In Our Time - The Siege of Paris 1870-71

Episode Date: January 16, 2020

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war and the social unrest that followed, as the French capital was cut off from the rest of the country and food was scarce. When the French government surrendered Paris to the Prussians, power gravitated to the National Guard in the city and to radical socialists, and a Commune established in March 1871 with the red flag replacing the trilcoleur. The French government sent in the army and, after bloody fighting, the Communards were defeated by the end of May 1871.The image above is from an engraving of the fire in the Tuileries Palace, May 23, 1871With Karine Varley Lecturer in French and European History at the University of StrathclydeRobert Gildea Professor of Modern History at the University of OxfordAndJulia Nicholls Lecturer in French and European Studies at King’s College LondonProducer: Simon Tillotson

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time. There's a reading list to go with it on our website, and you can get news about our programmes if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time. I hope you enjoy the programmes. Hello, in September 1870, the Prussian army besieged Paris. The French government surrendered in March, and Parisians declare their own government, the commune,

only for the French army to take over the siege and at the end of May kill the communars in their thousands. It was a bloody, traumatic nine months for the French capital and for France. Karl Marx praised the communars as the first proletarian revolutionaries assigned of what might be. Others saw them as a warning of what must never be. Meanwhile, buoyed by victory, Bismarck declared German unification at Versailles and annexed Alsace-Lorraine for the new German empire,

prompting French longing for revenge, unsatisfied until 1918. With me to discuss the siege of Paris are, Karin Varley, lecturer in French and European history at the University of Strathclyde, Julia Nichols, lecturer in French and European studies at King's College London, and Robert Gilday, Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford. Robert Gilday, why were Prussians and other German forces fighting for France in 1870? Well, the Franco-Prussian War was a struggle for mastery in Europe between France and Prussia. France was under the Second Empire of Napoleon III.

who was the nephew of the great Napoleon, and he was trying to reassert the hegemony that his uncle had had over Europe in that period because since 1815 France had been a bit in the doldrums. Prussia was under King William, but above all, the Chancellor Bismarck was the mover and shaker. And Bismarck was trying to make Germany into a kind of divided country,

divided into many states, and known for its culture, the country of Beethoven and Vargan. He was trying to make Germany. make it into a country of blood and iron under Prussian dominance and mighty military and economic power. He was very well prepared for war. He had reformed the army. He had just fought two wars against Denmark and against Austria in pursuit of German unification. And he needed one more war against the French to unite Germany and basically to bring in South Germany into a new

united Germany. He needed to drive up German nationalism in order to do that. Napoleon the 3rd was probably overconfident. He thought that the French army was very strong. He thought that the French history was behind him. He was slightly tricked into war. When the French declared war on Prussia on the 15th of July 1870, his first minister said that they were going to go to war with a light heart and the French armies moved into the Tsarland. They advanced, but they Then within a matter of days, they were being driven back.

And Napoleon the third was taken prisoner at Sedon, and he had to surrender to the Prussians. He finished up being in exile in England and dying curiously in Chislehurst in 1873. Meanwhile, one of the great French armies was under siege in Mets in eastern France. And a war that had started off with people putting money on Napoleon III in France,

finished up in the early phase as a Prussian victory. You've mentioned blood and iron, and you've mentioned the organisation of Bismarck and the power of the Prussians. Why did nobody recognise that they were so powerful? Why did Napoleon sail out with a light heart and all that stuff? Did nobody know they're going to be hammered? Well, I think there was a feeling in Europe, for example, the British,

they thought that the main problem was France. And Napoleon was a Napoleon. and just as the first Napoleon had raged across Europe in the early years of the 19th century, so his nephew was going to do the same. And it's true that Napoleon III had been involved in the Crimea War. He'd sponsored the reunification of Italy. People just thought that France was going to be the power, whereas Bismarck had been playing a very long game,

putting Germany back together again and making it, transforming it from this. divided country into united power, but the force of that unification had not yet been seen. And nobody had quite recognised this, obviously. I think that's true, yes. Well, they better armed the Germans. They were better armed. I mean, they had considerable artillery.

I mean, the French had a wonderful new rifle called the Shaspo, but the Prussians had artillery made by crop of Essen. And they also had, and they brought in universal, military service. So all Germans were conscripted and then put in reserve. So that meant that the Prussians could draw on these great reserves of men to fight the war. Thank you very much. Corrine Valley. So the Prussians won. The Napoleon was captured. The Parisians were captured, the French army was captured in their thousands. And the Prussians moved towards Paris. They thought they'd take it in three days. Who was defending Paris at the time?

