MacMahon had his headquarters at the Quai d'Orsay. De cette façon, avec 160 000 à 180 000 soldats au maximum, le général Moltke, certain que le commandement français de Paris n'oserait pas risquer des attaques persistantes au même endroit, dans la crainte d'une capitulation en rase campagne, put encercler une ville de 2 000 000 d'habitants défendue par 400 000 hommes, dont 150 000 pouvaient agir au même endroit. [138] The convicts included many Communards, including Henri de Rochefort and Louise Michel. The Commune counts on you, count on the Commune![72]. [93] A partial amnesty was granted on 3 March 1879, allowing 400 of the 600 deportees sent to New Caledonia to return, and 2,000 of the 2,400 prisoners sentenced in their absence. The news arrived the same day of the failure of another attempt by the French army to break the siege of Paris at Bourget, with heavy losses. De Commune van Parijs was een revolutionaire regering die heerste over de stad Parijs van 18 maart 1871 totdat ze bloedig werd neergeslagen op 28 mei van datzelfde jaar. L'espace entre les anciens murs des Fermiers généraux et l'enceinte est peu peuplé, laissant encore des exploitations agricoles entre les villages inclus dans l'enceinte. On 9 April, he wrote, "In short, this Commune is as idiotic as the National Assembly is ferocious. Of the 270 condemned to death—175 in their absence—25 were shot, including Ferré and Gustave Genton, who had selected the hostages for execution. Delescluze and the remaining leaders of the Commune, about 20 in all, were at the city hall of the 13th arrondissement on Place Voltaire. During this time many progressive popular reforms are instituted concerning work, women, education and the arts. "[128] The Bolsheviks renamed their dreadnought battleship Sevastopol to Parizhskaya Kommuna. The workload of the Commune leaders was usually enormous. Marx wrote that, "Working men's Paris, with its Commune, will be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new society. However, Thiers and the National Assembly did not accept his proposals. "Remain calm," he wrote, "and everything will be saved. Numerous organisations were set up during the siege in the localities (quartiers) to meet social needs, such as canteens and first-aid stations. Directed by Peter Watkins. The horses that were needed to move the cannon away did not arrive, and the army units were immobilized. But Marx and Engels were not entirely uncritical of the Commune. In December 1871, she was brought before the 6th council of war and charged with offences, including trying to overthrow the government, encouraging citizens to arm themselves, and herself using weapons and wearing a military uniform. That night, the National Guard occupied the offices vacated by the government; they quickly took over the Ministries of Finance, the Interior, and War. Bury considers that Thiers tackled the crisis in a ruthless but successful way, thus giving a solid base to the Third Republic. The Council members (who were not "representatives" but delegates, subject in theory to immediate recall by their electors) were expected to carry out many executive and military functions as well as their legislative ones. Paule Minck opened a free school in the Church of Saint Pierre de Montmartre and animated the Club Saint-Sulpice on the Left Bank. [29] Earlier that day, dressed in civilian clothes, he had been trying to find out what was going on, when he was recognized by a soldier and arrested, and brought to the building at Rue des Rosiers. Parisians suffered shortages of food, firewood, coal and medicine. Dombrowski reported that the soldiers he had sent to defend the ramparts of the city between Point du Jour and Porte d'Auteuil had retreated to the city; he had only 4,000 soldiers left at la Muette, 2,000 at Neuilly, and 200 at Asnieres and Saint Ouen. Gustave Courbet was the most prominent artist to take part in the Commune, and was an enthusiastic participant and supporter, though he criticised its executions of suspected enemies. "[102] In 2012, however, historian Robert Tombs made a new study of the Paris cemetery records and placed the number killed between 6,000 and 7,000, confirming du Camp's research. The chief executive wanted to restore order and national authority in Paris as quickly as possible, and the cannons became a symbol of that authority. Deputy M. Vacherot told him, "A general has told me that the number killed in combat, on the barricades, or after the combat, was as many as 17,000 men." At the end of the war 400 obsolete muzzle-loading bronze cannons, paid for by the Paris public via a subscription, remained in the