On that very morning of 1 January 1815, news reached Vienna of the signature at Ghent on 24 December of peace between Britain and the United States. ‘The news of the American peace came like a shot here,’ Lord Apsley wrote to Bathurst. ‘Nobody expected it.’ As the implications sank in, everyone realised that the balance of power had shifted dramatically, and there was a noticeable degree of gloom among the Prussian delegation. ‘We have become more European, and by the Spring we can have a very nice army on the Continent,’ mused Castlereagh.
