The West on the Eve of a New World Order

Chapter 18

A Revolution in Politics:

The Era of the French Revolution and Napoleon

Economic Changes and the Social Order the 18th Century

• New Economic Patterns

• Population Growth- 190 million in 1790• Lower death rates, plague disappeared, better agricultural practices and

methods yielded more food, more land farmed

• Overseas trade boomed as Europe traded with Africa, the East and the Americas

• Plantations of the Western Hemisphere brought in tobacco, cotton, coffee, and sugar.

• Commercial capitalism created enormous prosperity

European Society in the Eighteenth Century

• Society still divided into traditional orders or estates determined by heredity

• 1. Free peasants and serfs• 85 percent of Europe’s population• Eastern Germany, eastern Europe, and Russia peasants remained tied to the land as serfs• Peasants in Britain, northern Italy, the Low Countries, Spain, most of France, and some

areas of western Germany were largely free

• 2. Urban population• Patrician oligarchies, upper middle class, lower middle class, laborers

• 3. Nobles • constituted 2 to 3 percent of the population and were exempt

from many of the taxes.

Europe in 1763

Colonial Empires and Revolution in the Americas• West Indies

• French and British colonial empires in the Americas included large parts of the West Indies.

• Slaves worked on plantations that produced tobacco, cotton, coffee, and sugar. Death rates were high

• British North America

• By the end of the 17th century, the English had established control over most of the eastern seaboard of the present United States.

• 1.5 million population

• Both the colonies in North American and the West Indies were supposed to provide raw materials for the mother country.

• Navigation acts regulated what could be taken from and sold to the colonies. The system was supposed to provide a balance of trade favorable to the mother country.

Colonial Empires and Revolution in the Americas

• French North America• In 1534, the French explorer Jacques Cartier discovered the Saint

Lawrence River and laid claim to Canada as a French possession. • Canada is made a French colony in 1663• France was unable to convince French people to move to Canada so by

the 18th century there were only 15,000 French there. • Seven Years War • Although it began in Europe, it soon turned into a global conflict

fought in Europe, India, and North America.• In Europe the war resulted in a stalemate, in India the British defeated

the French.• France also lost all of their lands in North America to Britain. This will

leave France nearly bankrupt.

American Revolution

• After the Seven years war British polity makers sought to obtain new revenues form the colonies to pay for British army expenses in defending the colonies, the colonies resisted.

• On July 4, 1776, the 2nd Continental Congress declared independence

• The Declaration of Independence affirmed the Enlightenment’s natural rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and declared the colonies to be “free and independent states absolved from all allegiance to the British crown.”

• French support of the American cause was a significant reason the colonist win, further the financial support severally drains the French crown.

• Global importance

• http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/american-revolution-history/videos/global-impact-of-the-american-revolution

Toward A New Political Order and Global Conflict

• Enlightenment impacts political development

• Philosopher’s natural rights

• The natural rights included equality before the law, freedom of religious worship, freedom of speech and press, and the right to assemble, hold property and pursue happiness.

• What made a ruler enlightened?

• An enlightened ruler must allow these natural rights.

• Enlightened absolutism

• Reforms (they thought) should come from above (the rulers) rather than from below (from the people).

Enlightened Absolutism Reconsidered

• Enlightened reforms were often limited to administrative and judicial measures that did not seriously undermine the powerful interests of the European nobility.

• After all they didn’t want to lose their power.

• The American Revolution will be the first challenge to the existing system. It will be discounted in Europe, because they are Americans after all and not nobles.

• The first serious challenge to their supremacy would come in the French Revolution, an event that blew open the door to the modern world of politics.

The French Revolution

• France was a society grounded in privilege and inequality• The population of 27 million was divided as it had been since

the middle ages into three orders or estates.

• First Estate (Clergy)• 130,000 who own about 10 percent of the land• Exempt from the taille (tax)• Were divided from within as well• 350,000 owning about 25 to 30 percent of the

land • Second Estate (Nobility)

• About 350,000 people• Owned about 25 – 30 percent of the land• Looking to expand their power• Were exempt from the taille

The French Revolution

• Third Estate (Commoners, skilled workers, bourgeoisie)• Peasants were 75 to 80 percent of the

population owning 35 to 40 percent of the land

• No serfdom but obligations• Skilled craftsmen, shopkeepers, and wage

earners• Bourgeoisie (middle class) about 8 percent

(about 2.3 million) who own about 20 to 25 percent of the land

• The Revolution had its origins in political grievances

After the Death of Robespierre

• The next five years of the French Revolution are stagnant.

• The national curtailed the power of the Committee of Public Safety, shut down the Jacobin club and attempted to provide better protection for its deputies against Parisian mobs.

• Churches were allowed to reopen and freedom of worship was allowed. Economic regulation was dropped. Moderate forces had gained power.

• A new constitution was written that reflected a more conservative republicanism and stability.

Reaction and the Directory• Constitution of 1795• National legislative assembly• They established a national legislative assembly consisting of two

chambers, council of 500 and upper house of 250 elders. The 750 men were elected by electors- chosen by all male taxpayers over the age of 21.

• Five members were chosen from the assembly as the directory.• This decision produced an insurrection that was put down by the army

led by Napoleon Bonaparte.

