Western Civilization II / Unit 8 WC2 0729 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Reading a Map of Europe After Vienna, 1815
The idea
The exam shows Europe in eighteen fifteen and asks what the map portrays or which change the Congress made. Three questions read it: where is France's border, what replaced the Empire and the Confederation in Germany, and what happened to Poland and Italy. The anchor's rule for every answer is the balance of power and indifference to nationality.
In practice
Three readings. France: back inside its old borders, with no huge penalty, Louis XVIII restored, Belgium joined to Holland as a barrier, the Rhineland given to Prussia as another. Germany: thirty-nine states in a German Confederation under Austria's presidency, neither the Empire nor Napoleon's league, with Prussia enlarged. Poland and Italy: a Polish kingdom under the tsar, Posen to Prussia, Galicia Austrian, so Poland divided a fourth time; northeastern Italy Austrian, the rest a patchwork of restored princes. A fourth line, the Ottoman frontier, unchanged.
Where people slip
Two traps. A map with a united Germany or Italy is not eighteen fifteen; those come in unit 11. And the Congress's Poland is not the partitions' Poland of unit 06; it is the tsar's kingdom, and the anchor's "Russia and Prussia" forgets Austria.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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