The Rise of Nationalism in Europe Class 10 CBSE Notes History

Part – I

Introduction

During the nineteenth century, nationalism emerged as a force which brought about sweeping changes in the political and mental world of Europe. The end result of these changes was the emergence of the nation-states in place of the multi-national dynastic empires of Europe.

A nation-state was one in which the majority of its citizens, and not only its rulers, came to develop a sense of  common identity and shared history or descent. This commonness did not exist from time immemorial; it was forged  through struggles, through the actions of leaders and the common people.

The French revolution and the idea of the nation

(i)          The first clear expression of nationalism came with the French Revolution in 1789. The political and Constitutional changes that came in the wake of the French Revolution led to the transfer of sovereignty from the monarchy to a body of French citizens.

(ii)         The French revolutionaries introduced various measures and practices that could create a sense of collective identity amongst the French people.

(iii)       The ideas of  la patriae (the fatherland) and le citoyen (the citizen) emphasised the notion of a united community enjoying equal rights under a Constitution. A new French flag, the tricolour, was chosen to replace the former royal standard. The Estates General was elected by the body of active citizens and renamed the National Assembly. New hymns were composed, oaths taken and martyrs commemorated, all in the name of the nation. A centralised administrative system was put in place and it formulated uniform laws for all citizens within its territory. Internal customs duties and dues were abolished and a uniform system of weights and measures was adopted. Regional dialects were discouraged and French, as it was spoken and written in Paris, became the common language of the nation.

(iv)          When the news of the events in France reached the different cities of Europe, students and other members of educated middle classes began setting up Jacobin clubs. Their activities and campaigns prepared the way for the French armies which moved into Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and much of Italy in the 1790s. With the outbreak of the revolutionary wars, the French armies began to carry the idea of nationalism abroad.

(v)           Within the wide swathe of territory that came under his control, Napoleon set about introducing many of the reforms that he had already introduced in France.

(vi)          Napoleon had, no doubt, destroyed democracy in France, but in the administrative field he had incorporated revolutionary principles in order to make the whole system more rational and efficient.

(vii)        The Civil Code of 1804 – usually known as the Napoleonic Code – 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.

(viii)       In the Dutch Republic, in Switzerland, in Italy and Germany, Napoleon simplified administrative divisions, 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. Peasants, artisans, workers and new businessmen enjoyed a new- found freedom.

(ix)          Businessmen and small-scale producers of goods, in particular, began to realise that uniform laws, standardised weightsand measures, and a common national currency from one region to another is helpful for economic growth.

(x)           The initial enthusiasm soon turned to hostility, as it became clear that the new administrative arrangements did not go hand in hand with political freedom. Increased taxation, censorship, forced conscription into the French armies required to conquer the rest of Europe, all seemed to outweigh the advantages of the administrative  changes.

The making of nationalism in europe

Germany, Italy and Switzerland were divided into kingdoms, duchies and cantons whose rulers had their autonomous territories. Eastern and Central Europe were under autocratic monarchies within the territories of which lived diverse peoples. They did not see themselves as sharing a collective identity or a common culture. The only tie binding these diverse groups together was a common allegiance to the emperor.

The Aristocracy & the New Middle Class

(i)         Socially and politically, a landed aristrocracy was the dominant class on the continent. The members of this class were united by a common way of life that cut across regional divisions. They owned estates in the countryside and also town -houses. They spoke French for purposes of diplomacy and in high society. Their families were often connected by ties of marriage. The powerful aristrocracy was however, numerically a small group. The majority of the population was made up of the peasantry.

(ii)           To the west, the bulk of the land was farmed by tenants and small owners, while in Eastern and Central Europe the pattern of landholding was characterised by vast estates which were cultivated by serfs.

(iii)         In Western and parts of Central Europe the growth of industrial production and trade meant the growth of towns and the emergence of commercial classes whose existence was based on production for the market.

(iv)          In its wake, new social groups came into being: a working class population, and middle classes made up of industrialists, businessmen and professionals.

(v)           In Central and Eastern Europe these groups were smaller in number till late nineteenth century. It was among the educated, liberal middle classes that ideas of national unity following the abolition of aristocratic privileges gained popularity.

What did Liberal Nationalism Stand for ?

