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Congress of Vienna
Vienna, Congress of, European conference called to reestablish the territorial divisions of Europe at the end of the Napoleonic Wars after the downfall of Napoleon. The conference was held in Vienna from September 1814 to June 1815.
II. Prominent Delegates
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Representatives of all the European powers, except Turkey, assembled at the Congress, which was interrupted in February 1815 by Napoleon's escape from Elba. Most conspicuous among the numerous monarchs who attended the Congress was Alexander I, emperor of Russia, who supported such generally unpopular causes as the unification of the German states and the establishment of a constitutional government in Poland. Of the diplomats, Prince Klemens von Metternich, the Austrian minister of state who acted as the president of the Congress, played what was probably the most prominent part in the negotiations. Although the major powersĦXBritain, Russia, Prussia, and AustriaĦXhad agreed that neither France nor Spain, nor any of the smaller powers, should be party to any important decisions, the French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Prigord, who represented the restored French king Louis XVIII, succeeded in securing for France an equal share in the deliberations. Britain was represented mainly by its foreign minister Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, and by the general and statesman Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington. The principal delegate from Prussia was Prince Karl August von Hardenberg.
III. Major Decisions
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As a result of the negotiations at the Congress, France was deprived of all the territory conquered by Napoleon; the Dutch Republic was united with the Austrian Netherlands to form a single kingdom of the Netherlands under the house of Orange; Norway and Sweden were joined under a single ruler, Charles XIV John of Sweden; and the independence and neutrality of Switzerland were guaranteed, with the union of its cantons reconstituted as a loose confederation. In addition, Russia received the major part of the former duchy of Warsaw as the kingdom of Poland, with Alexander I as king; Prussia received West Prussia, Posen (now the Polish province of Poznan), the northern half of Saxony (Sachsen), and the greater part of the provinces of the Rhine and Westphalia; Hannover received territorial additions and became a kingdom; Austria was given back most of the territory it had recently lost and was compensated in Germany and Italy (Lombardia and Venice) for the loss of the Austrian Netherlands. The formerly Venetian part of Dalmatia (now in Croatia) also went to Austria; Britain kept Cape Colony in South Africa, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Mauritius, Helgoland, and Malta; the king of Sardinia recovered Piedmont (Piemonte), Nice, and Savoy and received Genoa; the Bourbon king Ferdinand I was restored to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies; and the duchy of Parma was bestowed on Napoleon's wife, Marie Louise of Austria. A territorial commission was convened at Frankfurt, and by 1819 it had established the German Confederation, uniting 39 sovereign states, including Prussia, under the presidency of Austria.
The Congress took the important step of condemning the slave trade and also provided for freedom of navigation on rivers that traversed several states or formed boundaries between states. Its chief accomplishment was in reestablishing a balance of power among the countries of Europe, with the result that the peace of Europe remained practically undisturbed for 40 years.