图那样，由一个把皇冠送给普鲁士国王的激进的法兰克福议会来统一）。这个著名见解，以及俄国在奥尔米茨前对奥地利的支持，都显示了这种强大的国际影响。因此，在1854年克里米亚战争爆发时，人们看到普鲁士政府想方设法保持中立的情况就不会惊奇了，因为它害怕与俄国交战的后果，虽然它同时也担心会失去奥地利和西方列强的尊敬。根据普鲁士的处境，它的立场是合乎逻辑的；但是，由于英国人和奥地利人不喜欢柏林“动摇的政策”，普鲁士的外交人员没有获准与其他代表团一起参加1856年的巴黎会议，直到进行了一段会议议程后才介入。从象征意义上说，它当时仍被视为一个无关紧要的与会国。
In other areas, too—although less persistently—Prussia found itself constrained by foreign powers. Palmerston’s denunciations of the Prussian army’s move into Schleswig-Holstein in 1848 was the least worrying. Much more disturbing was the potential French threat to the Rhineland, in 1830, again in 1840, and finally in the 1860s. All those periods of tension merely confirmed what the quarrels with Vienna and occasional growls from St. Petersburg already suggested: that Prussia in the first half of the nineteenth century was the least of the Great Powers, disadvantaged by geography, overshadowed by powerful neighbors, distracted by internal and inner- German problems, and quite incapable of playing a larger role in international affairs. This seems, perhaps, too harsh a judgment in the light of Prussia’s various strengths: its educational system, from the parish schools to the universities, was second to none in Europe; its administrative system was reasonably efficient; and its army and its formidable general staff were early in studying reforms in both tactics and strategy, especially in the military implications of “railways and rifles. ”39 But the point was that this potential could not be utilized until the internal-political crisis between liberals and conservatives was overcome, until there was firm leadership at the top, in place of Frederick William IV’s vacillations, and until Prussia’s industrial base had been developed. Only after 1860, therefore, could the Hohenzollern state emerge from its near-second-class status.
在其他领域中，普鲁士也发现自己受制于别的大国，虽然为时较短。巴麦尊勋爵谴责普鲁士军队进入石勒苏益格-荷尔斯泰因之举是使普鲁士最为担心的事，而使人更为不安的是法国在1830年，又在1840年，最后在19世纪60年代，对莱茵兰的潜在威胁。所有这些紧张时期，不过是证实了与维也纳的争吵和从圣彼得堡偶尔发出的咆哮声给人的联想：在19世纪的上半叶，普鲁士在大国中是最差的，它在地理上处于不利地位，被强邻所超过，被国内的和德意志内部的问题所困扰，根本不可能在国际事务中起更大的作用。鉴于普鲁士在各个方面的力量，看来这个评价也许过于苛刻，因为它的教育制度——从教区学校直到大学——在欧洲是无与伦比的；它的行政制度相当有效率；它的军队和令人生畏的总参谋部，很早就在研究战术和战略的改革，特别是“铁路和来复枪”的军事含意的改革。但事实是，要到自由主义者和保守分子之间的内部政治危机得到克服，上层有一个坚定的领导来代替摇摆不定的腓特烈·威廉四世，以及普鲁士的工业基础得到发展以后，这种潜力才能被利用。因此，只有到1860年以后，这个霍亨索伦王朝的国家才能从近乎二流大国的地位脱颖而出。
Yet, as with many other things in life, strategical weakness is relative; and, compared with the Habsburg Empire to the south, Prussia’s problems were perhaps not so daunting. If the period 1648–1815 had seen the empire “rising” and “asserting itself,”40 that expansion had not eliminated the difficulties under which Vienna labored as it strove to carry out a Great Power role. On the contrary, the settlement of 1815 compounded these difficulties, at least in the longer term. For example, the very fact that the Austrians had fought so frequently against Napoleon and emerged on the winning side meant that they required “compensations” in the general shuffling of boundaries which occurred during the negotiations of 1814– 1815; and although the Habsburgs wisely agreed to withdraw from the southern Netherlands, southwestern Germany (the Vorlande), and parts of Poland, this was balanced by their large-scale expansion in Italy and by the assertion of their leading role in the newly created German Federation.
