(a)Giuseppe Mazzini was born in Genoa in 1807, and he became a member of the secret society of the Carbonari. As a young man of 24, he was sent into exile in 1831 for attempting a revolution in Liguri(A) He subsequently founded two more underground societies, first, Young Italy in Marseilles, and then, Young Europe in Berne, whose members were like-minded young men from Poland, France, Italy and the German states. Mazzini believed that God had intended nations to be the natural units of mankind.

(b)Chief Minister Cavour who led the movement to unify the regions of Italy was neither a revolutionary nor a democrat. Like many other wealthy and educated members of the Italian elite, he spoke French much better than he did Italian. Through a tactful diplomatic alliance with France engineered by Cavour, Sardinia-Piedmont succeeded in defeating the Austrian forces in 1859. Apart from regular troops, a large number of armed volunteers under the leadership of Giuseppe Garibaldi joined the fray.

(c)An event that mobilised nationalist feelings among the educated elite across Europe was the Greek war of independence. Greece had been part of the Ottoman Empire since the fifteenth century. The growth of revolutionary nationalism in Europe sparked off a struggle for independence amongst the Greeks which began in 1821. Nationalists in Greece got support from other Greeks living in exile and also from many West Europeans who had sympathies for ancient Greek culture.

(d)In the German regions a large number of political associations whose members were middle-class professionals, businessmen and prosperous artisans came together in the city of Frankfurt and decided to vote for an all- German National Assembly. On 18 May 1848, 831 elected representatives marched in a festive procession to take their places in the Frankfurt parliament convened in the Church of St Paul. They drafted a constitution for the German nation to be headed by a monarchy subject to a parliament. When the deputies offered the crown on these terms to Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia, he rejected it and joined other monarchs to oppose the elected assembly.

(e)Artistic representations of the French Revolution show men and women participating equally in the movement.

Liberty is personified as the woman.

Liberal nationalism propounded the idea of universal suffrage, leading to women’s active participation in nationalist movements in Europe.

Women had formed their own political associations, founded newspapers.

They had taken part in political meetings and demonstrations.

In France about sixty women’s clubs came up in different French cities.

The most famous was the society of Revolutionary and Republican women.

One of their main demands was to have the same political rights as men had. They were, however, denied suffrage rights during the election to the Assembly.

Although women had actively participated in nationalist struggles, they were given little or no political rights, an example being the Frankfurt Parliament in the Church of St. Paul where women were admitted only as observers to stand in the visitors’ gallery.