French Revolution and European Reaction

1
French Revolution and European Reaction

• Enlightenment to Congress of Vienna

2
The Enlightenment as a social and intellectual
movement impacted many segments of society. How
did this movement affect women in the elite
classes and the common women during the
revolutions?

• In England, educated middle-class women purchased
  and discussed the books and pamphlets of the era.
  
• Some were also important contributors to the
  intellectual life of the writers by raising the
  issue of rights of women.
• In Paris, wealthy women made their homes centers
  of debate, intellectual speculation, and free
  inquiry.
• Their salons brought together philosophers,
  social critics, artists, and members of the
  aristocracy and commercial elite.
• Women were powerfully affected by their
  participation in revolutionary politics, which in
  part resulted from Enlightenment thinking.
• During the American Revolution, women had led
  prewar boycotts and during the war had organized
  relief and charitable organizations.
  Nevertheless, they were denied political rights
  in the new republic.
• During the French Revolution, working-class and
  poor women were particularly affected by the
  prewar economic crises.
• French women faced the difficulties of feeding
  their familieses while facing high bread prices,
  and economic depression hit garment and other
  small businesses hard.
• Women were employed in these hard-hit industries.
  
• Market women organized a crowd of thousands to
  march to Versailles. Once there, they forced
  their way into the National Assembly to demand
  action.
• Therefore, the Enlightenment impacted women of
  both the elite and the poorer classes.
• Women of the elite participated in the debates
  and dissemination of Enlightenment thought,
  whereas poor women took Enlightenment inspiration
  to organize protests and boycotts.
• Unfortunately, their interest and participation
  was not recognized by their governments in the
  aftermath of the revolutions.
• Both elite and common women remain
  disenfranchised by the new constitutional
  governments in France and the United States until
  the twentieth century.

3
After defeating the French in North America in
1763, what two major problems did the British
face with respect to the American colonies?

• First, the possibility of armed conflict between
  colonists and Native Americans threatened to
  bankrupt the British government, which was
  already heavily in debt from European and
  colonial wars.
• Britain simply could not afford to defend the
  American colonies as adequately as the colonists
  demanded, if they continued to settle Amerindian
  land and provoke wars.
• In response, Britain passed the Proclamation of
  1763, which was supposed to prohibit colonists
  from crossing the Appalachian Mountains into
  Indian territory.
• The act was flouted quite openly by colonists,
  who viewed it as a repressive measure.
• The second major problem directly addressed
  financial mattersspecifically how to get the
  colonists to pay more of the expenses of
  governing and protecting them.
• many taxes were imposed on colonists toward this
  end, including the Sugar and Currency Acts of
  1764, the Stamp Act of 1765, and the Townsend
  duties in 1767.
• The result of those acts was the strengthening of
  colonial resolve, the unification of the formerly
  fragmented colonies in their common protest
  against perceived British oppression, and
  ultimately rebellion and revolution.

4
The armed forces of the American colonists were
small, poorly equipped, and often poorly led. How
were those colonists able to defeat Great
Britain, which ranked as one of the foremost
military powers in the world at that time?

• A wide variety of factors contributed to the
  American victory.
• British lines of communication and supply
  stretched across the ocean, whereas the colonists
  were fighting in their own backyards.
• New recruits and supplies for the Americans were
  close at hand.
• Although the British won most of the battles, the
  colonists were able to win a few key victories,
  such as the battle at Saratoga, New York.
• That victory was important because it brought the
  French into the conflict on the Americans side.
• Without the French, the Americans probably could
  not have won the war.
• The French supplied arms, powder, and cannon, in
  addition to many soldiers, advisers, and fleets
  of warships, which turned the tide against the
  British.
• Also significant was the debate within the
  British government and among the British public
  over the conduct of the war.
• The British received very little encouragement
  and much hindrance in their prosecution of the
  war.
• British indecision and ineptitude often made it
  difficult to pursue effective policies.

