The Making of Nationalism in Europe Some important dates Napoleon invades Italy; Napoleonic wars begin. - Fall of Napoleon; the Vienna Peace Settlement. Greek struggle for independence begins. Revolutions in Europe; artisans, industrial workers and peasants revolt against economic hardships; middle classes demand constitutions and representative governments; Italians, Germans, Magyars, Poles, Czechs, etc.
demand nation-states. - Unification of Italy. - Unification of Germany. Slav nationalism gathers force in the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires.
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. Industrialisation began in England in the second half of the eighteenth century, but in France and parts of the German states it occurred only during the nineteenth century. In its wake, new social groups came into being: a working-class population, and middle classes made up of industrialists, businessmen, professionals. 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? Ideas of national unity in early-nineteenth-century Europe were closely allied to the ideology of liberalism.
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. Since the French Revolution, liberalism had stood for the end of autocracy and clerical privileges, a constitution and representative government through parliament.
Nineteenth-century liberals also stressed the inviolability of private property. Yet, equality before the law did not necessarily stand for universal suffrage . You will recall that in revolutionary France, which marked the first political experiment in liberal democracy, the right to vote and to get elected was granted exclusively to property-owning men. Men without property and all women were excluded from political rights.
Only for a brief period