Revolutions - 8.4- The Siege of Paris

Episode Date: May 28, 2018

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Hello and welcome to revolutions. Episode 8.4, The Siege of Paris. When the Germans completed their envelopment of Paris on September the 20th, 1870, everyone on the German side felt pretty confident that the war would be over before winter. In just two months of fighting, they had eliminated the French army as a threat, toppled the Second French Empire, and now had Paris completely surrounded. So the calculation that this would all be over in probably a few weeks was pretty sound. First of all, the new government of France, if it could even be called that,

was nothing more than a bunch of self-proclaimed Republican ragamuffins. Second, the armed forces inside Paris were a small contingent of regular army soldiers, plus hundreds of thousands of mere civilians who happened to be holding rifles. And finally, I mean, what did I say last week? Paris was the capital of culture, the arts, sciences, fashion, architecture, literature. It was a city famous for luxury, pleasure, and vice, not resolve made of steel and will made of iron. That was for the Prussians, for Bismarck, the iron chancellor. So there was a broadly held assumption inside the German high command that it would not take long for the wine-sipping, poetry-reading, art gallery-loving Parisians to just give up.

And on the French side, the calculation was practically the same. General Totschou, Governor General of Paris and now president of the Government of National Defense, had about as much faith in the fighting ability of the Parisians as the Germans did. And so remember, Troshue's plan was to hope the Germans got impatient and launched a full-scale assault that could be beaten with masonry and artillery rather than discipline and bravery. But the Germans could see that this would be folly, and so they never made. any direct assault. Meanwhile, the rest of the government of national defense also had no faith in the Parisians. And so just before the German development was complete, they sent out calls for

all patriotic Frenchmen to volunteer for military service. If the rest of the nation would mobilize itself, they might just be able to force the Germans to break off the siege. And those who did not join the regular army were encouraged to take it upon themselves to form irregular guerrilla bans to harass German communication and supply lines. This general call would be heated in the weeks to come, because Bismarck's demand for Alsace and Lorraine was too much for France to stomach. And it really did turn the Franco-Prussian war from a war of dynastic aggrandizement into a war of, well, national defense. And I should mention here that this call to arms made it as far as Italy.

The last act of Resorgimento was playing out against the backdrop of the Franco-Prussian war. With the war starting up, Emperor Napoleon had been forced to pull his garrison out of Rome, and that garrison had been the only thing standing between the armies of the Kingdom of Italy and capturing Rome from Pope Pius 9th. On September the 20th, 1870, literally the same day the Germans finished enveloping Paris, The armies of the Kingdom of Italy captured Rome and made it their capital. The tireless Republican revolutionary, Giuseppe Garibaldi, having accomplished this great task,

then immediately turned around and volunteered for service in France. Now until about, oh, let's say September the 4th, 1870, you could have counted Garibaldi as one of France's most implacable opponents, but his hatred of the French switched overnight as they flipped from Empire back to Republic. And Garibaldi now called on Republicans of good faith everywhere to go stand with their brothers in France. And Garibaldi himself wound up leading an army of about a thousand men. But he would never really get to play an active role in the Franco-Prussian war. I just didn't want to pass this moment by without alerting you two first. Rome has now finally fallen to the forces of the Kingdom of Italy, completing the process of resorgimento.

And then second, just Giuseppe Garibaldi comes off one victory and just goes around looking for someplace else to fight. Now, back in Paris, life kind of continued on as normal. This was not yet a total emergency disaster. Patriotic hopes and determination were still running high, and there did not appear to be any imminent military threat. The Germans were neither lobbying artillery nor preparing for a direct assault. Food supplies had not yet run out, and there were still hope that the new armies being formed out in the department would be able to come to their rescue. Now, the theaters were ordered closed for the duration, but it's not like everyone was hiding under their bed.

