Personal Prints, Cards, Gifts, Slide Presentations, Reference. Image for Personal products and/or presentation/talk This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.Personal products and/or presentation/talk If one state becomes much stronger than others, the theory predicts it will take advantage of its strength and attack weaker neighbors, thereby providing an incentive for those threatened to unite in a defensive coalition. They characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power influence, which may cause middle or small powers to consider the Great Powers' opinions before taking actions of their own.īalance of power A theory in international relations that suggests that national security is enhanced when military capability is distributed so that no one state is strong enough to dominate all others. Great Powers A sovereign state recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. The Concert of Europe, despite later changes and diplomatic breakdowns a few decades later, formed the basic framework for European international politics until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.Ĭoncert of Europe Also known as the Congress System or the Vienna System after the Congress of Vienna, a system of dispute resolution adopted by the major conservative powers of Europe to maintain their power, oppose revolutionary movements, weaken the forces of nationalism, and uphold the balance of power.The Congress was the first occasion in history where on a continental scale, national representatives came together to formulate treaties instead of relying mostly on messages between the several capitals.The Congress of Vienna dissolved the Napoleonic world and attempted to restore the monarchies Napoleon had overthrown.To bring about a balance of power in Europe and prevent further conflict, they developed what became known as the Concert of Europe, beginning with the Congress of Vienna.As the Napoleonic Wars came to close in the second decade of the 19th century, the Great Powers of Europe (Britain, Prussia, Russia and Austria) started planning for the postwar world.The Concert of Europe was a system of dispute resolution adopted by the major conservative powers of Europe to maintain their power, oppose revolutionary movements, weaken the forces of nationalism, and uphold the balance of power. Do you agree with the 19th-century critics or the 20th-century historians on the impact of the Congress of Vienna? In the second column, note key features of the Concert of Europe. In the first column, note the definition and characteristics of t he Conservative Order.

Read this lesson on the Congress of Vienna to understand these different perceptions. The Paris Peace Conference of 1918, at the end of World War I, was modeled after the Vienna Congress.

However, opinions about the Congress shifted in the 20th century – many historians came to appreciate the 'feats of diplomacy' the participants had achieved and credited the Congress with preserving the peace for 100 years, until World War I. They complained that the so-called Conservative Order ignored the civil rights of the people who lived in the reorganized states in support of the interests of the major powers. Many 19th-century observers criticized the Congress as a conservative backlash to revolutionary liberalism, since it opposed the human rights and liberties the French and American revolutionaries had asserted.

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