On 27 May, trapped Anglo-French forces began evacuating the continent from Dunkirk , abandoning their heavy equipment in the process. With over 60 divisions, compared to remaining 40 French divisions in the north, the Germans were able to breach the French defensive line along the river Somme by 6 June. Two days later, Parisians could hear distant gunfire. On 23 January , Mussolini remarked that "even today we could undertake and sustain a A war with Yugoslavia was considered likely by the end of April.
The two marshals unsuccessfully attempted to persuade Mussolini that this was not a wise course of action, arguing that the Italian military was unprepared, divisions were not up to strength, troops lacked equipment, the empire was equally unprepared, and the merchant fleet was scattered across the globe. By mid Germany had revised its earlier preference for Italy as a war ally.
The pending collapse of France might have been affected by any diversion of German military resources to support a new Alpine front. From a political and economic perspective Italy was useful as a sympathetic neutral and her entry into the war might complicate any peace negotiations with Britain and France. On 10 June, Ciano informed his ambassadors in London and Paris that a declaration of war would be handed to the British and French ambassadors in Rome at hours, local time.
Late in the day, Mussolini addressed a crowd from the Palazzo Venezia , in Rome. He declared that he had taken the country to war to rectify maritime frontiers. As early as 14 May, the French Ministry of the Interior had given orders to arrest Italian citizens known or suspected of being anti-French in the event of war. Immediately after the declaration of war, the French authorities put up posters in all the towns near the Italian border ordering all Italian citizens to report to the local police by 15 June. Those who reported were asked to sign a declaration of loyalty that entailed possible future military service.
The response was impressive: In Nice, over 5, Italians reported within three days. In June , only five Alpine passes between France and Italy were practicable for motor vehicles: The only other routes were the coast road and the mule trails. By December , all mobile troops had been stripped from Olry's army and redeployed north to the main front against Germany, and his general staff had been much reduced. Of this force, only 85, men were based on the frontier: These were elite troops trained in mountain warfare , skiing, mountain climbing, and equipped appropriately.
On 31 May, the Anglo-French Supreme War Council came to the decision that, if Italy joined the war, aerial attacks should commence against industrial and oil-related targets in northern Italy. To facilitate this, the French allotted the British Royal Air Force RAF the use of two airfields, north of Marseille , to act as forward refueling and operation base for bombers flying from the United Kingdom. The headquarters of No. It comprised Whitley and Wellington bombers from No. On 10 May, the order of battle for the Army of the Alps was as follows: During the s, the French had constructed a series of fortifications—the Maginot Line —along their border with Germany.
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This line had been designed to deter a German invasion across the Franco-German border and funnel an attack into Belgium, which could then be met by the best divisions of the French Army. Thus, any future war would take place outside of French territory avoiding a repeat of the First World War.
In addition to this force, the French had constructed a series of fortifications known as Alpine Line , or the Little Maginot Line. In contrast to the Maginot Line facing the German border, the fortifications in the Alps were not a continuous chain of forts. To defend these passes, the French had constructed nine artillery and ten infantry bunkers.
Along the border, in front of the above main fortifications, numerous blockhouses and casemates had been constructed. However, by the outbreak of the war some of the Little Maginot Line's positions had yet to be completed and overall the fortifications were smaller and weaker than those in the main Maginot Line. Italy had a series of fortification along its entire land border: By the section facing France, the Occidental Front, had complete opere works, like French ouvrages with artillery pieces. As Mussolini prepared to enter the war, construction work continued round the clock on the entire wall, including the section fronting Germany.
During the interwar years and , the strength of the Italian military had dramatically fluctuated due to waves of mobilization and demobilization. By the time Italy entered the war, over 1. However, only 19 of these divisions were complete and fully combat ready. A further 32 were in various stages of being formed and could be used for combat if needed, while the rest were not ready for battle.
Italy was prepared, in the event of war, for a defensive stance on both the Italian and Yugoslav fronts, for defence against French aggression and for an offensive against Yugoslavia while France remained neutral. There was no planning for an offensive against France beyond mobilisation. They were not prepared to assault French fortifications, and their deployment did not change prior to June The Seventh Army was held in reserve at Turin, and a further ten mobile divisions, the Army of the Po later Sixth Army , were made available.
