The Congress of Vienna and European Conservatism

Hey there, students. Today I'm going to chat with you a little bit about the Congress of Vienna and the establishment of a conservative order in 19th century Europe. Now, first of all, let's go ahead and get this year in our mind. 1815. Very important year. This is the year of Napoleon's surrender. This is the year that is the midpoint of the AP European History course, if you're taking that, and really a landmark in European history because it It ends a quarter century of continual warfare in Europe. It ends the chaos that came after the French Revolution. And after Napoleon's surrender, European leaders got together in Vienna, Austria, and the objective here is to restore order in Europe, to try to build a framework of stability and peace, and undo the French Revolution to the extent that it is possible. Now, of course, you can't totally turn back the clock, but you can try to do it the best you can. For example, a lot of you watching this are underage. You've probably never opened a bottle of wine before, but once you take the cork out, well, you can try to put the cork back in and you can sort of get it in, but you can't quite get it in like it was earlier, but you can try. So keep in mind the Congress of Vienna is really about trying to put that cork in and trying to get that as much like the old way as possible and to restore the balance of power that had been sort of eluding Europe ever since Louis XIV really, that France for over a hundred years had really been threatening the balance of power. And the parties at the... Congress of Vienna are the members of the Quadruple Alliance. This is the alliance that defeated Napoleon, an alliance of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Britain. Now keep in mind that the objective here is not to punish France. We're not trying to exact reparations. We're not trying to reduce them to nothing. We're just trying to make sure that they can't threaten the balance of power. And because of that, France is actually going to be included in... the peace talks. Depending on what test you're studying for, you may have to know about a guy named Talleyrand, who was the French emissary to Congress of Vienna, ended up being pretty influential. And it's rare that the defeated party gets a seat at the table. Certainly wasn't the case 100 years later in Versailles. But the great powers concluded that in order to re-establish the balance of power, in order to create a stable and prosperous and peaceful Europe, France must remain a great power. And this will re-establish the balance of power and hopefully create peace in Europe. Keep in mind the balance of power is a key theme in European history. This is something that over and over again Europeans are trying to create. A system where no power predominates and nobody is strong enough to take over any of the others. And the dominant figure at the Congress of Vienna is Clemens von Metternich. He was the Austrian foreign minister. Now, keep in mind that the age following this Congress of Vienna is called the Age of Metternich sometimes. It's a period from 1815-1848. Metternich is a very influential figure. What you're going to do if you're preparing for an exam, you're going to take your Congress of Vienna box and you're going to put Metternich in there, you're going to put conservatism in there. and all of that good stuff. Matternick was known as the coachman of Europe, the guy that is driving this team, okay? If you think about a horse-drawn carriage and the guy is making those horses go. You can kind of think of him also as the coach of the team if you want to think about him in more modern terms. And Matternick is a champion of conservatism, which is a philosophy that... becomes dominant in the wake of the turmoil of the French Revolution. And keep in mind, throw out like conservatism as you think of it in America today. This is something that has some stuff in common, but really is kind of different, okay? But really, conservatism is about two things. Stability within states and stability between states, okay? France became unstable within itself, and it resulted in chaos between states as well. So, conservatism seeks to create order, and whether it's within states or between states. And the objective here, of course, is that the French Revolution never happened again anywhere. So first, let's talk about stability within states. Now, conservatives in the 19th century, they believed in tradition, whereas the French Revolution was about... liberal reform that turned into a radical mess, tradition is what keeps things stable. And the way that tradition is maintained is through institutions, whether they be religious institutions or the nobility. Keep in mind that the French Revolution at first was about liberal reform, getting rid of the privileges of the church and the nobility, and then just like taking a card out of a house of cards or something like that. or if you're playing Jango or a game like that, everything's going to fall down if you start assaulting these institutions. And conservatives in the 19th century valued the aristocracy. They believed that the aristocracy had a place in ensuring stability. They were not champions of liberal reform because they believed that this liberal reform that happened in France in the early years of the French Revolution caused the stuff that came afterwards. They don't believe in popular government because the French Revolution, it all started with, hey, let's have an election for our assembly and let's let every man vote regardless of whether he owns property. That ended up not being such a good idea. And, of course, conservatives are not fans of nationalism because nationalism threatens existing borders, existing political entities. When people start talking about, well, you know what? A nation is really more about language and shared culture than it is about who's governing us. That's dangerous. Okay, that creates upheavals. Now moving on to stability between states. Now the way this works is through a system that Metternich came up with known as the Concert of Europe. Now this isn't like a concert that I go to or something like that. Yeah, rock! That's what, no. Okay, this... like the sort