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This was how the Congress of Vienna was organized. There was an 8 member Central Committee that would vote on the final treaty. This group included the 5 Great Powers, plus 3 secondary powers, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden, who each had played an important role in the victory over Napoleon. But the 5 Great Powers agreed to cut out the Central Committee by negotiating informally among themselves. If the Great Powers could hammer out a consensus, they could steamroll the Central Committee and the rest of the Congress. In the end, this was where the real power lie, the secondary powers had very little influence over the final settlement. Then there were a number of sub-committees, at least 12, that would go off to the side
and debate isolated issues among themselves. When they reached a consensus, they would bring their proposal to the Central Committee for approval. Most of these sub-committees were pretty boring, which countries had shipping rights in which rivers, stuff like that. But the most important sub-committee was the German Committee. This committee would be chaired by Metternich of Austria and would have members from every German state in central Europe, including Prussia. Together, the German states would go away and collectively decide
what central Europe would look like in a post Holy Roman Empire world. The negotiations that took place within the German Committee were perhaps the most consequential of the entire Congress. The first roadblock was that the diplomats couldn't agree upon which map to use as a baseline for negotiations. As I've said before, none of these maps accurately reflect what was going on the ground at this time, there were armies from every Great Power scattered all over Europe. The default map that Britain, Austria, and Russia wanted to use was the 1792 map, with
some minor modifications. In other words, they wanted the default map to be France as it existed before any of its Revolutionary wars of conquest. France and Prussia favoured using 1806 as the starting point. This was when Prussia was at its beefiest, so obviously the land-hungry Prussians would push for this date. Talleyrand backing Prussia's 1806 proposal was a shrewd move, because not only would it result in an extra beefy France, but more importantly, it allowed Talleyrand to open the Congress
by throwing a wedge into the anti-French alliance. There was always the danger of the other 4 Great Powers ganging up on a defeated France and taking from them whatever they wanted. Hardenberg of Prussia even spoke of partitioning France. But with Talleyrand at the table, that wasn't happening. By pulling Prussia away from the other Great Powers, Talleyrand was signalling to everybody that France was capable of making trouble, and if the other Great Powers wanted to reach a consensus, they would actually have to negotiate with France.
Metternich and Castlereagh eventually talked Hardenberg down from his 1806 position. It's possible that they made certain informal promises regarding Prussian territorial expansion, but those details are lost to us. So it was decided that they would start with the old 1792 borders, but these brought with them a huge problem. Poland. A beefy Poland had existed in 1792, and if it were to be restored, it would come at the expense of Russia and Prussia. Prussia was land-hungry, and would not willingly let go of any of its Polish provinces without being compensated somewhere else. Russia didn't
want Poland to exist at all, since it would serve as nothing more than a buffer between it and central Europe. Metternich loved the idea of restoring Poland. Not only would it keep Russia out of central Europe, but it would push Russia back from the Austrian border. Metternich was even willing up to give up Austria's Polish speaking provinces to make this happen. Castlereagh and Metternich pulled Hardenberg aside and came to a preliminary agreement over Poland. Prussia would give up its Polish speaking provinces, but Castlereagh and Metternich
promised to compensate for this with German speaking provinces in central Europe. The three of them came to a handshake agreement that Prussia would receive Saxony, along with several German cities to the west. Under this framework, Prussia's population would increase by 6%, and Poland would remain independent. All three were happy with this. When Tsar Alexander of Russia caught wind of this secret agreement, he threw a pretty public tantrum. He announced that he intended to keep 100% of Poland, including the Polish speaking provinces currently held by Austria and Prussia. These demands were extreme, and it was difficult
to imagine Austria and Prussia simply handing their territory over to Russia for nothing. Talleyrand was also unhappy with the secret Poland agreement, and went to see Tsar Alexander privately. Talleyrand specifically wanted to preserve a strong and independent Saxony, since France and Saxony had traditionally been strong allies. Talleyrand made his pitch to the Russian Emperor. Alexander replied, "I would rather have war than give up what I occupy." Talleyrand was stunned when he heard this, and asked for
clarification. "Yes, I would rather have war," Alexander said. Talleyrand began trying to talk the Emperor down into a compromise, but before he could make any progress Alexander stood up and declared, "it's time for the theatre! I have to go!" He then gave Talleyrand an affectionate hug, and ran off. After casually threatening a World War, the Russian Emperor stayed out partying until 4 in the morning. Talleyrand was appropriately alarmed by this behaviour, and informed the other Great Powers of Russia's intransigence. Hardenberg began to fear that Prussia may on the losing end of any conflict over Poland,
