It took the nations involved to settle in adopting this new, and at the time, seemingly radical agenda. To further this point, in the 18th century, the nations involved kept changing alliances several times trying to prevent the domination of an alliance. The Pitt Plan was another strategy that proved to sustain the longest period of peace Europe had ever experienced. Just like the balance of power, it too depended on the least power to sustain itself.
Towards the outbreak of World War 1, the balance of powers started to dwindle. Prior to that, the Concert of Europe was fairly successful in trying to maintain the policy. It avoided a full blown Europe-wide war for nearly a century. Specifically, during the first half of the 19th century, Britain and France dominated Europe, but by the 1850s they had become profoundly concerned by the power that was rising from Prussia and Russia. The Crimean War of 1854–55 and the Italian War of 1859 crushed the relations between the Great Powers in Europe. Still, the creation of the German Empire restructured the European balance of power. Yes, the balance was shaken up in the last quarter of the 19th century, but it wasn’t destroyed. It could be easily said that for the following twenty years, Otto von Bismarck managed to maintain the balance of power.
Particularism consisted of the king having to share power with the church and everyone else, local lords could be for or against the king and armored knights were trained to be super human.
In universalism an overlying authority
Nation states did not always exist. The concept arose in Europe and was then spread by force. It was from 1792 to 1815 that Europe engaged in the bloodiest