(i)         The term ‘liberalism’ derives from the Latin root liber, meaning free. For the new middle classes liberalism stood for freedom for the individual and equality of all before the law. Politically, it emphasised the concept of government by consent.

(ii)         Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries women and non-propertied men organised opposition movements demanding equal political rights.

(iii)        In the economic sphere, liberalism stood for the freedom of markets and the abolition of state-imposed  restrictions on the movement of goods and capital. During the nineteenth century this was a strong demand of the emerging middle classes.

(iv)        In 1834, a customs union or  Zollverein  was formed at the initiative of Prussia and joined by most of the German states. The union abolished tariff  barriers and reduced the number of currencies from over thirty to two. The creation of a network of railways further stimulated mobility, harnessing economic interests to national unification. A wave of economic nationalism strengthened the wider nationalist sentiments growing at the time.

A New Conservation after 1815

(i)         After the defeat of  Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, European governments were driven by a spirit of conservatism.

(ii)        Conservatism believed that established, traditional institutions to state and society – like the monarchy, the Church, social hierarchies, property and the family – should be preserved. Most conservatives, however, did not propose  a return to the society of pre-revolutionary days. Rather, they realised, from the changes initiated by Napolean, that modernisation could in fact strengthen traditional institutions like the monarchy. It could make state power more effective and strong. A modern army, an efficient bureaucracy, a dynamic economy, the abolition of feudalism and serfdom could strengthen the autocratic monarchies of Europe.

(iii)        In 1815, representatives of the European power – Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria – who had collectively defeated Napoleon,  met at Vienna to draw up a settlement for Europe. The Congress was hosted by the Austrian Chancellor Duke Metternich. The delegates drew up the Treaty of Vienna of 1815 with the object of undoing most of the changes that hadcome about in Europe during the Napoleonic wars.

Main features of the Treaty of Vienna

(i)            The Bourbon dynasty, which had been deposed during the French Revolution, was restored to power, and France lost the territories it had annexed under Napoleon.

(ii)           A series of states were set up on the boundaries of France to prevent French expansion in future. Thus the kingdom of the Netherlands, which included Belgium, was set up in the north and Genoa was added to Piedmont in the south. Prussia was given important new territories on its western frontiers, while Austria was given control of northern Italy.

(iii)         The German confederation  of 39 states that had been set up by Napoleon was left untouched. In the east, Russia was given part of Poland while Prussia was given a portion of Saxony.

(iv)          The main intention was to restore the monarchies that had been overthrown by Napoleon, and create a new conservative order in Europe.

(v)           Conservative regimes set up in 1815  were autocratic. They did  not  tolerate criticism and dissent, and sought to curb activities that questioned the legitimacy of autocratic governments. Most of them imposed censorship laws to control what was said in newspapers, books, plays and songs and reflected the ideas of liberty and freedom associated with the French Revolution.

The Revolutionaries

(i)         During the years following 1815, the fear of repression drove many liberal-nationalists underground. Secret societies sprang up in many European states to train revolutionaries and spread their ideas. Most of these revolutionaries also saw the creation of nation-states as a necessary part of this struggle for freedom.

(ii)           One such individual was the Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini who was born in Genoa in 1807, and  became a member of the secret society of the Carbonari. As a young man of 24, he was sent into exile in 1831 for attempting a revolution in Liguria. He subsequently founded two more underground societies, first, Young Italy in Marseilles, and then, Young Europe in Berne, whose members were like-minded young men from Poland, French, Italy and the Germanstates.

(iii)         Mazzini believed that God had intended nations to be the natural units of mankind. So Italy could not continue to be a patchwork of small states and kingdoms. It had to be forged into a single unified republic within a wider alliance of nations. This unification alone could be the basis of Italian liberty . Following his model, secret societies were set up in Germany, France, Switzerland and  Poland.

PART-II

The age of revolution

(i)         As conservative regimes tried to consolidate their power, liberalism and nationalism came to be increasingly associated with revolution in many regions of Europe such as the Italian and German states, the provinces of the Ottoman Empire, Ireland and Poland.

(ii)         The first upheaval took place in France in July 1830. The Bourbon kings who had been restored to power during the conservative reaction after 1815, were now overthrown by liberal revolutionaries who installed a constitutional monarchy with Louis Philippe as its head.

