Splendid Isolation.

After the Napoleon's near conquest of the entire world, Europe's power players felt it was necessary to instill a balance-of-power diplomacy. These countries could not afford another Napoleonic crisis to threaten their rule. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the British representative, Castlereagh, developed the policy of "splendid isolation." British diplomats followed proudly followed this policy in the years following the Congress, trying to maintain the balance of power in Europe. Without this British policy, Europe probably would not have experienced a one hundred year long period of…