city. Perhaps he meant both dead and wounded." No one had expected the army to enter the city, so only a few large barricades were already in place, on the Rue Saint-Florentin and Rue de l'Opéra, and the Rue de Rivoli. C’est peut-être du chien ? The decree declared the separation of church and state, confiscated the state funds allotted to the Church, seized the property of religious congregations, and ordered that Catholic schools cease religious education and become secular. More public buildings were set afire, including the Palais de Justice, the Prefecture de Police, the theatres of Châtelet and Porte-Saint-Martin, and the Church of Saint-Eustache. [57], On 12 May another civic event took place: the destruction of Thiers' home on Place Saint-Georges. The National Guard had hundreds of cannons and thousands of rifles in its arsenal, but only half of the cannons and two-thirds of the rifles were ever used. La dernière modification de cette page a été faite le 28 janvier 2021 à 14:33. Thiers also decided to move the National Assembly and government from Bordeaux to Versailles, rather than to Paris, to be farther away from the pressure of demonstrations, which further enraged the National Guard and the radical political clubs. "[77], The Richelieu library of the Louvre, connected to the Tuileries, was also set on fire and entirely destroyed. A few candidates, including Blanqui (who had been arrested when outside Paris, and was in prison in Brittany), won in several arrondissements. On 26 January, they signed a ceasefire and armistice, with special conditions for Paris. In early 1867, Parisian employers of bronze-workers attempted to de-unionise their workers. ", Price, R. D. "Ideology and Motivation in the Paris Commune of 1871. They also had very little training or experience. Au début du siège, les Allemands disposent de 150 000 hommes, mais ce chiffre progressera au fur et à mesure de la libération des troupes de siège (Metz, Toul, Strasbourg), pour atteindre 400 000 hommes. One of the best-known candidates, Georges Clemenceau, received only 752 votes. 1870–71 (contrasts).jpg 1,229 × 1,887; 1.05 MB B21496626 0005 0636 Les merveilles de la science Inventions scientifiques dupuis 1870 Supplément au aérostats. The National Guard had not been disarmed as per the armistice, and had on paper 260 battalions of 1,500 men each, a total of 390,000 men. Of the radical and revolutionary groups in Paris at the time of the Commune, the most conservative were the "radical republicans". Learn how and when to remove this template message, French legislative election, February 1871, right of employees to take over and run an enterprise, Women's Union for the Defence of Paris and Care of the Wounded, "Les aspects militaires de la Commune par le colonel Rol-Tanguy", "In the World-Shadow of Bismarck and Nobel", Correspondence between Gustave Flaubert and George Sand, The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State, Louise Michel, a French anarchist women who fought in the Paris commune, "La responsabilité de la presse dans la répression de la Commune de Paris", "No. Later in 1867, a public demonstration in Paris was answered by the dissolution of its executive committee and the leadership being fined. [48][49] There were reports in various newspapers of pétroleuses but evidence remains weak. On 20 May, MacMahon's artillery batteries at Montretout, Mont-Valerian, Boulogne, Issy, and Vanves opened fire on the western neighbourhoods of the city—Auteuil, Passy, and the Trocadero—with shells falling close to l'Étoile. The Commune named Francis Jourde as the head of the Commission of Finance. On 22 March 1871, demonstrators holding banners declaring them to be "Friends of Peace" were blocked from entering the Place Vendôme by guardsmen who, after being fired on, opened fire on the crowd. They had been engaged in a day-long artillery duel with the regular army. He was highly popular both within the army and in the country. [24], Of the 200 republicans in the new parliament, 80 were former Orléanists (Philippe's supporters) and moderately conservative. Depuis 1840, à l'initiative du gouvernement Thiers, Paris est une ville fortifiée, entourée de lignes de forts et de fortifications. Am 4. H ôtel de ville (City Hall) after 1871 fire. [117], The American Ambassador in Paris during the Commune, Elihu Washburne, writing in his personal diary which is quoted at length in noted historian David McCullough's book, The Greater Journey (Simon & Schuster 2011), described the Communards as "brigands", "assassins", and "scoundrels"; "I have no time now to express my detestation.... [T]hey threaten to destroy