Well, at the time that the siege started, I mean, Paris was one of the most heavily fortified fortresses, cities that Europe had ever seen. It was a city that had previously not been particularly well fortified. Certainly that was something that Napoleon Bona part had regretted when it came to, you know, in the Napoleonic Wars. But the French government had spent a huge amount of money about 120 million francs on the defence. of Paris. So by the time the siege started, there were extremely well fortified, the city was extremely well fortified. There were walls of about 10 metres high surrounding the city. There were moats. There were also thousands of heavy guns. There were 400,000 men, some regular soldiers, but also a significant number of national guardsmen

who had responded to the call-up from the government. So the city was well prepared for a siege, although nobody really expected a siege to happen. It was one of these things where some historians have compared almost to being a bit like how, you know, the 20th century powers regard to nuclear weapons and still do to an extent as a deterrence, that, you know, Paris was so well,

defended and this was going to be a deterrent against the Germans ever, you know, laying siege to it. But of course, that wasn't to be the case. It's curious we have two cases of overconfidence. Napoleon sailed out thinking he was going to walk it and Bismarck then turned to Paris and gave it three or four days. It lasted for five months. Yeah. I mean, Bismarck in particular and others, particularly in the German army, the Prussian army, thought that

especially once the city was sealed off from the 20th of September 1870 and once completely cut off from the outside world and from the rest of France So the Prussians just encircled it Yeah So yeah the

I mean the city there was the fortifications Were around 38 miles in perimeter Which meant that the Prussians had to cover a 50 mile perimeter But there were far fewer Prussians than they were in French soldiers defending Paris. But yes, the city was completely sealed off. It was extremely difficult to get in or out and food couldn't get in or out.

And Bismarck and many of the Germans thought that the French, you know, particularly because of the regime of Napoleon III, had this reputation for decadence and so on. And they thought that the French just wouldn't be able to last without food once the, you know, once the privations started to kick in, that they would just surround. but that wasn't the case. What were the privations like? And how did it last out for nine months? Well, it was extremely difficult, especially in terms of food.

The city had enough food at the start of the siege that they calculated to last about 80 days. And they had enough fuel to last about the same amount. But they soon realized that it wasn't going to be quite so simple. I mean, they had, for instance, they had thousands of sheep. and cows, but they didn't think about, for instance, providing cows for milk, so the children suffered. And they introduced rationing for meat in about October 1870, but bread rationing didn't come in until much later. But fairly quickly, things began to be really extremely difficult for Parisians. And there are lots of stories about how the Parisians had to start

once they ran out of the more conventional food, the food. The food, that had been stored, the meats that had been stored, they then had to turn to killing domestic animals. They also killed and ate about 65,000 horses as well. There are stories of people eating rats, although estimates are that they only ate about 300 rats, but things became extremely difficult for prisons, and that's ultimately why the siege ended in January 1871,

because of the lack of food. But then they gave in, you take the story on from there, Julian Nichols. First of all, but what was uniting the Parisians? Why did they feel so confident? And how did they keep together for so long? Because Bismarck was not only surrounded. He started bombarding it with his cannons and so on.

In September 1870, there is unusually in French history, I think, an almost kind of bloodless revolution, which brings to an end to the Second Empire, the rule of Napoleon, and brings in the Third Republic. And after that happens, there is a kind of huge wave of patriotism that sweeps across Paris and is quite a unifying force. So people call back to revolutionary history, particularly to the Battle of Valmy, which happened in 1792. What's a sense in which the Parisian thought that the French army had let them down and they were going to show what they were made of?

Yes, I definitely think that there is a sense of. that. There is, throughout the siege, the National Guard, which is a traditional defense of Paris, I suppose, a sort of citizen militia, increasingly arms itself or demands to be armed more. And a lot of battalions of the National Guard are quite radical. They want to take a different tack in the war than they think that the new government, the new Republican government is taking. They want to really kind of bring it to the Prussians. They think, yes. the French army is sort of letting them down and the government is letting them down and really extending these conditions that are so intolerable for so many people in Paris. Where is the government of France at the time?

Are they in Paris or have they pushed off? No, the government is not in Paris at the time. So the government relocates to Tour. Leon Gombeta, who is the Minister for War and the Minister for the Interior, famously leaves Paris in a balloon. at the beginning of October 1870 to go and try to rally more troops.

