WI: French Revolution with less hawkish Girondists

Among the different groups within the revolutionary movement, the Girondists were clearly the most extreme war faction in foreign policy. With Brissot as the leading figure, they almost took a "the more danger, the more honour" approach. Despite their radicalism in domestic politics and le terreur, the Jacobins were far more cautious and wanted to restrict the revolution to French soil.

The war with Prussia and the counter-revolutionary uprisings were probably inevitable, but what could have happened without the war declarations on the Netherlands, Britain and Spain? Could the constitutional monarchy or possibly even a Republic (with the proposed Jacobin constitution, which was never put into practice in OTL) have survived longer? Without the war, military figures like Napoleon also wouldn't have a platform for a political career.

Would the Jacobins have been less radical? It could, on the other hand, also mean: no Carnot = no levée en masse = a quicker end of the revolution.
 
As long as the French doesn't take the Austrian Netherlands,all will be fine.If they did,there's no way Britain and the Netherlands wouldn't go to war over it.
 
The way I understand it the thing that set the nations of Europe against the revolution in the way that they wanted to destroy it was the death of the French king .If the don`t kill the king then Europe might be more accepting of the revolution .
After all at the start before the bloodshed the British were quite happy about the revolution and supported it seeing it as the start of a French constitutional monarchy .
 
If the Girondists are aggressive abroad, what do they stand for? More to the point, what is their selling point against the Jacobins? They needed to out-radical them on something.
 
One shouldn't wholly separate Girondins and Jacobins.
See, Revolutionary France didn't have political parties, but "clubs" which were sorta mix between think-tank, lobbies and parlementarian groups.

You had Girondins members of the "Jacobin Club", as you had a lot of Montagnards outside it.

OCsOyRz.png

Main revolutionnary clubs, with a focus on Jacobins

As for the look on war...

Royalists and Louis XVI supported the war : Revolutionnaries were idiots playing politicians that couldn't avoid being crushed badly by the whole of Europe, for them.
Girondins and non-radical (well, too much radicals) were for war as well : Not only it would force the king to unveil himself and his ambitions (talk about batman-gambit), but it would allow to force-export revolution, to attack preventivly royalist armies and émigrés they hosted.

Opposers were "radical" revolutionnaries, because they opposed both of these factions, believed that a revolution can't be exported, and because it was seen as only a way to dismiss internal progress towards Liberty and Equality.
Opposed as well were Feuillants, constitutional monarchists that tought (with great points) that the whole war would radicalize Revolution and make the monarchy being crushed (remember that the whole Varennes affair already greatly deligitimized it a lot).

Basically, anti-royalists and royalists being for the war for completly different reasons; and radical revolutionnaries and constitutionalists being against for completly different reasons.
Giving that the latter either didn't have great influence yet, or lost it...

See, the massacre of Champ de Mars in 1791 really prevented an union of revolutionnaries, with radicalizing Jacobins and other left-wing leaning clubs. If Girondins cease to display radical features, they would have really an hard time being depicted as true revolutionnaries and being considered as best as Feuillants-wannabees.

Meaning, at more or less short term, a bi-polarisation favouring left Jacobins and Cordeliers, and with a king less and less able to be depicted as even remotly agreeing with Revolutionary ideals, a popular republican reaction.

How long would it take before Prussia or Austria put an end to the experiment and put back someone on the throne, exploiting the huge division among revolutionnaries?
Remember that we're talking of a France not prepared for war, even more troubled by 1791/1793 that is was IOTL.
So, probably something akin to IOTL when it come to la patrie en danger and subsequent political decisions.
 
Top