5
How were the revolutions of the eighteenth
century inspired by a body of new ideas? Discuss
Locke and Rousseau in your response.

• The Enlightenment emerged out of the Scientific
  Revolution.
• Enlightenment thinkers began to use reason and
  rational inquiry to examine the nature of society
  and therefore began to question the efficacy of
  the leadership of the nobility, monarchy, and the
  church.
• John Locke as well as Rousseau supported the
  ideas of natural rights, government as an
  instrument of the peoples will, and the right to
  rebellion.
• These ideas were made popular in the West due a
  high literacy rate and became well-known
  particularly to the middle class through essays
  by these thinkers in addition to newspapers.
• The popular protest of the eighteenth century was
  inspired in large part by these new ideas and the
  growing discontent of the population.

6
Describe the major wars fought among European
imperial powers in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries and identify the major consequences of
these wars.

• The colonial wars began in the seventeenth
  century, when the Netherlands attacked Spanish
  and Portuguese colonies worldwide. Great Britain
  also raided Spanish and Portuguese colonies,
  gaining a foothold overseas.
• The British then attacked the Dutch, whose waning
  influence drew Britain and France into a struggle
  for power and control. In the eighteenth century,
  the War of Spanish Succession brought all of the
  major powers into conflict, as did the War of
  Austrian Succession a few decades later.
• Another series of wars between France and Britain
  culminated in the Seven Years War, which ended in
  1763.
• When that war ended, Britain had gained control
  of all the French holdings in North America and
  most of French territory in India.
• Even though the economies of European countries
  were expanding because of the early stages of the
  Industrial Revolution, extensive colonial wars
  created an enormous fiscal crisis.
• The problems generated by that fiscal crisis
  helped spark the revolutionary era.

7
What were some of the reasons for the failure of
the French Revolution to initiate lasting
representative government for the rise of the
new dictatorship?

• The French Revolution led to several new
  constitutions and assemblies of representatives.
• Rebellious citizens often took over various
  proceedings to announce their will and exercise
  control.
• The economy was in terrible condition, and hunger
  and hardship forced a continuous cycle of reform
  and rebellion.
• The turning point was the Reign of Terror
  (17931794), led by Robespierre and Danton.
• Those most radical Jacobins seemed most
  sympathetic to the needs of the working class.
• Robespierres strength among working people
  allowed him to eliminate his political enemies
  40,000 people were killed and another 300,000
  imprisoned.
• When French armies defeated foreign invaders, the
  National Convention arrested Robespierre and his
  followers and executed them.
• After the Terror, the new government, the
  Directory, imposed a more conservative agenda.
• The Catholic Church regained its influenceif not
  its wealthand new voting restrictions tempered
  the power of the masses.
• Still, economic problems were rampant, and the
  nation had grown tired of the constant struggles
  and hardships.
• Napoleon stepped into the breach.
• By political compromise and promises of stability
  and peace, backed by the military strength to
  enforce them, Napoleon was swept into power.
• Napoleon also held out the promise of French
  superiority in Europe and won support from the
  church by instituting the Concordat of 1801
• Napoleon declared himself emperor in 1804

8
What was the nature of the fiscal crisis that
triggered the French Revolution?

• The expenses of a long series of European wars,
  beginning with the War of Austrian Succession
  (1740-1748), initiated the fiscal crisis.
• King Louis XV was rebuffed in his attempts to
  repeal tax exemptions of some favored groups.
• Imperial and expansionist/mercantilistic issues
  exacerbated the situation
• The Seven Years War (17561763) fought in both
  the Americas as the French and Indian Wars with
  the British over control of American territories
  and in South Asia fought for control of the
  resources in both South Asia and Southeast Asia
• Later, King Louis XVI was warned that the
  governments finances were stretched thin, but he
  plunged France into the American Revolution
  anyway.
• Renewed attempts to increase the nobilitys taxes
  met with frustration and political maneuvering by
  each side.
• When Louis called a meeting of the Estates
  General for the first time in 163 years, the
  opportunity existed for a combined front to
  resist governmental power and institute a
  constitutional monarchy.
• Besides the fiscal crisis within the French
  government, there was a growing crisis within
  French society.
• The nations poor were a large, growing, and
  troublesome sector. The poverty of peasant
  families forced younger children to seek seasonal
  work away from home and led many to crime and
  beggary. The urban streets swarmed with beggars
  and prostitutes.
• The wretchedness of the French poor is best
  indicated by the growing problem of child
  abandonment. Unable to afford decent housing,
  obtain steady work, or protect their children,
  the poor periodically erupted in violent protest.
  
