Paris commune?

Question

any short summerys THAT I CAN UNDERSTAND out there?

Answer 1

In July 1870, France went to war with Prussia under the leadership of Emperor Napoleon III.  

The war was a disaster. The Emperor was captured at the Battle of Sedan (2 September 1870) and Paris was beseiged..

Napoleon's government collapsed and on 4 September 1870 a Government of National Defence was proclaimed in Paris.  The siege of Paris continued until January when a surrender to the Prussians was negotiated.

At that time  the Government of National Defence disbanded and returned power to the National Assembly, meeting in Versailles outside Paris,  which then became what is referred to as the Third Republic.

However, during the seige, thousands of Parisian civilians had been armed in defense of the city and this militia (or "National Guard"), was largely controlled by the political Left. With no functioning government in city the leaders of the Guard had formed their own political organization or "Central committee" to run Paris.

The new government of the Third Republic, attempting assert authority over Paris, became concerned that the Central Committee, heavily armed, would poise a threat to that authority and ordered the Guard to be disarmed by the regular Army.

Therefore on 18 March 1871, army troops were sent to Montmartre in North Paris to seize cannon heald by the Guard.

The result was a fiasco in which regular troops wound up joining with the Guard and the government, panicked, reetreated from the city along with what troops remained loyal to them.

Freed of any constraint, the Central Committee of the Guard constituted itself as the government of Paris and on the Paris Commune was proclaimed on 28 March.

What followed was, in effect, a civil war between the Left wing Commune and the forces of the Third Republic which eventually prevailed.

The Commune was defeated and its leaders, executed, exiled or imprisoned. Tens of thousands were killed in the fighting.