THE IMPACT ON EUROPE AFTER THE FRANCE WAR (Second & final part)

The conflict had almost as revolutionary an impact on post war Europe as it did on France. Given its effects, which paralleled the Reformation in the sixteenth century and the religious conflicts in the 17^th century the French Revolution can reasonably be considered the most significant event in the history of modern Europe up to 1914. The old political, economic, social, and diplomatic orders as well as their underlying theories were completely overthrown. Unrest and conflict expanded throughout Europe as a result of the earlier cult of things French, which dates back to the Louis era and the emergence of Enlightenment in the early 18^th century. Long before 1789, French philosophy, French literature, and French manners were generally accepted especially in Germany. The Enlightenment movement, led by men like Gotthold Lessing, advanced reason while challenging all prevailing institutions and beliefs. Similar circumstances existed in Belgium, northern Italy, and even the Great Britain, but to a lesser extent.

This cultural context clarifies the widespread enthusiasm that surrounded the French Revolution during its early phases. Both radicals and Democrats embraced the existence of established absolutist monarchy in the United States (US) and Britain as evidence that constitutional reforms were ultimately required. In 1789 there was a symbolic demonstration of solidarity among democratic nations when American republican hero Tom Paine received the key to the Bastille from American hero Lafayette who had recently been appointed commander of the National Guard. As an elected deputy in the convention Tom Paine backed the Girondins, and the National Assembly acknowledged him as a French citizen in 1792. The most well-known radical philosopher in England Jeremy Bentham, who became a citizen of France in the year 1799, voted for Napoleon even though he opposed both natural rights and Jacobinism. Feeling that they were leading a revolution for the good of all people, the ruling classes and political parties of revolutionary France welcomed as fellow citizens any men from any other country whom they regarded to be pursuing comparable goals. And this interpretation of the Revolution was enthusiastically embraced by many kind-hearted people from various countries up until the excesses of the Revolution. They were demoralized by terror and the French forces' assault. A cosmopolitan revolution was, very fittingly, the pinnacle of 18^th century world culture.

This global component of the revolution was highlighted in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen as well as other revolutionary manifestos, which stoked animosity among European rulers. They could not ignore it, so they had to face it head-on. While radicals welcomed revolution with great enthusiasm, rulers first shown an equally acute lack of interest. All of France's neighbors did not find the French king's personal troubles surprising, as they saw France as a longstanding rival. The Bourbons and the Habsburgs, Austria, Russia, and Turkey held a fair amount of influence in Europe in 1789. There was no European concert, no forum for continuing discussion of common problems, and no "Holy Alliance" to lead a counterrevolutionary movement as of yet. These were all consequences of the revolutionary decade of 1789–1799, not their causes. Only unstable, fragmentary coalitions, largely held together by British tactics and financial backing, posed a threat to France during the war, and even then, not for very long. Regular diplomatic ties were regulated by the acquisition of land and the maintenance of dynastic security. Poland was split during the revolution itself when the rulers of Prussia, Russia, and Austria finished the division that had started twenty years earlier in 1793 and 1795. Indeed, in January of 1795, the emperors of Russia and Austria signed an agreement that stipulated that Poland would be divided or acquired together with Venice, Turkey, and Bavaria. The enormous triumphs of the first revolutionary armies will make no sense unless this greedy and separatist quality of their enemies is recognized.

Even while the rest of Europe intently watched that battle, Democrats dissatisfaction with the revolutions early promise cannot be only attributed to the horror and the revolution's progress within France. It is more closely related to the shift in the behavior and pretension of the revolutionary soldiers itself in 1793. The stated military goals of the revolutionary government were increasingly nationalistic and self-serving deviating less and less from the aggressive long-standing policies of the French monarchy. In addition to the unquestionable borders of the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pyrenees, Danton's idea of France's natural frontiers included the disputed borders of the Rhine and the Alps. All of this seemed to be traditional Bourbon dynasticism. When the Convention brazenly violated European public law and norms, supporting them to the extent of annexing Nice, Savoy, and Belgium and invading Holland, the accusations had to be taken seriously. They were of a kind that neither rulers nor peoples could calmly embrace because they opposed nationalism and dynasticism.

The aggressive intro of the new French institutions and laws into conquered or annexed territory was another sign of French aims. The revolutionaries worked just as hard to Gallicize Europe an undertaking that Napoleon would eventually carry out in grounds of imperial governance but which the philosophes had started in matters of culture. They did, in fact, have the support of the indigenous people, and their work on harmful parts was often praised. It was only after they realized that their new French overlords were no less severe than their old ones that the populace began to entertain ideas of self-government. The French occupation unwittingly brought forth the idea that national independence should stem from people's sovereignty; its fundamental meaning the elimination of privilege and the universalization of rights came to blend into this new implication only as a result of conquests. The French revolutionaries sought to advance liberalism not nationalism.

The Rhineland and much of northern Italy were added to the areas immediately under French rule by the treaties signed at Campo Formio in 1797. Due to Bonaparte's tendency to demand hefty tribute from the captured provinces and the need for the French armies to survive on local resources in order to justify war, anti-French sentiment was already strong at that time. All of western Europe, between the Pyrenees and the Baltic, witnessed an unusual combination of widespread sympathy for the revolution's fundamental objectives and quick hostility for French tactics. It was just the right mixture to plant the seeds of nationalism. Of course, in the warring republics that remained beyond the jurisdiction of French rule, the result was different.