与生活中的许多其他事物一样，战略上的弱点是相对的。与南面的奥地利哈布斯堡相比，普鲁士的问题也许不那么令人气馁。如果说在1648～1815年人们看到了奥地利哈布斯堡的“兴起”和“把自己树立起来”，但是这种扩张并没有消除维也纳在致力于发挥大国作用时努力要克服的困难。而1815年的解决办法把这些困难做了调和，至少从较长期的角度看是如此。例如，奥地利人常与拿破仑交战并取得胜利，这个事实意味着1814～1815年谈判期间进行的边界总调整中，他们需要“补偿”；虽然奥地利人明智地同意从荷兰南部、德意志西南部和波兰部分地区撤出，却在意大利的大规模扩张和在新建立的德意志邦联树立的领导作用中取得了补偿。
Given the general theory of the European equilibrium and especially those versions preferred by British commentators as well as by Metternich himself—this reestablishment of Austrian power was commendable. The Habsburg Empire, sprawled across Europe from the northern-Italian plain to Galicia, would act as the central fulcrum to the balance, checking French ambitions in western Europe and in Italy, preserving the status quo in Germany against both the “greater-German” nationalists and the Prussian expansionists, and posing a barrier to Russian penetration of the Balkans. It was true that each of these tasks was supported by one or more of the other Great Powers, depending upon the context; but the Habsburg Empire was vital to the functioning of this complex five-sided checkmate, if only because it seemed to have the greatest interest of all in freezing the 1815 settlement —whereas France, Prussia, and Russia, sooner or later, wanted some changes, while the British, seeing fewer and fewer strategical and ideological reasons to support Metternich after the 1820s, were consequently less willing to aid Austria’s efforts to maintain all aspects of the existing order. In the view of certain historians, indeed, the general peace which prevailed in Europe for decades after 1815 was due chiefly to the position and functions of the Habsburg Empire. When, therefore, it could gain no military support from the other powers to preserve the status quo in Italy and Germany in the 1860s, it was driven out of those two theaters; and when, after 1900, its own survival was in doubt, a great war of succession—with fateful implications for the European balance—was inevitable. 41
根据欧洲协调的总的理论，特别是根据英国评论家和梅特涅本人偏爱的那些理论形式，奥地利力量的重振是值得称道的。奥地利哈布斯堡横跨欧洲，从意大利北部平原直至加利西亚，它充当着平衡的中心支点，在西欧和意大利抑制了法国的野心，与“大德意志”民主主义者和普鲁士扩张主义者针锋相对而维持了德意志的现状，构成了阻止俄国对巴尔干半岛渗透的屏障。上述每一项任务的确得到了至少一个大国的支持（这要取决于各项任务的背景）；奥地利哈布斯堡在这盘复杂的、5人下的围攻棋王的棋局中的作用是至关重要的，这是因为，它似乎是冻结1815年解决办法的最大获益国，而法国、普鲁士和俄国迟早会要求某些变动，英国人则在19世纪20年代以后越来越感到在战略上和思想意识上没有理由去支持梅特涅，最后就不大愿意援助奥地利维持现存秩序的一切努力了。在某些历史学家看来，1815年以后几十年在欧洲出现的全面和平，的确主要是由于奥地利哈布斯堡的地位和作用的缘故。所以在19世纪60年代，当它不能再从其他大国取得军事支持去维持意大利和德意志的现状时，它就被赶出了那两个战场。1900年以后，当它自己的生存都成问题时，一场继承的大战——对欧洲的平衡具有至关重要的意义——就不可避免了。
So long as the conservative powers in Europe were united in preserving the status quo—against French resurgence, or the “revolution” generally—this Habsburg weakness was concealed. By appealing to the ideological solidarity of the Holy Alliance, Metternich could usually be assured of the support of Russia and Prussia, which in turn allowed him a free hand to arrange the interventions against any liberal stirrings—whether by sending Austrian troops to put down the Naples insurrection of 1821, or by permitting the French military action in Spain to support the Bourbon regime, or by orchestrating the imposition of the reactionary Carlsbad Decrees (1819) upon the members of the German Federation. In much the same way, the Habsburg Empire’s relations with St. Petersburg and Berlin benefited from their shared interest in suppressing Polish nationalism, which for the Russian government was a far more vital issue than the occasional disagreements over Greece or the Straits; the joint suppression of the Polish revolt in Galicia and Austria’s incorporation of the Free City of Kracow in 1846 with the concurrence of Russia and Prussia showed the advantages which could be gained from such monarchical solidarity.
