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In 1870, France picked a fight with Prussia (Germany, basically) and got her ass kicked and that was it for the Second French Empire. Then began the Third French Republic, except in Paris, where disaffected soldiers and working class seized control and set up a socialist commune. There were some great ideas happening, but the new French national government sent in the army and it was a fucking bloodbath.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: May 21, 1871--
The French National Guard had been around over eight decades, established during the revolution in 1789. During the Franco-Prussian war its job was to defend a besieged Paris. The war ended in January 1871, and the rest of France was like okay let’s do this right-wing republican royalism thing and the folks in Paris were all nah we don’t like that shit we’re setting up our own leftie commune and the rest of the country can eat merde.
The ideals of the Paris Commune were highly progressive, especially for the 19th century. Its revolutionaries were in favor of separation of church and state, against child labor, promoted rent forgiveness for the period of the siege, were pro-working class, and said feminism is good stuff. Called the “Communards,” they seized control in mid-March, and attempted to organize the commune around these principles into a functioning government. But really it was just a couple of months of mostly anarchy, looting, and reprisals against the rich and the clergy. That was one defining feature of the Communards: they fucking hated the church.
In other words, it was another example of how spontaneous revolutions rarely work, because organizing a functioning government is hard, and left to their own devices large groups of people don’t get along so well.
Two months later, on May 21, 1871, the national government—that Third Republic thing—said yeah we’re gonna take Paris back now and sent in its army and it was bad. Very bad. Did you know the word “massacre” is of French origin? That’s what this was, and that’s why it came to be known as the “The Bloody Week,” with the death estimates as high as 20,000, and 38,000 more arrested.
During the invasion the Communards retaliated by executing hostages, including the Archbishop of Paris. The city burned, although it’s a subject of debate as to whether the fires were intentionally set by Communards as a fuck you to the invading forces, or an unintentional result of the chaos of battle.
The Paris Commune was influential on men such as Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Its foundation and subsequent obliteration was a traumatic experience for the nation that shaped modern France. France’s Third Republic would last almost seven decades, until the fucking Nazis invaded in 1940.
The French National Guard was disbanded after the fall of the Paris Commune, but was re-established in 2016 as a defense against rising terrorist attacks in the nation.
Get the book On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.
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