HW- Issues Behind the Congress of Vienna

    

       A great Congress was arranged to convene at Vienna in the autumn of 1814. As the proceedings of the Congress of Vienna continued amidst much lavish social festival diplomatists and statesmen redrew the map of Europe after Napoleon's downfall. A French Bourbon monarchy had been restored and was represented at Vienna by Talleyrand who gradually won acceptance from other diplomats that restoration France should be regarded as a major power with a legitimate say in the efforts to define a peace.

      Although the several powers gathered at Vienna had formerly been allies in war they strenuously disagreed amongst themselves over the post war settlement of Europe. Metternich had many talents which helped him to exercise a great influence on proceedings. His charm, determination, subtlety and finesse played a key role in frustrating Russia's plans for the annexation of the whole of Poland and Prussia's attempt to absorb Saxony. He succeeded in creating a German Confederation under Austrian leadership and was broadly satisfied with the degree to which Austria was influential in the Italian peninsula. The fact that Napoleon escaped from Elba and again became leader of sizable armies that stayed in the field for some "one hundred days" may have helped to concentrate the diplomats minds on the need to reach agreement.

      Metternich equally resented liberalism, nationalism, and revolution regarding them all as forms of "presumption". Metternich subscribed to a world view that dated from the "European Enlightenment". That is he accepted that there were certain fundamental laws relating to society which were open to being discovered. By governing in line with such laws rulers could have a greater hope that their societies would function in a stable and tranquil equilibrium. Metternich believed that the observation of the precepts of Religious and Social Morality to be a primary necessity to governing in line with natural laws.

        In Metternich's view the printing presses had made it a lot easier to spread harmful ideas as well as beneficial ones. Such things as the invention of Gunpowder and the monetary inflation that had been experienced in Europe as the gold and silver of the Americas were imported had greatly unsettled the previous social equilibrium and prepared men's minds for the acceptance of new, and often false, ideas. Such false ideas were then "presumptuous" in that they often tended to motivate people to support socio-political movements that would seek to establish seemingly attractive adaptions of society that were not in line with the observance of fundamental laws.

       Metternich's ideal was a monarchy that shared power with the traditional privileged classes of society. In efforts to preserve the sort of Europe he valued from future revolutionary eruptions, Metternich attempted to make the postwar Quadruple Alliance (Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria) into an instrument for preventing revolution in Europe. He encouraged a Congress System where representatives of the powers were to meet periodically with the view considering if it was necessary to suppress revolutionary movements. He was in favor of close supervision of the universities and an ambitious system of censorship intended to discourage radicalism of any kind. These policies left Metternich open to being depicted as an architect of Reaction and of a suppressor of Liberty. It seems that the Austrian Emperor, Francis I, was of a notably reactionary outlook and this may well have helped to restrain any modest tendency towards flexibility that Metternich might have himself favored.

1. How did Metternich's ideas differ from the ideas of the Enlightenment?

2. Would Metternich's ideas promote peace or conflict in Europe? Explain