International Relations

Abstract

International relations absorbed the greatest amount of government attention in the states of the period. This was both traditional and understandable. Dynastic and national prestige, essential both for a sense of purpose and as a lubricant of domestic obedience, were gained principally through international success, and governments could hope to achieve tangible results in diplomacy. The international situation was both dangerous and unstable. The fate of victims could be political extinction, as in the case of Poland when partitioned, and the duchy of Lorraine when annexed. Rulers and ministers were obliged to keep an anxious eye on other powers. Thus foreign relations entailed both opportunities and threats, and much depended on diplomatic abilities and military skills. The personal nature of monarchies was never more evident than in the direct, often autocratic way in which diplomacy was intended to function: foreign policy-making was an attribute of sovereigns. A disadvantage of this, so far as the stability of the international scene was concerned, was that personal idiosyncrasies and dynastic considerations tended to predominate. They undermined attempts to systematise international relations in terms of a balance of power.