After Napoleon’s defeat, the four great powers (England, Russia, Prussia, and Austria) and France met in Vienna in September 1814 (the Congress of Vienna) to draw up a peace settlement. Their goal was to redraw the map of Europe as it existed pre-1789 in order to ensure order and stability.
Despite their different goals, the leaders of the Congress of Vienna agreed to establish a balance of power in Europe to ensure that one nation, like France, would never become politically and militarily strong enough to dominate the continent.
The diplomats encircled France through the following:
They also wanted to restore the power to monarchs based on the Principle of Legitimacy. This meant returning to power the ruling families deposed by more than two decades of revolutionary movement. Bourbon rulers were restored in France, Spain, and Naples. Dynasties were restored in Holland, and the Papal States were returned to the pope.
The Congress also provided for compensation, rewarding those states that had made considerable sacrifice to defeat Napoleon: Austria was given Lombardy and Venetia; Russia was given most of Poland and Finland; and Prussia was awarded the Rhineland and part of Poland. To enforce this settlement, Metternich organized the Quadruple Alliance of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Britain. The purpose of the Alliance was to maintain the balance of power and stop and suppress any revolutionary ideas of nationalism and democracy, which threatened to upset the Vienna settlement. The cooperation among the major nations of Europe is often referred to as the Concert of Europe. Alexander I organized the Holy Alliance consisting of most European monarchs who pledged to rule by Christian principles. The Holy Alliance was ineffective, idealistic, and existed only on paper.
Even though the Congress of Vienna denied the principles of nationalism and democracy, the settlement lasted for 100 years. Europe would not see another war on the Napoleonic scale until World War I in 1914. During this hundred years’ period, Europe was able to direct its resources towards an Industrial Revolution that would directly affect the political, economic, and social fabric of the continent. The statesmen of Vienna, however, underestimated how this new Industrial Revolution would lead to the creation of a new alignment of social classes and the development of new needs and issues.