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The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France

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The Terror, by David Andress, tells the complete story of the bloody period of the French Revolution, where men and women could have their heads cut off by the guillotine just for having been suspected of harboring "counter-revolutionary" thoughts or expressing dissatisfaction with the ruling Convention. The book pulls no punches, explaining everything in excruciating detail and not hesitating to describe the executions of some of the more prominent figures of the day. Unfortunately, the book is marred by being overly politicized, as well as having some dreadfully boring prose. Combining these two issues together, you get a middle of the pack book that could easily have been a lot better.

Andress does a great job of covering the entirety of the Revolution, beginning with King Louis XVI's flight from Paris in June 1791. The first chapter delves into this issue, beginning with the event and then going back to fill in the details that led to it. In fact, this is a common technique in The Terror, with Andress jumping forward in time a bit (usually beginning with some notable event or other items of significance) and then painting the backstory. Thus, the book gets off to a rollicking start with the horribly planned and executed attempt to flee. It's almost comical if you don't realize where it's all going to lead. Andress then proceeds to go step by step through the Revolution, detailing the attempts to write a constitution (for the first year after Louis was recaptured, the revolutionaries did try to set up and get Louis to agree to a constitutional monarchy). When this failed, the National Convention assumed power. A form of legislature that had 745 deputies, it was always heavily factionalized and was often purged during the Terror that gripped France for the next couple of years. Andress brings many of the characters to life, from Robespierre to Danton and many others. Once things began rolling, things go from bad to worse as first one faction is eliminated and then another. Infighting was rife, yet the Convention was still able to keep the foreign armies, yapping at France's door, in check. This occurred despite massive food shortages, inflation, and awesome displays of violence and revolt in outlying French cities. The city of Lyon was utterly destroyed as an example when government forces finally cowed all of the rebels.

Andress writes all this in a very clear manner, but unfortunately it's also rather dry. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what's wrong with it, but I had trouble staying awake while reading this book. When I picked up this book, no matter how I was feeling, I would start yawning within a couple of pages. I loved the detailed information that Andress provided, so it had to be the prose that did it. I've rarely had that problem with history books, so I know I know it's not the subject matter. This made the book very hard to get through. According to the advertising copy, this is Andress' first book "for general readership," and I'm afraid it shows. The book is very bloody, with vivid descriptions of some of the beheadings, and maybe it was thought this would keep the book lively, but it doesn't work.

The other main problem with the book (and I'm aware that not everybody will find this a problem) is that the beginning and ending of the book are quite politicized. I agree that we can all learn from history and try not to make it repeat itself (except the good things, of course), but I really don't like history books that are written with an agenda. If you're going to make your case, let the events do the talking (though that can lead to some biased history books, so maybe that's not a great thing either). There's no need to handhold me through it. I'm sure it didn't help that I found some of the comparisons spurious anyway, so maybe if you agree with him, you won't be bothered by it. Personally, I think it really hurt what was an interesting book.

With that being said, I do have some compliments for the book. While I didn't like the way Andress presented it, I did love the exceptional detail he provides into all aspects of the Revolution and the Terror that occurred at the end. There are a lot of people involved, some betraying others and some friendly until circumstances decide otherwise, and Andress is able to keep it fairly clear. I did have some trouble following it, but that brings me to the other wonderful thing about this book. Also included at the end is a timeline of major events, a glossary of terms and organizations, and a cast of characters. All of these things are incredibly useful in keeping everything straight (I kept mixing up the National Convention with the Commune) and I'm really glad Andress included them.

Another great thing is that he covers a lot more than just the Revolution itself. Not much is heard about the many wars and battles fought during this time, with England, Austria, Prussia, and even Spain seemingly trying to take advantage of the turmoil, but Andress covers all that too. He details the counter-revolutionary forces that gave the Convention problems (both real and imagined) as well as some of the fighting. This isn't a military book, so the specific battles are glossed over a bit, but he gives the results and why they are important. I was very pleased that the book was this complete.

The Terror is not for the squeamish, and you may get bored. But if you have an interest in the French Revolution and the Terror that it sparked, this is a valuable book with lots of great information. It's worth trudging your way through the prose. And who knows? You may even find it easier than I did. I will say that you won't be disappointed.

David Roy

I'm very glad David Andress wrote this book. It covers a subject sadly overlooked by our popular culture. The author's narration is quite thorough and enjoyable. Unlike some of the other works on the subject, Mr. Andress does not shy away from detailing the most gruesome elements of the Terror. Although not pleasant, the specifics tell us much about the psychology of the time and the mindset of the principals. In particular, this volume gave me a better picture of St. Just than I had previously and portrayed him in totality not only as a radical.