Despite the numerical superiority, the Italian military was plagued by numerous issues. During the s, the army had developed an operational doctrine of rapid mobile advances backed by heavy artillery support. Starting in , General Alberto Pariani [i] initiated a series of reforms that radically altered the army. By , all Italian divisions had been converted from triangular divisions into binary divisions. Rather than having three infantry regiments, the divisions were composed of two, bringing their total strength to around 7, men and therefore smaller than their French counterparts.
The number of artillery guns had also been reduced, each division had a single artillery regiment whereas their contemporary counterparts had three or four. Marshal Rodolfo Graziani had complained that due to the lack of motor vehicles, the Italian army would be unable to undertake mobile warfare as had been envisioned let alone on the levels the German military was demonstrating. Overall, the Italian troops were poorly equipped and such equipment was inferior to that in use by the French.
They were obsolete by , and have been described by Italian historians as "useless". The rest were up to forty years old and included many taken as reparations, in , from the Austro-Hungarian Army. The Regia Aeronautica Italian Air Force had the third largest fleet of bombers in the world when it entered the war. Italian aerial defences were weak. As early as August Italy had requested from Germany batteries of mm anti-aircraft AA guns.
The request was renewed in March , but declined on 8 June. On 13 June, Mussolini offered to send one Italian armoured division to serve on the German front in France in exchange for 50 AA batteries. The offer was refused. On 29 May, Mussolini convinced King Victor Emmanuel III , who was constitutionally the supreme commander of the Italian armed forces, to delegate his authority to Mussolini, [] and on 4 June Badoglio was already referring to him as supreme commander.
Technically, it also restricted Mussolini's command to forces in combat, but this distinction was unworkable. However, no attack was planned or ordered for the following day when the declaration of war would be issued. The Italian order of battle for Army Group West was as follows: Marshal Graziani, as army chief of staff, went to the front to take over the general direction of war after 10 June. He was joined by the under-secretary of war, General Ubaldo Soddu , who had no operational command, but who served as Mussolini's connection to the front and was appointed deputy chief of the Supreme General Staff on 13 June.
Many of Roatta's orders, like "be on the heels of the enemy; audacius; daring; rushing after", were quickly contradicted by Graziani. The first strike that morning involved 55 bombers, but Malta's anti-aircraft defences reported an attack of between five and twenty aircraft, suggesting that most bombers failed to find their target. The afternoon strike involved 38 aircraft. Immediately after the declaration of war, Haddock Force began to prepare for a bombing run.
The French, in order to prevent retaliatory Italian raids, blocked the runways and prevented the Wellingtons from taking off. The bombers refuelled in the Channel Islands , before proceeding. Most were forced to divert over the Alps because of icing conditions and turbulence. During the early hours of 12 June, ten bombers reached Turin, and a further two bombed Genoa.
The Italians failed to detect the raid until it was over. The aerodrome at Caselle misidentified the bombers as their own aircraft from Udine and lit up the landing strip for them. At Turin the air raid alarm was not raised until the unmolested Whitleys had left. The results of the action were unimpressive: On 15 June, the French finally permitted Haddock Force to operate. During the evening, eight Wellingtons took off to attack industrial targets in Genoa. Due to thunderstorms and problems locating their target, only one aircraft attacked the city during the early hours of the next day while the remainder returned to base.
Nine Wellington bombers took off to bomb targets in Italy, although only five managed to find their objectives. Following which, due to the deteriorating situation in France, the men of Haddock Force were withdrawn by ship from Marseille; their equipment and stores were abandoned.
Your sons and husbands and sweethearts have not left you to defend their country. They suffer death to satisfy the pride of one man. The most intense air-to-air combat of the campaign took place over southern France on 15 June, when Italian BR. On 21 June they bombed the port in a daylight raid and a subsequent night raid.
Maximilien Robespierre - Wikipedia
The last Italian aerial operations against France were undertaken on 19 June by aircraft of the 2 a and 3 a Squadre Aeree and Sardinia against targets in Corsica and Tunisia. One bomber ran out of fuel and was forced to ditch on the return leg. During the general offensive of 21—24 June, the Regia Aeronautica bombed the French fortifications of the Alpine Line to little effect. According to General Giuseppe Santoro , this strategy was incoherent: Only out of Italian bomber sorties during 21—24 June located their targets, dropping only 80 tonnes of bombs.
