Nationalism represents the political sovereignty of a nation as defined in linguistic, ethnic and/or cultural terms together with the unity of the nation’s people and its territory. In the Habsburg Monarchy and in Germany nationalistic aspirations had grown out of the ideas of the French Revolution and the ‘Wars of Liberation’ against Napoleon. The awakening of national sentiments in the peoples of the Monarchy led to resistance against imperial rule, which was increasingly felt to be colonial or foreign in character.