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REPUBLICS: PRELUDE TO RISE OF REPUBLICS IN MODERN TIMES |
ENGLAND 1648-1660
The English Republic of 1648-1660 was founded on the belief of
Protestant religious revolutionaries, like the Calvinists, that the
supreme power of sovereignty should no longer reside in the monarch
but in the collective will of the people. The Republic began with
the execution of King Charles the 1st after his surrender to the
rebel army he had fought for years in a civil war over the degree of
power a monarch might exercise. In a stacked trial, a majority of
one found him guilty of all the bloodshed that war had caused. He
was beheaded. After 11 years of Cromwellian military dictatorship,
the parliament agreed to restore the monarchy. It began to develop
its unique Westminster system of constitutional monarchy which, in
modern times, has been greatly admired as the most successful form
of parliamentary government in the creation of stable and peaceful
societies.
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FRANCE 1793-1815
The French Republic, which promised liberty, equality and fraternity
for all, was created by the execution of King Louis 16 in 1793
despite the fact he had agreed to a constitution which limited his
powers. It began in a violent bloodbath and civil war. It ended when
Napoleon, the military commander in Paris, seized power by virtue of
two corrupt elections after commanding his soldiers to close the
parliament down. After crowning himself Emperor, he conducted
destructive European wars, which cost nearly 1,000,000 lives, for
the next 15 years. Since then France has had 3 phases as a
monarchy, and five successive constitutions. It remains biased to a
centralising socialism under strong executive presidents. One of
these, President Clemenceau, was forced to sign the Versailles
Treaty with Germany in 1918 on the terms of US President Woodrow
Wilson to prevent the latter signing a separate peace with Germany
based on his 14 Points for a League of Nations. Clemenceau, echoed
by the victorious General Foch, warned that this Treaty, which
naively failed to recognise the pervading military culture of German
and oblige it to disarm, would lead to a second world war in 20
years. When Germany invaded France once more in 1939 France,
demoralised by the dreadful price of 1,300,0000 dead and 4,000,000
wounded it had paid from German’s
invasion a generation before, capitulated yielding Germany the
victory they had failed to achieve in 1918.
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