Europe's rulers redrew the entire continent's map at a nine-month party in Vienna

After Napoleon's defeat, Europe's great powers gathered in Vienna from September 1814 to June 1815 to redraw the continent's borders and restore a balance of power, guided by Austria's foreign minister Klemens von Metternich. Negotiations happened as much at lavish balls and banquets as at the table — prompting the Prince de Ligne's quip that 'the congress dances, but does not move forward' — yet the settlement kept Europe free of continent-wide war for 99 years.

— Harold Nicolson, The Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity, 1812-1822 — Constable, 1946