The Rise of Nationalism in Europe · Class 10 History: quick revision, 60 bites

Sorrieu's Vision, 1848

A dream in four prints.

Peoples of Europe and America march as **distinct nations** past the **statue of Liberty**; symbols of absolutism lie shattered on the ground.

Takeaway. A utopian world of democratic republics.

Reading the Print

Who leads the march?

Takeaway. The order shows progress towards nationhood.

Nation-State

Citizens, not just rulers.

Takeaway. Replaced multi-national dynastic empires.

Ernst Renan

What makes a nation?

Not language, race, religion or territory alone — a nation is a **large-scale solidarity**, a shared past and a common will; its existence is a **'daily plebiscite'**.

Takeaway. Nations guarantee liberty.

1789: The First Clear Expression

Where it began.

The **French Revolution** moved sovereignty from the **monarchy** to a **body of French citizens** — the people would constitute the nation.

Takeaway. Subjects became citizens.

Creating a Collective Identity

Building one people.

Takeaway. Exercise question: steps of the revolutionaries.

Liberating Europe

Exporting the idea.

France claimed a mission to **liberate Europe from despotism**. **Jacobin clubs** sprang up; French armies carried nationalism into Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy in the 1790s.

Takeaway. Nationalism spread with armies.

Napoleonic Code

The 1804 law.

Takeaway. Exported to French-controlled regions.

Napoleon's Administrative Reforms

More efficient rule.

Simplified divisions, **abolished feudalism**, freed peasants from **serfdom and manorial dues**, removed **guild restrictions**, improved **transport and communication**.

Takeaway. Rational administration without democracy.

Why Welcome Turned to Hostility

Liberators or oppressors?

Takeaway. No political freedom.

Democracy vs Efficiency

Did Napoleon bring democracy?

Takeaway. Keep the two apart.

Businessmen and Uniformity

Who gained?

Businessmen saw that **uniform laws, standard weights and measures and a common currency** would ease the movement of goods and capital.

Takeaway. Economic interest in unity.

Europe in the Mid-1700s

No nations yet.

Germany, Italy and Switzerland were split into **kingdoms, duchies and cantons**; empires ruled diverse peoples with **no shared identity**.

Takeaway. Dynasties, not nations.

The Habsburg Patchwork

One emperor, many peoples.

German-speaking Bohemian nobles, Italian Lombardy and Venetia, Magyar Hungary, Polish Galicia, plus Slovaks, Slovenes, Croats, Roumans — tied only by **allegiance to the emperor**.

Takeaway. Diversity without unity.

Aristocracy vs Middle Class

Who held power?

Takeaway. Nationalism grew in the middle class.

Liberalism

Liber = free.

Takeaway. Freedom in three spheres.

Limited Suffrage

Equal, but not all could vote.

Only **property-owning men** could vote in revolutionary France, except for a brief spell under the **Jacobins** when all adult men could; the Napoleonic Code brought back limited suffrage and made women **minors** under fathers and husbands.

Takeaway. Women and the poor fought for rights.

A Merchant's Nightmare

Hamburg to Nuremberg, 1833.

**11 customs barriers**, about **5% duty** at each; the **elle** of cloth differed in every region.

Takeaway. Obstacles to trade.

The Zollverein, 1834

Trade builds a nation.

A customs union led by **Prussia**: **tariff barriers abolished**, currencies cut from **over thirty to two**; railways added mobility.

Takeaway. Economics served unity.

Conservatism After 1815

Keep the old order — but stronger.

Preserve **monarchy, Church, social hierarchy, property, family** — and use **modern armies, bureaucracy and economy** to strengthen monarchies.

Takeaway. Not a simple return to the past.

Treaty of Vienna, 1815

Undoing Napoleon.

Takeaway. Host: Metternich.

Censorship

Silence, please.

Conservative regimes censored **newspapers, books, plays and songs**. Liberals fought for **freedom of the press**.

Takeaway. The Club of Thinkers cartoon.

Secret Societies

Going underground.

Liberal-nationalists formed **secret societies** to train revolutionaries, oppose the monarchies of 1815 and fight for **nation-states**.

Takeaway. Revolution meant liberty plus nationhood.

Giuseppe Mazzini

The most dangerous enemy.

Born in **Genoa, 1805**; joined the **Carbonari**; exiled 1831; founded **Young Italy** (Marseilles) and **Young Europe** (Berne). Nations are the natural units of mankind — Italy must be one **republic**.

Takeaway. Metternich feared him.

The Educated Middle Class

Who led the revolts?

Professors, schoolteachers, clerks and commercial classes led liberal-nationalist revolutions in Italy, Germany, Ottoman provinces, Ireland and Poland.

Takeaway. Liberalism turned revolutionary.

July 1830

When France sneezes, Europe catches cold.

Bourbons overthrown; **constitutional monarchy** under **Louis Philippe**. An uprising in **Brussels** followed — **Belgium broke away** from the Netherlands.

Takeaway. One revolution sparked another.

The Greek War of Independence

Cradle of civilisation.

Takeaway. Mobilised the educated elite of Europe.

Romanticism

Feeling over reason.

Criticised the glorification of **reason and science**; valued **emotions, intuition, mystical feelings** and a **shared cultural past**.

Takeaway. Culture as the basis of a nation.

Herder and Das Volk

The people's spirit.

