What principles guided the congress of Vienna?
The Congress of Vienna was opened on October 1, 1814, following the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grand Armeé and his abdication earlier in that year. All European states were summoned to the congress, which was meant to “bring back the old times” to Europe, the times previous to the French revolution of 1789 and the Napoleonic Wars that followed. There has been much debate among historians on whether the Vienna Settlement which resulted actually managed to address and solve the problems that Europe faced in a post-Napoleonic era. There were four principles, which were: restoring the balance of power, the containment of France, the restoration of legitimate rulers and rewarding and punishing those involved in the Napoleonic Wars, depending on which side they had fought on.
