The signatories to the alliance professed the divine grace of the rulers and described the Christian religion as the foundation of the ruling political order. They undertook mutual assistance to protect this order against all civil and national upheavals. Almost all European monarchs joined the treaty in the following years.

The Holy Alliance served as the executive organ of the Quadruple Alliance, which was concluded on November 20, 1815 between Russia, Great Britain, Austria and Prussia. Among other things, it provided for regular meetings of the treaty powers and was expanded into a pentarchy by the admission of France following the Congress of Aachen on November 15, 1818 . The Pope, however, remained firmly convinced that the Holy Alliance was only an attempt by the Tsar to lead the different peoples theocratically.

After the 1848/49 revolutions were suppressed in the 1950s and the holy alliance underwent a renewal, it finally broke up in the Crimean War. Austria, which had only been rescued from the possible disintegration with the help of Russia in 1849 during the Hungarian uprising, had asked Russia on 3 June 1854 to withdraw from the Danube Principalities and to occupy them after their withdrawal. The relationship between Austria and Russia was therefore shattered. Austria's relations with Prussia were also tense. Furthermore there was a risk of Britain and France under Napoleon III. to be isolated. In the long term, the European power constellation, which has seemed relatively stable since the Vienna Congress (apart from the many internal unrest in the respective states), has changed permanently to the disadvantage of Austria.