1814
After Napoleons defeat in 1814,
the Vienna Congress was in the process of redrawing the map of Europe.
Restoration of the pre-revolutionary situation was one of the goals, although in
many ways the clock couldn’t be turned back. The areas coloured grey were under
the provisional occupation of allies. The abbreviations you see on the map in
those areas stand for Austria, Hanover, Prussia, Russia and the Netherlands.
With France the First Peace of Paris had been conducted. The Bourbons, but not
their absolutist rule, had been restored there, signifying that the clock could
not be turned back altogether.
Prussia
and Russia almost started a new war over Poland. The Russians that had occupied
the Grandduchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Saksony wanted to keep Poland for
itself and compensate Prussia with Saksony, a Kingdom that had been an ally of
Napoleon to the very last. The Prussians however wanted their Polish territories
back.
In the
meantime Napoleon returned from Elba, that he was allowed to keep as a
Principality, and retook France, only to be defeated finally at Waterloo in the
next year.