The Regia Aeronautica never ventured beyond Provence in June and only targeted military sites. Eyewitness reports of aircraft bearing red, white and green roundels are false, since the Italian air force had replaced the tricolour roundel with a Fascist one by An Italian outpost was surprised, resulting in the death of an Italian NCO and a further two soldiers being wounded.
The same day he ordered Army Group West to prepare to begin an offensive in three days: In orders to his troops on 18 June, General Paolo Micheletti of the 1st Alpine Division Taurinense advised that "a strong resistance cannot be anticipated, owing to the shaken [French] morale. On 16 June, Marshal Graziani gave the order for offensive operations to begin within ten days.
Three actions were planned: In retaliation, the mm guns of the Italian fort on Mont Chaberton —"an imposing structure lost in the clouds at an altitude of 3, meters"—were trained on Fort de l'Olive. The Italian bombardment silenced the French fort the following day. The commanders at the front were ordered to explain the situation correctly to their troops: The implication was clear: Italian claims had to be backed up by military feats if they wanted German support in their claims. The Allied fleets held a Cavagnari preferred to utilize his surface force to mine the Sicilian Channel while deploying his submarines en masse to seek out and engage Allied ships.
With France in the process of being overrun by Germany, the naval offensive envisioned by the allies was not undertaken. Rather, four French cruisers supported by three destroyers conducted a patrol of the Aegean Sea during the opening days of the war with Italy while much of the French submarine fleet put to sea. On 12 June, elements of the French fleet sortied in response to a report of German warships entering the Mediterranean.
The French 3rd Squadron comprised four heavy cruisers and 11 destroyers [p] left Toulon and sailed for Italy. At hours on 14 June, the French heavy cruisers opened fire on shore targets. The Colbert and Dupleix , firing from 14, yards 13, metres , attacked a gasworks at Sestri Ponente. In response, Italian shore batteries to the west of Genoa and at Savona and an armoured train [q] opened fire on the attacking French ships. A 6-inch millimetre shell from the Batteria Mameli at Pegli penetrated the boiler room of the French destroyer Albatros , causing serious damage and killing 12 sailors.
Due to misty conditions, the ship's commanding officer, Lieutenant Giuseppe Brignole, believed that he would be able to launch a torpedo strike upon the assaulting French. As the Calatafimi moved into position, it was spotted by French destroyers and engaged. A near miss caused damage to the Italian ship's hull, but it managed to fire four torpedoes at the French force although none struck any targets.
A third attempt, aiming for the cruisers Colbert and Dupleix , failed and the ship withdrew towards Genoa. Under pressure from the Italian coastal artillery, the Colbert and Dupleix withdrew. MAS was struck during the squadron's attack, resulting in light damage to the boat and the crew suffering three casualties. The French reported "that they had subjected their targets to a sustained and effective bombardment", although later noted that "the results of the fire against the shore Lieutenant Brignole was awarded the Gold Medal of Military Valor for his resolved attack against a much larger enemy force.
On 17 June, the Italian submarine Provana attacked a French convoy off Oran but was depth charged by the sloop La Curieuse , forced to surface and then sunk by ramming. La Curieuse also sustained heavy damage. This was the only Italian submarine to be sunk by the French Navy. On 18 June, the staff of the Regia Marina conducted a study which showed that a landing on Malta was not feasible, despite the island's paucity of defences. This was accepted by Badoglio at the first meeting of the several chiefs of staff during the war, on 25 June.
On 19 June, General Roatta wrote to Army Group West that "it might be that there are French troops in the fortifications, but it is probable that the mobile troops, situated in the rear, are already in retreat. Some Italian officers jokingly lectured their troops on how to behave with the French girls. On 19 June, Mussolini ordered his generals to seek contact with the enemy, and at hours Roatta sent a directive to "undertake small offensive operations immediately [and t]o make contact with the enemy everywhere, to decisively harass enemy forces as harshly as possible.
The Germans have occupied Lyon, it must be categorically avoided that they arrive first at the sea. By three-o'-clock tonight [i. The air force will contribute by mass bombardment of the fortifications and cities. Graziani then modified his directive of 16 June: This final edition of the offensive plan had only two main actions, Operation M through the Little Saint Bernard and Operation R along the Riviera, the action in the Maddalena Pass being reduced to a diversionary advance.
