No political force in the nineteenth century was stronger than nationalism. It replaced dynastic loyalty with loyalty based on ethnic considerations. In 1835 the Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872) explained his understanding of the concept.
The essential characteristics of a nationality are common ideas, common principles and a common purpose. A nation is an association of those who are brought together by language, by given geographical conditions or by the role assigned them by history, who acknowledge the same principles and who march together to the conquest of a single definite goal under the rule of a uniform body of law.