In fact, in his book The Fall of Paris by Alistair Horne, he talks about how the greatest hardship in the early going was boredom and the frustrating lack of information. With the German blockade up and running, Paris was now totally cut off from news, from letters, from any kind of update about what was happening in the rest of the country. And this was a population that was very used to frequent news. updates. Even the illiterate listened to others read newspapers out loud. And now there was just nothing. Now, in normal times, this lack of information would have driven the Parisians' batty, but there was also like a war on. Was France rising up? Were the Germans going to be defeated?

Was everything already lost? Nobody knew. They were cut off and they acutely felt the anxiousness that came with getting no new input. And if I could break it, for one second and apologize to future listeners who will no doubt find this all incredibly dated, but this is the equivalent of waking up and finding out that the cable, the internet, and your cell phone have all been cut off. Just imagine how adrift you would feel. With the world collapsing down to just Paris, the Parisians focused on taking care of themselves. Now, as I said last time, Paris had not been unified politically since 1795, except for a little small blip in 1848. But as a part of the government of national defense, Paris now got itself a mayor.

That mayor was Jules Féry, one of the three Jules and member of the respectable Republican opposition. But though Paris now had a central administrator, Féry was not super energetic about the actual work that needed to be done to endure the siege, to rally morale, and answer the needs of the people. So from fairly early on, you start to see the Parisians, especially those in the poorer quarters, turn to self-government. And this was an effort that was spearheaded mostly by the prudonists, who put their ideological disposition for voluntary community organizing to practical effect. They started forming what became known as vigilance committees. Small assemblies inside each arrondissement who would take it upon themselves to meet the needs of the neighborhood. to equip National Guard companies, to control ration cards, to open up free soup kitchens,

to distribute necessary supplies. Open neighborhood assemblies would elect 25 or 30 people to sit on one of these vigilance committees, and then those committees would select four or five of their number to go to a central committee. The central committee took up its residence at 14 Rue de la Cauderie, in the third arrantissement. This building, Later dubbed simply La Cordaree would become ground zero for the commune. The Central Committee held its first meeting on September the 11th, and a few days later they published the first of what became known as the red posters. Dubbed that, both because of the ink that was used, and because of the general socialist democratic themes these posters presented. The first one they posted was on September the 15th, and it was the first to call for the recreation of the Paris Commune.

to give the Parisian's self-government, to arm the people, to make sure food and supplies were distributed equitably. Now, the official government of national defense wanted absolutely no part of anything called the commune, wrapped up as it was with the First Republic in the reign of terror. But the vigilance committees were well on their way to becoming a shadow, unofficial government of Paris. That would combine with other ingredients in March of 1871 to become the Paris Commune. Now, aside from these vigilance committees and its central committee, one of the other big things that sprouted up here in the early going of the siege that would be a key ingredient of the

commune, were political clubs. The closing of the theaters and the general malaise and boredom had left these political clubs as one of the few places one could go for an interesting and stimulating good time. And so, like the first French Revolution that produced, all kinds of political clubs, all kinds of political clubs started sprouting up. Now, in the first month or two of the siege, these were not overtly radical socialist groups planning revolution. And the sense in the room could just as easily be the need for patriotic solidarity and support for the government of national defense. But given the circumstances of the siege of Paris and the fact that these political clubs tended to concentrate in the working class

districts, Neo-Jacuban and Blancist leaders were absolutely aiming to create the nucleus of a revolutionary movement. So these clubs eventually became known as the Red Clubs. Old Blanke himself, now 65 years old, led a club personally, and his name was never anything but the overthrow of the government. While Paris was organizing itself, the government of national defense was trying to run a war completely blind and cut off from the rest of France. So to try to make some contact with the outside world, the photographer and balloon buff, Felix Nadar, proposed loading up one of his balloons with letters and sailing it over the blockade.

He eventually received permission for this kind of hairbrained scheme, and on September the 23rd, he launched the first of his balloons, successfully floating it over the German lines and landing it about 50, miles away. This successful experiment led to the production of more balloons, and in total, 66 such balloon flights were launched over the course of the siege of Paris. But though the Parisians could now get information out, it was still hard to get information back in, because at this point, balloon piloting is not an exact science. You try to fly one of these things back into Paris, you might miss the city completely or just crash and burn trying to land. So when you

a number of the balloons were sent out with homing pigeons among the cargo. Those pigeons were able to bring short messages back to Paris, but this pigeon post was mostly reserved for official government communicates. But even with some communication now established, the government of national defense needed more than that if it was going to conduct a war. So, Leon Gambata, Minister of the Interior, and now also Minister of War, volunteered for a dangerous mission. If the only way out of Paris was by balloon, then he was going to fly out of Paris in a balloon. So on October the 7th, he climbed into one of these balloons, and it soared him over the German lines, successfully landing him in the city of Toul.

Upon landing, Gambatah became an almost one-man representative on mission. He spent the next few weeks tirelessly raising volunteers, and soon he had gathered up as many as 500,000 men. With these growing ranks, Gambata was able to open up a whole new front in the war in the Loire Valley, giving fits to the German units in the region, who were at present unsupported by their comrades because they were all busy either besieging Paris or besieging the last of the original imperial armies that was still trapped inside the city of Metz way out on the eastern frontier. But Gambata's early success would not be sustainable, in part because the siege of Metz was about to end.

The fall of Mets was one of two major turning points at the end of October 1870 that transformed the siege of Paris from an exercise and enthusiastic patriotic courage into a bitter and morose test of endurance. The other turning point took place in the north of Paris when an officer frustrated by having nothing to do decided on his own initiative to advance out of the city and try to capture the little neighboring village of La Bourgué. He believed that if he was successful, that the government of national defense would make him a general and possibly give him credit for opening up a road into and out of Paris.

So he launched this adventure on October the 27th, and initially faced only minimal resistance from the Germans. This early success was then trumpeted in the Paris press, who were desperate for any good news at all, and they got everyone's hopes up that the government was now finally doing something. But the Germans quickly counter-attacked and drove this unauthorized sortie back into the city. And so on October the 30th, it was bitterly reported that the whole thing had been a botched job from start to finish and a total failure. This rotten news spread through Paris at almost the same moment that the even more disastrous news came, that the army in Metz had surrendered.

Now, the general who was in charge of that army, don't worry about his name, came for pretty harsh judgment by French historians who can't decide if he was incompetent or just a coward. But by the end of October, the population of Mets was beginning to starve. Winter was on its way, and the general did not believe that France had much of a chance anyway. So, on October the 27th, he called it a day. News of this surrender was allowed to pass through the German blockade of Paris, and that news, coupled with news of the defeat at La Morgay, shattered anything resembling optimally. inside of Paris. The siege wasn't fun anymore. It wasn't about to be almost over. The government of national defense clearly had no plan. The generals were incompetent, or cowards or traitors,

probably all three at the same time. All of this led Louis-August Blanke and his crew of dedicated revolutionaries, plus a handful of radical neo-jackabins, to conclude that the moment was ripe for revolution, that the time had come to overthrow the failed government of national defense and install a new revolutionary government who would have the will to win the war. So on October the 31st, to the cries of long-lived the commune, the radical political clubs and the leadership of the vigilance committees urged the workers of Montmart and Belleville to go storm the Hotel de Ville, led by the Blancas and the Neo-Jackivans. Now, the numbers involved in the October 31st insurrection are not overwhelming. We're talking about

hundreds, not even thousands. But they did catch the government off guard. After pushing their way inside the building, these guys locked the ministers in a room and demanded that the government of national defense call for Democratic municipal elections to directly elect a new government. Then, in another room, the leaders huddled to try to work out a list of names for a new provisional government, although they spent most of their time bickering about who would and who would not be on this list. It didn't really matter, though, because the October 31st insurrection is not going anywhere fast. Paris is a city of two million people, and we're talking here about a couple of dozen radical leaders backed by a couple of hundred working-class insurgents.

