Daily Beam Blog

In the political life of Europe as a whole, the decline of idealism after 1848 was related to an increasing cynicism in international relations- a so-called ‘Realpolitik’. European arteries hardened after the revolutions, and a succesion of wars ensued peace between and within the nations. Underlying many of these struggles was increasing friction between the strengthening national identities of the Germans and the Slavs; and underlying that was an irreconcilable tension between Nationalist aspirations and the long-established and still powerful dynastic principle. With World War I, the dynasty finally collapsed, along with the Hohenzollerns and their neighbours the Romanovs, the first victims of a socialist revolution.