![]() Peace had been formally achieved through the First Peace of Paris of. ![]() In the case of Vienna, peace had already been made between France and the major allies before the conference met. Whereas this implied discussions on the future order of Europe, the major interest was to settle the claims which lay at the origins of the war and the focus was thus largely backwards-looking. Yet, in several ways, it was also a departure from it.Īt the prior peace conferences, the major order of business had been to agree on the conditions to end war and restore peace. The Congress of Vienna stands in the tradition of great European peace conferences, beginning with Westphalia (1648) and continuing with Nijmegen (1678–1679), Rijswijk (1697), Utrecht (1713), Vienna (1738), Aachen (1748), and Paris (1763) to the Paris peace conference that ended the American War of Independence (1783). This they intended to do by containing the power of France and recreating the balance between the great powers.Īt Vienna, between November 1814 and June 1815, the representatives of more than 200 European polities – many from the now-defunct Holy Roman Empire – met to debate a new European order. The defeat of Napoleon (1769–1821) in 1813–1814 by a huge coalition of powers under the leadership of Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia gave the victorious powers an opportunity to stabilise Europe. The Congress of Vienna marked the establishment of a new political and legal order for Europe after more than two decades of turmoil and war following the French Revolution. ![]() As, with the turn of the year, the interest in the Great War seems to be somewhat subsiding and the anniversary of the most epic and dramatic event of the Vienna period, the Battle of Waterloo of 18 June 1815, is approaching, the commemoration of the Vienna Congress gains a bit of the spotlight. It has all but overshadowed some other major anniversaries in the history of international relations and law, such as the quarter-centenary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) or the bicentenary of the Vienna Congress (1814–1815). The centenary of the Great War in 2014 has generated impressive public as well as scholarly attention.
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