From Vienna to Tianjin: Eurasia builds a new order

... own. When revolutionary France refused to recognize the monarchies of Europe, war became inevitable. Napoleon’s empire, built on the energy of destruction, could not live in peace with regimes whose legitimacy it denied. But once the coalition of Russia, Austria, Britain and Prussia defeated him, they were able to reach agreement at the Congress of Vienna, because they did recognize one another’s right to exist. For a century thereafter, Europe’s balance of power rested on this shared acceptance ...