So Paris is sort of deserted by the national government during the siege. And this causes a lot of resentment among the population. There is a sense that it's almost a stateless city. There is no government during that period and that they have to step in and run that government for themselves and for the other citizens of Paris. And is this where you could say that they become the Persian are becoming radicalised?

Yes, I think so. I think that that's a big factor in it. So this creates a sense of resentment against the national government, but it also boosts the power of local government in Paris. So I'm thinking about the kind of government of the specific arrondissement.

So a lot of things during the siege, a lot of administration is carried out by this local government. the National Guard is administered and kind of drafted locally. Food rations is also dispersed locally. And local associations create vigilance committees to kind of watch out for anything weird that might be happening or any Prussians that might be trying to get into Paris.

And a lot of these local governments are quite radical. So the national government leaving Paris almost delivers power into the hands of more radical citizens. Robert Gilday, Bismarck started to shell Paris in January heavily. He was obviously impatient. Why? And what did he expect to happen and what did happen? Well, obviously, Bismarck wanted to bring the war to an end. and he did have this powerful artillery and they start as you say to shell Paris in January

there were about two or three hundred shells a day fired from a distance of about five miles they didn't actually do that much damage they hit a few they hit hospitals it's true they killed about 100 people and

injured about 300 and about 20,000 people were driven from their homes, but actually more people died from diseases such as pneumonia in the cold winter of 70, 71. I mean, about a thousand people a week were dying of pneumonia. So he didn't actually get what he wanted. And one could argue that the resolve of the prisons was probably increased by the bombardment because of the... because of the patriotism that has been talked about. How did he get what he wanted then?

Well, he got what he wanted by negotiating with the Government of National Defence for... Which was outside Paris? Well, it was outside Paris, but I think there were also bits of it that were still in Paris in the Hotel de Ville, the City Hall. But he is negotiating, particularly with the Foreign Minister of the Government of National Defence, a man called Jules Favre, who had found. famously said that France would not surrender an inch of its territory or a stone of its fortresses.

But he was meeting, from quite an early stage, he was meeting Bismarck in the Chateau of Ferrier, which was a neo-Renaissance chateau outside Paris, owned by the Baron de Rochchild. Another person we should mention Adolf Thierre, who was a veteran French politician, age 73, he who was described by Marx as a monstrous gnome. He had been going to London, Vienna, and St. Petersburg to try to get allies, but they failed. So basically, the government of national defence was trying to establish an armistice

because it wanted the war to... Some people wanted the war to win. Gohmeter wanted it to continue, but he wasn't doing too well. people on the government of national defence who wanted to end the war to restore order and therefore to do a deal with Bismog. So, thank you. Corrine Valli, in Versailles in January there was a German unification.

And in February a German victory parade through Paris. How did the French react to that? Well, the German unification that was proclaimed on the 18th of January, I mean, that was something that was deliberately designed by the German unification. Germans to provoke and to increase a sense of German nationalism. But it was also hugely provocative for the French. I mean, the location was deliberately chosen in the Palace of Versailles as a sort of symbolic gesture. It was meant the Germans saw it as a kind of gesture of revenge against, not actually Napoleon III, but going back to Louis XIV for the insults that they felt that they had

suffered as a consequence of his actions, the German people. So that was hugely provocative. But when the Parisian people found out, first, that the French government had surrendered, and secondly, the terms of the surrender and the initial peace terms that the Germans had imposed on the French, well, the key sticking point was, well, a number of things. first see the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, that that was something that pretty much everybody expected. But secondly, it was the indemnities,

the costs that the Germans had imposed on, and were imposing on the French, that they were going to have to pay to Germany. This was $5 billion, $5 billion, originally the Germans had asked for $6 billion. And it was widely felt that this was such a huge, unumprecedented sum, that this was going to bankrupt French.

But there were also other conditions. One of them was that because the fortress of Belfort, which is part of Alsat, had not been defeated by German forces, that it would remain French and not be annexed by the Germans. And as a consequence of that, one of the deals was that that would remain French, but that the Germans would get to parade through Paris and through March down the Champs-Dixir. and many people in Paris thought that that was the ultimate insult because they thought that Paris hadn't been militarily defeated, that they had been defeated by Hungary alone.

So many people started to see the terms of the armistice and the peace as a betrayal by the French government of national defence. And so, Julia Nichols, the people of Paris, many of the people of Paris at the time, took their own future into their own hands. what did they do? So on the 18th of March, 1871, the Paris commune, I suppose, comes into being. This is France's last 19th century revolution.

It is an attempt at self-government. The commune being what? A commune is a form of administration in France, local administration. So this is, the idea is that these revolutionaries, radicals, have taken control of Paris and they want to rule it autonomously or they want to have more say in the government of Paris. So they take the whole of Paris, they say, we're all together in this and we are going to do what? Well, it's important to say that not everybody in Paris is happy about the commune

and not everybody in Paris wants the commune to happen. Yeah, but it happened and it was strong. What was it? It's very difficult to define the commune, actually, because there are so many different groups of people who are a part of it and who even make up part of the ruling council of the commune, which is elected, following elections that take place

about a week after it is declared. So there are some people who think that the commune should simply be a kind of federal government where Paris should be able to govern itself. There are other people who are in the majority in this council who think that the commune and Paris is really the centre of France and that Paris has the right to rule the rest of France. And so the rest of France should really kind of get on board with the commune.

So these things really or these different ideas of what the government should be and how it should act really come into. conflict during the commune. And I think it's been difficult for later historians and it also was difficult for people at the time to really articulate what the commune is and what it wants to happen.

But it happened, it was called the commune and it took control of Paris. How did they do things like feed the people? Well, I think that a lot of the privations that were in place during the siege carried on into the commune. So they, the government

attempted to rule Paris and passed a series of laws on things like, government, now you're talking about the commune as the government. Yes, sorry, the ruling council. The council of the commune. They passed a series of laws. They actually separated church and state. They passed laws on divorce and night work and so on.

But the actual administration, the day-to-day running of the city, they encounter quite a lot of problems with because nobody or really very few people who are involved in the commune, very few communa, actually had any experience of government or of bureaucracy running a city. So can you reset the scene for us now, Robert, the Bismarck's one, he's gone to Versailles, he's got himself a lot of what he wanted, but behind him is this Paris has risen against against him and anybody else

who might want to take them on I'd like you to be able to tell the listeners, where are we now? Well, as Julia said, Paris is now this revolutionary city and

it is undertaking acts of revolution. There's a big question, for example, about how socialist was the Paris commune. Marx, for example, said that the Paris Commune was the first real working class government and it's true that about a third of the members of the Commune

which was about 80 or 90 strong were of working class origin others were doctors, lawyers, journalists artists like Courbet who were kind of friends of the people but I think

one of the most powerful things about the Paris Comrade is that these are people who are trying to make the French revolution happen for good. The French Revolution lasted through the 1790s, but then it was terminated by the First Empire. It was back again in 1848,

but it was terminated by the Second Empire. So these are people who see themselves as the new d'antons, the new Marais, the new Robespiers, trying to form a revolutionary society. Unfortunately, they are up against the Government of National Defence and against Bismarck, who are opposed to this, and together the Government of National Defence and Bismarck have this plan to disarm Paris. And it's the first attempt to disarm Paris to take their cannon away.

That is what provokes the insurrection on the 18th of March, 1871. and their program is eventually to get into Paris and to crush this commune and to restore order in French society, restore national unity, and to achieve peace. And so in a sense, all that has to be done on the back of the commune. So there is this titanic struggle that's going on

between the forces of revolution and these revolutionaries who actually want to continue the war and the forces of peace and order, which arranged against them. Thank you very. Karin, what did they set out to do? It's been hinted at by Julia, but can you give us a bit more? What did the communeats set out to do? We're told they weren't very good at administering stuff, but they did put in laws, they had ideas. What did they set out to do and how far did they achieve what they set out to do? Yeah, well, as Julie was saying, part of the problem is that the commune was so divided, so there were differing views amongst the different factions of the left about what they actually wanted to achieve. But, yeah, I mean, certainly some of the concrete things that they did manage to achieve were, for instance, as we heard,

separation of church and state, that was one of the things that they brought in quite early on. And, of course, that prefigured a law that was eventually to become passed in by the French Republic in 1905. and of course still to this day, France has separation of church and states. So that was something that they did. They also tried to improve the conditions for workers. So, for instance, they banned nightwork for bakers. They did things like introduce workshops, workers' cooperatives to help those workers who had been suffering and who had a few employment opportunities, particularly when the siege came to an end.

and the many of the men who had served in the army had been demobilized. So they came with a raft of measures to try and improve the conditions for workers. Although it should be said, one of the things that they didn't, they weren't so successful at, was measures to improve the lives of women. I mean, it's striking that although there were many female supporters of the commune, There were no women who were actually on the commune as part of the committee itself. And so they didn't really do anything to improve their social, well, a few things to improve their social conditions, but didn't go very far. And certainly they did nothing really to give them greater political rights.