(iii)       The  July Revolution sparked an uprising in Brussels which led to Belgium breaking away from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.

(iv)         An event that mobilised nationalist feelings among the educated elite across Europe was the Greek war of  independence. Greece had been part of the Ottoman Empire since the fifteenth century. The growth of revolutionary nationalism in Europe sparked off a struggle for independence amongst the Greeks which began in 1921. Nationalists in Greece got support from other Greeks living in exile and also from many West Europeans who had sympathies for ancient Greek culture. Poets and artists lauded Greece as the cradle of European civilisation and mobilised public opinion to support its struggle against a Muslim empire. The English poet Lord Byron organised funds and later went to fight in the war, where he died of fever in 1824. Finally, the Treaty of Constantinople of 1832 recognised Greece as an independent nation.

National Feeling

1. Culture played an important role in creating the idea of the nation: art and poetry, stories and music helped express and shape nationalist feelings.
2. Romantic artists and poets generally criticised the glorification of reason and science and focused instead on emotions, intuition and mystical feelings. Their effort was to create a sense of a shared collective heritage, a common cultural past, as the basis of a nation.
3. German philosopher Johann Gottifried Herder (1744-1803) claimed that true German culture was to be discovered among the common people-das volk. It was through folk songs, folk poetry and folk dances that the true spirit of the nation (volksgeist) was popularised. So collecting and recording these forms of folk culture was essential to the project of nation-building.
4. The emphasis on vernacular language and the collection of local folklore was not just to recover an ancient national spirit, but also to carry the modern nationalist message to large audiences who were mostly illiterate. This was especially so in the case of Poland.
5. Language too played an important role in developing nationalist sentiments. After Russian occupation, the Polish language was forced out of schools and the Russian language was imposed everywhere. In 1831, an armed rebellion against Russian rule took place which was ultimately crushed. Following this, many members of the clergy in Poland began to use language as a weapon of national resistance. Polish was used for Church gatherings and all religious instruction. As a result, a large number of priests and bishops were put in jail or sent to Siberia by the Russian authorities as punishment for their refusal to preach in Russian. The use of Polish came to be seen as a symbol of the struggle against Russian dominance.

Hunger, Hardship and Popular Revolt

1. The 1830s were years of great economic hardship in Europe.
2. The year 1848 was one such year. Food shortages and widespread unemployment brought the population of Paris out on roads. Barricades were erected and Louis Philippe was forced to flee. A National Assembly proclaimed a Republic, granted suffrage to all adult males above 21, and guaranteed the right to work. National workshops to provide employment were set up.
3. In 1845, weavers in Silesia had led a revolt against contractors who supplied them raw material and gave them orders for finished textiles but drastically reduced their payments.

1848 : The Revolution of the Liberals

1. Parallel to the revolts of the poor, unemployed and starving peasants and workers in many European countries in the year 1848, a revolution led by the educated middle classes was under way.
2. In the German regions a large number of political associations whose members were middle-class professionals, businessmen and prosperous artisans came together in the city of Frankfurt and decided to vote for an all-German National Assembly.
3. The parliament was dominated by the middle classes who resisted the demands of workers and artisans and consequently lost their support. In the end troops were called in and the assembly was forced to disband.
4. The issue of extending political rights to women was a controversial one within the liberal movement, in which large numbers of women had participated actively over the year. Women had formed their own political associations, founded newspapers and taken part in political meetings and demonstrations. Despite this they were denied suffrage rights during the election of the Assembly. When the Frankfurt parliament convened in the Church of St Paul, women were admitted only as observers to stand in the visitors’ gallery.
5. Though conservative forces were able to suppress liberal movements in 1848, they could not restore the old order. Monarchs were beginning to realise that the cycles of revolution and repression could only be ended by granting concessions to the liberal-nationalist revolutionaries. Hence, in the years after 1848, the autocratic monarchies of Central and Eastern Europe began to introduce the changes that had already taken place in Western Europe before 1815. Thus serfdom and bonded labour were abolished both in the Habsburg dominions and in Russia. The Habsburg rulers granted more autonomy to the Hungarians in 1867.