Another highly enlightening aspect of the work is the fact that not only political ideals but party programs are elucidated. We find that Heberte and Robespierre, along with the Girondists, knew frighteningly little about how the state functioned at all. These were not detail oriented people and results of their decisions often showcased just how naive they were.

While the book is easy to recommend I cannot give it all five stars because I disliked some of the politicizing Andress engaged in both in the introduction and the conclusion. I found his allusions to the War on Terror to be obtuse and unsubstantiated. Of course, this is my personal taste as, with history, I only want the facts from a historian. I'll take objectivity over color whenever possible. I grant that there is no such thing as 100 percent objectivity, but I want to draw conclusions on my own.

I would rank this among the best of the latest titles on the French Revolution. Andress covers the so-called radical phase of the revolution with great skill and detail. A revisionist text, The Terror is freed from the old right-left dogmas that haunted the writers of earlier histories of the French Revolution even as late as the cold war era.

Andress is not without sympathy for the leading actors, but neither is he willing to excuse them their crimes. He does make it clear however that they were driven by a so-called "Concert of Europe" which sought to stamp out liberty and democracy in its cradle. In the process he does a solid job of the task to explaining how a Revolution born in the ideals of universal rights could descend into such bloodletting.

Perhaps one of the author's most inciteful, disturbing and likely controversial conclusions is to find parallels between the political and religious fundementalisms of 1789-1795 and today; between the Terror and the War on Terror; between the era of Robespierre and the rise of the national security state.

While the book is great in detail and an excellent choice for those familiar with the events of the French Revolution, I probably wouldn't recommend it as a first choice to a casual reader.

One thing I might add for certain. The Terror: Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France proves that the euphoric proclamation by some that we had somehow reached "the end of history" now seems naively premature.

This is a very concise history of the French Revolution, with emplasis on the period which was called "The Terror". That was the time when the most executions occurred, including the king and queen, and also members of the revolutionary councils, etc.. It seems that, at that time, anyone with a grievance could "finger" someone as a counter-revolutionary, and that was basicaly a death sentence. It's a gruesome work, but it tells a cautionary tale of a revolt gone out of control, even of those who initiated it. This is this author's first book for a general readership, and his lack of being able to comunicate his thoughts in a easily readable format is quite apparent. On the whole, it was a good book to read.

The terror was a traumatic time in France and Andress book does an excellent job of showing how the terror evolved. It covers the rise of Robespierre, the trial of Danton, and even references the activities of Sade. The book is well written and is a great starting point for the terror as long as you understand the events that have occurred previously. If you have covered them before there is a very helpful timeline in the back of the book but you do need to have some prior knowledge of the revolution for it to be helpful.

Some months ago I saw a notice of this book in the NYTBR and marched out to buy it. Either I was distracted or couldn't find it, because I brought home quite another book by the same author, The French Revolution and the People (see my review). This latter volume was the sort of thing the history professor puts on Overnight Reserve in the library--a dense, badly written collection of anecdotes strung loosely together in a forced narrative, with the bad writing you expect in a history PhD dissertation (which this was not, by the way). But for all the crap of its poor construction and atrocious editing, it was full of telling details I hadn't seen before.

Some agent or publisher's editor must have felt the same way about the book, and urged Andress to write a pop history of the French Revolution, using the same sources but putting it all into a tighter and more cinematic narrative.

Here Andress gives us a vivid picture of French politics (mostly in Paris and Lyons) during the period, with particular attention to the successive fall of Danton and Robespierre and to the manias of the popular press (particularly the Pere Duchesne). Without appearing too biased, he presents the case against the King and Queen--and it is a compelling one. Louis XVI swore fealty to the Republic while plotting against it every day, and hiding his secret correspondence in a private wall safe at the Tuileries--something seldom emphasized in other histories. He lied, and lied and lied again, and this is why he lost his head. The Queen's trial revolved around the accusation that she had sexually abused her son, the Dauphin. Usually this is glossed over with outrage, but Andress presents the arguments of both sides without bias.

Nearly every other nation in Europe was arrayed against the new government of the Republic--invading, bribing, spying, and spreading the most grotesque misinformation about conditions in the new nation. France was like a person who is attacked on all sides, by family and former friends, and flails about in insane defensiveness in order to keep alive. This is a brilliant description of a national trauma from which the nation never recovered.

