French period

Disquiet about mass-conscription (the levée en masse) also trigged an uprising, known as the Peasants' War, in 1798 within modern-day Belgium and Luxembourg.

In Germany, Napoleon formed two new states, the Grand Duchy of Berg and the Kingdom of Westphalia, which he gave to his general Joachim Murat and his brother Jerome Bonaparte, respectively.

In Prussia, which was not part of the French-dominated Confederation of the Rhine, but still occupied by France, this created a dynamic towards constitutional, political, social, and military reform which would prove critical during the Liberation War.

The many regions with their various dialects found in the struggle against the French occupation "German" as a common definition of anti-French sentiment or freedom.

After the Vormärz period, the desire for freedom from the government was suppressed, until the March Revolution in 1848 and the formation of the first German parliament, though not all German-speaking territories were involved.