*The French Revolution may have spread a desire for democracy, but it also spread the idea of nationalism—a love for one's nation, one's ethnic group, one's people-what the Germans called the Volk.  In part, this was a response to France's efforts to spread their laws and ideas through military might—the nations they conquered developed a stronger sense of self-identity while resisting the French.

*Nationalists glorified every aspect of their nation—its history, its folk-tales (literally, tales of the people), even its language.  The most famous nationalists of early 19th century Germany were Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.  They are most famous in most of the world for travelling around Germany collecting traditional folk-tales, legends, myths, and fairy-tales, all of which were important parts of German culture that they wanted to publish both to preserve and to use to promote the idea of a common German culture and identity.  However, they also began compiling the definitive Germany dictionary (they began working in 1838 and their successors did not complete the 33 volume, 175 pound work until 1960) and contributed significantly to the study of the German language (and to philology in general).

*The Freikorps of the Napoleonic Wars also promoted nationalism. They had fought for Germany as a whole, and they now wanted a united Germany, and, almost as important, a democratic one, or at least a constitutional monarchy such as the one they say developing in Britain.  From the uniform Lützow Freikorps came the colours of German nationalism, Black, Red, and Gold.

*Because some of the earliest outspoken supporters of democratic nationalism were students and professors, and one student went so far as to murder a conservative writer named Kotzebue, German governments began to curtail academic freedom.  In 1820, Prince Metternich issued the Carlsbad Decrees, which broke up Burshenshaften, University societies, censored the press, and inspected universities.  However, this just forced many democrats to begin operating in secret.  Of course, that was just in Austria; other countries would do otherwise, and that was one great impediment to German nationalism.

*Many Germans (and other nationalities) wanted to unite under one government, to have one unified state for their nationality: a nation-state.  However, German-speaking peoples were divided into about 40 countries (including Switzerland), or more, and the most powerful among them each wanted to control any unified Germany that might emerge.  The most powerful of all were Prussia and Austria, although Bavaria was also influential, as were the Kings of Denmark, the Netherlands, and (until the reign of Queen Victoria) the United Kingdom, each of whom controlled some land within the German Confederation.

*The German Confederation, in which each member state had a vote (except the four free cities, who shared one vote) had little political power, and was mostly the scene of power struggles between Austria and Prussia.  However, in 1834, Prussia would create the Zollverien, or customs union, reducing or removing tariffs and other trade barriers between member states (but not against outsiders).  This encouraged trade and industry (helping build up a middle class, who went on to support nationalism and democracy) and unity.  Eventually pretty much all German-speaking states joined (except Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and, most importantly, Austria).

*Austria did not join the Zollverien partly because Prussia felt its economy (in which many industries were run by the state) was too backwards, partly because Prussia deliberately wanted Austria excluded, and partly because Austria had no use for nationalism of any kind.

*Austrians were Germans, but the Austrian empire contained members of over a dozen nationalities:  Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Lithuanians, Czechs, Slovaks, Romanians, Croats, Slovenes, Bosnians, Serbs, Italians, Ukrainians, Russians, and more.  Any group that agitated for its own nation state would cause friction and even civil war with the others.

*As different nationalities developed stronger cultural identities, they began to seek either political unity (if their nation was split into many states) or independence (if they were controlled by another state).

*In 1830 there were revolutions in France, in Belgium (a Catholic country controlled by the Protestant Dutch), in Greece, and in Poland. 

*In France, people were weary of Charles X, younger brother of Louis XVI, in part because they felt he was trying to overstep the limits placed on him by the French Constitution.  Among other things he made laws to please the Church, he censored the press, and he abolished the National Guard of Paris.  In the July Revolution he was overthrown and replaced by a distant cousin, Louis-Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, a Bourbon descended from the second son of Louis XIII.  Louis-Philippe was known as the Citizen King, and crowned, not King of France, but King of the French—a king for the French people because they wanted him, not because he owned the country.  He brought back the Revolutionary Tricolour flag and ruled as a constitutional monarch.

*The Belgian Revolution succeeded and the Kingdom of Belgium's independence was guaranteed by a treaty backed up by the UK.

*Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire was recognised in 1830 after nine years of fighting for it.

*The November Uprising in Poland was an attempt by Poles and Lithuanians to win independence from Russia, partly in response to restrictions on freedom of the press and other liberties guaranteed to the Poles by the Congress of Vienna.  The November Uprising was crushed in 1831.

*1831 also saw an uprising by the Carbonari of Italy
(who had attempted an earlier uprising in 1820-21 that largely failed but did force the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to create constitutional monarchies).  They wanted a united, democratic Italy, free of foreign domination (because Austria ruled parts of northern Italy and most of southern Italy was ruled by Bourbons descended from the Kings of Spain).  The Carbonari were a secret society like the Freemasons, but in this case with their rituals organised around the old craft of charcoal selling.  They were defeated in 1831 by Austrian soldiers who came to protect the Papal States at the pope's request.  Almost a century later, in 1908, the related Carbonaria of Portugal would assassinate King Carlos I of Portugal, and two years later Portugal would become a republic.

*Although there were some nationalist successes in the early 1800s, particularly around 1830, the greatest wave of democratic nationalism would sweep across Europe in 1848, promising a new birth of culture, democratic government, and freedom.  The year of 1848 was to be the Springtime of Nations.