Revolution Terms

7.1 Key Terms

• Old Regime: The social and political system of France in the 1770s, where people were divided into three estates.

• Estate: The three large social classes in France under the Old Regime. The First Estate was the clergy, the Second Estate was the nobility, and the Third Estate included everyone else, such as the bourgeoisie, urban workers, and peasants.

• Louis XVI: The king of France during the French Revolution, known for his indecisive leadership and extravagant spending.

• Marie Antoinette: The queen of France during the French Revolution, infamous for her lavish lifestyle and unpopularity.

• Estates-General: An assembly of representatives from all three estates, called by Louis XVI in 1789 to approve new taxes on the nobility. This event marked the beginning of the revolution.

• National Assembly: Formed by the Third Estate delegates in 1789 with the goal of making changes in the government and passing laws in the name of the French people. This marked the end of absolute monarchy and the start of representative government.

• Tennis Court Oath: A pledge taken by the Third Estate delegates in June 1789, vowing to remain assembled until they had created a new constitution for France.

• Great Fear: A wave of panic that swept through France in the summer of 1789, fueled by rumors that nobles were hiring outlaws to attack peasants. This led to peasant uprisings and the destruction of many manor houses.

• Bastille: A Paris prison stormed by a mob on July 14, 1789, in search of gunpowder and weapons. The fall of the Bastille became a symbolic act of revolution for the French people.

• Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: A statement of revolutionary ideals adopted by the National Assembly in August 1789, inspired by the Declaration of Independence. It declared equality for all men and outlined basic rights such as liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.

• Legislative Assembly: A new legislative body created by the Constitution of 1791, which had the power to create laws and approve or reject declarations of war.

• Émigrés: Nobles and others who fled France during the Revolution, hoping to undo the changes and restore the Old Regime.

• Sans-culottes: Parisian workers and small shopkeepers who wanted more radical changes during the Revolution. They were named for wearing regular trousers instead of the knee-length breeches favored by the upper classes.

• Jacobins: A radical political organization during the French Revolution. Notable members included Jean-Paul Marat, Georges Danton, and Maximilien Robespierre.

• Guillotine: A machine used for executions during the French Revolution, considered a more humane method of execution.

• Maximilien Robespierre: A Jacobin leader who rose to power in 1793 and ruled France as a dictator during the Reign of Terror.

• Reign of Terror: A period from 1793 to 1794 marked by mass executions of those considered enemies of the Revolution.

7.2 Key Terms

• Napoleon Bonaparte: A French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and its associated wars. He is considered one of the greatest military commanders of all time.

• Coup d'état: A sudden, often violent, seizure of power from a government. Napoleon staged a coup d'état in 1799, overthrowing the Directory and establishing himself as First Consul of France.

• Plebiscite: A direct vote by the electorate of a country or region on a particular proposal, such as a change in constitution. Napoleon used plebiscites to legitimize his rule, giving the appearance of popular support.

• Lycée: A state-funded secondary school in France. Napoleon established lycées to provide the government with trained officials. These schools were open to male students of all backgrounds, and graduates were appointed to public office based on merit rather than family connections.

• Concordat: An agreement, especially one between the papacy and a secular government. Napoleon signed a concordat with Pope Pius VII in 1801, defining the status of the Roman Catholic Church in France and ending the breach caused by the church reforms of the French Revolution.

• Napoleonic Code: The French civil code established under Napoleon in 1804. It was a comprehensive system of laws that standardized French law and is still in use today, albeit with significant modifications. However, it also limited liberty and promoted order and authority over individual rights. For instance, freedom of speech and of the press, established during the Revolution, were restricted under the code.

• Battle of Trafalgar: A naval battle fought in 1805 off the coast of Spain between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish navies during the Napoleonic Wars. It was a decisive victory for the British, ensuring British naval supremacy for the next 100 years and forcing Napoleon to abandon his plans to invade Britain.

• Blockade: A naval operation intended to prevent ships or goods from entering or leaving a port or region controlled by a hostile nation. Napoleon implemented the Continental System, a blockade designed to economically cripple Great Britain, but it ultimately failed.

• Continental System: A large-scale economic blockade of Britain and its allies, put in place by Napoleon in 1806, intended to disrupt British trade and cripple its economy. The system, however, was ultimately unsuccessful.

• Guerrilla: A member of a small independent group taking part in irregular fighting, typically against larger regular forces. Spanish guerrilla fighters resisted French occupation during the Peninsular War.

• Peninsular War: A military conflict fought in the Iberian Peninsula (primarily Spain and Portugal) between Napoleon's empire and the allied powers of Spain, Portugal, and Britain from 1808 to 1814, as part of the Napoleonic Wars. The war significantly weakened the French Empire.

• Scorched-earth policy: A military strategy that involves destroying anything that might be useful to the enemy while advancing through or withdrawing from an area. The Russians employed this tactic as they retreated from Napoleon's advancing army in 1812, leaving nothing for the French to eat.

• Waterloo: A battle fought on June 18, 1815, in present-day Belgium, where Napoleon's forces were decisively defeated by a coalition of British, Dutch, Belgian, and Prussian troops, marking the end of his rule and the Napoleonic Wars.

• Hundred Days: The period between Napoleon's return from exile on the island of Elba to Paris on March 20, 1815, and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on July 8, 1815, marking the end of his reign.

