Research and discuss other factors that cause the downfall of the Girondins. What is the significance of this fall

 

·        Financial challenge faced by the revolution was the large debt of the nation. The national assembly confiscated church lands (Biens Nationaux) and auctioned it for the highest price. 

 

·        The money from the selling of the Biens Nationaux was used the money to support the new paper currency, the Assignat. However due to inflation the assignat dropped in value. Decreasing by 20 per cent in value between June 1971 and March 1792. By early 1793 the assignat’s value fell to 51 per cent of its original worth. People began hoarding metal coins, causing shortage of hard currency. 

A: 'Twas Formed by England that included Russia, Austro-Hungary and Spain as well as Holland, Sardinia, Naples, Portugal and other small German states.. The French government responded by conscripting 300,000 new troops and declared a total war emergency. The French fought on, slowly regaining ground. Every citizen also now had some duty: veterans were urged to sit in public squares and fire young people's minds with heroic stories to arouse hatred of kings and love of republics.

Q: Research one of the causes and responses to the military challenges faced by the Revolution. Outline specific details (A good example would be the Levee en Masse)

 A: Dumouriez, who lead the counter offensive against the Prussians and Austrian in 1792, disliked the radical deputies of the national convention  and wanted to re-establish the Constitution of 1791.  He failed in attempting to enlist his troops to march on Paris, and on April 5th, under threat from the Convention he defected to Austria. In response, the Convention created the committee of public safety, a body of 12 emergency dictatorial powers. The Girondins were accused having been associated with Dumouriez. This was a contributing factor to the fall from power of the Girondins. 

The Girodins formed during 1791 and were primarily based around a republican lawyer and Jacobin club speaker named Jacques-Pierre Brissot.

The Girodins also known as the Brissotins were very popular and at one point had around 200 deputies in the National Convention. The group was led by a group called the 'inner six' who were in charge of policy making.

 The final tipping point was the passing of conscription to aid the military efforts against Austria in February 1793. The Assembly called for 300,000 men to be enlisted from the provinces, sending fury throughout the Vendée, whose people had no love for the Austrian war and even less for the government which supported it. 

The violence began in March, where scores of people of all classes in the Vendée rose up, refused to join the army and launched attacks on National Guard members and representatives of the National Convention.   The rebellion soon turned into a civil war. Within 3 months the counter-revolutionaries had formed a poorly trained but armed (though admittedly mostly with farming equipment) force of perhaps 40,000, mostly male peasants and labourers, though some were reported to be as young as 12 or woman disguised as men. They adopted the very catchy name of “The Catholic and Royal Army”, and the motto “Dieu et Roi”, or “God and King”, which is basically just the name of the army but shorter. 

The rebellion started off well enough, catching the republicans by surprise and capturing a number of towns in the Vendée and many surrounding provinces, their numbers growing as other counter-revolutionaries from the surrounding provinces flocked to their aid. However, the war turned sour for the CRA when, around August 1793, 30,000 men of the republican army were marched into the Vendées with orders to burn houses, capture livestock and slaughter rebels whenever possible. The CRA faced major defeats while trying to capture the city of Nantes and numerous other towns and cities, and their men were chipped away by numerous military failures. By December the main force numbered only 6000, which was then crushed by a force of 18000 republicans at the Battle of Savenay. The republican army then continued to spread through the Vendée, slaughtering anyone who expressed anything close to counter revolutionary views, burning towns, crops and forests as they went. Long after the CRA had been defeated the terror continued in the Vendée, with perhaps up to 50000 men women and children being guillotined or forcibly drowned, a method dubbed “national baths”, in the first 6 months of 1794. The Vendée uprising is a perfect example of the utter ruthlessness with which counter-revolutionaries were dealt with in the terror of the new French Republic.

The social reforms of the new constitution meant that by selling noble land in small lots, working people could afford to buy strips (3 June 1793). Common land in villages was also divided out equally (10 June 1793) and remaining feudal dues were abolished without compensation (17 July 1793) to demonstrate that a Paris- based revolution could still produce benefits for peasants and working people in the provinces. 

How did they try to change everyday life and consciousness?
The key principle was that the people were the source of sovereignty (final authority). Under the old regime, the king was directly under god. Under the 1971 constitution, the sovereignty came directly from the nation. The idea of the right to insurrection was introduced to give the right to working people to put pressure on the National assembly to recognise their needs.​

The Vendée resented the direction of Paris, and were deeply conservative and counter-revolutionary.

Some of the main causes to their revolt were because of rising land taxes, the national government’s attacks on the church, the execution of Louis XVI, the expansion of the revolutionary war and the introduction of conscription.

Federalists Revolt: was not counter-revolutionary like in the Vendée, but mainly against the radical path the revolution was now taking. They rose up against what they perceived to be a centralised governing power in Paris. They wanted a Federalist Republic instead of a strong central administration in Paris.​

Peasants from Vendée opposed regicide of the King and conscription – formed the Catholic and Royal Army

o  National Convention ordered the formation 12 army divisions called the Colonnes Infernales (‘Infernal Columns’) to attack Vendée

Destroyed buildings

§ Burnt crops

§ 6,000 people, including 400 children were guillotined or forcibly drowned

·        Revolutionaries from Lyon supported Republic but opposed power of popular movement – seized local government from Jacobin deputies and raised an army of 10,000 men to march to Paris

o  National Convention declared Lyon a “Rebel City”

o  Ordered all inhabitants to leave

o  Sent in Revolutionary Army to crush resistance

o  2,000 Federalists executed after Siege of Lyon (October 1793)

·        Bordeaux – 104 sent to the guillotine

·        Toulon – 800 killed, a further 282 sent to the guillotine

 

·        Albert Saboul – “The rising in the Vendée was the most dangerous example of the various forms of resistance encountered by the Revolution and was symptomatic of the widespread discontent of the peasantry.”

 

·        William Doyle – “This was ‘an open rebellion against the entire course of the Revolution had taken’.”

 

·        Peter McPhee – “The revolt ‘was not initially counter-revolutionary so much as anti-revolutionary’.”

 

·        Dylan Rees – “‘It is appropriate to describe the Vendée as an “anti-revolutionary” rather than counter-revolution in that it was directed more against the Revolution and its demands rather than for a restoration of the old regime.’”