of concert that I've never been to in my life, the one where the conductor's like, woo, you know, you're doing this thing, like, you know, I don't know how he, you know, that sort of thing. If you've never conducted before, which is most of you probably think I know what I'm doing, if you have, you probably think this guy's a musical idiot, which I am. But the Concert of Europe, think about a symphony or something with a conductor, and everybody's playing their notes when they're supposed to play. So this is a classy type of concert. of concert acting in concert, that the European powers should act together to ensure stability and to maintain existing national boundaries and prevent revolution. The concert system was the first example in Europe of collective security, where nations rely on each other to keep peace. Now, this was an informal arrangement. The concert of Europe was not a formal Association of Nations, but it laid the groundwork for things that are going to come later, such the League of Nations, NATO, the UN, the EU, three of those of which are still in existence today. So keep in mind that the concert system sets a precedent for all these formal associations that will follow later. Another association that came out of the Congress of Vienna wasn't nearly as important, but could be on a test or something like that. This is the Holy Alliance that lasted for about 10 years. This is an agreement between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. These three absolutist powers of Central and Eastern Europe. And they agreed to rule in a spirit of Christian charity and assist each other in times of trouble. Now, what that really means is whenever there's a revolutionary movement or something like that in any of those countries, that the rest of them will band together and help them to... Crush it, okay? So... It sounds really Christian, but really it's about maintaining power and that sort of thing. So don't be fooled, but this doesn't last that long, partly because Britain says, no, we don't really want to get in that close an association with Prussia and Austria and Russia, these absolutist powers. Now let's take a look at what I'm going to call the new old map of Europe. Keep in mind that this map is being drawn according to conservative principles. This is being drawn to try to remake the boundaries of pre-Napoleonic Europe, but at the same time there's some newness to it because it has to take into account the new realities that are present. So I'm going to talk about what has changed, what has stayed the same. Now, for France... They could totally post their map on Instagram, something like that, and like just TBT. All right, just a throwback Thursday because France is throwing back to 1792. By the way, this goes out to everyone following me on Instagram as a result of these videos. Love your comments and all that kind of stuff. It's great. So France is going to be thrown back to 1792, not too far back. Almost like when people post a picture of last week or something like that, and they say, Woo, TBT! And it's like, hey, that was last week, okay? We're talking, like, baby pictures and stuff. But anyway, no war reparations, and the Bourbons are going to be restored. Louis XVIII, the guy that was going to be the 17th that died, something like that. So they wanted to give props to him or whatever. So the Bourbons are restored, and France is going to be kind of recreated in its old image. Now, Russia gained some territory in Poland. Remember, this had previously been partitioned between Austria-Prussia and Russia. And Russia had been instrumental in Napoleon's defeat. Keep in mind, Napoleon brought his grand army into Russia with 500,000 people, came back with about 10,000. So, Russia needs to be rewarded. Alexander I of Russia was very influential at this conference. And keep in mind, the defeat of Napoleon in Russia is glorified in novels such as War and Peace. So Russia gains that territory. Now, in the former Holy Roman Empire, which had been dissolved by Napoleon by that time, as Voltaire said, it was neither Holy nor Roman nor an empire. And it's not going to be recreated, but something like it, similar to it, is going to be created. This is called the German Confederation. which was an association of German states to replace this defunct Holy Roman Empire. This was to be an association of 39 different German-speaking states. Now, you may think that's a lot, but keep in mind that there used to be over 300 different principalities and states that were part of the old Holy Roman Empire, some of them no larger than a city or even a town. So this is going to be modernized. Now the big question that is going to be present for the rest of the 19th century is who will dominate this German Confederation? Will it be Austria or will it be Prussia? And at the beginning of the 19th century, it seems that Austria is going to be the dominant power, but as the 19th century drags on, Prussia becomes more and more ascendant until finally the Prussians and the Austrians fight a brief war, and Prussia is established as the preeminent German power. I'll talk about that in another lecture later on. So keep in mind, this begins the age of Metternich, about a generation where there is pretty much almost uninterrupted peace in Europe, so for 33 years. Now keep in mind, it's 99 years until there is going to be another major... European war in the sense the whole continent's going to be involved. So almost a century of peace. Although there are going to be some wars here and there, it's going to be almost a century before the next really epic conflict. Now compare that to only 20 years between the signing of the Versailles Treaty which ended World War I and the beginning of World War II with Hitler's invasion of Poland. So when you compare 99 years to 20 years you can say that compared to the Versailles Conference in the next century the Congress of Vienna was a great success. High five! So that brings us to the conclusion of this lecture. If you like what you heard, if this is helping you, go ahead and subscribe. Plenty more where this came from. I've also got a website with PowerPoints, all kinds of other instructional material, so check it out, tomrichie.net. Until next time.

