The Vienna Settlement of 1815 was based on three principles, restoration, legitimacy and compensation. Elucidate.

The Congress met from September 1814 to June 1815, dominated by Metternich of Austria, Castlereagh of Britain, Alexander I of Russia, Hardenberg of Prussia and Talleyrand of France, whose diplomatic skill won the defeated power a seat at the table.

Restoration. The dynasties displaced by the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars were put back — the Bourbons in France, Spain and Naples, the Pope in the Papal States, the House of Savoy in Piedmont. The map of 1789 was the reference point wherever it could be recovered.

Legitimacy. Talleyrand's principle, which he used to protect France: sovereigns rule by hereditary right, not by popular will or conquest, so a throne cannot be created by a plebiscite or a general. It gave the settlement a doctrine and gave Talleyrand a way to argue that France under a restored Bourbon was not a defeated enemy but a legitimate member of the European family.

Compensation. Legitimacy was, however, applied selectively, because the victors had to be paid. Prussia received the Rhineland and part of Saxony; Russia took most of Poland with the Tsar as king; Austria was compensated with Lombardy and Venetia in place of the Netherlands; Britain kept Malta, Ceylon, the Cape and Heligoland; Sweden received Norway from Denmark. Where compensation conflicted with legitimacy, compensation won.

The unstated fourth principle — balance of power. France was ringed rather than dismantled: Belgium was joined to Holland, Piedmont was strengthened, and thirty-nine German states were bound into a Confederation under Austrian presidency. The Concert of Europe was to manage disputes by consultation.

Assessment. Judged by its own aim it succeeded, giving Europe nearly four decades without a general war, until Crimea in 1854. Judged by the forces it ignored it failed, since nationalism and liberalism had no place in it, and the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 were the bill.