Why the Monroe Doctrine?
• Holy Alliance • Russia, Prussia, Austria • Concert of Europe after Congress of Vienna 1815 = restoration, reaction, return to tradition • Metternich = “sublime nonsense” • Czar Alexander I mystical, yet expansionist = Balkans, Persia • Castlereagh preferred “splendid isolation” • Troppeau 1820 adopted principle of intervention to put down revolutions, e.g. of the Carbonari (secret society of “charcoal-burners” in Italy, Spain, France, led by elite aristocrats like Gen. Pepe who sought to overthrow tyranny, such as in the Neapolitan revolt and the Spanish revolt that deposed Ferdinand VII) • Czar Alexander feared Decembrists in his army (young Russian officers that had been to Paris and learned how backward Russsia was) and feared revolt in Croatia and the Balkans • Verona 1820 – French army against Spanish Col. Riego • Verona 1822 – Metternich feared the rise of a Greece Empire led by Ypsilanti who had defeated the Turks • South American Republics • Clay’s speech March 24, 1818 – “We
