We Want Peace!

The Congress of Vienna was a peace conference in 1814 that was held in Austria. France, Prussia, Austria, Russia, and Great Britain gathered to come up with a peace treaty following Napoleon's defeat.

Our lesson on the Congress of Vienna started with an essential question that asked what people in power should do if their power is threatened. Our lesson continued when we read a background reading from Vienna 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna. I learned the information I wrote in the introduction form the reading as well as who attended the conference. Kings, queens, princes, and diplomats all made the journey to Vienna. The Congress of Vienna was a laid back conference and consisted of many balls and events. They realized toward the end that they needed to speed things up and did just that. The treaty was signed on the ninth of June in 1815. After reading the background essay, we watched a video that reenacted the meeting between prince Clemens von Metternich and Napoleon Bonaparte. Metternich seeks peace for France and requests Napoleon to stop his conquests and for the original boundaries to be restored. Napoleons response is that he will reduce Vienna to rubble and mentions how then multiple soldiers would have died for nothing if the boundaries were going to reset.

Metternich

Napoleon

Napoleon's power was diminishing. Now that Napoleon's threat no longer existed, what was to be done about the boundaries, France, and preventing future revolutions? The congress of Vienna met to plan for a future without Napoleon Bonaparte.

One thing that resulted form the Congress of Vienna was the Holy Alliance and Principle of Intervention, both of which were to prevent future revolutions. The Holy Alliance stated that monarchs had the divine right to rule and so if there were any revolution, it was reason and against God. This helped the powerful people attending the Congress of Vienna to make sure their power wasn't threatened because the people during this time were very religious and wouldn't want to ever be told they were going against God. The Principle of Intervention was an ideology that gave the great powers the right to send troops into a country to stop a revolution and restore monarchs. This also helped to prevent revolutions and power being threatened because there was always a chance that an army can send troops and make things even worse in order to stop the revolutions.

In my opinion, what the attendees of the Congress of Vienna did was effective and the right choice. I think they should have not completely just make decisions and take away land from other countries like Italy because it wasn't fair, but for the most part what they did prevented revolutions for the next 40+ years. I think that the people with the most power always should make sacrifices and give up some of their power to others in order to keep any issues from arising. Napoleon had gained so much power he just fell apart and people were upset everywhere with some of what he was doing. Life isn't fair, but sometimes you have to make it a little more fair than it is to keep yourself safe from conflict.

Napoleon Picture Site
Metternich Picture Site
 
For an interactive map showing the changes in Europe during the 19th century click here.