Nationalists were not loyal to
their kings, but their people.
According to nationalists, links such as a
common history, culture, world-view, or
language bound people together as a
nation.
This was capable of tearing apart
powerful empires.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire, which brought together
countless ethnic groups, split and further crumbled into
nation-states after World War I.
The czars in Russia also ruled over several
groups. Their policy of Russification, imposing
culture on all the groups, strengthened the
nationalist feelings. World War I and the
communist revolution finally separated Russia.
The Ottomans controlled many groups as well. They issued reform to
grant equal citizenship, but this angered the conservative Turks. The
Ottoman Empire broke apart after World War I.
Nationalism also created and unified
nation-states.
Italy formed from the territory of
crumbling empires.
Guiseppe Mazzini, an idealistic Italian, organized a
nationalist group. He also briefly headed a republican
government, but these rebellions failed.
Italian nationalists looked to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia for
leadership. Count Camillo di Cavour, Sardinia's prime minister, tried to
get control of northern Italy through diplomacy and cunning. He
succeeded and also tried to control the south by helping Guiseppe
Garibaldi, leader of the "Red Shirts", a group of nationalist rebels.
Though unified, Italy faced
severe economic problems.
Prussia forged a strong German state.
Otto von Bismarck, a conservative Junker (wealthy landowner), became prime minister of Prussia.
He was a master of realpolitik, or "the politics of reality". He formed an alliance between Prussia
and Austria and went to war with Denmark to increase national pride.
Bismarck provoked Austria into the Seven Weeks' War, which Prussia won easily. He also provoked France into the
Franco-Prussian War, which Prussia also won. Because of these wars, nationalist fever united all of Germany. King
Wilhelm I was crowned kaiser, or emperor, of the Second Reich.