ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 shows how the end of the 1840s turned out to be a decisive period for the (mal)functioning of the CCNR. With an international crisis concerning the Rhine and a democratic and technological revolution of steam shipping unfolding in its basin, it became uncertain whether the new Rhine regime would actually bring prosperity and security to all the inhabitants of its banks. The failed experiment of the CCNR to resolve a violent dispute between radical sailors and steam shipping companies redetermined the protection of the freedom of navigation, rather than the security of livelihood, as the main mandate of the CCNR. It also reconstituted the CCNR as an elite organisation that tried to depoliticise inter-riparian conflicts on the navigability of the Rhine by establishing an ad hoc Technical Commission consisting of hydraulic engineers.
