As conservative regimes tried to consolidate their power, liberalism and nationalism came to be increasingly associated with revolution in many regions of Europe such as the Italian and German states, the provinces of Ottoman Europe, Ireland and Poland.

These revolutions were led by the liberal nationalists belonging to the educated middle class elite.

Among them, there were professors, school-teachers, clerks and members of the commercial middle classes, who all believed in liberal nationalism and wanted to fight for it.