The Rise of Nationalism in Europe

The first clear expression of nationalism came with the French Revolution in 1789. Until then, France was ruled by an absolute monarch. The Revolution transferred sovereignty from the king to a body of French citizens, declaring that the people would constitute the nation and shape its destiny.

The revolutionaries introduced measures to create a sense of collective identity. The idea of la patrie (the fatherland) and le citoyen (the citizen) emphasised a united community enjoying equal rights under a constitution. A new French flag, the tricolour, replaced the royal standard. The Estates General was renamed the National Assembly. New hymns were composed, oaths taken, and martyrs remembered, all in the name of the nation. A centralised administrative system made uniform laws for all citizens, internal customs duties were abolished, and a uniform system of weights and measures was adopted. French became the common national language.

Why it matters: Revolutionaries declared it their mission to liberate the peoples of Europe from despotism, helping nations become sovereign. As news spread, students and educated people in other countries set up Jacobin clubs. When Napoleon later carried his armies across Europe, he exported revolutionary ideas through the Civil Code of 1804.

Source: "The Napoleonic Code (Civil Code of 1804) did away with all privileges based on birth, established equality before the law and secured the right to property. This Code was exported to the regions under French control... abolished the feudal system and freed peasants from serfdom and manorial dues. In the towns too, guild restrictions were removed. Transport and communication systems were improved."

Apply the concept: This source shows that Napoleon, though he ended democracy in France itself, carried forward several revolutionary principles administratively across Europe.

How to interpret it: First, identify the reforms, equality before law, right to property, abolition of feudalism and serfdom, removal of guild restrictions. Second, ask who benefited. Businessmen and small producers welcomed the uniform laws, standardised weights and measures, and a common national currency that eased the movement of goods.

The deeper lesson: The reaction was mixed. In many places (Holland, Switzerland, Brussels, Mainz, Milan, Warsaw) the French armies were initially welcomed as harbingers of liberty. But enthusiasm soon turned to hostility, as increased taxation, censorship, and forced conscription into the French armies seemed to outweigh the new freedoms.

Concept demonstrated: Nationalism could spread through administrative reform, not only through revolution, but the loss of political freedom under foreign rule could also turn people against an occupier, however modern his laws were.

In the mid-eighteenth century there were no nation-states as we know them. Germany, Italy and Switzerland were divided into kingdoms, duchies and cantons whose rulers had autonomous territories. Eastern and Central Europe were under autocratic monarchies, like the Habsburg Empire, within which people of diverse languages and nationalities lived together.

The aristocracy and the new middle class: Socially and politically, a landed aristocracy was the dominant class. They owned estates, spoke French for diplomacy, and were united by a common way of life that cut across regions. Numerically, this was a small group; the majority of the population was the peasantry. In Western Europe, industrialisation created a working class and a middle class of industrialists, businessmen and professionals. It was among the educated, liberal middle classes that ideas of national unity gained ground.

Liberalism: The term liberalism derives from the Latin liber, meaning free. For the new middle class, liberalism stood for freedom for the individual and equality of all before the law. Politically it emphasised government by consent and a constitution. Economically, liberalism stood for the freedom of markets and the abolition of state-imposed restrictions on the movement of goods and capital.

Why it matters: A concrete example is the zollverein, a customs union formed in 1834 at Prussian initiative. It abolished tariff barriers and reduced the number of currencies, binding the German states economically and nurturing national unification.

Source/concept: Artists in the nineteenth century personified nations as female figures. The female form did not stand for any particular woman; it gave the abstract idea of the nation a concrete shape. This is called an allegory. In France the nation was personified as Marianne, and in the German lands as Germania.

Apply the concept: To read such an image, examine its attributes, the objects and symbols an artist attaches to a figure.

Germania's attributes and their meanings:

How to interpret: If Germania holds a sword but wraps it with an olive branch, the artist signals a nation that is strong yet desires peace. The crown of oak leaves marks heroism.

Concept demonstrated: Allegories let nationalists communicate complex political ideals, liberty, unity, courage, to ordinary people who could 'read' the symbols even if they could not read text. Visual imagery was a powerful instrument for building national feeling.

As conservative regimes tried to consolidate their power after 1815, liberalism and nationalism became increasingly associated with revolution. This was an age of revolutionaries such as the Italian Giuseppe Mazzini, who founded two underground societies, Young Italy and Young Europe. Mazzini believed God had intended nations to be the natural units of mankind, and that Italy had to be forged into a single unified republic.

The July Revolution (1830): The first upheaval took place in France. The Bourbon kings, restored to power during the conservative reaction after 1815, were overthrown by liberal revolutionaries who installed a constitutional monarchy with Louis Philippe at its head. The July Revolution sparked an uprising in Brussels, which led to Belgium breaking away from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The Greek War of Independence (1821-1832): This mobilised nationalist feeling among the educated elite across Europe. Greece had been part of the Ottoman Empire. Poets and artists lauded Greece as the cradle of European civilisation. The English poet Lord Byron organised funds and even fought in the war, where he died of fever in 1824. The Treaty of Constantinople of 1832 recognised Greece as an independent nation.

1848, the revolution of the liberals: Amid widespread economic hardship, the middle classes demanded constitutionalism with national unification. In Germany an all-German National Assembly met in the Frankfurt Parliament in the Church of St Paul, but the monarchy and military resisted, and the assembly was eventually disbanded.

Why it matters: These revolts showed both the power of nationalist ideas and the strength of conservative resistance, setting the stage for unification later.

