InNo+kathryn_chang+09.7.10

__** The French Revolution pg. 39-49 **__ The Reign of Terror
 * War
 * 20 April 1792- war began when France declared war on Austria
 * French armies attacked Austrian bases across the frontier in Belgium
 * Austrians were better organized, equipped, and better led, the easily beat the French attack
 * People blamed the French defeat on traitors
 * Rumors were told that there was an ‘Austrian Committee’ in the Tuileries Palace, telling France’s military secrets to the Austrians
 * May- Fears grew when Prussia joined forces with Austria
 * The Assembly took emergency measures and ordered every soldier in Paris to the frontier
 * put a watch on all foreigners
 * all the priests who still refused to take an oath of loyalty were to be expelled from the country
 * 11 July- they declared that 'The Fatherland is in Danger'
 * appealed to all citizens to volunteer for the army
 * This put Louis into a difficult position
 * he disagreed especially with the measure against priests
 * This angered his opponents
 * 20 June- 20,000 of his opponents broke into the Tuileries shouting abuse at him
 * July- Louis' position became more difficult when the enemy commander the Duke of Brunswick, issued a statement known as the Brunswick Manifesto
 * Brunswick Manifesto- it threatened the people of Paris with terrible punishments if Louis was harmed in any way
 * far from protecting Louis and his family, the Brunswick Manifesto put them in great danger
 * the Assembly ordered weapons to be given to all citizens so that they could defend themselves
 * since they had weapons, the people could do whatever they wanted
 * they wanted to get rid of monarchy and to set up a new king of assembly in which they had power
 * The Storming of the Tuileries
 * 10 August 1792- 20,000 armed men and women marched to the Tuileries determined to de-throne Louis XVI
 * Helped by National Guards, the people broke into the palace grounds
 * The Swiss Guards, defending the king, tried to fight them off but they were outnumbered
 * The Swiss Guards retreated but then the attackers caught up and killed 600 of them
 * The people ransacked the palace
 * The Overthrow of the Monarchy
 * The attack on the Tuileries led quickly to the end of the monarchy
 * Louis was suspended from office
 * Louis and his family were imprisoned
 * A new assembly called the Convention was set up as the country's new law-making body
 * 21, September 1792- The first action of the Convention was to de-throne Louis and declare that France was now a Republic
 * They put him on trial for high treason and found him guilty and sentenced him to death
 * 21 January 1793- Louis was beheaded in public
 * The Sans Culottes
 * people who overthrew the king called themselves //sans culottes//
 * they were working people of Paris
 * from craftsmen to laundry women, clerks to porters, fishwives to laborers
 * they had many ideas in common and behaved in similar ways
 * they hated nobles
 * they wore trousers instead of the knee breeches (culottes) that nobles wore
 * they refused to use any word that had noble connections
 * instead of calling each other my lord or my lady, they called each other citizen or comrade
 * they were Republicans
 * they hated the monarchy and thought power should belong to ordinary people like themselves
 * many renamed themselves or called their children after famous Republicans
 * they believed very strongly that everyone should have equal rights, such as the right to vote
 * to show that nobody was superior to anyone else they used 'tu'- 'you' when they spoke to people rather than 'vous'
 * they claimed the right to carry weapons and to use them against their opponents
 * September 1792- they broke into prisons of Paris and murdered around 1,400 prisoners who they suspected of supporting the Austrians
 * their readiness to use violence horrified foreigners
 * The War Spreads
 * The execution of Louis shocked millions of people all over Europe
 * Louis' fellow monarchs were outraged
 * first months of 1793- one by one, they joined forces with Austria and Prussia in their war against France
 * Their aim was to destroy the new French Republic
 * instead of scaring the revolutionaries in France, they were more war-like than before
 * they wanted to fight these 'tyrants' as they called all kings, and spread the revolution to the rest of Europe
 * instead of waiting for the coalition to attack them, they declared war on its three latest members- Britain, Holland, and Spain
 * France was now at war with most of Europe
 * Disaster immediately struck the French armies
 * the Austrian forces beat them in a series of battles in the Netherlands
 * the French commander, General Dumouriez, abandoned his men and went over to the Austrian side
