What was Treaty of Vienna ?

When Castlereagh had to return to his parliamentary duties, the duke of Wellington replaced him, and Lord Clancarty was principal representative after the duke’s departure.

The Congress ended vexatious disputes over diplomatic precedence.

The restored Louis XVIII of France sent Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand. Spain, Portugal, and Sweden had only men of moderate ability to represent them. Many of the rulers of the minor states of Europe put in an appearance.

The question of diplomatic precedence had been a source of much bickering in the past. A special committee was formed at the Vienna Congress to resolve these problems once and for all, and it did so by devising commonly accepted rules still in use 200 years later.

With them came a host of courtiers, secretaries, and ladies to enjoy the magnificent social life of the Austrian court.

The Congress had a profound cultural impact, from the foods we eat to the music we enjoy.

Assisting Metternich as host, Friedrich Gentz played a vital role in the management of protocol and in the secretarial organization of the congress.

Ludwig van Beethoven conducted a performance of his Seventh Symphony at the Congress, as well as a new cantata he composed especially for the occasion. The waltz, a dance of whirling couples that required far greater touching by partners, was already fashionable in Vienna and became an international sensation during the Congress.

The social side of the congress was, in fact, one of the causes of the long and unexpected delay in producing a result, for Metternich at least sometimes subordinated business to pleasure.

The delegates at Vienna also vied with one another to serve the best cuisine. Talleyrand brought his best chef to entice his visitors with rich sauces and scrumptious deserts. Wiener Kongresstorte, a cake filled with walnut cream, is still served in Viennese cafés.

The procedure of the congress was determined by the difficulty and complexity of the issues to be solved. First there was the problem of the organization of the congress, for which there was no precedent.

Without the Congress of Vienna, there would have been no Waterloo.

The “four” were determined to keep the management of the main problems entirely in their own hands, but since they had rather rashly summoned a congress, they had to pay some attention to it.

This June, the world will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of Waterloo, but this battle might never have taken place had it not been for the Congress of Vienna. Napoleon escaped from Elba and landed in France in March 1815, while allied leaders were still assembled in Vienna. As soon as they heard the startling news, they met and instantly resolved to band together to unseat their former adversary.

Thus, the ministers of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain assembled early for discussions and finally agreed, on September 22, 1814, that the “four” should be those to decide the future of all the conquered territories.

The Congress of Vienna led to the later “Congress System,” which in turn influenced the formation of the League of Nations and United Nations.

Last but not least, the Congress of Vienna suggested a new model of global governance.  After the return of Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo, the same ministers who had summoned the Congress of Vienna gathered in Paris to negotiate a new peace treaty with France.

They also signed a separate alliance between themselves in which they pledged to hold periodic unions, known to historians as the “Congress System.”  The simple idea was for the great powers to meet to discuss outstanding issues, to reach a consensus, and then to impose their collective will on the rest of Europe.

The system did not last long because Britain, as a constitutional monarchy, could not agree with the more absolutist states on the systematic repression of all revolutions as a matter of principle.

Such was the situation that Talleyrand found when he arrived on September 24. He refused to accept it and was supported by Spain’s representative, the marqués de Labrador.

A century later, when British policy-makers were designing the organizational structure of the new League of Nations, they looked back on this audacious experiment in international cooperation and specifically called for periodical meetings of the great powers.

Talleyrand denied that either the “four” or the “six” (including France and Spain) was a legally constituted body and desired that the congress should be summoned to elect a directing committee.

These became the “Council” of the new League and held most of its power—a partial resurrection of the Congress System of old. When the League of Nations was replaced by the United Nations in 1945, its Council was renamed as the Security Council.

If any other body had rights in the matter, it was the group of powers—Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal—that had signed the 1814 Treaty of Paris with France (thus, the “eight”), which ended the Napoleonic Wars for the first time. The core four were much disturbed, knowing that the smaller powers would support Talleyrand if they gave him the chance of appealing to them.

Thus, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council today are the very real heirs of the Congress System—that group of great powers that summoned all of Europe to Vienna 200 years ago. This is, no doubt, their greatest legacy of all.