Diplomats from Austria, Russia, Prussia, Britain, and a restored France concluded the Congress of Vienna, establishing a balance of power meant to prevent another continent-wide war. Led by Austria's Metternich, the settlement redrew borders, restored monarchies, and created the framework for a century of relative great-power stability, even as it ignored rising nationalist and liberal aspirations.
For nine months, Europe's aristocracy danced its way through Vienna even as its diplomats haggled over the fate of tens of millions. The Congress had convened after Napoleon's first abdication and continued through his brief return during the Hundred Days, adjourning only after his final defeat at Waterloo settled the matter for good.
Prince Metternich of Austria dominated the proceedings, pursuing a vision of conservative equilibrium: no single power should ever again grow strong enough to threaten the continent as France had. The final act redrew the map extensively, strengthening Prussia, uniting the Netherlands and Belgium, creating a Swiss confederation, and restoring the Bourbon monarchy in France, all while carving up Poland between Russia, Prussia, and Austria yet again.
What the Congress did not do was reckon with the nationalism and liberalism that the French Revolution had unleashed. Metternich's system, built on monarchic legitimacy and censorship, held off major war for decades but stored up pressures that would erupt in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. Historians still argue whether Vienna was a triumph of pragmatic statecraft or a conservative straitjacket doomed to rupture.
Key people: Klemens von Metternich, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh