The Congress of Vienna’s staunch motives for securing a peace-driven Europe with a balance of powers indeed prevented a major European war for sometime, but the shifting balance of powers in the 19^th century that gave way as some countries grew stronger as others began to fall created undeniable tensions that ultimately fashioned the Congress of Vienna’s hope for a neutral Europe as an ideal that would never be reached as long as power and self-interest remained desirable motives for the European countries. 

It was in Russia more so than anywhere else during the 19^th century where the country’s growing strength caught the attention of Western countries and motivated them to curb Russia’s influence in order to protect their own interests in Eastern Europe. Russia’s conquest of the Ottoman-governed territories of Moldavia and Walachia in 1853 unsettled leaders in Britain and France, who saw Russia’s expansion as an imposition to the countries’ economic interest in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean. In what would later be known as the Crimean War (1854-1856), France and Britain, along with support from the Ottomans and Piedmont-Sardinia, fought Russia in a gruesome war, which ended favorably on the western nations’ side. Russia was forced to give up its newly won territories and the country’s influence in the Balkans was greatly curbed.

From studying the 19^th century, the idea of a “balance of powers” seems too idealistic to ever function successfully in a constantly shifting world. Countries’ self-interested and power-driven impulses cannot be avoided as they represent universal human compulsions. At the first signs of Russia’s growing power, France and Britain stepped in not to reaffirm their belief in the abstract “balance of powers” but to protect their interests and power standings. We cannot look at the “balance of powers” as a straightforward initiative, but maybe the idea works in a frame that suggests it is a naturally occurring system. As we have seen, once one country begins to assert dominating strength, the impulse of other countries is to inhibit that growing power through warfare. The other countries act to preserve their own strength, and as a result, a “balance of powers” is maintained by inhibiting the growth of one nation. But this “balance of powers” is ever shifting and is at its base unstable. Perhaps this form of a “balance of powers” is just one element of the dynamic power play that is constantly shifting, but as a political initiative, a “balance of powers” is unreachable, as one country will always try to hunt for power when conditions are favorable.