Congress of Vienna

 

Sept., 1814–June, 1815, one of the most important international conferences in European history, called to remake Europe after the downfall of Napoleon I.

Congress Participants

The Austrian emperor Francis I (formerly Holy Roman Emperor Francis II) was the host. Among the many monarchs to attend the congress the most important were Czar Alexander I of Russia and King Frederick William III of Prussia. Fürst von Metternich was the chief Austrian negotiator and presided over the congress; Viscount Castlereagh and, for a time, the duke of Wellington represented Great Britain; the Russian delegation included Count Nesselrode, Count Capo d'Istria, and Carlo Andreo Pozzo di Borgo; among the Prussian diplomats were Karl August von Hardenberg, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and Karl vom und zum Stein.

A peace settlement with defeated France had been reached before the congress convened (see Paris, Treaty of, 1814), but France was represented by Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, who, by skillfully exploiting differences among the allies, soon obtained an equal voice with the four great victorious powers. All other European states, large and petty, that had legally existed before the Napoleonic upheaval were represented by an army of delegates and agents, but the important work was carried out in committees under the tutelage of the major powers.

Issues

The problems confronting the congress were extremely thorny and complex, for the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars had swept away the entire structure of Europe. Although the principle of legitimacy—restoration of the pre-Revolutionary dynastic and territorial states—was often ceremoniously invoked, it was the determination to achieve a balance of power for the preservation of peace that guided congress decisions. The principle of national self-determination, although invoked in certain cases, was neglected in practice. The congress opened with a round of magnificent balls and entertainments, while its serious business was stalled by intrigues and rivalries.

Territorial Adjustments

Major territorial changes were unavoidable, partly because of previous secret agreements reached among individual allies and partly because of the pressure of power politics. Major points of friction were the settlement of the Polish question, the conflicting claims of Sweden, Denmark, and Russia, and the adjustment of the borders of the German states. Russia and Prussia were generally opposed by Austria, France, and Britain, which at one point (Jan., 1815) went so far as to conclude a defensive triple alliance. The shock of this crisis and of the return of Napoleon I from Elba so upset the delegates that the congress began to find solutions for its many difficulties.

In place of the defunct Holy Roman Empire or its several hundred princes, the German Confederation was created. The Confederation's constitution was accepted on June 8, 1815, and was incorporated into the Final Act of the congress, signed on June 9, nine days before Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. The restoration of Louis XVIII in France and of Ferdinand VII in Spain was confirmed.

Italy was dealt with as a geographic rather than a political entity, and its hopes for unity were dashed. Naples and Sicily were reunited under Bourbon rule; the Papal States were restored; the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla were awarded to French Empress Marie Louise for her lifetime; Tuscany and Modena were restored to the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine; the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom was set up under Austrian rule to compensate Austria for its loss of the Austrian Netherlands; and the formerly Venetian part of Dalmatia also went to Austria. The kingdom of Sardinia was restored and recovered Savoy, Nice, and Piedmont, and it received Liguria with Genoa.

Poland was redivided among Russia, Prussia, and Austria, with Russia benefiting primarily; part of Poland, with Warsaw, was set up as a kingdom in personal union with Russia; Kraków and its surrounding territory were made a republic under the protection of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Since Austria received Italian territories to compensate for Russian gains, Prussia was awarded much of Saxony as well as important parts of Westphalia and Rhine Province. Great Britain, more interested in acquiring strategic colonial territories, retained the former Dutch colonies of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Cape Colony, received parts of the West Indies at the expense of the Netherlands and Spain, kept Malta and Helgoland, and obtained a protectorate over the Ionian islands.

The former Austrian Netherlands was united with the former United Provinces as the kingdom of the Netherlands, under the house of Orange. Russia retained the formerly Swedish Finland. The congress confirmed the transfer of Norway from the Danish to the Swedish crown; W Pomerania, the claim to which Sweden had ceded to Denmark in the Treaty of Kiel (1814), was given to Prussia, which compensated Denmark with the duchy of Lauenburg. Bavaria received its approximate present-day boundaries, as did Württemberg and Baden. Switzerland was enlarged, and Swiss neutrality was guaranteed. As regards France, a new peace settlement was reached on Nov. 20, 1815 (see Paris, Treaty of, 1815). The Final Act of Vienna was subsequently ratified by the powers concerned, but several separate treaties were required to complete the settlement.

Consequences

Although the territorial changes brought about by the Congress of Vienna did not endure long in entirety, they represented a practical if not always equitable solution and an attempt at dealing with Europe as an organic whole. The Quadruple Alliance and the Holy Alliance, designed to uphold the decisions of Vienna and to settle disputes and problems by means of conferences, were an important step toward European cooperation. The Concert of Europe, which functioned—even though imperfectly—through the 19th cent., may be credited to the Congress of Vienna.