This is the year of Napoleon's surrender. This is the year that is the midpoint of the AP European History course, if you're taking that, and really a landmark in European history because it It ends a quarter century of continual warfare in Europe. It ends the chaos that came after the French Revolution.

And after Napoleon's surrender, European leaders got together in Vienna, Austria, and the objective here is to restore order in Europe, to try to build a framework of stability and peace, and undo the French Revolution to the extent that it is possible. Now, of course, you can't totally turn back the clock, but you can try to do it the best you can. For example, a lot of you watching this are underage. You've probably never opened a bottle of wine before, but once you take the cork out, well, you can try to put the cork back in and you can sort of get it in, but you can't quite get it in like it was earlier, but you can try. So keep in mind the Congress of Vienna is really about trying to put that cork in and trying to get that as much like the old way as possible and to restore the balance of power that had been sort of eluding Europe ever since Louis XIV really, that France for over a hundred years had really been threatening the balance of power.

And the parties at the... Congress of Vienna are the members of the Quadruple Alliance. This is the alliance that defeated Napoleon, an alliance of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Britain.

Now keep in mind that the objective here is not to punish France. We're not trying to exact reparations. We're not trying to reduce them to nothing. We're just trying to make sure that they can't threaten the balance of power.

And because of that, France is actually going to be included in... the peace talks. Depending on what test you're studying for, you may have to know about a guy named Talleyrand, who was the French emissary to Congress of Vienna, ended up being pretty influential.

And it's rare that the defeated party gets a seat at the table. Certainly wasn't the case 100 years later in Versailles. But the great powers concluded that in order to re-establish the balance of power, in order to create a stable and prosperous and peaceful Europe, France must remain a great power. And this will re-establish the balance of power and hopefully create peace in Europe.

Keep in mind the balance of power is a key theme in European history. This is something that over and over again Europeans are trying to create. A system where no power predominates and nobody is strong enough to take over any of the others. And the dominant figure at the Congress of Vienna is Clemens von Metternich. He was the Austrian foreign minister.

Now, keep in mind that the age following this Congress of Vienna is called the Age of Metternich sometimes. It's a period from 1815-1848. Metternich is a very influential figure.

What you're going to do if you're preparing for an exam, you're going to take your Congress of Vienna box and you're going to put Metternich in there, you're going to put conservatism in there. and all of that good stuff. Matternick was known as the coachman of Europe, the guy that is driving this team, okay?

If you think about a horse-drawn carriage and the guy is making those horses go. You can kind of think of him also as the coach of the team if you want to think about him in more modern terms. And Matternick is a champion of conservatism, which is a philosophy that...

becomes dominant in the wake of the turmoil of the French Revolution. And keep in mind, throw out like conservatism as you think of it in America today. This is something that has some stuff in common, but really is kind of different, okay? But really, conservatism is about two things. Stability within states and stability between states, okay?

France became unstable within itself, and it resulted in chaos between states as well. So, conservatism seeks to create order, and whether it's within states or between states. And the objective here, of course, is that the French Revolution never happened again anywhere.

So first, let's talk about stability within states. Now, conservatives in the 19th century, they believed in tradition, whereas the French Revolution was about... liberal reform that turned into a radical mess, tradition is what keeps things stable. And the way that tradition is maintained is through institutions, whether they be religious institutions or the nobility. Keep in mind that the French Revolution at first was about liberal reform, getting rid of the privileges of the church and the nobility, and then just like taking a card out of a house of cards or something like that.

or if you're playing Jango or a game like that, everything's going to fall down if you start assaulting these institutions. And conservatives in the 19th century valued the aristocracy. They believed that the aristocracy had a place in ensuring stability.

They were not champions of liberal reform because they believed that this liberal reform that happened in France in the early years of the French Revolution caused the stuff that came afterwards. They don't believe in popular government because the French Revolution, it all started with, hey, let's have an election for our assembly and let's let every man vote regardless of whether he owns property. That ended up not being such a good idea. And, of course, conservatives are not fans of nationalism because nationalism threatens existing borders, existing political entities. When people start talking about, well, you know what?

A nation is really more about language and shared culture than it is about who's governing us. That's dangerous. Okay, that creates upheavals. Now moving on to stability between states.

Now the way this works is through a system that Metternich came up with known as the Concert of Europe. Now this isn't like a concert that I go to or something like that. Yeah, rock!

That's what, no. Okay, this... like the sort of concert that I've never been to in my life, the one where the conductor's like, woo, you know, you're doing this thing, like, you know, I don't know how he, you know, that sort of thing.

