WAR!!!!

• Begun in 1792 with Austria and Prussia

• Accelerated the radicalism of the Revolution causing the people of Paris, led by the Jacobins to overthrow the Monarchy on August 10,1792.

• The king was finally executed on January 21, 1793.

• This radicalism caused the Dutch Republic, Great Britain, Portugal, Russia, Sardinia, Savoy, and Spain to join the war, also in early 1793.

COLLAPSE OF THE PORTS“Oh No!”s

• Because of the war France was invaded from the: south, southeast, northeast, and north.

• Also Great Britain, with Spain and the Dutch, blockaded French ports in the Mediterranean and Atlantic.They also started to harass French colonies and coasts.

• So industries reliant on exportation no longer had access to their markets.

• This led to a Federalist movement and an outcry for economic centralization.

Outbreak of Civil War

• Political factionalism led to a purge of deputies in the National Assembly from May 31 to June 2, 1793. This led to revolts in Lyon, Caen, Bordeaux, Marseille, and Toulon.

• The civil war quickened the collapse of the ports and the industries connected to Atlantic trade.

Hunger?No thanks, I’m good.

• The foreign and civil war prevented normal trade in grain and precluded the planting, sowing, or reaping of the harvest.

• The government needed to supply the army and provide the cities with bread that they could afford. So they rationed the food, while prioritizing these two demands.

• This crisis forced the government to give up economic liberalism and changed into a command economy.

Oh, Maximums!• May 4, 1793 the National Convention set

maximum prices that could be charged for bread and grain.

• Grain could only be sold at officially sanctioned markets, at prices determined by officials based on recent market rates.

• The narrow-mindedness of local administrators, who were worried about only those who elected them, led to small scale economic warfare between the local governments.

Levée en Masse• On August 23,1793 the Committee of Public

Safety the first ever universal draft, on males of ages 18 to 64.

• Only farmers and day laborers, which worked in grain producing regions, and arms workers and carters that transported goods for the war were exempt from this draft. But these men had to move wherever the government needed them.

A Call to Arms

• An Arms industry was created from scratch in Paris. Skilled labor was conscripted from all over the nation. Scarce materials, steam engines, and tools were diverted for this use. In thirteen months, 5,400 workers in 39 workshops manufactured about, 155,000 muskets and pistols and 1,500 bronze cannons at a cost of 1.8 million livres!

Other supplies for the Army• The government established a host of factories to

manufacture: bayonets, swords, hats, boots, uniforms, gunpowder, ammunition, barrels, harnesses, saddles, and fittings and munitions for the navy.

• Workers were paid by the Maximum.• Their production quotas were set high and their

wages and food rations would be reduced drastically if they failed to meet them.

• At the height of the war, tens of thousands were employed

The General Maximum

• Universal price ceilings for grain and bread put in place on September 11, 1793. These ceilings were later extended to all essential goods on the 23.

• Local authorities were empowered to set transportation costs, requisition food and establish public granaries.

• The transportation costs were severely overpriced by these authorities encouraging producers to bring their goods to the nearest market instead of the neediest.

• Because of its increasing success the General maximum was nationalized in spring 1794

The General Maximum Again!• To reduce inflation, wages were regulated• Based on consultation with employers,

employees, and state reps, municipalities were instructed to set prices no higher than 50% above the level of 1790.

• Wage limitations were less strictly enforced.• In addition there were vast swaths of the country

that food was not available at Maximum prices, thus use of the black market or supplemental fee, authorized by the CPS was required

Managing Trade

• Despite the blockade, foreign trade continued through smugglers, blockade runners, and neutral trading.

• Neutral traders were especially encouraged and could sell items above the General Maximum.

• Luxury goods, especially lace, silk, fine wine, and tobacco, were sold to them at discounts.

• The art collections of nobles, clergy, and royalty were also sold to buy munitions.

SCIENCE! IT WORKS!

• The CPS also conscripted scientists for the war effort.

• Jean-Antoine Chaptal improved turning saltpeter into gunpowder

• Chemist Claude Berthollet and mathematicians Gaspard Monge and Alexander Vandermonde published a pamphlet illustrating the best way to manufacture steel.

Science Still Works!

• Technological innovations such as the telegraph, which was used, and air balloons to direct artillery fire, which was not, were tried and proposed during this time.

• In 1794 the CPS established the National Institute of Arts and Sciences and the Polytechnic Institute that encouraged the use of science by the government.

• These efforts provided tangible economic benefits.

THE TERROROh! Maxi, you’re so crazy!

• On September 5, 1793 the National convention proclaimed the Terror.

• Terror applied systematic suspicion and government sponsored violence to coerce the French citizens.

• This saw one million people suspect and under supervision, 300,000 imprisoned, and 50,000 killed

Requisition and Nationalization

• “Revolutionary armies” (angry crowds of citizens) used intimidation and violence to appropriate as much food as possible

• Pressure from these groups led former nobles, clergy, and well-to-do citizens to give large sums to avoid denunciation.

• The lands of nobles that fled and the royalty were nationalized and sold.

Land for Everybody!

• The state mandated that land had to be sold in small plots at reduced prices in the depreciated currency.

• This gave everybody a chance to have land.

• This ensured small-holding agriculture in France far longer than its neighbors and rivals.

Terror was…Good?!?!

• The Terror allowed the state to function even though it was paying for goods with depreciated assignats.

• Also controlled inflation, boosted war materiel incredibly, prevented famine, and kept the government afloat during the draft until it had defeated various Federalist cities, stopped invaders, and was ready to strike back.

