Editing Concert of Europe (section)

{{Short description|European balance of power in the 19th century}}
{{About|the 19th-century diplomatic term|the jazz album|European Concert{{!}}''European Concert''}}
{{Redirect|Congress system|the form of government|congressional system}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2024}}
{{Infobox historical era
| name = Concert of Europe
| start = 1815 to 1848/1860s
| end = 1871 to 1914
| image = Europe 1815 map en.png
| caption = The national boundaries within Europe as set by the [[Congress of Vienna]], 1815
| before = [[Napoleonic era]]
| including = * [[Regency era]]
* [[Bourbon Restoration in France|Bourbon Restoration]]
* [[Revolutions of 1830]]
* [[Revolutions of 1848]]
* [[Causes of World War I]]
| after = [[League of Nations]]
| leaders = 
}}

The '''Concert of Europe''' was a general agreement among the [[great power]]s of 19th-century Europe to maintain the [[European balance of power]], political boundaries, and [[spheres of influence]]. Never a perfect unity and subject to disputes and jockeying for position and influence, the Concert was an extended period of relative peace and stability in Europe following the [[Wars of the French Revolution]] and the [[Napoleonic Wars]] which had consumed the continent since the 1790s. There is considerable scholarly dispute over the exact nature and duration of the Concert. Some scholars argue that it fell apart nearly as soon as it began in the 1820s when the great powers disagreed over the handling of liberal revolts in Italy, while others argue that it lasted until the outbreak of [[World War I]] and others for points in between.<ref name="RAND">{{cite web |last1=Lascurettes |first1=Kyle |title=The Concert of Europe and Great-Power Governance Today: What Can the Order of 19th-Century Europe Teach Policymakers About International Order in the 21st Century? |year=2017 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep02405 |publisher=RAND Corporation |access-date=15 February 2022}}</ref>  For those arguing for a longer duration, there is generally agreement that the period after the [[Revolutions of 1848]] and the [[Crimean War]] (1853–1856) represented a different phase with different dynamics than the earlier period.

The beginnings of the Concert of Europe, known as the '''Congress System''' or the '''Vienna System''' after the [[Congress of Vienna]] (1814–1815), was dominated by the five great powers of Europe: Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, and the United Kingdom.  Initially envisioning regular Congresses among the great powers to resolve potential disputes, in practice, Congresses were held on an ad hoc basis and were generally successful in preventing or localizing conflicts. The more conservative members of the Concert of Europe, members of the [[Holy Alliance]] (Russia, Austria, and Prussia), used the system to oppose revolutionary and liberal movements and weaken the forces of nationalism. The formal Congress System fell apart in the 1820s but peace between the Great Powers continued and occasional meetings reminiscent of the Congresses continued to be held at times of crisis. 

The Concert faced a major challenge in the [[Revolutions of 1848]] which sought national independence, national unity, and liberal and democratic reforms. The 1848 Revolutions were ultimately checked without major territorial changes. However, the age of nationalism ultimately brought the first phase of the Concert to an end, as it was unable to prevent the wars leading to the [[Unification of Italy|Italian unification]] (by the [[Kingdom of Sardinia]]) in 1861 and [[Unification of Germany|German unification]] (by Prussia) in 1871 which remade the maps of Europe. Following German unification, German chancellor [[Otto von Bismarck]] sought to revive the Concert of Europe to protect Germany's gains and secure its leading role in European affairs. The revitalized Concert included [[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 [[Scramble for Africa|Africa]] and [[Western imperialism in Asia|Asia]] without wars between the great powers.

The Concert of Europe certainly ended with the outbreak of [[World War I]] in 1914,<ref>{{cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6mlO7Fb8o7UC&q=Concert+of+Europe+came+to+an+end+in+1914 |title = U.S. Resident Officers Conference|year = 1950}}</ref> when the Concert proved ultimately unable to handle the collapse of [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] power in the [[Balkans]], hardening of the alliance system into two firm camps (the [[Triple Alliance (1882)|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.