HISTORY

CLASS 10
NATIONALISM IN
EUROPE
 Rise of Nationalism in
Europe
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2
 of the
image lie
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the Worldwide
shatter Democratic and
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ed The Pact Between
symbol Nations, a print
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monarc 1848.
hical
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s State
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ng the country
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3
 The French Revolution
and the Idea of the
Nation

The French Revolution is regarded as

one of the most important events in
history. It not only gave a huge setback
to monarchy but also gave the first
clear expression to the idea of
‘nationalism’. The French Revolution
led to the transfer of sovereignty from
monarchy to the French citizens. The
Constitution in France came into
existence and citizens were awarded
with the rights of liberty and equality.
The French revolutionaries introduced
various measures and practices to
create a sense of collective identity
amongst the French people. These
were:
• The ideas of la patrie (the
fatherland) and le citoyen (the
citizen) was introduced.
• The Estates General was renamed
the ‘National Assembly’. Its
members were elected by active
citizens (citizens who paid taxes to
the government).
• The new French flag replaced the
former royal standard.
• Nation now became supreme.
Hymns were composed and oaths
were taken on the name of the
nation. It was regarded as a
‘fatherland’.
• The administrative system was
centralised, and uniform laws were
formulated for all citizens.
• A uniform system of weights and
measures was adopted, and internal
custom duties and dues were
abolished.

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 • The French language was made the
common language of the people
residing in France.
• The revolutionaries declared that
their next motive is to help other
people of Europe to become
nations.
The French Revolution impacted the
middle class including professionals
and students in several countries such
as Switzerland, Holland, Italy and
Belgium. They also wanted to throw off
the monarchies in their countries and
become nations.

Napoleon – Child of the

French Revolution
The rise of Napoleon marked the rise of
monarchy in France. However,
Napoleon implemented some
revolutionary ideas and principles in
France. He did this by taking the
following steps:
• He introduced the Civil Code of
1804, also known as the
Napoleonic Code. This Code
instituted the principle of equality
of all people before the law, right
to property was established and
all privileges enjoyed by the
people of high birth and class
were abolished.
• This Code was also promulgated
to other parts of Europe which
were controlled by France.
• In many European countries such
as Switzerland, Germany, Dutch
Republic and Italy, he simplified
the administrative machinery,
ended the feudal system and
liberated the peasants from
serfdom. Napoleon Bonaparte is
• In towns, restrictions imposed on
guilds were removed, and

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 transport known as the ‘CFrench Revolution’.

hild of the and communication

systems were improved.
Businessmen, small
industrialists and traders began to
realise the importance and
advantages of a uniform system of
laws.
• People of other European
countries initially welcomed the
French armies but later began to
oppose them because of
increased taxation and
censorship imposed on them.

The Beginning of
Nationalism in Europe

During the mid-eighteenth century,

there were no nation states in Europe.
Italy, Germany and Switzerland were not
one nation but were divided into various
kingdoms. Central and eastern Europe
was under absolute monarchies. Several
factors led to the emergence of the idea
of nationalism in the later half the
eighteenth century. Some of these were
the rise of the middle class, liberalism
and the rise of a new conservatism after
1815 and its opposition by the people.
Rise of the new middle class:
The aristocratic class in Europe was
a dominant class, but it was
comprised of only few people. Most
of the people in Europe were
peasants. The Industrial Revolution
resulted in the emergence of the
labour or working class. Many small
industrialists, businessmen and
professionals who formed the
middle class gained prominence.
These classes supported the
abolition of aristocratic privileges,

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 demanded equality and advocated
the idea of nationalism.
Liberalism: The middle class stood
for ‘liberalism’. Liberalism in
political terms stood for equality,
freedom, formation and working of
government by consent. In the
economic field, liberalism advocated
the freedom of markets and the
abolition of unjust duties on the
movement of goods from one
territory to the other. This led to the
beginning of economic nationalism
in Europe which contributed to the
rise of nationalism. The new
commercial class argued for the
creation of a unified economic
territory allowing the unhindered
movement of goods, people and
capital. Later, several measures
were introduced. Some of these
were
• In 1834, a customs union called
‘zollverein’ was formed at the
initiative of Prussia. Several
German states joined this union
• The union abolished tariff
barriers and reduced the
number of currencies from over
thirty to two.
• The introduction of railways
created mobility leading to the
national unification.
• The creation of a network of
railways further stimulated
mobility harnessing economic
interests to national unification.
We find that a wave of economic
nationalism strengthened the wider
nationalist sentiments growing at
the time.