He then revoked his countermand, only shifting the emphasis to the northern sector of the front, as his generals had urged all along. This French position was unable to train its battery of six guns on the Italian position and return fire. On 21 June, the French had been able to maneuver a battery of mm mortars of the th Artillery Regiment into a position at the foot of the Fort de l'Infernet to fire on Fort Chaberton.
Over a three-day period, with firing delayed and interrupted by adverse weather, the French were able to silence six of the eight armoured turrets of the Italian fort in only 57 shots. On 21 June, the main Italian offensive began. Initially, the Italian offensive enjoyed some level of success. The French defensive lines were weakened due to the French high command shuffling forces north to fight the Germans. After that, they were to advance on to Beaufort and Albertville. On 21 June, the right column of the Alpine Corps took the Seigne Pass and advanced several kilometres across a glacier, but were met with heavy fire from Seloge.
They quickly outflanked it and on 24 June charged up the Cormet de Roselend , but they were still in the process of completing their encirclement when the armistice was signed. They then forded a river under heavy machine gun fire, while Italian engineers repaired the demolished bridge, suffering heavy losses in the process. On 22 June, the Trieste 's tank battalion passed the motorcycles and was stopped at a minefield.
At the armistice they let the Redoute 's garrison march out with honours of war.
Jules Massenet
The main attack of the I Army Corps was a three-pronged drive by the Division Cagliari , involving the capture of Bessans and Bramans, followed by a concerted advance along the river Arc toward Modane. The central column consisted of the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 64th Infantry Regiment and the 3rd Battalion of the 62nd Regiment. They advanced through the Col des Lacs Giaset and advanced down the valley of the Ambin.
The 2nd Battalion of the 63rd Infantry Regiment crossed the Little Mont Cenis towards the village of Le Planay, where it joined the central column, while the 1st Battalion crossed the Pas de Bellecombe and augmented the central column at the village of La Villette. It was supposed to synchronise its attack on the flank of Modane with the arrival of the central column. The Susa under Major Boccalatte formed the right column and crossed the Pas du Chapeau and the Novalesa pass and followed the river Ribon towards Bessans.
The French garrisons these forces faced were 4,strong, backed by two divisions with sixty tanks behind them. The central column began its descent through the Col des Lacs Giaset shortly after noon on 21 June. As it approached the river Ambin it met strong resistance. The 2nd Battalion coming down the Little Mont Cenis had overcome weak resistance and met the central column.
Some small groups were left behind for mopping up operations while the bulk of the column continued its advance towards Bramans. All the Cagliari battalions coalesced around a chapel outside Bramans, and, after eliminating the French field fortifications with artillery fire, they took the city by the end of the first day.
The Italians attempted to flank them from the south, and their artillery engaged the forts' guns. The forts were not reduced by the time the armistice came into effect, although the advance units of the Cagliari were with three kilometres five miles of Modane. While the Susa had occupied Lanslebourg and moved on to Termignon, the 3rd Battalion of the 64th Infantry had been held up. Its route was heavily mined and strewn with anti-infantry and anti-tank obstacles. A battalion of the st Avellino Infantry Regiment and a tank battalion from the Division Brennero were sent up to assist it.
The First Army had been spared responsibility for the main attack—which fell to the Fourth Army in the north—because of the appeals of its commander, General Pietro Pintor , on 20 June. On 21 June, the units advancing through the Val Roia successfully occupied Fontan.
The amphibious assault had to be called off for logistical reasons—engine failures, overloaded boats, rough seas. Lacking sufficient landing craft, the Regia Marina had commandeered fishing boats and pleasure boats. The Italian navy attempted some landings, but after several craft grounded the whole operation was called off. Mussolini then gave the order that the Cosseria were to advance at all costs. The bypassed French troops continued to fight, firing the fort's armament at Italian coastal shipping, until the armistice.
Italian aircraft then bombed the French barracks there. That day the fort of Pont Saint-Louis engaged in its last artillery duel with the Italians. No vehicles managed to cross the bridge before the armistice. It also had 3, mules on which its artillery was carried and horses, 68 motor vehicles, 71 motorcycles and bicycles. The Acqui Division did not reach the French fortification until late on the 24th, by which time the armistice had been signed. They lost 32 dead and counted 90 wounded, frostbitten and 15 missing.
