Unit 5: French Revolution & Napoleonic Wars

2.1.IV: The French Revolution posed a fundamental challenge to Europe’s existing political and social order. 

• 2.1.IV.A. The French Revolution resulted from a combination of long-term social and political causes, as well as Enlightenment ideas, exacerbated by short-term fiscal and economic crises. 
• 2.1.IV.B. The first, or liberal, phase of the French Revolution established a constitutional monarchy, increased popular participation, nationalized the Catholic Church, and abolished hereditary privileges. 
• 2.1.IV.C. After the execution of Louis XVI, the radical Jacobin republic led by Robespierre responded to opposition at home and war abroad by instituting the Reign of Terror, fixing prices and wages, and pursuing a policy of de-Christianization. 
• 2.1.IV.D. Revolutionary armies, raised by mass conscription, sought to bring the changes initiated in France to the rest of Europe.
• 2.1.IV.E. Women enthusiastically participated in the early phases of the revolution; however, while there were brief improvements in the legal status of women, citizenship in the republic was soon restricted to men. 
• 2.1.IV.F. Revolutionary ideals inspired a revolt of enslaved persons led by Toussaint L’Ouverture in the French colony of Saint Domingue, which became the independent nation of Haiti in 1804. 
• 2.1.IV.G. While many were inspired by the revolution’s emphasis on equality and human rights, others condemned its violence and disregard for traditional authority. 

2.1.V. Claiming to defend the ideals of the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte imposed French control over much of the European continent, which eventually provoked a nationalistic reaction.

• 2.1.V.A. As first consul and emperor, Napoleon undertook a number of enduring domestic reforms while often curtailing some rights and manipulating popular impulses behind a façade of representative institutions. 
• 2.1.V.B. Napoleon’s new military tactics allowed him to exert direct or indirect control over much of the European continent, spreading the ideals of the French Revolution across Europe. 
• 2.1.V.C. Napoleon’s expanding empire created nationalist responses throughout Europe. 
• 2.1.V.D. After the defeat of Napoleon by a coalition of European powers, the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815) attempted to restore the balance of power in Europe and contain the danger of revolutionary or nationalistic upheavals in the future. 

2.2.III Commercial rivalries influenced diplomacy and warfare among European states in the early modern era 

2.3.VI.D Revolution, war and rebellion demonstrated the emotional power of mass politics and nationalism.