Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna

This is Unit Eight of Western Civilization Two, part two of two: the Congress of Vienna, three procedures on the Napoleonic era, and the chain that explains why the emperor fell. Part one ended with an empire that had taught its subjects to be nations. This part is what the victors did about it. The Congress of Vienna, chaired by Metternich, rebuilt Europe against revolution and against nationality: a balance of five powers, France restored without punishment, rewards from Poland and Italy, and a Holy Alliance pledged to crush revolution anywhere, with the Carlsbad Decrees to police the students who had learned to be German. Then the exam's methods, the era between Brumaire, Trafalgar and Waterloo, measures sorted by their effect on equality and power, and the map of eighteen fifteen. Then the payoff of the unit's governing idea: the empire's strength and its fall came from one source. By the end you will be able to describe the Congress and its system. To sequence the era. To classify a measure. To read the map. And to state why he fell.

Four entries on the settlement: who sat at Vienna, the map they drew, the balance and the Holy Alliance, and the nationalism they policed.

Five powers, and Talleyrand admitted as an equal.

WC2 0723 The Congress of Vienna, 1814 to 1815: Who Sat and What They Wanted

The Congress met from November eighteen fourteen to June eighteen fifteen, chaired by Metternich, whom the anchor never names, with the five great powers dominant: Austria, Britain, Prussia, Russia, and by the end France, whose Talleyrand won admission as an equal. The Ottomans were represented and the Hundred Days interrupted. Metternich and the dates are the witness's; the five powers are the anchor's.

Nationality counted for nothing.

WC2 0724 Vienna's Map: Restorations, Rewards, and Indifference to Nations

The victors took rewards from Poland and northern Italy and restored conservative monarchs in France and Spain, with no huge penalty on France, unlike nineteen nineteen. Nationality counted for nothing: northeastern Italy to Austria, Poland divided again, the tsar taking a Polish kingdom, Prussia Posen, Austria keeping Galicia, Ireland British. The anchor's Russia and Prussia for Poland omits Austria's share.

A conservative network against revolution.

WC2 0725 The Balance of Power and the Holy Alliance

The Congress System, or Concert of Europe, made the five powers a conservative network that fought for dynasties, not territory. The Holy Alliance, led by Alexander the First, pledged Russia, Austria, Prussia and Bourbon France to put down revolution anywhere, Metternich's bastion against democracy in the witness's phrase. A century of unusual peace, the anchor says, broken from eighteen fifty-three.

Black, red and gold, and a murder.

WC2 0726 Wartburg 1817 and the Reaction: Nationalism Policed

German nationalists gathered at the Wartburg in eighteen seventeen under the black, red and gold, a flag that became official a century later. In eighteen nineteen a nationalist student murdered a conservative playwright, and Austria answered with speech laws and secret police: the Carlsbad Decrees, which the witness names. Wartburg is the anchor's; Carlsbad is the witness's.

Three procedures: the era between three fixed points, measures sorted by two questions, and the map of eighteen fifteen read by three.

Brumaire, Trafalgar, Waterloo.

WC2 0727 Sequencing Napoleon, 1795 to 1815

Three fixed points: Brumaire in seventeen ninety-nine, Trafalgar in eighteen-oh-five, and Waterloo in eighteen fifteen; the empire rose between the first two and fell between the last two. Then place: the Concordat, oh-one, before the coronation of oh-four; Austerlitz, December oh-five, weeks after Trafalgar; the Confederation of the Rhine, oh-six; Tilsit, oh-seven, the height; Spain, oh-eight, the first wound; Russia, twelve; Leipzig, thirteen, then abdication in fourteen; the Congress, November fourteen to June fifteen, spanning Elba, the escape and Waterloo. Brumaire, Concordat, coronation, Trafalgar, Austerlitz, Confederation, Tilsit, Spain, Russia, Leipzig, abdication, the Congress, Waterloo. The anchor's Egypt and Borodino are corrected without changing the order, and the Congress is the trap, because it began before Waterloo and ended after it.

Does it extend equality, does it concentrate power.

