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Conservatism Early 20th Century

Decent Essays

Nationalism, according to Merriam-Webster, is the “loyalty and devotion to a nation” to the point that “one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.” However, there are a couple of other national tendencies that had an impact on world history. Nationalism was the most important and impactful ideology during the early twentieth century Europe. Nevertheless, there was also the conservatism movement during the nineteenth century that had influence over Europe for years.
According to Merriam-Webster, Conservatism is the “political philosophy… stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change.” …show more content…

It was when a group of European nations met at Vienna to discuss long term peace after the Napoleonic wars. Members of the Congress shared the same conservative principles to the point where they restored monarchs that were overthrown during and after the French Revolution (Encyclopedia Britannica). Soon after, these same members went on to establish the Concert of Europe, periodic conferences with the purpose of enforcing peace across Europe and to crush any liberal resistance within conservative governments (Encyclopedia Britannica). Prince Metternich, important figure of the Congress, said that liberal revolutions were “unhistorical and unrealistic” because they were trying to do the impossible of establishing “English institutions of parliamentary government and constitutional monarchy in places where they had no historical roots” (Encyclopedia Britannica). Thus, these liberal revolutions throughout the nineteenth century were …show more content…

One of those movements was based in the German Empire with the idea of Pan-Germanism and it was heavily supported with German militarism, the idea that “the state of the nation was defined and reflected by the strength of its military forces” (Alpha History). Even known there were many other nationalist movements, none of them had a greater impact and responsibility for starting the Great War than the Slavic groups. These groups all shared Pan-Slavism which is “the belief that the Slavic peoples of eastern Europe should have their own nation, was a powerful force in the region” (Alpha History). Serbia had the most nationalists within the Balkans region because it rejected Austrian-Hungarian influence and rule over their lands. As the result, the infamous nationalist group, Black Hand (or Crna Ruka) assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, beginning World War I. The first world war lasted four years until the German Empire signed an armistice to the Entente in 1918. Afterwards, the Entente (especially France) heavily punished the German Empire by demanding them to pay unrealistic reparations. It would be one of the leading causes of the formation of the Nazi Germany in the early nineteen thirties. And the German nationalism movement eventually embraced Nazism, leading them to create World War

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