French Revolution Justified Dbq Analysis

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Do the ends justify the mean? If you were an American soldier ready to be deployed for a massive land invasion of Japan, the atomic bombs saved your life. World War II ended when the United States dropped the atomic bombs and saved thousands of American lives. The French Revolution faced a similar dilemma. The rallying cry for the revolution was equality, liberty, and fraternity, bringing the first democracy to France. The Reign of Terror was led by Maximilien Robespierre, he violently suppressed counter-revolutionary forces within and outside the country. Did the French government have good reason to conduct a violent campaign to uphold the ideals of the French Revolution? The Reign of Terror was justified because of three reasons: the revolutionary …show more content…

80,000 Austrian and Prussian armies were marching towards France to end the revolution (Doc C). It is true that the French forces stopped them at the Battle of Valmy in 1792, a year before the Reign of Terror (Doc C). But the goals of the revolution was to spread the new ideas of liberty, equality, and male suffrage (the right to vote) across Europe. In 1791, Austria and Prussia officially expressed their support for the French monarchy (Doc B). Furthermore, France faced internal threats in the Western region of Vendee, where emigres or nobles conspired against the young republic. Nearly 10,000 French army officers and aristocrats (nobles) were ready to join the foreign invasion (Doc C). France was facing a real crisis with only two years into the revolution. The Reign of Terror was bloody, but it clarified the goals of all French citizens- join the army, protect the revolution, and resist the return to feudalism and the Old Regime. The map addresses that France had external threats, in August 1792, 80,000 Austrian and Prussian armies were marching towards France to suppresses the French Revolution. That was not the only problem France had though, they also had internal troubles, 10,000 French army officers and aristocrats had moved to the Austrian-controlled Netherlands to form armies and they allied themselves with France’s foreign enemies. Also many French citizens fought against the military draft called the levée en masse and against laws that tried to abolish Christianity in France. France was being attacked from two fronts, outside invaders and by rebels and émigrés. Desperate times require desperate measures. The timeline enforces that The Reign of Terror was justified, it successfully fought enemies from both inside and outside of France. First, the counter-revolution in Western France fell in December 1793. Second, the French Revolutionary