Deadlock, War & Terror

A natural reaction to the history of the French Revolution is to see it as a glorious movement for liberty which somehow ‘went wrong', ending in a nightmare of blood and chaos. This pamphlet explains what really happened, and why. It shows how the apparent achievements of the first two years of the Revolution produced deadlock, which politicians tried to break by war; how war produced the instruments of the Terror and drove France's deputies into accepting more radical measures that they would have likes; and how the politicians broke into factions under the strain of events.

The author goes on to explain what the Terror meant to the daily lives of people all over France, and what Robespierre and a few other politicians would have liked it to mean, namely the creation of a new Frenchman, dedicated to vertu.

He suggests that in one sense the Terror was a return to the ways of the past: France once more had a government which told the people how they were to think and behave. It also turned military defeat into victory and saved the Revolution, but at a cost. The Terror destroyed itself as a result of the fears and quarrels it created among politicians, but by then the country was sick of it and saw no further need for it. The memory of its promises, achievement and horrors, however affected French politics for generations to come.