ABSTRACT

The Europe of the Holy Alliance, constructed at the Congress of Vienna, was the complete reverse of Napoleon's Europe. It was a Europe ruled by the three Eastern powers, Russia, Prussia, and Austria. There have been many frontiers between East and West in Europe, but almost all of them have run through the area of German settlement in Central Europe. The Europe of "Versailles," like Napoleon's Europe, meant the Rhine frontier for France, realized in the demilitarization of the left bank of the Rhine. The Rhine frontier was protected by the Westwall, or Siegfried line, as by a shield covering the back of a fighter. The demarcation line separating the Western and Eastern zones of occupation in Germany and Austria follows almost exactly the German-Slavic frontier of the early Middle Ages. The political axis swung sharply from north-south to west-east: the Rhine-Rome axis was replaced by a Rhine-Danube axis.