and so he began to move soldiers around to fortify the parts of Poland that they currently occupied. As if that isn't bad enough, Metternich then found out that his monarch was upset with him. The Austrian Emperor Francis summoned Metternich, and chastised him for using the Kingdom of Saxony as a bargaining chip. Austria was trying to position itself internationally as the defender of the rule of law and the defender of the rights of smaller central European states. They couldn't credibly do this if they sold their neighbours up the river as first opportunity. Emperor Francis told Metternich that the Kingdom of Saxony
must survive the negotiations, and it must survive at least half of its current size. This made Metternich's task infinitely more complex. Prussia must be convinced to take less of Saxony than they had been promised in their handshake deal. This meant that they would want to hold onto their Polish speaking provinces. In order to make that work, Metternich would need to strike a deal with Tsar Alexander. Metternich went to meet with Alexander, and things got heated. Metternich did not find the Russian Emperor particularly intimidating, and spoke to him in the manner that he would
speak to any other diplomat. Alexander wasn't really used to that, and after 2 long hours of back and forth, he jumped to his feet, marched over to Metternich, and challenged him to a duel. This kind of thing was above Metternich's pay grade, and required the personal intervention of the Austrian Emperor. Francis of Austria soothed Alexander's ego by saying that of course he would win a duel against Metternich, but murdering the Austrian Foreign Minister might cause an international incident. Recall Metternich's first impression of Alexander, "the biggest baby on earth." Was he wrong?
After this incident, Alexander would privately describe Metternich as "a permanent obstacle" and "a sworn enemy." The feeling was mutual. Russia was apparently a dead end, so Metternich went to Prussia next. Metternich explained to Hardenberg that he could now only give Prussia half of Saxony. This was not what they had agreed to, and Hardenberg was understandably upset. The two diplomats parted ways with sore feelings and no agreement. The entire deal over Poland seemed to be dead, or at
least dying, and the prospect of war with Russia was becoming a growing concern. In desperation, Metternich brought Britain and France into the negotiations. He thought that if 3 Great Powers could bring a compromise to the other two, they might be pressured into accepting it. Castlereagh went to see Alexander. He explained to the Russian Tsar that Britain would not accept a Poland under Russian domination. The British public demanded an independent Poland. Alexander finally let his guard down, (or at least pretended to,) and confessed to Castlereagh that the war with Napoleon had left him in a precarious situation back in Russia.
The Russians had sacrificed everything to defeat Napoleon, and the Russian aristocracy felt that they deserved Poland as a reward. Alexander doesn't come right out and say this, but he hints that he had promised them exactly that before he left. The implication was that there may be a coup if he went back empty handed. Castlereagh explained to Alexander that if he took Poland without the consent of the other Great Powers, it would not end well for him. Prussia and Austria would become permanent enemies of Russia, and natural allies to the occupied Polish population. One way or another, Poland would be free.
It seemed that negotiations were approaching an impasse. And then disaster struck. News got out that the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III had publicly signed off on the Russian annexation of Poland. Tsar Alexander had been personally negotiating with him in secret. Hardenberg was inconsolable. His own king had just stabbed him in the back. It was humiliating. What made matters worse was that the Prussian king was too stupid to realize he wasn't helping. This turn of events lit a fire under the members of the Congress. Castlereagh grabbed Hardenberg and said that if Hardenberg could get the Prussian king to walk back those Poland comments,
then Britain would be prepared to back Prussia's demand to annex 100% of Saxony. Hardenberg agreed, and marched off to wrestle back control of his monarch. Metternich stayed strategically silent during this exchange. He had secretly written to Castlereagh and promised Austrian support in this scheme, even though it was in direct violation of his Emperor's instructions to preserve at least half of Saxony. But that was a problem for another day. And just like that, because of Russian overreach, Britain, France, Prussia, and Austria were on the same page when it came to Poland. It was 4 against 1. With newfound urgency, the
4 powers came together and drafted 3 possible options to resolve the Poland crisis. Option #1 called for an enlarged Poland, which would include Polish speaking provinces from Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Option #2 called for a reduced Poland, where Russia, Austria, and Prussia each held onto their Polish speaking provinces. Option #3 called for a full partition, where Russia, Austria, and Prussia would come in and divide Poland 3 ways. Under this plan, the people of Poland would have certain political protections across all 3 countries, including full freedom of movement.
