The Congress of Vienna was a series of meetings involving
most of the European heads of state held in Vienna, the capital of the Austrian
empire, between September 1814 and 9 June 1815. The purpose of the Congress was
to redraw the map of Europe after years of chaos resulting from the Napoleonic
and French revolutionary wars (1792–1814). Its proceedings were initially
dominated by the four powers of the victorious allied coalition that had
defeated Napoleon. Britain was represented by foreign secretary Viscount
Castlereagh (Robert Stewart). Prussia was represented by foreign secretary and
chancellor Prince Carl von Hardenberg, Russia by Czar Alexander I (1777–1825),
and Austria by Prince Klemens von Metternich (1773–1859), who emerged as the
architect of the Congress. The defeated French were represented by
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand (1754–1838).
Although Metternich acted as host, there was no formal
opening of the Congress, and meetings began in September as delegations
arrived. While the major states debated the key issues, delegates from lesser
European states dealt with issues such as navigation rights and attended lavish
receptions held by the Austrian government. The Congress dissolved after the
signing of the Final Act, 9 June 1815.
Preliminaries
With his armies defeated Napoleon Bonaparte resigned as
emperor of France on 11 April 1814 and went into exile on the Mediterranean
island of Elba. Allied armies occupied Paris and the prerevolutionary Bourbon
dynasty was restored to the throne of France. Louis XVIII (brother of the
beheaded Louis XVI) became king, with Talleyrand as foreign secretary. The four
allies signed a peace treaty with the new French government on 30 May 1814
known as the First Peace of Paris. Under the terms of the treaty France’s
borders were rolled back to what they had been in 1792.The final clause in the
treaty also specified that all states engaged in the current war should meet in
Vienna to resolve outstanding territorial issues.
Territorial
Arrangements
Metternich’s major objective at the Congress was to ensure
that France was surrounded by states strong enough to contain any future French
attempts at expansion. Metternich wanted to create a balance of power in Europe
that would maintain stability. The Congress of Vienna went on to formalize many
territorial arrangements previously agreed upon by the four major allied
states. The Kingdom of the Netherlands, which included Belgium and Holland, was
created as a strong state on France’s northeastern frontier. The Italian state
of Piedmont-Sardinia played a similar role on France’s southeastern frontier.
In central Europe Napoleon’s Confederation of the Rhine was abolished and
replaced by thirty-nine German states grouped loosely together as the German
Confederation, with its capital in Frankfurt. The Confederation included
German-speaking areas of Prussia and Austria. It also superseded the three
hundred-plus German states that had existed under the auspices of the Holy
Roman Empire prior to the French revolution. Prussia was given land on the west
and east banks of the Rhine River in order to garrison an army that could march
quickly on France in case of an emergency. Austria was meant to have the
dominant role in the German Confederation and the Austrians were given presidency
of the Confederation. Austria was also to be the dominant power on the Italian
peninsula. Austria retained possession of the wealthy northern Italian province
of Lombardy and was granted control over the neighboring and equally wealthy
province of Venetia. Members of the Austrian royal family, the Habsburgs, were
placed on most of the thrones of the remaining Italian states to ensure
Austrian dominance and keep the French out.
The Congress recognized British possession of several
important overseas territories conquered during the Napoleonic wars. Britain
gained the island of Helgoland in the North Sea, Malta in the Mediterranean,
the Cape Colony of southern Africa, the island of Ceylon off India’s southern
tip, the islands of Mauritius, Seychelles, and Rodriguez in the Indian Ocean,
and the islands of Saint Lucia, Trinidad, and Tobago in the Caribbean. Many of
these possessions were economically lucrative and gave Britain control over key
shipping routes.
The Congress acknowledged the status of Switzerland as an
independent and neutral state. Finally, territorial changes were undertaken in
Scandinavia. The king of Denmark, too long an ally of Napoleon, lost his
possession of Norway to Sweden. Sweden, in turn, was forced to give Finland to
Russia.
The Poland– Saxony
Dispute
A disagreement over eastern Europe very nearly disrupted the
Congress. Alexander I made clear that he wanted to gain control over all of
Poland, including Polish provinces previously ruled by Prussia. By way of
compensation, the Prussians were to be given the wealthy German kingdom of
Saxony. The Austrians and British protested, fearing the growth of Prussian and
Russian power in central and eastern Europe. The dispute soon escalated to
serious proportions. Talleyrand saw an opportunity to split the victorious
alliance and regain French influence in Europe. He sided with the British and
Austrians, and on 3 January 1815, the three powers signed a secret alliance.
Each signatory pledged 150,000 troops in the event of war. However, Europe had
suffered enough war and a compromise was found. Russia gained most, but not
all, of Poland. Prussia gained about 40 percent of Saxony, with the rest
remaining independent.
The Final Act and
Long-Term Impact
In late February Napoleon escaped from exile and landed in
France on 1 March 1815. Napoleon forced Louis XVIII to flee Paris, raised an
army, and went to war again with the allies. However this had little impact on
the Congress of Vienna. The Final Act was signed on 9 June, and Napoleon was defeated
for the last time at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815.
Most historians agree that the Congress of Vienna created a
durable peace in Europe. Although wars broke out among individual European
states in the nineteenth century, there was no general war until 1914, a
reflection of the fact that no one power left Vienna with unresolved
grievances. Britain was arguably the big winner, having won dominance over
shipping routes all around the globe, setting the stage for Britain’s
remarkable imperial expansion in the nineteenth century.
Further Reading
Albrecht-Carrié, R. (1973). A diplomatic history of
Europe since the Congress
of Vienna. New York: Harper and Row.
Alsop, S. (1984). The Congress dances. New York:
Harper and Row.
Bertier de Sauvigny, G. (1962). Metternich and his times.
London: Darton,
Longman and Todd.
Bridge, F.,& Bullen, R. (1980). The great powers and
the European states
system, 1815–1914. New York: Longman.
Chapman, T. (1998). The Congress of Vienna: Origins,
processes and
results. New York: Routledge.
Ferrero, G. (1941). The reconstruction of Europe: Talleyrand
and the Congress
of Vienna, 1814–1815. New York: Putnam.
Grimsted, P. (1969). The foreign ministers of Alexander
I: Political attitudes
and the conduct of Russian diplomacy, 1801–1825. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Gulick, E. (1955). Europe’s classical balance of power: A
case history of
the theory and practise of one of the great concepts of
European statecraft.
Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Kissinger, H. (1957). A world restored: Metternich,
Castlereagh and the
problems of peace, 1812–1822. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin.
Kraehe, E. (1963). Metternich’s German policy. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Nicolson, H. The Congress of Vienna: A study in allied
unity: 1812–1822.
London: Constable.
Rich, N. (1992). Great power diplomacy, 1814–1914. New
York:
McGraw Hill.
Webster, C. (1931). The foreign policy of Castlereagh,
1812–1815. London:
G. Bell.