只要保守的欧洲大国在维持原状时联合起来反对法国的复苏，或者总的说来反对“革命”，奥地利哈布斯堡的这一弱点就可以得到掩盖。通过呼吁神圣同盟思想上的团结一致，梅特涅通常能得到俄国和普鲁士支持的保证，两国转而容许他放手安排对任何自由主义者骚乱的干涉——不论是通过派奥地利部队去镇压1821年的那不勒斯起义，还是容许法国在西班牙采取支持波旁政权的军事行动，或是通过特意的安排，把反动的卡尔斯巴德法令（1819年）硬塞给德意志邦联的成员。与上述情况十分相似，奥地利哈布斯堡与圣彼得堡和柏林的关系还得益于镇压波兰民族主义的共同的利益，对俄国政府来说，波兰民族主义是远比在希腊或海峡问题上的分歧更为重要的问题。在加利西亚对波兰叛乱的联合镇压，1846年得到俄国和普鲁士的同意，奥地利合并克拉科夫的行动，都说明从君主的团结中取得了利益。
Over the longer term, however, this Metternichian strategy was deeply flawed. A radical social revolution could fairly easily be kept in check in nineteenth-century Europe; whenever one occurred (1830, 1848, the 1871 Commune), the frightened middle classes defected to the side of “law and order. ” But the widespread ideas and movements in favor of national self-determination, stimulated by the French Revolution and the various wars of liberation earlier in the century, could not be suppressed forever; and Metternich’s attempts to crush independence movements steadily exhausted the Habsburg Empire. By resolutely opposing any stirrings of national independence, Austria quickly lost the sympathy of its old ally, Britain. Its repeated use of military force in Italy provoked a reaction among all classes against their Habsburg “jailor,” which in turn was to play into the hands of Napoleon III a few decades later, when that ambitious French monarch was able to help Cavour in driving the Austrians out of northern Italy. In the same way, the Habsburg Empire’s unwillingness to join the Zollverein for economic reasons and the constitutionalgeographical impossibility of its becoming part of a “greater Germany” disappointed many German nationalists, who then began to look to Prussia for leadership. Even the czarist regime, which generally supported Vienna’s efforts to crush revolutions, occasionally found it easier than Austria to deal with national questions: witness Alexander I’s policy, in cooperation with the British, of supporting Greek independence during the late 1820s despite all Metternich’s counterarguments.
但是从长期看，这个梅特涅式的战略有严重的缺陷。在19世纪的欧洲，一场激进的社会革命能相当容易地被抑制；每当革命发生时（1830年革命、1848年革命和1871年巴黎公社），惊慌失措的中产阶级就背叛它而倒向“法律和秩序”一边。但是，被这个世纪更早期的法国革命和形形色色的解放战争所激励的那些广为传播的赞成民族自决的思想和运动，却不能永远被压制；梅特涅瓦解独立运动的种种企图，不断地消耗着奥地利哈布斯堡的元气。由于坚决反对任何民族独立的骚乱，奥地利很快就失去了其老盟友——英国的同情。它在意大利再三使用武力的行动，激起了所有阶级对哈布斯堡“狱吏”的反抗，这转而对几十年以后的拿破仑三世有利，当时那个野心勃勃的君主能够帮助加富尔[9]把奥地利人赶出北意大利。同样，奥地利哈布斯堡出于经济原因不愿参加德意志关税同盟，而宪法和地理的限制又使它不可能成为“大德意志”的一部分，这些情况使许多德意志民族主义者灰心丧气，于是他们开始谋求普鲁士的领导。甚至连通常支持维也纳镇压革命的沙皇政权，偶尔也发现自己比奥地利更容易对付民族革命：在19世纪20年代，亚历山大一世与英国合作，不顾梅特涅的一切反对去支持希腊独立的政策便是证明。
The fact was that in an age of increasing national consciousness, the Habsburg Empire looked ever more of an anachronism. In each of the other Great Powers, it has been pointed out,
事实是，在一个民族日益觉醒的时代，奥地利哈布斯堡表现得越发不合时宜了。有人已经指出：
a majority of the citizenry shared a common language and religion. At least 90 percent of Frenchmen spoke French and the same proportion belonged at least nominally to the Catholic Church. More than eight in every ten Prussians were German (the rest were mostly Poles) and of the Germans 70 percent were Protestant. The Tsar’s seventy million subjects included some notable minorities (five million Poles, three and a half million Finns, Ests, Letts and Latvians, and three million assorted Caucasians), but that still left fifty millions who were both Russian and Orthodox. And the inhabitants of the British Isles were 90 percent English-speaking and 70 percent Protestant. Countries like this needed little holding together; they had an intrinsic cohesion. By contrast the Austrian Emperor ruled an ethnic mishmash that must have made him groan every time he thought about it. He and eight million of his subjects were German, but twice as many were Slavs of one sort or another (Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Ruthenians, Slovenes, Croats and Serbs), five million were Hungarians, five million Italians and two million Romanians. What sort of nation did that make? The answer is none at all. 42
在其他的大国中，大部分公民共操同一语言，共信同一宗教。至少90%的法国人讲法语，同样比率的法国人至少在名义上信仰天主教。10个普鲁士人中有8个以上是德意志人（其余大部分为波兰人），而在德意志人中，70%是新教徒。沙皇的7000万臣民尽管包括了几个值得注意的少数民族（500万波兰人，350万芬兰人、埃斯特人、列特人和拉脱维亚人，300万混杂的高加索人），但仍有5000万人既是俄罗斯人，又是东正教徒。英国的居民中90%操英语，70%为新教徒。像这样的国家是不需要花多大力量去捏合的，它们具有内在的凝聚力。对比之下，奥地利皇帝统治的是一个民族大杂烩，每想到这种情况，他就必定会呻吟不安。他与其800万臣民是德意志人，但比这多一倍的人是这种或那种斯拉夫人（捷克人、斯洛伐克人、波兰人、罗塞尼亚人、斯洛文尼亚人、克罗地亚人、塞尔维亚人），还有500万匈牙利人、500万意大利人和200万罗马尼亚人。这会成为一个什么样的国家？根本没有答案。
The Habsburg army, regarded as “one of the most important, if not the most important, single institutions” in the empire, reflected this ethnic diversity. “In 1865 [that is, the year before the decisive clash with Prussia for mastery of Germany], the army had 128,286 Germans, 96,300 Czechs and Slovaks, 52,700 Italians, 22,700 Slovenes, 20,700 Rumanians, 19,000 Serbs, 50,100 Ruthenes, 37,700 Poles, 32,500 Magyars, 27,600 Croats, and 5,100 men of other nationalities on its muster roles. ”43 Although this made the army almost as colorful and variegated as the British-Indian regiments under the Raj, it also created all sorts of disadvantages when compared with the much more homogeneous French or Prussian armies.
