A New Spectre of Europe - A Surviving Paris Commune Timeline

[Reydan]

Hi All, you may remember me from Spectre of Europe, a timeline that I began in 2015 to describe a world in which the Paris Commune not only survived but flourished. It was my first ever timeline, and received a lot of very lovely comment and support. But, like a lot of first timelines, it was wildly ambitious and prone to a lot of world-building that actually detracted from its premise. More than anything, though, it was a casualty of the pandemic, as furlough, job-anxiety, and care responsibilities sank my ability to write.

Instead of starting it up against after 150+ chapters, I've decided instead to start again here. So welcome to a new, streamlined, Spectre of Europe.

It will draw on the old timeline, but don't expect events to fall in the same way, and (hopefully) it will remain more tightly focused on the Commune itself and its influence on the world around it. In fact as Chapter One shows, even the POD has changed!

As always, comments and suggestions are gratefully received. I've missed being active on the forum, and although I'm not sure how my time is going at the moment, I'm keen to try and make this a success.

Solidarity to All

Reydan

 

[Reydan]

Chapter One - Action at Le Bourget

Standing on the shattered remnants of the barricade, his boots grey with the dust kicked up by shrapnel and bullet, General de Brigade Carey de Bellemare could have been forgiven for thinking that he was on the cusp of something big. His brigade has swept up and over the surprised defenders, a doubly impressive feat considering that they were a Guards division of the Prussian Army, as if being freed from their static defenses around Paris had unleashed their energy. Now, as he watched, little pops of gunfire and puffs of smoke marked the slow and steady progress of his men as they pushed deeper through the small town. Perhaps this would be the moment of triumph they craved - the breakout that would end the strangulating siege of Paris before all hope was extinguished.

Down in the town square de Bellemare could see soldiers from his artillery train bringing up guns, unlimbering the field pieces in the cobbled square. Idly, watching them through his spyglass, he wondered what a grand statute of himself would look like there in the centre of sleepy Le Bourget. Something modest, of course, on just a small pedestal. But still grand, with an inscription that marked him out as the saviour of Paris.

There was a crumbling noise and he turned, watching a slighter figure in a thick trenchcoat make his uneasy way to the top. de Bellemare stiffened, snapping off a salute. "General!"

General Louis-Jules Trochu blinked in the winter sun, shielding his eyes once he returned de Bellemare's salute. "I had not wished to push this far General" he chided "indeed this entire sortie was something I had instructed against". de Bellemare tried to look a little chastened, but he thought he could detect a begrudging admiration in his commander's voice. After all, they were close to pushing a spearhead of troops right through the Prussian noose around the city.

"That way - my General - that way lies victory" he said melodramatically, sweeping his hand towards the horizon just as a series of dull thuds marked the beginning of an artillery bombardment.

Of course, victory is a fickle thing. By the end of October 30th any hopes de Bellemare had of a statue in the town centre of Le Bourget had been dashed, alongside much of the town itself. A Prussian counter-attack, a French parry, and then vicious back-and-forth fighting had taken three days of bloody effort and had finally seen the remnants of the French army retreat, badly mauled, back within the walls of Paris. Of course, neither de Bellemare nor Trochu would see this. As the battle report recorded:

"Early on the morning of 28th October General Trochu and General-de-Brigade de Bellemare were killed by a Prussian shell that landed on their position as they surveyed the initial advance around Le Bourget".

The bloody repulse of the breakout attempt, as wounded soldiers limped back into Paris, cast a gloomy shadow over citizens, just as the loss of the military commander of the city, Trochu, created a dangerous power-vaccum at the top.​

 

[Reydan]

Chapter Two - In the Hotel de Ville

'The essential thing is to organize...no racing about, hurly-burly, clamouring! Every minute and every step is precious!'
Louis Auguste Blanqui - Manual for an Armed Insurrection 1866

Blanqui presides over the tumultuous seizure of power in the Hotel de Ville, 31st October 1870

The defeat at Le Bourget coincided, unhappily, with the worse news that the great siege of Metz was over with 160,000 soldiers having surrendered to the Prussians days before. A double-blow to Parisian morale, the impact was compounded by the death of General Trochu. This last fact was not known when, on the morning of 31st, political radicals across Paris called for demonstrations outside the Hotel de Ville - the commander of Paris and the President of the Government of National Defence was just absent and unreachable as far as many knew.