And even those working-class insurgents had mostly gone home by nightfall. They believed that the initial push had top of the, the government, and so they went home, high-fiving each other for a job well done. Meanwhile, the revolutionary leaders bickered their way through the night, but come about 4 a.m., a relatively small contingent of National Guard loyal to the Government of National Defense, was able to come and clear the hotel de Veal of the exhausted and red-eyed revolutionaries without hardly firing a shot. Order was completely restored within less than 24 hours. Now, this failed insurrection on October the 31st was a major setback for the more radical leftists in Paris for two big reasons.

First, the Government of National Defense reneged on their promise to hold elections and instead held a plebiscite asking a simple question. Do you support the Government of National Defense? The results were a resounding 557,000 votes. Yes, 65,000 votes no. So if they were trying to prove that the government of national defense was not popular, they failed spectacularly. Now, the other big counterproductive effect was that the government of national defense had been uneasy with upsetting the balance inside of Paris by going after these revolutionary elements. But now that they had shown themselves to be violent and dangerous, the government had all the justification they needed to start cracking down. Arrest warrants went out.

Leaders like Blonkey had to go into hiding. their newspapers were shuttered. The political clubs were subject to further scrutiny and closure. So, the October 31st insurrection was all around pretty counterproductive. After this failed insurrection, life in Paris settled into an increasingly cold and bitter routine. All the warmth of summer now gave way to a particularly cold winter that saw no one able to shake the chill from their bones. Politics, now shed of its more radical elements, started to take a back seat to the grind of cold and hunger. The most frequent topic of conversation was not politics, but food. Have you seen any? Where? I hear there might be some meat over here, decent bread over there. I know a guy with a line on some potatoes. It did not take long for all the normal meat in the city to disappear, forcing the residents of Paris to turn to less polite fare.

The Paris zoo animals were slaughtered, including two famous elephants who had wandered around the Luxembourg gardens named Castor and Pollux. Then, when those were gone, it was the cats and the dogs. And then, most famously, rats. The diet of rats became one of the enduring symbols of the siege of Paris. But the thing to understand here is that though there was some attempt to ration food equally amongst the population, particularly with bread, the men who ran the government of national defense were, by ideological disposition, believers in market economics. So they mostly just let the law of supply and demand run its course. This meant that the meat, even rat meat, was a luxury that could only be afforded by the middle and upper classes. So it's not the

poor who are eating rats. It's the rich. The poor were living on hard bread and bitter tears. And the fact that throughout the seeds, the richer quarters of the city were able to feed themselves, while the poorer quarters waited in long lines just to get enough bread to ward off the gnawing of hunger for a few hours, really did help radicalize the population. And one of the most motivating rallying cries when revolutionary politics does come back is the equal distribution of food and supplies on the basis of humanity and solidarity, not wealth and power. With the population of Paris increasingly angry, tired, and hungry. The government of national defense attempted to give them something to cheer for at the end of November, when they staged one of the largest offensive

operations of the siege. On November the 29th, 80,000 French soldiers attempted a breakout of the city, and hopefully in the process, open up a line of supply or communication or anything to the outside world. But this attempt was beaten back soundly by December 3rd, with over 9,000 French casualties. So despite the recent plebiscite that seemed to ratify the people's faith in the government of national defense, the people were starting to turn hard against them. Rumors swirled that the breakout was a sham, and the government never intended it to work. It was meant only to further demoralize Paris to the point where they would be willing to surrender. As Christmas and New Year's approached, the siege had now been going on for three months,

and it seemed neither close to victory or close to defeat. It just, It seemed like it was. Just omnipresently. Was. Meanwhile, what little news trickled in from the outside world was mostly bad. Since none of it is going to amount to anything, I will not bother walking us through the back and forth of the military campaigns that were going on elsewhere as Paris lay under siege.

