What were the causes and results of the American Revolution, and what impact did it have on Europe?
The American Revolution was because the colonists believed that neither the King nor Parliament had any right to interfere in their internal affairs and that no tax could be levied without the consent of an assembly whose members actually represented the people.
The result of the American Revolution was independence from Britain. The new governing body in America followed enlightenment ideals like Montesquieu's separation of power and Locke's natural rights.
The impact from this lit the spark in the French Revolution. The news of the American Revolution was printed everywhere in books, newspapers, and magazines. This proved to many Europeans that the liberal political ideas of the Enlightenment were not the vapid utterances of intellectuals. They were not utopian ideals. The Americans had created a new social contract, embodied it in a written constitution, and made the concepts of liberty and representative government a reality.
What were the long range AND immediate causes of the French Revolution? Think about political, economic, and social factors.
One long range cause was that the Third Estate (peasants) were sick of doing all the work and paying all the taxes while they were the poorest.
One immediate cause was the food shortage which caused all the peasants to starve.
What were the main events of the French Revolution between 1789 and 1799?
Actions taken during the moderate phase:
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
The principles of this document inspired the French Revolution. It defined individual and collective rights for men.
Civil Constitution of the Clergy
This was a law passed during the French Revolution that caused the immediate subordination of the Catholic Church in France to the French government.
Constitution of 1791
Short-lived French constitution created by the National Assembly during the French Revolution. Concepts such as adopting constitutionality and establishing popular sovereignty were found in this document. It kept the monarchy, but sovereignty resided in the Legislative Assembly.
Abolition of provinces and division of France into departments
In 1790, the National Assembly abolished the old provincial divisions replacing them with 84 departments of limited power and roughly equal size. The departments also served as ecclesiastical dioceses.
Female involvement in the revolution:
October March on Versailles
The Women's March on Versailles was the earliest and most significant events of the French Revolution. It have revolutionaries confidence in the power of the people over the king. In 1789, the main food of the third estate was bread. The poor French economy led to a scarcity of bread and high prices. Women demanded bread for their families and the King agreed to give all the bread in Versailles to the crowd.
Olympe de Gouges
Best known for her political writing during the French Revolution, she wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen in which she pleaded against slavery and the death penalty and called for a form of welfare state, trial by jury, and reasonable divorce laws to protect women and children from penury.
Society of Republican Revolutionary Women
The most famous female-led revolutionary organization during the French Revolution which managed to draw significant interest within the national political scene, and advocated for gender equality in revolutionary politics.
Contributions of radical Jacobin leaders and institutions
Georges Danton
He's described as "the chief force in the overthrow of the French monarchy and the establishment of the first French Republic.
Jean-Paul Marat
Journalist and politician during the French Revolution. He was a vigorous defender of the sans-culottes and seen as a radical voice.
Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety gained virtual dictatorial control over France during the Reign of Terror mainly due to Robespierre being elected to it.
Maximilien Robespierre
He was the architect of the Reign of Terror in France. He represented the Third Estate advocating for basic human rights for all. He also opposed the death penalty for many years. When he was elected to the Committee of Public Safety, he started the Reign of Terror during which the committee exercised dictatorial control over the French government.
Levee en masse
French term used for a policy of mass national conscription, often in the face of invasion. It denotes a short-term requisition of all able-bodied men to defend the nation and based upton the concept of the democratic citizen versus the royal subject.
Reign of Terror
After the First French Republic was created, the Reign of Terror, orchestrated by Robespierre, was started. This was the day when revolutionaries "crushed and eliminated" all revolutionary opposition.
de-Christianization
This term related to the conventional description of the results of a number of separate policies conducted by various governments of France between the start of the French Revolution in 1789 and the Concordat of 1801. This expression of revolutionary terror in the struggle against the counter-revolutionary clergy rather than actions of an atheist state policy, although it did have some antireligious elements.
Toussaint L'Ouverture's slave rebellion in Haiti
Haitian slaves hearing about the revolution in France got inspired by it. Toussaint L'Ouverture led a successful slave revolt and emancipated the slaves in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Santa Domingo, aka Haiti). He turned the colony into a country governed by black slaves as a nominal French protectorate and made himself ruler of the entire island of Hispaniola.
What role did each of the following play in the French Revolution:
Lawyers
Lawyers formulated a Constitution and set certain laws.
Peasants
The peasants had to pay heavy taxes and also in the estates general they were denied equal representation. This resulted in the rebellion of the peasants in the interior regions of France.
Women
During the French Revolution, the women who were supposed to be home bound started to demand equality and an end to patriarchy by carrying out agitations and forming women's clubs like Society for Revolutionary Republican Women.