The making of germany and italy

Germany

(i)          Nationalist feelings were widespread among middle-class Germans, who in 1848  tried to unite the different regions of the German confederation into a nation-state governed by an elected parliament . This liberal initiative to nation-building was, however, repressed by the combined forces of the monarchy and the military, supported by large landowners (called Junkers) of Prussia.

(ii)         Prussia took on the leadership of the movement for national unification. Its chief minister, Otto von Bismarck, was thearchitect of this process carried out with the help of the Prussian army and bureaucracy.

(iii)        Three wars over seven years-with Austria, Denmark and France- ended in Prussian victory and completed the process of unification. In January 1871, the Prussian king, William I, was proclaimed German Emperor in a ceremony held at Versailles.

(iv)         On 18 January 1871, an assembly comprising the princes of the German states, representatives of the army, important Prussian ministers including the chief minister Otto Von Bismarck gathered in the unheated Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles to proclaim the new German Empire headed by Kaiser William I of Prussia.

(v)          The nation-building process in Germany had demonstrated the dominance of Prussian state power. The new state placed a strong emphasis on modernising the currency, banking, legal and judicial systems in Germany. Prussian measures and practices often became a model for the rest of Germany.

Italy

(i)          Italy too had a long history of political fragmentation. Italians were scattered over several dynastic states as well as the multi-national Habsburg Empire.

(ii)         Italy was divided into seven states, of which only one, Sardinia-Piedmont, was ruled by an Italian princely house. Thenorth was under Austrian Habsburgs, the centre was ruled by the Pope and the southern regions were under the domination of the Bourbon kings of Spain.

(iii)         During the 1830s, Giuseppe Mazzini had sought to put together a coherent programme for a unitary Italian Republic . He had also formed a secret society called Young Italy for the dissemination of his goals.

(iv)        The failure of revolutionary uprisings both in 1831 and 1848 meant that the mantle now fell on Sardinia-Piedmont under its ruler King Victor Emmanuel II to unify the Italian states through war. In the eyes of the ruling elite of this region, a unified Italy offered them the possibility of economic development and political dominance.

(v)         Chief Minister Cavour who led the movement to unify the regions of Italy was neither a revolutionary nor a democrat. Through a tactful diplomatic alliance with France engineered by Cavour, Sardinia -Piedmont succeeded in defeating the Austrian forces in 1859.

(vi)         Apart from regular troops, a large number of armed volunteers under the leadership of Giuseppe Garibaldi joined the fray. In 1860, they marched into South Italy and Kingdom of the two Sicilies and succeeded in wining the support of the local peasants in order to drive out the Spanish rulers.

(vii)       In 1861 Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of united Italy.

The Strange Case of Britain

(i)          In Britain the formation of the nation-state was not the result of a sudden upheaval or revolution. It was the result of a long-drawn-out process. There was no British nation prior to the eighteenth century. The primary identities of the people who inhabited the British Isles were ethnic ones-such as English, Welsh, Scot or Irish.

(ii)         The English parliament, which had seized power from the monarchy in 1688 at the end of a protracted conflict, was theinstrument through which a nation-state, with England at its centre, came to be forged.

(iii)        The Act of Union (1707) between England and Scotland that resulted in the formation of the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain’ meant, in effect, that England was able to impose its influence on Scotland. The British parliament was henceforth dominated by its English members. The growth of a British identity meant that Scotland’s distinctive culture and political institutions were systematically suppressed.

(iv)        Ireland suffered a similar fate. It was a country deeply divided between Catholics and Protestants. The English helped the Protestants of Ireland to establish their dominance over a largely Catholic country. After a failed revolt led by Wolfe Tone and his United Irishmen (1798), Ireland was forcibly incorporated into the United Kingdom in 1801.

(v)         A new ‘British nation’ was forged through the propagation of a dominant English culture. The symbols of the new Britain-the British flag (Union Jack), the national anthem (God Save Our Nobel King), the English language-were actively promoted and the older nations survived only as subordinate partners in this union.

Visualising the nation

(i)          Artists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries found a way out by personifying a nation. In other words they represented a country as if it were a person.

(ii)          The female form that was chosen to personify the nation did not stand for any particular woman in real life; rather it sought to give the abstract idea of the nation a concrete form. That is, the female figure became an allegory of the nation.