But you do need to know that those campaigns were going on. Leon Gambata had rushed around raising volunteers in the Loire Valley, and the regions north of Paris were also quick to answer the call of duty. But the surrender of the French army at Metz had freed up hundreds of thousands of better trained and more experienced German troops to come on over. The French forces and the Loire were beaten, and German forces recaptured early on by early December. Gambitao went north and continued to press the French commanders there to keep fighting for the national defense. But his enthusiasm was now getting the better of him, and he overruled the generals when they told him the new recruits

were not ready, they were not prepared, they were not trained, and the battles Gambata forced them to wage were a string of demoralizing defeats that ended in early January. There had only ever been the slimmest of hopes that they would actually be able to drive the Germans back and lift the siege of Paris, but now it seemed truly hopeless. Undeterred, Gambata himself wound up heading for Bordeaux to carry on the war, but he would for sure be the last member of the government of national defense still trying to act. actually win the war by the time he got there. Now, if the Parisians were frustrated by the continuation of this endless siege,

so too were the Germans, in particular Bismarck. Now, I have been compressing all the German leadership into just talking about Bismarck, but that's mostly to avoid too much confusion in this here audio podcast, where too many names often spoil the broth. But Bismarck was just the chancellor. He was not the king. he often had to contend with generals who had very different ideas than he did. So, for example, back in September, Bismarck had advocated bombing Paris into submission, but the leading generals

had convinced King Wilhelm that this was a bad idea, terribly immoral, and likely to turn the rest of Europe against them. But by late December and early January, Bismarck prevailed upon the king that the time had come to bomb Paris until the city surrendered. The king finally agreed to let Bismarck have a stronger voice in conducting the actual siege. And the result was the German artillery was turned away from the military fortresses and aimed at the city itself. The first shells sprinkled down at the end of December, but after January 5, 1871, the shelling really began in earnest. Over the next few weeks, hundreds of projectiles fell on Paris every day. Now, this came as a shock to the Parisians, even the military leaders, who had assumed that the reason the German artillery

had not been turned on the capital, was that the city was out of range. But the Germans' high-quality modern artillery guns were able to easily clear the walls of Paris and penetrate deep into the center of the city, and the German gunners use Les Envalides and the Pantheon as good targets to aim for. But this bombardment was not about reducing the city to rubble and, like, killing everybody inside. It was more about psychological warfare. So the shelling always began after the sunset. and was over before the sun rose again the next morning. Now, this was partly to minimize civilian casualties to keep, like, global opinion on the side of the Germans, but it was also to make it more difficult for the Parisians to sleep.

So sleep deprivation can be added to the list of hardships now being endured by the Parisians. But if Bismarck's aim was to psychologically break the Parisians, he wound up getting it exactly backward. After the first few days, the Parisians realized that the shells were not like exploding on impact, and so as long as a projectile didn't land like right next to you, this was more about some property damage than it was loss of life. Now, there wasn't no loss of life, but through the end of January, the Germans lobbed something like 12,000 shells into Paris, and the death toll stood at just 97, with less than 300 reported wounded. So rather than cowing the city into submission, it actually boosted everyone's morale.

Like a sharp slap in the face, Paris was jolted out of its sluggish endurance and returned to a state of active and proud resistance. It certainly woke up the radical political leaders from the demoralized stupor they had succumbed to after October the 31st. The Central Committee had rebranded itself the Association of the 20 Arrondissement, and they put up a red poster on January. January the 7th, just after the shelling began. This poster renewed the public call to make way for the Paris commune, a commune based on the rights of the people, a new Leveon Mass, and the punishment of all traitors to France. And among those traders, it was now strongly hinted that the members of the Government of National Defense were on the list. They were clearly not even trying to win the war. And though I think that that claim was an exaggeration back in September of 1870, it was a much more

credible accusation in January of 1871, and slogans like, better Bismarck than Blonkey, were heard in the richer parts of the city. Now, the Germans certainly believed that victory was now inevitable. The flare-up campaigns out in the Loire Valley in north of Paris had been sufficiently stifled. One last French army of about 100,000 men who had drifted east out of the Loire Valley made one attempt to relieve the siege of Belfour, but they were repelled by dug-in Germans and force to retreat. The general, in fact, retreated back across the Swiss border, where he surrendered the arms of his army to the neutral Swiss, and there the whole army waited for the inevitable peace treaty that would finally end the Franco-Prussian war. So with the war approaching its end,

