Successful French Revolution
- Thread starter missouribob
- Start date
Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
Well, at leas that's what Napoléon wants you to believe.
But to be honest, no country had ever to become a dictatorship just because it was being invaded by foreign troops. Napoléon could have won at Marengo, at Ulm, at Austerlitz without having to impose a heavy censorship on his country, restoring slavery or disempowering the parliament. You don't have to behave like a despot to win a war."Desperate times call for desperate measures" is not appropriate to describe France's situation after 1799. Napoléon's dictatorship was certainly not justified by his wars.
The terror was illiberal, that's right, but the Vendée uprising was largely caused by the forced recruitment of men into the republican army. This was the consequence of the war, and you'll agree that you can't win a war without enough soldiers. The problem is now that the war was declared precisely by the Girondins you want to keep in power. In fact, the war was only opposed by Robespierre and other Jacobins - Robespierre said: "Nobody likes armed missionaries".
If you want to prevent the war to be declared in the first place, you have to prevent the Girondin electoral victory of 1791.
And don't forget that the terror wasn't the end of liberalism. Once Robespierre had been overthrown, a fairly liberal system was implemented by the Directorate Constitution of 1795.
The directory was pretty much doomed, though. Also I'm not at all sure that no girondins means no war.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Aside from the TL I mentioned earlier, does anyone have thoughts on who or what else could replace the Directory (as of 1799) that does a better job than Napoleon of preserving the achievements of the Revolution we're talking about?
As compared to what? After all, France was a Republic in 1900, and certainly met all those metrics far better in 1900 than they did in 1800.
One notion I've had rattling around in my head is that, if Louis XVI had died a natural death sometime in the late 1780s, his young son Louis XVII(born in 1785) would have been king of France- but he would have been too young to rule France in his own right.
I'm not sure who would hold the regency per French law at the time, but my point is that the revolutionary movement might then define itself in opposition to "evil councillors", and so focus on overthrowing the regent and replacing him with one that would rubberstamp the revolutionary agenda and indoctrinate Louis XVII into accepting the new order. By the time Louis XVII reaches the age of majority(I'm assuming he doesn't die in his youth like OTL), the institutional status quo will be that true power is held by the legislature while the regent/king is little more then a figurehead. Louis XVII will be hard pressed to reverse this even if he wants to.
In so far as resistance from Louis XVI radicalized the revolution, a pliant child king might result in a more moderate atmosphere.
I'm not sure who would hold the regency per French law at the time, but my point is that the revolutionary movement might then define itself in opposition to "evil councillors", and so focus on overthrowing the regent and replacing him with one that would rubberstamp the revolutionary agenda and indoctrinate Louis XVII into accepting the new order. By the time Louis XVII reaches the age of majority(I'm assuming he doesn't die in his youth like OTL), the institutional status quo will be that true power is held by the legislature while the regent/king is little more then a figurehead. Louis XVII will be hard pressed to reverse this even if he wants to.
In so far as resistance from Louis XVI radicalized the revolution, a pliant child king might result in a more moderate atmosphere.
I think people are misunderstanding my comments on Napoleon. When I say his measures were justifiable, I'm not saying that despotism is good. I'm not saying that his personal motives were good. I'm saying that the centralization and reshuffling of state power, politics, and practices gave France the boost they needed to overhaul all facets of life to be more efficient, giving them the tools they needed to defend the country in a time of crisis.
It's thanks to Napoleon's dictatorial measures, imposing his will on the country that we have monuments of progress such as the Metric system, a modernized code of laws, meritocracy (especially in the military!). Etc.
Anyways, I think the best outcome for the revolution would be to strike a balance somewhere between the first republic and the directory. Allowing for a constitutional monarchy is just legitimizing a bad system of government due to ideological defeatism and lack of self-confidence in replacing it with something better. Long term, the republic is the way to go even if it must face steeper odds up-front. France at the time has enormous human resources and potential, with capable leadership. It's just a matter of avoiding mistakes.
It's thanks to Napoleon's dictatorial measures, imposing his will on the country that we have monuments of progress such as the Metric system, a modernized code of laws, meritocracy (especially in the military!). Etc.
Anyways, I think the best outcome for the revolution would be to strike a balance somewhere between the first republic and the directory. Allowing for a constitutional monarchy is just legitimizing a bad system of government due to ideological defeatism and lack of self-confidence in replacing it with something better. Long term, the republic is the way to go even if it must face steeper odds up-front. France at the time has enormous human resources and potential, with capable leadership. It's just a matter of avoiding mistakes.
Alcsentre Calanice
Gone Fishin'
And you are misunderstanding me. I never said that centralization, the creation of efficient institutions or meritocracy are bad.
