Concept:
- A useful way to judge the claim is to ask what a nation needs in order to exist, and then check whether the Revolution supplied each of those things.
- A nation needs sovereign people, a shared identity, uniform rules, a common language and a sense of mission. The Revolution supplied all five.
Step 1: A nation needs the people to hold power.
Under the old order France belonged to its king. The Revolution ended that by shifting sovereignty from the monarchy to the body of French citizens, declaring that the people themselves would constitute the nation and shape its destiny.
Without this first change nothing else would count as nationalism.
Step 2: A nation needs a shared sense of belonging.
The revolutionaries built one deliberately. The terms la patrie and le citoyen expressed the idea of a united community with equal rights, the tricolour flag replaced the royal one, the National Assembly was chosen by active citizens, and hymns, oaths and remembered martyrs gave people common emotions.
Step 3: A nation needs to function as one unit.
Administration was centralised and uniform laws were made for all citizens. Internal customs duties and dues were removed, and one system of weights and measures was adopted throughout the country.
A merchant could now trade from one end of France to the other without crossing internal barriers.
Step 4: A nation needs a common medium of expression.
Regional dialects were set aside in favour of French as spoken and written in Paris, which became the national language.
This allowed people from distant provinces to read the same newspapers, follow the same debates and think of themselves as one people.
Step 5: A nation defines itself against the outside world.
The revolutionaries claimed a mission to free the peoples of Europe from despotism. Jacobin clubs appeared in other cities, and French armies entering Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and much of Italy in the 1790s carried the idea of the nation abroad.
The example set in 1789 therefore became the model that later national movements followed.
Final Answer: Judged against everything a nation requires, the Revolution of 1789 supplied it all at once. That is why it stands as the first clear expression of nationalism in Europe.