End of the Terror and Government Controls

• The victories against the invaders undermined the need for the Terror and ended it on July 27, 1794.

• The National Convention abandoned maximum wages on August 9th, yet there were outcries for more wage hikes so the government disbanded the workshops.

• In December the Maximum and the institutions of the Reign of Terror were dismantled completely

Inflation and the Assignat• Without the threat of the terror the assignat

inflated like crazy stating its fall in 1794. Also Maximums were ignored.

• The “White Terror” (revenge against the leaders of “The Reign of Terror”) weakened he government’s control on the economy. The Maximum was abolished on the 24 of December 1794. A severe freeze the same night brought in the worst winter of the century putting pressure on commodities such as wood and coal.

?Gracchus Babeuf?

• Gracchus led an abortive conspiracy to overthrow the government on behalf of the working class in 1796. Important because he saw the essential role of the state transforming along egalitarian lines.

THIS COMMUTE IS KILLER!

• Since 1789, the government was too preoccupied, by debt and then war to take care of its roads. This caused France to lose some over land trade to Britain and other competitors.

Bankrupt

• In the late 1790s the government resorted to repeated forced loans from the richest quarter of taxpayers.

• In February 1796, the assignat was replaced with mandats territoriaux that were supported by sale of 600 million livres worth of forested land.

• Still, France declared bankruptcy in 1797 to pay off one third of its debt in worthless paper money and leave the remaining 2.6 billion livres to be defaulted.

Smuggling• Smuggling had been a long-time job by otherwise law

abiding citizens.• They became heroes in wartime bringing in otherwise

unavailable goods.• In ports like Bordeaux, Dunkerque, and Rouen and

frontier cities like Strasbourg smuggling was widely accepted business.

• The success of this smuggling and either the inability or unwillingness of the government to stop it demonstrated the limitations of state power after the Terror

Expansion

Places France Conquered: Belgium, the Dutch Republic (became the Batavian Republic), and the Western bank of the Rhine, 1795, Piedmont and Lombardy by Napoleon, 1796, Venice, Naples, The Papacy, and Austria and its clients, 1796. Northwestern Italy was annexed and Tuscany was also occupied.

Expansion2

Except for Venice, the rest of the Italian peninsula was divided into sister republics: Cisalpine Republic around Milan (1797), Ligurian Republic around Genoa (1797), The Roman Republic (1798), and a Parthenopean Republic with Naples being the capital (1799).

Expansion3

• The Helvetic republic was imposed on the Swiss Confederation in 1798.

• Occupied Egypt and invaded Syria 1798-99• The conquering French initially had strong

support in cities, especially in Belgium, Holland, and Northern Italy.

• However the rural areas were less willing to accept French “innovations” that eliminated traditional rulers and institutions, these areas also engaged in tax strikes and draft dodging.

The Amoeba Strategy

• All this expansion allowed the Revolutionary government to survive. The conquered territories were looted and cities that resisted were fined extraordinary sums.

• It also supplied France with a great influx of raw materials and scientific and entrepreneurial talent.

• French domestic markets also boomed, increasing France’s population advantage over its economic rivals.

Symbiosis is in there TOO?!

• Direct access to the French market and the right to become military suppliers provided most annexed territories enormous benefits.

• If it were not for this expansion and looting, the Directory would not have been able to maintain power or fund itself.

Napoleon Brings Home the Bacon

• In its first year, Napoleon’s Italian campaign brought home 158 million livres.

• The threat from these areas in a new alliance of European powers also justified Bonaparte’s coup.

Hothouse Industries• Because of the war with England and the Blockade,

no English goods could be sold and land based trade became essential.

• Speculators and government contractors bought land and set up mining or manufacturing enterprises and because of high inflation the real wages were low. Mining and metallurgical industries boomed.

• Cotton trading also boomed because of high tariffs on British goods; however, these entrepreneurs took advantage of temporary conditions and failed once trade with Britain began again.

Landownership

• Land was redistributed significantly during the revolution, most of those who acquired land were prosperous tenant-farmers and urban middle classes, while some land did end up with small peasant proprietors.

• As a result agriculture was dominated by small holding producers in the 19th century and, when combined with war and high tariffs, prevent greater agricultural output or productivity.

Standard of Living• During the revolution the standard of living declined in urban

areas and either remained the same or dipped in rural areas.

• Ports and areas dependent on colonial trade suffered longstanding depressions

• The industrial output in 1799 was only two thirds of that of 1789.

• Those whose incomes came from property and investments were shattered by inflation, bankruptcies, and nationalizations.

• The French Revolution redistributed an impossible to measure amount of wealth.

The Search for New Approaches to Economy

• The ad hoc government support supported by Atlantic trade of the old regime was discredited.

• The tenets of classical economic liberalism in the early revolution was ineffective.

• The command economy of The Terror was successful but alienated everyone.

• The blend of liberal and state-driven policies of the Directory was successful only under a more stable Consulate (1799-1804) and the Empire (1804-15)

War and Politics

• The economic growth was tied directly to politics and its consequences during the Revolution

• It was also crippled by the loss of the population and overseas empire.

• Perhaps the most crippling from a long-term standpoint is that all the energy and initiative that may have gone to economic developments, scientific achievements, or technological improvements was spent on war and politics

Industrialization Delayed• The economic and administrative reforms of the

Revolution were needed but not sufficient enough to maintain France’s impressive economic growth in the nineteenth century.

• France’s first industrial economy died when the Reign of Terror ended.

• The agricultural sector was unable to bridge the gap of debt, especially with the crash of overseas trade.

• The French Revolution delayed but laid the foundations for a quick developing, Industrial revolution.