You might notice that there was no option in which Russia got to keep all of Poland. That was on purpose. Talleyrand was selected to go and present these options to the Russian Tsar. He explained to Alexander that France's official position was that there should be an independent Poland. He said that if Russia acted on its own and annexed Poland, Prussia and Austria would have no choice but to seriously consider a potential war with Russia. In such a scenario, both would seek to strengthen themselves through territorial expansion. If 3 of the Great Powers
were going around Europe gobbling up territory, France and Britain would have no choice but to intervene. Talleyrand was very clear with Alexander; if he took Poland by force, the Great Powers would go to war. Alexander was growing frustrated with this constant diplomatic meddling, and finally snapped. "I have 200,000 men in the Duchy of Warsaw, [a.k.a. Poland,] and I would like to see anyone try to drive me out of it. I have given Prussia Saxony, and Austria consents to it." Alexander had spies everywhere, and apparently he knew that Saxony was secretly being used as a bargaining chip.
Talleyrand feigned innocence and asked an innocent question: how could Prussia annex Saxony when they had no claim to the Saxon throne? Alexander responded, "if the King of Saxony will not abdicate, he will be packed off to Russia; he will die there." This was an open threat of violence against another monarch, and it was not the answer that Talleyrand was expecting. After a pause, he responded with caution, "the Congress was not assembled to witness a violence assault of this kind." At this, Alexander truly lost his temper. "Do you really think I give much weight to
all your parchments and treaties? [.] The King of Prussia will be the King of Prussia and Saxony, just as I will be the Emperor of Russia and the King of Poland." With that, he stormed out of the room, leaving Talleyrand alone with his thoughts. When Metternich learned of Alexander's outburst, he finally lost his patience. He decided to meet once more with the Russian Tsar, this time with a different negotiating tactic. He told Alexander that Austria was considering unilaterally selecting a Polish king to rule over and independent Poland. This was an unspoken threat. Metternich was telling Alexander that
all he had to do was snap his fingers and Poland would rise up against Russian occupation. Alexander responded by issuing an unspoken threat of his own. He invited Metternich to come to Poland, and inspect the Russian soldiers stationed there. All 200,000 of them. Metternich then dropped the subtly. He flatly told Alexander that if he took Poland, the entire Congress of Vienna would stand united against him. After this, tempers flared, voices were raised, and things got personal. From this moment on, Metternich would refuse to be in the same room with the Russian Tsar unless others were present, which frankly is exactly the kind of grudge that I respect.
And then a very troubling thing happened. Without notice, the Russian soldiers in Saxony began to pack up and leave. Shortly after this, the Prussian soldiers occupying parts of Poland did the same. All of a sudden there was a lot of military movement, and nobody knew why. Within a matter of weeks, a lot more Prussian soldiers entered Saxony and a lot more Russian soldiers entered Poland. It became clear that there was some kind of hand-off happening, a secret agreement between Russia and Prussia. Both were openly fortifying their positions and preparing for war. Bad.
Castlereagh wrote a summary of these events to Prime Minister Liverpool back in Britain. "Unless the Emperor of Russia can be brought to a more moderate and sound course of public conduct, the peace, which we have so dearly purchased, will be but of a short duration. [.] You must make up your mind to watch him and resist him if necessary as another Bonaparte." Back in Britain, the domestic political situation was approaching a boiling point. The narrow conservative Whig majority in the House of Commons was in jeopardy.
