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Flamboyance and Ferment - France

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Flamboyance and Ferment - France

Postby icelander93 » Fri Mar 25, 2011 9:23 am

Chapter 26: Flamboyance and Ferment - France

The history of France is bathed in blood. Millions of White Frenchmen have been slaughtered in what seems like an endless array of wars, military adventures and natural disasters.

The story of this powerful European nation reads like a roller coaster ride and shows how a civilization can survive even the most dramatic vicissitudes of destiny, if it keeps its population homogeneous. The ability of France to survive centuries of dramatic events is proof that the "environmental" theory of the rise and fall of civilizations is false. If a nation can survive what the French have endured, then no social "environmental" change can destroy them.

THE FRANKS - CLOVIS I INTRODUCES CHRISTIANITY

Following the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, the region now known as France was occupied by a Germanic tribe called the Franks. Originally a pagan tribe, the fate of Western Civilization was changed when the Frankish king, Clovis I, converted to Christianity in 496 AD. Clovis invaded the Visigoth Empire in 507 AD, causing them to abandon that part of France they had occupied after the fall of Rome and retreat to Spain.

Clovis I died in 511, and his successor expanded the Frankish kingdom to include the Burgundinians (who held the only piece of modern day France not then held by the Franks), Belgium and crossed the Rhine into Germany itself.
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Above: The founder of the Frankish Empire, Clovis 1, rose to prominence in 481 AD. His most significant deed was his conversion to Christianity in 496 AD - without this conversion it is doubtful that Christianity would ever have taken hold on the European mainland. He initiated the practice of converting White pagans by the sword when he invaded the Visigoth Empire in 507 AD, causing them to flee south into Spain.

The principal deficiency in Clovis' political legacy was the practice of dividing the Frankish kingdom up amongst all the sons of the kings: soon infighting over inheritance and territory size became the order of the day and the Frankish empire was weakened as a result. The division amongst the Franks was finally put to an end by the Lord of Paris, one Charles Martel, ("Charles the Hammer") who by force of arms and will power became sole leader of the Franks - just in time to ward off a new threat which surged up from the south - the Muslim invasion which expanded across from North Africa into Spain and northern France.

Charles Martel was succeeded by his son, Pepin the Short, who reigned from 741 to 768 AD. Pepin received from the Bishop of Rome sanction to be the sole ruler of France - the first of many times that the Pope would see fit to approve leaders of states in the name of the Christian God. Pepin was crowned by the English missionary, St. Boniface, acting on behalf of the Pope, in 752 AD.

The real reason for the Pope's friendliness to Pepin was that the Christian bishop felt in need of some allies, as the Germanic Lombards were by this stage pouring into Italy, threatening Rome itself. In 756 AD, the Pope's maneuvering paid off. A Frankish army attacked the Lombards (who had firmly established themselves in northern Italy and had settlements in central and southern Italy) and forced them to cede Rome and parts of central Italy directly to the Pope.

In 768, Pepin's son, Charlemagne (Charles the Great), inherited the Frankish kingdom. Taking advantage of feuding amongst the Moors in Spain, Charlemagne's first act was to create a buffer state between the Moors and France - an objective which was achieved in 778 AD.

CHARLEMAGNE AND THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE SAXONS

After fighting off the non-White Muslim invaders to the south, Charlemagne then proceeded to launch a bloody war of extermination against the Saxon and other pagan German tribes under his control. The full story of this process - which saw the last paganism on the western part of the continent of Europe exterminated - has already been recounted in chapter 17 of this book which deals with Christianity. Suffice to say here that after killing thousands of pagans, Charlemagne managed to create a virtually uniform Christian kingdom - even if many of his subjects only paid lip service to the new religion.

In this way Charlemagne built up an empire which consisted of much of today's modern France and Germany, establishing as his court the centrally located city Aix-La-Chapelle, or Aachen, as it was known in Germany.
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Above: The Palatine Chapel of Charlemagne, Aachen, 792 AD. The city of Aachen - known in France as Aix-La-Chapelle - would be the center of centuries of conflict between the Germans and French, lying as it does in the long disputed region of Alsace Lorraine.