we come now to January the 18th, 1871, which is a fairly momentous day in the course of European history, because this was the day that the project of German unification was completed. Now, I must admit that I was sloppy back when I was trying to race through the wars of German unification in episode 8.2. Because after the Austro-Prussian war, the northern German states were indeed absorbed into Union with Prussia, creating, as I said, the Northern German Confederation. But the Southern German states were not. So Baden, Hess, Wurtenberg, and, most importantly, the Kingdom of Bavaria, remained outside the Union. This is why those secret defensive treaties that they had signed with Prussia surprised Emperor Napoleon III when he

launched the Franco-Prussian War. He thought that they would all embrace France, join France against Prussia. But instead, French aggression had driven them right into Bismarck's arms. The absorption of these last German states entered its final phase in November of 1870 after the run of Prussian military victories against the French. The relevant terms were worked out between the Northern German Confederation and, though still independent states, which would join them into a single German state under a revised imperial constitution. This revised imperial constitution was promulgated on January 1, 1871. Now, technically, this is the date that the Northern German Confederation is transformed into the German Empire, and the decades-long process of German

unification was officially complete. But it is pageantry that the world looks at. The world looks to for its historical markers, not what date is filled out on a form. And the pageantry came on January the 18th and was staged in the famous Hall of Mirrors in the palace at Versailles. With the Hall of Mirrors, a pack to the brim with senior military and political officers all in their dress uniforms, Bismarck read a proclamation declaring the German Empire and transforming King Wilhelm of Prussia into Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany. Set against the backdrop of the conquest of France, and in a room full of military officers, Bismarck's opinion that the unification of Germany would not come through liberal speeches,

but through iron and blood, was borne out. But declaring their German empire in the ancient heart of French power and glory was not going to go over well with the French, like at all. And there is a reason that the negotiations ending World War I were held in Versailles. And there is a reason that the Germans were forced to sign their acknowledgement of guilt, culpability, and defeat in the Hall of Mirrors. But that is a story for another time. Coinciding with the Declaration of the German Empire was the last great attempt by the French

to break out of Paris, and they aimed themselves straight at Versailles, where the entire German leadership was now stationed. A hundred thousand Frenchmen, including large contingents of the National Guard, were ordered out on the offensive on James. January the 19th. But as I said earlier, the motives of the French generals now hung under a cloud of suspicion. There is at least one account of a senior staff meeting, recorded by a right-wing journalist, not a left-wing journalist, that has General Truchot saying that the only way Paris will give up is if they see 20,000 killed at the base of the wall. Another general said that if the

National Guard is so hot to keep fighting, that the generals could oblige them. And then only after they lost 10,000 men in a few hours, would they see reason and give up? So was this breakout actually a breakout? Or was it a calculated defeat? That was the atmosphere that surrounded this final breakout. But that said, the French forces did make it to the old royal vacation spot of San Klu, where they held out from most of the day, before National Guard battalions elsewhere on the line were forced back by the Germans, leaving the forces in San Klu exposed and forced to retreat back into Paris. Now, whether this was truly a last-ditch effort to stave off defeat, or a prefabricated demonstration designed to fail and set the stage for surrender, well, that's all debatable.

What's not is that it set the stage for surrender. With events now clearly leading towards total capitulation, on January the 22nd, the Blancis and the Neo-Jaccovans staged another attempt at the whole dedicated revolutionary vanguard overthrowing the government thing. But this attempt was even more feeble than the October 31st insurrection. Not only did even fewer people turn up, but this time they didn't even make it inside the Hotel de Ville. With demonstrators and would-be insurrectionary swarming the square in front of the building, the main doors of the Hotel DeVille opened and out came a contingent of Breton National Guardsmen, that is, natives of Brittany, not Paris. This company opened fire on the

crowd, killing five, wounding more, and driving the mob away. But unlike October the 31st, when the revolution both failed and was counterproductive, this one failed, but was very productive, at least if you were a leftist revolutionary. With the government of national defense obviously on the verge of surrender and now showing a willingness to murder the people to maintain the existing social order, the better Bismarck than Blonkey crowd had finally shown their true colors. The enemy had never really been the Germans. It had always been the people. Now, before the forces of social revolution could regroup, the Committee of National Defense hastened to come to terms with the new German Empire. Beginning on January the 23rd, Foreign