被视为帝国中“即使不是唯一且最重要的建制，也是最重要的建制之一的”哈布斯堡军队，也反映了这种民族的多样性。“在1865年（即为称霸德意志而与普鲁士进行一场决定性冲突的前一年），在其军队的花名册上有128286名德意志人、96300名捷克人和斯洛伐克人、52700名意大利人、22700名斯洛文尼亚人、20700名罗马尼亚人、19000名塞尔维亚人、50100名罗塞尼亚人、37700名波兰人、32500名马扎尔人、27600名克罗地亚人和5100名其他民族。”虽然这样组成的军队几乎与印度王公下辖的英国—印度部队一样具有多种肤色和多样化，但它与同源性高得多的法国和普鲁士军队相比，无疑具有众多不利之处。
This potential military weakness was compounded by the lack of adequate funding, which was due partly to the difficulties of raising taxes in the empire, but chiefly caused by the meagerness of its commercial and industrial base. Although historians now speak of “the economic rise of the Habsburg Empire”44 in the period 1760–1914, the fact is that during the first half of the nineteenth century industrialization occurred only in certain western regions, such as Bohemia, the Alpine lands, and around Vienna itself, whereas the greater part of the empire remained relatively untouched. While Austria itself advanced, therefore, the empire as a whole fell behind Britain, France, and Prussia in terms of per capita industrialization, iron and steel production, steam-power capacities, and so on.
这种潜在的弱点又伴随着缺乏足够的资金这一问题，这部分是由于帝国内征税的困难，但主要是由它微不足道的工商业基础引起的。虽然现在历史学家谈论1760～1914年“奥地利哈布斯堡的经济振兴”，但实际情况是，在19世纪的上半叶，工业化只在某些西部区域——如波希米亚、阿尔卑斯山脉各地、维也纳周围——出现，而帝国的较大部分地区相比之下依然没有触动。因此奥地利本身进步了，但作为整体，帝国在按人口计算的工业化、钢铁生产和蒸汽动力能量等方面，却落后于英国、法国和普鲁士。
What was more, the costs of the French wars “had left the empire financially exhausted, burdened with a heavy public debt and a mass of depreciated paper money,”45 which virtually compelled the government to keep military spending to a minimum. In 1830 the army was allocated the equivalent of only 23 percent of the total revenues (down from 50 percent in 1817), and by 1848 that share had sunk to 20 percent. When crises occurred, as in 1848–1849,1854–1855,1859–1860, and 1864, extraordinary increases in military spending were authorized; but they were never enough to bring the army up to anywhere like full strength, and they were just as swiftly reduced when the crisis was perceived to be over. For example, the military budget was 179 million florins in 1860, dropped to 118 million by 1863, rose to 155 million in the 1864 conflict with Denmark, and was drastically cut back to 96 million in 1865—again, just a year before the war with Prussia. None of these totals kept pace with the military budgets of France, Britain, and Russia, or (a little later) that of Prussia; and since the Austrian military administration was regarded as corrupt and inefficient even by mid-nineteenth-century standards, the monies which were allocated were not very well spent. In sum, the armed strength of the Habsburg Empire in no way corresponded to the wars it might be called upon to fight. 46
更有甚者，法国战争的费用“在财政上耗尽了帝国的元气，使奥地利背上了大量公债和贬值的纸币的包袱”，这实际上迫使政府把军费开支保持在最低水平上。1830年，军队的拨款只相当于总岁入的23%（1817年为50%），到1848年，其份额已下降到20%。当危机出现时（如在1848～1849年、1854～1855年、1859～1860年和1864年），增拨的军费才得到批准，但其数量从来不足以使军队达到满员的程度，而当看到危机行将结束时，增拨款项很快就被削减，例如，1860年的军事预算为1.79亿弗罗林，到1863年下降到1.18亿，在1864年与丹麦冲突时增至1.55亿，但在1865年被大幅度地削减到9600万——这是与普鲁士交战的前一年。以上这些总数都跟不上法国、英国和俄国的军事预算，或者稍后的普鲁士军事预算。奥地利的军事行政即使用19世纪中期的标准来衡量，也是腐败无能的，由于这个缘故，所拨款项的使用不是很得当。总之，奥地利哈布斯堡的武装部队根本不能承担它应召去进行的战争。
