The Nation State

The creation of “The Nation-State” was a powerful, positive force that united people

and nations.

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The Ausgleich: Austria-Hungary 1867

After the Hungarian Revolutions of 1848, Austria created a more centralized government on its empire. Local privileges were abolished and a strict, unified system of administration of law, taxation and education policies were enacted. Only German speaking people were given positions within the administration of this new system. After the defeat of Austria in the Austro-Prussian war the Hungarians sensed weakness in the Empire and began rumblings of another nationalist revolt. A compromise between the Austrian government of Franz Joseph and the Hungarians was created in 1867 and established the “Dual Monarchy” of Austria-Hungary. Each side had its own constitution, its own legislature and machinery for a domestic government. Holding the two states together was a single monarch (Franz Joseph of Austria) and a common army and foreign policy. Although the Dual Monarchy settled issues between the main powers, it did not satisfy the Slavic peoples: Poles, Croatians, Serbs, Czechs, etc.

In spite of the fact that we have no such fleet as we should have, we have conquered for ourselves a place in the sun. It will now be my task to see to it that this place in the sun shall remain our undisputed possession, in order that the sun’s rays may fall fruitfully upon our activity and trade in foreign parts, that our industry and agriculture may develop within the state and our sailing sports upon the water, for our future lies upon the water….

As head of the empire I therefore rejoice over every citizen...who goes forth...and seeks new points where we can drive in the nail on which to hang our armour.

Source: Kaiser Wilhelm II, speech at Hamburg, 1901.

Our oldest common ancestors, the original people of the new culture, The Teutons, called Germans by the Romans, set themselves bravely in opposition to the overwhelming worldwide rule of the Romans...Freedom was their possession, that they might remain Germans, that they might continue to settle their own affairs independently and originally in their own way, and at the same time to advance their culture and to plant the same independence in the hearts of the posterity…

We who are the nearest heirs of their land, their language, their sentiments, owe to them that we are still Germans…

These addresses have attempted to implant in your minds the deep and immovable foundations of the true and almighty love of the fatherland, in the conception of our nation as eternal….

Source: Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation, 1807-1808

Where is the German's fatherland?Then name, oh, name the mighty land!Wherever is heard the German tongue,And German hymns to God are sung!This is the land, thy Hermann's land;

This, German, is thy fatherland.This is the German's fatherland,

Where faith is in the plighted hand,Where truth lives in each eye of blue,And every heart is staunch and true.

This is the land, the honest land,The honest German's fatherland.This is the land, the one true land,

O God, to aid be thou at hand!

And fire each heart, and nerve each arm,To shield our German homes from harm,

To shield the land, the one true land,One Deutschland and one fatherland!

Ernst Moritz Arndt:

The German Fatherland

Natural Selection acts solely through the preservation of variations in some way advantageous, which consequently endure. Owing to the high

geometrical rate of increase of all organic beings, each area is already fully stocked with inhabitants; and it follows from this, that as the favoured forms increase in number, so, generally, will the less favoured decrease and become

rare.

Source: Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1859.

I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better. Just fancy those parts that are at

present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings, what an alteration there would be if they were brought

under Anglo-Saxon influence....The absorption of the greater portion of the world under our rule simply means the end of all wars.

Source: Cecil Rhodes, “Confession of Faith,” 1877

The Jew as a whole must be considered harmful, for the racial traits of this people are of a kind that in the long run do not agree with the racial traits of the Teutons (authentic Germans). Every Jew who at this very moment has not as yet transgressed is likely to do so at some future time under given circumstances because his racial characteristics drive him on in that direction.

What we want is a clear and reasonable separation of the Jews from the Germans

Source: Hermann Ahlwardt, member of the German Reichstag (legislature), address to the Reichstag, 1895

Irish Nationalism: Home Rule Fight 1880’s‘

“Nationality is the role assignedby God to a people in the work ofhumanity. It is its mission, its task

on earth, to the end that God’sthought may be realized

in the world.”Giuseppe Mazzini The Duty of Man

Theodor Herzl and Zionism

We are but one people--our enemies have made us one without our consent, as repeatedly happens in history. Distress binds us together, and thus united, we suddenly discover our strength. Yes we are strong enough to form a State, and, indeed, a model State. We possess all human and material resources necessary for the purpose.... Let the sovereignty be granted us over a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the rightful requirements of a nation; the rest we will manage for ourselves.

Source: Theodor Herzl, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), 1896

Theodore Herzl was a Viennese lawyer, journalist and playwright who saw the rise of anti-semitism first hand in observing the Dreyfus Affair. In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, was unjustly accused of treason, mainly because of the prevailing anti-Semitic atmosphere. Herzl witnessed mobs shouting “Death to the Jews” in France, the home of the French Revolution, and resolved that there was only one solution: the mass immigration of Jews to a land that they could call their own. Thus, the Dreyfus Case became one of the determinants in the genesis of Political Zionism.

Herzl concluded that anti-Semitism was a stable and immutable factor in human society, which assimilation did not solve. He mulled over the idea of Jewish sovereignty, and, despite ridicule from Jewish leaders, published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State, 1896). Herzl argued that the essence of the Jewish problem was not individual but national. He declared that the Jews could gain acceptance in the world only if they ceased being a national anomaly. The Jews are one people, he said, and their plight could be transformed into a positive force by the establishment of a Jewish state with the consent of the great powers. He saw the Jewish question as an international political question to be dealt with in the arena of international politics.

Herzl proposed a practical program for collecting funds from Jews around the world by a company to be owned by stockholders, which would work toward the practical realization of this goal. (This organization, when it was eventually formed, was called the Zionist Organization.) He saw the future state as a model social state, basing his ideas on the European model of the time, of a modern enlightened society. It would be neutral and peace-seeking, and of a secular nature.

