Congress of Vienna (1814–1815): Redrawing the Map of Europe

The Congress of Vienna, held from September 1814 to June 1815, was the great peace conference that rebuilt Europe after more than twenty years of revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Led by Austria, Britain, Prussia and Russia, with defeated France soon brought into the inner circle, it redrew borders from Belgium to Poland. Its settlement created a balance of power that kept the great powers from a general war for almost forty years.

Background: Europe after Napoleon

By the spring of 1814 the Sixth Coalition had defeated Napoleon. After the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, Allied armies invaded France and entered Paris on 31 March 1814. Napoleon abdicated in April and was sent to rule the island of Elba, and the Bourbon monarchy was restored under Louis XVIII.

The first Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 May 1814, made peace with France, leaving it roughly with its frontiers of 1792. It also provided that a general congress should meet in Vienna to settle the many questions left open. Napoleon had abolished the Holy Roman Empire, created and destroyed kingdoms, and moved borders across Germany, Italy and Poland. Someone now had to decide who would rule where.

How the Congress worked

The Congress was not a single assembly that voted on proposals. Hundreds of delegations from states, cities and interest groups came to Vienna, but the key decisions were taken by the great powers in private meetings. At first these were the four victorious allies: Austria, Britain, Prussia and Russia. Their representatives, led by the Austrian foreign minister Klemens von Metternich, met mainly at the Austrian chancellery on the Ballhausplatz.

Metternich acted as host and chairman, with his adviser Friedrich von Gentz as secretary. Britain was represented by its foreign secretary, Viscount Castlereagh, and later by the Duke of Wellington. Tsar Alexander I conducted much of Russia’s diplomacy personally. Prussia sent its chancellor Karl August von Hardenberg and the scholar-diplomat Wilhelm von Humboldt.

The French foreign minister, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, arrived determined to restore France’s standing. By appealing to the principle of legitimacy, the right of lawful rulers to their thrones, and exploiting divisions among the allies, he gained a place for France in the inner councils. The Big Four thus became five.

Vienna filled with emperors, kings, princes and diplomats, and the Austrian court staged a long season of balls, banquets, concerts, hunts and parades. Beethoven conducted concerts for the visiting dignitaries. The social life was so lavish that the gathering became known as the “dancing congress”. It also served politics: much information was exchanged at receptions, and Austria’s secret police intercepted letters and paid servants to report on foreign delegates.

The Polish-Saxon crisis

The most dangerous dispute concerned Poland and Saxony. Alexander I wanted almost all of the former Duchy of Warsaw, Napoleon’s Polish state, to form a kingdom under Russian rule. Prussia, which would lose Polish lands, demanded in return the whole of Saxony, whose king had remained Napoleon’s ally until he was captured at Leipzig.

Austria and Britain feared that Russia and Prussia would become too powerful. Tension rose so high that on 3 January 1815 Austria, Britain and France signed a secret treaty of mutual defence against Russia and Prussia. A compromise followed. Russia obtained most of the Duchy of Warsaw as the Kingdom of Poland, often called Congress Poland, with the tsar as king. Prussia received about two-fifths of Saxony and compensation elsewhere, Kraków became a free city, and Austria and Prussia kept some Polish territories.

Napoleon’s return

On 1 March 1815, while the negotiations were still under way, Napoleon landed in southern France after escaping from Elba, beginning the Hundred Days. The powers at Vienna reacted quickly. On 13 March they declared him an outlaw, and they renewed their military alliance.

The crisis encouraged the delegates to finish their work. The Final Act of the Congress, combining the many separate agreements, was signed on 9 June 1815, nine days before Napoleon’s final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.

The settlement

The Final Act redrew the map of Europe with the aim of preventing any single power from dominating the continent and of containing France.

