France was the main issue of the Congress. Ensuring France was unable to reinvade Europe was the key issue from which all the others branched. Despite losing the war, France was allowed to take part in the settlement negotiations. This meant that, unlike in Versailles a century later, the losing side would have less reason to feel wronged. The set-up of a ‘Cordon Sanitaire’ around France by reinforcing the smaller surrounding countries guaranteed a barrier from French territorialism. The fact that, despite much unrest internally, France never did spill outside of its borders after the settlement is a testament to the success of this aim. This clause also allowed for the recognition of Switzerland as an independent and, more importantly, neutral country. This status has survived to this day, another success for the treaty. On the other hand, the arbitrary combination of Holland and Belgium, essentially on the whim of the great powers, showed gross ignorance of the demands of these countries to determination. This set up a theme within the agreement.
Many of the territorial changes effected by the settlement combined territories gave no regard to geographical or cultural differences between them. The main powers especially took control of territories that had little significance to there position. Prussia took control of the Rhineland and Saxony, going against desires in both states to become independent. Cavour, the Prime Minister of Piedmont in 1852, commented:
“Resting on no Principle, neither that of legitimacy, nor of national interests, nor of popular will, taking account of neither of geographical conditions, nor of general interests, this august assembly, acting only by right of the strongest, erected a political edifice without any moral foundation.”
This was a view held by leading figures in most of the smaller states of Europe, accentuated by the refusal of the great powers to allow the lesser powers to take part in the congress. It has been argued that this disregard to self-deterministic feelings led to many of the revolutions that took place between 1815 and 1848 (“The Age of Revolution”), however, it should be noted that in 1815, nationalistic feelings were limited to a tiny section of the population, the middle classes. As well as this, those feelings of nationalism that did exist were bases on Xenophobia rather than the desire for self-determination. It may well be the case that had nationalistic feelings been allowed fuller expression in the settlement, the emergence of an aggressive, expansionist nationalistic feeling would have been inevitable. This would have led to far more unrest in Europe than was in fact the case.
Another major achievement of the settlement was to balance the clauses in such a way that all countries felt satisfied, at lease originally. Unlike Versailles, the losing nation, France, was not heavily punished, nor was much of its national territory taken. Instead to satisfy the demands for compensation by the Great Powers, the smaller states invaded by France were given to the Powers. France had lost nothing it had had before the start of the war, however the other powers were satisfied with their gains. This lack of a real “losing” country meant that there were no grudges to harbour. There was also general feeling that further War would bring the extremist nationalist revolutionaries out from the shadows to cause trouble, so the Great Powers prevented this.
The key figures in the creation of the settlement have often been criticised as self-important, out of touch and only interested in the interests of the tiny ruling minority. It has become clearer in recent years however, that they represented a fairly average selection of European Aristocrats at the time, perhaps even exceptionally forward minded, as had they conceded more to nationalism, it is very likely that this would have given the previously apathetic lower classes the clear aim for which to strive, causing popular rebellion, as opposed to the majority middle class rebellions that did occur.
The many criticisms of the Settlement of Vienna are based around the clear self-interest of the Great Powers. While this is no doubt a fair comment, many of the interests of the Great Powers coincided with the General good. Specifically, the desire for peace through strengthening existing countries and the desire for no great power to be too displeased with the settlement. The pursuit of these two aims are what led to the long period of relative peace that followed. The Settlement may have failed in terms of internal order within the countries, (the many small rebellions), but in terms of collective European peace, it was incredible successful, marking the beginning of a long period of international harmony. While the settlement gave little ground to reform, it did represent a cautious step in the right direction. From the perspective of the present, away from the prejudices of the times, the Settlement was generally successful, especially when compared to more modern attempts at peace treaties between European powers. On the other hand, whether it would have been possible to satisfy a little more the urge for liberal and nationalism without severely hampering chances of International peace, is difficult to say. What is concludable however is that a greatly different peace treaty would have most likely led to one of the Great Powers feeling dissatisfied, and therefore threatening the delicate peace to readdress the balance.