Why everyone should be on the French side in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars

Okay, I admit that this is a bit click bait-y as a title, and provokateur, but in essence, its true. So often we hear British historians regarding the revolution and the subsequent wars through a British lens, and deploring what happened in the revolution, and later with Napoleon. But actually we should be on the French side and recognise that the British were probably the bad guys in this conflict. Of course at that time the red coats had a very bad reputation around the world, in Ireland, in the US, in Spain and in the Caribbean, depending on which slave island you were working to death on.

So why do I posit this argument? For the following reasons:

1) The revolution was the birth of our modern world, of European democracy, of a state that guarantees rights, free speech, equality, separation of church and state and social justice. Yes of course, this was not worked out in fullness at the time and many of these values were sold out during the course of the revolution, even reneged on for periods of time (the terreur for example, and later under Napoleon in part). But this political lightening bolt and upheaval led to the eventual breakdown of feudalism and monarchy, which had governed Europe for over 1500 years. It was the moment when the thinking of the enlightenment took over in a government and a country, and this changed everything. As Mao himself said, when asked what he thought the impact of the French revolution to be, "its too early to tell". The shock waves are still being felt today and we live in a fundamentally better world because it took place, governed by ideals that no-one held to before except a group of bourgeois and intellectuals. Today these ideals are the foundation of our society, modern European democracies, the European Union itself and the USA in one way or another, however well or otherwise practiced. That makes the ideology of the revolution our own.

2) The powers that were fighting against this revolution were all monarchies, horrified at the idea that anyone could murder the king and up-end the power of feudalism and the inherited privileges of the aristocracy. In short they were fighting for (on the back of the very people whose freedom and wealth they usurped) the restoration of the old order in France - feudalism, divine rights of the monarchy and the old order of church and state. In short these powers were trying to reinstate a regressive, conservative and repressive social order.

Of course each European power, including Britain and later France under Napoleon, was jockeying for power and control over its neighbours. Britain wanted France to be under its control so that it did not pose any threat to its own imperialist impulses and ambitions. But even Russian troops who had occupied Paris wondered on their way home why French men had rights that they didn't. That's the irony of this conflict. France should have been allowed to work out its own internal affairs without interference from outside powers.

Once the Battle of Waterloo was won by the Prussians and the British, the king was indeed restored, followed by a "white terror" and the repression of freedom and whatever democratic and political rights still existed under Napoleon 1st. It took France two more revolutions to finally kick the monarchy out and become a republic again.

3) France was the victim of interference and aggression by these powers, and particularly Britain, who instigated many of these wars. How the French want to be governed is entirely an internal French matter, and part of their national sovereignty. The matter does not concern the other powers of Europe. But their threats and warnings of military invasion and occupation threatened the survival of the revolution, and made things far worse that they needed to be. The threat of foreign invasion grimly pushed the revolution towards firstly executing the king and later to suppressing opposition through the terror. The terror would probably not have happened without the threat of extinction by foreign invasion. It also galvanised the nation to defend itself.

Lets imagine what would have happened if the rest of Europe had reacted the same way in 1649 when England decapitated King Charles 1st and then descended in to a bloody chaotic civil war? England would have then been invaded by 5 coalitions of European powers intent on deciding what the government of England Wales and Northern Ireland should be, and would have eventually won and reinstated the king. What impact would this have had on the development of British representative democracy? yes of course the terror was awful, but if we are going to make comparisons, let's not overlook the appalling loss of life in the English civil war which was far worse than the French revolution - with some historians estimating that nearly as much as 5% of the population of England lost their lives and 15- 20% of the Irish, figures more than comparable to the population losses incurred in WW1.

To conclude, today Napoleon is regarded with some ambivalence in France, and there is still some regret that the king was killed. But actually la révolution Française itself is not regarded with ambivalence. It is regarded as the defining moment of the French nation and identity. Its values have been completely appropriated. It is a shame that France had to go through 20 plus years of war to define their own political identity.