The liberal Whig opposition had weaponized the Saxony and Poland crisis, and were using it as a rallying cry against authoritarianism everywhere. The liberals had the public on their side, and now they were calling for an independent Saxony and an independent Poland with no concessions to the other powers whatsoever. Liverpool was in a precarious situation, and could not appear to be throwing the people of Poland to the Russian wolves. Or bears or whatever. The liberals wanted to paint
Liverpool as sympathetic to the Russian tyrant, and so Liverpool needed to prove them wrong. He wrote to Castlereagh, instructing him to back away from any deal that would partition Saxony or Poland. The official British position would now call for full independence for both countries. You would think that such an abrupt shift in priorities would blow up the negotiations, but it really didn't. After being stabbed in the back by Russia and Prussia, Metternich felt no obligation to bend over backwards for them anymore. The Austrian Emperor had
always wanted an independent Saxony, and Metternich had always wanted an independent Poland, so he joined the British in calling for both. Talleyrand had always favoured full independence for both countries, and quickly followed Metternich's lead. But it didn't stop there. This audacious show of force from Russia and Prussia spooked every small and medium sized state in central Europe. If Saxony could get steamrolled like this, nobody was safe. Virtually every central European state found their courage and backed Castlereagh and Metternich's call for an independent Saxony and an independent Poland.
Austria had long sought to position itself as the defender of precedent and tradition and the rule of law, and now that strategy was paying off. Metternich suddenly found himself at the center of attention, the most popular guy in Vienna, the hub to which every central European state wanted to attach itself. When the dust settled, it became clear that Russia and Prussia's power grab had been a massive blunder. Tsar Alexander must have realized that he had backed himself into a corner, because he began sending signals to Austria that he might be satisfied with less than 100% of Poland.
This was exactly the sort of opening that everybody was waiting for. Attention then turned to Prussia. There were reports that the Prussians were building fortifications inside of occupied Saxony, which drew broad international condemnation. It soon became conspicuous that Tsar Alexander was remaining silent. Prussia was being left hanging out to dry. A desperate Hardenberg visited Talleyrand and tried to get him to break away from the other powers by making wild promises. At one point Hardenberg offered France the Netherlands, which of course was a red line for Britain, and not something that Hardenberg was in a position to give away. Talleyrand wisely turned him down.
Hardenberg was out of options. He backed down from his maximalist position, and began telling people that he would accept no less than half of Saxony. Metternich jumped at this. An independent Saxony at half of its current size would satisfy both the Austrian Emperor and all of those smaller central European states. After some back and forth over specifics, an agreement was reached. Prussia would receive half of Saxony, along with some German speaking territory along the Rhine. A reduced Saxony would remain fully independent, and war would be averted.
But then there was still the issue with Poland. Alexander re-opened negotiations by offering to let Austria and Prussia keep their Polish speaking provinces. A real change of tune from last time. Castlereagh then called for the creation of a strong Polish constitution built upon liberal-democratic values. Tsar Alexander immediately agreed, and publicly thanked Castlereagh for his advocacy on behalf of the people of Poland. If you find Alexander's change in demeanour a little shocking, you aren't alone. It's clear that there were some backchannel talks going on during the Saxony crisis, and it
seems that concessions were made in order to get Alexander to back off and throw Prussia under the bus. What was happening now over Poland seemed well-choreographed, as if it had all been drawn up in some back room somewhere. The Great Powers quickly reached an agreement over Poland, and it looked like this. Austria and Prussia would be allowed to keep their Polish speaking provinces. The rest would become the Kingdom of Poland. The new kingdom would have a strong liberal-democratic constitution, with an independent legislature, independent courts, and an independent army.
The King of Poland would be a quasi-ceremonial role, tightly constrained by the Polish constitution. Under this deal, it was decided that Tsar Alexander of Russia would separately and simultaneously become the King of Poland. On paper, this satisfied British and Austrian demands for an independent Poland, since the new kingdom retained the right to make its own laws and field its own military. It also satisfied Alexander's demand to take Poland as a prize for defeating Napoleon. But obviously Poland could not be truly independent under this arrangement. With the Russian Emperor as their king, it became impossible for Poland to resist creeping Russian influence. For
the rest of Alexander's reign, he would chip away at Poland's independent political institutions, and slowly work towards swallowing Poland into the Russian Empire. By the time his successor came to the throne, the new Russian Emperor declared that he no longer felt bound by the Polish constitution, and then that was that. It's undeniable that Castlereagh and Metternich sacrificed Poland for an independent Saxony. Perhaps they saw the writing on the wall. The truth was that if Russia took Poland by
force, Austria and Britain weren't really in a position to take it back. Perhaps they decided that if they couldn't stop Russia from taking Poland, they could turn the whole thing into a poison pill. As an island of liberalism within the Russian Empire, Poland would confound and distract Tsar Alexander for the rest of his reign. The Poland and Saxony crisis brought the Great Powers back to the brink of war. But now that there was a deal in place, (messy as it was,) there was finally room to breathe. One of the conditions attached to the Poland deal was that Tsar Alexander, having received his great prize, was to get out of the way and let everyone else negotiate what they came to negotiate.
