Treaty of Paris (1814)
The Treaty of Paris, signed on 30 May 1814, ended the war between France and the Sixth Coalition, part of the Napoleonic Wars, following an armistice signed on 23 April between Charles, Count of Artois, and the allies.[1] It established peace between France and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, who in March had defined their common war aim in Chaumont.[2] The Treaty was also signed by Portugal and Sweden while Spain signed shortly after in July.[3] Peace talks had started on 9 May between Talleyrand, who negotiated with the allies of Chaumont on behalf of the exiled Bourbon king Louis XVIII of France. The allies had agreed to reduce France to her 1792 borders and restore the independence of her neighbors after Napoleon Bonaparte's defeat.[2] However, the allied parties did not sign a common document, but instead concluded separate treaties with France allowing for specific amendments.[3]
In addition to the cessation of hostilities, the treaty provided a rough draft of a final settlement, which according to article 32 was to be concluded within the next two months at a congress involving all belligerents of the Napoleonic Wars.[4] This provision resulted in the Congress of Vienna, held between September 1814 and June 1815.[5] The preliminary conditions already agreed on in Paris were moderate for France to not disturb the re-enthronement of the returned Bourbon king: France's borders of 1 June 1792 were confirmed, and in addition, she was allowed to retain Saarbrücken, Saarlouis, Landau, the County of Montbéliard, part of Savoy with Annecy and Chambéry, also Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin as well as artifacts acquired during the war, while on the other hand she had to cede several colonies.[2]
To distinguish this agreement from a second treaty of Paris, concluded on 20 November 1815 as one of the treaties amending Vienna[6] the treaty of 30 May 1814 is sometimes referred to as the First Peace of Paris.[2][4]
Terms
The treaty reapportioned several territories amongst various countries. Most notably, France retained all territory that it possessed on 1 January 1792 and so reacquired many of the territories lost to Britain during the war. They included Guadeloupe (Art. IX), which had been ceded to Sweden by Britain when it entered the coalition . In return, Sweden was compensated 24 million francs, which gave rise to the Guadeloupe Fund. The only exceptions were Tobago, St. Lucia, Seychelles and Mauritius. Britain kept sovereignty over the island of Malta (Art. VII).[7] The treaty returned to Spain the territory of Santo Domingo, which had been transferred to France by the 1795 Peace of Basel in 1795 (Art. VIII). That implicitly recognised French sovereignty over Saint-Domingue, which Dessalines had proclaimed independent under the name of Haiti. France did not recognise the independence of Haiti until 1838.
The treaty recognised the Bourbon monarchy in France, in the person of Louis XVIII, because the treaty was between the Louis XVIII the king of France and the heads of states of the Coalition great powers (Preamble to the treaty).
The treaty also aimed to abolish the French slave trade but not slavery over a five-year period (Additional Art. I), and it also formally recognized the independence of Switzerland (Art. VI).[8]
Several powers, despite the peaceful intentions of the treaty, still feared a reassertion of French power. The territories thus strengthened themselves for protection. The House of Orange, which united Belgium and the Netherlands, was created to strengthen the two countries in case of a French attack. Many German states had been consolidated by Napoleon, and retained the status, and Prussia gained territory in western Germany, near the border with France. In Italy, several different political entities were recognized.
See also
Notes
- ↑ Büsch 1992, p. 72.
- 1 2 3 4 Malettke 2009, p. 66.
- 1 2 Büsch 1992, p. 73.
- 1 2 Büsch 1992, pp. 73–74.
- ↑ Büsch 1992, p. 74.
- ↑ Büsch 1992, p. 81.
- ↑ Rudolf & Berg 2010, p. 11.
- ↑ EB staff 2014.
References
- EB staff (2014). "Treaties of Paris (1814-1815)". Britannica Online Encyclopedia.
- Büsch, Otto (1992). Handbuch der preußischen Geschichte (in German). 3. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 72–74, 81. ISBN 3-11-008322-1.
- Malettke, Klaus (2009). Die Bourbonen 3. Von Ludwig XVIII. bis zu den Grafen von Paris (1814-1848) (in German). 3. Kohlhammer. p. 66. ISBN 3-17-020584-6.
- Rudolf, Uwe Jens; Berg, W. G. (2010). Historical Dictionary of Malta. USA: Scarecrow Press. p. 11. ISBN 9780810853171.
- Alexander Rich, Gisela Gledhill, and Dr. Jerzy Kierkuć-Bieliński; (2014) Peace Breaks Out! London and Paris in the Summer of 1814, London: Sir John Soane’s Museum, in print
External links
Media related to Treaty of Paris, 1814 at Wikimedia Commons
Works related to Treaty of Paris (1814) at Wikisource