June: The conclusion of the Congress of Vienna
–organized by the Foreign Minister of Austria, Prince Klemens Metternich, helps redraw the boundaries of Europe
Subsequent to Napoleon’s defeat by the Russians in Borodina (Russia). The Congress of Vienna concludes ten days before Napoleon’s final defeat by the British at Waterloo (Belgium).
A diplomatic practitioner of balance–of–power politics, Metternich is considered a paradigm of foreign policy management.
Metternich warned against giving too much power to the German populace, as it might unleash aggressive German nationalism.
Napoleon (previously exiled to Elba, an island off of Italy, for 9 months before his escape and return to leadership in France) now spends the balance of his life imprisoned on the island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic, approximately one thousand miles west of Africa.