Europe in 1880

Europe’s political structure in 1880 had been given its shape by the Congress of Vienna, the wars of the middle decades of the century and the Congress of Berlin. ¹ The states which made it up can be classified in several ways, but there is much to be said for distinguishing those which had already existed in 1815 from those which had come into existence later. Such a division into ‘old’ and ‘new’ states is not merely chronological; it draws attention to a great difference between the Europe of Bismarck and that of Metternich. The new states were all organized on the basis of nationality.