Congress of Vienna 1814

In my history class we discussed the Congress of Vienna in 1814. At the Congress of Vienna, men from all over Europe discussed how they were going to redraw the map. This needed to be done because Napoleon was defeated and changes needed to be made to the map. They needed to talk about what they were going to do when the power that the had was in trouble. What would you do if your power was threatened? There are four ways that the European powers reacted to their threatened power. In class, we were given multiple scenarios and we had to chose the option that seemed like it would work the best and make everyone in Europe happy.

Men are consulting at the Congress of Vienna in 1814
http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=255

One of the ways that the people of Europe were able to keep their power but also keep the people in Europe in line was a balance of power. When redrawing the map, Metternich made sure that the 5 strongest countries, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Britain, and France, all had a balance of power. This prevented one country from dominating all the others. Land was redistributed between these 5 countries, which ensures that the power was balanced for the allies in case of any later French expansion. He brought back the original French territory, expanded the Prussian territory, made the Kingdom of the Netherlands a stronger border state, and gave Russia and Austria additional territory because they were extremely hurt by Napoleon. In a sense, he reserves the changes of Napoleon's conquest.

The people at the Congress of Vienna made a semi right choice with their decisions. They prevented a war within Europe. This saved them a lot of money and damage to the countries. But, they did not please everyone with the decisions they made. Sometimes, people need to sacrifice their power to make people happy.