Giuseppe Mazzini was an Italian revolutionary, born in Genoe in 1807. Giuseppe Mazzini had sought to put together a coherent programme for a unitary Italian Republic. He had become a member of the secret society of the Carbonari. At a young age of 24, he was sent into exile in 1831 for attempting a revolution in Liguria. He, subsequently, founded two underground societies, first, Young Italy in Marseilles, and then, Young Europe in Berne, whose members were like-minded young men from Poland, France, Italy and the German states. Mazzini believed that God had intended nations to be the natural units of mankind. So Italy could not continue to be a patchwork of small states and kingdoms. It had to be forged into a single unified republic within a wider alliance of nations. This unification alone could be the basis of Italian liberty. Following his model, secret societies were set-up in Germany, France, Switzerland and Poland. Mazzini’s relentless opposition to monarchy and his vision of democratic republic frightened the conservatives. Metternich (monarch rule of Austria) described him as ‘the most dangerous enemy of existing social order’.

Count Camillo de Cavour had led the movement to unify the regions of Italy. Count Cavour was neither a rovolutionary nor a democrat. Like many other wealthy and educated members of the Italian elite, he spoke French much better than he did Italian.

The Greek War of Independence was an event that had mobilised nationalist feelings among the educated elite across Europe. Greece had been part of the Ottoman Empire since the fifteenth century. The growth of revolutionary nationalism in Europe sparked off a struggle for independence amongst the Greeks which began in 1821. Nationalist in Greece got support from other Greeks living in exile and also from many Weat Europeans who had sympathies for ancient Greek culture. Poets and artists  lauded Greece as the cradle of European civilisation and mobilised public opinion to support its struggle against a Muslim empire. The English poet Lord Byron organised funds and later went to fight in the war. Finally, the Treaty of Constantinople of 1832 recognised Greece as an independent nation.

In the German regions a large number of political associations whose members were middle-class professionals, businessmen and prosperous artisans came together in the city of Frankfurt and decided to vote for an all-German National Assembly. On 18 May 1848, 831 elected representatives marched in a festive procession to take their places in the Frankfurt parliament convened in the church of St Paul. They drafted a constitution for a German nation to be headed by a monarchy subject to a parliament. While the opposition of the aristrocracy and military became stronger, the social basis of parliament eroded. In the end troops were called in and the assembly was forced to disband.