Social Sciences and History / Unit 4 SSH 0322 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
From Constitution to Terror: Sequencing the Revolution
The idea
The exam asks for the Revolution's order, and the anchor's phases make a chain. Until June seventeen ninety-one the National Assembly built a constitutional monarchy while inflation, hunger and hostile monarchies pressed on it. In June seventeen ninety-one the king fled toward the border and was caught; his correspondence with foreign courts destroyed his prestige overnight. In October seventeen ninety-one the constitution passed with the king under house arrest. Austria and Prussia demanded his restoration; radicals pushed a preemptive declaration of war. War radicalized everything: the republic, the king's execution, the Terror. Then the Directorate of seventeen ninety-five, and out of its wars, Napoleon.
In practice
Given the items the Terror, the flight to Varennes, the Estates General, the Directorate, the order is Estates General, Varennes, Terror, Directorate: seventeen eighty-nine, ninety-one, ninety-three to ninety-four, ninety-five. Asked what turned a constitutional monarchy radical, the anchor's answer is the flight and the war together.
Where people slip
The trap is putting the Terror before the constitution. The constitution of seventeen ninety-one came first and failed; the Terror replaced it under war. A second trap is ending the Revolution at the king's death; the anchor runs it through the Directorate to Napoleon.
Your place on the trail
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