ABSTRACT
In the century between the Congress of Vienna and the outbreak of the First World War international relations in Europe were largely dominated by five great powers: Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia and Russia. There was always a clear distinction between what contemporaries called first-rate powers and secondary states, and there was rarely any doubt into which category any state should be placed. Russia and Austria-Hungary returned to the principles of the Neo-Holy Alliance as early as 1873, partly out of mistrust of Germany. When the latter power also declared for the status quo the stage was set for a whole series of conservative agreements in the 1870s and 1880s. From the Treaty of Chaumont onwards, the dominance enjoyed by the great powers was given increasingly formal recognition. The Quadruple Alliance of November 1815 was specifically limited to the four great powers of the anti-French coalition.