An auxiliary accomplishment of the Congress was the adoption of standard rules of diplomacy. Serious defects, however, included the disregard of the growing national aspirations and the social changes that brought about the revolutions of 1848, and the failure to include the Ottoman Empire in the settlement and to deal satisfactorily with the Eastern Question.

Bibliography

See H. Nicolson, The Congress of Vienna (1946, repr. 1970); H. Kissinger, A World Restored (1957, repr. 1964); H. Spiel, ed., The Congress of Vienna: An Eyewitness Account (1968).

The Congress of Vienna was a conference between ambassadors from the major powers in Europe that was chaired by the Austrian statesman Klemens Wenzel von Metternich and held in Vienna, Austria, from late September, 1814, to June 9, 1815.

Its purpose was to settle issues and redraw the continent's political map after the defeat of Napoleonic France the previous spring, which would also reflect the change in status by the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire eight years before. The discussions continued despite the ex-Emperor Napoleon I's return from exile and resumption of power in France in March 1815, and the Congress's Final Act was signed nine days before his final defeat at Waterloo on June 18, 1815.

Technically, one might note that the "Congress of Vienna" never actually occurred, as the Congress never met in plenary session, with most of the discussions occurring in informal sessions among the Great Powers meeting without the greater number of delegates from the lesser states.

The Congress was concerned with determining the entire shape of Europe after the Napoleonic wars, with the exception of the terms of peace with France between the belligerents, which had already been decided by the Treaty of Paris, signed a few months earlier, on May 30, 1814 returning the Bourbon monarchy and re-setting the borders to their 1792 locations. That outcome was widely unpopular with the population of France, and led indirectly to the resumption of power by Napoleon during the Hundred Days.

Participants

At the Congress, Britain was represented first by its Foreign Secretary, Viscount Castlereagh; after Castlereagh's return to England in February 1815, by the Duke of Wellington; and in the last weeks, after Wellington left to face Napoleon in the Hundred Days, by the Earl of Clancarty.

Austria was represented by Prince Clemens von Metternich, the Foreign Minister, and by his deputy, Baron Wessenberg.

Prussia was represented by Prince Karl August von Hardenberg, the Chancellor, and the diplomat and scholar Wilhelm von Humboldt.

Louis XVIII's France was represented by its foreign minister, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord.

Although Russia's official delegation was led by the foreign minister, Count Nesselrode, Czar Alexander I for the most part acted on his own behalf.

Initially, the representatives of the four victorious powers hoped to exclude the French from serious participation in the negotiations, but Talleyrand managed to skilfully insert himself into "her inner councils" in the first weeks of negotiations.

The major Allies' indecision on how to conduct their affairs without provoking a united protest from the lesser powers led to the calling of a preliminary conference on protocol, to which both Talleyrand and the Marquis of Labrador, Spain's representative, were invited on September 30, 1814.

Congress Secretary Friedrich von Gentz (1764-1832) would report that "The intervention of Talleyrand and Labrador has hopelessly upset all our plans. Talleyrand protested against the procedure we have adopted and soundly [be]rated us for two hours. It was a scene I shall never forget."^[1]

The embarrassed representatives of the Allies replied that the document concerning the protocol they had arranged actually meant nothing. "If it means so little, why did you sign it?" snapped Labrador.

Talleyrand’s policy, directed as much by national as personal ambitions, demanded the close but by no means amicable relationship he had with Labrador. Talleyrand regarded Labrador with "Olympian disdain"^[2]; of Talleyrand, the testy Spaniard would remark: "that cripple, unfortunately, is going to Vienna."^[3]

Talleyrand skirted additional articles suggested by Labrador: he had no intention of handing over the 12,000 afrancesados ("frenchified" Spanish fugitives who had sworn fealty to Joseph Bonaparte), with whom he had shady business connections, nor the bulk of the documents, paintings, pieces of fine art, and works of hydrography and natural history that had been looted from the archives, palaces, churches and cathedrals of Spain.^[4]

Most of the work at the Congress was performed by the five main powers (United Kingdom, Russia, Prussia, Austria, France).

On some issues, these powers cooperated with:

• Spain (represented by the Marquis of Labrador)
• Portugal (represented by Pedro de Sousa Holstein, Count of Palmela; António Saldanha da Gama; Joaquim Lobo da Silveira).
• Sweden (represented by Carl Löwenhielm)
• The Netherlands (represented by the British Ambassador at the Dutch court, the Earl of Clancarty)^[5]
• On German issues, with the states of Hanover (a personal union with the British crown of the day), Bavaria, and Württemberg. It is of no little interest that as a constant belligerent, King George III had refused to recognize the abolishment of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 and maintained a separate diplomatic staff to conduct the affairs of the family estate (Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg) as Elector of Hannover until the results of the congress were concluded establishing the Kingdom of Hannover.