All this is not to antedate the demise of the empire. Its staying power, as many historians have remarked, was quite extraordinary: having survived the Reformation, the Turks, and the French Revolution, it also proved capable of weathering the events of 1848–1849, the defeat of 1866, and, until the very last stages, the strains of the First World War. While its weaknesses, were evident, it also possessed strengths. The monarchy commanded the loyalty not only of the ethnic German subjects but also of many aristocrats and “service” families in the non- German lands; its rule, say, in Poland was fairly benign compared with the Russian and Prussian administrations. Furthermore, the complex, multinational character of the empire, with its array of local rivalries, permitted a certain amount of divide et impera from the center, as its careful use of the army demonstrated: Hungarian regiments were stationed chiefly in Italy and Austria and Italian regiments in Hungary, half of the Hussar regiments were stationed abroad, and so on. 47
这一切并不会使帝国提前衰亡，就如同许多历史学家所说，它的持久力是很不寻常的：在基督教改革运动、土耳其人和法国革命的冲击下生存下来后，它还能度过1848～1849年的事件和1866年的战败，直到其最后阶段，即在第一次世界大战的严峻形势下，才最终垮台。虽然它的弱点是明显的，但不能无视它的实力。这个君主国不但获得了德意志臣民的效忠，而且也得到过非德意志国土的许多贵族和“受庇护的”家族的忠诚。比如说，与俄国及普鲁士政府相比，它在波兰的统治是相当宽厚的。此外，帝国复杂的、多民族的特点，再加上大量的地方争端，使它能够从中央进行一定程度分而治之的统治，这可以从它谨慎地使用军队上看出：匈牙利部队主要驻扎在意大利和奥地利，意大利部队驻扎在匈牙利，一半的轻骑兵团驻扎于国外，等等。
Finally, it possessed the negative advantage that none of the other Great Powers— even when engaged in hostilities with the Habsburg Empire—knew what to put in its place. Czar Nicholas I might resent Austrian pretensions in the Balkans, but he was willing enough to lend an army to help crush the Hungarian revolution of 1848; France might intrigue to drive the Habsburgs out of Italy, but Napoleon III also knew that Vienna could be a useful future ally against Prussia or Russia; and Bismarck, though determined to expel all Austrian influence from Germany, was keen to preserve the Habsburg Empire as soon as it capitulated in 1866. As long as that situation existed, the Empire would survive—on sufferance.
最后，它具有一种其他大国——即使在与奥地利哈布斯堡交战时——不知道用什么来取代的消极优势。沙皇尼古拉一世可能对奥地利在巴尔干半岛的要求不满，但他十分愿意出兵帮助粉碎1848年的匈牙利革命；法国可能搞阴谋把哈布斯堡人赶出意大利，但拿破仑三世也知道维也纳可能是未来反对普鲁士或俄国的有用的盟友；而俾斯麦虽然决意在德意志排除奥地利的影响，可是一旦奥地利哈布斯堡在1866年投降，他就又热衷于把它保存下来了。只要某种状态依然存在，帝国就能幸存——当然是经过默许的。
Despite its losses during the Napoleonic War, the position of France in the halfcentury following 1815 was significantly better than that of either Prussia or the Habsburg Empire in many respects. 48 Its national income was much larger, and capital was more readily available; its population was far bigger than Prussia’s and more homogeneous than the Habsburg Empire’s; it could more easily afford a large army, and could pay for a considerable navy as well. Nonetheless, it is treated here as a “middle power” simply because strategical, diplomatic, and economic circumstances all combined to prevent France from concentrating its resources and gaining a decisive lead in any particular sphere.
