THE IMPACT ON EUROPE AFTER THE FRANCE WAR

The effects of the conflict on post war Europe were nearly as revolutionary as those on France. Until 1914, the French Revolution may justifiably be regarded as the most important event in the history of modern Europe, given its repercussions that were akin to those of the reformation in the 16th century and the religious battles in the 17th century. The foundations of the previous established order in politics, economy, social life, ideas, diplomacy, and warfare were all destroyed. The earlier cult of everything French, which stretches back to the Louis XIV era and the early 18th century Enlightenment growth, contributed to the spread of upheaval and strife across Europe. French literature, manners, and philosophy were widely embraced long before 1789, particularly in Germany. Guys such as Gotthold Lessing spearheaded the Enlightenment movement which challenged all established institutions and beliefs while advancing reason. The situation in Belgium, northern Italy and even Great Britain was similar but to a lesser degree.

This cultural set up explains the broad excitement that accompanied the French Revolution in its initial stages. The fact that established absolutist monarchies exist in both Britain and the United States (US) was welcomed by radicals and Democrats alike as proof that constitutional reforms were finally necessary. When American republican hero Tom Paine got the key to the Bastille from American hero Lafayette, who had just been named commander of the National Guard, it was a symbolic show of solidarity across democratic nations in 1789.

Tom Paine supported the Girondins while serving as an elected deputy in the Convention, and in 1792, the National Assembly recognized him as a French citizen. As a result of receiving French citizenship in 1799, Jeremy Bentham, the most prominent radical philosopher in England, duly cast his vote for Napoleon despite his opposition to both Jacobinism and natural rights. The ruling classes and political parties of revolutionary France welcomed as fellow citizens any men from any other country whom they considered to be pursuing similar goals, feeling that they were conducting a revolution for the benefit of all people. And up until the excesses of the revolution, this interpretation of the revolution was warmly welcomed by many good-hearted people from different nations. Terror and the aggressions of the French armies demoralized them. The global culture of the eighteenth century was appropriately crowned by a cosmopolitan revolution.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the citizen as well as other revolutionary manifestoes emphasized this universal aspect of the revolution which incited hostility among European authorities. They were forced to confront it since they could not ignore it. If radicals enthusiastically embraced revolution, rulers first showed an equally severe lack of interest. Since France was viewed by all of its neighbors as a long-standing rival, they were not surprised by the French king's personal issues. In 1789, there was a reasonable balance of power between the Bourbons and the Habsburgs, Austria, Russia and Turkey in Europe. As of yet there was no European concert, no institution for ongoing dialogue on shared issues and no Holy Alliance to spearhead a campaign against revolution. These were not causes of the revolutionary decade of 1789–1799; rather they were all effects of it. Even throughout the war France only faced opposition from shaky fragmentary coalitions that were mostly kept together by British tactics and financial support and even then, not for very long. The acquisition of territory and the upkeep of dynastic security governed regular diplomatic relations. When the leaders of Prussia, Russia, and Austria completed the separation that had begun 20 years earlier in 1793 and 1795, Poland was divided apart during the revolution itself. In fact, the Russian and Austrian emperors signed a deal in January of 1795 that called for the division or acquisition of Turkey, Venice, and Bavaria in addition to Poland. Only until this avaricious and separatist trait of their adversaries is acknowledged will the massive victories of the first revolutionary armies make sense.

Democrats disappointment with the revolution's initial promise cannot be only attributed to the terror and the revolution's path within France, even though the rest of Europe closely observed that conflict. It has a closer connection to the 1793 change in behavior and pretense that occurred among the revolutionary armies itself. The declared war objectives of the revolutionary administration grew more and more self-serving and patriotic, and they diverged less and less from the aggressive, long-standing policies of the French monarchy. Danton's conception of France's "natural frontiers" covered the contentious borders of the Rhine and the Alps in addition to the indisputable borders of the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pyrenees. This appeared to be nothing more than classic Bourbon dynasticism. The claims had to be treated seriously when the Convention openly disregarded European public law and customs and supported them to the point of annexing Nice, Savoy, and Belgium and invading Holland. They were of a nature that, because they went against nationalism and dynasticism, neither kings nor peoples could accept with composure.

An additional indication of French objectives was the forceful installation of the new French institutions and laws into seized or annexed territory. The revolutionaries endeavored just as assiduously to Gallicize Europe, a job that the philosophes had initiated in issues of culture and which Napoleon would later pursue in matters of imperial government. Indeed, they had support from native people and their work is on damaging aspects were frequently welcomed. The citizenry was only ignited to thoughts of self-government when they discovered that their new French masters were just as strict as their previous ones. The idea that national independence should follow from people's sovereignty was unintentionally brought about by French occupation; its basic meaning the abolition of privilege and the universalization of rights came to blend into this new implication only as a result of conquests. Nationalism was not the aim of the French revolutionaries, who wanted to spread liberalism. The treaties made at Campo Formio in 1797 added a great deal of northern Italy and the Rhineland to the territories immediately under French control. Anti-French sentiment was already high at that point due to Bonaparte's propensity to demand high tribute from the seized regions and the necessity for the French forces to survive on local resources in order to justify war. Between the Pyrenees and the Baltic, all of western Europe saw a peculiar fusion of immediate antipathy for French tactics and broad sympathy for the revolution's basic goals. It was the ideal concoction to sow the seeds of nationalism. Off course, the outcome was different in the warring republics that were still outside the purview of French administration.