Editing Paris Commune (section)

== Establishment ==

=== Dispute over cannons of Paris ===

[[File:Battery of the Montmartre Hills WDL1246.png|thumb|A Battery in the Montmartre Hill, paid for by the Parisian via a subscription]]

At the end of the war, 400 obsolete muzzle-loading bronze [[cannon]]s, paid for by the Paris public via a subscription, remained in the city. The new Central Committee of the National Guard, now dominated by radicals, decided to put the cannons in parks in the working-class neighborhoods of [[Belleville, Paris|Belleville]], [[Buttes-Chaumont]] and [[Montmartre]], to keep them away from the regular army and to defend the city against any attack by the national government. Thiers was equally determined to bring the cannons under national-government control.

Clemenceau, a friend of several revolutionaries, tried to negotiate a compromise; some cannons would remain in Paris and the rest go to the army. However, neither Thiers nor the National Assembly accepted his proposals. 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. The Assembly also refused to prolong the moratorium on debt collections imposed during the war; and suspended two radical newspapers, ''{{lang|fr|[[Jules Vallès#Le Cri du Peuple|Le Cri du Peuple]]}}'' of [[Jules Valles]] and ''{{lang|fr|Le Mot d'Ordre}}'' of [[Victor Henri Rochefort, Marquis de Rochefort-Luçay|Henri Rochefort]], which further inflamed Parisian radical opinion. 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.{{sfn|Milza|2009a|pp=8–9}}

On 17 March 1871, there was a meeting of Thiers and his cabinet, who were joined by Paris mayor Jules Ferry, National Guard commander General [[Louis d'Aurelle de Paladines]] and General [[Joseph Vinoy]], commander of the regular army units in Paris. Thiers announced a plan to send the army the next day to take charge of the cannons. The plan was initially opposed by War Minister [[Adolphe Le Flô]], d'Aurelle de Paladines, and Vinoy, who argued that the move was premature, because the army had too few soldiers, was undisciplined and demoralized, and that many units had become politicized and were unreliable. Vinoy urged that they wait until Germany had released the French prisoners of war, and the army returned to full strength. Thiers insisted that the planned operation must go ahead as quickly as possible, to have the element of surprise. If the seizure of the cannon was not successful, the government would withdraw from the centre of Paris, build up its forces, and then attack with overwhelming force, as they had done during the uprising of June 1848. The Council accepted his decision, and Vinoy gave orders for the operation to begin the next day.{{sfn|Milza|2009a|pp=9–11}}

=== Failed seizure attempt and government retreat ===

[[File:Les pièces de Montmartre.jpg|thumb|Troops sent by Adolphe Thiers seizing the cannons of Montmartre, paid for by the Parisian via a subscription. These were later taken back by the National Guards during the uprising of 18 March 1871, the starting point of the Paris Commune]]

Early in the morning of 18 March, two brigades of soldiers climbed the [[butte]] of [[Montmartre]], where the largest collection of cannons, 170 in number, were located. A small group of revolutionary national guardsmen were already there, and there was a brief confrontation between the brigade led by General [[Claude Lecomte]], and the National Guard; one guardsman, named Turpin, was shot, later dying. Word of the shooting spread quickly, and members of the National Guard from all over the neighbourhood, along with others including Clemenceau, hurried to the site to confront the soldiers.{{sfn|Horne|2012|loc=Chapter 17}}

[[File:Commune de Paris Les canons 18 mars 1871.jpg|thumb|left|Cannons taken back from the army by the national guards]]

While the Army had succeeded in securing the cannons at [[Belleville, Paris|Belleville]] and [[Parc des Buttes-Chaumont|Buttes-Chaumont]] and other strategic points, at Montmartre a crowd gathered and continued to grow, and the situation grew increasingly tense. The horses that were needed to take the cannon away did not arrive, and the army units were immobilized. As the soldiers were surrounded, they began to break ranks and join the crowd. General Lecomte tried to withdraw, and then ordered his soldiers to load their weapons and fix bayonets. He thrice ordered them to fire, but the soldiers refused. Some of the officers were disarmed and taken to the city hall of Montmartre, under the protection of Clemenceau. General Lecomte and his staff officers were seized by the guardsmen and his mutinous soldiers and taken to the local headquarters of the National Guard under the command of captain [[Simon Charles Mayer]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mayer Simon, Charles |url=https://maitron.fr/spip.php?article209181 |access-date=14 November 2022 |publisher=Le Maitron Dictionnaire Biographique |language=fr |location=Aubervilliers |archive-date=14 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221114001327/https://maitron.fr/spip.php?article209181 |url-status=live }}</ref> at the ballroom of the [[Château Rouge (Paris Métro)|Chateau-Rouge]]. The officers were pelted with rocks, struck, threatened, and insulted by the crowd. In the middle of the afternoon, Lecomte and the other officers were taken to 6 rue des Rosiers by members of a group calling themselves the Committee of Vigilance of the 18th {{lang|fr|arrondissement}}, who demanded that they be tried and executed.{{sfn|Milza|2009a|pp=16–18}}