Minister, Juo Favre, held a series of secret meetings with Bismarck, where they hammered out the terms of an armistice. And for Bismarck, this armistice was principally about giving France time to hold an election for a new assembly. He wanted the coming peace to be permanent, and he did not want to sign some treaty with a self-declared government of national defense, only to have some more democratically elected government reject that treaty a few months later. So his terms were the French army would completely disarm. They would surrender the Parisian fortifications. They would give up a couple of fortresses out on the eastern frontier, and immediately pay a 200 million franc indemnity. And this was the price just for a temporary armistice. The permanent piece would cost

quite a bit more than that, but that would all be dealt with in the weeks and months to come. Now, if those terms were met, the Germans promised to immediately open their lines and not just allow food to enter Paris, but to actively provide food for the hungry Parisians. With the war almost over, General Trochu resigned his position, both as Governor General of Paris and as President of the Government of National Defense, and then on January the 28th, 1871, Jules Favre signed the armistice. The fighting was over, the siege was over, and it had ended with the surrender of Paris. Inside Paris, word of the surrender was met with a mixture of relief that it was now over, but also anger at the perceived betrayal by these politicians. It's never easy to be told that

you've just suffered through four months of starving cold for nothing. Just shy of 50,000 civilians had died during the course of the siege, many of them children and the elderly. Were they to have died for nothing? It was heartbreaking. It was maddening. But Bismarck was good to his word, and food immediately flooded into the city. Though even this was greeted with mixed emotions. For example, at one point there had been an order by the government to requisition potatoes, and the potatoes had supposedly all been collected and eaten. But the minute the armistice was signed, potatoes were suddenly to be found on every shelf and restaurant. Suspitions during the seeds that some people were hoarding food seemed to be borne out by this, and the lower classes

who had been led to believe that there was nothing more to eat were furious. And though it's obvious that some hoarding did go on, it's hard to tell exactly what emerged from secret sellers and what simply made its way in on the food convoys that were now flooding into Paris. With the armistice signed primarily to ensure space for France to elect a new government, elections were hastily called for February 8th. But in the post-war chaos, practically no one knew this election was even happening. It certainly wasn't very well publicized. and the results were shocking, at least to the people of Paris.

Of the 638 men elected, fully 62% were some version of outright royalists, either legitimists who backed the restoration of the Bourbons, or Leonas, who backed the restoration of the July monarchy. 230 deputies were drawn from the old nobility, another 250 were major landowners. These delegates had been supported by what rural voters even, knew that it was time to vote, and in every way, the election of February 8th was a triumph for traditional French conservatism against the radical republicanism of the urban voters. As had happened to the Second Republic in 1848, this first elected assembly of the Third Republic

was packed with men who did not even believe in the Republic. This newly elected assembly convened in Bordeaux on February the 13th, and the last remnants of the government of national defense ceded power to the assembly, and then they turned around and granted power to an executive ministry headed by our old friend and staunch conservative orleansist Adolf Tierre. With final negotiations for peace underway and the war clearly over, tensions that had existed inside Paris between the people and the government started to resolve themselves. Those on the left who had found it hard to reconcile supporting the war while opposing the government now did not have to struggle with any such reconciliation.

The government, who had not been sure who was the greater enemy, the Germans or the socialist revolutionaries, well, they didn't have to worry about that problem anymore. All of the pieces started to fall into place for a major showdown. And that showdown will come next week as the Tierra government attempts to take full military. control of Paris, control that the citizens of Paris, who had just suffered together through a four-month long siege, did not want to cede. It would end with the declaration of the Paris Commune and the beginning of a civil war. Now before we go, I want to remind you that the Revolutions podcast fundraiser is still ongoing. If you would like to support the show, please go to Revolutions

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