nation imposing its will and its "culture" upon other nations, or it may
assume the proportions of that highest type of polity yet known to mankind,
a commonwealth of nations freely associating together within the confines
of a single sovereign State.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Chapter IX. for further treatment of this.]


§2. _The Birth of Nationalism: Poland and the French Revolution_.--With
these general principles in mind let us now consider the national idea at
work in the nineteenth century. Nations, in the sense just defined, have
of course long existed in Europe. England, Scotland, and Switzerland are
nations whose life-histories date right back to the Middle Ages. Joan of
Are was a nationalist, and France has been a nation since the end of the
Hundred Years' War in 1453. Spain became a nation a few years later by the
expulsion of the Moors and the union of Castille and Aragon under Ferdinand
and Isabella. Holland, again, acquired her national freedom in her great
struggle against Spain in the sixteenth century. But it was not until the
end of the eighteenth century that nationalism became a real force in
Europe, an idea for which men died and in whose name monarchies were
overthrown. "In the old European system," writes Lord Acton, "the rights of
nationalities were neither recognised by governments nor asserted by the
people. The interest of the reigning families, not those of the nations,
regulated the frontiers, and the administration was conducted generally
without any reference to popular desires. Where all liberties were
suppressed, the claims of national independence were necessarily ignored,
and a princess, in the words of Fénelon, carried a monarchy in her wedding
portion."[1] The State was, in short, regarded as a purely territorial
affair; it was the property, the _landed_ property, of the monarch, who in
his capacity of owner controlled the destinies of the people who happened