Important Questions (1 Mark): The Rise of Nationalism In Europe - Class 10 MCQ

Otto von Bismarck was a Prussian statesman who dominated the German affairs

between 1860 and 1890. By waging series of war, he united the German states.

Bismarck, the Chancellor of Prussia, was the architect of unified Germany. As a far-sighted statesman, he believed that bursts of sentiments have no place in politics. He firmly believed that he could achieve his objective of unification of Germany by blood and iron policy. He was known as the man of 'blood and iron' or iron chancellor as he

used force methods.

The spirit of Conservatism drove European governments after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. Conservatives believed that established, traditional institutions of state and society-the Church, social hierarchies, property and family-should be preserved. They also realised that modernisation could strengthen conventional institutions like the monarchy and a return to the society of the pre-revolutionary days was not required.

Central and Western parts of Europe witnessed the growth of industrial production and trade. It was considered as the First Industrial Revolution. The industrial revolution in Europe didn't happen overnight but only spread over the continent very gradually. It caused, unusually high growth in the population which set in around the middle of the 18th century and produced a gigantic reservoir of workers.

This Code was exported to the regions under French control.

In Galicia, the aristocracy spoke polish. The Habsburg Empire ruled over Austria-Hungary. It was a patchwork of many different regions and peoples because It included the Alpine regions - the Tyrol, Austria and the Sudetenland – and Bohemia, where the class was mainly German-speaking.

Within the vast swathe of territory that came under his control, Napoleon set about introducing many of the reforms he had already introduced in France. Through a return to monarchy, Napoleon had, no doubt destroyed democracy in France. Still, in the administrative eld, he had incorporated revolutionary principles to make the whole system more rational and efficient. The Civil Code of 1804, usually known as the Napoleonic Code did away with all privileges based on birth, established equality before the law and secured the property right. This Code was exported to the regions under French control. In the Dutch Republic, in Switzerland, Napoleon simplified administrative divisions in Italy and Germany, abolished the feudal system, and freed peasants from serfdom and manorial dues. In the towns too, guild restrictions were removed. Transport and communication systems were improved. Peasants, artisans, workers and new business people enjoyed a new-found freedom. Business people and small-scale producers of goods, in particular, began to realise that uniform laws, standardised weights and measures, and a shared national currency would facilitate the movement and exchange of goods and capital from one region to another.

The aristocracy in the Alpine region was predominantly German-speaking. The Habsburg Empire ruled over Austria-Hungary. It was a patchwork of many different areas and peoples because It included the Alpine regions - the Tyrol, Austria and the Sudetenland – and Bohemia, where the class was mainly German-speaking.

Culture played an essential role in creating the idea of 'nation in Europe

1. Romanticism was a cultural movement that believed in emotions, intuitions and mystical feelings over reason and science.

2. Romantics like Johann Gottfried Herder believed that German culture was alive among the ordinary people- das Volk. The idea of the nation was popularised through the folk culture of songs, poetry, and dance.

3. Local culture was also sought to reach a large population of illiterate people. The language was also essential as a nationalist identity.

Mazzini is called 'Prophet of Italian Unication'. He established the Young Italy movement. He preached that Italian unification could only be possible with foreign help, and Austria is the biggest obstacle to unification.

 

Zollverein, a German customs union established in 1834 under Prussian leadership. It created a free-trade area throughout Germany and is often seen as an essential step in German reunification.

In 1848, Frdric Sorrieu, a French artist, prepared a series of four prints visualising his dream of a world made up of democratic and social Republics, as he called them. The first print of the series shows the peoples of Europe and America men and women of all ages and social classes marching in a long train and offering homage to the Statue of Liberty as they pass by it. As you would recall, artists of the French Revolution personified Liberty as a female figure here. You can recognise the torch of Enlightenment she bears in one hand and the Charter of citizens’ rights in the other. On the earth in the foreground of the image lie the shattered remains of the symbols of absolutist institutions. In Sorrieus utopian vision, the world’s peoples are grouped as distinct nations, identified through their ags and national costume.

To the west, the bulk of the land was cultivated by Tenants and Small owners, towards the west they were indulged in farming whereas, the case with eastern and central Europe People were engaged in non-agricultural jobs with transport and communications.

The 1830s were the years of great economic hardship in Europe due to the following reasons

(i). There was an enormous increase in population all over Europe.

(ii) There were more seekers of jobs than employment.

(iii). People migrated from rural areas to the cities to live in overcrowded slums.

Leading the procession, way past the Statue of Liberty, are the United States and Switzerland, which by this time were already nation-states. France, identifiable by the revolutionary tricolour, has just reached the statue. She is followed by the peoples of Germany, bearing the black, red and gold ag. Interestingly, when Sorrieu created this image, the German peoples did not yet exist as a united nation the ag they carry is an expression of liberal hopes in 1848 to unify the numerous German-speaking principalities into a nation-state under a democratic constitution. Following the German peoples are Austria, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Lombardy, Poland, England, Ireland, Hungary and Russia. From the heavens above, Christ, saints and angels gaze upon the scene. The artist has used them to symbolise fraternity among the nations of the world.

Napoleon's administrative measures had created a confederation of 39 states of the German-speaking regions. The German Confederation was an association of 39 German-speaking states in Central Europe, created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to coordinate the economies of separate German-speaking countries and to replace the former Holy Roman Empire, which had been dissolved in 1806.

If a nation is Sovereign, the people constituting the nation are the source of all power and authority. A sovereign nation is a nation that has one centralised government that can govern a specific geographic area.

 

The Peasantry comprised the majority of the population in European society. Most Europeans were peasants, dependent on agriculture. The majority of them lived in nucleated settlements and within recognised boundaries, in the way characteristic of the hill farmer, lived in single farms or hamlets.

Women were admitted in the Frankfurt Parliament as observers. So, on 18 May 1848, when the constitution was drafted in the Frankfurt parliament, the controversial issue of extending political rights to women was raised. Still, women were deprived of suffrage rights during the Assembly’s election, and they were admitted in the Frankfurt parliament assembly only as observers.

Frankfurt parliament was an all-German National Assembly formed by the middle-class professionals, business people and prosperous artisans belonging to the different German regions. It was convened on 18 May 1848 in the Church of St. Paul, in Frankfurt.