 * France seemed on the verge of defeat
 * Inflation and Shortages
 * Another major problem facing the new government was the high price of food
 * the price were rising because, to pay for way, the government was printing huge amounts of paper money called //assignats//
 * but the more more bank notes it printed, the less they were worth
 * the currency was suffering from inflation
 * February 1793- a bank note was worth only half the amount printed on it
 * as well as being expensive, there was a shortage of bread because farmers did not want to sell their grain for bank notes that were losing value
 * hungry //sans culottes// began raiding shops and food stores to get the food they could not buy
 * Rebellion
 * The third major problem hit the government when, to defend the country, it ordered an extra 300,000 men to join the armies
 * this was deeply unpopular
 * in the Vendee in western France, where many people were royalists, thousands of peasants joined in an armed rebellion against the government
 * In Paris, the war led to a conflict between two groups of politicians in the Convention
 * Girondins- held most of the important posts in the government
 * Jacobins- were supported by the //sans culottes//
 * the Jacobins blamed the Girondins for France's defeats on the battlefeild and for allowing food prices to rise
 * 2 June- an angry crowd of //sans culottes// broke into the Convention and expelled the leading Girondins
 * this triggered off a string of revolts in the provinces which supported the Girondins
 * by summer 1793- sixty out of eighty-three departments had joined the rebellion against the government
 * faced with all these disasters, the Convention set up an emergency group called the Committee of Public Safety
 * its twelve members had the power to do anything they thought necessary to save France
 * For the next twelve months, they used this power to run France very strictly and to impose harsh punishments on opponents
 * it was known as the 'Reign of Terror'
 * The Law of Suspects
 * September 1793- The Terror began with a 'Law of Suspects'
 * groups of citizens in every town had to draw up lists of people they suspected of opposing the government
 * almost anyone could fall under suspicion
 * The Law said that suspects were people who 'by their behavior, their contacts, their words or their writings, showed themselves to be... enemies of Liberty.'
 * in the year that followed, over a quarter of a million suspects were arrested and put in prison
 * Many suspects were sent to Paris for trial by the Revolutionary Tribunal
 * this was a special court set up to deal with political offenses
 * the judges could send people of imprisonment, deportation or death
 * around half the sentences they passed were death sentences
 * The Guillotine
 * The Death Sentences were carried out by beheading prisoners with a recently invented machine known as the guillotine
 * named after the person who first suggested using it, Doctor Guillotin
 * it was meant to be quicker and less painful than the methods of execution used before the Revolution
 * how the guillotine works
 * prisoner is tied to a plank of wood, cords around the arms, body and legs
 * the executioner lays him on his belly on the bench
 * lifts up the upper part of the board which is for his neck
 * inserts his head, then shuts the board and pull the string fastened to a peg at the top of the machine, which lefts up a catch
 * the axe falls down, and the head, which is off in an instant, is received in a basket ready for that purpose, as is the body in another basket
 * around 17,000 suspects were executed by the guillotine during the Terror
 * October 1793- One of the first to die was Marie Antoinette for treason
 * Terror in the Provinces
 * The Committee of Public Safety took very story measures to crush the revolts in the countryside
 * over a hundred Representatives of the Convention were sent to the provinces
 * they were to do anything necessary to restore order
 * In the Vendee, where the biggest revolt was taking place, the Representative on Mission was Jean-Baptiste Carrier
 * when the guillotine was proved two slow to execute captured rebels, he drowned them by the boat-loads in the River Loire
 * at least 2,000 died in these drownings at Nantes
 * In Lyons, nearly 2,000 rebels were executed
 * to speed up the executions, prisoners were lined up in front of open graves and blasted then with a cannon fire
 * Terror in the Armies
 * August 1793- the Convention ordered a 'Mass Levy' of the French people
 * every citizen had to take an active part in the war effort
 * unmarried men had to join the armies to fight
 * married men were to make weapons for them