Because of a lack of artillery in the Ubaye Valley, they had not fired upon the French forts. On 17 June, the day after he transmitted a formal request for an armistice to the German government, French Foreign Minister Paul Baudoin handed to the Papal nuncio Valerio Valeri a note that said: It also requests that he convey to the Italian government its desire to find together the basis of a lasting peace between the two countries. According to Ciano, "under these [mild] conditions, Mussolini is not prepared to make territorial demands At hours on 23 June, the French delegation, headed by General Charles Huntziger , who had signed the German armistice the previous day, landed in Rome aboard three German aircraft.
The French negotiators were the same who had met with the Germans. The first meeting of the two delegations took place at hours at the Villa Incisa all'Olgiata on the Via Cassia. It lasted only twenty-five minutes, during which Roatta read out loud the Italy's proposed terms, Huntziger requested a recess to confer with his government and Ciano adjourned the meeting until the next day. During the adjournment, Hitler informed Mussolini that he thought the Italian demands too light, and he proposed linking up the German and Italian occupation zones.
Roatta ultimately convinced Mussolini that it was too late to change the demands. At hours on 24 June, at the Villa Incisa, after receiving his government's permission, General Huntziger signed the armistice on behalf of the French and Marshal Badoglio for the Italians signed the armistice. Both armistices came into effect at thirty-five minutes past midnight hours [x] on 25 June. Badoglio consulted Mussolini, who agreed.
The actual Italian occupation zone was no more than what had been occupied up to the armistice. Italy was granted the right to use the port of Djibouti in Somaliland with all its equipment, along with the French section of the Addis Ababa—Djibouti railway. More importantly, the naval bases of Toulon, Bizerte, Ajaccio and Oran were also to be demilitarized within fifteen days.
Reported French army casualties vary: A further 2, men suffered from frostbite during the campaign. It is probable that most of the Italian missing were dead. Units operating in more difficult terrain had higher ratios of missing to killed, but probably most of the missing had died. Although treated in accordance with the laws of war by the Italians, they probably fell into German hands after Italy's surrender in September The limited demands of the Italian Government, at the armistice, provoked several theories from contemporary Italian sources. General Roatta believed that Mussolini curbed his intentions because the military had failed to break the French front line and Mussolini was thus "demonstrating his sportsmanship".
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Dino Alfieri advanced the popular but controversial argument that Mussolini weakened his armistice demands to "maintain some semblance of a continental balance of power". Furthermore, Knox comments that Ciano's diary and Mussolini's comments to Hitler "quite adequately explain" the Italian position given the "strategic situation": Mitcham argues that Mussolini was forced to abandon most of what he wanted at the behest of Hitler, who did not wish to see the arrival of the Italians to be greatly rewarded. As a member of the Estates-General , the Constituent Assembly and the Jacobin Club , Robespierre was an outspoken advocate for the poor and for democratic institutions.
He campaigned for universal male suffrage in France, price controls on basic food commodities and the abolition of slavery in the French colonies. He was an ardent opponent of the death penalty, but played an important role in arranging the execution of many political opponents, and of King Louis XVI , which led to the establishment of a French Republic.
He is perhaps best known for his role in the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. As part of his attempts to use extreme measures to control political activity in France, Robespierre later moved against the more moderate Danton, who was accused of corruption and executed in April The Terror ended a few months later with Robespierre's arrest and execution in July, events that initiated a period in French history known as the Thermidorian Reaction. Influenced by 18th-century Enlightenment philosophes such as Rousseau and Montesquieu , Robespierre was a capable articulator of the beliefs of the left-wing bourgeoisie.
His steadfast adherence and defence of the views he expressed earned him the nickname l'Incorruptible The Incorruptible. Robespierre's reputation has gone through several cycles of re-appraisal. During the Soviet era, Robespierre was used as an example of a revolutionary figure. Maximilien de Robespierre was born in Arras in the old French province of Artois. His family has been traced back to the 12th century in Picardy ; some of his ancestors in the male line worked as notaries in Carvin near Arras from the beginning of the 17th century.
His paternal grandfather, also named Maximilien de Robespierre, established himself in Arras as a lawyer. He married Jacqueline Marguerite Carrault, the daughter of a brewer, on 2 January Maximilien was the oldest of four children and was conceived out of wedlock. His siblings were Charlotte born 21 January , [b] Henriette born 28 December , [c] and Augustin born 21 January Until his death in Munich on 6 November , he lived in Arras only occasionally; his two daughters Charlotte and Henriette were brought up by their paternal aunts, and his two sons were taken in by their maternal grandparents.
