The other spoils were distributed in order to create a buffer against France. The Kingdom of the Netherlands was formed, Prussia acquired part of the Rhineland, Switzerland regained independence and the right to neutrality and Austria dominated Northern Italy according to the terms of the settlement, leaving France boxed in and unable to assert itself. Due to the influence of Talleyrand, France received no punishment more severe than containment, and this benefited Europe in that it kept France from becoming too weak and destroying the balance of power. It also was planned like this in order to prevent France seeking revenge in the future.
Containing France would prove to be a difficult task, due to the different opinions of the leaders of the major powers. Talleyrand represented the defeated France and knew that the allies would be after a harsh treaty in order to punish France. They saw this as being the way to prevent future wars in Europe, as did the allies to Germany later on in history. However they chose not to take this path but instead contain France by making the surrounding countries stronger and more united. Part of this decision was made because the allies generally feared France and wanted to avoid any future conflicts with her. The British paid the Dutch compensation for certain colonies and insisted that this money be used for boarder fortresses on the boarder between France and the kingdom of the Netherlands, which had also been earlier united with Belgium to ensure a strong northern buffer. Colonies had also been taken from France and given to Britain to strengthen British naval superiority even more. One thing that needed assurance was the security of Germany and Italy. The allies decided that it was necessary to break the strong French influence that napoleon had imposed on Italy. Italy was then divided up in a similar way to that in which it had been before the French conquests. Austria took the northern and eastern Italian states of Lombardy and Venetia to make up for their loss of the Austrian Netherlands. Furthermore the Holy Roman Empire was not re-established. Germany was also re designed, but in a different fashion to that of Italy. Germany was once again still made up of many individual states, which were governed by separate governments, but the congress had reduced the amount to 39 and also created the confederation of Germany. These tactics were used in order to contain France and prevent smaller states being influenced or bullied by larger ones, which had been the case throughout the Napoleonic wars. These decisions can be seen as being a clear sign of the congresses ambition to secure peace in Europe.
In addition to creating a balance of power and containing France, the final settlement at Vienna demonstrated altruistic designs for Europe in that the Concert of Europe was organized. This was the first international group to attempt to deal with European affairs, the main purpose of the Concert being to preserve the balance of power and protect governments from being overthrown.
The fact that the Congress of Vienna was conducted with the aim of preventing another European war, which led to proposals of creating a balance of power, establishing "better" conservative governments, containing France and cooperation between the great powers to meet these ends clearly demonstrates that the welfare of all of Europe was the main concern.. The containment of France and the formation of the Concert of Europe were two other aspects of the settlement which maintained the balance of power, thus promoting the good of Europe.
In conclusion to the question, I believe the evidence shows that the congress had the peace and security of Europe as their main priority. It is also clear however that they abused the idea of balance of power in order to gain territory; an example of this is Russia's claims to Eastern Europe. They justified their claim by introducing the fact that Russia needed greater influence in central Europe in order to balance the power between Prussia and Austria. I disagree that the revenge on France was the main concern to the congress because they did very little to France in terms of revenge. The only punishment received by France was the taking away of her colonies. Other than that the allies were seen to have been lenient by allowing France the boarders she had in 1879. All other decisions were made to ensure peace and security in Europe; however these decisions were made in a way that they didn’t directly affect France. They didn’t use their original idea of punishing France to an extent so that she was too weak to ever attack anyone, as the treaty of Versailles had done after the First World War. It is because of this peace was ensured for the amount of time it was, due to the fact that they gave the French population nothing to what revenge for. This is the difference between Vienna and Versailles. The politicians would foresee this back at the congress of Vienna and knew that punishing France too harshly would almost certainly lead to future conflict, which was the leader’s main aim to prevent, especially Britain who hoped to stay out of European affairs unless directly threatened.
Daniel Bradley