Surprise DBQ

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the terror as an instrument in the French revolution.
Outline
Advantages
- potential dissenters all killed leading to more stable government
- Those who would consider rebelling are fearful of death
- The new government could use their estates and wealth as their own
Disadvantages
- Many skilled and innocent people killed.
- The Revolution had failed
- Fear breeds resentment

The terror was a horrible period of French History in which tens of thousands of French men and women were executed. France’s revolutionary government had become a tyrant and was killing off anyone they believed to be against their cause sometimes unjustly and with no proof whatsoever. Headed by Robespierre the committee for public safety was purging France of dissenters who they believed to be a threat. The terror was a horrible time where many people were killed but it was necessary for the preservation of the new government, namely the Committee of public safety.
The fear of death can be a powerful motivator and the leaders of the new Government did not use it sparingly. The sheer number of people being killed scared the masses of France who may consider rebellion from their new tyrannical government into submission. Throughout the period of the terror over 8000 peasants and members of the working class were executed according to document 2. Many were likely innocent but the fact that anyone could be killed caused fear and a lack of will to rebel. General Ronsin of the revolutionary army justified the killings by saying the killings, “will carry terror into the departments where the seed of rebellion was sown.”(Doc 5) General Ronsin was right, even though it took the deaths of thousands to do it. The people were galvanized into agreeing with the Committee of public safety and accepting what was pretty much a period of tyrannical rule. In a report to the committee one reporter wrote, “On seeing peasants on the scaffold, people said, What, have these wretches allowed themselves to be corrupted? ...‘The law is just,’ people remarked, ‘it strikes rich and poor indiscriminately.’ The verdicts of the Revolutionary Tribunal are always applauded.”(Doc12) The fear of the guillotine also compelled many to join the ranks of the revolutionary army and fight for the committee. William Pitt the British Prime minister said in a speech to parliament about the reliance of the French armies that, “They are compelled into the field by the terror of the guillotine…what can be the dependence on the steadiness of their operations, or what rational prospect can there be of the permanence of their exertions?” (Doc 8) The terror killed thousands of innocents but it secured the position of the government from rebellion and bolstered the strength of it’s armies.
On the other hand the terror was also a terrible hindrance to France and it’s people. Thousands of skilled laborers were killed in Paris and throughout the country (Doc 2). Fear also breeds resentment, you can only terrorize the people so long until they begin to become discontent and ready to depose a government. A report sent to the Committee later in the month of the other report states this, “The revolutionary committees are every day falling into discredit. You daily hear that they consist of a number of intriguers, who plunder the nation and oppress citizens, It is a fact that there is no section in Paris which is not dissatisfied with its revolutionary committee or does not seriously desire to have them abolished.” (Doc 13) The revolutionary committee had gone too far with it’s relentless extermination of the citizens of France.
The terror helped to stabilize France and to unite its people even if it was through fear, however the insensibility of the killings caused the French people to become unhappy and many skilled people were executed under no legal grounds. However, the terror did stabilize the country and allow it to protect itself from invaders by forcefully recruiting through fear men to join their armies.