Overview of Nationalism - Idea that Caused World War One

Modern countries are organized around the idea of nationalism - a concept that is often called the "nation-state". The concept of nationalism is based on the idea that the people in a country should be united in speaking the same language, having a common religious identity and sharing a common history and culture. The borders between countries are based on separating groups with different national identities. For example, the border between France and Germany separates the people who have a French identity from those that have a German identity. On one side of the border people speak French and on the other side they speak German. The fact that this statement seems so obvious shows how common the idea of nationalism is in the modern world. The reality is that for much of history countries were not organized this way. The process of organizing countries based on national identity began in Europe during the French Revolution and spread first to the rest of Europe and then to the rest of the world.

Before the French Revolution, the shapes of the countries of Europe were determined by the monarchs who ruled them. This resulted in people who were very different from each other living in the same county. Often, the monarch was quite different from the people he ruled. For example, there were times when Spanish kings ruled the Netherlands and Italy. Overtime this began to change as absolute monarchs, like Louis XIV, centralized power and turned the people they ruled into powerful and strong united countries. It was the power of these kings that turned these countries into nations. However, there were parts of Europe like the regions of Germany which were not united by a powerful monarch that stayed as little kingdoms which were typically weak and poor.

The French Revolution demonstrated the power of the idea of nationalism. After the revolutionaries overthrew the king, they developed the idea of nationalism to unite the people of France. The idea was that country of France based on a common people who who spoke French and shared a common French culture and history. The Revolutionary government used the idea of nationalism to motivate the French people fight to protect “France” from the armies of the other European countries during the revolution. The French revolutionaries created a national flag (the red, white and blue tri-color French flag) and a national anthem (The Marseillaise) to help create this sense of national identity in people. The success of the French Revolutionary Armies and Napoleon’s victories showed how nationalism made a united people into a powerful country that could dominate other countries. Napoleon’s conquests spread the idea of nationalism across Europe. The regions defeated and ruled by Napoleon, such as Germany, resented being dominated by the French. After the defeat of Napoleon, the people began to use the idea of nationalism to organize to build their own united and strong country.

The idea of nationalism turned Germany, a region made up of many small kingdoms, into a new united country. Germany has been a battleground during the Napoleonic Wars and the German people wanted to prevent that from happening again. They thought the idea of nationalism could be used to form the small kingdoms of Germany into a single country of Germany. The challenge for nationalist leaders in making this idea a reality was that Germany had never been a united country. In order to make a united Germany, nationalist leaders first had to create the idea of German nationalism by showing the people of the region that they had a common identity. The Brothers Grimm helped form a national identity through documenting national fairy tales told in villages and writing a dictionary. The believed that these things would show the people in the region of Germany that they were connected to each other by a common language and culture. The work of democratic and nationalist leader contributed to a series of revolts across Europe in 1848, particularly in the area of Germany. In these revolts, democratic and nationalist leaders tried to form a democratic country of Germany. However, they failed to do this. But, the revolts showed that nationalist ideas had become very popular across Germany.

In the decades after the Revolts of 1848, Germany became a modern united country through wars. Otto von Bismarck, a leader in Prussia (a large kingdom in the region of Germany), one of the largest of the kingdoms in the region of Germany, realized that it needed to become larger and stronger to stand up to French power. Bismarck led Prussia to victory in a series of wars to bring the entire region of Germany under Prussian control – which then became the country of Germany in 1871. These wars made the united country of Germany the strongest military power in Europe. This became a factor caused the outbreak of World War One because the wars to unit Germany turned France into an enemy of Germany.

The idea of nationalism also had the power to tear countries apart. The country of Austria was a kingdom where a German speaking emperor ruled many different types of people who spoke different languages and had different religions and cultures. Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenians, Ukrainians, Romanians, Serbians, and Croatians all lived in Austria. Austria was also defeated by Napoleon and after the Napoleonic Wars many of the people ruled by the German speaking Austrians wanted to break away from Austria to form their own countries. Beginning in the 1800’s and going all the way up to World War One, these different nationalities tried to get their independence from Austria. The desire of the Serbians, a national group that lived in Austria, to create their own country would be the spark that would cause of World War One in 1914.

The idea of nationalism spread from Europe to other parts of the world where it also had the effect of tearing apart some countries and building new countries, This was because Europeans spread the idea through their colonies around the world. Many of the people living under European rule adopted the idea as a way to resist European rule. They adopted nationalism for the same reasons Europeans had - because it was an idea that united people to form powerful countries. As a result, most countries around the world are now organized based on the idea of nationalism.

Source # 1 - Map of Countries in Europe in Nineteenth Century