Between 1789 and 1799, France went through one of the most dramatic events of modern European History: the French Revolution. The French population went through economic chaos, a dictatorship, and a civil war as well as other dramatic changes. During these years, the French decided to speak up for themselves and they became enemies of the French revolution. Internal enemies included the King, Louis XVI, Monarchists and Royalists and the Churches that were run by refractory priests. External threats were caused by aristocrats who had fled the Revolution; more specifically known as “émigrés”, Austria and Prussia. The latter were the more dangerous threats to the Revolution.
Émigrés were typically traditional military leaders, so they had …show more content…

There was the Réveillon Riot when there was an announcement that wages were to be cut. Workers were concerned with the fact that there was high unemployment, food shortages and low wages. The fact that the population was against the leaders of the country could cause civil war.
In 1789 the Church was changed radically. This was done to reduce the influence the Church had on the population. At first, changes were accepted (August, 1789) later, however, changes were more radical, causing the state to have more control over the church. This caused a real stir in the population and villagers complained that the Assembly was forcing them to choose between their religion and the revolution. Nigel Aston, a historian, commented: “Faced with what was crudely reduced to a stark choice between religion and revolution, half the adult population [mainly women] rejected the revolution.” This caused a civil war. In turn this led to more radical measures to suppress counter- revolution and Robespierre (as well as other Jacobins) sent more and more people to the guillotine. On top of this, counter-revolutionaries were chained together, put on boats that were then sunk.
External enemies were more of a threat to the revolution. It was more than one population (both Prussians and the Austrians) which automatically outnumbers the French population. As well as this fact, the Prussian and Austrian armies were prepared to fight,