The victorious European states had convened the Congress of Vienna in November 1814 in an attempt to reestablish a balance of power and, where feasible, restore pre-Napoleonic dynasties.

Austrian emperor Francis I (the former Holy Roman Emperor Francis II) hosts the meeting; in attendance are Russia’s Emperor Alexander I, Prussia’s King Frederick William III, and several other lesser crowned heads.

The principal negotiators include Britain’s Viscount Castlereagh, Prussia’s Prince Karl August von Hardenburg, Russia’s Count Karl Robert Nesselrode, Austria’s Prince Klemens von Metternich and Metternich’s aide Friedrich von Gentz as secretary general of the congress.

The Prussian statesman Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein serves as an advisor to Alexander.

The Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland is signed on November 27, 1815, creating Congress Poland, a constitutional monarchy in personal union with the Russian Empire, under terms agreed at the Congress of Vienna.

The Kingdom of Poland had been created out of the Duchy of Warsaw, a French client state, at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 when the great powers reorganize Europe following the Napoleonic wars.

The creation of the Kingdom has created a partition of Polish lands in which the state is divided among Russia, Austria and Prussia.

The Congress is important enough in the creation of the state to cause the new country to be named for it.

The Congress of Vienna (1814-15), convened after Napoleon's defeat, had established the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) of thirty-nine monarchical states headed by Austria.

Prince Clemens von Metternich, who will direct Austria's foreign policy from 1809 until 1848, is the dominant political figure within the confederation.

He will pursue a reactionary policy and the German states will revert to the old order of social distinctions and privileges.

The personification of the European counterrevolution, Metternich advocates the principle of aristocratic legitimacy for the possession of titles and territories and represents conservatism, order, and stability, which he opposes to social and political revolt.

Metternich's police organization suppresses both nationalism and liberalism.

The publicist Frederick von Gentz popularizes Metternich's reactionary ideas and assists him in developing a system of political censorship that will hold Austria and part of Germany in intellectual bondage until 1848.