The Iroquois Confederacy participated in the congress as it had been an ally of the British during the War of 1812 which was viewed by the British as part of the Napoleonic Wars.

Elements of the Treaty

• Russia was given most of the Duchy of Warsaw (Poland) and was allowed to keep Finland (which it had annexed from Sweden in 1809 and held until 1917).
• Prussia was given two fifths of Saxony, parts of the Duchy of Warsaw (the Grand Duchy of Posen), Danzig, and the Rhineland/Westphalia.
• A German Confederation of 38 states was created from the previous 300, under the presidency of the Austrian Emperor. Only portions of the territory of Austria and Prussia were included in the Confederation.
• The Netherlands and the Southern Netherlands (approx. modern-day Belgium) were united in a constitutional monarchy, with the House of Orange-Nassau providing the king.
• To compensate for the Orange-Nassau's loss of the Nassau lands to Prussia, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg were to form a personal union under the House of Orange-Nassau, with Luxembourg (but not the Netherlands) inside the German Confederation.^[6]
• The Dano-Norwegian union was dissolved and Norway transferred to Sweden (in personal union).
• Sweden ceded Swedish Pomerania to Prussia.
• The neutrality of Switzerland was guaranteed.
• Hanover gave up the Duchy of Lauenburg to Denmark, but was enlarged by the addition of former territories of the Bishop of Münster and by the formerly Prussian East Frisia, and made a kingdom.
• Most of the territorial gains of Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Nassau under the mediatizations of 1801-1806 were recognized. Bavaria also gained control of the Rhenish Palatinate and parts of the Napoleonic Duchy of Würzburg and Grand Duchy of Frankfurt. Hesse-Darmstadt, in exchange for giving up the Duchy of Westphalia to Prussia, was granted the city of Mainz.
• Austria regained control of the Tirol and Salzburg; of the former Illyrian Provinces, and received Lombardy-Venetia in Italy and Ragusa in Dalmatia. Former Austrian territory in Southwest Germany remained under the control of Württemberg and Baden, and the Austrian Netherlands were also not recovered.
• Habsburg princes were returned to control of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Duchy of Modena.
• The Papal States were under the rule of the pope and restored to their former extent, with the exception of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, which remained part of France.
• The United Kingdom was confirmed in control of Cape Colony, South Africa; Tobago; Ceylon; and various other colonies in Africa and Asia. Other colonies, most notably the Dutch East Indies and Martinique, were restored to their previous owners.
• The King of Sardinia was restored in Piedmont, Nice, and Savoy, and was given control of Genoa (putting an end to the brief proclamation of a restored Republic).
• The Duchies of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla were given to Marie Louise, Napoleon's wife.
• The Duchy of Lucca was created for the House of Bourbon-Parma, which would have reversionary rights to Parma after the death of Marie Louise.
• The Bourbon Ferdinand IV, King of Sicily was restored to control of the Kingdom of Naples, but only after Joachim Murat, the king installed by Bonaparte, rose up and supported Napoleon in the Hundred Days, triggering the Neapolitan War.
• The slave trade was condemned.
• Freedom of navigation was guaranteed for many rivers, including the Rhine.

Polish-Saxon crisis

The most contentious subject at the Congress was the so-called Polish-Saxon Crisis. The Russians and Prussians proposed a deal in which much of the Prussian and Austrian shares of the partitions of Poland would go to Russia, which would create an independent Polish Kingdom in personal union with Russia with Alexander as king. In exchange, the Prussians would receive as compensation all of Saxony, whose King was considered to have forfeited his throne because he had not abandoned Napoleon soon enough. The Austrians, French, and British did not approve of this plan, and, at the inspiration of Talleyrand, signed a secret treaty on January 3, 1815, agreeing to go to war, if necessary, to prevent the Russo-Prussian plan from coming to fruition.

Although none of the three powers was particularly ready for war, the Russians did not call the bluff, and an amicable settlement was soon worked out, by which Russia received most of the Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw as a "Kingdom of Poland" (called Congress Poland), but did not receive the district of Poznań (Grand Duchy of Poznań), which was given to Prussia, nor Kraków, which became a free city. Prussia received 40% of Saxony (later known as the province of Saxony), with the remainder returned to King Frederick Augustus I (kingdoms of Saxony).

Other changes

The Congress's principal results, apart from its confirmation of France's loss of the territories annexed in 1795 - 1810, which had already been settled by the Treaty of Paris, were the enlargement of Russia, (which gained most of the Duchy of Warsaw) and Prussia, which acquired Westphalia and the northern Rhineland. The consolidation of Germany from the nearly 300 states of the Holy Roman Empire (dissolved in 1806) into a much more manageable thirty-nine states was confirmed. These states were formed into a loose German Confederation under the leadership of Prussia and Austria.

