Holy Alliance was an agreement signed in Paris in September 1815, after the fall of Napoleon. Czar Alexander I of Russia originated the Alliance. The first two signers were Francis I, Emperor of Austria, and King Frederick William III of Prussia. All the other rulers in Europe except the pope, the king of Britain, and the sultan of Turkey, also signed it.
The purpose of the Alliance was to unite the monarchs of Europe in a holy brotherhood to advance Christian principles in opposition to revolutionary disorder. The agreement said that charity, justice, and peace should be the basis of each ruler’s international relations. The Holy Alliance symbolized a new unity of purpose among Europe’s great conservative powers. However, the agreement had little practical effect.
People often confuse the Holy Alliance with the Quadruple Alliance, in which four nations—Austria, Britain, Prussia, and Russia—organized in 1815. The purpose of the Quadruple Alliance was to preserve peace in Europe. But the Austrian, Prussian, and Russian monarchs soon began to use their power to preserve their own authority. They intervened in several countries against liberal and nationalist movements that sought greater freedom for the people and self-government for peoples under the monarchs’ rule.