CHARLEMAGNE INVADES LOMBARDY - CROWNED "HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR" IN 800 AD

After expanding Christianity amongst the western Germans in a violent manner, Charlemagne turned his attention to the troublesome Germans in Italy - the Lombards. Charlemagne invaded the Lombard kingdom in northern Italy in 774, and proceeded to swiftly defeat their army. He then proclaimed himself king of the Lombards for good measure.

Charlemagne's exploits in re-uniting what had been almost all of the lands of the old western Roman Empire (with the exception of Britain and Muslim occupied Spain), was celebrated by the Frankish king being crowned emperor of the "Holy Roman Empire" on 25 December 800, in Rome by the Pope himself. The use of the title of "Holy Roman Emperor" was an attempt by Christianity to ally itself with the past glory of Rome.

In reality what had happened was that the White Germanic tribes had managed to restore order out of the chaos left behind by the collapse of the multi-racial Roman state.

The occupation of Austria, much of Germany and northern Italy by the Franks did not introduce any major changes to the racial composition of these territories - they were all of the same Germanic stock, but the wholesale slaughter of those Whites who were not Christians, or refused to become Christians, unquestionably had an impact upon White numbers and quality in these regions.

This was particularly the case with the leadership element of these Germanic tribes. Usually the biggest, bravest and strongest members of these tribes (the original Germanics actually voted for their chiefs), were the first to be targeted for execution by the Christian "missionaries". As such the Germanics lost entire generations of their best sorts to the Christian sword.

CHARLEMAGNE'S EMPIRE DIVIDED - ORIGIN OF MODERN GERMANY AND FRANCE

In 814, Charlemagne died at his capital, Aix-La-Chapelle. His son, Louis the Pious, was crowned emperor but he lacked the iron will of his father to keep the Holy Roman Empire united. There was no central infrastructure and Louis soon found that he as one person could not control all the territories, and divided the empire up amongst his three sons, Charles, Lothar and Louis.

This division of land amongst the three children was the cause of the centuries long struggle between their heirs. Charles' territory became France, Louis' territory became western Germany and Lothar's territory became the disputed land of Alsace Lorraine, over which the Germans and French fought many wars - the last of which occurred 1,000 years after Charlemagne's death, in 1940.

The political divisions between the emerging French and Germans were sealed at the Treaty of Verdun in 843, which ended infighting amongst the three brothers and mapped each one's territory. This treaty gave political recognition to the cultural and linguistic division taking place with the Rhine River as the border - to the west, French was developing, while to the east, German was developing.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN FRANCE - ELECTION OF FIRST NON-ITALIAN POPE

The reign of Charlemagne's successor, King Louis I (crowned in 813 AD) was marked by the first Viking raids into France and the final separation of France from Germany. By 990 AD, the Franks had elected a new king- Hugh Capet, who established the Capetian dynasty, under whose direction the French state began taking shape.

In 1214, France added Normandy and Anjou to its territory by defeating the combined armies of England and the Holy Roman Empire at the Battle of Bouvines.

This was followed shortly thereafter by occupation of the provinces of Provence and Languedoc. King Philip III, who reigned from 1270 to 1285, once more launched an attack on the Moors in Spain: the adventure ended in disaster when he was killed in battle. In the late 13th Century, Philip IV, last of the great Capetian kings, annexed Franche-Comte, Lyon, and parts of Lorraine.

In 1305, Philip managed to arrange for a French Pope, Clement V, to be elected - the first non-Italian Pope since the Church had been founded. Clement V immediately moved the papal court from Rome to Avignon in France, provoking a major split and crisis in the Church.

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Above: A scene from the Hundred Years War - a knight cuts his opponent clean in half with one mighty blow. The illustration is accurate - excavation of graves from this era show that such a blow could easily split a man from shoulder to thigh.

THE HUNDRED YEARS WAR - BATTLES OF CRECY AND AGINCOURT

In 1337, England and France went to war after English king Edward III issued a claim on the French throne. The war, which became known as the Hundred Years' War, lasted from 1337 to 1453. The Hundred Years War started with the English defeating a French fleet off the coast of the Netherlands, at the Battle of Sluis, and then landing in France itself. The first major land battle took place at Crecy-en-Ponthieu in 1346 - and was again won by the English, who then launched a two year long siege of Calais, which finally fell in 1348.