 * women were to make tents and serve in hospitals
 * children were to make bandages and gunpowder
 * the Mass Levy increased the French armies to 800,000 men
 * nearly three times the size of the coalition's armies
 * Representatives of the Convention made sure that strict discipline was kept
 * generals who did not win battles were replaced by younger officers who had proved their ability in action
 * Economic Terror
 * September 1793- The Committee tried to halt the rise in food prices with a Law of the Maximum
 * said that the prices of forty goods, such as corn, flour, firewood and oil, must stay fixed until further notice
 * so too much people's wages
 * breaking the maximum carried the death penalty
 * Terror and the Church
 * the Terror led to disappearance of the Christian religion in many parts of France
 * claiming that Christianity was no more than 'superstition', //sans culottes// closed down the churches, robbed them of their bells and silver, and sacked their priests
 * in many towns a 'Cult of Reason', based on revolutionary ideas such as Liberty, took the place of Christianity
 * As part of the campaign against Christianity, the Convention introduced a new calendar
 * the years were no longer counted from the birth of Christ but from September 1792, when the Republic was founded
 * 1792-3- was re-named Year One, so the Terror took place in Year Two
 * Each year was divided into twelve thirty-day months with named describing their weather or growing seasons
 * months were divided into three ten-day weeks
 * sunday was abolished
 * Results of the Terror
 * The Committee of Public Safety achieved what it set out to do
 * saved France from collapse
 * mid 1794- the French armies had driven their enemies right out of France and had occupied the Austrian Netherlands
 * crushed all the revolts in the Provinces
 * although prices were still rising, they managed to avoid famine
 * the price of success had been high
 * between 35,000 and 40,000 people had been executed or had died in filthy, overcrowded prisons
 * everybody's rights and freedoms had been severely limited
 * prices were still rising
 * the Committee had become a kind of twelve-man dictatorship
 * The Coup of Thermidor
 * By summer of 1794- the Committee was very unpopular
 * many deputies in the Convention disliked it because they thought it was too powerful
 * some disliked it because they feared ending up under the guillotine
 * others disliked it because they could not see any need for the Terror now that the revolts were over and France was winning the war
 * //sans culottes-// even they, its strongest supporters, were unhappy because their wages were held down by the Maximum law, while prices were still rising
 * 27 July 1792-9- Thermidor, Year Two in the calendar- the Convention decided to get rid of the Committee's leading member, Robespierre, along with his supporters
 * twenty-one were arrested and guillotined the following day
 * ninety-six others were executed the day after
 * the Convention reduced the power of the Committee
 * freed hundreds of suspects
 * abolished the Maximum
 * got rid of the Revolutionary Tribunal
 * The Terror came to an end

Summary France declared war on pretty much the rest of Europe. They were losing really bad. They broke into the Tuileries and they killed the swiss guards and Louis XVI was de-throned. Louis was beheaded. A new assembly called the Convention took over and set new laws. The //san culottes// killed 1,400 prisoners claiming that they supported the Austrians. The war spreads, and since the government kept making more //assignats//, inflation started and prices on food grew. Farmers wouldn't sell their grain to make bread for bank notes that were losing value. To defend the country, the government ordered 300,000 more men to fight and this caused rebellions. Faced with disasters the Convention set up a meeting for the Committee of Public Safety. This started the Reign of Terror. They were very strict and killed most of the people that were 'law of suspects'. They used a new machine called the guillotine to execute the 'law of suspects'. There were terror in providence, the army, and economic terror. In many parts of France, Christianity disappeared. The Committee made a new calendar that no longer started from Jesus' birthday but started on the day that the Republic was founded. The result of the terror was that the Committee had achieved what they set out to do but it was due to a lot of costs. The Convention decided to get rid of the Committee's leading member, along with his supporters. Then they reduced the power of the Committee and then the Terror came to an end.

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