WC2 0728 Classifying a Napoleonic Measure: Revolutionary, Authoritarian, or Both

The anchor's contrast is the key, man of the Revolution or megalomaniac, and two questions sort any measure: does it extend seventeen eighty-nine's equality, and does it concentrate power in one man. Most answer yes to both. The Code's equality before the law: revolutionary. The Code's wife owing obedience: authoritarian, hierarchy restored inside the family. The Concordat: both, toleration kept and the Church a tool of policy. Serfdom abolished in the puppet states: revolutionary in effect, authoritarian in method. The lycée: careers open to talent, and a school for the state's servants. Censorship and the coronation: authoritarian. Puppet thrones for his brothers: authoritarian, the anchor's clearest evidence of megalomania. The trap is to sort by intent; the anchor's principle is efficiency, which produced both columns from one motive. Classify by effect, and expect the Code on both sides.

France's border, Germany's shape, Poland and Italy.

WC2 0729 Reading a Map of Europe After Vienna, 1815

Three questions read the map of eighteen fifteen: where is France's border, what replaced the Empire and the Confederation in Germany, and what happened to Poland and Italy, with the anchor's rule for every answer, the balance of power and indifference to nationality. France: back inside its old borders, Louis the Eighteenth restored, Belgium joined to Holland as a barrier, the Rhineland to Prussia as another. Germany: thirty-nine states in a German Confederation under Austria's presidency, neither the Empire nor Napoleon's league, Prussia enlarged. Poland and Italy: a Polish kingdom under the tsar, Posen to Prussia, Galicia Austrian, a fourth division; northeastern Italy Austrian, the rest restored princes. The Ottoman frontier unchanged. A map with a united Germany or Italy is not eighteen fifteen, and the Congress's Poland is the tsar's kingdom, not the partitions' Poland.

One capstone entry: the chain from Brumaire to Vienna, and why the machine that won sixty battles could not stop.

Strength and fall from one source.

WC2 0730 Why Napoleon Fell: Spain, Russia, Britain, and a Man Who Could Not Stop

The exam asks what the French Empire was and how the Congress answered it, and the anchor's argument is that the empire's strength and its fall came from one source. Napoleon rose through the Revolution's armies: conscription without privilege, officers by merit, corps that marched apart and fought together, and a general who read maps and supply tables better than anyone alive. From Brumaire in seventeen ninety-nine to Tilsit in eighteen-oh-seven that machine beat Austria, Russia and Prussia, dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, and built an empire of forty-four million people by the anchor's count, exporting codes, customs unions, toleration and the abolition of serfdom, and conquest paid for conquest. The weakness was built in: rule depended on victory, so he could never stop. Three things he could not beat. Britain, after Trafalgar, could not be invaded, so he tried to strangle it with the Continental System, which enriched Britain and forced him into Iberia. Spain, from oh-eight, answered with guerrilla war that cost two hundred thousand French lives by the anchor's figure and fixed his best troops in a country he held only in its cities. Russia drew six hundred thousand men east in twelve; Borodino won him a burned Moscow, and the October retreat killed most of the army. Leipzig broke him in thirteen, Paris fell in fourteen, and the Hundred Days ended at Waterloo in June fifteen. His empire taught its subjects to be Germans, Italians and Spaniards, and the Congress of Vienna, under Metternich, rebuilt Europe against exactly that: a balance of five powers, France restored without punishment, rewards from Poland and Italy, nationality ignored, and a Holy Alliance pledged to crush revolution anywhere. It could not undo the Code, the weakened nobility or the nationalism, and the anchor's century of peace held only until eighteen fifty-three.

Look at what you can now do. You can describe the five powers at Vienna and Talleyrand's admission, the map that ignored nations, the balance of power and the Holy Alliance, and the Carlsbad Decrees that policed the Wartburg's students. You can sequence the era between Brumaire, Trafalgar and Waterloo, with the Congress straddling the last. You can classify a measure by its effect on equality and on power, with the Code on both sides. You can read the map of eighteen fifteen by France's border, Germany's thirty-nine states, and Poland and Italy. And you can state the chain, strength and fall from one source, which is this unit's one idea. Unit nine opens on the revolution that ran on coal instead of conscripts.