In 1415, the English king, Henry V, launched a new invasion of France and defeated the French at the famous Battle of Agincourt in that year, won by a new secret weapon: the longbow, which gave the English archers a vastly superior range for their weapons. With the longbow, the English were able to rain down a torrent of arrows upon the French before the latter could reply in kind.

THE BLACK DEATH KILLS A THIRD OF THE FRENCH POPULATION

In the midst of the defeats suffered at the hands of the English, France was also badly affected by the outbreak of the Black Death - the bubonic plague - in 1438, which killed an estimated one-third of France's population. The plague returned in 1361, 1362, 1369, 1372, 1382, 1388, and 1398. Children born after an outbreak were especially vulnerable in a new outbreak, which further affected the already great decline in population.

JOAN OF ARC AND VICTORY OVER THE ENGLISH - ONLY CALAIS REMAINS IN ENGLISH HANDS

France's revival under Charles VII (1422-1461) was begun by a peasant, Joan of Arc, whose leadership inspired the French. After presenting herself to the king as a volunteer for France, Joan personally played a major part in the lifting of the siege of Orleans. Captured by the English, Joan was burned at the stake upon the insistence of French vassals of the English. The war continued for another 20 years after Joan's death, but the French never lost the initiative and in 1453, they entered Bordeaux. The English were forced to surrender, having lost the Hundred Years' War. They surrendered all their territory in France with the exception of Calais.
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Right: The statue of Joan of Arc in modern Paris: The farm girl, a mere 18 years old when she led a French army against the English in 1430, wanted to go home after the capture of Rheims, but the French monarchy refused to grant her permission to leave. All accounts of Joan have it that she was not only an inspiring leader, but also - rare amongst military leaders of her time - compassionate with captives. Two recorded incidents are that she helped a seriously wounded English soldier in the middle of one battle, and that she broke down and wept when several English soldiers were drowned in a moat while attempting to escape the French. Joan was eventually captured and, at the insistence of French vassals of the English, put on trial and burned at the stake on 30 May 1431. She was canonized as a saint in 1920, and is to this day the national heroine of France

THE RENAISSANCE AND COLONIAL EXPANSION - AMERICA, ASIA, AFRICA

The peace which followed the end of the Hundred Years War was marked by a time of increasing prosperity and growth. Under king Francis I (1515-1547), the French Renaissance took hold, producing some of the finest works of that period.

At the same time France also started a period of colonial expansion, occupying large parts of northern America, Asia and northwest Africa. Like Portugal and Spain, these colonies were for the greatest part exploited economically, and no conscious effort was made to populate them with any large White French populations, with the only exception being the colony of Algeria and one region in North America, which later became the Canadian province of Quebec.

THE REFORMATION - ENLIGHTENED HENRY VI

The advent of the Protestant rebellion against Catholicism spread to France as well, provoking a series of Christian Wars fought between Roman Catholics and French Protestants, known as Huguenots.

Hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen, like their Christian compatriots in almost every country of Europe, started attacking each other with intemperate cruelty and bloodlust, slaying one another over mere interpretations of the Bible.

The most infamous of these Christian outrages came in 1572, when 20,000 Protestants were killed in what became known as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.

The wars ended in 1598, when the French King of the time, Henry IV, issued the Edict of Nantes, which granted freedom of religion in France. The reign of Henry IV after 1598 was for France a period of recovery from the devastation and disruption of the Wars of Religion and the beginning of renewed economic growth.

Greatly aiding the ordinary White peasantry, Henry canceled arrears in land taxes, forbade seizure of livestock or tools by creditors, made public lands available for purchase below market price, and restricted nobles' hunting rights over cultivated fields. By the close of the 17th Century's first decade, the economy was thriving and royal authority was again firmly established.

THE THIRTY YEARS WAR - EXHAUSTED FRANCE FINANCIALLY

The next French King, Louis XIII, became famous only for appointing a more famous prime minister, Armand du Plessis, also known as Cardinal de Richelieu, who became the de facto ruler of France for 18 years. Richelieu was an adept statesman, firmly entrenching the power of the king's office through the breaking down of the feudal system and the power of the regional nobility.

