Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818)

The Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, held in the autumn of 1818, was a high-level diplomatic meeting of France and the four allied powers Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia, which had defeated it in 1814. The purpose was to decide the withdrawal of the army of occupation from France and renegotiate the reparations it owed. It produced an amicable settlement, whereby France refinanced its reparations debt; the Allies in a few weeks withdrew all of their troops.^[1]

It was part of the series of conferences known as the Concert of Europe.

The occupation was formally terminated at the conference on 30 September 1818; by 30 November evacuation was complete. The French representative Duc de Richelieu succeeded in having France admitted as a full discussion partner in the European congress system and France's position as a European power was restored.

Financially, France was originally obligated to pay 700 million francs, in installments every four months for five years (1815 Treaty of Paris). When the Congress met, Paris had discharged its obligations punctually. 332 million remained; France offered to pay the sum of 265 million. Of that, 100 million francs would be in the form of French bonds bearing interest, the rest in installments through to English banks.

The main achievement of the Congress was to definitively terminate the wars of 1792–1815. They closed out all claims against France, and accepted France as an equal and full member of the Concert of Four, which was now composed of Five Powers. To hedge their bets, the Four secretly renewed the Quadruple Alliance, but this was a formality of no consequence. The Four drifted apart year by year over questions dealing with Italy, South America, and Greece.^[2]