Military aspects of the Two Revolutions

1991 ◽  
Vol 12 (x) ◽  
pp. 119-124
Author(s):  
Theodore Caplow
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
The Military ◽  
The French Revolution

In this paper, I consider the military phase of the French Revolution as running from 1789 to 1795. The adoption of the Constitution of the Year III in October 1795 is taken to mark the end of the revolutionary era. Likewise, the military phase of the American Revolution is taken to extend from 1775 10 1781; there were no important hostilities after the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.

What was the Terror?

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Edelstein
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Emotional Content ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Political Problem ◽  
Comparative Note ◽  
The French Revolution

The Terror is perhaps the most iconic period of the French Revolution, yet it is also one of the most difficult to explain. As a label employed by scholars, ‘the Terror’ overlaps, but does not align, with the use of the term by historical actors. Its emotional content also tricky: who was meant to be terrorized, and what was terror supposed to achieve? This question, in turn, ties into the issue of how terror related to the broader political agenda of the Jacobin leaders. But the biggest question surrounding the Terror is that of its origins. This chapter compares arguments about its inevitability, its contingency, and the different ‘logics’ that led to its occurrence, and ends on a comparative note, using the case of the American Revolution to ask whether the Terror is not better understood as a judicial, rather than a political, problem.

The Anatomy of The Saudi Revolution

1974 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
David G. Edens
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Common Features ◽  
The French Revolution

In his classic study of revolution, Crane Brinton succeeds in uncovering certain common features, or uniformities, which are present in all four of the great Western revolutions. In analysing the English Revolution of the 1640s, the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the more recent Russian Revolution, he employs ‘the fever of revolution’ as a conceptual measure of social disequilibrium. This pathological analogy provides a means of focusing attention upon the key uniformities of revolution.

scholarly journals Transformation of the political culture of Russian monarchism in panegyrics at the turn of XVIII—XIX centuries

2021 ◽  
pp. 81-99
Author(s):  
K. D. Bugrov ◽  
◽  
V. S. Ivshin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Analogy ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Xix Century ◽  
The Military ◽  
The French Revolution

The article analyzes the transformation of the “Peter-Catherine imagery” in the panegyric literature of the late XVIII — first quarter of the XIX century. The paper demonstrates the evolution of this imagery against the background of the French Revolution of 1789, the formation of an adamant cult of Catherine at the end of the empress’s reign, the stability of this cult in the panegyric tradition during the reign of Paul I and the first years of Alexander’s reign. The use of the “Catherine imagery” in secular panegyrics dedicated to the accession of Alexander I was unique: it aimed at presenting the new monarch not only as the new Peter, but also as the new Catherine, while criticizing Paul’s “tyranny”. At the same time, the political theology of the “beautiful days of Alexander’s reign” lacked the historical analogy with the “Catherine imagery”, which allowed the authors to conclude that the cult of Catherine II began to gradually “die away” during the reign of Alexander I and the figure of the tsar himself as the savior of Russia and Europe against the background of the military fortune of 1812 was subsequently redefined.

The French Revolution: The Explosion of 1789

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. R. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Great War ◽  
Detailed Treatment ◽  
The Great War ◽  
The French Revolution ◽  
The Revolution

Instead of attempting the hopeless task of a full and rounded account of the French Revolution, this chapter selects a few points for more detailed treatment: how the year 1789 opened with a fully developed revolutionary psychology, what the Revolution essentially consisted of, and why the French Revolution, though inspired by much the same principles as the American Revolution, adopted different constitutional forms and took on a magnitude unknown to the upheavals of Western Civilization since the time of the Protestant Reformation. The chapter brings the story, for all countries, to about the year 1791, to the eve of the great war in which all these national and social developments were to be gathered together into one tremendous struggle.