However, Richelieu's efforts were largely undone by the outbreak of the Thirty Years War which started in 1618 and only ended in 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia. The Thirty Years War started out as a peasant revolt in Bohemia related to the Catholic/Protestant divide and spread to involve almost all European countries, fighting either on the Catholic or Protestant sides. The French took the opportunity to simultaneously try and eliminate their growing rivals, the royal house of Habsburg in Germany, an aim in which they failed.

The war financially exhausted France, and the country was teetering on economic collapse when the five year old Louis XIV inherited the throne upon his father's death in 1643.

THE SUN KING - LOUIS XIV - COMPETENT RULER

Louis XIV grew into a competent ruler who ran a tight ship of state. He engaged in many great building works, including the famous Palace of Versailles outside Paris, which can still be viewed in its original setting to this day.

However, Louis XIV once again engaged France in four different wars against the by now traditional foes, the Germans, and also in 1685, revoked the Edict of Nantes, declaring France to be a Catholic state once again. Quite apart from the thousands of Frenchmen killed in the wars, over 200,000 of some of the most educated and skilled White Frenchmen - who tended to form the majority of the Protestants - fled the country, settling in North America, South Africa and other European countries.

THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION - FRANCE INHERITS SPAIN

France became entangled in a war with a number of European states called the War of the Spanish Succession from 1701 to 1714. This war started when the childless king of Spain, Charles II, willed his kingdom and its empire to France on his deathbed. Holland, Austria and the other smaller states making up the Holy Roman Empire reacted with shock, as did England - the addition of Spain to France's already significant strength would make her the most powerful country in Europe, and together these nations formed the Grand Alliance and made war on France to prevent the union of Spain and that country.

Though the decisive battles were fought in Europe, the war extended to the colonies, where the British and French settlements in North America became involved in a war which involved the Native American population, known as the French and Indian Wars.

The English Duke of Marlborough and the (originally French, but fighting for the Austrians) Prince Eugene of Savoy, beat French armies in Europe at the battles of Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706) and Malplaquet, but no knockout blow could be delivered by any of the White nations against each other, and the war dragged on inconclusively. Finally the Spanish solved the problem by electing themselves a new king, and the war ended in 1714 with the Peace of Utrecht.

SLIDE INTO REVOLUTION - LOSES COLONIES

France continued to be a powerful nation, and although engaging in the slave trade along with some other European nations, did not follow the path of Spain and especially Portugal in importing non-White slaves into France itself. Only a very small number of Black slaves were ever taken back into France, but they were so rare that they were of curiosity value only.

However, the French nobility and kings after Louis XIV became ever more despotic and mismanaged the economy, leading to a large degree of impoverishment.

The French kings also became increasingly anti-Jewish, in line with other fanatical Catholic nations, and restrictions on Jews and their activities became ever tighter. In particular the accusation was made that the Jews engaged in exploitative financial practices (their pre-eminence in the banking world fueled these allegations).

France also continued to engage in yet more European wars:

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the War of the Austrian Succession, fought from 1740 to 1748, over the right of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria to rule over Austrian lands inherited from her father; and
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the Seven Years' War, fought from 1756 to 1763, a conflict between Austria and Prussia which involved all the major European powers who took the opportunity to settle scores of their own with each other - in France's case they formed part of the colonial wars with the English in North America. At the end of the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War by 1763, France had lost virtually all of its colonial empire in America and in India.

All of these wars further strained the French economy and when Louis XVI ascended to the throne in 1774, the country was in urgent need of economic and social reform. Louis XVI refused to attend to the problems, giving the anarchists in French society the chance to capitalize upon the growing dissent with royal rule.

Finally the involvement of a significant number of Frenchmen in the American War of Independence (the Revolutionary War as it became known in America) inspired a number of Frenchmen with the principles of the American Declaration of Independence - republicanism and democracy.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION - LOUIS XVI BEHEADED

In 1789, a convocation of the (till then long dormant) meeting of the people of France, called the estates general, was held. Although meant to discuss the growing social and economic crises in France, the "third estate" at the meeting, who represented the large masses of common French people, ended up turning to open revolt, which included the seizure of a virtually empty prison in Paris, the Bastille.

The popular uprising resulted in the creation of a constitutional monarchy with a parliament elected indirectly by taxpaying citizens. This state lasted just over a year, but started to collapse when the King and his family were captured trying to flee France.

