A viewer describes the Concert of Europe as stable while its original members and assumptions remained intact. The revolutions of the 1840s and the creation of a unified Germany changed that equilibrium and demanded much tighter balancing. Realpolitik became the method required to manage the revised system. Bismarck was not the only statesman capable of it, but by the 1910s too few such figures occupied positions where they could sustain the balance.
Notable Point · 1:58:13-1:58:50
Why the Concert of Europe needed Realpolitik
Revolutions and German unification altered the post-Napoleonic balance, leaving the Concert of Europe dependent on unusually skilled diplomatic management.