What was the Reign of Terror and who was responsible for it?

Answer 1

The Reign of Terror (France, June 27, 1793 - July 27, 1794)

This was a bloody period of about 13 months during the French Revolution, when struggles between rival factions led to mutual radicalization which took on a violent character with mass executions by the guillotine.

The revolution in 1789 led to political anarchy in France which was never really stabilised until the military rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. Even then there was much plotting and intrigue. The Reign of Terror was an attempt to eliminate the French royalist elite (the nobility) from the national fabric. The Reign of Terror was the achievement of the Jacobin faction that created The Committee of Public Safety, led by Georges Danton and Maximilien Robespierre.

The purpose of the Reign was to "purge France of enemies of the Revolution and protect the country from foreign invaders". From January 1793 - July 1794, France was governed by the Committee of Public Safety, in which Danton and Robespierre were influential members. In one period of nine months, 16,000 people were guillotined, and executions of those labeled "internal enemies" of France took place throughout the country.

Georges Danton was executed after Robespierre's supporters assumed control, on the premise that he was too lenient to the enemies of the state. The Reign was finally brought an end as the members of the National Convention realized that any of them might be arbitrarily accused and executed.

Robespierre was finally removed from power, and was injured in what some reported as a suicide attempt. In the end, he faced the same fate as those he had denounced : he was beheaded on July 28, 1794.

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The Reign of Terror was a period of violence that occurred for one year and one month, about 4 years after the onset of the French Revolution. It was incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of the revolution."

After the execution of Louis XVI in 1793, the Reign of Terror began. Among the victims was Marie-Antoinette. She had been imprisoned with her children after she was separated from Louis. The guillotine, the new instrument of egalitarian justice, was put to work. Public executions were considered educational. Women were encouraged to sit and knit during trials and executions. The Revolutionary Tribunal ordered the execution of 2,400 people in Paris through July, 1794. Across France 30,000 people lost their lives.