Was the Terror necessary to defend the French Revolution?

[JackRiddler]

9. You're oversimplifying.

France was under attack by a united front of monarchist powers led by Austria and intent on restoring the French exile nobles to power. They would have conducted a terror of their own, murdering indiscriminately among the revolutionaries and lower classes. They had help within France, starting with the King. This was naturally a paranoid time. I condemn the Jacobins not merely for going too far but for using the Terror as an instrument of their own politics against women and other revolutionary groups, not just to the right but also to the left of them. This had little to do with Ropesbierre being "off his nut," by the way. Nevertheless, the war policies of the Jacobins, including the levee en masse and the terror as directed against the royalists and those who truly were opposing the revolution, succeeded in turning around the war and saving France from an absolutist restoration.