- By the last quarter of the 19th century , nationalism no longer retained its idealistic liberal - domestic sentiment of the first half of the century rather it became a narrow creed with limited ends .
- During this period nationalist groups became intolerant of each other and went on a lot of wars and using this as an advantage , the major European powers manipulated the nationalist aspirations of the subject people in Europe to further their own imperialist aims .
- One such example of nationalistic tension that rose after 1871 was in the area called as the Balkans. Slavs were the residents of the Balkans and they consisted of people from various geographical and ethnic backgrounds .
- This included people from modern - day Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia - Herzegovina, Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro and the region was ruled by the Ottoman empire.
- People from this region then started demanding independence from the oppression by using their historical references and this resulted in a lot of revolts taking place.
- This made the Balkans an area of intense conflict.
