A presentation on congress of vienna: 1814-1815 {The Concert of Europe: Vienna System}

CONGRESS OF VIENNA: 1814-1815 {The Concert of Europe: Vienna System}

By

CHARLES PATRICK MOKWENYEI

TABLE OF CONTENT

• Congress of Vienna 1814-1815
• Poland-Saxon Crisis
• Goals and Objectives of the Congress of Vienna
• The concert of Europe: VIENNA SYSTEM
• The 100 days
• The FINAL ACT

Congress of Vienna 1814-1815

In 1814, after Napoleon's initial defeat, European leaders met to discuss France and Europe's struggle for power and peace. Congress of Vienna, assembly in 1814–15 that reorganized Europe after the Napoleonic Wars. It began in September 1814, five months after Napoleon I’s first abdication and completed its “Final Act” in June 1815, The settlement was the most-comprehensive treaty that Europe had ever seen. Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain, the four powers that were chiefly instrumental in the overthrow of Napoleon, had concluded a special alliance among themselves with the Treaty of Chaumont, on March 9, 1814, a month before Napoleon’s first abdication. The subsequent treaties of peace with France, signed on May 30 not only by the “four” but also by Sweden and Portugal and on July 20 by Spain, stipulated that all former belligerents should send plenipotentiaries to a congress in Vienna. Nevertheless, the “four” still intended to reserve the real decision making for themselves.

All of Representatives began to arrive in Vienna toward the end of September 1814.

• Austria was represented by Prince Metternich, the Foreign Minister, and by his deputy, Baron Johann von Wessenberg. As the Congress's sessions were in Vienna, Emperor Francis was kept closely informed.
• The United Kingdom was represented first by its Foreign Secretary, Viscount Castlereagh; then by the Duke of Wellington, after Castlereagh's return to England in February 1815. In the last weeks it was headed by the Earl of Clancarty, after Wellington left to face Napoleon during the Hundred Days.
• Tsar Alexander I controlled the Russian delegation which was formally led by the foreign minister, Count Karl Robert Nesselrode. The tsar had three main goals: to gain control of Poland, to form a league that could intervene and stop revolutions against monarchies and traditionalism, and to promote the peaceful coexistence of European nations. He succeeded in forming the Holy Alliance (1815), based on monarchism and anti-secularism, and formed to combat any threat of revolution or republicanism.
• Prussia was represented by Prince Karl August von Hardenberg, the Chancellor, and the diplomat and scholar Wilhelm von Humboldt. King Frederick William III of Prussia was also in Vienna, playing his role behind the scenes.
• France, the "fifth" power, was represented by its foreign minister, Talleyrand, as well as the Minister Plenipotentiary the Duke of Dalberg. Talleyrand had already negotiated the Treaty of Paris (1814) for Louis XVIII of France; the king, however, distrusted him and was also secretly negotiating with Metternich, by mail. Many of the rulers of the minor states of Europe put in an appearance.