The Belle Époque: Nostalgia for Europe’s Zenith

The charm of the nineteenth century is epitomised by the character and culture of the Belle Époque, a period which represented the zenith of European power and influence. Lasting from 1871 till the outbreak of the Great War, it was last era in which European art and technological learning flourished.

The Belle Époque was the last point in time where all peoples of the world worshipped the customs and traditions of their ancestors – whether it be the peoples of Africa, the Americas, the Orient, or elsewhere.

The significance and scale of the psychological disruption cause by the Great War was, in part, due to this sudden transition from such an era into a time of internecine bloodthirsty warfare and cruelty among European peoples.

During the Belle Époque, the world experienced the benefits of modern industrial economies without their modern excesses, the benefits of technological innovation without its dark side, the wonders of international travel without migration. The West experienced an era of highly cultured learning where folkloristic scholarship and academia relating to both European nations themselves and the wider world flourished.

The competing nationalism of European states in this era is, by the outside observer, labelled the curse of the continent and determined to be its ultimate downfall. Such a claim neglects wholly the established understanding of the Concert of Europe, the balance of power in Europe and its cooperative nature. Never before in history, have a collection of powerful states agreed so such a formal, and refined form of international relations.

The Diplomatic Revolution of the 18th century perhaps embodies the traditional understanding of European politics – Frederick the Great’s invasion of Silesia and his alliance to Great Britain upset the balance of power such that the Austrian Empire allied itself to its hereditary enemy, the Kingdom of France, to maintain the stability of Europe.

European authors have long understood the unity and necessity of sticking together amidst adversity, and inter-state competition. Montesquieu and Voltaire wrote of Europe’s remarkable unity amidst the adversity between states, such that Montesquieu wrote ‘the state of things in Europe is that all the states depend on each other … Europe is a single state composed of several provinces.’

It is undeniable that the nineteenth century, and the Belle Époque in particular, represents the last point in time at which European politics functioned with a united purpose and intent, though colonial feuds continued, they were ultimately driven by the same interests, goals, and aspirations. The atomised interpretation of states in the modern world misrepresents the reality of European history.

Henry Kissinger once remarked that in the coming world of regionalised global politics, and the greatest hinderance to international stability was in fact the ascendant powers of the 21st centuries, particularly the U.S. and China, though applicable to India and in some respect Russia too, none of whom had ever participated in a balance of power system like the European system – one which he viewed as a necessity of the international system. Though Russia was often a spectator and sometimes participant in the grand concert of European politics, it’s Bolshevik legacy has disrupted its thought process and political culture significantly.

The Belle Époque and the nineteenth century as a whole was Europe’s last moment on the international stage before the forced curtain call of the Great War set in motion a period of destruction and rebuilding of Europe on faulty premises, whose consequences we now face in the modern age.