Representatives at the Congress agreed to numerous other territorial changes. Norway was transferred from Denmark to Sweden, this sparked the nationalist movement which led to the establishment of the short-lived Kingdom of Norway on May 17 1814. Austria gained Lombardy-Venetia in Northern Italy, while much of the rest of North-Central Italy went to Habsburg dynasties (The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Modena, and the Duchy of Parma). The Pope was restored to the Papal States. The Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia was restored to its mainland possessions, and also gained control of the Republic of Genoa. In Southern Italy, Napoleon's brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, was originally allowed to retain his Kingdom of Naples, but following his support of Napoleon in the Hundred Days, he was deposed, and the Bourbon Ferdinand IV was restored to the throne.

A large United Kingdom of the Netherlands was created for the Prince of Orange, including both the old United Provinces and the formerly Austrian-ruled territories in the Southern Netherlands. There were other, less important territorial adjustments, including significant territorial gains for the German Kingdoms of Hanover (which gained East Frisia from Prussia and various other territories in Northwest Germany) and Bavaria (which gained the Rhenish Palatinate and territories in Franconia). The Duchy of Lauenburg was transferred from Hanover to Denmark, and Swedish Pomerania was annexed by Prussia. Switzerland was enlarged, and Swiss neutrality was guaranteed.

The treaty did not recognize Portuguese rights over Olivenza, but instead in the treaty there was only a formal declaration stating that both Spain and Portugal should negotiate over the town's sovereignty in order to preserve "total and permanent harmony" between both countries. However Spain has never desired to start these negotiations. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland received parts of the West Indies at the expense of the Netherlands and Spain and kept the former Dutch colonies of Ceylon and the Cape Colony, and also kept Malta and Heligoland. Under the Treaty of Paris, Britain obtained the protectorate over the United States of the Ionian Islands and the Seychelles.

Later criticism

The Congress of Vienna was frequently criticized by nineteenth-century and more recent historians for ignoring national and liberal impulses, and for imposing a stifling reaction on the continent. The Congress of Vienna was an integral part in what became known as the Conservative Order, in which peace and stability were traded for the liberties and civil rights associated with the American and French Revolutions.

In the 20th century, however, many historians have come to admire the statesmen at the Congress, whose work had prevented another European general war for nearly a hundred years (1815-1914). Among these is Henry Kissinger, whose doctoral dissertation was on the Congress of Vienna. Prior to the opening of the Paris peace conference of 1918, the British Foreign Office commissioned a history of the Congress of Vienna to serve as an example to its own delegates of how to achieve an equally successful peace. Besides, the decisions of the Congress were made by the Five Great Powers (Austria, France, Prussia, Russia and the United Kingdom), and not all the countries of Europe could extend their rights at the Congress. For example, Italy became a mere "geographical expression" as divided into eight parts (Parma, Modena, Tuscany, Lombardy, Venetia, Piedmont-Sardinina, the Papal States, Naples-Sicily) under the control of different powers, while Poland was under the influence of Russia after the Congress. The arrangements that made the Five Great Powers finally led to future disputes. The Congress of Vienna preserved the balance of power in Europe, but it could not check the spread of revolutionary movements on the continent.

See also

• Age of Metternich
• Concert of Europe
• List of treaties

Notes

1. ^ Susan Mary Alsop, The Congress Dances (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1984), 120.
2. ^ Wenceslao Ramírez de Villa-Urrutia, Marqués de Villa-Urrutia, España en el Congreso de Viena según la correspondencia de D. Pedro Gómez Labrador, Marqués de Labrador. Segunda Edición Corregida y Aumentada (Madrid: Francisco Beltrán, 1928), 13.
3. ^ Antonio Rodríguez-Moñino (ed.), Cartas Políticas (Badajoz: Imprenta Provincial, 1959), 14 (Letter IV, July 10, 1814). Labrador’s letters are full of such pungent remarks, and include his crotchety opinions on bad diplomats, the state of the postal system and the weather, and his non-existent salary and coach and accompanying livery for the Congress.
4. ^ Villa-Urrutia, España en el Congreso de Viena, 61-2. The French had stripped an enormous amount of art from the country. Joseph had left Madrid with an enormous baggage train containing innumerable pieces of art, tapestries, and mirrors. The most rapacious of the French was Marshal Nicolas Soult, who left Spain with entire collections, which have disappeared to unknown, separate locations around the world. At least, sighs Juan Antonio Gaya Nuño, "[the paintings] have come to spread the prestige of Spanish art around the whole word."
5. ^ Couvée, D.H.; G. Pikkemaat (1963). 1813-15, ons koninkrijk geboren. Alphen aan den Rijn: N. Samsom nv, 123-124. 
6. ^ Couvée, D.H.; G. Pikkemaat (1963). 1813-15, ons koninkrijk geboren. Alphen aan den Rijn: N. Samsom nv, 127-130. 

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