(iii)         Female allegories were invented by artists in the nineteenth century to represent the nation. In France she was christened Marianne, a popular Christian name, which underlined the idea of a people’s nation. Her characteristics were drawn from those of Liberty and the Republic-the red cap, the tricolour, the cockade. Statues of Marianne were erected in public squares to remind the public of the national symbol of unity and to persuade them to identify with it. Marianne images were marked on coins and stamps.

(iv)        Germania became the allegory of the German nation. In visual representations, Germania wears a crown of oak leaves, as the German oak stands for heroism.

Nationalism and imperialism

(i)          During this period nationalist groups became increasingly intolerant of each other and ever ready to go to war. The major European powers, in turn, manipulated the nationalist aspirations of the subject peoples in Europe to further their own imperialist aims.

(ii)          The most serious source of nationalist tension in Europe after 1871 was the area called the Balkans. The Balkans was a region of geographical and ethnic variation comprising modern-day Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro whose inhabitants were broadly known as the Slaves. A large part of the Balkans was under the control of the Ottoman Empire.

(iii)         The spread of the ideas of romantic nationalism in the Balkans together with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire made this region very explosive.

(iv)          All through the nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire had sought to strengthen itself through modernisation and internal reforms but with very little success. One by one, its European subject nationalities broke away from its control and declared independence.

(v)          The Balkan peoples based their claims for independence or political rights on nationality and used history to prove that they had once been subjugated by foreign powers.  Thus the rebellious nationalities in the Balkans through their struggles attempted to win back their long-lost independence.

(vi)          As the different Slavic nationalities struggled to define their identity and independence, the Balkan area became an areaof intense conflict. The Balkan states were fiercely jealous of each other and each hoped to gain more territory at the expense of the others.

(vii)        During this period, there was intense rivalry among the European powers over trade and colonies as well as naval and military might. These rivalries were very evident in the way the Balkan problem unfolded. Each power- Russia, Germany, England, Austro- Hungary- was keen on countering the hold of other powers over the Balkans, and extending its own control over the area. This led a series of wars in the region and finally the First World War.

(viii)       Many countries in the world which had been colonised by the European powers in the nineteenth century began to oppose imperial domination. The anti-imperial movements that developed everywhere were nationalist, in the sense that they all struggled to form independent nation-states, and  were inspired by a sense of collective national unity, forged in confrontation with imperialism.

The idea that societies should be organised into ‘nation-states’ came to be accepted as natural and universal.

Terminology :

(i) Absolutist : Literally, a government or system of rule that has no restraints on the power exercised. In history, the term refers to a form of monarchical government that was centralised, militarised and repressive

(ii) Utopian : A vision of a society that is so ideal that it is unlikely to actually exist.

(iii) Plesbiscite : A direct vote by which all the people of a region are asked to accept or reject a proposal.

(iv) Conservatism : A political philosophy that stressed the importance of tradition, established institutions and customs, and preferred gradual development to quick change.

(v) Feminist : Awareness of women’s rights and interests based on the belief of the social, economic and political equality of the genders.

(vi) Ethnic : Relates to a common racial, tribal, or cultural origin or background that a community identifies with or claims.

(vii) Allegory : When an abstract idea (for instance, greed, envy, freedom, liberty) is expressed through a person or a thing. An allegorical story has two meanings, one literal and one symbolic.

Add to your Knowledge

(1)        On 14 July  1789, French people stormed the Bastille prison at Paris. This event started the French revolution.

(2)         At Boston in Dec. 1773, a large group of Americans disguised as American Indians boarded British ships loaded with tea. They threw the crates of tea into the sea as a mark of protest against the tax imposed by the British on tea. This incident, known as the Boston tea party, sparked off the American Revolution (1775-1783).

(3)         In  43 AD, the Romans founded the city of  Londinium, later  known as London.

(4)         Son of Mary and Joseph, Jesus was born at Bethlehem in Judaea (Israel). He founded the new religion of Christianity. Jesus’s large following made the upper classes and some of the Jews jealous. They accused him of being a rebel and had him crucified. This event is remembered as Good Friday. Jesus’s resurrection or coming back to life, is celebrated as Easter every year. Jesus is said to have ascended to heaven after this.

(5)         The founder of Islam, Prophet Muhammad, was born in Mecca around AD 570.

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