It's certainly nothing like giving them the vote. So it's quite a mixed picture. But also what we have to bear in mind, as we were just hearing, is that this is all taking place in the context of the, the problem that they have, which is that they're facing military threat from the government which is now in Versailles. Can we just finish this particular area of, Julia? We again alluded to that, but they did hope the communeers

at other cities in France would back them up. Can you tell us why that didn't happen? Yes, so the communeer were very aware that in French history there had never really been a successful revolution that was led from Paris that didn't have the support of other parts of France. So they were very keen, as you said, to get support from elsewhere. So they sent out missives to other parts of France, asking for them to rise in support of the commune. And a few cities did, but not really very many, not as many as they would have liked. And certainly not,

there was very little support for it in the French countryside. I think this has quite a lot to do with the national elections that took place in February 1871, which returned a very large conservative monarchist majority. And Parisians were very unhappy with this. They kind of derided it, really scorned it very forcefully and very vocally. They talked about how this was,

a rural assembly and that universal suffrage was a terrible idea because people didn't really know what they were talking about. So I think in the context of that, we can't really be surprised that most of France didn't, wasn't inclined to support the commune. Thank you. Robert, Robert Gilder, we have the French government establishing yourself as a government outside Paris. And then extraordinary, I'm extra. It seems extraordinary to me. They got the French army. Prussians released thousands and thousands of French military prisoners. The French government got these military, created a new French army, and attacked their own city, Paris. That's on the right lines, is it?

Then what happened? Absolutely. I mean, in a sense, you know, there are two seizures of Paris. I mean, the first siege of Paris is by the Prussians and other German elements like the Varians that we've heard about. But the other siege of Paris is, by the government at Varsai. Which has been said, monochist, royalist.

Yeah, so when the National Assembly is elected, this very right-wing National Assembly, they elect our friend Tierre as the head of the executive. So he is now basically in charge of the French government. And he is organising this large army. So it's partly made up of

elements that survive the war. it's also, as you say, made up of about 60,000 prisoners of war who had been taken by the Prussians, but are now given back to the French in order to get control of Paris. There are also quite a large number of sort of territorial

forces from places like Brittany, which are very anti-revolution. And so there's a massive assault on Paris from the West, which starts around the 10th of May, 1817, and within a matter of a week or so, they breach, they take the necessary forts,

they burst into Paris from the southwest, and the communars then set up barricades to prevent them progressing any further, but basically the forces of Versailles coming from the south and the west and the stronghold of the commune are in the north and east of Paris, which are these very popular, revolutionary, popular in the sense of working class communities, which are very much behind the commune, and the fighting takes place street by street and barricade by barricade, and atrocities are committed on both sides, prisoners that are taken by the Velsayer a shot.

The communars also themselves execute a number of people who have they taken hostage, including the Archbishop of Paris and various gendarmes and people assumed to be spies. and gradually the force of Versailles advance and there's what they call the bloody week the Semen-Sanglant, which is the week between the 21st and 28th of May 1871, where basically huge atrocities are committed by the Versailles, thousands of prisons are killed and one of the most celebrated elements of this

is the last stand of communeer fighters in the Pele-Lasse Cemetery which is this wonderful cemetery in Paris. But in the eastern part of that cemetery, surviving fighters are put up against the wall and shot and then tumbled into a ditch. And that famous wall of the Federre, it's called the MIR de Federais, it becomes an iconic story of the Paris commune. That's very vivid.

And can you, have you any idea, Karin, what the French felt about frightening the French, about murdering each other? to the extent that we've heard. Yeah. There's any reports saying we shouldn't be doing this or this is going to clear what's going on in our heads?

Are we any idea? Is it a useful question? There is a sense amongst those soldiers who were part of the Army of Versailles, part of the government's forces who were attempting to and successfully retook Paris that this was criminality.