[[File:Jacques Léon Clément-Thomas (1809-1871).jpg|thumb|upright|General Clément-Thomas, executed by the National Guards for trying to seize their cannons]]

At 5:00 in the afternoon, the National Guard had captured another important prisoner: General [[Jacques Leon Clément-Thomas]]. An ardent republican and fierce disciplinarian, he had helped suppress the armed uprising of June 1848 against the Second Republic. Because of his republican beliefs, he had been arrested by Napoleon III and exiled, and had only returned to France after the downfall of the Empire. He was particularly hated by the national guardsmen of Montmartre and Belleville because of the severe discipline he imposed during the siege of Paris.{{sfn|Milza|2009a|pp=18–19}} 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. 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. A few minutes later, they did the same to General Lecomte. Doctor [[Jean Casimir Félix Guyon]], who examined the bodies shortly afterwards, found forty bullets in Clément-Thomas's body and nine in Lecomte's back.{{sfn|Milza|2009a|p=19}}{{sfn|Gluckstein|2006|page=231}} By late morning, the operation to recapture the cannons had failed, and crowds and barricades were appearing in all the working-class neighborhoods of Paris. General Vinoy ordered the army to pull back to the Seine, and Thiers began to organise a withdrawal to Versailles, where he could gather enough troops to take back Paris.

[[File:Sainte Famille (d'après Murillo)La fuite.à Versailles. Paris Musées 20231104143226.jpg|thumb|upright|"The Holy Family": Thiers, Favre and Philippe d'Orléans, Count of Paris and pretender to the throne, fleeing to Versailles, caricature by Charles de Frondat]]

On the afternoon of 18 March, following the government's failed attempt to seize the cannons at Montmartre, the Central Committee of the National Guard ordered the three battalions to seize the Hôtel de Ville, where they believed the government was located. They were not aware that Thiers, the government, and the military commanders were at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where the gates were open and there were few guards. They were also unaware that Marshal [[Patrice MacMahon]], the future commander of the forces against the Commune, had just arrived at his home in Paris, having just been released from imprisonment in Germany. 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. A sympathetic station manager hid him in his office and helped him board a train, and he escaped the city. While he was at the railway station, national guardsmen sent by the Central Committee arrived at his house looking for him.{{sfn|Milza|2009a|p=76}}{{sfn|Gluckstein|2006|page=4}}

On the advice of General Vinoy, Thiers ordered the evacuation to Versailles of all the regular forces in Paris, some 40,000 soldiers, including those in the fortresses around the city; the regrouping of all the army units in Versailles; and the departure of all government ministries from the city.

=== National Guard takes power ===
[[File:Barricade18March1871.jpg|right|thumb|A barricade thrown up by [[National Guard (France)|national guards]] on 18 March 1871.]]
[[File:Barricades pres de Ministere de la Marine et l'Hötel Crillon.jpg|thumb|Barricades during the Paris Commune, near the [[Place de la Concorde]]]]

In February, while the national government had been organising in Bordeaux, a new rival government had been organised in Paris. 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.{{sfn|Milza|2009a|p=35}} Between 15 and 24 February, some 500 delegates elected by the National Guard began meeting in Paris. 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 {{Interlanguage link|Rue de la Roquette|lt=Rue de la Roquette|fr|Rue de la Roquette}}. The first vote of the new Central Committee was to refuse to recognise the authority of General D'Aurelle de Paladines, the official commander of the National Guard appointed by Thiers, or of General Vinoy, the Military Governor of Paris.{{sfn|Milza|2009a|p=45}}

Late on 18 March, when they learned that the regular army was leaving Paris, units of the National Guard moved quickly to take control of the city. The first to take action were the followers of Blanqui, who went quickly to the [[Latin Quarter]] and took charge of the gunpowder stored in the [[Panthéon]], and to the [[Gare d'Austerlitz|Orléans railway station]]. Four battalions crossed the Seine and captured the [[Paris Police Prefecture|prefecture of police]], while other units occupied the former headquarters of the National Guard at the [[Place Vendôme]], as well as the Ministry of Justice. That night, the National Guard occupied the offices vacated by the government. They quickly took over the Ministries of Finance, the Interior, and [[Ministry of War (France)|War]]. At eight in the morning the next day, the Central Committee was meeting in the Hôtel de Ville. By the end of the day, 20,000 national guardsmen camped in triumph in the square in front of the Hôtel de Ville, with several dozen cannons. A red flag was hoisted over the building.{{sfn|Milza|2009a|p=77}}

The extreme-left members of the Central Committee, led by the Blanquists, demanded an immediate march on Versailles to disperse the Thiers government and to impose their authority on all of France; but the majority first wanted to establish a more solid base of legal authority in Paris. The Committee officially lifted the state of siege, named commissions to administer the government, and called elections for 23 March. They also sent a delegation of mayors of the Paris {{lang|fr|arrondissements}}, led by Clemenceau, to negotiate with Thiers in Versailles to obtain a special independent status for Paris.