Theodore Herzl

Dr. Karl Lueger Vienna, Austria“Christian Socialism”

Karl Lueger, attended Theresianische Ritterakademie before studying law at the University of Vienna, receiving his doctorate in 1870. During this period he joined the Catholic Student Association. Lueger established a law office in Vienna in 1874 and established a reputation for representing the interests of the working class. The following year he was elected to Vienna's City Council and later as Mayor of Vienna.

Lueger advocated an early form of "fascism". This included a radical German nationalism (meaning the primacy and superiority of all things German), social reform, anti-socialism and anti-semitism. In one speech in 1890 Lueger commented that the "Jewish problem" would be solved, and a service to the world achieved, if all Jews were placed on a large ship to be sunk on the high seas.

Lueger was a zealous Catholic, and wished to “capture the university” for the Church. He made it clear that he would have neither Social Democrats nor Pan-Germans nor Jews in the municipal administration. Lueger did introduce important social reforms. This included the extension of the public water supply, the municipalization of gas and electricity works as well as the establishment of a public transport system. He also built parks and gardens, and hospitals and schools.

In a speech in 1899, Lueger claimed that Jews were exercising a "terrorism, worse than which cannot be imagined" over the masses through the control of capital and the press. It was a matter for him, he continued, "of liberating the Christian people from the domination of Jewry". On other occasions he described the Jews as "beasts of prey in human form". Lueger added that anti-semitism would "perish when the last Jew perished".

The Dreyfus Affair

The Rise of Anti-Semitism

The Dreyfus affair deeply divided France, not just over the fate of the man at its center but also over a range of issues, including politics, religion and national identity.

In 1899, Dreyfus was court-martialed for a second time and found guilty. Although he was pardoned days later by the French president, it wasn’t until 1906 that Dreyfus officially was exonerated and reinstated in the army.

In 1896, the new head of the army’s intelligence unit, Georges Picquart, uncovered evidence pointing to another French military officer, Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, as the real traitor and word about Esterhazy’s possible guilt began to circulate.

In 1898, he was court-martialed but quickly found not guilty; he later fled the country. After Esterhazy’s acquittal, a French newspaper published an open letter titled “J’Accuse…!” by well-known author Emile Zola in which he defended Dreyfus and accused the military of a major cover-up in the case. As a result, Zola was convicted of libel, although he escaped to England and later managed to return to France.The Dreyfus Affair was a scandal that rocked France in the late 19th and

early 20th centuries, the Dreyfus affair involved a Jewish artillery captain in the French army, Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935), who was falsely convicted of passing military secrets to the Germans. In 1894, after a French spy at the German Embassy in Paris discovered a ripped-up letter in a waste basket with handwriting said to resemble that of Dreyfus, he was court-martialed, found guilty of treason and sentenced to life behind bars on Devil’s Island off of French Guiana.

In a public ceremony in Paris following his conviction, Dreyfus had the insignia torn from his uniform and his sword broken and was paraded before a crowd that shouted, “Death to Judas, death to the Jew.”

1896Olympics

"I hereby proclaim the opening of the first International Olympic Games at Athens." With these words on April 6, 1896, King George I of Greece welcomed the crowd that had gathered in the newly reconstructed Panathenean Stadium to the modern-day Olympic Summer Games.

The event was the idea of Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France who traveled the world to gather support for his dream to have nations come together and overcome national disputes, all in the name of sport.

The program for the Games included track and field, fencing, weightlifting, rifle and pistol shooting, tennis, cycling, swimming, gymnastics, and wrestling. Although 14 nations participated, most of the athletes were Greek.

The Games reached their high point on Day 11 with the first modern-day marathon. The idea to hold an event to commemorate the Ancient Olympic games was suggested by a friend of de Coubertin and was met with great anticipation. The race was run from Marathon to Athens (estimated at 22–26 miles), watched by more than 100,000 people and won by a Greek runner, Spiridon Louis.

Read more: The First Modern Olympics: Athens, 1896 http://www.infoplease.com/spot/summer-olympics-athens.html#ixzz3PrJPPU5z

Greek Marathon Runners 1896

1896 Olympics

Across Europe, the nation-state was asserting its power over ordinary citizens in a deeper and harsher way than ever before, with governments seizing taxes and young men for conscription at an unprecedented rate. In response, there was a growing anarchist movement that simply said that the state was illegitimate, and should be disbanded.

The term "anarchist" had originally been an insult, but, in 1840, a French provincial printer's assistant called Pierre-Joseph Proudhon picked it up and wore it with pride. He said if governments were disbanded, people would organise themselves into peaceful democratic communes that would run their own affairs, without police or laws or taxes. It was the state – with its apparatus of coercion and violence – that made people bad. Remove the state, and you would have a natural order at last, based on personal freedom. Law is tyranny; property is theft. In a society where the emaciated poor were routinely being worked to death, it was an appealing message.

ANARCHISM

Anarchist Michael Bakunin (Russia)

Bakunin believed that small groups of well trained, fanatical could perpetuate enough violence that the state and all of its institutions would disintegrate.

“Weapons will cease to be the measure of strength and gold a measure of wealth...such a world is called “Anarchy”. It will have no castles, no places for masters and slaves. Life will be open to all. Everyone will take what they need-this is the anarchist ideal. And when it comes about, men will live wisely and well.”

Anarchists used assassination as their primary instrument of terror and supposed change. Alexander II of Russia, The King of Italy (1900) and President William McKinley (1901) of the United States and President Carnot of France (1894) were all assassinated by anarchists.