There were still several outstanding questions that needed to be settled, but none more pressing than the fate of the German speaking states in central Europe. Metternich was the chair of the German committee, and now that the crisis over Poland was resolved, he was finally able to get some real work done. Recall that the Congress of Vienna had agreed to use the 1792 borders as a starting point for negotiations. Well, in 1792 the Holy Roman Empire existed. Metternich had no interest
in turning back the clock, the Holy Roman Empire had proved itself to be a totally inept institution when faced with a real threat. The German Committee had the task of figuring out what central Europe would look like in a post Holy Roman Empire world. As far as Metternich could see, there were four possible paths forward. Option #1: Complete independence for everybody. Option #2: A German Empire united under one government. Option #3: A loose confederation of German states Option #4: Austria and Prussia expand, and conquer their smaller neighbours.
All four of these options presented problems. If they decided to go with option #2, a united German Empire, Metternich would obviously insist upon a Habsburg Emperor. But given recent experience over Saxony, Metternich did not believe that the Prussians would submit to the Austrians like that. In addition to that, Metternich was getting signals from Castlereagh that the British would not sign off on the creation of a German Empire. So option #2 seemed a dead end. Option #4, Austria and Prussia conquering their neighbours, didn't seem great either. Such aggressive behaviour would frighten all of the other Great Powers, and if any of them
tried to protect one of the smaller German states, they would all be at war again. Nobody wanted that. This option seemed way too risky. That left option #1 or option #3. Either complete independence, or a loose confederation. Of the two, Metternich's preference for a loose confederation. He thought that complete independence would leave central Europe weak, and unable to defend itself. It would only be a matter of time until some outside power went to war with one of Austria's weaker neighbours, and then Austria would intervene, and then we're back in a Great Power Conflict situation.
A loose confederation, on the other hand, might be enough to deter meddling from outside powers. If there was to be a German Confederation, Metternich first would need to mend the relationship with Hardenberg. The Prussian duplicity over Saxony had left a sour taste in everyone's mouth, but if the two Great Powers were to live under the same umbrella, they would have to be friends. Metternich began making his pitch to some of the smaller German states. He found very little resistance. Many felt burned over the Saxony debacle, and sought a closer strategic relationship with Austria for their own protection.
Metternich's vision for a German Confederation would look like this. All states within the Confederation would maintain their independence, except when it came to matters of military defence. Under the German Confederation, an attack on one would be an attack on all, any outside power sticking their nose into German affairs would be met with the combined strength of every German state. This ruffled some feathers because it restricted the ability of German states to make alliances with outside powers - Bavaria in particular was upset by this - but Metternich smoothed things over by pointing out that
this would put them in a military alliance with 38 other German states. Such a thing had not been possible under the Holy Roman Empire, and such a thing would not be possible to anybody negotiating out there on their own. Of course Austria and Prussia were to be exempt from this. They had their own goofy reasoning, they had non-German provinces in their respective Empires, whatever. The real reason was that they were Great Powers, and reserved the right to make alliances or war as they wished. Austria and Prussia would be the two anchors of the German Confederation, and it was paramount
to the survival of the Confederation that the two Great Powers within it got along. The German Confederation would have a central Diet, a legislature, located in the Free City of Frankfurt. The Diet was conceived as a sort of United Nations of Germany, where various independent German states would come together and resolve any disputes that might lead to war. They would also work to reduce barriers so that Germans could live and work and write in any German speaking country without fear. To this end, they created a weak federal legal system to protect certain political rights across borders.
Hardenberg of Prussia was surprisingly supportive of this proposal. The German Diet treated Austria and Prussia as equal partners, which was reassuring to an insecure and young power such as Prussia. The only thing Hardenberg wanted was to enshrine this agreement into a written constitution, which Metternich agreed to. There were other areas that could not be fully restored under the 1792 borders. Italy had been totally reshaped under French rule, and the Congress of Vienna needed to decide how much French influence was acceptable in the region going forward.
