Essay and Reflection: On the ‘Old System’ and the ‘Diplomatic Revolution’ of the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

Eighteenth years been treated by a number of scholars to a systemic analysis, one that borrows ideas and idioms from the modern science of international relations. The approach has at times been very rewarding,1 and it accords with an understandable desire to search out the major themes of the period and to understand the dynamics of change. It also springs from a measure of irritation with traditional scholars whose accounts, drawing heavily on the archives, do not always appear to match modern preoccupations. The danger of such an approach, however, is that in moving away from the archives, accounts can be presented that would have surprised the statesmen of the period; moreover, the scholar has little to offer other than suggestions that can be as readily queried as asserted. A recent study of Austrian foreign policy in the eighteenth century concludes :