Clergy
Responsible for most of the works in the society like education, keeping records. Also, it underwent de-Christianization during the French Revolution but writes back with the 1801 Concordat.
Jacobins
The French Revolution was dictated by the Jacobins, who put an end to the national convention and initiated the directory.
Sans-culottes
These were mostly the urban laborers who were the main driving force behind the French Revolution and they demanded direct democracy.
French Revolutionary Army
The characteristics of the French Revolutionary Army was their large numbers, poor equipment, and they revolutionary ardor.
Committee of Public Safety
The committee was responsible for the protection of France from the domestic and foreign powers and also led to the formation of the French Revolutionary Army.
Why did the French Revolution enter a radical phase and what did that radical phase accomplish?
It was an effort to restore the French rule and old government. The monarchy fell, the Jacobins took rule, national convention executed and put many on trail, and Robespierre began his Reign of Terror.
What aspects of the French Revolution did Napoleon preserve, and which did he destroy?
He kept the principle of equality of all citizens before law, abolition of serfdom and feudalism, religious tolerance, protection of property, and some equality. He took away some equality, divorce equality for men and women, liberty (benevolent despotism), shut down newspapers, manuscripts subjected to government scrutiny before published (freedom of press), mail opened by government police.
Explain the significance of each of the following:
Reforms under Napoleon
Careers open to talent instead of birth
This allowed every estate to be represented in the government. More representation reduced risk of revolt against Napoleon.
Educational system
Napoleon restarted primary schools, secondary schools (Lycees), and established many other schools for the general population. This increased literacy rates in both genders and allowed the third estate to get an education as well.
Centralized Bureaucracy
Napoleon centralized the government putting firm control in the hands of the national government which was more efficient.
Civil Code
First set of laws concerning property, colonial affairs, and the rights of the family and individuals. Still in use today, this made the authority of the men over their families stronger, deprived women of any individual rights, and reduced the rights of illegitimate children. All male citizens were also granted equal rights under the law and the right to religious dissent, but colonial slavery was reintroduced.
Concordat of 1801
Designed to regulate relations between Napoleon's France and the Catholic Church, it was made to redefine the status of the Roman Catholic Church in France and ending the breach caused by church reforms and confiscations enacted during the French Revolution.
Curtailment of Rights under Napoleon
Secret Police
Napoleon inherited two police forces from the Revolutionary governments: the Gendarmerie, which became a model police force throughout Europe, and the more infamous administrative police which was led by Fouche which extended Napoleon's reach into every aspect of French society through a vast network of spies.
Censorship
Napoleon devised a "system competent to curb the unbridled individualism that the Revolution evoked." Anything against his views was censored.
Limitation of women's rights
The Napoleonic Code of 1804 denied a woman of all civil and political rights, banished her from professions, and did not allow her even to enter into a contractual agreement without the written consent of her husband or father, much less to live outside of his domicile.
Nationalist Responses to Napoleon
Student protests in German states
Students wanted more change and to create a constitution for its people in the German Confederation.
Guerilla war in Spain
This refers to the armed actions carried out by non-regular troops against the Napoleon's Grand Armée in Spain and Portugal during the Peninsular War. The strain the guerrillas caused on the French troops led Napoleon to dub the conflict the "Spanish Ulcer."
Russian scorched earth policy
When Napoleon led his army into Russia, the desperate russians adopted this policy where whenever they retreated, the burned the places they left behind. Napoleon's army had trouble finding supplies and it grew progressively weaker the farther they marched.
New Military policy and tactics
Napoleonic tactics are characterized by intense drilling of the soldiers, speedy battlefield movement, combined arms assaults between infantry, cavalry, and artillery, relatively small numbers of cannon, short-range musket fire, and bayonet charges.
Explain the effects of Napoleon's rule on European social, economic, and political life.
The Napoleonic Code treated everybody equally, and it gave people who were poor a sense of hope that they could rise out of their condition of poverty. Napoleon also believed in treating the people he conquered fairly. This helped people in places he conquered less likely to revolt against him.
Napoleon helped the economy by building public works such as canals, controlling prices, and encouraging new industries.
Napoleon allowed people to be in the government based on merit and not genetics which gave more representation to the Third Estate. This also helped his government as he could make the best decisions for all 3 social classes.
How did the ideals of the Enlightenment affect the French Revolution and/ or Napoleon?
The ideas of the Enlightenment emphasized the rights of common men as opposed to the exclusive rights of the elites. As such, they laid the foundation for modern, rational, democratic societies.
The Napoleonic Code was largely influenced by Napoleon's interpretation of the French Revolution which was built upon the ideals of the Enlightenment.