Organization
In practice, the Austrian state chancellor Prince Klemens von Metternich made it a bastion against democracy, revolution, and secularism. The monarchs of the three countries involved used this to band together in order to prevent revolutionary influence (especially from the French Revolution) from entering these nations.
The Alliance is usually associated with the later Quadruple and Quintuple Alliances, which included the United Kingdom and (from 1818) France with the aim of upholding the European peace settlement and balance of power in the Concert of Europe concluded at the Congress of Vienna. On 29 September 1818, the Tsar, Emperor Francis I of Austria and King Frederick William III of Prussia met with the Duke of Wellington, Viscount Castlereagh and the Duc de Richelieu at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle to demand stern measures against university "demagogues", which would realize in the Carlsbad Decrees in the following year. At the 1820 Congress of Troppau and the succeeding Congress of Laibach, Metternich tried to align his allies in the suppression of the Carbonari revolt against King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies. The Quintuple Alliance met for the last time at the 1822 Congress of Verona to strive against the Greek Revolution and to resolve upon the French Invasion into Spain.
The last meetings had revealed the rising antagonism with Britain and France, especially on Italian unification, the right to self-determination and the Eastern Question. The Alliance was conventionally taken to have become defunct with Alexander's death in 1825. France ultimatively went separate ways after the July Revolution of 1830, leaving the core of Russia, Austria and Prussia as Central-Eastern European block which once again congregated to suppress the Revolutions of 1848. The Austro-Russian alliance finally broke up in the Crimean War: though Russia had helped to crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Austria did not take any action to support his ally, declared herself neutral and even occupied the Wallachian and Moldavian lands on the Danube upon the Russian retreat in 1854. Thereafter, Austria remained isolated, which added to the loss of her leading role in the German lands, culminating in the defeat of the Austro-Prussian War in 1866.
Read more about this topic: Holy Alliance
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