We discussed good and bad aspects of nationalism in class last Friday, 9/24. Today we looked at the growth of nationalism throughout Europe and the Americas in the 1800s. It shaped countries by creating new ones or breaking up old ones. In Europe, it also upset something called the "balance of power." Empires in Europe were made up of many different groups of people. Nationalism fed the desire of most of those groups to be free of the rule of empires and govern themselves in their traditional lands. During the 1800s, nationalism fueled efforts to build nation-states. Nationalists were not loyal to kings and queens, but to their people. Three aging empires, the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the Hapsburgs, the Russian Empire of the Romanovs and the Ottoman Empire of the Turks, contained a mixture of ethnic groups. As nationalism emerges in the 19th and into the 20th centuries, ethnic unrest threatened and eventually toppled these empires. In 1900, the Austro-Hungarian Empire dominated most of eastern Europe. After WWI, it broke into many different nation-states. During WWI, the Russian Empire of the Romanovs toppled after 370 years. The Ottoman Empire also broke up after WWI, altering the maps of Europe and the Middle East. While nationalism destroyed empires, it could also build nations. In 1870, Italy emerged as a nation built from crumbling empires. Between 1862 - 1871, Prussian Prime Minister Otto Von Bismarck, unified over 12 German states, and gained land through wars with Austria, Denmark and France to form the nation of Germany. By 1871, Britian and Germany were the two most powerful European nations with other nations lagging behind. The European balance of power had broken down.