Asher Sisneros

Asher K. Sisneros

Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr. 

Western Civilization From 1493

December 2, 2024

The Congress of Vienna was a conference that officially convened following Napoleon’s defeat. The four major European powers at the time—Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia—led the council, with other smaller European powers participating in the conference. Despite its imperfections, the Congress of Vienna succeeded in protecting Europe from large-scale warfare for nearly a century. 

Its long-term success was largely thanks to its treatment of France. Rather than enforce retaliatory measures on France because of Napoleon’s expansionist foreign policy, the delegates at the Congress of Vienna were more interested in pursuing peace and reintegrating France into Europe. In short, the delegates were motivated to restore law and order and achieve restoration. They realized reparations would cause the French to grow resentful and potentially lead to another conflict, like what happened to Germany following the Treaty of Versailles (1919). To avoid that, the Congress of Vienna gave the French representation at the conference and did not impose absurd reparations on the French. 

In addition to giving France reasonable treatment and not completely crushing the sovereign nation and its people, the delegates at the Congress of Vienna were guided by three main principles: legitimacy, balance of power, and compensation. In effect, those were the questions the congress was convened to address. 

Legitimacy was the idea that reigning royal families were legitimately entitled to rule. Any revolutionary spirit moving to depose a reigning monarch and his or her family was considered illegitimate, especially since the Napoleonic catastrophe was rightfully seen as a byproduct of the French Revolution. Any movement to launch a coup d’etat against the rightful rulers of the nation was understood as illegitimate and deserving of severe defensive measures. To protect their right to legitimacy, the House of Bourbon was recrowned in France. 

Balance of power was the second principle guiding the Congress of Vienna. The nations there believed European peace was only possible if all the European powers felt safe and secure. With one nation having the potential to dominate another, all the powers would live in fear, with warfare constantly looming as a possibility. To avoid conflict, the powers believed no nation could dominate Europe. Rather, all the nations needed to be close to equal to achieve continental stability. This principle manifested itself in the distribution of land, power, and prestige. 

Finally, compensation encompassed two main ideas. The first and most elementary idea was that nations should be compensated for being dragged into the war. After all, wars are costly. In addition to the material costs involved in supplying weapons and food and the costs of rebuilding destroyed infrastructure, there are also the immaterial costs that come with lost lives. The second idea of compensation was that if one European nation gave something like land or resources to another nation, they were entitled to some form of equal reimbursement. For example, in exchange for recognizing Poland’s independence as a sovereign state, Prussia was compensated with parts of Saxony, and Austria was compensated with parts of northern Italy for losing its Saxon holdings. 

Although those three principles—the principle of legitimacy, the balance of power, and compensations—guided the delegates at the Congress of Vienna, the success they saw at creating long-term peace first and foremost came from their desire for peace and stability. To attain peace, they were willing to work together and come to mutually beneficial agreements. In the end, there were no resentful parties. The negotiations were not about maximizing power. They were about peace.