Colonel flagg
Banned
What were the main mistakes/errors of Louis XVI that cause the French revolution?
He listened to his wife Marie Antoinette and did not establish a constitutional monarchy despite given several chances to.
What were the main mistakes/errors of Louis XVI that cause the French revolution?
Summoning the Estates General in Versailles: too close to Paris. If I were him I would have chosen Soissons or Reims, though maybe there wasn't enough space there(?).What were the main mistakes/errors of Louis XVI that cause the French revolution?
Summoning the Estates General in Versailles: too close to Paris. If I were him I would have chosen Soissons or Reims, though maybe there wasn't enough space there(?).
He listened to his wife Marie Antoinette and did not establish a constitutional monarchy despite given several chances to.
Avoid getting entangled with the ARW would be a start. If that can't be avoided get Britain to pay enough in reparations to cover the debts incurred. France really got fucked during the peace negotiations.
Why would Britain be obliged to pay anything to France (when they didn't to any of the other concombattants)? France entered the ARW with the intention of "displacing" Britain as the dominant world power, and then hoped, at the peace talks, to become the predominant trading partner for the US by picking up the slack since Britain wouldn't want to trade with their wayward colony. France got screwed in both ends there.
AIUI the US never repaid the "loans" France dished out to them during the war EITHER nor gave the French the trade concessions that Louis had been banking on. America basically said "thanks for the cash" and then turned and carried on as before with Britain. See France as the cops called out for a domestic abuse scuffle between America and England. And America is the wife who refuses to press charges against the British husband. France can't do jack about it if she decides to stay with the guy.
It's a bad metaphor, but hopefully you get the idea.
Well, allegedly, Nappy said at the sight of Louis bowing to the crowd that he should kill few hundreds with a grapeshot and the rest would disperse. This is totally apocriphical and I’m not sure that the recipie would work but Louis was rather stubborn than decisive and definitely not a fast thinker (if thinker at all). Specific mistakes and their results were mostly byproducts of his character so you need a seriously different Louis.What were the main mistakes/errors of Louis XVI that cause the French revolution?
Louis was rather stubborn than decisive and definitely not a fast thinker (if thinker at all).
Only if he had taken the throne as Constitutional King. Trying to have him accepting the imposition of that kind on ruleship on him was a big mistake. The only way in which the constitutional monarchy would be able to survive in the OTL revolution was with a successful (and maybe earlier) escape of the royal family (with the Assembly declaring Louis and his son, brothers and nephews who were all emigrated as traitors of France and deprived of any right on the French crown and putting Philippe Egalite of Orléans on the throne)AFAIK, nowadays, historians are going back on this statement. It is right that he was more stubborn than decisive, but he wasn't as dumb as he was poorly educated to politics and lacked confidance in his capacities, therefore he needed the approval of his political entourage : a jealous cousin, a hateful cousin, and opportunistic nobles.
He would've been a great constitutionnal monarch
AFAIK, nowadays, historians are going back on this statement. It is right that he was more stubborn than decisive, but he wasn't as dumb as he was poorly educated to politics and lacked confidance in his capacities, therefore he needed the approval of his political entourage : a jealous cousin, a hateful cousin, and opportunistic nobles.
He would've been a great constitutionnal monarch
Only if he had taken the throne as Constitutional King. Trying to have him accepting the imposition of that kind on ruleship on him was a big mistake