They saw this as not even a sort of legitimate uprising or not even a proper revolution, but they were told and they were given the impression that this is the criminal elements and therefore these needed to be crushed and in a sense that perhaps explains why there

was so much violence and why there were so many deaths. Why didn't this propaganda emanate from? Well, I mean, it came primarily from the government and Adolf Thierre who were hearing about in particular you know, there were stories about him you know, he was somebody who was

a veteran politician, somebody who was also a historian who had written about previous revolutions in France and in Paris in particular, and there was this feeling in which they wanted to deal with this once and for all. And so by sweeping through these neighbourhoods that had been involved in the uprising and involved and supported the commune, you know, by killing these revolutionary elements, that they thought that this might finally end this sort of cycle of revolution that Paris had been involved with since 1789.

So, you know, for them this was, you know, they saw this as being a kind of necessary task and, you know, one that they, you know, needed to do to recapture the city. Not unacquined to a holy war in a way. Although it wasn't anything to do with religion, I know. But cleansing the place. Yeah, there was certainly that sort of language.

Although, I mean, you know, say it's not, this isn't about religion, but of course the Catholic Church who saw their archbishop killed by the communas and also 23 priests, really did come to see this as being very much in those terms. And the saccair, the basilica that was built on Montmartre, becomes this sort of symbol after the Paris commune of that whole episode and of this sense in which Paris had sinned

and needed to repent for its sins during the commune. Julia, how did they... start to come to terms with this in France? Well, the government takes a very harsh line towards the communa following the end

of the Sten-Song-Glon. So you could almost say that it's a continuation of the war against the commune just by a different means. So around 40,000 people are arrested following the end of that week and are then

put on trial at specially constructed war councils over the next five years. 95 of those people are sentenced to death, although not all of those death sentences are actually carried out. And about 4,500 prisoners are deported to New Caledonia, which is a French penal colony, in the South Pacific. The revolutionaries themselves,

who managed to escape these things, either death or arrest and deportation, are forced into exile. So they can't continue to be in France. The majority of those who go into exile either flee to London or to Switzerland, particularly to the area around Geneva, which is obviously French-speaking. Others go to Belgium or to the United States. And these revolutionaries aren't allowed to freely re-enter France until a general

amnesty is declared at the beginning of the 1880s. Thank you. Robert, Robert Gilday, what was the, if we can follow that through, so they're being executed, they're being exiled in massive numbers. We're not sure about the accuracy numbers, but it will massive do the job. But what were the influence on the French psyche if there was? What was it? Well, I think the word that comes to mind is trauma. I mean, the French have undergone two massive...

events. One is defeat, you know, this defeat that was massive and also unexpected by Bismarck and which really sends France tumbling down the sort of league table of nations. And they're left with that for a long time. I mean, how do the French recover national greatness and national self-respect? I mean, they know that they can't

take on Germany. So one of the things they start doing in the 1880s is going out and finding colonies in Africa and they become a sort of colonial power. and they don't really get back that sense of themselves as a powerful nation until the First World War. And the second thing is they've again suffered this revolution and bloodbath. And so one of their main challenges is to try to establish a constitution which establishes a kind of consensus and some sort of peace and order going forward. fact, the third republic that they put together lasts for 70 years until 1940. And I think the secret of that is, well, first of all, the republic, paradoxly, you've got a republic without Republicans.

It takes the Republicans, the moderate Republicans, the best part of 10 years to get into power. By the end of the 1870s, the Republicans are in power running the republic. They take the view that royalists and bonapartists need to be excluded from political life altogether, so that happens. So it is a very strong, powerful militant republic. But they also realize they're going to have to deal with popular revolt. And they establish a very democratic rule had actually been established by Napoleon III. Universal suffrage had been established by Napoleon the Third. It's a kind of paradox because he was a despot.

But universal suffrage remains the key. And the French Republicans take the view that this is one way to sort, to kind of marginalize socialists and radicals. And they set up a parliamentary Republican. Republic, which is pretty solid, and where the upper house, the Senate, basically is controlled by people from the countryside, notables from the countryside. And so they do set up a system that basically works and does mean that revolution has more or less gone. Thank you. Corrine Graeme, Greenvale, we've got the siege of Paris and then the commune. Which stands out most

vividly now? Well, I suppose now, I mean, it's quite interesting. Now, I would say, that there is more awareness of the commune than perhaps the Cedar Paris itself, which wasn't the case in the years that immediately followed the whole period of the Franco-Buschen War and the commune. You know, I think now because the commune had such much wider repercussions internationally in terms of the left of socialism, it reverberated more obviously than the siege of Paris, although the siege of Paris did have significant reverberations in terms of the military experience

and in the ways that it prefigured some of the experiences of war that were seen in the 20th century. So it's something that has actually changed over time, you know, from this initial period in the 1870s when there was very much a focus on remembering the Franco-Boshen rule rather than the commune. Finally, Julia, it seems that the longer-term legacy is the commune. What is the legacy being? What is it? I think we could say that the commune almost, if we look at the event itself, almost has an outsized legacy compared to what the event is. So in France itself, the commune acts as a beacon for the left, really.

