Small Wars in the Era of Big Peace, 1815–1849

This chapter charts the paradox in western Europe in the wake of Napoleon’s defeat in 1815. Strong states commanding veterans and military knowhow were experts at waging large-scale war. Yet the new climate of peaceful diplomacy banished large-scale war in western Europe until mid-century. Instead, localised revolutions, civil wars and imperial expansion coloured the general peace. This chapter thus explores the experience of small war beyond the metropolitan centres of power. It studies romanticised and political insurgencies against incumbent state power, especially the implosion of the Spanish American empire. Other factors include British and Dutch expansion in south-east Asia (Burma and Aceh), the small wars of liberalism and reaction in southern Europe in the early 1820s, the Belgian revolution and the advent of political volunteering in small European civil wars (especially in Iberia in the 1830s).