The revitalized Concert included Austria (at the time a part of Austria-Hungary), France, Italy, Russia, and Britain, with Germany as the driving continental power.

The second phase oversaw a further period of relative peace and stability from the 1870s to 1914, and facilitated the growth of European colonial and imperial control in Africa and Asia without wars between the great powers.

The Concert of Europe certainly ended with the outbreak of World War I in 1914,[2] when the Concert proved ultimately unable to handle the collapse of Ottoman power in the Balkans, hardening of the alliance system into two firm camps (the Triple Alliance and Triple Entente), and the feeling among many civilian and military leaders on both sides that a war was inevitable or even desirable.

The ultimate failure of the Concert of Europe, culminating in the First World War, was driven by various factors including rival alliances and the rise of nationalism.

[5] The Concert of Europe drew upon their ideas and the notion of a balance of power in international relations, so that the ambitions of each great power would be restrained by the others: The Concert of Europe, as it began to be called at the time, had ... a reality in international law, which derived from the final Act of the Vienna Congress, which stipulated that the boundaries established in 1815 could not be altered without the consent of its eight signatories.

[7] The first phase of the Concert of Europe is typically described as beginning in 1814 with the Congress of Vienna, and ending in the early 1860s with the Prussian and Austrian invasion of Denmark.

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord of France was largely responsible for quickly returning the country to its place alongside the other major powers in international diplomacy.

The Kingdom of Prussia, and the Austrian and Russian Empires, formed the Holy Alliance on 26 September 1815, with the express intent of preserving Christian social values and traditional monarchism.

In the opinion of Lord Castlereagh, the British foreign secretary at the time of its inception, the Holy Alliance was "a piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense".

[12] Nevertheless, its influence was more long lasting than its contemporary critics expected and was revived in the 1820s as a tool of repression when Britain and France refused to embroil themselves in certain continental matters.

It included a provision for the High Contracting Parties to "renew their meeting at fixed periods...for the purpose of consulting on their common interests" which were the "prosperity of the Nations, and the maintenance of peace in Europe".

[17] This Congress dealt with the question of Spanish revolution of 1820; Russia, Prussia, and Austria agreed to support France's planned intervention in Spain, while the United Kingdom opposed it.

Russia and the United Kingdom entered a bilateral agreement to enforce their plan, by war if necessary, for a mediated end to the conflict with Greek autonomy within the Ottoman Empire.

[17] Austria, Prussia, and Russia saw Belgium's separation as a threat to stability, inviting further revolutions and revolts, and sought to return to the status quo ante.

On the other hand, France, now led by the more liberal July Monarchy as a result of its own 1830 revolution, supported Belgium's independence, as much of the impetus came from the lack of power of the Francophone and Catholic residents.

The United Kingdom was very wary of French plans to annex parts of Belgium, but when no powers were willing to send troops to support the Dutch, and with the ascension of a more liberal Whig government, eventually supported the creation of an independent, neutral Belgium as a buffer state, to which the other Great Powers ultimately agreed.

Muhammad Ali's demand for control of parts of the Levant and subsequent invasion of Syria threatened to topple the weak Ottoman regime and brought the issue to a head in what became known as the Oriental Crisis of 1840.

France, however, supported Muhammad Ali, a longtime ally in North Africa, hoping to further increase French influence in the Mediterranean through a French-aligned independent Egypt.

However, the revolts, which combined nationalist and liberal ideas, posed a real threat to the conservative order that had reigned since 1815, as shown by the success of the French uprising ending the July Monarchy and ushering in the Second Republic.

However, in response, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and even republican France worked – and in some cases coordinate closely – to defeat the uprisings in Germany, Italy, and Eastern Europe.

Britain also sought to preserve the status quo, providing no support to the revolutionaries, and mainly seeking to ensure that no other powers managed to leverage the uprisings into expanded influence in areas of British interest, such as the Mediterranean and the Low Countries.

The collapse of the Concert was further sealed when the war was concluded with a trilateral treaty between Prussia, Austria, and Denmark rather than a larger Congress involving the other Great Powers.

[25] In addition, the growth of colonial and imperial power around the world and the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and North Africa meant the Concert's goal of territorial and political stability was harder to achieve, eventually leading to the outbreak of war.

The crisis of July 1914 – the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo which lit the fuse on Balkan tensions[26] – catalyzed the collapse of the Concert of Europe for good, and marked the start of the first World War.

Particularly with the fall of the first phase, the rise of nationalism was in almost direct opposition to the core cooperative functions of the Concert, and resulted in States who were no longer well constrained by the Congress system.

[8] The outbreak of conflict – namely in the Balkans after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand – highlighted the final failure of the Concert of Europe, in that it was no longer able to constrain State national interests in order to maintain a cooperative international front.