The Congress of Vienna, 1815.
The Congress of Vienna, in 1815, faced and tried to overcome a lot of difficulties rose from the war enterprises of Napoleon across Europe but principally, the delegates found themselves in front of new ideas born form Enlightenment and from the French Revolution. These ideas were basically freedom, equality, democratic and republican thought, liberalism and socialism, through the writings of the Utopians such as More or Campanella and Babeuf.France's delegate, Talleyrand, was able to show his country as a victim of Napoleon's despotism and he could set a limit to the penalties: a strong tag, an army of occupation directly on the French territory, the loss of Alsace-Lorraine in favor of the German Confederation and the prohibition of creating an army. Talleyrand was successful to preserve France's dignity and to place it among the other great Powers of Europe.The most important author of the new European structure was the Austria Chancellor, Klemens von Metternich, supporter of the monarchical idea and of the pre-revolutionary nationalism who was also acting president of the Congress. He believed in the legitimism and in the traditionalism, the first connected to the idea of monarchy given from divine right and the second w
Having an analysis of the European status could be noticed the fifth point focused during the congress: the hegemony of the five Great Powers. Prussia was on the point of creating a main role in the German Confederation. However the relations between these states were not completely friendly, as a matter of fact some secret pacts were signed behind the Congress, pacts turned to limit the power of that states considered as enemy or with a different policy. hich consisted in the existence of an immutable hierarchic order. The fourth pillar of the new Europe would be the stability, first of all towards to France, state still seen as reactionary; this stability was thought to avoid the phenomenon of cannibalism happened during the XVIII century, a situation where the territorial gains by one of the Powers must be compensated by the gains of an another Power with the result of the disappearance of small states such as Poland. To set a limit to a new expansion of France was created a sort of dam on the east boundary composed by the new state of Holland, under the Orange monarchy and Switzerland was declared permanently neutral. The fact that the Congress of Vienna was conducted with the aim of preventing universal war, which led to proposals of creating a balance of power, establishing "better" conservative governments, containing France and cooperation between the great powers to meet these ends clearly demonstrates that the welfare of all of Europe was a relevant concern but the balance created was not stable and the new ideas born in the second half of the XVIII century were not completely canceled, after a while, Europe would have taken a new and more liberal face. The last Power which took part in the Congress of Vienna was Prussia represented by the Chancellor and by the king Frederick Willem III. The Congress of Vienna developed around five main points: the balance of power, a situation where the five great Powers had to be equivalent in power in order to avoid new wars; the restoration of the pre-revolutionary European monarchies, first of all the Bourbon family in France and their legitimization as divine, imperishable and absolute. The new political order of Europe was given by a chain of territorial annexations and political changes: France was deprived of all territory conquered by Napoleon, Prussia was given much of Saxony and important parts of Westphalia and Rhineland, Austria was given back most of the territory it had lost and was also given land in Germany and Italy (Lombardy and Venetia) while Piedmont returned to be free, Britain got several strategic colonial territories (Guyana, Ceylon) and they also gained control of the seas, 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, Russia got Finland and effective control over the new kingdom of Poland, France was restored under the rule of Louis XVIII, Spain was restored under Ferdinand VII of Bourbon. Russia, an another great Power with a strong monarchical tradition, was represented directly by the Tsar Alexander I who obtained important territories such as a big part of the Reign of Poland while Britain, maybe in the early XIX century the most powerful state but with the most problems of internal stability was represented by Lord Castlereagh who obtained few colony, previously belonged to France. The Quadruple Alliance was signed against a new rise of France from the other four Powers and Britain, France and Austria drew up a secret pact against the emerging east Powers: Russia and Prussia.
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Acceptance Essays
