2.2 Concert of Europe (1815-1914)

The practice, not an institution: the great powers' agreed management of Europe — the congresses (Vienna 1815, Aix-la-Chapelle 1818, Verona 1822, and the later conferences: Paris 1856, Berlin 1878, Algeciras 1906) where the great powers jointly settled the territorial and dynastic questions. The operating rules: the great powers' special responsibility and privilege (the pentarchy idea — the five powers' directorate); legitimacy and the balance of power as the ordering principles; the conference as the crisis instrument. The contributions (the exam's ledger): the first great-power directorate — the Security Council's ancestor (the P5's special role is the concert's institutionalized heir); the crisis-conference technique (the diplomatic congress as dispute-settlement); the century's comparative peace (the "hundred years' peace" — with the critical qualification of the wars that did occur). The weaknesses: the exclusivity (the small states' exclusion; the Ottoman question), the absence of any standing machinery (the concert existed only when convened), and the dependence on the powers' consensus — the lessons the League and UN designs absorbed.