in the decades following it. So there is an annual walk that is organized to the Pell-Lashas Cemetery and the wall that Robert alluded to earlier. And outside Paris, outside France. Outside of France,

it gets taken, it really gets internationalized. I think this is probably down to Marx. And he says in 1871 that the commune was a glorious harbinger of a new society. And so it's taken up,

as Karin said by various different international left movements. So, for instance, Lenin, when he died, was buried in, or sorry, was wrapped in a commune flag. It's also pointed to in China during the Cultural Revolution and the Shanghai People's Commune, which happens in 1967 as a kind of model society. Well, thank you all very much. Thank you, Julie Nichols, Robert Gilday and Kemp. Irene Varley. Next week it's the solar wind, blowing from the sun to the edge of the solar system,

creating the northern lights and comet tales on the way. Thank you for listening. And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. Right, what did we miss out? That's really important, Robert. Well, we were talking earlier about women, and Karen got the women case spoken for, But I mean, I think there are some wonderful women who are involved in the company. As Karen said, they're not involved on the council. And Julie said they're not involved in the council because, you know, politics is male. But there are plenty of wonderfully dynamic women.

I mean, two of my favourites are Louise and Michelle, the so-called Red Virgin, who was a schoolteacher, very much involved in the club movement that leads up to the common, a great speaker. She gets involved. She invades the Hotel de Ville before the communist set up, dressed in men's clothes. So she's, there's a whole barricade in Montmart, which is known as the women's barricade at the Place Blanche. So she's involved in that. So I think, and she gets deported to New Caledonia and then she comes back. And then when she dies, I think it's 1910. There's a huge

funeral that happens. And then just another example, a woman called Dimitriev, who's a Russian woman, who's very close to Marx's daughters. And she becomes involved in the commune. She sets up a a union of women to support the commune and to tend to prisoners. And interesting enough, she, her name is taken up by a group of feminists in 1971, French feminists. So her name sort of lives on. Yeah, well, I mean, I agree with what you said. I mean, certainly I think it's sometimes surprising, I think, because women were very much involved in the kind of street politics, although they couldn't be officially part of political organizations and so on.

and there was certainly played a leading part. And, you know, there were also the whole kind of idea of women revolutionaries as well is a really important image that emerges from the commune and this notion of the Petrolers, these female fire starters, who were blamed for setting Paris ablaze as well as a really interesting aspect to it because, of course, it turned out that this is all a myth. And so it raises a question about why the women were blamed for these fires when there seems to be so little evidence to support the fact, you know,

support their responsibility. There's any notion along the way that those attacking the French army think we shouldn't be doing this? I mean, there'll be any evidence is what I'm saying. I don't think so, no. So... The propaganda was effective.

Well, we talked earlier about how the French army really believed that they were trying to bring the revolution to an end finally by attacking the commune. And I think that the communa also saw this as a continuation of a battle that had been going on.

since 1789, or even they might say before 1789, that this is just one more instance of the forces of order, or even moderate republicanism, trying to kind of suppress them and suppress the revolution and suppress the people, and that it was their duty. It was an obligation to fight against those people. What do they think about this in France? What do they think about it now? Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, one thing I was thinking about was that Julia talked about the kind of the positive legacy of the commune as a kind of the harbinger of a world-ride proletarian revolution. But I think there was another legacy which was, you know, if you're a socialist or an anarchist, do you have to be violent?

And I think a lot of socialists in the later 19th century and into the 20th century, they try and find a way where they can gain power, gain influence and gain power through democratically, through party politics rather than violently, but I also think that the experience of the commune means that there is a huge militancy. There's always this fear that the bourgeoisie will arm and use its mercenaries to hit them again. So I think in French socialism,

and particularly in French communism, the Communist Party that forms in 1920. I mean, there is a huge degree of militancy. So I think there's a kind of ambivalence between, you know, wanting to do things electorally and democratically, but actually also this kind of taste for a very strong militancy. Yeah, so I was in Paris in December 2018, which was during the first month or so of the Gilles-Ejourn protests.