If you've never conducted before, which is most of you probably think I know what I'm doing, if you have, you probably think this guy's a musical idiot, which I am. But the Concert of Europe, think about a symphony or something with a conductor, and everybody's playing their notes when they're supposed to play. So this is a classy type of concert.

of concert acting in concert, that the European powers should act together to ensure stability and to maintain existing national boundaries and prevent revolution. The concert system was the first example in Europe of collective security, where nations rely on each other to keep peace. Now, this was an informal arrangement. The concert of Europe was not a formal Association of Nations, but it laid the groundwork for things that are going to come later, such the League of Nations, NATO, the UN, the EU, three of those of which are still in existence today.

So keep in mind that the concert system sets a precedent for all these formal associations that will follow later. Another association that came out of the Congress of Vienna wasn't nearly as important, but could be on a test or something like that. This is the Holy Alliance that lasted for about 10 years.

This is an agreement between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. These three absolutist powers of Central and Eastern Europe. And they agreed to rule in a spirit of Christian charity and assist each other in times of trouble. Now, what that really means is whenever there's a revolutionary movement or something like that in any of those countries, that the rest of them will band together and help them to...

Crush it, okay? So... It sounds really Christian, but really it's about maintaining power and that sort of thing.

So don't be fooled, but this doesn't last that long, partly because Britain says, no, we don't really want to get in that close an association with Prussia and Austria and Russia, these absolutist powers. Now let's take a look at what I'm going to call the new old map of Europe. Keep in mind that this map is being drawn according to conservative principles. This is being drawn to try to remake the boundaries of pre-Napoleonic Europe, but at the same time there's some newness to it because it has to take into account the new realities that are present. So I'm going to talk about what has changed, what has stayed the same.

Now, for France... They could totally post their map on Instagram, something like that, and like just TBT. All right, just a throwback Thursday because France is throwing back to 1792. By the way, this goes out to everyone following me on Instagram as a result of these videos.

Love your comments and all that kind of stuff. It's great. So France is going to be thrown back to 1792, not too far back. Almost like when people post a picture of last week or something like that, and they say, Woo, TBT!

And it's like, hey, that was last week, okay? We're talking, like, baby pictures and stuff. But anyway, no war reparations, and the Bourbons are going to be restored.

Louis XVIII, the guy that was going to be the 17th that died, something like that. So they wanted to give props to him or whatever. So the Bourbons are restored, and France is going to be kind of recreated in its old image.

Now, Russia gained some territory in Poland. Remember, this had previously been partitioned between Austria-Prussia and Russia. And Russia had been instrumental in Napoleon's defeat.

Keep in mind, Napoleon brought his grand army into Russia with 500,000 people, came back with about 10,000. So, Russia needs to be rewarded. Alexander I of Russia was very influential at this conference.

And keep in mind, the defeat of Napoleon in Russia is glorified in novels such as War and Peace. So Russia gains that territory. Now, in the former Holy Roman Empire, which had been dissolved by Napoleon by that time, as Voltaire said, it was neither Holy nor Roman nor an empire.

And it's not going to be recreated, but something like it, similar to it, is going to be created. This is called the German Confederation. which was an association of German states to replace this defunct Holy Roman Empire. This was to be an association of 39 different German-speaking states. Now, you may think that's a lot, but keep in mind that there used to be over 300 different principalities and states that were part of the old Holy Roman Empire, some of them no larger than a city or even a town.

So this is going to be modernized. Now the big question that is going to be present for the rest of the 19th century is who will dominate this German Confederation? Will it be Austria or will it be Prussia? And at the beginning of the 19th century, it seems that Austria is going to be the dominant power, but as the 19th century drags on, Prussia becomes more and more ascendant until finally the Prussians and the Austrians fight a brief war, and Prussia is established as the preeminent German power. I'll talk about that in another lecture later on.

So keep in mind, this begins the age of Metternich, about a generation where there is pretty much almost uninterrupted peace in Europe, so for 33 years. Now keep in mind, it's 99 years until there is going to be another major... European war in the sense the whole continent's going to be involved.

So almost a century of peace. Although there are going to be some wars here and there, it's going to be almost a century before the next really epic conflict. Now compare that to only 20 years between the signing of the Versailles Treaty which ended World War I and the beginning of World War II with Hitler's invasion of Poland.

So when you compare 99 years to 20 years you can say that compared to the Versailles Conference in the next century the Congress of Vienna was a great success. High five! So that brings us to the conclusion of this lecture.

If you like what you heard, if this is helping you, go ahead and subscribe. Plenty more where this came from. I've also got a website with PowerPoints, all kinds of other instructional material, so check it out, tomrichie.net. Until next time.

Transcript for:The Congress of Vienna and European Conservatism

Transcript for:
The Congress of Vienna and European Conservatism