Protecting a Nation

The essential question from class was, What makes a nation? To what extend have people in history gone to defend their nation?  How far should people be willing to go for their nation? To learn more about this question in class we learned about the United states, Germany and Italy and how far they are willing to go to protect their nation.

The United States should be considered a nation because they were bound together by shared culture and language and that is the definition of a nation. Since the United States were a new nation there were a couple threats to their national security, one of which was the Holy Alliance of the Europeans powers. As Monroe stated that any European power were to, "Extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety".(Monroe's woes) Monroe is stating that if the European powers tried to extend their power in this part of the hemisphere that the United States would find it a threat to their national security. Monroe said that he will not mess with the Europeans power's existing colonies as long as they keep out of the new Latin American colonies. If Europe decided to attack the new Latin American colonies, the United States finds it an attack on them and they are allowed to use their military power to fight back. President Monroe was so willing to protect the United State's national security that he formed an alliance with Britain in case they go to war with the Holy Alliance and that was how far President Monroe was willing to go to protect the new nation.

Across the pond in Europe during the 1800's Italy and Germany started to consider themselves a new nation. Germany was made up of 39 states organized by the German Confederation that was run by Prussia and Austria. Prussia wanted to become a unified nation but out breaks of revolutions kept getting in the way. Bismarck was appointed the new minister and he could not get the influence from the Austrians to become a new nation so he started a war with France called the, Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871. As stated in the article, " The south German states were obliged to ally with Prussia against France in this conflict, and Austria was too weak to participate". This forced the people who did not want to be united to fight WITH the people who want to be united. After the Prussian victory they were identified the ruler of the German states and after a couple of years Bismarck was able to coexist all the states with a imperial parliament. In other countries like Italy, they also wanted to be unified. After Napoleon's rule ended the Holly Alliance broke apart the land that Napoleon controlled  and gave it back and made it a monarch, but instead the people of those lands wanted to be one unified nation without monarchs instead by a liberal constitution. Austria controlled most the land that Italy owned and was not willing to give it back. Instead Italy started revolting and started to fight against the Austrian dominance to get their freedom back. As one Italian said, I will not say of country or of liberty – but an idea that we Italians could and ought to struggle for the liberty of our country",  this quote is explaining that he is willing to fight for his liberty and that other Italians should too. After years of fighting the last Italian states were free from Austrian Dominance, Venice in 1866 and the Papal States in 1870. What we learned from the German and Italian fight for unification is that their leaders are willing to risk the lives of their people by fighting revolts and wars just to get the freedom and unification they deserve.

I absolutely agree with every decision that the leaders we studied made the right decision. I think individuals should be willing to do anything to protect their nation and willing to sacrifice anything.  For myself I would be willing to make any and every sacrifice to protect my nation.

Sources:
 Italy: http://www.edline.net/files/_6TKkB_/3efb40601739875f3745a49013852ec4/Italian_unification_overview.pdf
Germany:
http://www.edline.net/files/_6TKkb_/d6d88cb77903ec1a3745a49013852ec4/German_unification_overview.pdf
United States:
http://www.edline.net/files/_6TKiQ_/03d8e15f28b67b443745a49013852ec4/Unit_3_Lesson_1_Lesson_Notes.pdf