ABSTRACT
In ideological terms, the USA and the USSR are as opposed as it is possible to conceive, yet they have never gone to war against each other. Similarly, in the 1790s revolutionary ideology did not prevent the French from seeking an alliance with Prussia, securing an alliance with Spain or sending military advisers to the Ottoman Turks. Of course the Brissotins thought they knew — probably correctly — what was best calculated to arouse the revolutionary masses. Yet the evidence suggests that it was they who took the initiative, impelled not by the force of public opinion but by their ambition to seize power and complete the Revolution. With specific reference to the Brissotins, it is certainly possible that they launched their campaign for war to divert the social radicalism of the revolutionary crowd, to restore monetary stability or to promote more generally the interests of the French bourgeoisie.