In the interim, the other nations of Europe, concerned that the anti-monarchical ideals would spread, declared war on France. The Prussians invaded, very nearly capturing Paris itself, while the English besieged Toulon. The Austrian Emperor responding to a personal appeal for help from his blood relation, Queen Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI, also invaded. In the west, Spain also invaded. Predictably, the military situation became critical for France.

A number of military defeats, climaxing in April 1792, caused the launching of another popular insurrection in August 1792. The Royal family was seized at the palace of Versailles (the damaged door which was broken down by an incensed mob can still be seen at that palace) and, charged with treason, Louis XVI was publicly beheaded in January 1793. His Austrian wife, Marie Antoinette, suffered the same fate in October of that year.

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Above: 1793 - the King of France is beheaded in Paris on the square now known as the Place de la Concorde. His head was displayed to waiting mob after his execution. Often it was enough for a person just to have had blond hair to be accused of being a nobleman - even though this was of course not always true, the French Revolution severely reduced the number of blond haired Whites in France.

THE REIGN OF TERROR - NORDICS TARGETED

The French Revolution soon took a sub-racial undertone - often it was enough to have blond hair to be declared a noble and be beheaded. This was taken to an extreme under a bloodthirsty period known as the "reign of terror" and led to civil and foreign wars for ten years.

During this period, revolutionary tribunals and commissions beheaded close on 17,000 people - when the numbers of Frenchmen who died in prison or who were shot out of hand is added in, the victims of the Reign of Terror totaled approximately 40,000.

Of those executed, approximately 8 percent were nobles, 6 percent were members of the clergy, 14 percent belonged to the middle class, and 70 percent were workers or peasants charged with draft dodging, desertion, hoarding, rebellion, and various other "anti-revolutionary" crimes.

One step taken by the new French Republic was the official emancipation of the French Jews, and for the first time they were allowed to participate fully in public office in France. For this reason French and European Jewry became outspoken supporters of the revolution.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN OUTBURST - CHURCHES ACCUSED OF HOARDING AND CORRUPTION

Striving to establish a "Republic of Virtue," the leaders of the revolution stressed devotion to the republic and instituted measures against corruption and hoarding - two trademarks of the Church. This led directly to the November 1793 closing of all churches in the Commune of Paris, a measure soon copied by authorities elsewhere in France. A non-Christian cult was established, known as the Cult of Reason, with its main center being the then desanctified Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE - CRUSHES ROYALIST UPRISING

With a superhuman effort, France turned the military front around - at the end of 1794 French forces overran the Austrian Netherlands, occupied the United Netherlands (which they reorganized as the Batavia Republic - later to become the Netherlands), and routed the allied Prussian - Austrian armies on the Rhine River border.

These defeats caused the collapse of the anti-French coalition and in April 1795, the Treaty of Basle saw Prussia and a number of smaller German states end hostilities. In July, Spain also withdrew from the war against the French Republic, leaving Britain, and Austria as the only large powers still formally at war with France - the Austrians still being incensed at the execution of Marie Antoinette. However, a stalemate was reached, and relative peace resulted for more than a year.

In Paris, a new constitution creating a republic had been drafted, containing strong clauses preventing the return of any monarchy. Parisian Royalists objected to these clauses and on October 1795, launched their own uprising in Paris.

The royalist uprising was crushed by troops under the command of a then little known French general, Napoleon Bonaparte.

Insurrection and chaos continued. The new constitution was battered by a succession of mostly unsuccessful coups and intrigues - finally in 1799, Bonaparte and a group of supporters seized control of the French government and re-established autocratic rule, known as the Consulate.

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Above: French infantry in action in Saxony in 1813, from a contemporary print. The soldier on the left is biting off the end of a cartridge before loading his musket.

THE NAPOLEONIC WARS - DRASTIC CONSEQUENCES

The wars unleashed as a result of the French Revolution became known as the Napoleonic Wars: they were to engulf Europe for nearly 16 years and had a number of significant consequences, the most important of which was a severe depopulation of France itself, with over a million Frenchmen being killed during the period of these wars.

The history of the wars and Napoleon's career is a staggering story of exertion and suffering - the events are reviewed in full in the next chapter.

Apart from his military campaigns, Napoleon also became famous for this codification of French Law, which to this day remains the basis for that country's legal system. Despite the Law Code guaranteeing freedom of association and political expression, it was apparent that Napoleon himself did not take the wording seriously, and in 1809, he established a French Empire, declaring himself Emperor by literally crowning himself.