尽管在拿破仑战争中失利，但在1815年以后的半个世纪里，法国的地位在许多方面大大优于普鲁士或奥地利哈布斯堡。它的国民收入要多得多，资本更容易取得；它的人口远远超过普鲁士，比奥地利哈布斯堡更具同质性；它能够不太费劲地供养一支庞大的陆军，还能维持一支相当大的海军。可是，它在这里被视为“中等大国”，完全是因为战略、外交和经济几方面的情况合在一起，使法国不能集中其资源以在任何领域中取得决定性的领导地位。
The overriding fact about the years 1814–1815, at the power-political level, was that all of the other great states had shown themselves determined to prevent French attempts to maintain a hegemony over Europe; and not only were London, Vienna, Berlin, and St. Petersburg willing to compose their quarrels on other issues (e. g. , Saxony) in order to defeat Napoleon’s final bid, but they were also intent upon erecting a postwar system to block France off in the future from its traditional routes of expansion. Thus, while Prussia acted as guardian to the Rhineland, Austria strengthened its position in northern Italy, and British influence was expanded in the Iberian peninsula; behind all this lay a large Russian army, ready to move across Europe in defense of the 1815 settlement. In consequence, however, much Frenchmen of all parties might urge a policy of “recovery,”49 it was plain that no dramatic improvement Was possible. The best that could be achieved was, on the one hand, the recognition that France was an equal partner in the European Concert, and on the other, the restoration of French political influence in neighboring regions alongside that of the existing powers. Yet even when the French could achieve parity with, say, the British in the Iberian Peninsula and return to playing a major role in the Levant, they always had to be wary of provoking another coalition against them. Any move by France into the Low Countries, as it became clear in the 1820s and 1830s, instinctively produced an Anglo-Prussian alliance which was too strong to combat.
1814和1815年在强权政治方面一个压倒一切的事实是，其他大国已决心阻止法国在欧洲维持霸权的种种企图。伦敦、维也纳、柏林和圣彼得堡不但愿意平息它们在其他纠纷（例如撒克逊问题）中的争吵，以便击败拿破仑的孤注一掷，而且它们还打算建立一个战后体制，以便在将来封锁法国进行扩张的传统路线。这样，当普鲁士充当莱茵兰的保护人时，奥地利加强了它在北意大利的地位；英国的势力在伊比利亚半岛得到了扩张；在这一切的背后则有一支庞大的俄国陆军。为了保卫1815年协议，俄国随时都会横越欧洲。结果是，各党各派的大部分法国人想力促采取一项“复兴”政策，但效果显然不可能很大。能取得的最佳结果是，一方面，法国作为欧洲协调中一个平起平坐的伙伴的地位得到承认；另一方面，可与现存的列强一起，在邻近区域恢复法国的政治势力。可是，即使法国人能够，比如说，在伊比利亚半岛取得与英国人平等的地位，并且重新在地中海东部发挥重要作用，他们也不得不提防激起另一个反对他们的联盟。在19世纪20和30年代，事情变得相当清楚，法国进入低地国家的任何行动，本能地会触发一种强大得难以抗衡的英普联盟。
The other card available to Paris was to establish close relations with one of the Great Powers, which could then be exploited to secure French aims. 50 Given the latent rivalries between the other states and the considerable advantages a French alliance could offer (money, troops, weapons), this was a plausible assumption; yet it was flawed in three respects. First, the other power might be able to exploit the French more than France could exploit it—as Metternich did in the mid-1830s, when he entertained French overtures simply to divide London and Paris. Secondly, the changes of regime which occurred in France in these decades inevitably affected diplomatic relations in a period where ideology played so large a role. For example, the long-felt hopes of an alliance with Russia crashed with the coming of the 1830 revolution in France. Finally, there remained the insuperable problem that while several of the other powers wanted to cooperate with France at certain times, none of them in this period desired a change in the status quo: that is, they offered the French only diplomatic friendship, not the promise of territorial gain. Not until after the Crimean War was there any widespread sentiment outside France for a reordering of the 1815 boundaries.
