UNIFICATION OF GERMANY

Not to Scale E W N S Kingdom of prussia in Annexed by prussia by Other German States Alsace-Lorraine, Imperial Province ( ) German Empire’s Boundary in North German Confederation ( - ) King Napoleon III Europe in Turmoil Paris Commune, In its bid to exact huge financial payment and to possess French Alsace and Lorraine to Prussia, the Prussian army besieged Paris. Paris held out through five months of siege in conditions of incredible hardship with people starving and without fuel to warm their homes in winter. Workers, artisans and their families bore the full brunt of the suffering as prices soared. The Parisians grew bitter when bigger numbers of monarchists were returned to the National Assembly.

Then came the betrayal of the republic – the appointment of -year- old Thiers. Paris was once again armed. As the regular army had been disbanded under the terms of agreement with Prussia, the Parisian masses kept their arms. Along with National Guards, now overwhelmingly a working class body, they surrounded the soldiers.

One of the generals, Lecomte, gave orders to shoot at the crowd three times. But the soldiers stood still. The crowd fraternised with the soldiers and arrested Lecomte and his officers. That day Thiers and his government fled the capital.

One of the world’s great cities was in the hands of armed workers. Paris Commune The Commune set about implementing measures in their interests – banning night work in bakeries and handing over to associations of workers any workshops or factories shut down by their owners, providing pensions for widows and free education for every child, and stopping the collection of debts incurred during the siege. In the meantime, the republican government was organising armed forces to suppress the commune. It succeeded in persuading Bismarck to release French prisoners of war.

It gathered them in Versailles, together with new recruits from the countryside. Both the Central Committee of the National Guard and the Commune were composed of Blanquists and Proudhanists. Marx could not influence events in Paris. Soon the defeat of Commune was achieved by Thiers.

Thereafter there was an orgy of violence. Anyone who had fought for the Commune was summarily shot. Troops patrolled the streets picking up poorer people at will and condemning them death. It is estimated that between , and , were killed.

Of the , communards (members of the commune) arrested, of them were sentenced to be deported and another , to imprisonment. Karl Marx had this to say on the Commune: “It represented the greatest challenge the new world of capital had yet faced and the greatest inspiration to the new class created by capital in opposition to it.”