The children would visit each other on Sundays. Robespierre studied there until age 23, receiving his training as a lawyer. Upon his graduation, he received a special prize of livres for twelve years of exemplary academic success and personal good conduct. In school, he learned to admire the idealised Roman Republic and the rhetoric of Cicero , Cato and other figures from classic history.
He also studied the works of the Swiss philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau and was attracted to many ideas, written in his " Contrat Social ". Robespierre became intrigued by the idea of a "virtuous self", a man who stands alone accompanied only by his conscience. Having completed his law studies, Robespierre was admitted to the bar of Arras.
Robespierre soon resigned, owing to discomfort in ruling on capital cases arising from his early opposition to the death penalty. During court hearings he was often known to promote the ideals of the Enlightenment and to argue for the rights of man.
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He became regarded as one of the best writers and most popular young men of Arras. In December he was elected a member of the academy of Arras, the meetings of which he attended regularly. In the academy of Metz awarded him a medal for his essay on the question of whether the relatives of a condemned criminal should share his disgrace. He and Pierre Louis de Lacretelle , an advocate and journalist in Paris, divided the prize.
Many of his subsequent essays were less successful, but Robespierre was compensated for these failures by his popularity in the literary and musical society at Arras, known as the "Rosatia". In its meetings he became acquainted with Lazare Carnot , who later became his colleague on the Committee of Public Safety.
King Louis XVI later announced new elections for all provinces, thus allowing Robespierre to run for the position of deputy for the Third Estate. Although the leading members of the established provincial estates of Artois were elected to the Estates-General, Robespierre succeeded in getting elected with them — even though he was their chief opponent. In the assembly of the bailliage , rivalry ran still higher, but Robespierre had begun to make his mark in politics with the Avis aux habitants de la campagne , ' Notice to the Residents of the Countryside ' of With this, he secured the support of the country electors.
Although he was only thirty, comparatively poor, and lacking patronage, he was elected as the fifth deputy of the Third Estate of Artois to the Estates-General. When Robespierre arrived at Versailles few of the other deputies knew him, but he became part of the representative National Assembly 13 June declared by the Third Estate, soon to transform itself 9 July into the National Constituent Assembly. While the Constituent Assembly occupied itself with drawing up a constitution, Robespierre turned his attention away from the assembly of provincial lawyers and wealthy bourgeois in favour of the lower classes of France, particularly Jews , Blacks , and actors.
After his arrival in Paris from Versailles in , along with the National Assembly, Robespierre soon became involved with the new Society of the Friends of the Constitution, known eventually as the Jacobin Club. After the National Assembly moved to Paris, the Club began to admit various leaders of the Parisian bourgeoisie to its membership. As time went on, many of the more educated artisans and small shopkeepers became members of the club. Among such men, Robespierre found a sympathetic audience. As the wealthier bourgeois of Paris and right-wing deputies seceded from the club of , the influence of the old leaders of the Jacobins, such as Antoine Barnave , Adrien Duport , and Alexandre de Lameth , diminished.
Alarmed at the progress of the Revolution, they founded the club of the Feuillants in On 15 May , Robespierre proposed and carried the motion that no deputy who sat in the Constituent Assembly could sit in the succeeding Assembly. This self-denying ordinance, designed to demonstrate the disinterested patriotism of the framers of the new constitution, had the effect of accelerating political change as deputies with experience and knowledge of the difficulties faced by France were to be replaced by new and often more enthusiastic men.
In , Robespierre moved to rue de Saintonge, No. Robespierre lived there until his death except for two short intervals. In November, he returned to Paris to take the position of public prosecutor of Paris. In February , Jacques Pierre Brissot , one of the leaders of the Girondist party in the Legislative Assembly , urged that France should declare war against Austria.
Jean-Paul Marat and Robespierre opposed him, because they feared the influence of militarism, which might be turned to the advantage of the reactionary forces. Robespierre was also convinced that the internal stability of the country was more important. This opposition from expected allies irritated the Girondists, and the war became a major point of contention between the factions. Robespierre countered, "A revolutionary war must be waged to free subjects and slaves from unjust tyranny, not for the traditional reasons of defending dynasties and expanding frontiers The risks of Caesarism were clear, for in wartime, the powers of the generals would grow at the expense of ordinary soldiers, and the power of the king and court at the expense of the Assembly.