Paris and bury everybody in its ruins before they will surrender. He travelled to German-occupied Tours and met with Bismarck on 1 November. It occurred in the wake of France’s defeat in the Franco-German War and the collapse of Napoleon III’s Second Empire (1852–70). The working class and immigrants suffered the most from the lack of industrial activity due to the war and the siege; they formed the bedrock of the Commune's popular support. From 21 March, the Central Committee of the National Guard banned the major pro-Versailles newspapers, Le Gaulois and Le Figaro. Le blocus fut établi par trois cordons de troupes, qui s'épaississait par une rapide concentration en cas de bataille. [118] However, it has been argued in recent research that these famous female arsonists of the Commune, or pétroleuses, may have been exaggerated or a myth. ", Deposition de M. le maréchal Mac-Mahon (28 August 1871) in Enquéte Parlementaire sur l'insurrection du 18 mars 1871 (Paris: Librarie Législative, 1872), p. 183, Pivot, Sylvain, "La Commune, les Communards, les ecrivains ou la haine et la gloire." Le génie militaire, l'artillerie, et le ministère des Travaux publics, auxiliaire du génie et de l'artillerie, y ont concouru[8]. Early in May, some of the political clubs began to demand the immediate execution of Archbishop Darboy and the other priests in the prison. General Lecomte and the officers of his staff were seized by the guardsmen and his mutinous soldiers and taken to the local headquarters of the National Guard at the ballroom of the Chateau-Rouge. Les prix de la viande, des conserves, du pain et des denrées alimentaires flambent. Le bombardement des hôpitaux semble volontaire, les assiégeants étant informés de leur position par l'intermédiaire du Consul de Suisse, et le Ministre Kern de la Confédération Suisse à Paris qui ont vivement protesté auprès de Moltke et de Bismarck pour le non-respect des conventions. Defiantly, she vowed to never renounce the Commune, and dared the judges to sentence her to death. Je commence à avoir des maux d’estomac. They prepared a massive offensive of 27,000 national guardsmen who would advance in three columns. The most popular republican paper was Le Rappel, which condemned both Thiers and the killing of generals Lecomte and Clement-Thomas by the Communards. Ahead of the elections, the Central Committee and the leaders of the International gave out their lists of candidates, mostly belonging to the extreme left. He used the famous term later taken up by Lenin and the Bolsheviks: the Commune was, he said, the first "dictatorship of the proletariat", a state run by workers and in the interests of workers. Le rythme aurait atteint un obus toutes les 2 minutes. [82], As the army continued its methodical advance, the summary executions of captured Communard soldiers by the army continued. Certains membres du gouvernement (Trochu, Favre) craignaient plus une insurrection populaire que les prussiens. In this war drama blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, the working class and the bourgeoisie of 19th century Paris are interviewed and covered on television, before and during a tragic workers' class revolt. [79] The consensus of later historians is that most of the major fires were started by the National Guard and several organised Communard groups; but that few if any fires were started by the Army or by local women. Publication date 1908 Topics Paris (France) -- History Commune, 1871 Publisher Paris Schleicher frères Collection robarts; toronto Digitizing sponsor MSN Contributor Robarts - University of Toronto Language French. We must not be defeated!". At the beginning of April, he moved to Brussels to take care of the family of his son, who had just died. In theory, the churches were allowed to continue their religious activity only if they kept their doors open for public political meetings during the evenings. Lissagaray also claimed that the artillery fire by the French army was responsible for probably half of the fires that consumed the city during the Bloody Week. [88] According to Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray, a defender of the Commune, a total of 63 people were executed by the Commune during the bloody week. [20], Between 11 and 19 January 1871, the French armies had been defeated on four fronts and Paris was facing a famine. Among the first to write about the Commune was. There were an equal number of more radical republicans, including Jules Favre and Jules Ferry, who wanted a republic without a monarch, and who felt that signing the peace treaty was unavoidable. Included in the collection are