• In the countryside violence was often the
  reaction when nobility and clergy increased dues
  and fees. In towns and cities an increase in the
  price of bread often provided the spark.
• A succession of bad harvests propelled bread
  prices upward and provoked an economic depression
  as demand for nonessential goods collapsed.
• By the time of the revolution, nearly a third of
  the Parisian workforce was unemployed.
• The rebellion of the French nobility was most
  immediately responsible for the revolution
  because of their greed and unwillingness to
  submit to higher taxes.
• The Third Estate was already overburdened with
  taxes, and when an economic depression struck in
  the 1780s, conditions were ripe for joining the
  revolution.

9
What was the Congress of Vienna? How does the
conservative backlash after the revolutions of
the eighteenth century become the inspiration for
widespread reform movements throughout Europe and
North America?

• Despite the conservative retrenchment after the
  French Revolution, popular support for democratic
  reform and self determination spread throughout
  Europe.
• The Congress of Vienna took place in 18141815 as
  a response to the upheaval faced by the
  monarchies, nobility, and the church.
• The objective of the Congress of Vienna was to
  restore the French monarchy, to repress
  nationalist and liberal ideas, and to stem the
  tide of revolution elsewhere.
• Legitimacy and stability were the focus of the
  reactionary Alliances often supported by the
  Catholic Church
• Despite these efforts by this Holy Alliance of
  European leaders, the powerful ideas of
  liberalism as well as democracy grew mostly as a
  reaction to the rising tide of capitalism and the
  Industrial Revolution conflicts between workers
  and owners.
• Movements for suffrage were usually towards white
  males and were targeting class struggles and not
  racial or gender struggles at this time.
• Greek movements were towards independence from
  the Ottoman Empire as this once great empire
  known as the sick man of Europe, began to loose
  its abilities to maintain the vast Islamic
  Empire.
• These nationalistic movements provided
  instability and required a reaction from other
  European nations eventually leading to treaties
  such as the Congress of Berlin, Treaty of San
  Stefano, and ultimately to the Berlin Conference,
  ushering in imperialism of the late 1800s.
• In the United States voting rights were extended
  to all white males, and in Great Britain
  reformers called Chartists worked for voting
  reform as well as labor reforms.
• Reformers in Italy, Hungary, and Bohemia also
  pressed for national self determination.

10
What were the causes of the revolution in Saint
Domingue?

• The foundation for the Haitian Revolution lay in
  the inherent racism and brutality of slavery and
  the plantation system.
• Blanc, petite blanc, gens de couleur, slaves and
  other racial divisions
• Plantocracy or plantation system support of the
  racial divisions
• The number of African-born slaves, as opposed to
  those born in Haiti, was a significant factor as
  well.
• The event that triggered the revolution was the
  revolutionary turmoil in France. Wealthy
  planters, poor whites, and the gens de couleur
  sent representatives to Paris to argue their
  points of view in the new legislative bodies.
• As the struggle for control between those groups
  within Haiti intensified, violence broke out.
• Violence first divided gens de couleur and white,
  and then a separate slave rebellion broke out in
  the north.
• Slaves gained strength when the radical National
  Convention in France outlawed slavery in 1793.
• The efforts of the plantocracy to continue
  slavery ensured that the general melee turned
  into a struggle of slaves for their freedom.
• This movement was not supported in subsequent
  governments of France