There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
I wasn't born in early 1800 but my school never mentioned the french revolution executions in a bad way but like "lol those fancy inbreds got axed", they did mention "The Terror" as something about infighting among the revolutionaries, which was depicted as something sad.
But as you can clearly see, I remember dick about all that.
Anglos were/are extraordinarily freaked out about the terror
neither the French nor anyone else care about it quite so much
take from that what you will
Curious thing, eh?
Regardless of what they actually told me my takeaway was "axing kings=good, axing among revolutionaries = bad, which led to Napoleon, yet ultimately good cuz thanks to Napoleon latam colonies were able to declare independence, but actually meh cuz the people who ended up ruling the new countries were spineless bourgeois shitstains or feudal war lords"
They never mentioned dick about the Restitution or whatever was called that period where France got monarchs again, nor how eventually those shitstains got couped anyways.
So brave.
But it kinda worked because the entire time I was just thinking "hey, they're just like American billionaires..."
I mean aesthetics are all I know about it since I never watched that shit lmao
Even if they didn't try anything like that they still deserved to lose their heads
It is simultaneously naive to place the burden of the entire entrenched aristocracy on the last two people to sit atop it, and perfectly reasonable to assume a population tormented and impoverished over the course of centuries would seek reprisal against the current figureheads of state when the system finally came crashing down.
Still, I think history demonstrated that Marie Antoinette generally got a bad rap. Her primary sin was being a particularly well-tended pet of the male-dominated aristocracy. She had about as much real agency as any particular piece of furniture in the Palace of Versailles. I suspect a more savvy and astute leadership could have rehabilitated her in much the same way the Chinese Communists rehabilitated the 10th Panchen Lama. As a reformed champion of revolutionary change, she would have been more useful - and potentially more subversive to subsequent Bourbon Restoration efforts - than as a martyr for Austrians usurpers to rally around.
no lol, she deserved what she got just like every unrepentant royal does
the closest to sympathy i get for royals is feeling bad that the romanov children had to be executed, but that was a matter of pragmatism rather than justice
Yeah maybe the Romanov children could have just kept alive like that dude from China son of the Emperor.
perhaps, but it was an ongoing civil war where leaving one of them alive could have led to them being captured by the Whites which would have been a huge boon and rallying point for the disunited White movement. with Puyi it was different because the right KMT were republicans too and would have probably executed Puyi, especially since he had been a collaborator of the highest order with the Japanese. if he'd been captured by the enemy then it wouldn't have been potentially disastrous for the CPC in the way that capture of a Romanov by the Whites would have been for the Bolsheviks
eh, yeah. But the little shits were small, maybe they could have hide them in a wardrobe or something.
And they would always have been a problem. Unfortunately for them, when the benefits of being royalty run out, life sucks.
that is the risk you take when you run the country as a tyrannical hereditary monarchy. Your whole family becomes a problem.
Henry Puyi was one of the weakest leaders of the 20th century. He had no will of his own and went whichever way the wind blew. He was such a loser he couldn't even get a girlfriend. They took him to a girls' high school where he picked one of the girls to be empress. He ended up not only serving the Japanese, but ended up sweeping the streets (the lowest possible occupation) after China's revolution. He didn't even have the sense to escape to a comfortable retirement like any tyrant.
The little I've read about him suggests that he genuinely repented and was quite happy to live the life of an ordinary citizens.
No. They could not be. What happened was best.
Had they been left alive the civil war could've drawn on longer with further intervention from the west.
The last emperor of China lived out a decade as a civilian under Chinese Communist rule. It is very possible that the Romanov children could have enjoyed the same fate. Either way, it isn't as though the western powers were shy about funneling money and weapons to the White Army during the 1920s or the German Nationalists during the 1930s or various anti-Communist European factions indefinitely.
Hell, Americans were chomping at the bit to embrace a legion of Anastasia imposters well into the 1990s when FOX Animation Studio decided to climb aboard the revisionist train and plant its own knife in the back of the USSR.
Killing the Romanov kids did exactly dick-all to help the Soviet movement.
you have the benefit of hindsight which the bolsheviks did not have. in their situation of course they did what they did.
I mean, they had the French Revolution. And executing Antoinette was a big part of what brought the Austrians in as counter-revolutionaries so aggressively.
sure. the monarchist powers of europe would totally have left revolutionary france alone if they had just let the leeches keep their heads. totally.
I feel like Eva braun had a little bit more agency. She wasn't raised to be hitler's gf.