photographs, caricatures, newspapers, books, pamphlets and posters. Eye-witness accounts quoted in 'Paris under Siege' by Joanna Richardson p.197 (see bibliography), sfn error: no target: CITEREFCastries1983 (. He travelled to Versailles, where Bismarck and the German Emperor were waiting, and on 24 February the armistice was signed. On 15 March, just before the confrontation between the National Guard and the regular army over the cannons, 1,325 delegates of the federation of organisations created by the National Guard elected a leader, Giuseppe Garibaldi (who was in Italy and respectfully declined the title), and created a Central Committee of 38 members, which made its headquarters in a school on the Rue Basfroi, between Place de la Bastille and La Roquette. By April, as MacMahon's forces steadily approached Paris, divisions arose within the Commune about whether to give absolute priority to military defence, or to political and social freedoms and reforms. ), 1871: falons pour une histoire de la Commune de Paris (Paris, 1973), pp. They were organised by neighbourhoods; those from the upper- and middle-class arrondissements tended to support the national government, while those from the working-class neighbourhoods were far more radical and politicised. On the other side, the young Anatole France described the Commune as "A committee of assassins, a band of hooligans [fripouillards], a government of crime and madness. In February, while the national government had been organising in Bordeaux, a new rival government had been organised in Paris. By 20 September 1870, the German army had surrounded Paris and was camped just 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) from the French front lines. Most of the soldiers were prisoners of war who had just been released by the Germans, following the terms of the armistice. "[103] He wrote poems that criticized both the government and the Commune's policy of taking hostages for reprisals, and condemned the destruction of the Vendôme Column. Ces abandons allaient coûter cher aux Français. Their offices were invaded and closed by crowds of the Commune's supporters. If you let me live, I shall never cease to cry for vengeance. Revolutionary factions included Proudhonists (an early form of moderate anarchism), members of the international socialists, Blanquists, and more libertarian republicans. The first effort to pull down the column failed, but at 5:30 in the afternoon the column broke from its base and shattered into three pieces. After 18 April other newspapers sympathetic to Versailles were also closed. The officers were pelted with rocks, struck, threatened, and insulted by the crowd. MacMahon replied, "Ah, well, that's different. The sight of the ruins is nothing compared to the great Parisian insanity. Il y avait six secteurs sur la rive droite et trois sur la rive gauche. 1852-1870: Second Empire (Napoléon III). Au moment où le siège de Paris semble inéluctable, le gouvernement engage un immense effort de travaux de défense qui doit faire, en quelques semaines, d'une ville jugée hors d'état de se défendre, une place véritablement imprenable. [16], The largest armed force in Paris was the Garde Nationale, or National Guard, numbering about 300,000 men. Over the next seven weeks, some two hundred priests, nuns and monks were arrested, and twenty-six churches were closed to the public. However, this page is dedicated to the 1871 historical period Commune de Paris, hereafter called Commune for the sake of simplicity. Seeing the more radical political direction of the new Commune, Tirard and some twenty republicans decided it was wisest to resign from the Commune. In Paris wurde a… Key elements of the siege, including the hot-air balloons used for reconnaissance and messages, the tunnels beneath the city, the starvation and the cold, combine to render a vivid impression of war-time Paris before its surrender. In Paris, members of the Military Commission and the Executive Committee of the Commune, as well as the Central Committee of the National Guard, met on 1 April. The new prosecutor of the Commune, Théophile Ferré, hesitated and then wrote a note: "Order to the Citizen Director of La Roquette to execute six hostages." If I'm killed it will be because I've done some killing first!" She offered to shoot Thiers, and suggested the destruction of Paris by way of vengeance for its surrender. Un interne des Hôpitaux de Paris écrit le 25 décembre 1870 : « J'ai mangé de tout, cheval, mulet, chat, chien, rat et j'ai trouvé le tout très bon. That is clearly to be read in the eyes of the passers-by. Colonel Megy gave the order, and during the night of 