巴黎另一张可以打出的牌是与大国之一建立亲密的关系，它可以被利用来达到法国的目的。由于其他国家之间潜在的对立，以及与法国结盟有巨大的利益（金钱、军队和武器），这似乎是一个合理的设想，可是它在三个方面有缺陷。首先，另一个强国完全可以利用法国更甚于法国利用它——如梅特涅在19世纪30年代中期的作为那样，当时他接受法国的建议，只是为了分化伦敦和巴黎。其次，这几十年法国政体的更替，不可避免地影响了在一个意识形态起很大作用的时期的对外关系。例如，随着1830年法国革命的来临，长期怀有的与俄国结盟的希望破灭了。最后，还存在一个不能解决的问题——虽然有其他几个强国在一定的时候愿与法国合作，但在这个时期它们谁也不希望改变现状，也就是说，它们只给法国外交友谊，而不给领土要求的承诺。直到克里米亚战争以后，在法国之外才广泛出现了要求重新划定1815年边界的情绪。
These obstacles might have appeared less formidable had France been as strong vis-à-vis the rest of Europe as it had been under Louis XIV at the height of his power, or under Napoleon at the height of his. But the fact was that France after 1815 was not a particularly dynamic country. Perhaps as many as 1. 5 million Frenchmen had died in the wars of 1793–1815,51 and, more significant still, the French population increase was slower than that of any other Great Power throughout the nineteenth century. Not only had that lengthy conflict distorted the French economy in the various ways mentioned above (see pp. 131–33 above), but the coming of peace exposed it to the commercial challenge of its great British rival. “The cardinal fact for most French producers after 1815 was the existence of an overwhelmingly dominant and powerful industrial producer not only as their nearest neighbor but as a mighty force in all foreign markets and sometimes even in their own heavily protected domestic market. ”52 This lack of competitiveness, the existing disincentives within France to modernize (e. g. , small size of agricultural holdings, poor communications, essentially local markets, absence of cheap, readily available coal), and the loss of any stimulus from overseas markets meant that between 1815 and 1850 its rate of industrial growth was considerably less than Britain’s. At the beginning of the century, the latter’s manufacturing output was level with France’s; by 1830 it was 182. 5 percent of France’s; and by 1860 that had risen to 251 percent. 53 Moreover, even when France’s rate of railway construction and general industrialization began to quicken in the second half of the nineteenth century, it found to its alarm that Germany was growing even faster.
如果法国在对抗欧洲其余部分时能像路易十四在其鼎盛时期，或像拿破仑在其鼎盛时期那样强大，这些障碍也许会表现得不那么可怕。但事实是，法国在1815年以后并不是特别有实力的国家。多达150万的法国人死于1792～1815年的几次战争，而更重要的是，在整个19世纪，法国的人口增长比任何大国都要缓慢。不但长期的冲突以前面提到的各种方式使法国的经济失调，而且和平的来临使它遭受到强大的英国对手的商业挑战。“对1815年以后的大部分生产者来说，基本的事实是，存在着一个作为他们最近的邻国，而且作为在所有国外市场有时甚至在严加保护的国内市场占压倒优势的强大的工业生产者。”法国缺乏竞争性，国内存在着抑制现代化的因素（例如小规模的农业资产、不发达的交通、基本上是地区性的市场、缺乏廉价和容易取得的煤），它也丧失了来自海外市场的刺激，这些情况意味着在1815～1850年间，它的工业增长率比英国低得多。在19世纪初期，英国的制造业产量与法国持平；但1830年，它是法国的182.5%；到1860年，又拉大到251%。此外，甚至在19世纪后半期，当法国的铁路建设和总的工业化速度开始加快时，它吃惊地发现，德意志的发展比它更快。
Yet it is now no longer so clear to historians that France’s economy during this century should be airily dismissed as “backward” or “disappointing”; in many respects, the path taken by Frenchmen toward national prosperity was just as logical as the quite different route taken by the British. 54 The social horrors of the Industrial Revolution were less widespread in France; yet by concentration upon high-quality rather than mass-produced goods, the value per capita added to each manufacture was substantially greater. If the French on the whole did not invest domestically in large-scale industrial enterprises, this was often a matter of calculation rather than a sign of poverty or retardation. There was, in fact, considerable surplus capital in the country, much of which went into industrial investments elsewhere in Europe. 55 French governments were not likely to be embarrassed by a shortage of funds, and there was investment in munitions and in metallurgical processes related to the armed forces. It was French inventors who produced the shell gun under General Paixhans, the “epoch-making ship designs” of the Napoleon and La Gloire, and the Minié bullet and rifling. 56
而这个世纪法国的经济被人轻率地贬低为“落后”和“令人失望”的，这令现在的历史学家也弄不明白了。在许多方面，法国人走向民族繁荣的道路，完全与英国人所采取的另一条迥然不同的路线一样合乎逻辑。产业革命所产生的社会恐惧在法国不那么普遍；可是通过把力量集中在高质量的而不是大量生产的货物上，每个制造业按人口计算的产值大大地增加了。法国人总的说来没有在国内向大规模的工业企业投资，但这常常是计算得失的事，并不是贫困和停滞的迹象。事实上，法国国内有大量剩余资本，其中大部分在欧洲其他地方进行工业投资。法国政府不可能被资金短缺的问题所困扰，它在军火业和与武装部队有关的冶炼加工业中有投资。法国的发明家在佩克斯昂将军领导下生产了平射炮，他们进行了“拿破仑号”和“光荣号”的“划时代的造船设计”，还生产了米尼埃子弹和有膛线的步枪。
Nevertheless, the fact remains that France’s relative power was being eroded in economic terms as well as in other respects. While France was, to repeat, greater than Prussia or the Habsburg Empire, there was no sphere in which it was the decisive leader, as it had been a century earlier. Its army was large, but second in numbers to Russia’s. Its fleet, erratically supported by successive French administrations, was usually second in size to the Royal Navy—but the gap between them was enormous. In terms of manufacturing output and national product, France was falling behind its trail-blazing neighbor. Its launching of La Gloire was swiftly eclipsed by the Royal Navy’s H. M. S. Warrior, just as its field artillery fell behind Krupp’s newer designs. It did play a role outside Europe, but again its possessions and influence were far less extensive than Britain’s.
