Congress Gone Wild

After Napoleon’s defeat, the various former rulers of Europe convened to figure out how to piece Europe back together and how to prevent another Napoleon from happening. Hosted in Austria, most thought the Vienna meetings, full of diplomats and royalty, would take 6 weeks or so, but excitement for peace turned the Congress of Vienna into a near-party for the participants, and it took 9 months for them to finalize everything. In class, we studied what people in power, like Prince Klemens von Metternich of Austria, did when their power was threatened by an outside force, like Napoleon. In groups, we were given some problems that needed to be addressed at the Congress of Vienna. We were also given a set of choices, and had to pick the one that Prince Metternich, a strong conservative, would have suggested. We then put our answers on this Padlet and compared with our classmates, also discussing what the Congress of Vienna really chose to do.

The diplomats from each of the five major powers of Europe. From left to right: Prince Metternich (Austria),
Prince Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand (France), King Frederick William III (Prussia), Viscount Castlereagh (England), and Czar Alexander I (Russia). All images from wikipedia.org.

One aspect of the Congress of Vienna’s decisions that we discussed was the Principle of Intervention. All but one (England) of the representatives at the Congress of Vienna decided that if any one of them was having difficulties putting down a revolution, the others could send in military to squash it themselves and restore the original monarchy. This came into play in the 1820s, when Austria crushed an Italian nationalist uprising, and when Louis XVIII of France sent his army to crush a rebellion in Spain. This principle, which supported conservatism, made sure to prevent any liberalism or nationalism taking hold in Europe (though it did not protect against revolutions taking place in the New World).

I think this was a poor decision by the Congress of Vienna. Squashing all movement for change does not stop it, only postponing change to come later and much angrier. In 1848, Austrian revolutions forced Metternich to flee Vienna and lose power. Instead, the rulers should have applied some liberal ideas, which would have caused them to lose some power, but would have prevented the rebellions against them in the first place.