At the moment of his defeat, Napoleon had been the King of Italy, (really Northern Italy,) his son had been King of Rome, (also Northern Italy,) and one of his top generals had been the King of Naples, (Southern Italy.) Obviously this arrangement couldn't continue, but it was not immediately clear what the Congress should do. Metternich and the Austrian Emperor took a particular interest in this. They considered Northern Italy Austria's back yard, and Metternich believed that if Austria and France were in
constant competition for influence in Northern Italy, it would eventually end in another war. Whatever the new political settlement in Northern Italy looked like, it had to be able to resist French influence going forward. Metternich spoke to Castlereagh about this, and the two found that they were of the same mind. Castlereagh told him that Britain was not overly concerned about the future of North Italy, so long as it remained out of reach for the French. The two men came to an agreement. Remembering the Poland-Saxony crisis, Castlereagh said that the British public was in an anti-imperialist mood right now, and so he couldn't support
any sweeping annexations of territory. However, Britain had no problem with Austrian hegemony in the region. If Metternich could draw up a plan that only made minor territorial adjustments, wink, he could count on Castlereagh's support. Once it became clear to all parties that the future of Italy was being discussed, there were calls to replicate the success of the German Committee by forming an Italian Committee. Metternich and Castlereagh shut this talk down immediately. Per their agreement, the future of Italy would be decided my Metternich alone.
This is what he came up with. Austria would conduct a minor territorial adjustment by directly annexing Lombardy and Venice. This would add millions of Italians to the Austrian Empire. Metternich knew that the Hungarians would have opposed any deal that added more ethnic Germans to the Empire, since it would have upset the delicate balance within Austria. Expanding into Northern Italy was seen as politically neutral, so Metternich used this opportunity to beef up Austria by annexing one of the richest parts of Europe.
Castlereagh noticed this, but deemed it minor enough to escape the notice of the British public. Next, Metternich re-created the Duchy of Parma and handed it over to Marie Louise of Austria, the Austrian Emperor's eldest daughter. The fact that she remained the wife of Napoleon was a bit inconvenient, so Metternich carved out a rule so that the duchy would go to some nephew of the Spanish King upon her death. Spain had been upset when Metternich got the authority to reshape Northern Italy, and this was Metternich's way of throwing them a bone.
The Grand Duchy of Tuscany was also re-created and handed over to the brother of the Austrian Emperor. Similarly, the Duchy of Modena was re-created and handed to some cousin of the Austrian Emperor. Noticing a pattern yet? By doing this, Metternich technically met Castlereagh's requirement to not openly annex all of Northern Italy. But it was a bit deceptive. In some cases, the Prime Ministers of these new states would be Austrian officials hand-picked by Metternich. On paper these were all independent countries, but in reality the Austrians were treating Northern Italy like a colony.
In addition to all of this, Metternich re-formed the Papal States, which was an important sticking point for the majority Catholic Austrian Empire. He also strengthened and restored the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. Unlike the other restorations, Metternich left Piedmont-Sardinia alone. As an independent and fairly strong regional power, they would serve as a buffer against any future French expansion. Finally, Napoleon's former general was eventually removed from Southern Italy, and a distant relation of the King of Spain returned to rule the region once more.
I should briefly speak about how Napoleon's general was removed from Southern Italy. It involves an event that is known to history as the Hundred Days. Here's a brief summary of what happened. When the Congress of Vienna was like six months into negotiations, Napoleon secretly slipped away from his confinement on the island of Elba and landed in Southern France. He marched north with maybe 1,000 supporters, but as he advanced thousands more flocked to his banner. Three weeks after landing in France, he captured Paris without firing a shot. The new French King fled to the Netherlands.
The allies had long feared something like this, and in fact during the last 6 months of negotiations, the Great Powers had kept their armies mobilized for this very reason. Within hours of Napoleon's disappearance from Elba, hundred of thousands of soldiers were marching on France. Three months after Napoleon captured Paris, British and Prussian armies faced the French outside the town of Waterloo in the Netherlands, current day Belgium. At Waterloo, Napoleon was soundly defeated by the British general Arthur Wellesley the Duke of Wellington. Napoleon fled, and about a month later he surrendered to the British,
who promptly sent him to the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where under the watchful eye of the British, he would spend the rest of his days. I've been strategically talking around the Hundred Days this entire video because, while it's certainly militarily interesting, and Napoleonically interesting, it's not diplomatically interesting. From the perspective of the Congress of Vienna, the Hundred Days were a brief pause in negotiations, after which everyone just picked back up where they left off.
