![]() ![]() The Congress of Vienna dissolved the Napoleonic world and attempted to restore the monarchies Napoleon had overthrown, ushering in an era of reaction. The basic tenet of the European balance of power is that no single European power should be allowed to achieve hegemony over a substantial part of the continent and that this is best curtailed by having a small number of ever-changing alliances contend for power. The Treaty of Chaumont united the powers to defeat Napoleon and became the cornerstone of the Concert of Europe, which formed the balance of power for the next two decades. They included the establishment of a confederated Germany, the division of French protectorates and annexations into independent states, the restoration of the Bourbon kings of Spain, the enlargement of the Netherlands to include what in 1830 became modern Belgium, and the continuation of British subsidies to its allies. It served as a model for later organizations such as the League of Nations in 1919 and the United Nations in 1945. ![]() The Congress of Vienna was the first of a series of international meetings that came to be known as the Concert of Europe, an attempt to forge a peaceful balance of power in Europe. ![]() The Treaty of Chaumont of March 1814 reaffirmed decisions that would be ratified by the more important Congress of Vienna of 1814–15. Do you agree with the 19th-century critics or the 20th-century historians on the impact of the Congress of Vienna?Īs the four major European powers (Britain, Prussia, Russia, and Austria) opposing the French Empire in the Napoleonic Wars saw Napoleon's power collapsing in 1814, they started planning for the postwar world. In the second column, note key features of the Concert of Europe. In the first column, note the definition and characteristics of t he Conservative Order. Read this lesson on the Congress of Vienna to understand these different perceptions. The Paris Peace Conference of 1918, at the end of World War I, was modeled after the Vienna Congress. However, opinions about the Congress shifted in the 20th century – many historians came to appreciate the "feats of diplomacy" the participants had achieved and credited the Congress with preserving the peace for 100 years, until World War I. They complained that the so-called Conservative Order ignored the civil rights of the people who lived in the reorganized states in support of the interests of the major powers. Many 19th-century observers criticized the Congress as a conservative backlash to revolutionary liberalism, since it opposed the human rights and liberties the French and American revolutionaries had asserted. ![]()
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