Stella Ghervas Commemorates the 200th Anniversary of the Congress of Vienna

This year marks both end points of the ‘long 19th century’, the period of relative peace that began arguably with the Congress of Vienna in September 1814 and lasted until the outbreak of the First World War in July 1914.
Emperor Napoleon was defeated in May 1814 and Cossacks marched along the Champs-Elysées into Paris. The victorious Great Powers (Russia, Great Britain, Austria and Prussia) invited the other states of Europe to send plenipotentiaries to Vienna for a peace conference. At the end of the summer, emperors, kings, princes, ministers and representatives converged on the Austrian capital, crowding the walled city. The first priority of the Congress of Vienna was to deal with territorial issues: a new configuration of German states, the reorganisation of central Europe, the borders of central Italy and territorial transfers in Scandinavia.