In 1848, French artist Frédéric Sorrieu prepared a series of four prints visualising his dream of a world made up of ‘democratic and social Republics’. The first print shows peoples of Europe and America — men and women of all ages and social classes — marching in a long train, offering homage to the statue of Liberty.

The first clear expression of nationalism came with the French Revolution in 1789. France was under an absolute monarch. The Revolution led to transfer of sovereignty from monarchy to a body of French citizens. The revolution proclaimed that it was the people who would henceforth constitute the nation and shape its destiny.

Measures Introduced by French Revolutionaries to Create Collective Identity

Napoleon Bonaparte & the Napoleonic Code (Civil Code of 1804)

Reforms in Conquered Territories

Reactions to French Rule — Mixed Response

Initially welcomed as harbingers of liberty in Holland, Switzerland, Brussels, Mainz, Milan, Warsaw. Enthusiasm turned to hostility due to: increased taxation, censorship, forced conscription into French armies.

Fig. 4 — The Planting of Tree of Liberty in Zweibrücken, Germany. Colour print by German painter Karl Kaspar Fritz. French soldiers (blue, white and red uniforms) portrayed as oppressors — seizing a peasant’s cart, harassing women, forcing a peasant to his knees. Plaque reads: ‘Take freedom and equality from us, the model of humanity’ — a sarcastic reference to French claims of being liberators.

Congress of Vienna, 1815 — Conservative Reaction

Fig. 3 — Europe after the Congress of Vienna, 1815. The map shows the redrawing of European borders by conservative powers after Napoleon’s defeat. Note dominance of the Austrian Empire, Russian Empire, and Ottoman Empire. The map shows Norway under Sweden, Hanover under Great Britain, and Poland divided among Russia, Prussia and Austria.

Conservative regimes set up in 1815 were autocratic — did not tolerate criticism and dissent, imposed censorship laws on newspapers, books, plays and songs. Freedom of the press became a major issue for liberal-nationalists.

In mid-eighteenth-century Europe there were no nation-states. Germany, Italy and Switzerland were divided into kingdoms, duchies and cantons. Eastern and Central Europe were under autocratic monarchies with diverse peoples who did not share a collective identity.

3.1 The Aristocracy and the New Middle Class

A landed aristocracy was the dominant class — owned estates in countryside and town-houses, spoke French for diplomacy, connected by ties of marriage. In Western Europe: tenants and small owners farmed land; Eastern/Central Europe: vast estates cultivated by serfs.

Industrialisation in England (2nd half of 18th century) and France/German states (19th century) created a new middle class — industrialists, businessmen, professionals. Ideas of national unity gained support among educated, liberal middle classes.

3.2 What did Liberal Nationalism Stand For?

The Zollverein (Customs Union), 1834

Napoleon’s measures created out of countless principalities a confederation of 39 states, each with own currency, weights and measures. A merchant travelling in 1833 from Hamburg to Nuremberg had to pass through 11 customs barriers, paying ~5% duty at each.

In 1834, zollverein formed at initiative of Prussia, joined by most German states — abolished tariff barriers and reduced currencies from over thirty to two. Railway network further stimulated mobility and national unification.

3.3 A New Conservatism after 1815

Conservatives believed in preserving established institutions: monarchy, Church, social hierarchies, property, family. They realised modernisation could strengthen traditional institutions. A modern army, efficient bureaucracy, dynamic economy, abolition of feudalism and serfdom could strengthen autocratic monarchies.

Fig. 6 — The Club of Thinkers, anonymous caricature, c. 1820. Left plaque: “The most important question of today’s meeting: How long will thinking be allowed to us?” Right board rules: “1. Silence is the first commandment of this learned society. 2. To avoid the eventuality whereby a member of this club may succumb to the temptation of speech, muzzles will be distributed to members upon entering.” This caricature satirises the repressive censorship imposed by conservative regimes after 1815.

3.4 The Revolutionaries

After 1815, fear of repression drove liberal-nationalists underground. Secret societies sprang up across European states to train revolutionaries and spread ideas.

Liberalism and nationalism became increasingly associated with revolution. Revolutions were led by liberal-nationalists of the educated middle-class elite — professors, school-teachers, clerks, commercial middle classes.