The author steps on his own story with tendentious justifications for the terror. Despite having such vivid material to work with, his narrative never really gains much steam. It's much inferior to R. R. Palmer's classic Twelve Who Ruled. Or, if you're looking for a modern interpretation, try Doyle's Oxford History of the French Revolution instead.

Terror as State Policy? This is the essential question posed by David Andress' excellent work, "The Terror: the Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France".

This book should be read by the reader as an inquiry not so much into the events of the French Revolution as to his or her own thoughts on the question posed. It is immensely relevant to us today, when we see, worldwide, an increasing abridgement of civil rights worldwide in response to the rise of Islamic and other-oriented terror groups adopting similar policies.

The United States, as the primary target for most Islamic groups, has directly to confront the question of the degree to which we are willing to use state terror policies to protect ourselves. By such policies we don't need necessarily, or immediately, to envision the most extreme examples; of tumbrils and heads in a basket, but rather the extrajudicial use of the state's police power to quell what it deems to be threats to the nation when that power is accountable to the Executive alone. The Montagnard's demand that the Constitution of 1793 be suspended, and that the Committee of Public Safety remain in power, in control of the police powers, until the threat was quelled, does in fact have its counterpart in the Patriot Act and the broad police powers assumed by the Bush Administration's legal authorities on behalf of the executive and accountable only to the executive. Gitmo was chosen specifically because it was deemed to be outside the reach of the judiciary. The detention of Jose Padilla was done through recourse to the war making powers of the President, again, as justified, outside the reach of the judiciary. Even the patdowns and fullbody scanners at airports represent an extrajudicial reach in that probable cause is not even required to justify a TSA agent's decision to subject any given individual to personal scan or even more personal search.

Imagine a decade hence, when Islamic terrorists, or some other group with a perceived grievance against the United States, succeed in a few more attacks against our cities...not just an exploded airplane, but a series of suicide bombings, or something else which puts us in daily fear of our lives. Imagine that we, as a people, have not only to worry about a worldwide set of enemies bent on our destruction, but even people within our own nation who would be as happy to see our regime go down as any of our most deadly enemies outside our borders?

We can all imagine it. But we don't have to. Because Andress' book, on a daily basis ever bit as detailed as the week after 9/11, shows us exactly what the French Revolution, and its leaders, faced during that critical year of 1793-94, known as the Terror. And what we can imagine happening a decade or two down the road in America DID happen in France during that year.

In reading this book, therefore, keep the following question in mind: where will you stand if we, as a nation, come to that point where we reasonably have cause to believe, on a daily basis, that our lives are threatened by enemies foreign and domestic alike? To what degree will you accept the detention of people whose guilt is presumed by their associations, or past words, or, finally, their perceived lack of enthusiasm for the governing regime? If in fact there were insurrection in this country, rebellion against the Federal government, how far would you allow the Feds to go in crushing it? Would you accept the attempted destruction of an entire city, as the French government did Lyons, as an object lesson in further resistance? Or would you accept the defiance of that city even though it were accepting aid and comfort from your nation's declared enemies?

Put yourself in the position of the average Frenchman. In reading about the sometimes, as most would agree, necessary bloodletting, for there were definite and known traitors uncovered, you must confront as well the mindless bloodletting, and then too the in-between bloodletting. For instance, can you, for yourself, justify the September Massacres, the night of 5 September 1793, when prisoners deemed liable to revolt were executed after summary hearings at best? Does the fact that the petty criminals were exempted from the executions redeem them? Can they ever be justified taking place, even though, at that moment, the vast majority of Parisians were convinced of the imminent threat of insurrection?

Is it acceptable to execute children with their parents--remembering, as we must, that we as a nation already accept the trying of children as adults and the imposition of appropriate sentences for the same...a child proven to be involved with his parent's subversive goals, especially in our modern world, can be as much as threat to lives as a the most hardened terrorist. We saw the reaction to children's deaths at Waco...what if those children are instead in, say, a white supremacist compound, or in an Islamic mosque taken over by militants...if a thirteen year old Muslim boy is found to be setting an ied in one of our streets in a civil insurrection, is he subject to summary execution? Is it always wrong to execute children? If not, where draw the line? These too are questions that the revolutionaries, from the Representatives on assignment up to Robespierre himself had to face; they are questions as well we might as a people need to face in the not so distant future.

