The Terror - the Twelve Who Ruled Palmer

The Terror was more than the shedding of blood; it was a system of government. On September 5th 1793 following the pressures of the populace, defeats and deserts at war, federalist revolts, counter-revolutionary attacks from 66 departments against Paris and the disharmony between leaders of the nation, convinced the Convention that it would not do for a nation at war with foreigners and itself and accept the creation of a wartime executive centralized government in the form of the Committee of Public Safety to effectively control over all aspects of life in France. And so Terror became the order of the day.

In his thesis The Twelve who ruled Palmer accounts for the creation of Committee of Public safety as a result of the fear felt by the Convention about the state of the war with the Coalition, disharmony in the government, war in the Vendee and Federalist revolt and pressure from the sans-culotte on the Paris streets. The causes of the crisis in 5th summer have been debated among historians who ask different questions of this period known as the Terror.

Palmer pays great attention to the war with the Coalition as a source of fear in the Convention. France was at war with Austria and Prussia, and now added to the list of enemies with more countries of Europe as a result of the execution of King Louis XVI. The Convention feared that if they did not act soon, the King's brothers would come back, the Queen would escape from imprisonment, émigrés and the system of privilege would return with revenge, fury and persecution. The army was suffering because the soldiers in authority were still of the Ancien regime. This created tension on the battlefield between French men. Many officers would wear the attire of a servant to the Bourbon monarch whilst their men wore the republican uniform. The war was not the only cause of tension on the front line, but also the factionalism within Paris between the leaders in government.

T.C.W Blanning focuses on the division in opinions on war in the Convention, stating that it was the war which ensured France would not achieve the liberal forms of government which it strived for, but instead accept an executive centralised government. He uses the words of Brissot 'We cannot calm until Europe, all Europe is in flames.' And Robespierre's contradicting view that 'liberty can never be founded by use of foreign force,' to show the differing views in leadership on whether to expand their revolutionary ideas or to focus on the conflict within the nation. Paul R Hanson agrees with Palmer and Blanning, asserting that the advent of foreign war created a political climate in which toleration of opposing views, much less outright dissent, became increasingly difficult. However there are some historians who believe the war was not responsible for the creation of the CPS. Jocelyn Hunt believes the government utilized to good affect the fear of the Austrian and Prussian threat to create the Committee of Public Safety and take more power over the nation. Hunt is not alone in this view, François Furet names the Convention, the CPS and the CGS as terrorist institutions designed merely to silence counterrevolutionaries and consolidate Jacobin rule. He believes neither the war nor pressure from 'petit people' are enough to account for the phenomenon.

War with the Coalition is not the only war the Convention had concerns about. Civil war broke out in the Vendee in the West and Federalist revolts began in the East. Palmer accounts for this as an objection to taxation, conscription and the centralised power in Paris by a government other than the Bourbon monarchy. Jocelyn Hunt believes the cause of the Vendean war was mostly the devastating and unpopular effect of war with the Coalition; it was the decision to reinstate legislation of conscription, the decree for a levy of 300,000 men which infuriated people in the provinces. So in reaction, the Convention then had a civil war to overcome. However, other historians