ABSTRACT
The final defeat of Napoleon I in 1815 ended the greatest threat to the Westphalian state system that it had faced since its birth in the midseventeenth century. Napoleon’s downfall had been encompassed by a wartime alliance, the Fourth Coalition, which had proved remarkably effective in combining and coordinating the military and diplomatic efforts of France’s enemies and directing them towards a common end. The great issue facing the allied statesmen in 1815 was the desire to create a post-war system of international relations which could serve to constrain international violence and prevent the emergence of a new threat as menacing as Napoleonic France had been.