His absence certainly contributed to the confused response of the authorities as the demonstration outside the Hotel swelled. Some fifteen thousand demonstrators, from all over Paris, formed a seething, anxious, angry mass outside the building. Some were members of the National Guard and carried arms, others were long-standing members of radical clubs and fraternities linked to one of the major political figures. There was no shortage of those in Paris at the time - men and women who had been carrying the radical torch through the dark years of Imperial authority. Those who remembered the broken promises and violence of 1830 and 1848.

Chief among them was Louis Auguste Blanqui. Sixty five, white-haired and uncompromisingly radical, it was his steely-voiced conviction that cut above most as he rallied the crowd to action, encouraging them to storm the building. Other radicals amongst the crowd, including Felix Pyat and Louis Delescluze, had their own supporters too. But the majority of the crowd were simply anxious members of the public, desperate for a government that would take control of the terrible situation Paris was in.

This they found in abundance. It was the moment Blanqui had wanted his entire life and, quickly ensconced at the head of the table, he began issuing orders and proclamations even as others in the crowd struggled to grasp the enormity of the situation.

What made his actions possible was the power vacuum left by Trochu's death. By mid-afternoon authorities in Paris realised that they had to do something about the situation at the Hotel de Ville, but with the Government of National Defence in distant Bordeaux and General Trochu absent without word, there was no clear leader to take command. In the past the stoutly anti-Republican Breton troops of the Garde Mobile had been used to control the crowd, but many of these had been lost or captured at Le Bourget. The response of other forces, without a clear command structure in sight, was sluggish, and the sight of radical and National Guard battalion commander Eugene Varlin leading a column of some 7000 National Guard to the Hotel de Ville chanting "Vive La Commune" quashed the will to resist in many.

By the time the news of Trochu's death had formally filtered through to all parties it was too late anyway - at 5.17pm on 31st October 1870 the radicals strode out onto the balcony to announce to the cheering crowd the formation of a new Paris Commune as the ultimate authority in the besieged city, with Blanqui as President.​

 

[Reydan]

Chapter Three - Under Siege

'This too will blow over. Paris is always given to outrage, to turmoil, to excess. This will pass as night follows day"
Adolphe Tiers - private correspondence January 1871

'There is absolutely no doubt that those crucial early months between seizing power in late October and the end of the war in early 1871 proved critical to the Commune building a working consensus - both across the city and within its own ranks'
George Rude - The Commune before War - University of Oslo Press, 1974

One of the many popular acts of the Commune during its first weeks
was to redeem the possessions of workers, particularly tools,
that had been pawned during the early stages of the siege. ​

Paris was hungry. Paris was scared. Paris was angry. Paris was trapped.

The tension in the city was palpable even as the newly-minted Commune took power. The early chaos of revolution was tempered by the closeted atmosphere of the Prussian siege and the needs of a city of two million people. A steady centralisation of power around the Governing Committee, as it became known, began to form mid-November. Although a few Republican members belonging to the Government of National Defence continued to sit on the Committee, power really rested in the hands of a select socialist few, chief amongst whom was Blanqui.

This was bolstered in late November by a municipal election, where each arrondissement was allowed to vote for a direct Mayor to represent them on the Committee. Whilst a number of Republicans were elected, a significant body of radical socialists were also elected to lead, including Eugene Varlin, Leo Frankel and Elisabeth Dmitrieff. Indeed the number of international electees raised eyebrows across Paris and was used by the the Commune's critics as further evidence that the Commune had placed its finger on the electoral scales. Nevertheless, the pressures of the siege forged a weary unity amongst most groups.