Key Revolutionary Events

4.1 The Romantic Imagination and National Feeling

Nationalism developed not only through wars but through culture — art, poetry, stories, music. Romanticism: criticised glorification of reason and science; focused on emotions, intuition, mystical feelings. Effort to create shared collective heritage as basis of a nation.

4.2 Hunger, Hardship and Popular Revolt

The 1830s were years of great economic hardship. First half of 19th century: enormous increase in population; more job-seekers than employment; rural-to-urban migration to overcrowded slums. Competition from cheap machine-made English goods, especially in textile production. Peasants struggled under feudal dues where aristocracy held power.

1848: Food shortages and unemployment in Paris → barricades erected → Louis Philippe forced to flee. National Assembly proclaimed a Republic, granted suffrage to all adult males above 21, guaranteed right to work, set up National workshops.

4.3 The Revolution of the Liberals, 1848

Events of February 1848 in France: abdication of monarch; republic based on universal male suffrage proclaimed. In Germany, Italy, Poland, Austro-Hungarian Empire — liberal middle classes combined demands for constitutionalism with national unification.

Though conservative forces suppressed liberal movements in 1848, they could not restore the old order. After 1848: serfdom and bonded labour abolished in Habsburg dominions and Russia; Habsburg rulers granted more autonomy to Hungarians in 1867.

5.1 Germany — Can the Army be the Architect of a Nation?

After 1848, nationalism moved away from democracy and revolution. Nationalist sentiments mobilised by conservatives for promoting state power. The 1848 liberal initiative repressed by combined forces of monarchy, military, and large landowners (Junkers) of Prussia.

The new German state placed strong emphasis on modernising currency, banking, legal and judicial systems. Prussian measures often became model for rest of Germany.

Fig. 12 — Unification of Germany (1866–71). Map Legend: Dark purple = Prussia before 1866; Yellow = Conquered by Prussia in Austro-Prussia War 1866 (Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover); Dark green = Austrian territories excluded from German Confederation 1867; Light green = Joined with Prussia to form German Confederation 1867 (Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Brunswick, Thuringian States, Hessen Nassa); Pink/Salmon = South German states joining to form German Empire 1871 (Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Baden); Light purple = Won by Prussia in Franco-Prussia War 1871.

5.2 Italy Unified

Like Germany, Italy had a long history of political fragmentation. In mid-19th century, Italy divided into seven states. Even the Italian language had not acquired one common form — many regional and local variations.

Fig. 14(a) — Italian states before unification, 1858 (showing Lombardy, Venetia, Savoy Sardinia, Parma, Modena, Tuscany, San Marino, Papal State, Kingdom of Both Sicilies). Fig. 14(b) — Italy after unification showing years: 1858 (Savoy, Sardinia), 1858–60 (northern/central regions including Lombardy, Parma, Modena, Tuscany), 1860 (Kingdom of Both Sicilies, southern regions), 1866 (Venetia), 1870 (Papal States — Rome, the last to join).

5.3 The Strange Case of Britain

Britain is considered by some scholars as the model of the nation-state. But British nation-building was NOT the result of sudden upheaval or revolution — it was a long-drawn-out process. There was no British nation prior to the eighteenth century.

Artists in 18th and 19th centuries personified a nation as a female figure — an allegory of the nation. The female form did not stand for any particular woman; it gave the abstract idea of the nation a concrete form.

Female Allegories in the French Revolution

• Liberty: red cap, broken chain
• Justice: blindfolded woman with weighing scales

Marianne (France)

Christened Marianne — a popular Christian name underlining the idea of a people’s nation. Characteristics: red cap, tricolour, cockade (drawn from Liberty and the Republic). Statues erected in public squares; images marked on coins and stamps (Postage stamps of 1850).

Germania (Germany)

Allegory of the German nation. Wears a crown of oak leaves (German oak = heroism). Philip Veit painted Germania in 1848 on a cotton banner meant to hang from the ceiling of Church of St Paul where Frankfurt parliament was convened.

Box 3 — Meanings of the Symbols (NCERT) — Key nationalist symbols used in the allegory of Germania and other representations of the German nation. These symbols are frequently asked in UPSC and State PCS examinations.

By the last quarter of the 19th century, nationalism lost its idealistic liberal-democratic sentiment and became a narrow creed with limited ends. Nationalist groups became intolerant of each other and ever ready to go to war. Major European powers manipulated nationalist aspirations of subject peoples to further imperialist aims.

The Balkans — Most Serious Source of Tension after 1871