Topic 2 of 6 · Form 5
Modern Europe: the French Revolution and Napoleon
Financial crisis (war debts, inefficient taxation), social inequality (the three estates and privilege), Enlightenment ideas, poor harvests and bread prices, the weakness of Louis XVI, and the calling of the Estates-General.
Notes for this topic 1 file, in order
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Causes of the French Revolution (1789)
Financial crisis (war debts, inefficient taxation), social inequality (the three estates and privilege), Enlightenment ideas, poor harvests and bread prices, the weakness of Louis XVI, and the calling of the Estates-General.
Course of the Revolution
The Tennis Court Oath and the National Assembly; the storming of the Bastille; the Declaration of the Rights of Man; the constitutional monarchy; war and radicalisation; the execution of Louis XVI (1793); the Terror under Robespierre; the Directory.
Napoleon
Rise to power (coup of Brumaire, 1799); domestic reforms (Napoleonic Code, Concordat, education, administration); military successes and failures (Continental System, Peninsular War, Russian campaign 1812); defeat and exile (1814–15).
Check yourself
- What was the Tennis Court Oath?
- Give two reforms introduced by Napoleon.
- Why did the Russian campaign of 1812 fail?
Show answers
- A pledge by the Third Estate deputies not to separate until France had a constitution (June 1789).
- Any two: Napoleonic Code, Concordat with the Church, lycées, centralised administration, Bank of France.
- Vast distances, scorched earth tactics, winter conditions, supply failures and disease.
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