Rýnská krize v kontextu mezinárodních vztahů doby předbřeznové

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to use the Rhine Crisis of 1840 for reevaluating the traditional view of international relations during the Vormärz as a period when the Great Powers limited their self-serving ambitions with their alleged sense of an all-European responsibility, the period when the relations among the countries were founded upon the solid legal foundations laid by the Congress of Vienna, the period when the second-rate states willingly subsumed themselves to the leadership of the Great Powers. However, the course of the Rhine Crisis proves the contrary. And last but not at least, this paper attempts to introduce the Rhine Crisis to a Czech reader since this Crisis has never been analyzed in a Czech journal or book and, consequently, remains rather unknown in the Czech Republic.