240
Nationalism was furthermore
characterized by a romantic view
of the right of peoples to lay claim
to their historic destinies and rule
themselves: independence. In place
of loyalty to an established ruling
dynasty, new loyalties to national
groups defined by language, culture,
history, and self-identity were
formulated. The idea of the nation-
state became increasingly common,
and likewise a belief in the right to
national self-determination.
The failure of the revolutions
of 1848 in central Europe and Italy,
intended to advance these very
goals, made plain the resolve of
Europe’s ruling elites to oppose
such initiatives and to preserve the
Europe created by the Congress
of Vienna in 1814–15, after the
defeat of Napoleon—a Europe of
monarchs, multinational empires,
and pre-French Revolution frontiers.Metternich’s failures
The new Europe was far from
stable, and the principal architect
of the Congress of Vienna, the
Austrian Prince Metternich, would
later admit: “I have spent my life in
shoring up rotten buildings.” By
1830, Belgium had revolted against
the Kingdom of the Netherlands, ofwhich it was a province; the next
year, it secured its independence
with British support. Similar
nationalist uprisings followed in
Poland in 1831 and in 1846, both
savagely repressed by Russia.German nationalism
Rising nationalism had momentous
consequences, especially in the
various states across Germany.
The country’s unification under
the chancellorship of Otto von
Bismarck of Prussia in 1871 and
the declaration of a German empire
jolted Europe into a new era. For
Bismarck, much as they had been
for Cavour, the benefits of unification
were clear. It would be the means
by which a common German
nationality could be expressed,
allowing the country to fill the need
to underline an overarching German
character that the philosopher
Georg Hegel had identified. It
would also break the dominance of
Habsburg Austria over the German-
speaking world—in particular,
to lever the southern Catholic
German states, Bavaria above all,
away from Austrian influence.
In the interests of building this
great German state, Bismarck
pressed into service a kind of
conservative nationalism. The goal
was not social or democratic reform
to establish a more just or liberal
state; it was the creation of a country
to challenge the world. German
nationalism under Bismarck
translated into a determined
adoption of industrialization and
the creation of ever larger and more
efficient armed forces.
And it was military means that
Bismarck single-mindedly deployed
to create this new Germany. He
mounted three major campaigns.
The first, against Denmark in
1864, saw Prussia subsuming
the southern Danish territoriesTHE EXPEDITION OF THE THOUSAND
The Ottoman army’s brutality in
suppressing Greek revolts—as seen
in Eugène Delacroix’s painting The
Massacre at Chios—led to increased
support for the Greek cause.of Schleswig and Holstein, with
Austrian support. In 1866, Prussian
troops routed Austria itself; finally,
in 1870–71, an army from across
Germany comprehensively and
humiliatingly defeated France,
toppling Napoleon III’s government,
and starving Paris into submission.
These military victories underlined
a seemingly irresistible German
destiny whose logical consequence
was a unified German empire
under the Prussian king, now
emperor, Wilhelm I.Nationalist aspirations
Nowhere were the conflicting
impulses of nationalism more
tangled than in the Habsburg
Austrian Empire, an immense
patchwork of ethnic groups across
Central Europe under the nominal
rule of Vienna. In 1867, following
Austria’s defeat by Prussia the
previous year, Hungary was
able to secure almost complete
independence from Austria. The
“dual-monarchy” that resulted—
the Austrian Empire, now the
Austro-Hungarian Empire—notA people destined to
achieve great things for the
welfare of humanity must
one day or other be
constituted a nation.
Giuseppe Mazzini, 1861US_238-241_Garibaldi.indd 240 15/02/2016 16:43
241
The proclamation of Wilhelm I
as Emperor of Germany took place
in Versailles in 1871. It was heralded
by a series of military campaigns,
including one against France.only greatly boosted an assertive
sense of Hungarian self-identity but
also secured Hungary significant
territorial concessions from Vienna,
notably in Transylvania and Croatia.
Yet whatever the continuing
tensions between Austria and
Hungary, the two warily preferred
to remain united precisely for fear
of further nationalist agitations
from their own splintered ethnic
populations. The Hungarians, for
example, were notably reluctant to
concede the kind of political rights
they demanded for themselves to
their substantial Slovak, Romanian,
and Serb populations. At the same
time, waning Ottoman control of the
Balkans also encouraged nationalist
aspirations—Serbia, for example,
had emerged as a more or less
independent state as early as 1817.
Wallachia and Moldavia, essentially
modern Romania, could lay similar
claims to independence by 1829.
The Greeks, portraying themselves
as the legatees of ancient Greekcivilization, a role that won them
support from liberals across Europe,
had secured their independence by
1830 after a nine-year war.
Both Austria and Russia
competed to fill the void left by the
Ottomans. Austria’s provocative
occupation of Bosnia in 1878, which
it peremptorily annexed in 1908,
would create tensions that led
directly to the outbreak of World
War I in 1914. The Balkan Wars of
1912–13—in effect a bitter squabble
for supremacy between Serbia,
Bulgaria, and Greece—were further
evidence of the destabilizing effect
of nationalist-driven state building.CHANGING SOCIETIES
The consequences
The notion that social justice could
be secured by peoples pursuing the
right to self-determination would
rarely be realized in the 1800s—
Vienna would continue to rule over
its multi-ethnic empire until its
defeat at the end of World War I
in 1918, for example. Likewise,
the people of Poland were
denied any means of exercising
such nationalistic rights to self-
determination. And the Jews of
Europe remained persistently
oppressed, whatever the promise of
Zionism from the 1890s to create a
Jewish nation in the Holy Land. ■Otto von Bismarck Minister-president of Prussia^
from 1862 and chancellor of
Germany 1871–90, Otto von
Bismarck (1815–98), also known
as the Iron Chancellor, towered
over continental Europe after
engineering the unification
of Germany. Bismarck’s main
goals were to ensure Prussian
leadership of the German world
at the expense of Austria and to
contain the threat of renewed
French hostility. A supreme
opportunist, despite starting
three wars, in 1864, 1866,
and 1870, Bismarck thereafter
worked tirelessly to maintainthe balance of power in Europe,
a task in which, juggling
competing interests, he was
remarkably successful. He
committed Germany to a huge
program of industrialization,
oversaw the further growth
of the German armed forces,
and launched a program
of colonization. Despite being
socially conservative, Bismarck
also introduced the world’s
first welfare system, though
his motive was as much to
outflank his socialist opponents
as to protect the interests of
German workers.US_238-241_Garibaldi.indd 241 15/02/2016 16:43