Episode 19: The Path to War with Europe

Living the French Revolution and Age of Napoleon

Dr Suzanne M Desan

Film Review

In October 1791, France became a constitutional monarchy, with the Legislative Assembly (with 745 new deputies) replacing the National Assembly. Of the new deputies one quarter were left wing Jacobins* who wanted a republic, one quarter wanted a constitutional monarchy and half were unaffiliated.

Aware that (former enemies) Prussia and Austria were conspiring with Louis XVI to overthrow the revolution, in late 1791 some deputies called for a preemptive strike against Austria.  Other deputies (including the Jacobins) opposed war because they feared it would increase the king’s power and possibly lead to dictatorship.

In March 1792, the Austrian monarch (and Holy Roman Emperor) Leopold II died suddenly, to be replaced by Marie Antoinette’s nephew Francis II. She wrote asking him to declare war on France, asserting (falsely) that the French communes were about to put the king and herself on trial.

On 12 April, Lafayette, leader of the national guard, ordered 50,000 reinforcements to the border with the Austrian Netherlands (modern day Belgium), and Louis XVI replaced his more moderate ministers with pro-war officials. On April 20, the king declared war against Austria, Bohemia and Hungary (the constitution gave him that power) and only seven deputies voted no. France would be continuously at war for the next 23 years.

Prussia, in turn, declared war on France.

*The Jacobins were so named because in Paris they met in a a former convent of the Dominicans, who also known Jacobins. Their official name was the Society of the Friends of the Constitution.

Film can be viewed with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/149323/149357