These dangers should not be overlooked, he reminded his listeners, " Robespierre warned against the threat of dictatorship stemming from war, in the following terms If they are Caesars or Cromwells , they seize power for themselves. If they are spineless courtiers, uninterested in doing good yet dangerous when they seek to do harm, they go back to lay their power at their master's feet, and help him to resume arbitrary power on condition they become his chief servants.
Robespierre also argued that force was not an effective or proper way of spreading the ideals of the Revolution The most extravagant idea that can arise in a politician's head is to believe that it is enough for a people to invade a foreign country to make it adopt their laws and their constitution. No one loves armed missionaries The Declaration of the Rights of Man I am far from claiming that our Revolution will not eventually influence the fate of the world But I say that it will not be today. The journal served multiple purposes: When the Legislative Assembly declared war against Austria on 20 April , Robespierre responded by working to reduce the political influence of the officer class and the king.
Paris may have need of help. Robespierre publicly attacked him in scathing terms: In early June , Robespierre proposed an end to the monarchy and the subordination of the Assembly to the popular will. On 16 August, Robespierre presented a petition to the Legislative Assembly from the Paris Commune the municipal government of the city to demand the establishment of a revolutionary tribunal and the summoning of a convention chosen by universal suffrage.
Rumours spread that Robespierre, Marat and Danton were plotting to establish a triumvirate. On 5 November, Robespierre defended himself, the Jacobin Club and his supporters in and beyond Paris:. Upon the Jacobins I exercise, if we are to believe my accusers, a despotism of opinion, which can be regarded as nothing other than the forerunner of dictatorship.
Firstly, I do not know what a dictatorship of opinion is, above all in a society of free men In fact, this compulsion hardly belongs to the man who enunciates them; it belongs to universal reason and to all men who wish to listen to its voice.
Maximilien Robespierre
It belongs to my colleagues of the Constituent Assembly , to the patriots of the Legislative Assembly, to all citizens who will invariably defend the cause of liberty. Experience has proven, despite Louis XVI and his allies, that the opinion of the Jacobins and of the popular clubs were those of the French Nation; no citizen has made them, and I did nothing other than share in them. Turning the accusations upon his accusers, Robespierre delivered one of the most famous lines of the French Revolution to the Assembly:.
I will not remind you that the sole object of contention dividing us is that you have instinctively defended all acts of new ministers, and we, of principles; that you seemed to prefer power, and we equality Why don't you prosecute the Commune , the Legislative Assembly, the Sections of Paris, the Assemblies of the Cantons and all who imitated us? For all these things have been illegal, as illegal as the Revolution, as the fall of the Monarchy and of the Bastille , as illegal as liberty itself Citizens, do you want a revolution without a revolution?
What is this spirit of persecution which has directed itself against those who freed us from chains? Robespierre's speech marked a profound political break between the Montagnards and the Girondins, strengthening the former in the context of an increasingly revolutionary situation punctuated by the fall of Louis XVI, the invasion of France and the September Massacres in Paris.
The Convention's unanimous declaration of a French Republic on 21 September left open the fate of the king. A commission was therefore established to examine evidence against him while the Convention's Legislation Committee considered legal aspects of any future trial. Most Montagnards favoured judgment and execution, while the Girondins were divided concerning Louis's fate, with some arguing for royal inviolability, others for clemency, and some advocating lesser punishment or death.
Robespierre had been taken ill in November and had done little other than support Saint-Just in his argument against the king's inviolability. Robespierre wrote in his Defenseur de la Constitution that a Constitution which Louis had violated himself, and which declared his inviolability, could not now be used in his defence. Louis was a king, and our republic is established; the critical question concerning you must be decided by these words alone.
Louis was dethroned by his crimes; Louis denounced the French people as rebels; he appealed to chains, to the armies of tyrants who are his brothers; the victory of the people established that Louis alone was a rebel; Louis cannot therefore be judged; he already is judged. He is condemned, or the republic cannot be absolved. To propose to have a trial of Louis XVI, in whatever manner one may, is to retrogress to royal despotism and constitutionality; it is a counter-revolutionary idea because it places the revolution itself in litigation. In effect, if Louis may still be given a trial, he may be absolved, and innocent.