Also - and this may annoy some people but it must be said - the Hundred Days was not a particularly close call. When Napoleon captured Paris he had maybe 50,000 soldiers at his disposal. The allies had a million. Naturally Napoleon immediately began raising 100,000 additional soldiers, but so did the allies, and by this point the allies were faster. If Napoleon had won at Waterloo, there would have been another Waterloo later that summer. If he had won 10 Waterloos, the allies still would have had him outnumbered. The entire
Hundred Days was an act of delusion, and there was never a serious threat of a French victory. Anyways, I bring all of that up because Napoleon's former general the King of Naples sided with Napoleon during the crisis, which gave Metternich a good excuse to remove him from power and have him executed. So here was the framework for the final settlement. Broadly speaking Europe would return to its 1792 borders. Russia would swallow up Poland under a strict constitutional arrangement, and Prussia would annex half of Saxony. The Holy Roman Empire would be replaced with the
much more practical German Confederation, and Northern Italy would become an anti-French zone under Austrian supervision. With negotiations drawing to a close, there was one lingering issue that had not yet been addressed. The British Prime Minister Liverpool instructed Castlereagh to begin discussing slavery. By 1815, the British anti-slavery political movement had truly become a force to be reckoned with. In 1788, a bunch of local abolitionist groups sent Parliament 60,000 signatures calling for the abolition of slavery. In 1815, these same groups gathered almost a million signatures,
but this time they didn't send them to Parliament, they sent them to Castlereagh in Vienna. One statistic that was not lost on anybody was that the number of signatures sent to Castlereagh was greater than the total number of votes in the last election. This was not simply an act of protest, it was a shot across the bow. By this time, every British city and most British towns had an abolitionist group that was active in local politics. It was not uncommon for the average British voter to hear about
the ongoing sin of slavery on a weekly basis in their church and in their newspaper. The issue became impossible to avoid. After one particularly incendiary pamphlet went viral, more than 300,000 women pledged to boycott sugar since it was exclusively produced with slave labour. People were hungry for action, and when the government showed no interest in doing anything they grabbed at whatever consumer choices might make a difference. Political activism against slavery was so popular in some circles that it became fashionable. Literally. This medallion, called the Wedgwood Medallion, was mass produced in the late 18th and early
19th centuries. Men generally wore these around their necks, and women around their wrists or pinned into their hair. The inscription reads: "Am I Not A Man And A Brother?" This image of a man kneeling in chains became the most widely distributed piece of art depicting a black man ever, and the unofficial logo of the anti-slavery movement. In 1807, at the end of a political fight that lasted more than 15 years, Britain passed an Act that abolished the British slave trade. It did not abolish the practice of slavery, but it made it illegal to transport enslaved persons across the Atlantic to the colonies.
Advocates believed that without new bodies coming over from Africa, chattel slavery in the colonies would mostly die out within 1 or 2 generations. They were wrong, but it was nevertheless a big deal that Britain finally acknowledged that their goal was to eventually abolish slavery. The abolitionists were (correctly) not satisfied by this half measure. They demanded nothing less than the complete and total abolition of slavery, and as the years went on their influence only continued to grow. Lord Liverpool inherited this political situation when he became Prime Minister, and he wasn't
happy about it. He was holding onto his conservative Whig majority in Parliament by the barest of threads, and now the abolitionists had sent a million signatures to his Foreign Secretary in Vienna. Liverpool didn't really care one way or the other about slavery, and to the extent he expressed any opinion about it at all he thought it was fine. But if he didn't give these people something, they might topple his government. He instructed Castlereagh to try to get some anti-slavery commitments into the final agreement at Vienna.
Castlereagh approached the 8 member Central Committee, that is the 5 Great Powers plus Spain, Portugal, and Sweden, and asked them to include a provision in the final agreement that committed everybody to the eventual abolition of the slave trade. Of those present, only Britain and Sweden had abolished the slave trade. Castlereagh's opening position was that everybody else should adopt Britain's anti-slavery laws. Another way of saying this is that Castlereagh was not committing Britain to any further anti-slavery reforms. This fact was not lost on Castlereagh's negotiating partners.
