The War and the Second Revolution, 1792 Section 9.43: The Revolution and Europe.

The War and the Second Revolution, 1792

Section 9.43: The Revolution and Europe

The International Impact of the Revolution• Exporting the revolution

• Many members of the excluded classes (Silesian weavers, peasant farmers, even Prussian army officers) around Europe identified with the spirit of the revolution

• Anti Revolutionary sentiment– Burke argued that the French

Revolution was barbaric and urged England to adapt slowly to their English liberties

– Reflections on the Revolution in France 1790

• Predicted anarchy and dictatorship in France

• Said that every people must be shaped by its own national circumstances, history, character

• He recommended war as an ideological struggle

• Gustavus III (K. of Sweden) offered to lead a monarchist crusade

• Catherine of Russia denounced the French movement as one of “riffraff”

• Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette urged the nobility of Europe to help reinstate the Bourbon king

• Émigrés use connections around Europe to draw the nobility into their cause

• Lines are drawn in most western countries– Less so in eastern and

southern Europe

The International Impact of the Revolution

The Coming of the War, April 1792• European governments were slow to

move• But new govt. in France openly

encouraged revolution in other parts of Europe

• France acted in a unilateral fashion– Annexed Avignon at the local

revolutionaries’ request– Banned feudalism and manorial

dues in Alsace– offered the German princes

compensation but did not consent with them

• Kept the King and Queen of France as prisoners

Conciergerie prison in Paris

Declaration of Pillnitz• Austria and Leopold II

– Meet with the king of Prussia at Pillnitz

• Leopold would take military steps to restore order in France if all the other powers would join him

– Leopold believed England would never join

– He believed his efforts would quell the demands of the émigrés

• Net effect is the outrage of the French– Pushes the Girondins (aka Jacobins)

to the advanced position in the leadership of France

Leopold II

Exporting the Revolution• Girondins became the party of

international revolution– Export the revolution to undercut

the Conservative Reaction– believe that the Rev. will not be

safe unless its spreads all over the world

– believe that invading French armies would be welcomed

• Lafayette and the military feel war might help stabilize the monarchy and hold the line of the revolution at limited monarchy

• 4/1792 the Assembly declares war on the Austrian monarchy

Lafayette

Edmund Burke

The Second Revolution: August 10, 1792• War aggravates the un-propertied

classes– Peasants and urban workers are

dissatisfied with the provisional governments

– Unfair land distribution– Inflation– assignats are losing value– Food is being hoarded in the rural

areas• Return of the Old Regime is worst

possibility and the un-propertied classes rally around the Revolution in spite of their dissatisfaction with the Legislative Assembly

• war was not going well in summer of ’92– Prussia and Austria about to invade

France

Brunswick Manifesto July 1792• Prussia and Austria declare they will

invade and exact a severe retribution on the citizens of Paris if anything happens to Louis XVI

• Threats from external forces enrage and fuel the fires of agitators

• Robespierre, Danton, and Marat fuel the hysteria

• Turn against the king and move toward republicanism

• Paris becomes politically unstable• Radical revolutionaries are

streaming into Paris, singing the Marseillaise, a fierce call to war upon tyranny

Marat

War Begins

Louis Capet, Prisoner of Revolution• Aug 10, 1792

– masses storm Tuilieries, massacre Swiss Guard and seize the royal family

• They move against the Legislative Assembly– End monarchy– suspend the Constitution– Declare universal male

suffrage– Set up a Commune in Paris– Set up a National

Convention to draft a more democratic constitution

September Massacre• Insurrectionary leaders

lead a massacre against the enemies of the revolution– hold drumhead trials and

massacre 1, 100 people (refractory priests, royalists)

• The threat of war destabilized the first phase of the revolution and the dissatisfaction of the lower classes unleashed the second French Revolution

September Massacre