Historian Tim Blanning in his work The Pursuit of Glory: Europe, 1648-1815, makes the argument that the true beginning of the French Revolution began on 17 August 1787 and not on 20 April 1792 as is generally accepted.  The basis for his argument is centered around the Turks declaring war on the Russians, which in turn, triggered a defensive alliance that existed between Russia and Austria at the time.[1]  The reasoning is further reinforced by Blanning in that nearly the same situation occurred which led to the outbreak of WWI with the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie by a Serbian nationalist in 1914.  While compelling in his case, it is a stretch and not appropriate for the dating of the French Revolution.

Fig. 1. The French Revolution witnessed thousands being marched to their doom at the hands of the guilletine. This painting, known as the execution of Robespierre and his supporters on 28 July 1794, actually depicts Couthon having lost his head with Robespierre still awaiting his turn in the cart. Hysteria, old grudges, and political vendettas played a role in the French Reign of Terror. Wikimedia Commons.

The political and military activities of the powers of the time, which included Austria, Britain, France, Prussia, and Russia were very dynamic with treaties being constantly brokered and broken and territorial wars between nation-states a near constant thing, to expand their individual power and influence.  This was very much the case at the time with the Turks having engaged in war with both Russia in 1783 in the Crimea and then with Austria in 1787 in the Balkans.[2]  These regional conflicts between the various states, while having broader implications on the Revolution, were separate occurrences and not the causation or the beginning for the French Revolution as they were “preoccupied with their own affairs and schemes for aggrandizement.”[3]

More importantly, the French Revolution is just that: a French Revolution.  It is not an Ottoman or Prussian Revolution that spilled over into France, but a result of a timetable of events within France that engulfed its neighbors in one fashion or another.  The reality was that the collapse of the finances of France in 1789, the doing away of the ancient regime and little action by the new democratic government to improve the lives of the citizenry help to cause an untenable situation for the fragile French government.  War was the best way to distract the French people from their internal woes and focus their energy on an external threat, thus buying time for the tenuous government to try and get control of things.  The French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jacques Pierre Brissot stated that “’War is a national benefit: the only calamity to be feared that we should have no war.’”[4] Therefore, on 20 April 1792 France declared war on Austria (even though France had signed an alliance with them in 1756), thus officially beginning the French Revolution.

Notes

[1] Tim Blanning, The Pursuit of Glory: Europe, 1648-1815 (New York: Viking Press, 2007), 611.

[2] Alexander Mikaberidze, The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2020), 22-25.

[3] Ibid., 22.

[4] Michael Glover, The Napoleon Wars: An Illustrated History, 1792-1815 (London, UK: Batsford, 1982), 21.

Bibliography 

Blanning, Tim. The Pursuit of Glory: Europe, 1648-1815. New York, NY: Viking Press, 2007. 

Glover, Michael. The Napoleonic Wars: An Illustrated History, 1792-1815. London, UK: Batsford, 1982. 

Mikaberidze, Alexander. The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2020.