The battles of Tours and Lepanto were not fought by English forces, so we can rule these two answer choices out immediately. The battles of the Somme and Trafalgar were fought during World War One and the Napoleonic Wars, respectively, and so came too late to be part of the rise of English nationalism. The Battle of Agincourt, which took place during the Hundred Years’ War with the French, happened in the fifteenth century and so came at the perfect time to be incorporated into the rise of nationalism in England. It helped solidify what it meant to be English, as opposed to French, and led to the rise of self-identifying nationalist ethnicity among the English people.

Realpolitik was the primary political philosophy of the German unifying leader Otto von Bismarck. Realpolitik is based around a pragmatic application of political power, or political power wielded outside of ideological, religious, or ethnic motivation.

Many European nation-states coalesced around ethnic identity and shared cultural heritage. The Spanish nation-state coalesced around both of these, but also around the religion of Catholicism. Protestantism was almost non-existent in Spain and those who adhered to either Islam or Judaism were either banished or forcefully converted to Catholicism during the formation of the Spanish nation-state.

Giuseppe Garibaldi never proposed the idea of incorporating the Northern Italian States into the Austrian Empire. He led the "Red Shirts" in a military campaign which led to the unification of his conquered area with that ruled by Victor Emanuel.

The taking of Venice by the forces of the Kingdom of Italy in 1866 as part of the Third War of Italian Independence was a key moment in the process of Italian unification. The absorption of the papal states by Italy after the Capture of Rome in 1870 also resulted in the period from 1870 to 1829 during which the pope refused to acknowledge the loss of his temporal power, and was thus described as the “prisoner in the Vatican.” The Expedition of the Thousand red shirts destroyed the power of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and created the Kingdom of Italy. The Conte di Cavour’s alliance with France led to victory at the Battle of Solferino and the consolidation of Piedmont-Sardinia, the state largely responsible for Italy’s formation. Cesare Borgia was a 16th century statesman idolized by Machiavelli.

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, was the cry of French Nationalists during the French Revolution. Prior to the French Revolution, French nobility attempted to rule an industrializing country with a feudal mindset. The new concept of nationalism emerged when the French people decided that loyalty to their country was superior to loyalty to their lords, desiring equality for all, even by force.

Otto von Bismarck, a Prussian nobleman, undertook the unification of the German states through a series of consolidating wars. He ruled Germany alongside Wilhelm I as Chancellor from 1871 to 1890. Wilhelm II ruled Germany from 1891-1902. Otto von Hapsburg was the Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary. Lech Walesa was the President of Poland and a prominent human rights advocate. Johann Gottfried Herder was an 18th century poet and philosopher.

Before World War I, the Prussian influence was greatly felt in Germany, and Prussia was still regarded as a powerful political and military force. The United States supported the unification of Germany, which strengthened Otto von Bismarck's power and came about after the Franco-Prussian war.

Prussia was created by a Grand Master of the Teutonic Order who was a member of the Hohenzollern family, the family that would go on to rule Prussia and Germany. He did this by declaring the crusade of the Teutonic order over and secularized the army and nation.

Prussia's rise to power was due to the savvy and intelligent rule of its ruler from the Great Elector through Frederick I (the Great). It was also due its maintenance of a large and effective standing army which the aforementioned rulers had been careful to create. Prussia lacked good soil, extensive mineral wealth, great size or manpower, and had little to no naval tradition.