And the pressures were immense. Paris was slowly starving. In December the animals in its celebrated zoo were lured out and killed by National Guardsmen, and many horses were butchered for food. The Commune established communal kitchens, requisitioned supplies from abandoned houses, and did all it could to centralise and rationalise food. Other tactics, such as rent remission and the commandeering of empty Imperial properties to house soldiers and families, might have proved controversial under other circumstances, but in early 1871 seemed just desperately necessary. Indeed, this unity of purpose seemed to help fuse the nascent government together, ironing over ideological differences, and whilst grand thinkers such as Blanqui may have chaffed at what he called "soup bowl socialism" others were aware that they were forging a new, communal, society in besieged Paris.

Of course, as the New Year came around and mass starvation threatened, the Commune found itself under pressure to act. Republican armies, massed by the Government in Bordeaux, had begun to move north, aiming to strike at the Prussians in January. But they were not alone. Throughout the winter its National Guard had been drilling across Paris and it would not be content with letting the National Government alone strike a blow against the Prussian besiegers. With a socialist government in Paris and a national republican one outside, neither of which could long tolerate the other's existence, it would be an uneasy coalition that sought to succeed against the invaders where Napoleon III had failed.​

 

[Reydan]

Chapter Four - The Army of the North

"Allow Faidherbe just enough rope to hang himself"
German High Command's instruction to commanders north of Paris, January 1871

"To me you bastards, you glorious bastards. TO ME!"
Jaroslaw Dabrowski during the Battle of Dugny, 29th January 1871

​

Battle of Dugny - Eduoard Detaille, 1879​

January was a cold month in 1871. Ice clung to buildings and rivers moved sluggishly. Across France the five armies of the Government of National Defence, roused by the new emergency Republic, shivered in their tents.

Among those shivering was General Louis Faidherbe. Recalled, like so many others, from France’s colonial empire in the wake of the defeat and capture of so many of the Army High Command under the former Emperor, Faidherbe was more used to the heat of Senegal and Algeria. But it was from Algeria he had been summoned, to command the Army of the North. One of the five armies attempting to push back the German invaders.

The prior months had not been auspicious. Although they had numbers, the supply situation for the armies was dreadful. Not every soldier had sufficient ammunition or food, and commonplace items like greatcoats, boots, and cooking utensils, were in short supply. Morale was low, not least because although they were protected by a line of forts, Faidherbe’s army was cut off from the rest of France. The German invasion had thrust through, isolating the Army of the North along the Belgian border. This meant that although it had access to the armaments factories at Lille, and the protection of the border forts, advancing south to the relief of Paris was not an easy task.

The early movements of the Army seemed positive at least. Small battles around Ham, Amiens, and La Hallue saw the French strike quickly against isolated German forces before pulling back to the protection of the fortresses. But the Government demanded more – specifically the relief of besieged Paris.

Thus it was that in late January the Army of the North struck south, heading towards St. Quentin. By a stroke of luck the German blocking force was not there, out of position due to the inhospitable weather confusing lines of supply. Faidherbe’s forces were able to push deeper, snaking along the River Oise, towards Paris. The Germans moved to block, scrambling well-trained soldiers to ensnare the bedraggled French. Prussian High Command was clear – if Faidherbe could be encouraged to move close enough to Paris that it could draw out the defenders, they might be able to snag both the Army of the North and the city’s defenders in one quick battle. And so the Germans drew the Army of the North closer and closer to the outskirts of Paris, circling them like vultures.

Thus it was that on 29th January, even with news of the defeat of another French army in the Loire Valley reaching them, that the Army of the North began a ragged and ill-coordinated assault on the German lines around Paris, joined by a sally from the defending Parisian forces.

Although neither force – the bedraggled Army of the North or the half-starved Parisians – were at their best, the resulting Battle of Dugny proved that old military adage that no plan survives contact with the enemy. Three unexpected elements affected the German plan. First, no-one had thought to inform the Artillery Commander of this section of the German siege works, who understandably panicked, trying to turn his emplaced guns around to point away from Paris towards the approaching relief army and, ultimately, never managing to effectively shell either them nor the Parisian sally. Second, the relentless drilling and higher morale of the Commune’s National Guard saw them burst forth and take initial Prussian positions at bayonet point to the surprise of the besiegers, who had expected half-starved soldiers ready to surrender. Finally, there was the issue of Faidherbe’s illness. Weakened by decades of service in tropical Africa, Faidherbe was bed-ridden on the day of the battle, and into that power vacuum stepped two figures.