尽管如此，事实依然是，从经济角度以及其他方面看，法国的相对力量正在减弱。再重复一遍，虽然法国大于普鲁士或奥地利哈布斯堡，但它再也不能像一个世纪以前那样，在各领域中担任有决定意义的领导。它的陆军是庞大的，但数量少于俄国。它的不稳定地受法国历届政府支持的海军，一般地说仅次于英国皇家海军——但两者之间的差距是巨大的。从制成品产量和国民产值看，法国落在其有开创精神的邻国后面。“光荣号”的下水，很快因英国皇家军舰“勇士号”而黯然失色，就像它的野战炮落后于克虏伯新设计的大炮一样。它的确在欧洲以外发挥了作用，但它的领地和它的影响，远远没有英国广泛。
All this points to another acute problem which made difficult the measurement— and often the deployment—of France’s undoubted strength. It remained a classic hybrid power,57 frequently torn between its European and its non-European interests; and this in turn affected its diplomacy, which was already complicated enough by ideological and balance-of-power considerations. Was it more important to check Russia’s advance upon Constantinople than to block British pretensions in the Levant? Should it be trying to prize Austria out of Italy, or to challenge the Royal Navy in the English Channel? Should it encourage or oppose the early moves toward German unification? Given the pros and cons attached to each of these policies, it is not surprising that the French were often found ambivalent and hesitating, even when they were regarded as a full member of the Concert.
这一切说明了另一个难以衡量——也常常难以部署——法国的真正力量的尖锐问题。它依然是一个传统的、各种因素混杂的大国，常常在其欧洲的和非欧洲的利益之间进退维谷。这种情况转而影响了它已被意识形态和均势考虑弄得十分复杂的外交。阻止俄国向君士坦丁堡推进，比抑制英国在地中海东部地区的要求更重要吗？它应该设法把奥地利赶出意大利，还是在英吉利海峡去向皇家海军挑战？它应该鼓励还是反对统一德意志的早期行动？由于以上的每一项政策都有正反两方面的意见，所以看到以下的现象就不会惊奇了：人们常常发现法国人有矛盾心理，行动举棋不定，甚至在他们被视为欧洲协调不折不扣的成员之一时也是如此。
On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that the general circumstances which constrained France also enabled it to act as a check upon the other Great Powers. If this was especially the case under Napoleon III, it was also true, incipiently, even in the late 1820s. Simply because of its size, France’s recovery had implications in the Iberian and Italian peninsulas, in the Low Countries, and farther afield. Both the British and the Russian attempts to influence events in the Ottoman Empire needed to take France into account. It was France, much more than the wavering Habsburg Empire or even Britain, which posed the chief military check to Russia during the Crimean War. It was France which undermined the Austrian position in Italy, and it was chiefly France which, less dramatically, ensured that the British Empire did not have a complete monopoly of influence along the African and Chinese coasts. Finally, when the Austro-Prussian “struggle for mastery in Germany” rose to a peak, both rivals revealed their deep concern over what Napoleon III might or might not do. In sum, following its recovery after 1815 France during the decades following remained a considerable power, very active diplomatically, reasonably strong militarily, and better to have as a friend than as a rival—even if its own leaders were aware that it was no longer so dominant as in the previous two centuries.
但在另一方面，不要忘记那些制约法国的总的形势，反过来也使它能起到遏制其他大国的作用。如果说在拿破仑三世时期尤其是这样，那么在19世纪20年代晚期情况就已开始如此。仅仅靠它的面积，法国的复兴在伊比利亚半岛和意大利半岛，在低地国家，在更远的地方都有影响。英国人和俄国人试图影响奥斯曼的事态发展时，都需要把法国考虑进去。在克里米亚战争时期，法国远比动摇的奥地利哈布斯堡，甚至比英国，更构成了遏制俄国的军事力量。法国破坏了奥地利在意大利的地位。使英帝国不能在非洲和中国沿海拥有完全垄断势力的国家也是法国，虽然在这方面较少引人注目。最后，当奥地利和普鲁士“争霸德意志的斗争”达到最高潮时，斗争双方对拿破仑三世可能做的和可能不做的事情，都表示出深切的关心。总之，随着1815年以后法国的复兴，它在随之而来的几十年中依然是一个值得重视的强国，它在外交上很活跃，在军事上相当强，与它为敌不如与它为友——虽然它的领袖意识到，它再也不像前两个世纪那样占有支配地位了。