1871
Cannon on the heights of Montmartre, photographed by Bruno Braquehais in 1870-71.Image: Braquehais, Bruno, 1823-1875 · Public domainpolitics · Europe
Paris rises: the Commune begins
Before dawn on 18 March 1871, weeks after France’s defeat by Prussia, government troops climbed Montmartre to take away cannon held by the Paris National Guard, guns the city had paid for during the siege. Crowds of National Guardsmen and local people, many of them women, surrounded the soldiers, and many troops refused to fire. Two generals were seized and shot that day. The head of the government, Adolphe Thiers, pulled his army and ministers out to Versailles, and the city’s National Guard took over. The Paris Commune was proclaimed ten days later, and crushed in the ‘Bloody Week’ of late May.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Commune of Paris ↗
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