The long-serving French representative, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, wanted to end France's diplomatic isolation and reassure other powers it had renounced any revolutionary intentions.

The Congress of Vienna brought together the European great powers in Austria to discuss the future of Europe following the defeat of France in the 1813-14 War of the Sixth Coalition.

The principal allies of the Sixth Coalition, Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia together with representatives from minor nations and the defeated power, France (now under the Bourbon Restoration) sat from September 1814.

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was concerned at the creation of a Prussia whose size would threaten both France and Austria, but also saw an opportunity to end French diplomatic isolation.

[4] In November 1814, Alexander's brother Grand Duke Konstantin left Vienna for Warsaw, Prussian generals returned to Berlin, while Austria moved troops into Galicia.

Soon after, the Russian military commander in Saxony, Nikolai Repnin-Volkonsky, handed the Prussians control of the civil administration, incorrectly claiming it had been approved by Austria and Britain.

[6] Talleyrand proposed to the British and Austrian representatives, Lord Castlereagh and Klemens von Metternich, that a defensive alliance should be signed to deter any Prussian aggression.

[3] Whilst the Congress was ongoing, on 1 March Napoleon returned to France from exile, won the French Army to his cause and deposed the Bourbon king, Louis XVIII.

[9] Blücher's chief of staff, August Neidhardt von Gneisenau, was deeply suspicious of Wellington, and particularly worried his perceived pro-Bourbon bias might jeopardise their primary responsibility to defend Prussia.

Wellington reassured the Prussians that if defeated, he would retreat eastwards towards Prussia, not the sea; backed up by sending Henry Hardinge as liaison officer, this seems to have resolved differences between the two parties.

War had, in any case, been unlikely with Britain and Austria wary of allowing a French army to operate in Central Europe so soon after Napoleon's troops had conquered swathes of territory there.