Of the five representatives at the congress, Prince Von Metterninch was the most influential and successful and became known as the "Coachman of Europe". During the congress he openly voiced his critical opinion of revolution and Popular sovereignty, explaining that "Union between the monarchs is the basis of the policy which must now be followed to save society from total ruin"1. His charismatic, determined and subtle nature ensured neither Russia or Prussia was bale to gain all the territory they demanded, and he succeeded in creating a German confederation essentially under Austrian control as well as gaining land in Italy.. The German confederation consisted of 39 states and four free cities. A "loosely-framed parliament"2 was formed for the Confederation although it was essentially meaningless as Austria had a total of 17 votes whereas Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Hanover and Wuttemburg had only 4 a piece and the Confederation was always ruled by an Austrian. This placed Austria and Metterninch in a powerful role for the maintenance of the congresses boarders and ideology; which was challenged for the next 40 years
In order to reduce the power of France and provide a balance of power in Europe many changes were made which provided a protective belt of states around France to make future aggression more difficult and through compensation the congress ensured that no one important power felt hard done by from the redrawn borders. Sardinia gained Nice and Savoy, the Netherlands and Belgium formed the United Netherlands, Wuttemburg gained surrounding land and Switzerland became neutralised under international guarantee. All of this helped to reduce France's power and protect central and Eastern Europe. Once the problem of France had been sorted out, each country went about in an attempt to gain land for itself. Russia and Prussia had signed the Treaty of Kalisch agreeing that Russia would take the entirety of Poland and Prussia would gain Saxony. For weeks neither would allow for any modifications to the Treaty however the leaked news of an alliance between Britain, France and Austria alarmed the members of the original quadruple alliance to the possibility of war, sparking a new wave of rapid discussions in which Russia took a large section of Poland and Prussia took two-fifths of Saxony, the Rhineland and Westphalia and control of most of Emden, Osnabrunchk and Brunswick. As compensation for the loss of Finland to Russia, Sweden received Norway from Denmark which in turn received Lauenburg in exchange. Britain gained overseas colonies and was allowed further control of the seas. These further deals after the reduction of France's power ensured that all countries agreed with the congresses actions and that no one country felt worse off, however the congresses new borders were only to last a few decades as Europe quickly fell back into disrepute. The rebellions against the congresses work could ultimately have been postponed, however due to right-wing traditionalist nature of the representatives and their keenness to place royalties back on to power they failed to listen to the public and did not deliver the more civilian style of government that many wanted. In Spain and Italy liberals rebelled against the miss rule of the restored Bourbon king, resulting in the army mutinying and the kings eventually creating representative governments. This lead to similar riots in Naples and Sicily and caused Metterninch to further meetings to deal with uprisings in 1820,'21 and'22. The is the role Metterninch became accustomed with as he regularly brought the powers of Europe together to deal with the problems he could foresee to the Balance of Power which the Congress of Vienna had established. "By the middle of the decade the Congress had withered to a remaining Austrian-Russia alliance in which Metterninch set the agenda and the Russians acted as the "gendarme of Europe"2
1-www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1820metterninch.html
2-Killeenroos.com/4/RESULTCV.htm .
