Congress of Vienna

The Congress of Vienna (German: Wiener Kongress) is a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Austrian statesman Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September 1814 to June 1815.

The objective of the Congress is to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars, and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire.This objective results in the redrawing of the continent's political map, establishing the boundaries of France, the Duchy of Warsaw, the Netherlands, the states of the Rhine, the German province of Saxony, and various Italian territories, and the creation of spheres of influence through which Austria, Britain, France and Russia broker local and regional problems.

The Congress of Vienna is the first of a series of international meetings that come to be known as the Concert of Europe, which is an attempt to forge a peaceful balance of power in Europe, and servei as a model for later organizations such as the League of Nations and United Nations.The immediate background is Napoleonic France's defeat and surrender in May 1814, which brings an end to twenty-five years of nearly continuous war.

Negotiations continue despite the outbreak of fighting triggered by Napoleon's dramatic return from exile and resumption of power in France during the Hundred Days of March–July, 1815.

The Congress's "Final Act" is signed nine days before his final defeat at Waterloo on June 18, 1815.In a technical sense, the "Congress of Vienna" is not properly a Congress: it never meets in plenary session, and most of the discussions occur in informal, face-to-face, sessions among the Great Powers of Austria, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and sometimes Prussia, with limited or no participation by other delegates.

On the other hand, the Congress is the first occasion in history where, on a continental scale, national representatives come together to formulate treaties, instead of relying mostly on messengers and messages between the several capitals.

The Congress of Vienna settlement, despite later changes, forms the framework for European international politics until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

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