19th Century Nations and Nationalism (precursors to WWI)
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19th Century Europe
- Post-Napoleonic Europe dominated by 6
nations
-> France, England, Russia, Spain,
Austria-Hungary, & the Ottoman Empire
- nationalist unifications add new powers
-> 1867 Germany united by Bismark
=> small German-speaking states
unite, dominated by Prussia
=> rapid economic and social
integration
=> anti-France and anti-Austrian
expansionism makes Germany dangerous
-> 1871 Italy unites (Garribaldi as
leader)
=> small states come together, led
by Piedmont
=> a less united group of people
than the Germans, unification proceeds in a more incomplete fashion
-> Serbia and Bulgaria were carved out
the Ottoman Empire
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Nationalist pressures
- France and Prussia/Germany mutually
suspicious
-> defeat in war in 1867 had left
France resentful
- the Balkans was a smoldering mess (sound
familiar?)
-> decline of Ottoman power in the
region had created new small states
-> many disputed borders and jealous
little states
=> ethnic groups mixed together and
divided by new borders
=> complex and multi-various
nationalisms swirling
-> Serbia and Austria-Hungary both
eyeing the province of Bosnia
-> Russians also desirous of the entire
region
=> wanted to unify all
"Slavs"
=> wanted access to a warm-water
port on the Mediterranean
- Austria-Hungary wants to avoid Serbian
uprising amongst own people, sees Serbia as a threat
- Russians and Ottomans hate each other
- Italians are pumped up by unification and
want to claim parts of Austria-Hungary and the Adriatic East Coast
- Austria-Hungary riven by multiple internal
ethnic groups all curious about independence
-> Hungarians, Austrians, Croats,
Slovenians, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Serbs, Bosnians, Poles, Germans,
Italians