• Russia gained the Kingdom of Poland, and its earlier acquisition of Finland from Sweden was accepted.
• Prussia received about two-fifths of Saxony, large territories in the Rhineland and Westphalia, and Swedish Pomerania. Its new western lands placed it on guard against France.
• Austria gave up the Austrian Netherlands but gained Lombardy and Venetia in northern Italy, recovered Tyrol and Salzburg, and acquired Dalmatia and the Illyrian provinces on the Adriatic.
• The Netherlands and Belgium were united as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands under King William I, a buffer on France’s northern border.
• Germany was reorganised as the German Confederation, a loose union of 39 states with a Federal Diet in Frankfurt presided over by Austria.
• Italy saw the return of many former rulers: the Pope regained the Papal States, the Kingdom of Sardinia gained the former Republic of Genoa, and the Bourbons were restored in Naples after Joachim Murat’s defeat in 1815.
• Switzerland was enlarged, and its permanent neutrality was recognised by the powers in 1815.
• Sweden kept Norway, which it had acquired from Denmark in 1814.

Britain sought few territorial gains in Europe; its main colonial acquisitions, such as Malta, the Cape Colony and Mauritius, were confirmed by the peace settlements of 1814–1815. Britain cared most about the balance of power and about a strong Netherlands guarding the Scheldt estuary.

The Congress also produced agreements of lasting importance. On 8 February 1815 the powers issued a declaration condemning the transatlantic slave trade as contrary to humanity, though it set no date for abolition. They agreed principles for free navigation on international rivers such as the Rhine, and a regulation of March 1815 fixed the ranks of diplomats and ended many old quarrels over precedence. The great powers also agreed, in principle, to resolve disputes by consultation.

Key people

• Klemens von Metternich (1773–1859), Austria’s foreign minister, the Congress’s host and most skilful organiser.
• Viscount Castlereagh (1769–1822), British foreign secretary and architect of the balance of power.
• Alexander I (1777–1825), Tsar of Russia, the most powerful monarch present.
• Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand (1754–1838), French foreign minister, who restored France’s place among the powers.
• Karl August von Hardenberg (1750–1822), Prussian chancellor, who pressed Prussia’s claims in Saxony and the Rhineland.

Consequences and the Concert of Europe

After Waterloo the second Treaty of Paris of 20 November 1815 imposed harsher terms on France, including an indemnity of 700 million francs and an Allied occupation that lasted until 1818. On the same day Austria, Britain, Prussia and Russia renewed their Quadruple Alliance and agreed to hold regular meetings. Separately, in September 1815, Alexander I had launched the Holy Alliance with Austria and Prussia, a declaration of Christian principles among monarchs.

The congresses that followed, at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, Troppau in 1820, Laibach in 1821 and Verona in 1822, became known as the Congress System. The wider habit of great-power consultation is often called the Concert of Europe. It was later used to deal with crises such as the Greek and Belgian revolutions and, much later, at gatherings such as the Congress of Berlin in 1878.

Legacy and debate

Supporters of the settlement point out that no war involving all the great powers broke out between 1815 and 1914, and that the first major war between great powers, the Crimean War, began only in 1853. For many diplomats and historians, the Congress became a model of peacemaking based on balance rather than revenge.

Critics stress what the Congress ignored. It largely disregarded national feeling in Italy, Germany, Poland and Belgium, and the restored monarchies often suppressed liberal and national movements. Belgium broke away from the Netherlands in 1830, Polish uprisings were crushed, and the Revolutions of 1848 shook much of the system. Within half a century Italy and Germany had been unified by war, overturning key parts of the Vienna settlement.

Timeline

• 1814, 31 March: Allied armies enter Paris.
• 1814, 30 May: The first Treaty of Paris calls for a congress in Vienna.
• 1814, September: Monarchs, ministers and delegations begin gathering in Vienna.
• 1815, 3 January: Austria, Britain and France sign a secret alliance during the Polish-Saxon crisis.
• 1815, 8 February: The powers condemn the slave trade.
• 1815, 1 March: Napoleon lands in France after escaping from Elba.
• 1815, 13 March: The Congress powers declare Napoleon an outlaw.
• 1815, 9 June: The Final Act of the Congress of Vienna is signed.
• 1815, 18 June: Napoleon is defeated at Waterloo.
• 1815, 20 November: The second Treaty of Paris and the Quadruple Alliance are signed.

Why it matters

The Congress of Vienna shaped the map and politics of Europe for much of the 19th century. It replaced Napoleon’s empire with a balance among five great powers, created institutions such as the German Confederation, and introduced the idea that the great powers shared responsibility for keeping the peace, an idea that later influenced the League of Nations and the United Nations.