The Paris Commune Revolt (18 March-28 May 1871) was a brief uprising by the Paris Commune against the French Republic that took two months to put down. A socialist revolutionary government seized power in the French capital, so the Thiers government in Versailles assembled 150,000 French troops to put down the revolt. Marshal Patrice de MacMahon crushed the revolt and killed 20,000 revolutionaries.
Background[]
Socialism was a common belief amongst many illiterate workforce members in many countries since its foundation by Karl Marx in 1848. Believing that people should share wealth and thus eliminate the problems of having an abusive rich class and an abused poorer class, Socialism was common among the lower classes but the wealthy people wanted to hold onto their wealth and power and defended themselves with the force of the government.
The decadence of the French Empire caused a revolution in Paris in 1871, overthrowing Emperor Napoleon III of France and founding a third French Republic. The Paris Commune was formed out of socialist workers led by Louis Auguste blanqui, and 400,000 National Guard soldiers defected to the revolutionaries. The French government therefore had to deal with the threat of the revolutionaries and the government raised 150,000 troops to crush the revolt.
War[]
The National Guard executed generals Claude Lecomte and Jacques Leon Clement-Thomas, rising up in rebellion. 400,000 National Guardsmen defended the city and 233,000 civilians voted in Paris Commune politics, against the demands of President Adolphe Thiers. Marshal of France Patrice de MacMahon was sent with 150,000 troops from Versailles to crush the revolt and end the commune uprising. Violence took place in Paris and elsewhere - the author Victor Hugo's home in Brussels was attacked by anti-revolutionaries who yelled "down with Jean Valjean", a character from his pro-revolutionary nobel "Les Miserables".
MacMahon ruthlessly crushed the revolt, killing 20,000 revolutionaries with over 6,000 losses. The bloody revolution came to an end with MacMahon's victory, and Paris was restored as the capital of the French Republic after the battle.