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. At least 12 people were killed and many wounded.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Milner |first=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_4h7VyVr4mgC&q=22+March+1871+paris+vendome&pg=PA143 |title=Art, War and Revolution in France, 1870–1871: Myth, Reportage and Reality |date=2000 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=0300084072 |location=New Haven and London |pages=143–145 |access-date=1 May 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210310075758/https://books.google.com/books?id=_4h7VyVr4mgC&q=22+March+1871+paris+vendome&pg=PA143 |archive-date=10 March 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref> The event was labeled the Massacre in the [[Rue de la Paix]].{{sfn|Horne|2012|loc= Chapter 18}}

=== Council elections ===
{{see also|Commune Council (Paris)}}
[[File:Commune 28 mars.jpeg|thumb|The celebration of the election of the Commune, 28 March 1871]]

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.{{sfn|Milza|2009a|p=97}} On 22 March, the day before the elections, the Central Committee declared that it, not the mayors, was the legitimate government of Paris.{{sfn|Milza|2009a|p=103}} It declared that Clemenceau was no longer the Mayor of Montmartre, and seized the city hall there, as well as the city halls of the 1st and 2nd {{lang|fr|arrondissements}}, which were occupied by more radical national guardsmen. "We are caught between two bands of crazy people," Clemenceau complained, "those sitting in Versailles and those in Paris."

The elections of 26 March elected a Commune council of 92 members, one for every 20,000 residents. 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. The candidates had only a few days to campaign. Thiers' government in Versailles urged Parisians to abstain from voting. When the voting was finished, 233,000 Parisians had voted, out of 485,000 registered voters, or forty-eight percent. In upper-class neighborhoods many abstained from voting: 77 percent of voters in the 7th and 8th arrondissements; 68 percent in the 15th, 66 percent in the 16th, and 62 percent in the 6th and 9th. But in the working-class neighborhoods, turnout was high: 76 percent in the 20th arrondissement, 65 percent in the 19th, and 55 to 60 percent in the 10th, 11th, and 12th.{{sfn|Rougerie|2014|pages=58–60}}

A few candidates, including Blanqui (who had been arrested when outside Paris, and was in prison in Brittany), won in several {{lang|fr|arrondissements}}. Other candidates who were elected, including about twenty moderate republicans and five radicals, refused to take their seats. In the end, the council had just 60 members. Nine of the winners were Blanquists (some of whom were also from the International); twenty-five, including Delescluze and Pyat, classified themselves as "Independent Revolutionaries"; about fifteen were from the International; the rest were from a variety of radical groups. One of the best-known candidates, Clemenceau, received only 752 votes. The professions represented in the council were 33 workers; five small businessmen; 19 clerks, accountants and other office staff; twelve journalists; and a selection of workers in the liberal arts. 20 members were [[Freemasonry|Freemasons]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=de Jode |first=M.Cara |title=Dictionnaire universel de la franc-maçonnerie |publisher=Larousse |year=2011 |isbn=978-2035848406 |location=Paris |pages=226}}</ref> All were men; women were not allowed to vote.{{sfn|Milza|2009a|pp=109–113}} The winners were announced on 27 March, and a large ceremony and parade by the National Guard was held the next day in front of the Hôtel de Ville, decorated with red flags.

=== Organisation and early work ===
The new Commune held its first meeting on 28 March in a euphoric mood. The members adopted a dozen proposals, including an honorary presidency for Blanqui; the abolition of the [[death penalty]]; the abolition of [[military conscription]]; a proposal to send delegates to other cities to help launch communes there; and a resolution declaring that membership in the Paris Commune was incompatible with being a member of the National Assembly. This was aimed particularly at [[Pierre Tirard]], the republican mayor of the [[2nd arrondissement of Paris|2nd arrondissement]], who had been elected to both Commune and National Assembly. Seeing the more radical political direction of the new Commune, Tirard and some twenty republicans decided it was wisest to resign from the Commune. A resolution was also passed, after a long debate, that the deliberations of the council were to be secret, since the Commune was effectively at war with the government in Versailles and should not make its intentions known to the enemy.{{sfn|Milza|2009a|pp=118–119}}
[[File:Les hommes de la Commune.jpg|thumb|"The men of the Commune" in ''L'Illustration'' magazine, July 1871]]
Following the model proposed by the more radical members, the new government had no president, no mayor, and no commander in chief. The Commune began by establishing nine commissions, similar to those of the National Assembly, to manage the affairs of Paris. The commissions in turn reported to an Executive Commission. One of the first measures passed declared that military conscription was abolished, that no military force other than the National Guard could be formed or introduced into the capital, and that all healthy male citizens were members of the National Guard. The new system had one important weakness: the National Guard now had two different commanders. They reported to both the Central Committee of the National Guard and to the Executive Commission, and it was not clear which one was in charge of the inevitable war with Thiers' government.{{sfn|Milza|2009a|p=129}}