How would the world change if the French Revolution was crushed? How would France and the republican evolution of Europe evolve without the French Empire?
WI: French Revoltuion Crushed?
- Thread starter ThatOneGuy
- Start date
By crushed I mean a complete and total annihilation of the Revolutionaries towards the beginning of the revolution. I mean their leaders are all captured and/or killed along with most of the people who attacked the Bastille Prison.
(The POD is the Royalists keep hold of Bastille)
The people that stormed the Bastille weren't the leaders of the revolution in the National Constituent Assembly. Even if the Monarchy somehow managed to defeat and rout the forces at the Bastille, what are they going to do, just go and kill all the Assembly members out of nowhere? Every city in France would explode in violence.
I was thinking along the lines of capturing the National Assembly and trying them for treason.
Another revolution would happen years later or a low level civil war. Remember the revolution had wide spread support because of social inequality. So it would delay the inevitable.
scholar
Banned
Sure, just change Louis XVI's upbringing. There was a hundred different opportunities in the early years to do this. In fact, the idea of a French Republic was formed by accident after Louis was killed. There was no one on the throne, and the national assembly didn't like any of the other candidates and simply abolished the monarchy. Even after his initial intent to flee France, the assembly actually tried to hush it up and have Louis remain king and have total executive power.
As for crushing the revolution? Just have him seize the national assembly as its forming. Many historians agree that decisive action either of support or in opposition could have defined the next hundred years and ended any possibility of the chaos that had led to Napoleon. He did not, and suffered for it.
On the topic of 'causes of the revolution' & inequality, I recommend the revolutions podcast (at revolutions.com) as he's currently doing this particular revolution. It is well worth a listen, but one thing that is clear is that, at the eve of the revolution, pretty much everyone accepted that some major changes had to happen, or else the country had no chance of surviving.
I don't think Louis would let that, nor would his peers, but he tried to instill Enlightenment ideas that failed (thanks to his peers) and pushed the country into an even worse situation. You would need butterflies for that, and earlier, too.
Actually the monarchy was abolished on September 21, 1792, while he was still alive. He was beheaded four months later - January 21, 1793.
I'm sure nationalism would have arisen anyway. To some extent it always existed - it's basically tribalism on a larger scale.