Napoleon then went to war with most of the rest of Europe, and through a stunning feat of arms, managed to defeat almost everybody. His invasion of Germany and Russia in 1813, was to lead to his downfall - he was defeated at the battle of Leipzig in 1813, and France was invaded. Napoleon then abdicated and was exiled to the island of Elba. The French royalty was then restored, with the younger brother of the executed Louis XVI being made king.

The power of Napoleon's personality was revealed when he dramatically escaped from Elba, landed in France and in a triumphant march on Paris, once again raised a French army. In 1815, he re-established his empire, but a coalition of European powers defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo that same year, and he was exiled to the island of St. Helena, where he died (possibly poisoned) in 1821.

The allied victors occupied nearly two thirds of France after the Battle of Waterloo and held it for five years, imposing heavy fines upon the hapless French for having once again supported Napoleon.

RACIAL EFFECTS OF THE REVOLUTION AND NAPOLEONIC WARS

Although the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars did not result in the importation of any large numbers of non-Whites into France, huge numbers of White Frenchmen, both nobles and commoners, lost their lives in the period from 1789 to 1815, with the Napoleonic Wars alone resulting in the deaths of over a million White Frenchmen - a huge slice of the population at that time, possibly as much as 35 per cent of all able bodied Frenchmen of all ages. The French Revolution itself had dealt a serious blow to the Nordic element of French society, as Nordic features were associated with nobility and made immediate targets for the revolutionary mobs. This led to a denordicization of the French population which is still evident today in the relatively small number of blonds amongst the modern French population.

THE MONARCH RESTORED - FRANCHISE LIMITED TO 100,000

With the expulsion of Napoleon, the French monarchy was once again restored in the person of Louis XVIII, in terms of a new constitution which created a new parliamentary democracy - with the right to vote being limited to less than 100,000 property owners.

In 1830, Charles V, the then ruling French king, after conflicting with the elected parliament on a number of domestic issues, dissolved the parliament, reduced the number of voters and issued restrictions on the freedom of the press.

Another popular uprising took place, and after three days of heavy street fighting in Paris, the royal forces were driven from the capital, and Charles abdicated.

The parliament reconvened and called to the throne Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, head of the younger branch of the Bourbon family. Under the new rule, a period of peace and progress ensued. A School Law in 1833 required every region to set up and run a primary school for boys, free to those who could not afford to pay tuition and in 1842, a Railway Law set in motion the creation of the French national railway network. After 1849, the industrial revolution took root in France, transforming it within a few decades into one of the leading industrial states of Europe.

THE 1848 REVOLUTION AND NAPOLEON III

In 1848, a number of mini-French revolutions spread across Europe as the populations became increasingly desirous of greater reforms from their monarchical rulers.

Louis Philippe consistently refused requests to extend the franchise, and a clash between troops and pro-republic demonstrators in Paris in February 1848, led to a full scale revolution which saw the king abdicate (obviously not wanting to wait until he was beheaded like the last French king caught up in a revolution) and a republic declared - the Second French Republic.

THE SECOND REPUBLIC AND SECOND EMPIRE - NEPHEW OF BONAPARTE RULES

The Second Republic's constitution created a presidential republic with a parliament elected by universal male suffrage. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, won the presidency by an overwhelming vote.

Although the elections had produced a two thirds majority of conservatives, it appeared that the radical republicans would win the 1852 election. Louis Napoleon, posing as the savior of society from radical revolution, seized power in a coup in December 1851, restoring the empire and giving himself the title of Napoleon III (Napoleon I's son, Napoleon II, never reigned).

Initially, Napoleon III governed France as autocrat. As the economy improved, he introduced a program of reforms and by 1870, he had created a parliamentary monarchy system of government.

THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR AND THE THIRD REPUBLIC

In 1870, a crisis over the succession to the Spanish throne led to a war between France and the growing power of Prussia, which was then engaged in a program of unification of the German states.

The French troops were decimated by the far better equipped and trained Prussians, and in September 1870, Napoleon III and his largest army surrendered at Sedan.

