War as the Engine of Revolution

Almost every revolution in this course was tied to war. Britain's costly victory in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) led it to tax the colonies, sparking the American crisis. France's support for the Americans added to a debt that forced Louis XVI to call the Estates-General in 1789. Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808 broke the Spanish monarchy's authority and opened the way for independence movements across Spanish America.

World War I exhausted Russia and destroyed the tsar's legitimacy by 1917. War also shaped revolutions once they began: France's wars from 1792 radicalized politics and helped justify the Terror, and the Haitian Revolution unfolded amid war between France, Britain and Spain. Comparing these cases shows that war acts both as a cause, by straining states, and as an accelerant, by raising fears of internal enemies.