Alliance

The union or connection of two persons or families by marriage; affinity. In International Law. A contract, treaty, or league between two or more sovereigns or states, made for purposes of aggression or defence. Defensive alliances are those in which a nation agrees to defend her ally in case the latter is attacked. Offensive alliances are those in which nations unite for the purpose of making an attack, or jointly waging the war against another nation. The term is also used in a wider sense, embracing unions for objects of common interest to tbe contracting parties, as the "Holy Alliance" entered into in 1815 by Prussia, Austria and Russia for the purpose of counteracting tbe revolutionary movement in the interest of political liberalism.