29–30 April, most of the soldiers evacuated the fort and returned to Paris. As soon as he heard the news of the uprising, he made his way to the railway station, where national guardsmen were already stopping and checking the identity of departing passengers. But after the repression, he offered to give sanctuary to members of the Commune, which, he said, "was barely elected, and of which I never approved. The Commune adopted the discarded French Republican Calendar[45] during its brief existence and used the socialist red flag rather than the republican tricolor. [37], In Paris, hostility was growing between the elected republican mayors, including Clemenceau, who believed that they were legitimate leaders of Paris, and the Central Committee of the National Guard. Several vignettes show balloons, including "le Richard Wallace" at battle sites. Lenin, like Marx, considered the Commune a living example of the "dictatorship of the proletariat". He worked rapidly to assemble a new and reliable regular army. Five national guardsmen were captured by the regulars; two were Army deserters and two were caught with their weapons in their hands. Alors que l'impératrice Eugénie et le comte de Palikao prennent le chemin de l'exil, Jules Favre entraîne les députés de tendance républicaine à l'hôtel de ville et instaure un gouvernement de la Défense nationale. The new commander of the National Guard, Louis Rossel, issued a terse bulletin: "The tricolor flag flies over the fort of Issy, abandoned yesterday by the garrison." At about 5:30 on 18 March, the angry crowd of national guardsmen and deserters from Lecomte's regiment at Rue des Rosiers seized Clément-Thomas, beat him with rifle butts, pushed him into the garden, and shot him repeatedly. They also sent a delegation of mayors of the Paris arrondissements, led by Clemenceau, to negotiate with Thiers in Versailles to obtain a special independent status for Paris. Because the Commune met on fewer than sixty days in all, only a few decrees were actually implemented. Cet ensemble de fortifications est constitué d'un mur d'enceinte continu, percé de portes, et renforcé de 94 bastions, et d'un fossé. General Cluseret, commander of the National Guard, was dismissed and put in prison. Dans les restaurants de luxe, on servira de l’antilope, du chameau, de l’éléphant quand les animaux du Jardin des plantes seront sacrifiés[20]. The Versailles forces enjoyed a centralised command and had superior numbers. Debates over the policies and outcome of the Commune had significant influence on the ideas of Karl Marx, who described it as the first example of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. On the front line, soldiers learned from a sympathiser inside the walls that the National Guard had withdrawn from one section of the city wall at Point-du-Jour, and the fortifications were undefended. None of the other Communes lasted more than a few days, and most ended with little or no bloodshed. [122]", This view is shared by French historian A. Plessis who writes that "the crushing of the communards [...] was ultimately to facilitate the advent of the Third Republic. nécessaire]. Les moyens engagés sont insuffisants, et Ducrot doit se replier dans l'après-midi du 19 sur l'ordre formel de Trochu. Some Communards wanted to appropriate the bank's reserves to fund social projects, but Jourde resisted, explaining that without the gold reserves the currency would collapse and all the money of the Commune would be worthless. The battalions of the National Guard were no match for the army; by midday on the 23rd the regular soldiers were at the top of Montmartre, and the tricolor flag was raised over the Solferino tower. It had such a profound effect on Karl Marx that he amended a portion of his "Communist Manifesto" in response to it. Thiers' government in Versailles urged Parisians to abstain from voting. The National Guard had built and manned a circle of barricades and makeshift forts around the base of the butte. In the end, the Council had just 60 members. While carrying back the laundry she was given by the guardsmen, she carried away the body of her lover, Jean Guy, who was a butcher's apprentice. Le commandement allemand s'est installé à Versailles. "[103] Soon after the Commune began, Gustave Flaubert wrote to Sand, "Austria did not go into Revolution after Sadowa, nor Italy after Novara, nor Russia after Sebastopol! The army took 1,500 prisoners at the National Guard position on Rue Haxo, and 2,000 more at Derroja, near Père-Lachaise. 3-4 September 1870: Capture and abdication of Napoléon III in Sedan - Proclamation of the Third Republic in Paris.