Nationalism's Rise: Italian and German Unification

The Emergence of Nationalism

Nationalism

Like the French Revolution enabled the liberal movement to impose French hegemony under Napoleon Bonaparte's Empire, it provoked the awakening of patriotic sentiments expressed in national consciousness. Along with the claim of individual freedoms, this movement is characterized by the liberties of the people and the representation of a state for oppressed nationalities.

Nationalism presents various methods, based on its political ideology and purposes:

• Conservative Nationalism: Based on some German thinkers who defend the superiority of the people over individuals, facing the Liberals and claiming the right of any nation to build its own state.
• Liberal Nationalism: Characterized by the importance individuals possess, whose will is crucial to build an independent nation.

The Italian Unification

Italy had been divided into small independent states. The spread of liberal ideas and the emergence of an influential middle class meant to solidify a project of national unification of all Italians around the constitutional monarchy of Piedmont-Sardinia, led by King Victor Emmanuel II.

This process was carried out in three phases:

1. In the first, the annexation of most of northern Italy was achieved, with the help of France against the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
2. In a second step, the fight went south (Kingdom of Naples and Sicily), which was incorporated through the revolutionary efforts of Giuseppe Garibaldi.
3. Finally, efforts were directed to the conquest of Venice and the Papal States.

The German Unification

The old German Empire had disappeared to make way for a loose confederation of states, in which the kingdom of Prussia stood out. In 1834, the first step toward German unity was taken with the creation of the Customs Union between the States.

However, the performance of Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck developed an aggressive policy against Denmark, Austria, and France to unite all German territories, culminating in the proclamation of the Second German Reich in 1871.

Other National Processes

The Greek people's struggle for their freedom against the Ottoman or Turkish Empire attracted Europeans, who saw the Turks as representing a civilization alien to European traditions. This sentiment was used by Austria, Russia, France, and England to further weaken the Turkish empire's presence in Eastern Europe, forcing it to recognize the independence of Greece.