Can someone please explain the French Revolutionary Wars? What

File: IMG_0981.jpg (74KB, 850x400px) Image search: [Google]

74KB, 850x400px

Rothschild funded it to become rich

Same, this is also a big gap for me. I've heard it started because France was wasting its treasury on government programs, and I'd think it's a safe bet that France's old habit of absolute monarchy (in contrast with the Enlightenment's valuing of liberty) did it in too.

I also know that Napoleon said that he was trying to keep Republican ideals or something along that line during his reign as emperor. But that's all I know of him.

>>2087271

the revolution was seen as a threat by every other european power who feared they might end up the same so they declared war on france. joke's on them tho, heaps of revolutionary zealots + mass conscription for the first time + overpopulation + meritocratic officer corps means that the french army is going to kick all their asses.

>>2087294

>>>/x/

>>2087271

>why was it immediately followed by ... well... a monarchy

de tocqueville argued these contradictions are only apparent on the surface. on a deeper level there is perfect continuity during this period if you look at one thing: centralisation of political power. napoleon says "i am the revolution, the revolution is over". he completes the long process which had been happening for centuries whereby all governmental power is condensed within a centralised state.

>>2087416
>it's paranormal to think the Rothschild benefitted from the French revolutionary wars with Napoleon

Get a proper education moron.

https://youtu.be/MqCTvW5URfY

>>2087445

>literal propaganda as a source

holy shit american education lmao

>>2087391
>France's old habit of absolute monarchy
modern scholarship is in agreement that France was never an absolute monarchy. it's a meme
>(in contrast with the Enlightenment's valuing of liberty)
censorship and discipline was pathetic for a proto-totalitarian state.

>>2087271
>about overthrowing monarchy and such, then why was it immediately followed by ... well... a monarchy?
There wasn't some master plan to get rid of the monarchy. The third estate launched a constitutional coup against the other two estates and reconstituted itself as the national assembly which claimed to represent ALL of France, not just the nobles or clerics. This body never had the intention of getting rid of the monarchy, they just wanted to liberalize France (remove internal trade barriers, standardize weights/measurements, curb the power of the executive, remove remove the privileges of nobles [removing their exemption from all taxes, removing their legal immunity, removing their privilege to trample peasant lands while hunting, meting out justice from their manorial courts, collecting fees from mills, corvee/mandatory labor requirements on noble estates for a number of days during the years] and the church [which had separate courts to try priests, legal immunity and tax exemptions, enormous amount of tax-exempt lands, benefices and monasteries exploited by bishops at the expense of impoverished parish priests]. Initially, it was taken for fact that France would be a CONSTITUTIONAL monarchy possibly based on the British model. Many things changed in the first two years that caused the revolution to become more radical, however.
1.) the civil constitution of the clergy divided catholics throughout the land. It required an oath of loyalty from catholic clerics and democratized the election of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. eventually a huge chunk of church lands were seized and sold off. This caused a huge division and turned catholics who had otherwise before supported 1789.
cont.

>>2088041
2) the King attempted to escape France. He nearly succeeded but got caught near the border town of Varennes by some local patriots. Public support had been very high for the King before this. When a mob of angry women protesting for food had forced Louis, his wife Marie Antoinette and his wife's son to move their household from Versailles to the city of Paris, it elicited much sympathy because the King showed much humility (he also forbade his guard from firing on the crowds) being taken by a very disorganized rabble on an unpleasant journey on muddy roads to Paris. The King also made symbolic gestures in support of the Revolution that were very popular. On the first anniversary of the Revolution, he officiated the festooning of the liberty tree of Paris (a tradition imitated throughout France at the time) and bonfire of royalist/aristocratic paraphernalia. But with the flight to Varennes spoiled the mood. Louis had already come out against the Civil Constitution of the Clergy on the grounds that it went too far, and Varennes raised the question of his loyalty to France. Was Louis on the sides of the aristocrats or the people? With such doubts raised, a small but growing number of people in Paris began thinking that the monarchy should be disposed with altogether and a republic declared.
3) the moderates who made their mark in the first year made several miscalculations. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy raised an important issue, but it ultimately divisive and compromised their support of a constitutional monarchy. Besides, the National Assembly was an unwieldy body of some 450 deputies or so. Mirabeau was the most charismatic of them (and a moderate) and he died in early 1791. Barnave and the Marquis de Lafayette (of American Revolutionary fame and the head of the Parisian national guard) were the other prominent moderates but they lost a grip on events because...
(cont.)