If the book moves sometimes a bit slowly at times with the detail, then bear with it, it is important because it is of the details that the stuff of history is made. It is the cumulative effect of the little decisions, the individual events, the individual actions, on those who experience them that decides ultimately where those indivdiuals will stand. So too with us, as one attempted bombing is followed by another, and another, until another actually succeds, and then a few more plots foiled...and then another succeeds...as more and more we realize that there are those in our own nation who are hostile to us and do not mind killing their fellow citizens...ranging from army majors in Texas to disaffected youth in Seattle to well-off ideologues in Connecticut...the events in Lyon, Marseille and Paris have their counterparts today in our own world. If you know how to read history, you can skim over the repetition of instances, absorbing them lightly so as to draw the main point: these are not just historical made-ups, these are things that actually happened and that the people who had to decide whether to support the Terror or not had to take in account in making those decisions.

I would have enjoyed a bit more depth of the main characters in Andress' treatment of the Terror, but there are other sources for that purpose. This book should be read in light of what we as a nation face today, and in that respect, not only do I consider it not politicized, but I think that bringing that to light more often might make have made it more instructive to the reader.

For myself, I came to this book already sympathetic to Robespierre, and left it admiring him even more. To my mind, the most critical phase of the revolution, and what earned Robespierre truly his sobriquet of the Incorruptible, was his willingness to deal with both the quasi-anarchists led by Hebert and the Paris Commune, and at the same time to deal with the moderates in Danton and the Girondists. Only by demonstrating his willingness to quash anyone who dissented, by the same methods, could he save the Revolution as he saw it, which ultimately was the most idealistic version of it. No regime was ever going to measure up to his (and Saint-Just's) vision, but of those offered, even an incomplete fulfillment was better than what any of the other competing visions had to offer. Far from destroying the Revolution, Robespierre saved it, and his heir was not the Directory, but Napoleon, who merely, in making himself emperor, legitimized the absolute role Robespierre played a decade prior, but ultimately institutionalized Robespierre's vision of a secular, rational, civil government based on merit. Without Robespierre's inflexibility in pursuit of his own vision, and his willingness to sacrifice anyone, no matter whom, who contravened that vision, it is likely that France would have slid either into the hands of Hebertists and the Commune and vicious civil war on a far larger scale than she suffered, or, even worse, that the moderacy of the Girondists would have been unable to summon the absolute will France required in order to withstand counterrevolution at home and the armies of her enemies apart.

The question to be faced in respect to Robespierre and the Terror is whether the Revolution was worth saving. There can be little doubt that as many, if not more, would have died had the Allies succeeded in reimposing the Bourbons upon France; the vengeance of the regime and restored aristocrats would likely have doubled or trebled the cost in life of the Terror. Therefore the choice is simple: would you trade, for the casualties, the Revolution for the Bourbons?

Most of us would say not. France chose the Revolution, by submitting to the discipline of the Terror, and survived. Will America be faced with the same question, and, if not, where will you tand?

At the conclusion of Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral, one of the actors addresses the audience directly to remind them that the murder of Archbishop Becket by Henry II's knights was part of a long process of subordinating church to state and the formation of the modern world. David Andress' careful and well written account of the Terror is devoted partly to the same point. The ideals of the French Revolutionaries, with their emphasis on individual rights and abolition of privilege, some form of democratic politics, the sanctity of property, a form of nationalism, and the necessity of free trade, are basic to our modern world. The clear implication is that the Terror was in some sense necessary to preserve the Revolution and the triumph of these ideals. While its possible that these ideals could have triumphed without such violence, its not the way it happened.

Andress provides an excellent narrative of the period of the Terror. He is unsparing in his description of the many crimes of the Terror while carefully rebutting some of the myths about the nature of the Terror. He focuses on the complicated politics and events in Paris, showing well how events were driven by complex interactions between the internal politics of the elected representatives supposedly governing France, the equally complicated politics of Paris itself, events in provincial France, and external events such as the threat of foreign invasion. The brutality, messianism, and corruption of many of the major actors and factions are described very well. As with other revolutionary movements, factional politics driven by ideological rigidity and a vicious cycle of brutality were a major feature driving the Terror. Andress shows well how these features interacted, often in an apparently paradoxical fashion with prior Enlightenment ideals to produce unexpected consequences. The emphasis on Republican virtue, for example, could easily be used to characterize political foes as beyond the moral pale. The same can be said of the Romanticism associated with some of Rousseau's writings.

Andress also shows well that while Revolutionary politics exhibited a great deal of paranoia and irrationalism, sometimes paranoids have real enemies. The French Revolution faced real external and internal enemies. Its clear that Louis XVI never accepted the Revolution and would have rolled back the Revolution if possible. French emigres, notably the King's brothers, were trying to overturn the Revolution by eliciting foreign support. Other European powers did try to invade France and if successful, would have violently resurrected the Ancien Regime. The internal revolts not only threatened the Revolution but the actual integrity of the French state. Its clear from Andress' account that the legitimate fears and the irrational politics of the Revolution interacted in particularly vicious ways.