My point is just that, with the right POD and the right people in charge, you can get all of them without a dictatorship.
The Directoire had its flaws, no doubt. But the system itself wasn't poorly designed - it was just not adapted to the instability of the French Revolution.
Well, at least they were the warmongering faction.
The subject was discussed in @Stormcrow 's thread some weeks ago.
Essentially there are three options:
- the Moderates. These were the surviving revolutionaries from 1789 and 1792, men like Sieyès, Cambacérès, Talleyrand. They wanted a stable republican regime because they feared both the Jacobins and the Royalists. They were supported by the Notables, the revolutionary upper class. The Notables had often bought land expropriated from the Church or from emigrated noblemen - therefore, they dreaded the return of Louis XVIII.
- the Jacobins*, among others led by Jourdan. Their goal was a (more) democratic republic, especially the abolition of the census suffrage. Their friends were the craftsmen and workers of Paris and other large cities. Another very republican group was the army, and many generals were convinced Jacobins.
- the Royalists, many of them moderate ones wanting a constitutional monarchy. For example, rumor had it that Sieyès in fact wanted to install a Prussian prince as king. There were also more radical Royalists, but most of them had left France. I suspect that most Frenchmen, especially in the countryside, supported a moderate monarchy. Still in 1871, a majority in France elected a monarchist parliament (even if the elections were influenced by the German occupation troups, so you could argue how significant the Royalist majority was at this point). Anyway, Republicanism became entrenched in French popular opinion only very late.
Which of these groups had a realistic chance to take power? The Moderates had, and in fact, the 18 Brumaire was a moderate coup d'état organized by Sieyès. The problem was just that Sieyès chose the wrong general - had he chosen a less ambitious man like Joubert or Moreau, he could have stayed in power and preserve the achievements of the Revolution.
*The term Jacobins isn't really correct because the Jacobin club had been closed already in 1794. They could be labeled as leftists.
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missouribob
Banned
My half formed idea is that France stabilizes earlier as a "liberal democracy", uses its conscript army to create a "French bloc" like the Soviets and then use their position as the Continental Empire to export revolutionary democracy and equality.
I need to read a lot more French history before I can even attempt a good guess at how plausible such a thing is. Right now I'm imagining "not very."
Well, again, they did have a "French bloc" of sorts OTL even after Napoleon crowned himself--they had the Kingdom of Italy, Spain, a bunch of maybe-voluntary-maybe-not "allies" in the Germanies, and Poland--but several of those were held in part by installing Napoleon himself or one of his relatives as king. You'd have to have someone as successful as him fighting for a truly Republican France for this to work, but I don't really know how to get that to happen.
I don't mean to suggest that constitutional monarchy is the best form of government, or that the Republic/Napoléon had no achievements of their own; but rather, in the specific context of the 1790s, I think it has a more realistic chance of surviving.
The overthrow of Louis XVI, and then the takeover of the government by a general (Bonaparte) were two frightening events for the monarchs of the rest of Europe and made long-term peace difficult to attain. By that point only overwhelming French victory on the battlefield could bring them to the negotiating table. (Now granted, there were some opportunities, most notably at Tilsit, but Napoléon's ambitions were too great to achieve a lasting peace.)
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What if Louis abdicates instead, without being coerced? It seems ASB and it probably is, but might that limit the suspicion and fear with which the Republic was viewed?
No. During the flight to Varennes (July 1791) he was captured but allowed to remain on the throne.
He wasn't deposed until over a year later. He was then tried and convicted of treason, and executed on 21 January 1793.
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I think other countries would assume he was forced out. If he abdicates in favor of his son that could be a different story though.
Well, of course, in a way, the French Revolution did succeed. Today, the Rights of Man, the concept of universal suffrage, and so many other Jacobin tenets have turned not just mainstream but mandatory for a country to have, and even countries that once fought against Revolutionary France's radicalism with all their guts have accepted the Jacobin ideology as their own. France may have lost in the short term, but in the long term, it has won.
But to get an immediate victory for the Revolution, just get 18 Brumaire to succeed under a different general. The result is that either Sieyes becomes the "Grand Elector", or some general like Hoche becomes the leader of France without proclaiming himself emperor and allows for a peaceful and stable succession. Either way, democracy is restored and the revolution is saved.
But to get an immediate victory for the Revolution, just get 18 Brumaire to succeed under a different general. The result is that either Sieyes becomes the "Grand Elector", or some general like Hoche becomes the leader of France without proclaiming himself emperor and allows for a peaceful and stable succession. Either way, democracy is restored and the revolution is saved.