Scenario: In May 1848, 831 elected representatives marched to the Frankfurt Parliament, convened in the Church of St Paul. They drafted a constitution for a German nation to be headed by a monarchy subject to a parliament. When the deputies offered the crown to the Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, he rejected it and joined other monarchs to oppose the elected assembly.

Apply the concept of political failure: Ask three questions of any failed movement.

1. Who held real power? The assembly was dominated by the middle classes. It lost mass support because it resisted the demands of workers and artisans. Meanwhile the aristocracy and military, who still controlled the army and state machinery, regained their strength.

2. Who was excluded? When the Parliament convened, the large number of women who had come were admitted only as observers to stand in the visitors' gallery. Political rights remained a contested issue.

3. What was the outcome? Troops were called in and the assembly was forced to disband.

Concept demonstrated: A nationalist movement led only by the liberal middle class, without the backing of the masses and against the entrenched power of monarchs and armies, could be defeated. This is precisely why later unification in Germany and Italy was driven not by popular revolution but by powerful states, Prussia and Piedmont-Sardinia, using their armies. Even after 1848, conservatives could no longer ignore these forces, and many granted concessions to the liberal-nationalists.

After 1848, nationalism in Europe moved away from its association with democracy and revolution. Conservatives and monarchs often used nationalism to promote state power and achieve political dominance. The unification of Germany and Italy shows how this happened through 'blood and iron'.

Germany: After the liberal Frankfurt Parliament was repressed, the task of unification was taken up by Prussia, led by its chief minister Otto von Bismarck. With the help of the Prussian army and bureaucracy, Bismarck carried out the process through three wars over seven years, with Austria, Denmark and France, ending in Prussian victory. In January 1871, the Prussian king, William I (Wilhelm I), was proclaimed German Emperor in a ceremony held at the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles. The new German state placed strong emphasis on modernising the currency, banking, legal and judicial systems.

Italy: Italy too was politically fragmented. Giuseppe Mazzini had sought a unified republic through Young Italy, but his revolutionary efforts failed. The responsibility then fell to Chief Minister Cavour of the Italian state of Sardinia-Piedmont, who, through a tactful diplomatic alliance with France, defeated the Austrian forces in 1859. Armed volunteers under Giuseppe Garibaldi joined the fray; in 1860 they marched into South Italy and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and succeeded in winning the support of the local peasants. In 1861 Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of united Italy.

Why it matters: Unification was achieved by powerful states using diplomacy and war, not by popular liberal revolution, showing how nationalism had changed character by the second half of the century.

Source: Bismarck declared, "The great questions of the day will not be settled by speeches and majority decisions, that was the mistake of 1848 and 1849, but by blood and iron."

Apply the concept: Compare two paths to nation-building, unification by force versus the gradual rise of a nation.

The German/Italian model (force): Bismarck's statement rejects the parliamentary methods of 1848. Unification was driven from above by a powerful monarchy, its army and bureaucracy. Interpret 'blood and iron' literally: blood = war and sacrifice; iron = military and industrial might.

The British model (gradual): In Britain there was no sudden upheaval. Before the eighteenth century there was no British nation. The primary identities of the people were ethnic, English, Welsh, Scot or Irish. The English nation steadily grew in wealth and power and extended its influence over the other nations of the islands. The Act of Union (1707) between England and Scotland resulted in the formation of the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain'. A new 'British nation' was forged through the promotion of a dominant English culture, with symbols like the British flag (Union Jack) and the national anthem.

Concept demonstrated: There was no single, fixed model for forming a nation, nations were constructed through very different historical processes.

The idea of the nation-state: In 1789 the French Revolution gave the first clear expression of nationalism, transferring sovereignty from the monarch to the citizens. Revolutionary measures, the tricolour, the National Assembly, uniform laws, abolition of internal customs, and a common language, created a collective national identity. Napoleon spread these reforms through the Civil Code of 1804, but foreign rule, taxation and conscription eventually provoked hostility.

The making of nationalism: In the mid-eighteenth century there were no nation-states; regions like Germany and Italy were fragmented. A conservative landed aristocracy dominated, while the new educated middle class, shaped by industrialisation, carried the ideas of liberalism, individual freedom, equality before the law, constitutional government, and free markets. The zollverein (1834) economically bound the German states. Nations were personified as allegories, Marianne in France and Germania in Germany, whose attributes communicated ideals like heroism, strength and peace.

The age of revolutions (1830-1848): Liberalism and nationalism became linked with revolution. Mazzini founded Young Italy and Young Europe. The July Revolution (1830) in France inspired Belgium's break from the Netherlands. The Greek War of Independence (recognised in 1832) drew European support, including Lord Byron. In 1848 the liberal middle classes demanded constitutionalism and unity, the Frankfurt Parliament met at St Paul's Church but was disbanded, while women were admitted only as observers.

Unification: After 1848, monarchs harnessed nationalism. Bismarck unified Germany through 'blood and iron', three wars, culminating in Wilhelm I being proclaimed emperor at Versailles in January 1871. In Italy, Cavour of Sardinia-Piedmont, aided by Garibaldi's volunteers, achieved unification, with Victor Emmanuel II proclaimed king in 1861. Britain, by contrast, was forged gradually through the Act of Union (1707).

Nationalism and imperialism: By the late nineteenth century nationalism narrowed and became intolerant. The Balkans, under the declining Ottoman Empire, became an area of intense conflict as Slavic nationalities and the great powers competed, a rivalry that helped lead to the First World War.