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⚔️ Unit 5 · Conflict, Crisis, and Reaction in the Late 18th Century 🗂 Flashcards 🗺 Cheat Sheet ⭐ Essentials 🎨 Visual Review 📝 MC Practice ✍️ SAQ Practice

AP European History Unit 5 Essentials

The must-know terms and big ideas for Unit 5: Conflict, Crisis, and Reaction in the Late 18th Century. Every vocabulary word and concept you need to master.

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SP — States & Other Institutions of Power
The French Revolution overturned traditional sources of political legitimacy in favor of popular sovereignty
The financial crisis and the Estates-General set the stage, but the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen made the break explicit: legitimate government now rested on the consent and rights of "the people," not the divine right of kings. This single shift undermined the ideological foundation of monarchy across Europe.
Estates-General Declaration of Rights Popular Sovereignty
NEM — National & European Identity
Revolutionary and Napoleonic upheaval sparked the rise of nationalism as a unifying and disruptive force
As Napoleon's armies redrew borders and imposed French rule across Europe, conquered peoples increasingly defined themselves in opposition to foreign domination — planting seeds of national identity that would grow into a major political force in the 19th century, even as the Congress of Vienna tried to suppress it.
Napoleon Nationalism Congress of Vienna
SP — States & Other Institutions of Power
The Congress of Vienna sought to restore conservative order and balance of power after decades of revolutionary disruption
Led by Metternich, the great powers at Vienna prioritized legitimacy (restoring traditional monarchs), containment of France, and a balance of power to prevent any one state from dominating Europe — establishing the Concert of Europe as a mechanism for ongoing conservative cooperation against future revolutions.
Metternich Congress of Vienna Concert of Europe
SOC — Social Organization & Development
Revolutionary ideals of equality clashed with persistent social hierarchies and led to violent radicalization
The Declaration of the Rights of Man promised legal equality, but deep social tensions, foreign war, and fear of counter-revolution drove the Revolution toward the Reign of Terror, in which Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety used mass violence to enforce revolutionary "virtue" — revealing the gap between revolutionary ideals and their violent implementation.
Reign of Terror Robespierre Equality
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Estates-General & Tennis Court Oath
Louis XVI convened the Estates-General in 1789 to address France's financial crisis; when the Third Estate was locked out of proceedings, its members took the Tennis Court Oath, vowing not to disband until France had a written constitution.
Causes
Storming of the Bastille
On July 14, 1789, Parisian crowds stormed the Bastille fortress-prison seeking arms, an event symbolizing the fall of royal tyranny and now commemorated as the start of the French Revolution.
Causes
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
A 1789 foundational document proclaiming that all men are born free and equal in rights, asserting popular sovereignty and guaranteeing liberties like freedom of speech — directly drawing on Enlightenment natural rights theory.
Revolution
Reign of Terror & Robespierre
A 1793–1794 period of extreme political violence led by Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety, in which tens of thousands of perceived enemies of the Revolution were executed to defend the republic and enforce revolutionary "virtue."
Radical Phase
Committee of Public Safety
The executive body that effectively governed France during the Reign of Terror, wielding broad powers over the war effort and the suppression of internal dissent, often through mass execution.
Radical Phase
De-Christianization
A radical revolutionary campaign to weaken the Catholic Church's influence in France, closing churches, promoting a secular "Cult of Reason," and adopting a new revolutionary calendar.
Radical Phase
Napoleon Bonaparte
A successful Revolutionary general who seized power in the Coup of 18 Brumaire (1799) and crowned himself Emperor of the French in 1804, ending the revolutionary republic while preserving some of its legal reforms.
Napoleon
Napoleonic Code
A comprehensive 1804 legal code that preserved revolutionary legal equality and the abolition of feudal privilege, while restricting women's rights and reinforcing patriarchal authority within the family.
Napoleon
Continental System
Napoleon's policy banning European trade with Britain in an attempt to cripple the British economy — it ultimately damaged France's allies and subject states more than Britain and contributed to Napoleon's downfall.
Napoleon
Invasion of Russia (1812) & Waterloo (1815)
Napoleon's catastrophic invasion of Russia destroyed most of his Grand Army; after a brief return to power, his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 ended his rule for good.
Downfall
Congress of Vienna
A 1814–1815 diplomatic conference, dominated by Austria's Metternich, that redrew the map of Europe after Napoleon's defeat, seeking to restore conservative monarchical order and a durable balance of power.
Settlement
Concert of Europe
A loose system of cooperation among the great powers established after the Congress of Vienna to coordinate responses to revolutionary or nationalist threats and preserve the conservative settlement.
Settlement
Edmund Burke & Conservative Reaction
In Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Burke criticized the Revolution as a dangerous break from tradition and gradual reform, warning that radical change based on abstract "rights" would lead to chaos and tyranny.
Reaction