And I saw a lot of graffiti through the city that was calling back to the commune, you know, down with the state, long-lived the Paris Commune, Long-Live 1871, that kind of, those kinds of ideas. So it's interesting that it continues to be, I wouldn't say, I don't think it's a regular kind of reference point in French politics anymore, but it continues to be this symbol that's called upon. We didn't say much of anything about class divides, but as I read from your notes, a lot of the middle classes got out of Paris while the going was good

and didn't take any part in this and settled elsewhere in France or even left France altogether. But you mentioned that there were lawyers and people who were part of the communeuvre. So where are we there, really? Marx does say that, you know, when the proletan revolution happens, it will need intellectuals like himself. And in a sense, we are talking about, you know, intellectuals. These are people who, from the liberal professions or so on, who are sort of de class A in some way, but who, you know, who throw in their lot with the popular revolution. Because, you know, as I said before, there is this sense that the French Revolution must go on,

and the French Revolution must succeed. but then there is the so-called bourgeoisie, the people who own property, who are absolutely scandalised. So they either lie low, or sometimes they try and escape from Paris by hiding under trains, or they leave when the going's good. You know, there is an absolute horror, and there's a colleague of, I mean, Flaubert, for example, sits it out in his estate, and then comes back and comes back to Paris and says it's all so, you know,

smelly and look at these horrible, you know, look at the shadows of these horrible people who have defiled Paris. He has this friend, Maxime Ducault, wrote a book called The Convulsions of Paris. It's about four volumes long. They're talking about how horrendous these people were. As Karen said, they're criminals, their murderers, their pillagers, their pimps, they're all sorts of nasty things. And so I think, yeah, the French bourgeoisie hates the commune as much as the commune

hate the French bourgeoisie. What damage was there to the city where it's been bombarded by Bismarck? You said, Robert Err, or not very effectively, but then these French army comes, in and goes as one of you said there is street by street burning with the petrolers, the women supposed to be, somebody or other was burning anything that they could aim at correctly.

So how much damage was done and anything significant? It was actually really quite significant in terms of the buildings that were burnt down and damaged. I mean, you know, major sort of landmarks, places like the Auté de Ville, the Town Hall.

Sorry, the Orte d'Avue, yeah. There was also the finance ministry that's completely destroyed. the Tullery Palace. That was destroyed. That was seen as being particularly symbolic because it was associated with the monarchy and with Napoleon III as well. But also elsewhere, the Champs D'Elysia as well suffered. The Art of Triorff also suffered. It took 23 direct hits from the shells from the Versailles army. So there was a significant amount of damage to Paris. And this was, again, one of the kind of enduring images for the opponents of the comments of the

communes saying, you know, look at what these people have done to this city. And particularly for those people who saw Paris as this symbol of civilization of enlightenment to see the city damaged in this way was, for them, was really quite significant. And again, was an argument about against what the community had done, but also against what happens when you allow the workers and the poorer elements, some element of political power. You know, this is the consequence, they thought. I have one right of that because in 1940, when the Germans are again approaching Paris very rapidly, the French army is in route. And there's a question of whether Paris should be defended. And the government and the military of the day decide that Paris will not be defended.

It will be declared what they call an open city. And the Germans will simply be allowed to walk in. and I think, well, all the evidence points to the fact that some of the people who were leading France at the time controlling the armies, Marshal Peta, Marshal Vagin, were young men at the time of the Paris Commune. They had a horror of the Paris Commune, and they thought there was also a story

that the communist leader Maurice Torres had seized power in the Elysee Paris as the government was once again retreating to Tour and then once again retreating to Bordeaux where the National Assembly was held in 1871. And it was that fear, I think, that fear of a Paris Combing, which again incited the French government and the military

to conclude an armistice with the Germans. Well, there we are. Thank you all very much. I think the producers coming in to relieve this sea. Anyone want tea or coffee? Yes, please. What should you prefer? Tea, please. I'm fine, loads.

Melvin? Tea, please. Two teas. Thank you very much. Thank you all very much. In our time with Melvin Bragg is produced by Simon Tillotson. Henry Akeley disappeared from his home on the edge of Rendlesham Forest somewhere around the end of June 2019. What we uncovered is a mystery that has sent us deep into England's past

to an area steeped in witchcraft, the occult, secret government operations. Now we have multiple sites of five lights with a similar shape of property. And something that might indeed be altogether. Otherworldly. This is The Whisperer in Darkness. on BBC Sounds.