The Vienna Congress as an Event in Austrian History: Civil Society and Politics in the Habsburg Empire at the End of the Wars against Napoleon

Abstract

Historians usually portray theCongress ofViennain a European frame—and rightly so. The actors and the diplomatic flashpoints spanned the European continent, and the negotiations began before and continued after the Congress. The rulers and statesmen had already started parleying and planning the reconstruction of Europe as they followed behind the armies in the campaigns of 1813–1814, a process that continued while making peace with France in Paris in the spring of 1814, and amid the mixed celebrations and conversations during their visit to London that summer. Even the Congress, successful as it generally was, did not clear all the outstanding issues, which instead carried over into the discussions surrounding the Second Peace of Paris after Napoleon's renewed defeat at Waterloo in 1815 and into the ambassadors' conferences in Paris and London in succeeding years. Yet, there were good reasons why Vienna was selected as the venue for the main round of celebrations and negotiations in autumn 1814, and the location did help shape both the Congress and its diplomatic outcomes. Less often treated as a subject in its own right, however, is the question of what the Vienna Congress meant for and revealed about the history of the Habsburg monarchy, in European context to be sure, but with the focus on Austrian politics and society rather than on their contribution to the European narrative.