Nationalism and the Making of Nation States in Italy and Germany
Battle Hymn of the Republic: La Marseillaise
The Struggle to defeat Napolen and the French dreams of internal hegemony succeeded on the battlefield of Waterloo and in the meeting rooms of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. And yet the struggle to defeat the French Revolution failed. In the 1820s, this failure was evident in the seizure of independence by the Greeks and by Latin American countries (Chile, Venezuela, Columbia, Peru, and Mexico), just as it was evident in the winning of independence by Belgians in 1830 and in the successful revolutions in France in 1830 and 1848. These events showed that the central political thrust of the French Revolution could not be readily contained: no regime deemed legitimate could long endure that did not incorporate representative government and some degree of popular participation.
National Unifications from "above" that succeeded through war and diplomacy
Maps, Images, Represenations of States and Nations 1848-1914
Declaration of the Germany Empire in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, 28 January 1871, on the eve of the French capitulation, painting by Anton Werner. The artist, an eyewitness, was commissioned to create the official picture of the ceremony. Interestingly, it is not the King/Emperor William at the center of the painting but Bismarck, the architect of the unification. In the well scripted ceremony, the Duke of Bavaria, the ruler who had up to then remained independent of the North German Confederation, was given the task of proclaiming "Long live his majesty, the Emperor William, the victor!" Behind the Emperor are the standard bearers of the other principalities that now form the Empire. At the right of the tribune stand other German princes who salute with raised swords amid the "Hurrahs!"
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