When this news reached Paris, republicans declared the Third Republic and vowed to carry on the war. The Germans then advanced to Paris and besieged the city for four months - by January 1871, starved of food and supplies, the French capitulated.

In terms of the treaty which ended the war, France ceded to Germany the Alsace Lorraine region and undertook to pay indemnity to the Germans for damage caused during the war. The Germans also took the opportunity to crown the Prussian king, Wilhelm I, as King of Germany, in the Palace of Versailles.

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Above: Louis Napoleon, or Napoleon III of France. Trading upon the name of his famous uncle, Louis Napoleon became an elected monarch of France after seizing power unconstitutionally. He was a fairly effective leader and relatively popular - until his army was defeated by the Prussians during the Franco-Prussian war of 1871. Captured by the Prussians, Louis Napoleon was to hear from the Germans that the French had deposed him in his absence and had declared the Third French Republic.

CONTINUED UPHEAVAL - FIRST COMMUNIST UPRISING IN WORLD

The new French government had no sooner ended the war with Germany than it was faced with civil war. In March 1871, radical republicans - calling themselves Communists - in Paris went into open revolt and set up an independent city government, the Commune of Paris. They held the capital for two months before being crushed in a week of bloody street fighting that left more than 20,000 dead - the first Communist revolution in the world.

The last three decades of the nineteenth century were marked by a period of economic growth once again, with France rebuilding an extensive colonial empire in Africa and Asia.

In Europe however, war was once again looming, with France, Britain, and Russia united in the Triple Entente, facing the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.

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Above: The world's first Communist Revolution. France's troubles did not end with the defeat of her army by the Prussians in 1871 - following the downfall of the Emperor Louis Napoleon, communists declared a 'Communistic Republic' in Paris on 28 March 1871. The French army moved to suppress the revolution and attacked Paris, but for two months the Parisians, armed with the weapons they had been issued with during the Franco-Prussian War and which they had been allowed to keep, resisted. After a series of street fights in some of the city's most well known thoroughfares, the Communists were defeated. A few stragglers however took their revenge by burning down some of the city's most famous landmarks - and they made a good job of the Tuileries Palace (the city residence of the former Kings of France, which was razed to the ground.) Here the Tuileries burns, along with other buildings in Paris, during the last hours of the world's first Communist state.

THE FIRST WORLD WAR - ONE QUARTER OF ALL YOUNG FRENCHMEN KILLED

The outbreak of the First World War saw parts of Eastern France occupied by the Germans for most of the duration of the war: at the closing stages of the conflict, the Germans penetrated to within 60 miles of Paris itself, with the city coming under barrage from the massive German artillery pieces.

However, Germany and Austria were defeated, and France regained her occupied lands and occupied pieces of Germany as part of a reparations program.

Although France emerged as a victor at the end of the war, the cost in racial terms was devastating: 1.3 million men, a quarter of all White Frenchmen between the ages of 18 and 30, had been killed.

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Above: A French national hero - Marshall Henri Petain (left) poses with his fellow Generals just before the Battle of Verdun in 1916. Petain managed to rally the French forces in 1917 and stave off what seemed like certain defeat by the Germans.

THE FIRST POPULATION SHIFT

By 1919, the French population had been battered by more than two centuries of major wars, and had started to go into a serious decline. The French government then started allowing French speaking Black Africans and non-White Algerians into France, mainly for use as labor, but also as army troops, in order to make up population shortfalls.

In this way the German territory of the Rhineland was occupied by Black French troops, creating much anger amongst the Germans and becoming a political issue in the latter country.

According to official French statistics, some three million North African Arabic mixed race and African Blacks, all from the French colonies, immigrated into France itself during the period 1919 to 1927. (This figure is probably an underestimation, as it does not take into account illegal immigration, which probably accounted for a least half a million more).

Although the majority of Frenchmen did not integrate with this non-White influx, a significant minority did, creating the inappropriately named "Mediterranean" look associated with the French in certain areas. This integration process did not however reach anywhere near the level of the Spanish, and was certainly nowhere near the Portuguese example.