French Revolution, 1789–1799

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nigel Ritchie
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
Napoleon Bonaparte ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Degree Of Stability ◽  
The Military ◽  
The French Revolution

Birthed from national bankruptcy, the French Revolution was a painful political and social transformation that delivered some liberty and fraternity, if less equality, to its participants. While most would agree that our modern political world originated here, there is less consensus in understanding the causes or evolution of what political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville described as “a virus of a new and unknown kind.” The complexity of events, and subsequent layers of interpretation, make studying the French Revolution a daunting prospect for any historian; and its role as a key reference point for those either inspired or horrified by its outcomes continues to make it a focus of controversy and debate. A broad consensus concerning its nature—one of class-based conflict—most clearly expressed by French (Marxist) historians, briefly appeared toward the middle of the 20th century; however, this agreement has now been fatally undermined by an onslaught of diversified research findings that dissent from the old orthodoxies, most notably in emphasizing political over social or economic factors. What can be agreed is that the French Revolution was a transformative event. After the fall of the Bastille in July 1789, French revolutionaries suppressed feudal obligations, abolished the nobility (including titles), reorganized the Catholic Church, introduced (limited franchise) elections and a republican government, executed the king, and possibly most significantly, started a war that would draw in most of Europe and reach as far as the Caribbean. Over a quarter of a million people died in civil wars fought within France, hundreds of thousands more in wars with foreign powers, and 40,000 were executed for political crimes as alleged counterrevolutionaries. By 1799, France had tried out four different constitutions at home, imposed new ones on conquered territories in Italy, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, and appeared set on revolutionizing most of Europe, with some countries proudly proclaiming their emancipation by adopting the tricolor flag of republican France. After a decade of revolutionary upheaval, fifteen years of rule by France’s new leader, the military dictator and emperor Napoleon Bonaparte restored a degree of stability (and authoritarianism) to France while continuing to impose revolutionary reforms on the rest of Europe.

Languages of Democracy in America from the Revolution to the Election of 1800

2013 ◽  
pp. 13-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth Cotlar
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Negative Weight ◽  
Newspaper Editors ◽  
Democracy In America ◽  
The French Revolution

Before and during the American Revolution, ‘democracy’ was relatively rarely invoked in American political discourse, and when it was, usually had negative weight. By contrast, in 1800, candidates who called themselves Democrats won control of the Federal Government. This chapter charts the emergence of the first advocates of democracy in the United States. During the Constitution debates, attacks on aristocracy were much more common than positive accounts of democracy. After 1790, a group of radical newspaper editors sympathetic to the French Revolution promoted the term as a political slogan. Its entry into mainstream political discourse thereafter was however accompanied by the shearing away of some of its more radical associations.

The Strange History of the Right to Bear Arms in the French Revolution

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 453-479
Author(s):  
Noah Shusterman
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
National Assembly ◽  
Social Domination ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The French Revolution

Abstract French Revolutionaries shared many of the same beliefs as their American counterparts about the relationship between citizenship and bearing arms. Both nations’ leaders viewed standing armies as a threat to freedom, and both nations required militia participation from a portion of the citizenry. Yet the right to bear arms is a legacy only of the American Revolution. The right to bear arms came up several times in debates in France’s National Assembly. The deputies never approved that right, but they never denied it either. During the first years of the Revolution, the leading politicians were wary of arming poor citizens, a concern that was in tension with the egalitarian language of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Moreover, militias thrived during the early years of the French Revolution and became instruments—albeit unstable ones—for maintaining a social domination that played out along class lines. In response to the contradictions in their positions, French revolutionary leaders remained silent on the issue. In France as in the United States, the question of whether or not there was a right to bear arms was less important than the question of who had the right to bear arms.

The Mechanical Telegraph

2021 ◽  
pp. 21-44
Author(s):  
Laszlo Solymar
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
The Military ◽  
The French Revolution

wThe mechanical telegraph was born toward the last years of the French Revolution aiming to help the military effort. It consisted of wooden beams displayed in various configurations on the top of towers, able to code arbitrary messages. The code was read by telescope from the next tower. It became operational in 1794 and worked until the 1850s. The network criss-crossed France but was also extended to Antwerp, Venice, Milan, Amsterdam, and Madrid. At its peak it had 5000 km of line and 534 stations. There were also mechanical telegraphs in Britain and in many Continental countries. Its memory still lingers on in geographical names like Telegraph Hill.

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