The one defect of this book is that the narrative, particularly of events in Paris, tends to overwhelm other aspects of the book. Its clear from Andress' description that fear of invasion was a major feature driving the Terror. There is, however, only a modest amount of description of international events which would be important for understanding the dynamics of the foreign threats. From some of Andress' narrative, it seems that aspects of Revolutionary foreign policy inflamed the fears of other European powers. It may also be that some of the Revolutionary factions, notably the relatively moderate Girondins, pushed an aggressive foreign policy to promote internal solidarity. Because some of the key features occured outside the time frame of this book, I'm not sure that Andress shows that some of internal problems faced by the Revolution were generated in part by the actions of the Revolutionaries themselves. The best example (and discussed very well by William Doyle in his survey of the Revolution) is the treatment of the French Church.

This is a very well produced book. In addition to an excellent bibliography, there is a nice set of biographic sketches of major figures, a timeline of events, and a good glossary.

This year marks the 218th anniversary of the beginning of the Great French Revolution with storming of the Bastille on July 14th 1789. An old Chinese Communist leader, the late Zhou Enlai, was once asked by a reporter to sum up the important lessons of the French Revolution. In reply he answered that it was too early to tell what those lessons might be. Whether that particular story is true or not it does contain one important truth. Militants today at the beginning of the 21st century can still profit from an understanding of the history of the French Revolution.

There are many books that outline the history of that revolution. I have reviewed some of them in this space. Probably the most succinct overview, although it was written over one half century ago, is Professor Georges Lefebvre's study.

For those who want a more up-to-date overview of the main events and political disputes reflecting the tremendous increase in scholarship on the subject the book under review has a lot to recommend it. The author, a professor at the University of Portsmouth, England, covers all the main pre-revolutionary problems confronting France at the time, including its terrible debt problems caused in the main by its support of the American Revolution to the political, social and, yes, sexual inadequacies of Louis XVI. As has been noted by many commentators on revolution, including the author and myself, one of the prerequisites for revolution is that the old regime can no longer govern in the same way. The personage of Louis XVI seemingly fits that proposition to a tee.

Professor Andress goes on to highlight the key events. Obviously, and most visibly the storming of the Bastille that opened up the cracks in the old monarchial regime. He details the struggle to create a constitutional monarchy through the various legislative assemblies that sought to carry out the reforms necessary to bring France into the modern age short of declaring a republic. And also the attempts, including by Louis himself, by forces of the old regime to return the old monarchy or stop the revolution in its tracks.

When those efforts failed and the revolution began in earnest the Professor Andress goes into great detail analyzing the internal struggle by the revolutionaries, most notably the great fight between the Girondins and Jacobins for power, and the formation of the republic. After the defeat of the Girondins this led to the further fights to `purify' the revolution among the Jacobin forces and the reign of the Robespierre-led Committee of Public Safety that consolidated the gains of the revolution through the `Reign of Terror'. Finally, the professor highlights the downfall and execution of Robespierre in 1794 represented the reaction that most revolutions exhibit when the political possibilities for further revolutionary moves is no longer tenable.

The author has done more than merely outline the highlights though for those who are trying to understand the sometimes confusing political alignments in Paris and in the country. He discusses the voting patterns of the delegates in the various legislative assemblies; the role of the sans-culottes in pushing the revolution leftward; the falling out among the Jacobins; the international situation (meaning the immediate European one); and, most importantly, the reaction in non-Paris, the countryside, that rebelled for various reasons against the central authority in the capital.

Other subjects include the murder of Marat by Corday that helped set the revolution bloodily leftward, the Festival of the Supreme Being as an attempt to finally destroy the power of the Catholic Church and other reforms by the left-Jacobins to consolidate the revolution. The major negative of this work is political. As almost always in any discussion of the first five years of the French Revolution there is an almost fatalistic portrayal of the emergence of Robespierre intertwined throughout all of the earlier events giving the impression that he was inevitably bound to take power. And, also inevitably, due to the excesses of the `Reign of Terror' to lose it. This may be a good way to save one's political soul but it is bad history.

Revolutions, particularly great revolutions, are few and far between. They are messy affairs at the time and as seen through the historical lens. Nevertheless if the social tensions in society could always, or should always, be resolved in a nice non- violent parliamentary way there would be no revolutions. Damn, where would that leave us as the inheritors of the sans-culottes tradition?