File: image.jpg (24KB, 255x202px) Image search: [Google]

24KB, 255x202px

>>2087271
Daily reminder Robesippre did nothing wrong

>>2088118
4) Paris became increasingly radicalized by Political clubs that debated the issues of the day. The tempo of radical street politics was set by the storming of the Bastille and lynching of the governor-general of the fort. Mind you, the national assembly had already proclaimed itself as the source of national sovereignty before this. But Bastille was done independently of the authority of the new national government by self-organized bands of artisans, around which a myth grew that it was the people of Paris, not the national government, who had actually snatched power for France. This electrified the ordinary folk of Paris to organize politically and pressure/intimidate the National Assembly (the seat of the government) to pass more populist measures through the force of their numbers. The political clubs of the Jacobins and Cordeliers were the most radical, the latter being the first to have members call outright for a Republic. The moderates had their own political club, the Feuillants, of which Barnave and Lafayette were a part. The moderates and the 'radicals' increasingly came at odds over the question of Constitutional monarchy or Republic. The dramatic split came when Lafayette's National Guards (made of bourgeois recruits mostly) fired (and I'd say massacred) a Cordelier-inspired protest. The moderates, like the king, lost moral authority after this, especially among the Parisian mobs, who became increasingly organized as activists known as the San Culottes (without breeches, a garment worn by respectable classes but not the artisan and working classes). The Sans Culottes, with the help of sympathetic middle-class journalists such as Marat and Desmoulins, would radicalize and effect a coup that in August 1792, ending the monarchy.
3) But these latter circumstances would not have come about without the Girondins, a faction of the Jacobin party. The Girondins, in late 1791, whipped up paranoia. They didn't need much help.(cont.)

>>2087445
Even if the waterloo-rothschild meme is true they literally did nothing wrong, some dumb speculators decided to sell based on a rumor so they bought up the underpriced bonds. Big whoop. Last time I checked unstable prices are a bad thing and buying the bottom helps stop runaway selling. I don't understand why it is considered a crime.

Basically food was expensive and France turned to shit while the king jacked off in public. They invaded a jail one day and wrote the king their demands. He tried to run away, they caught him and flipped shit. Extremist clubs popped up while half the country was killing itself in the north. Meanwhile napoopan was winning battles and gaining popularity. Long story short they decided he would be a good leader, he made himself emperor for life, and tried to finish Europe for the last time. Then Russia etc etc

>>2088195
The first year after 1789 had been tranquil, actually, as evidenced by my previous example of Louis at the first anniversary of the Revolution. But the Civil Constitution and Louis' flight raised fear of a counter revolution, or a fifth column or royalists and priests lurking in the shadows. This seemed confirmed Declaration of Koblenz given by the Prussian and Austrian Kings in 1791; a vague but threatening statement warning against seizing noble lands or harming Louis after he had been hauled back to Paris. The Revolution, therefore, seemed increasingly insecure despite the great gains that had been made. Not only were nobles allegedly plotting within the country in secret, but more clearly, a group of aristocrats were gathering in Koblenz across the border in the HRE. Louis had intended to escape to Koblenz and take charge of an army assembled there. This threat to the National Assembly's legitimacy became unbearable to the Girondin faction of the Jacobins. So, they called for a war. A war to to eliminate the aristocrats in one fell swoop, therefore consolidating the Revolution. Among other things, the war would reveal internal enemies, show where the loyalty of Louis really laid and just as important, stir patriotism against a common foe. There was also talk of 'spreading freedom' to other countries. All this talk came in late 1791 and the War's main spokeman was leading Girondin Brissot. Ironically, Robespierre (the face of the Terror) was one of the sole deputies to speak out against the war. But the consensus shifted toward War and so it was declared in April 1792.

>>2088244
The Girondins were also the moderate faction of the Jacobins. And so when the war started turning bad they were rightly blamed. This was made worse cause Louis also tried to use the War fever in his favor. He appointed Girondins alongside royalist ministers in the face of called to relinquish his right to appoint ministers, which he refused to do. So the Girondins not only became discredited by war, but by association with the King, an association for which Girondins paid with their lives during the Terror.

>>2087445
was color invented at 1:23:28

>>2088251
As the war became more and more bleak as the year passed on, there were calls among the radicals of Paris for mass conscription (levee en masse). The King refused to grant this and now the Parisians began to further suspect he wanted the Austrians and Prussians to retake his throne for him. This suspicion culminated in the attack on the Tuileries palace by sans culottes who had been plotting to overthrow the monarch throughout the year, with their fellow journalists and the jacobin Georges Danton. The sans-culottes massacred the royal swiss guard, and forced the royal family to the national assembly, after which they were imprisoned in a decision taken by that body partly out of fear for the Parisian mob that seemed to have spiraled out of control. The monarchy was abolished soon after this and a Republic declared.

>>2088276
bump so some anons can read my shitty summary i put effort into

>>2088244
>War and so it was declared in April 1792.
against Austria*

>>2087271
Evil French liberals murdered their own king and so the good guys (European monarchies) had to stop them.