The
Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by
Austrian statesman
Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in
Vienna from September 1814 to June 1815. The objective of the Congress was to provide a long-term peace plan for Europe by settling critical issues arising from the
French Revolutionary Wars and the
Napoleonic Wars. The goal was not simply to restore old boundaries but to resize the main powers so they could balance each other off and remain at peace. The leaders were conservatives with little use for republicanism or revolution. France lost all its recent conquests, while Prussia, Austria and Russia made major territorial gains. Prussia added smaller German states in the west and 40% of the
Kingdom of Saxony; Austria gained Venice and much of northern Italy. Russia gained
parts of Poland. The new
Kingdom of the Netherlands had been created just months before, and included formerly Austrian territory that in 1830 became
Belgium.