Introduction:

The rivalry for hegemony in the German Empire had appeared long before the Congress of Vienna. It was Frederick II who first challenged the hegemony of Habsburg Austria in the German Empire when he snatched Silesia at the occasion of Maria Theresia's embattled succession of Emperor Charles VI. This challenge was confirmed by the outcome of the Seven Years War in which Prussia successfully defended the possession of Silesia against Austria and its allies. But it was through the territorial gains of the two Paris peace settlements and the Congress of Vienna that "Prussia finally became a great European power" with a position on an equal footing among the Big Four. The new political order in Europe and in the German Reich established by the Congress of Vienna succeeded to contain the rivalry between Austria and Prussia in a framework that prevented military conflict until the final showdown in 1866. The purpose of this contribution is to evaluate some of the arrangements of the congress which shaped the political order in Central Europe (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, East-central Europe) in the perspective of the course of events in the 19th century.