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 Rise of New Conservatism
and its opposition by the
people
After the defeat of Napoleon, there
was a rise of new conservatism.
They were of the opinion that the
traditional institutions of state and
society – like the monarchy, the
Church, social hierarchies, property
and the family – should be preserved

Conservatives
return to the society of pre-revolutionary

day
s
but
reali
sed
that
mod
erni
sati
on
coul
d in
fact
strengthen traditional institutions l
the monarchy

The Congress of Vienna was held

in 1815 in which Britain, Russia,
Prussia and Austria participated to
draw up settlement for Europe. The
Congress was hosted by the
Austrian Chancellor Duke
Metternich. Some results of the
Congress of Vienna were:
• Monarchy was restored in France
and strengthened in Prussia,
Belgium and Austria. Autocratic
governments were set up in
these countries.

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 • A series of states were set up on
the boundaries of France to
prevent French expansion in
future.
Conservative regimes set up in 1815
were autocratic. They did not tolerate
dissent and imposed censorship on
those materials and articles in
newspapers, books, plays and songs
that reflected the ideas of liberty and
freedom.
These conservative ideas gave rise to
liberal nationalists and revolutionaries.
Liberals were opposed to monarchial
governments. They advocated liberty
and freedom and the creation of nation
states. After 1815, many liberal
nationalist went underground and
established several secret societies.

The Age of Revolutions

(1830-48)
Nationalism emerged not only as a
result of wars and battles. Culture

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 played an important role in

creating the idea of the nation. Art,

painting, poetry, stories and music
played an important role in
strengthening the feeling of
nationalism.
Romanticism was a cultural
movement in which the artists
romanticised human feelings and
emotions. This was done to
create a common cultural past as
the basis of a nation. Stress was
laid on vernacular languages and
folklore. This gave communities
who were living under the control
of other powerful nations a
cultural identity. For example, the
people of Poland who were under
Russian control defied the ban on
speaking Polish. This was a kind
of struggle to overthrow the
Russian rule from their territory
and to become an independent nation.
Similarly, German philosopher Johann
Gottfried Herder claimed that true
German culture was to be discovered
among the common people –

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 ‘das volk’.
The emphasis was laid on using
vernacular language and
the collection of local folklore not only to
discover an A painting by a French painter Delacroix who
depicts an incident in which 20,000 Greeks
were ancient national spirit, but also to
carry the message of said to have been
killed by Turks on the island of modern
nationalists to illiterate people. Chios.
Through this painting, he was trying to create
sympathy for the Greeks.

Hunger, Hardships and

Revolts
The 1830s were years of great
economic hardship in Europe. It was
because:
• During the 1830s, there was a
large-scale unemployment in
Europe. In most of the European
countries, employment
opportunities were less whereas
job seekers were many.
• Cities had come to be extremely
overcrowded. As a result, slums
had started coming up as more
people migrated from the rural to
urban areas.
• Small producers in towns were
often faced with stiff competition
from the imports of cheap
machine-made goods from
England where industrialisation
was more advanced, especially in
textile production.
• Peasants struggled under the
burden of feudal dues and
obligations. The rise of food prices
or a year of bad harvest led to
widespread poverty in town and
country.

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 The Revolutions of the
Liberals
The year 1848 was a year of revolts.
These revolts were led by the educated
middle class.
• In the revolution of February 1848,
the French monarch was
dethroned and the country
became a republic based on
universal male suffrage (right to
vote was given to all men).
• In other parts of Europe nation-
states did not yet exist such as
Germany, Italy and Poland. The
men and women of the liberal
middle classes demanded
constitutionalism with national
unification
• In Germany, people of educated
middle class came together and
decided to vote for an allGerman
National Assembly.
• On 18May 1848, 831 elected
representatives marched to take
their places in the Frankfurt
Parliament. They drafted a
constitution for a German nation
to be headed by a monarchy
subjected to Parliamentary control.
• The Prussian monarch Friedrich
Wilhelm IV rejected the
constitution. The German
Parliament which resisted the
demands of the workers and
artisans lost their support. Later,
the parliament led by the
educated middle class was forced
to disband.
• At this time, women all over
Europe campaigned for securing
voting rights.

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 Unification of Germany
and Italy

Germany and Italy were European

nations which were divided into various
kingdoms. The unification of Germany
and Italy were important events in
world history.