Spain, Portugal, and France threw a fit. France is an interesting case because they had heroically abolished slavery at the beginning of their Revolution, and then under Napoleon they shamefully brought it back. Spain and Portugal were the other two powers most heavily enmeshed with the slave trade. Spain, Portugal, and France argued that Britain only wanted to stop the slave trade because they had a head start out in the colonies. They also argued that an agreement like this would give the British Navy an excuse to stop and inspect every ship in the Atlantic. In other words, this would all be to Britain's advantage.
Castlereagh tried to respond by appealing to morality, but this only incensed them even further. One Spanish diplomat got in Castlereagh's face and told him "the English have always been good at making business march alongside honour." Joke's on him. Castlereagh was Irish. If we think about this for a moment, Castlereagh could have shown Britain's commitment to the cause by talking about complete and total abolition, which would have hurt Britain more than anyone. If he had walked into the room talking about abolition, he would have had some credibility, because he would have been saying "let's all do something difficult,
together." But Castlereagh didn't bring up total abolition, because he was an imperialist, and he wasn't that personally bothered by slavery. After some agonizing negotiations, they agreed to attach a document to the final treaty coming out of Vienna called "A Declaration of Intent to Abolish the Slave Trade." At Spain and Portugal's insistence, this declaration would be non-binding, which sucks. Castlereagh was like.if it's non-binding, we're going to need to show people some specific goals, at least. France agreed to abolish the slave trade within 5 years. They would blow right past that deadline.
Spain agreed to abolish the slave trade within 8 years, with some pretty large loopholes. They would blow right past that deadline. Portugal would only agree to abolish the slave trade north of the equator, and since they didn't really have any colonies north of the equator, this was pretty much a giant middle finger to the rest of the Congress. Castlereagh also got all of the participants to declare their intention to eradicate slavery once and for all, but they provided absolutely no specifics and no deadlines. A meaningless statement meant to simply soothe public opinion.
In the end, Britain's attempt to inject anti-slavery commitments into the Congress was a failure. The reason it was a failure was that Castlereagh didn't even really try. He was half-hearted from the start, and his reluctance to come in there with any radical proposals was a signal to the other Great Powers that Britain wasn't really taking this seriously. It's a shame, because this was a moment when something big could have been accomplished. Britain had serious leverage and serious public support, and Castlereagh didn't use any of
it. One of the consequences of Castlereagh's lack of enthusiasm in 1815 was that slavery continued in places like Cuba and Brazil until the late 1880s. That's a lot of lives and a lot of years, and it's a real stain on Castlereagh's record that he didn't really try to do anything about it. But from a purely political standpoint, the anti-slavery negotiations worked. Prime Minister Liverpool now had something to show the discontents back home, and for now, that was enough. His government would live to see another day.
The Treaty of Vienna was finalized in July of 1815. All of the Great Powers signed off on it. The only outlier was Spain, who remained upset over Metternich's heavy-handed treatment of Northern Italy. Spain refused to sign the final document, which was unfortunate, but so long as all the Great Powers were on board this was deemed acceptable. The final treaty was (mostly) built upon Realist principals, and created a balance of power with clearly defined spheres of influence that would hopefully prevent future Great Power Conflicts.
After Vienna, it was widely understood and accepted that if anybody invaded one of those tiny German states, it would automatically mean war with Prussia and Austria. If anybody invaded Northern Italy, it would automatically mean war with Austria. If anybody invaded the Netherlands, it would automatically mean war with Britain. If anybody invaded Poland, it would automatically mean war with Russia. The belief was that so long as governments understood what was and wasn't off limits, minor disagreements could be solved diplomatically, and Great Power Conflicts on the scale of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars could be entirely avoided.
It was in the interest of all Great Powers to respect these limitations, and if any Great Power was found to be acting recklessly or belligerently, it was in the interest of everybody else to put them in their place. After 25 years of chaos and war, the Great Powers were trying to have a go at stability. This international system that emerged from Vienna is sometimes called "The Concert of Europe," as in all of Europe acting in concert, or in unison. The next 15 years would put
a severe test upon the Concert system, and we will see, in time, whether these frenzied and far-reaching negotiations were worth it.
