434 Part 4 • Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1850
the revolutionary era in France. An admirer of the Enlighten
ment, Napoleon claimed that he was the heir of the French
Revolution. But while Napoleon saw himself as a savior who
carried “liberty, equality, and fraternity” abroad, his conquest of
much of Europe before his final defeat left a mixed legacy for
the future. More than a fifth of all the significant battles that
took place in Europe from 1490 to 1815 occurred between the
coming of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s final defeat in
1815.
Following Napoleons defeat in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo,
the Congress of Vienna created the Concert of Europe, the inter
national basis of Restoration Europe, in the hope of preventing
further liberal and nationalist insurrections in Europe. But lib
eral and nationalist movements could not so easily be swept away.
During the subsequent three decades, “liberty” became the
watchword for more and more people, particularly among the
middle classes, who came to the forefront of economic, political,
and cultural life. Liberal movements were in many places closely
tied to the emergence of nationalism, the belief in the primacy of
nationality as a source of allegiance and sovereignty.
In the meantime, during the first half of the nineteenth cen
tury, the Industrial Revolution slowly but surely transformed the
way many Europeans lived. Dramatic improvements in trans
portation, notably the development of the railroad but also road
improvements, expanded the market for manufactured and other
goods. Rising agricultural production, increasingly commercial
ized in Western Europe, fed a larger population. Migrants poured
into Europe’s cities, which grew as never before. Contemporaries,
particularly in Western Europe, sensed profound economic,
social, political, and cultural changes.