Unification of Germany
• The newly emerged middle class in
Germany in 1848 tried to unite
several German kingdoms which
were suppressed by monarchies
and large landowners into one
nation state governed by an
elected body.
• Prussia, a German kingdom, took
the leadership in uniting various
German states. Otto von Bismarck,
the Chief Minister of Prussia, aimed
to achieve the goal of unification
with the help of the Prussian army
and the bureaucracy.
• Spread over seven years, the
Prussian army with the help of the
Austrian, French and Danish
armies fought three wars and
successfully incorporated all the
small German kingdoms. This
marked the process of completion
of German unification.
• In 1871, William I was declared as
the emperor of Germany at the
Palace of
Versailles. The process of the
unification of Germany exhibited the
power of Otto von Bismarck the
Prussian state. Many new reforms
were initiated in banking, currency,
administration and judiciary in
Germany.

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 Unification of Italy
• Italy was also politically
fragmented into various small
states which were ruled by
monarchies.
• During the mid-nineteenth
century, only the state of Sardinia-
Piedmont was ruled by the Italian
monarchy. The northern states
were under the Austrian
monarchy, Central Italy was under
the control of the Pope and the
states in the south were under the
control of the Bourbon kings of
Spain.
• Giuseppe Mazzini was a
revolutionary who actively
supported the unification of the
Italian states. For achieving this
aim, he formed a secret society
called ‘Young
Italy’. Giuseppe Garibaldi

• The state of Sardinia-Piedmont

took the responsibility of fulfilling
this task after
the failed uprisings in 1831 and
1848. The king of Sardinia-
Piedmont, Victor Emmanuel II, was
actively helped by his Chief
Minister Cavour. Cavour led the
process of the unification of Italy.
• In 1859, the state of Sardinia-
Piedmont defeated the Austrians.
In 1860, the Italian forces helped
by Giuseppe Garibaldi and his
volunteers marched into southern
Italy and unified it with Italy.
• King Victor Emmanuel II was
proclaimed as the king of united
Italy. The complete unification of
Italy was achieved in 1871.

Great Britain – A Nation State

• The transformation of Great Britain
into a nation state was not a sudden

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 process. There was no one British
nation before the eighteenth
century.
• People residing in the British Isles
were mainly English, Welsh, Scots
and Irish. These ethnic groups had
distinct political and social
traditions.
• As the English nation grew in wealth
and power, it began to dominate the
other islands.
• In 1688, the English Parliament
seized power from the monarchy.
The Parliament passed the Act of
Union, 1707, by which England and
Scotland were unified resulting in
the formation of the ‘United
Kingdom of Great Britain’.
• The Parliament was dominated by
the English, and the political and
cultural identities of the Scots were
systematically suppressed. The
Catholics in Scotland were brutally
suppressed whenever they wanted
to regain their independence.
• Ireland was inhabited by the
Protestants and the Catholics. The
English supported the Protestants
and established their rule with their
help and support. Catholics, who
constituted a majority in Ireland,
revolted against the British on
numerous occasions but were
suppressed.
• Ireland forcibly became a part of
Britain in 1801. The English
language dominated. Both Scotland
and Ireland were subordinate to
England.
The idea of a nation was expressed in
various forms by artists and painters.
Most of the nations were portrayed as
female figures. The female figure
became an allegory of the nation.
‘Marianne’ in France and ‘Germania’ in

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 Germany became allegories of a
nation.

An allegory is an

Allegory abstract idea which is

expressed through a
person or a thing. It can
be literal or symbolic.

‘Germania’ was an allegory of

the
German nation

Nationalism and
Imperialism
• Nationalism which is the feeling of
love for one’s own nation became
intense and narrow minded in the
mid-nineteenth century. Many
nations became intolerant of each
other and competed with one
another for the control of territories.
• Imperialism is territorial control of a
region or a country by another
country by using military control.
• This feeling of nationalism became
intense in the Balkan region. The
Balkan region formerly comprised
the present-day territories of
Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia,
Croatia, Greece, BosniaHerzegovina,
Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro.
The people in these countries were
called Slavs.
• The disintegration of the Ottoman
Empire in the region made the
situation very explosive in the
region as every state was jealous of
one another and hoped to gain
independence at the cost of the
other.

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 • One by one, the European
nationalities in the Balkan broke
away from the control of the
Ottoman Empire and declared
independence.
• As the different Slavic nationalities
struggled to define their identity
and independence, the Balkan area
became an area of intense conflict.
• During this time, many powerful
European nations such as England,
France, Russia and Germany
competed to gain control in the
Balkan region. This competition for
gaining prominence in the region
finally led to the First World War in
1914.
• Later, several Asian and African
countries which were colonised by
the European nations began to
oppose imperial domination. Anti-
imperial movements that began in
colonies were nationalist in nature
as people were fighting to form
independent nation states.

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