7.3 Key Terms

• Congress of Vienna: A series of meetings held in Vienna from 1814 to 1815, where European leaders gathered to establish lasting peace and stability across the continent after Napoleon's defeat. The Congress resulted in territorial adjustments aimed at containing France and restoring the balance of power.

• Klemens von Metternich: The Austrian foreign minister who played a crucial role in shaping the Congress of Vienna. He distrusted the democratic ideals of the French Revolution and aimed to prevent future French aggression, restore a balance of power, and reinstate Europe’s royal families to their pre-Napoleon positions.

• Balance of Power: A political situation in which no single country is powerful enough to dominate others. The Congress of Vienna sought to create a balance of power to prevent any one nation from controlling Europe.

• Legitimacy: The principle that rulers who had been driven from their thrones by Napoleon should be restored to power. This principle was applied to royal families in France, Spain, Italy, and Central Europe.

• Holy Alliance: An agreement signed in 1815 by Czar Alexander I of Russia, Emperor Francis I of Austria, and King Frederick William III of Prussia, pledging to base their relations with other nations on Christian principles to combat revolutionary forces.

• Concert of Europe: A series of alliances devised by Metternich to ensure European nations would support one another in the event of revolutions. This system aimed to maintain the conservative order and prevent the spread of revolutionary ideas.

7.4 Key Terms

• Peninsulares: People born in Spain, at the top of Spanish-American society, and the only ones allowed to hold high colonial office.

• Creoles: Spaniards born in Latin America, ranked below peninsulares. They could not hold top political positions but could be army officers. They controlled land, wealth, and power and were often well-educated.

• Mestizos: People of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry, ranked below peninsulares and creoles.

• Mulattos: People of mixed European and African ancestry, ranked below mestizos.

• Simón Bolívar: A wealthy Venezuelan creole and key general in the South American wars of independence. Known as "the Liberator," he led revolutions in several countries, which formed Gran Colombia. Bolivia is named in his honor.

• José de San Martín: A general who led independence movements in Argentina, Chile, and Peru. Born in Argentina, he spent his youth in Spain as a military officer before returning to fight for Latin America's independence.

• Miguel Hidalgo: A poor but educated priest who, in 1810, called for rebellion against Spain, known as "the cry of Dolores."

• José María Morelos: A priest who led the Mexican revolution after Hidalgo's defeat, continuing the fight for four years.

• Toussaint L’Ouverture: A former enslaved leader of the Haitian Revolution who became a skilled general and diplomat, freeing all enslaved people in Haiti by 1801.

7.5 Key Terms

• Conservative: Wealthy property owners and nobility who argued for protecting the traditional monarchies of Europe.

• Liberal: Middle-class business leaders and merchants who wanted to give more power to elected parliaments, but only the educated and the landowners would vote.

• Radical: People who favored drastic change to extend democracy to all people and believed that governments should practice the ideals of the French Revolution—liberty, equality, and brotherhood.

• Nationalism: The belief that people’s greatest loyalty should not be to a king or an empire but to a nation of people who share a common culture and history.

• Nation-state: A nation with its own independent government; it defends the nation’s territory and way of life and represents the nation to the rest of the world.

• The Balkans: A region that includes all or part of present-day Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, and the former Yugoslavia.

• Louis-Napoleon: Nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte; he was elected president of France in December 1848 and, four years later, took the title of Emperor Napoleon III.

• Alexander II: Son of Czar Nicholas I, he decided to move Russia toward modernization and social change after Russia lost the Crimean War.

• Russification: A policy of forcing Russian culture on all the ethnic groups in the empire.

• Camillo di Cavour: A cunning statesman and prime minister of Sardinia, he worked tirelessly to expand Piedmont-Sardinia’s power and unite Italy.

• Giuseppe Garibaldi: A bold and visionary soldier who led a small army of Italian nationalists to capture Sicily in May 1860.

• Junker: Strongly conservative members of Prussia’s wealthy landowning class.

• Otto von Bismarck: A master of realpolitik, he became prime minister of Prussia in 1862 and worked to unify Germany.

• Realpolitik: This German term means “the politics of reality,” it is used to describe tough power politics with no room for idealism.

• Kaiser: The German emperor.

• Romanticism: A movement in art and ideas that reflected deep interest both in nature and in the thoughts and feelings of the individual.

• Realism: A movement in art and ideas that tried to show life as it was, not as it should be.

• Impressionism: A movement in art that tried to show an artist's impression of a subject or a moment in time.

7.6 Key Terms

• Nationalism - The belief that people of a single "nationality," or ancestry, should unite under a single government.

• Nation-states - A sovereign state whose citizens or subjects are relatively homogeneous in factors such as language or common descent. Nationalists believed that people of a single "nationality," or ancestry, should unite under a single government.

• Russification - The process of forcing Russian culture on all the ethnic groups in the empire.

• Camillo di Cavour - (1810–1861) A cunning statesman who worked tirelessly to expand Piedmont-Sardinia’s power and became prime minister to King Victor Emmanuel II in 1852.

• Giuseppe Garibaldi - (1807–1882) A bold and visionary soldier who led a small army of Italian nationalists to capture Sicily in May 1860.

• Junker - Strongly conservative members of Prussia’s wealthy landowning class.

• Otto von Bismarck - Master of realpolitik and became prime minister to King Wilhelm I in 1862.

• Realpolitik - German term meaning "the politics of reality." The term is used to describe tough power politics with no room for idealism.

• Kaiser - Emperor.