• Five person Directory• The directory ended up being corrupt, and incapable of bring

stability. By 1797 the directory was increasingly relying on the military to maintain its power.

Age of Napoleon • Rise of Napoleon

• Born in Corsica, 1769

• Commissioned a lieutenant, 1785

• Napoleon rose quickly through the ranks, in 1792 he became captain and in the following year preformed so well as an artillery commander that he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in 1794. He was 25.

• In October 1795 he saved the National Convention from the Parisian mob and in 1796 was made commander of the French Army in Italy.

• Victory in Italy, 1797

Turn and Tell

• Was Napoleon a product of the Revolution?

Napoleon• Napoleon returned to Paris and was part of the coup

of 1799 that established a new form of the French Republic.

• A new constitution gave executive power to three consuls.

• The first consul directly controlled the entire executive authority of the government.

• Napoleon assumed the title of the first consul and governed in the name of the republic.• First Consul for life, 1802

• Throughout, his regime retained the appearance of consulting with the people, but its most important feature was the centralization of authority.

Domestic Policies of Emperor Napoleon

• Napoleon and the Catholic Church

• Napoleon made peace with the Catholic Church and gained important allies.

• Made a deal with the church

• Religion was restored to France• Catholicism not reestablished as the state religion only as

majority.• Clergy paid by the state including Protestant ministers.

• Those that acquired church lands were happy about not having to return them and became strong supporters of Napoleon. The people were also happy about the return of their religion.

Coronation of Napoleon

In 1804, Napoleon restored monarchy to France when he crowned himself emperor. This coronation scene shows Napoleon crowing his wife, the empress

Josephine, while the pope looks on.

A New Code of LawsCode Napoleon (Civil Code)

• Recognized the principle of equality of all citizens before the law• Able to choose profession• Religious toleration• Abolition of serfdom and feudalism• Women lost most of the gains they had made in the revolution

• He established an orderly and generally fair system of taxation.

• Promotion was based on demonstrated abilities.

• Napoleon also created 3,263 nobles between 1802-1814, nearly 60 % came from the military the rest were civil officials.

• Napoleon shut down many of France’s newspapers and scrutinized manuscripts and mail.

Question

• What ideas of the revolution did Napoleon preserve?

• What ideas did he get rid of?

Napoleon’s Empire and the European Response

• France was at war with a second anti-French coalition in 1799.

• Napoleon achieved peace in 1802 and gained territory. It did not last and a third coalition of Austria, Russia and Prussia battled Napoleon from 1805 to 1807.

• Napoleon won these battles and created his Grand Empire.

Napoleon’s Grand Empire

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The Grand Empire

• The Grand Empire• Napoleon tried to destroy the old order in the Grand Empire.

• He decreed equality of opportunity with offices open to talent, equality before the law, and religious toleration.

• Problems: Great Britain and Nationalism

• Survival of Britain- Britain ruled the waves.

• Continental System, 1806-1807- an attempt to prevent British goods from reaching the European continent.

• Nationalism- cultural identity of people based on common language, religion and national symbols. • The French aroused nationalism in the peoples they were oppressing.

The Fall of Napoleon

• Invasion of Russia, 1812• Grand Army had 600,000 men

• Only 40,000 returned to Poland in January 1813

• Led to a war of liberation all over Europe

Fall of Napoleon

• Defeat of Napoleon, April 1814

• Napoleon was exiled to Elba and the Bourbon monarchy was restored to France.

• Louis younger brother became king.

Napoleon Returns

• Napoleon escape in 1815, soldiers sent to capture him joined him.

• Enters Paris on March 20, 1815

• Napoleon raised yet another army and attacked the nearest coalition force at Waterloo

• Battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1815• Combined Prussian and British army led by

Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon.

• He was sent into exile to St. Helena, ( a small forsaken island in the South Atlantic) there he lived writing memoirs until 1820.

Reaction in Europe

• After the Napoleonic wars ended the great powers, Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia met at the Congress of Vienna in 1814 to arrange a final peace settlement.

• The Congress of Vienna imposed order on Europe based on the principles of

monarchical government and a balance of power.

• Monarchs were restored in France, Spain, and other states recently under

Napoleon’s control, and much territory changed hands often at the expense of

small and weak states.

Europe After the Congress of Vienna, 1815

The legacy of Revolution

The upheaval in France, of course, was preceded by the American Revolution, which gave birth to the United States. It was followed by the Haitian Revolution, the first successful slave revolt in history and by the Latin American revolutions, in which Spanish and Portuguese colonial rule was ended and the modern states of Latin America emerged

• French Revolution 1789-1815

• Haitian Revolution 1791-1804 (Haiti becomes independent)

• Latin American Revolutions 1810-1825

• These upheavals will have world wide impact. The ideals that animated these Atlantic revolutions inspired efforts in many countries to abolish slavery, to extend the right to vote and to secure greater equality for women. The ideas of equality that were articulated in these revolutions later found expressions in socialist and communist movements.

The People Vs. Napoleon Bonaparte

•What were the major issues in the trial?

• Even though this was scripted, did Napoleon Bonaparte get a fair trial?

•Why are views on Napoleon’s legacy still adversarial?