What am I to say? He is presumed to be so until he is judged. But if Louis is absolved, if he may be presumed innocent, what becomes of the revolution? If Louis is innocent, all the defenders of liberty become slanderers. Our enemies have been friends of the people and of truth and defenders of innocence oppressed; all the declarations of foreign courts are nothing more than the legitimate claims against an illegal faction. Citizens, take warning; you are being fooled by false notions; you confuse positive, civil rights with the principles of the rights of mankind; you confuse the relationships of citizens amongst themselves with the connections between nations and an enemy that conspires against it; you confuse the situation of a people in revolution with that of a people whose government is affirmed; you confuse a nation that punishes a public functionary to conserve its form of government, and one that destroys the government itself.
We are falling back upon ideas familiar to us, in an extraordinary case that depends upon principles we have never yet applied. In arguing for a judgment by the elected Convention without trial, Robespierre supported the recommendations of Jean-Baptiste Mailhe , who headed the commission reporting on legal aspects of Louis's trial or judgment.
Unlike some Girondins, Robespierre specifically opposed judgment by primary assemblies or a referendum, believing that this could cause civil war. As for myself, I abhor the death penalty administered by your laws, and for Louis I have neither love, nor hate; I hate only his crimes. I have demanded the abolition of the death penalty at your Constituent Assembly, and am not to blame if the first principles of reason appeared to you moral and political heresies. But if you will never reclaim these principles in favour of so much evil, the crimes of which belong less to you and more to the government, by what fatal error would you remember yourselves and plead for the greatest of criminals?
You ask an exception to the death penalty for him alone who could legitimise it? Yes, the death penalty is in general a crime, unjustifiable by the indestructible principles of nature, except in cases protecting the safety of individuals or the society altogether. Ordinary misdemeanours have never threatened public safety because society may always protect itself by other means, making those culpable powerless to harm it.
But for a king dethroned in the bosom of a revolution, which is as yet cemented only by laws; a king whose name attracts the scourge of war upon a troubled nation; neither prison, nor exile can render his existence inconsequential to public happiness; this cruel exception to the ordinary laws avowed by justice can be imputed only to the nature of his crimes. With regret I pronounce this fatal truth: Louis must die so that the nation may live. On 14 January , the king was unanimously voted guilty of conspiracy and attacks upon public safety.
On 15 January, the call for a referendum was defeated by votes to , which was led by Robespierre. On 16 January, voting began for the king's sentence, and the session continued until 18 January. During this time, Robespierre worked fervently to ensure the king's execution. Of the deputies who voted, at least had to have voted for death. After the execution of the king, the influence of Robespierre, Danton and the pragmatic politicians increased at the expense of the Girondists. The Girondists refused to have anything more to do with Danton and because of this the government became more divided.
The economic situation in France was rapidly deteriorating and the Paris populace became restless. Rioting persisted and a commission of inquiry of twelve members was set up, on which only Girondins sat. Popular militants were arrested. On 25 May, the Paris Commune demanded that arrested patriots be released and sections drew the list of 22 prominent Girondists to be removed from the Convention.
Maximin Isnard declared that Paris would be destroyed if it came out against the provincial deputies. Robespierre preached a moral "insurrection against the corrupt deputies" at the Jacobin Club. The Jacobins declared themselves in state of insurrection. On 29 May, the delegates representing thirty-three of the Paris sections formed an insurrectionary committee. On 2 June, 80, armed sans-culottes surrounded the Convention. After an attempt of deputies to exit collided with their guns, the deputies resigned themselves to declare the arrest of 29 leading Girondins.
During the insurrection Robespierre had scrawled a note in his memorandum-book:. It must be either republican or royalist. If it is to be republican, we must have republican ministers, republican papers, republican deputies, a republican government. The internal dangers come from the middle classes; in order to defeat the middle classes we must rally the people. The people must ally itself with the Convention, and the Convention must make use of the people.
French revolutionary politicians believed a stable government was needed to quell the chaos. On 27 July , Robespierre was elected to the Committee, although he had not sought the position. The Committee of General Security began to manage the country's internal police. Terror was formally instituted as a legal policy by the Convention on 5 September in a proclamation that read, "It is time that equality bore its scythe above all heads.