In the late Middle Ages (c.1100-1500) and the Early Modern Period (c.1500-1789), the rulers of France, Spain, and Great Britain expanded their powers and created nation - states. Such a process of "nation-building" did not take place in Italy or Germany. By the Early 19th century, Nationalism had taken hold in the German Territories and the Italian Peninsula. Individuals in these two places sought out to create nation-states that would unite all Italians or all Germans under a political sovereignty, since they shared common culture and feared Foreign Domination. We can see the desire for a unified Italy in Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince. The Process of national unification would have a tremendous impact on the future course of European History.

The Crimean War resulted in the formation of centralized states in both Italy and Germany, it was a critical component for the formation of these centralized states. Such a result was not foreseen when the war began in 1854. The main issue of the war was the fear amongst the British and French statesmen that the Ottoman weakness was encouraging Russian adventurism in the Balkans, and also the possibility that the Russians might gain access to the Mediterranean by getting the port city of Istanbul. After the Ottomans lost in a Naval War against the Russians, who they had declared war in 1853 - with British encouragement - France and Great Britain declared war on Russia. Most of the fighting took place in the Crimean region, and is remembered because of the incompetence of all of the players. Most of the 500,000 casualties did not die in the battlefield but rather because of disease in filthy field hospitals, this inspired Florence Nightingale to revolutionize the nursing profession. The war ended when the Russian fortress at Sevastopol fell. Russia was forced to cede some territories on the Danube River, and banned war ships in the Black Sea region. Real result of the War: The Concert of Europe - the idea that the great powers (Great Britain, France, Prussia, Russia, and Austria) should work together, a concept that came out of the Congress of Vienna - was shattered. This was the first European War since the Napoleonic Era. The British became isolationists. All of this added together meant that when Austria was opposed to the building of states in Germany and Italy, it received no support from a defeated Russia, and when France confronted Prussia in 1870, it didn't receive sympathy from across the English Channel.

Italian Unification is referred to in Italian as the Risorgimento. The architect of it was Count Camillo di Cavour the chief minister to the King of Piedmont-Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel. Cavour did not romanticize Italian Unification like Giuseppe Mazzini, but rather was more practical and his primary concerns was to increase the power of Sardinia. Cavour entered into a secret alliance with France, to kick out Austria from Italy, since he knew that the only way that Italian unification could take place is by kicking out the Austrians. Cavour maneuvered Sardinia, and Sardinia entered the Crimean War on the side of the British and French, Napoleon III was respectful of Sardinia. The war began in April 1859. French-Sardinian troops won a number of battles but Napoleon decided to abort the conflict before expelling the Austrians from all of Italy. He did not like the high number of Casualties, and feared the threat posed by Prussia who was poised to enter the war on the Austrian side. Cavour was mad at Napoleon. To Cavour and Napoleon's surprise, the war sparked popular rebellions against the Austrians throughout Italy. Tuscany, Parma, and Modena joined the Sardinians. In southern Italy, Giuseppe Garibaldi threatened to attack France over the loss of Savoy and Nice - a clause that was included in the Sardinian-French treaty. Cavour instead encouraged Garibaldi to invade the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Garibaldi led his famous 1,000 "red shirts" army and conquered this southern Italian Kingdom, which was ruled by the Bourbons. Cavour fell threatened by the victories of the Romantic Garibaldi, since Garibaldi could set out to unify Italy under his own pretenses instead of that that Cavour wanted for Piedmont. Thus Cavour turned on Garibaldi. Cavour rushed troops to Naples to block Garibaldi, and moved Sardinian Troops into all the lands controlled by the Pope except in Rome. This was followed by the declaration of Victor Emmanuel as the first King of Italy on March 17, 1861. Rome was added to Italy in 1870 and was named its new capital. The new Italy, to the abhorrence of the Romantic Garibaldi, was a cold Bureaucracy led by officials from Sardinia. To this day an economic divide exists in Italy between the north of Italy, which is highly industrialized and the more economically backward south. The Church was mad with this whole idea of "Italy" since it undermined its power. The Church banned Catholics from participation in national elections, a ban that was widely ignored. In fact, the Church would not fully reconcile with the Italian state until 1929, when Mussolini agreed to restore the sovereignty of Vatican City to the Papacy.

Rise of unified Germany altered balance of power in Europe thanks to the great military and economic strength of the new state. In 1848, it appeared as if German Unification was reached when the Frankfurt Parliament offered the crown to the King of Prussia, but Frederick William's refusal delayed the process. Prussia had a number of significant advantages. Prussia, thanks to the Zollverein had achieved economic preeminence over the other member states, Prussia also achieved a significant measure of Industrialization. Most importantly, Prussia had one of the most remarkable statesmen of the 19th century, Otto von Bismarck. When William I took the throne of Prussia in 1861, he made the most important decision for German unification when he named Bismarck as his Prime Minister. Bismarck was a member of Junker who was known for his arch-conservative views. Bismarck delivered his famous "Blood and Iron" speech: "Germany is not looking to Prussia's liberalism but to her power. The great questions of our time will not be decided by speeches and majority resolutions - that was the mistake of 1848-9 - but by Iron and Blood." Bismarck needed to modernize the Prussian army by giving them the latest weapons. In 1864, he entered an alliance with Austria against Denmark, over the territories of Schleswig and Holstein. Schleswig came under Prussian control, while Holstein came under Austrian Control. His first stage of the plan: war with Austria. In 1866 after securing an alliance with Italy - to remove Austria - and securing a promise of non-participation from the French - Prussia under the orders of the Prime Minister declared war on Austria, citing disputes over Holstein as a reason for the attack. Prussian forces brought upon the defeat of Austria in a matter of 7 weeks. Bismarck wisely treated Austria with leniency to keep them out of the next stage of his plan: war with France. After the defeat of Austria he annexed the small German states in the north that supported Austria. Other German states were convinced to join Prussia in the creation of the North German Confederation. The states of southern Germany concluded a military alliance with Prussia in case of French aggression. In 1870, Bismarck provoked war with France. Bismarck made it to seem as if France was the outward aggressor in a conflict that began when a prince, who was a kinsman of the Prussian King (Hohenzollern) was invited to take the throne of Spain. To Napoleon III, the thought of having Hohenzollerns on two fronts was too much to bear. Napoleon III thought he had won when he removed the name of his cousin for heir apparent to the Spanish throne. Yet Bismarck who wanted war, rewrote the "Ems Dispatch" a telegram sent by the Prussian King to Bismarck informing him of what had happened between the King and the French ambassador, to make it look like as if the King had insulted France. The French were pissed off and by popular demand, Napoleon III declared war on Prussia. At Sedan, France, the "finest army in the world" was defeated by Prussia. On January 18, 1871, William I was proclaimed German Emperor in the Palace of Versailles. The Creation of Germany completely changed the direction of European History. The economic power of Germany posed a threat to that of Great Britain, and Germany had greatly alienated France, not only because of its defeat but by also having the "nerve" to crown the German Emperor in the Palace of Versailles, the Mecca of French Absolutism. Bismarck in the domestic front was not as successful as in his foreign policy. He alienated Catholics and Socialists, yet it backfired since it merely increased its appeal.