Congress of Vienna, Solutions to One Big Disaster

Hello readers,

The essential question for this unit was what should people do when their power is threatened? This question is to allow students to think about what happens when the government power is threatened by revolutions or another power. An example would be when Napoleon tried to take control of countries all over Europe. A more specific example of this would be Napoleon trying to take control of Austria and Austria’s prince Metternich deciding that he will not stand for it. We watched a video on Metternich’s and Napoleon’s meeting. To answer this question we looked at the Congress of Vienna. The Congress of Vienna was a meeting healed after Napoleon had fallen from power to figure out what they were to do next.. We read a background reading on the Congress of Vienna and learned about how they had to figure out how the governments were going to be rule and what the country lines were going to be, as well as who was representing each country involved in Napoleon’s conquest. We then read problems that Metternich had to face when he was resolving the issues of the country lines, government leaders, and what they were to do for future revolutions. We then discussed and took notes on what the solutions would be to figure out the issues. We learned about Holy Alliance, Principle of Intervention, Principle of Legitimacy, and the Balance of Power. It was a great way to learn about how the powers of the time would solve revolutionary problems.

Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, 1815 http://www.emersonkent.com/historic_documents/congress_of_vienna_1815.htm

To prevent future revolutions when the Congress of Vienna was held they came up with the idea of Holy Alliance. The idea was initiated by Czar Alexander of Russia. The Holy Alliance was based off of, as you can guess, the idea that the government powers were under God’s control and appointed by God. It meant that the monarchs had divine right to rule. This would mean that whoever decided to revolt against the monarchs was not just treason but was also against God. At the time almost everyone believed in God and that he was the most powerful being ever to exist. No one went against God. This would prevent people from lashing out in the future because they would not go against God’s wishes. In the future revolutions would have gone against God when they were revolting which was hard to do because they would not be able to get as many on their side as they needed to succeed. The Congress of Vienna was important in this way because they were able to help prevent future revolutions by coming up with many ideas on why people should not revolt.

I believe that the Congress of Vienna made a good decisions to help themselves at the time. I think that they did a great job deciding how to prevent revolutions like Napoleon’s and others. I think that they could have made better decisions to improve the lives of their people. They should make it okay so that the people of each country could have a say in what happens with the government. I think that they should not have been so absolute with their absolute monarchies. The powerful should sacrifice some of their power to improve the lives of their people they rule over. The governments for the people would be much better and revolutions would be less likely to occur.

Thanks for reading,

Julianna