The Congress of Vienna

1. The Congress of Vienna 1814-1815

2. After the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, the rest of the European nations believed that they must establish a lasting peace. They believed that the best way to do this was to form a peace pact between them, make the weakest European nations stronger, and to isolate the “trouble making” French . Rulers from almost every European nation met for eight months in the city of Vienna. The meeting was known as the Congress of Vienna. They made sweeping changes to European governance.

3. Although every nation was represented, the meeting was controlled by the five “great powers” of Russia, Prussia, Austria, Great Britain, and France. The most influential person was Austrian Prince Klemens von Metternich. Because it had led to violence in France, the representatives did not like and were afraid of Democracy. They believed that those who were not groomed and raised to rule, would not know how to do so, and would therefore make things worse…as seen by the mobs and deaths in France.

4. The first goal of the representatives was to keep a “balance of power”. It was believed that if no one country was stronger than the rest, nobody would try to fight and control the rest of the European nations…as the French had done. Second, they wanted to surround France with strong nations to contain its “radicals” who wanted Democracy. The Netherlands were united to become one country. Germany, which had been made of several small kingdoms, was united and controlled by Austria (the largest of the kingdoms). Switzerland was established, and portions of the Italian peninsula were united.

5. While the other Europeans wanted to limit the power of France, they didn’t want to weaken it too much. If too much was taken from France, the people may revolt again to regain power (they had done it once already after all with some pretty bad results). The main goal was to keep the balance of power.

6. The next goal of the Congress was to establish the legitimacy of all European governments. Napoleon and France had messed things up by taking over so many countries and overthrowing many monarchies. To solve this problem, the Congress simply put anyone who had been removed by Napoleon, back on their throne and therefore back into power. This was seen as a positive, because these people knew how to rule and would keep the power out of the hands of common, ordinary, people, who didn’t know how to run a country.

7. A final agreement to the Congress of Vienna was a mutual protection pact. The countries agreed that if one country attacked another, they would all move to help the attacked country. This was intended to prevent any one country from going to war. If it did, it would be defeated by the rest of Europe.

8. Other agreements were made outside of the Congress of Vienna. The more absolute rulers (those without constitutions to limit them) wanted to make sure that their people didn’t rise against them, like the French. Czar Alexander of Russia, Emperor Francis I of Austria, and King Frederick William of Prussia formed the Holy Alliance. Because they believed they had divine right to rule, they agreed to help one another if their citizens ever revolted against them. Eventually Metternich would create the Concert of Europe, in which all rulers agreed to fight for other rulers in the event of revolution.

9. While the European rulers, worked as hard as they could to prevent revolutions from overthrowing them, it was actually too late. The French Revolution, following the enlightenment ideas of Hobbes, Rousseau, and Locke, had already sparked the idea of “self-rule”. France continued to be a region of conflict between the monarchy of Louis XVIII and his people, while in Latin America creoles (colonists born in the Americas), revolted against rulers in Europe who had no real dealings with the colonists other than taking their money.

10. The Congress of Vienna had several influences on Europe and beyond. It did do its job of keeping the peace in Europe. Wars that had been fought between England and France for many years ended. In fact their were no major wars in Europe for about 100 years following the Congress. The Congress also led to a feeling of Nationalism (pride in ones country), throughout Europe as ethnic groups began to form larger nations, instead of being isolated into many smaller countries. Its one flaw was that it could not stamp out democracy, which would spread like wildfire.