Nonetheless, it is possible to see the traces of the large Black influx in a minority of modern Frenchmen to this day.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR

The rise of Nazi Germany during the 1930s saw a surge in support for French right wing parties espousing similar politics. In reaction to this, the Radical-Socialist, Socialist, and Communist parties formed an alliance in 1934, called the "Popular Front to Defend the Republic." By combining their votes the Popular Front managed to win a majority in the French parliament, and under the French Jewish prime minister, Leon Blum, instituted many anti-democratic policies - he outlawed and dissolved the right wing parties - ironically mirroring Adolf Hitler's dissolution of opposition parties in Germany.

The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 saw France beaten by the revitalized German army in only six weeks in 1940. Although a small number of Free French fought on under their dynamic leader Charles de Gaulle, French armies played only a minor role in the subsequent defeat of Germany.

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Above: One of the 92,000 dead the French suffered during the invasion of that country by the Germans in May 1940. Together with the dead of the First World War, France suffered a total loss of some 1.6 million people in both wars.

For a period, nearly half of France remained unoccupied by Germany and ruled itself. This area, known as Vichy France, actively co-operated with the Germans and enacted its own anti-Jewish laws and generally establishing pro-German policies. Vichy France was led by one of the most decorated French generals of the First World War, Philipe Petain (who had rallied France when it was on the point of collapse in 1917.)

Vichy France was occupied by the Germans in 1942, and the whole country remained under German occupation until 1944, when the Germans were driven out by an Allied invasion.

THE FOURTH REPUBLIC AND THE COLONIAL WARS

In 1945, the Free French leader, Charles de Gaulle, established a provisional government in France, stepping down in 1946, when a democratic constitution was established and the Fourth Republic was established.

The Fourth Republic engaged in a series of social and economic reforms, but its colonial policy ultimately led to its downfall: as the de-colonization fervor swept through the Third World after the end of the Second World War, the French government found itself fighting a number of bitter regional conflicts.

A nine year war against native guerrillas in French Indo-China (Vietnam) which cost France 92,000 dead, was ended in 1955, when the French withdrew. Algerian nationalists began a guerrilla war in 1954. In May 1958, militant army officers and White settlers, concerned that the French government was going to hand over control of the colony to the non-Whites, seized control of Algiers. The army command supported them, and the spread of the military coup to France itself seemed imminent.

THE FIFTH REPUBLIC

As chaos threatened to engulf France as well, General de Gaulle, who had been living in political retirement, was called by the French parliament to restore order, voting him full powers to govern the country for six months and to prepare a new constitution.

De Gaulle redrafted the constitution to grant the president greater powers - this constitution was approved in 1959 and the Fifth Republic was declared.

In 1960, the constitution was once again amended to allow the French colonies to be declared independent. From that time on, France began dispossessing itself of its colonies, granting independence to a number of states in Africa. De Gaulle pressed ahead with negotiations to hand Algeria over to Arab rule, a process which sparked off White riots in Algiers. Nonetheless, Algeria became independent in 1961.

CONCERN OVER NON-WHITE IMMIGRATION

In 1969, de Gaulle resigned amidst countrywide strikes and a student riot in Paris the previous year. Since then France has been ruled alternatively by Socialist or Conservative governments. Since the 1980s, an ever increasing number of non-White immigrants into France has led to the establishment of a party dedicated to clamping down on immigration, the Front National, which in the mid 1990s was polling nearly 17 per cent (or around 4.5 million votes) of the total vote cast.

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Above: Concern in France about the high level of non-White immigration during the last quarter of the Century saw the growth in anti-immigration movements such as the Front National, here seen demonstrating with its leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. Alongside: A Front National poster reading 'Immigration: Open your eyes.

FRANCE'S LESSON

So it was that France survived the most extreme natural (the plague) and man made (war) disasters, on a scale almost without comparison, and yet still managed to recuperate each time without sinking into oblivion.

The question arises: why could France withstand all these tribulations and still survive, while the Sumerians, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans all collapsed? None of these great civilizations were put under any greater environmentally caused pressure than that to which France has been subjected.

The crucial reason for the survival of France (and the crumbling into ruins of the old civilizations) was that the White French people themselves did not disappear nor become a minority in their own country, and were thus able to keep their society functioning - unlike the populations of each of the aforementioned ancient civilizations.

Only at the start of the 20th Century, and with the trend speeding up dramatically in the last quarter, has the French racial mix started to shift significantly. This process, and that of other similar cases, is discussed in a later chapter.
Tolerance and Apathy are the last virtues of a dying society
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