Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/388

 376 THE MODERN NATIONS the Holy Alliance — an agreement entered upon by the Tsar, the Emperor, and the King of Prussia — principles which they preferred to enforce in dominions other than their own. At the same time, the principles of nationalism were totally ignored in Italy, in the union of Belgium and Holland, and in the Austrian Empire, which was part German, part Magyar, part Slav, and part Italian. There are then two political movements at work in Europe in the half-century following Waterloo. One, the birth of the Democracy French Revolution, is the popular demand for the and expression at least of the popular voice in the Nationalism. government# The other is the nationalism which had been quickened by the Napoleonic wars ; a demand in part for national independence of alien control, in part for the unifica- tion of broken-up and divided nationalities. The two movements are found working simultaneously in some regions ; but there is no law of association between them. Italy in her struggle for liberation and unity succeeds not under republican leadership but under the constitutional monarchists. German unity is achieved by statesmen who have no popular leanings. But in 187 1, fifty-six years after Napoleon's sun had set, when the later Napoleon's sun had set also, Germany was at last a consolidated empire, Italy was a consolidated and constitutional kingdom, Greece and Belgium were constitutional kingdoms, and the release of the Slavonic states of the Turkish Empire from Mohammedan control was in the near future; while in Great Britain the balance of political power had passed first from the landowning class to the manufacturers, and then from the manu- facturers to the ' working '-classes. The only countries in Europe where unqualified despotism survived were Russia and Turkey. At the outset, it appeared that the victory was to be with ab- solutism. In Spain, Ferdinand vn. was no sooner restored than The Victory he cancelled his promises and ruled despotically, of Reaction. Austria followed the same line in Lombardy ; the King of Sardinia in Piedmont, the King of Naples, and the masters of the independent duchies in the north of Italy, took their cue from Austria. In England, the Tory government adopted severe measures for the repression of all expression of