True German culture lies with the **common people**; **folk songs, poetry and dances** express the **volksgeist**, the spirit of the nation.

Takeaway. Collect folk culture to build a nation.

The Grimm Brothers

Fairy tales with a mission.

Collected folktales (1812) and published a 33-volume German dictionary, seeing them as a pure German spirit against **French domination**.

Takeaway. Culture as resistance.

Poland: Music and Language

A nation without a state.

Takeaway. Language as a symbol of struggle.

Hardship in the 1830s

Hard times.

Takeaway. Fuel for popular revolt.

The Weavers' Revolt

1845, Silesia.

Contractors cut weavers' payments drastically; weavers marched for higher wages, were scorned, broke in — the army came and **eleven weavers were shot**.

Takeaway. Economic exploitation sparked revolt.

The 1848 Republic in France

Paris, 1848.

Food shortages, barricades, **Louis Philippe fled**. The Republic gave **suffrage to men over 21**, the **right to work** and **national workshops**.

Takeaway. Hunger toppled a king.

The Frankfurt Parliament

A parliament that failed.

Takeaway. Liberal unification failed.

Women in 1848

Liberty is indivisible!

Women formed associations and newspapers, but were **denied suffrage** and sat **only in the visitors' gallery**. Welcker kept them at home; **Louise Otto-Peters** demanded equal freedom.

Takeaway. The limits of liberal ideology.

Nationalism After 1848

A change of direction.

Nationalism moved away from **democracy and revolution**; conservatives used it to build **state power**.

Takeaway. Nations made from above.

Germany in 1848

The liberal attempt fails.

The liberal effort was crushed by the **monarchy and military**, backed by the **Junkers**, Prussia's big landowners.

Takeaway. Prussia took over the lead.

Bismarck's Unification

Blood and iron.

Takeaway. The army as architect.

18 January 1871

A cold January day.

**William I of Prussia** proclaimed **German Emperor** in the **Hall of Mirrors, Versailles**.

Takeaway. Germany united.

The New German State

Prussia as the model.

Modernised **currency, banking, legal and judicial systems**; Prussian practices became the model for all Germany.

Takeaway. Dominance of Prussian power.

Divided Italy

Seven states, many masters.

Takeaway. Fragmentation, even of language.

Cavour and Victor Emmanuel II

Diplomacy and war.

After Mazzini's failures, **Sardinia-Piedmont** led. **Cavour** — no revolutionary or democrat — allied with **France**; Austria was defeated in **1859**.

Takeaway. Unification by a state.

Garibaldi

The Red Shirts.

Led volunteers into **South Italy and the Two Sicilies** in **1860**, winning peasant support to drive out the Spanish rulers. His Expedition of the Thousand grew to about **30,000**.

Takeaway. Popular force behind unification.

1861 and After

Italy's king.

Takeaway. Unification took a decade.

Unaware of the Nation

Who was 'La Talia'?

With high illiteracy, southern peasants who backed Garibaldi thought **'La Talia'** was Victor Emmanuel's wife.

Takeaway. Nationalism was an elite idea.

The Strange Case of Britain

No revolution, just a long process.

Takeaway. England at the centre.

English Culture Imposed

Whose Britain?

Scottish Highlanders lost their **Gaelic** and national dress; Irish Catholic revolts were crushed. The **Union Jack**, anthem and **English language** were promoted.

Takeaway. Older nations became subordinate partners.

Allegory

A face for an idea.

Takeaway. Two meanings: literal and symbolic.

Personifying the Nation

Why a woman?

Nations were portrayed as **female figures** who stood for **no real woman** but gave the **abstract nation a concrete form**.

Takeaway. A country shown as a person.

Liberty and Justice

Revolutionary symbols.

Takeaway. Symbols carried meaning.

Marianne

France's woman.

A popular Christian name — a **people's nation**. **Red cap, tricolour, cockade**; statues in squares; images on **coins and stamps**.

Takeaway. A symbol of national unity.

Germania

Germany's woman.

Wears a **crown of oak leaves** — the **German oak stands for heroism**.

Takeaway. Allegory of the German nation.

Box 3: Symbols

Read the painting.

Takeaway. Germania's language of symbols.

Veit's Change

Crown to chain.

In 1836 Veit put the **Kaiser's crown** where the **broken chain** is in 1848 — a shift from loyalty to the monarch to a **freed people's nation**.

Takeaway. A popular source question.

Nationalism After 1871

From ideal to narrow.

Nationalism became a **narrow creed**: groups grew **intolerant** and **ready for war**; great powers used subject peoples' hopes for **imperialist aims**.

Takeaway. Idealism lost.

Who Were the Balkan Peoples?

Europe's powder keg.

Modern Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro — broadly **Slavs**, largely under the **Ottoman Empire**.

Takeaway. Geographic and ethnic variety.

Sources of Balkan Tension

Why so explosive?

Takeaway. Exercise: why tensions emerged.

1914

Disaster.

Balkan rivalries led to a series of wars and finally the **First World War** — **nationalism aligned with imperialism** led Europe to disaster in **1914**.

Takeaway. The cost of narrow nationalism.

Anti-Imperial Nationalism

Beyond Europe.

Colonised peoples built **their own nationalisms** against imperial rule. The **nation-state** came to be accepted as **natural and universal**.

Takeaway. Not copies of Europe.