The Congress of Vienna Reorganizes Switzerland and Italy

The Swiss Confederation as thus constituted was placed under the guarantee of the great powers and declared neutral forever.

Continuing The Congress of Vienna 1814-15,
our selection from Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815 by Henry M. Stephens published in 1900. The selection is presented in six easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The Congress of Vienna 1814-15.

Time: 1814-15
Place: Vienna

The Congress of Vienna continued Napoleon’s policy of forbidding the existence of subject cantons in spite of the protests of the Canton of Bern. Napoleon’s cantons of Argau, Thurgau, St. Gall, the Grisons, the Ticino, and the Pays de Vaud were maintained, but the number of the cantons was raised from nineteen to twenty-two by the formation of the three new cantons of Geneva, the Valais, and Neuchatel, which had formed part of the French empire. The Canton of Bern received in reply to its importunities the greater part of the former bishopric of Basel. The Swiss Confederation as thus constituted was placed under the guarantee of the great powers and declared neutral forever. The Helvetic Constitution, which was promulgated by a Federal act dated April 17, 1815, was not quite so liberal as Napoleon’s constitution.

Greater independence was secured in that the constitutions of the separate cantons and organic reforms in them had not to be submitted to the Federal Diet. The prohibition against internal custom-houses was removed. The presidency of the Diet was reserved to Zurich, Bern, and Lucerne alternately, and the Helvetic Diet became a congress of delegates like the Germanic Diet rather than a legislative assembly. It is to be noted that in spite of the declaration of the Congress of Vienna, Prussia refused to renounce her claims on her former territory of Neuchatel, the independence of which as a Swiss canton was not recognized by her until 1857.

The resettlement of Italy presented more than one special problem. The most difficult of these to solve was caused by the engagements entered into by the allies with Murat in 1814. Talleyrand, on behalf of the King of France, insisted on the dethronement and expulsion of Murat, while Metternich, from friendship for Caroline Murat, wished to retain him in his kingdom. The Emperor Alexander, who ever prided himself on his fidelity to his engagements, wished to protect Murat, and had at Vienna struck up a warm friendship with Eugene de Beauharnais, Napoleon’s Viceroy of Italy. Murat, ungrateful though he was personally toward Napoleon, had yet imbibed his master’s ideas in favor of the unity and independence of Italy. During the campaign of 1814 he had led his army to the banks of the Po, and he persisted in remaining there after the Congress of Vienna had met. But the diplomatists at Vienna had no wish to accept the great idea of Italian unity. Murat’s aspirations in this direction were most annoying to them, and it was with real pleasure that they heard, after the landing of Napoleon from Elba, that Murat had by an indiscreet proclamation given them an excuse for an open declaration of war.

The Duke di Campo-Chiaro, Murat’s representative at Vienna, had kept him informed of the differences between the allied powers, and an indiscreet note asking whether he was to be considered as at peace or at war with the house of Bourbon gave the plenipotentiaries their opportunity. War was immediately declared against him; an Austrian army defeated him at Tolentino on May 3, 1815, and he was forced to fly from Italy. The acceptance of Murat’s ambassador, who spoke in his name as King of the Two Sicilies, made it difficult for the Congress to know how to treat with Rufio, who had been sent as ambassador by Ferdinand, the Bourbon King of the Two Sicilies, who had maintained his power in the island of Sicily through the presence of the English garrison. Acting on the ground of legitimacy, it was difficult to reject Ferdinand’s claims, which were warmly supported by France and Spain, but Murat’s ill-considered behavior solved the difficulty, and after his defeat Ferdinand was recognized as King of the Two Sicilies. Murat, later in the year, landed in his former dominions, but he was taken prisoner and promptly shot.

Another Italian question which presented considerable difficulty was the disposal of Genoa and the surrounding territory. When Lord William Bentinck occupied that city, he had in the name of England promised it independence and even hinted at the unity of Italy. Castlereagh unfortunately felt it to be his duty to disavow Bentinck’s declaration, and Genoa was united to Piedmont as part of the kingdom of Sardinia. The third difficult question was the creation of a state for the Empress Marie Louise. An independent sovereignty had been promised to her. She was naturally supported by her father, the Emperor Francis of Austria, and was ably represented at Vienna by her future husband, Count Neipperg. It was eventually resolved that she should receive the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, but the succession was not secured to her son, the King of Rome, but was granted to the rightful heir, the King of Etruria, who, until the succession fell in, was to rule at Lucca. The other arrangements in Italy were comparatively simple. Austria received the whole of Venetia and Lombardy, in the place of Mantua and the Milanese, which she had possessed before 1789. The grand duchy of Tuscany, with the principality of Piombino, was restored to the Grand Duke Ferdinand, the uncle of the Emperor Francis of Austria, with the eventual succession to the duchy of Lucca. The Pope received back his dominions, including the legations of Bologna and Ferrara, and Duke Francis, the grandson of Hercules III, was recognized as Duke of Modena, to which duchy he would have succeeded had not Napoleon absorbed it in his kingdom of Italy.

The arrangements with regard to the other states of Europe made at the Congress of Vienna were comparatively unimportant and did not present the same difficult problems as the resettlement of Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Norway, in spite of its disinclination, was definitely ceded to Sweden, but Bernadotte had to restore to France the West Indian island of Guadalupe, which had been handed over to him by England in 1813 as part of the price of his alliance.

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