The first was the Commune’s energetic young Minister of War, Louis Rossel, who within hours of the initial assault was amid the German defences with a labour battalion from the city, carting back anything that could be moved – food, guns, supplies – even as the battle raged. The second, was the General of the Parisian National Guard, the Polish revolutionary Jaroslaw Dabrowski. A veteran of the 1863 Uprising in Poland and promoted to his new position by Blanqui himself, Dabrowski was passionate, capable, and showed a near-suicidal courage in leading from the front.

Six assaults from the Prussians crashed into the French positions at Dugny, and six times the French threw the invaders back. Regular soldiers and Parisian National Guard fought shoulder to shoulder, desperate, and by the afternoon, the Germans were reeling. The collapse of Bavarian battalions on the left wing of the German lines, around the railway line near St. Simon, gave the French the opening they needed. The German lines were rolled back, and by nightfall the invaders were in full retreat. Dabrowski, initially viewed with suspicion by the regular officers, was a hero to the Army of the North. Paris was still encircled on three sides, and the Germans still retained the upper hand, but Paris was partially relieved, a victory had been had, and a corridor opened between the capital and the border forts in the North.

That evening, even as Paris celebrated and German High Command drew up new plans, three Communards boarded a fast locomotive. Their destination – North.

 

[Reydan]

Chapter Five - The Three Frances

"I will end this Republican menace inside Paris and without"
Francois Achille Bazaine, Letter to German High Command, February 1871

"Ultimately there are three Frances - the Republican one, the Parisian one, and the Bonapartist one - none of which have the power to represent all of France at the negotiating table"
Otto von Bismarck, German Chancellor, to Kaiser Wilhelm I, 11th February 1871.

​

German artillery outside of Paris. Up until now smaller calibre guns like these had been used, but the new
plan from High Command called for the heavier siege pieces to pound the city.​

February in 1871 was cold and bitter. The ground was iron-hard and dusted with snow. Throughout the occupied regions, German rear-guard soldiers fought running battles with partisans who took to raiding supply wagons and burning depots. On the frontlines, they still held the upper hand, having turned away a Republican Army around Orleans, and another near Dijon, but on 14th February a surprise thrust by General Bourbaki's Army of the East had relieved the besieged border fortress of Belfort to much rejoicing.

Prussian High Command had so far ignored the fracturing of French politics. As far as they had been concerned there was still an enemy to overcome, and a war to win, and it mattered little who was directing the armies against them. Behind the scenes, however, the politicians of this newly minted Germany, still at this point more of an alliance of states than a true nation, were more concerned. The longer this conflict dragged on, the more they risked the other powers of Europe intervening. Indeed, Britain was already putting out tentative feelers for a peace conference. Either negotiations needed to be entered into or a decisive blow needed to be struck.

The problem was, it was unclear exactly where to direct either choice. Who was in charge? The Republican Government currently in Bordeaux? Blanqui and his Committee of Public Safety in Paris? Or the remnants of the old Bonapartist regime. Napoleon III was currently held in comfortable house arrest, but the surrendered commander of Metz, General Francois Bazaine, an ambitious Bonapartist, had approached both his former Emperor and Bismarck with an offer - release him and his army from captivity and transport them south, where they could topple the Republicans. Up until now German High Command had viewed this offer as nothing short of silly, a flight of fancy from a desperate man, but faced with a tenacious French resistance and a two-headed opposition in Bordeaux and Paris, some lobbied Bismarck to change his mind.

A plan was hatched for early March which would see a double-strike. One arm would see Bazaine and some 80,000 of his men, about half of the Metz force captured when the fortress fell, sent south across the lines to foment disorder. The hope was that Bazaine could either decapitate the Republican Government and negotiate full peace himself, or render the situation so confused the effective French opposition collapsed. The other strike was a full-out assault on Paris. Four days of heavy artillery bombardment would be followed by an assault on the city, if it hadn't already surrendered. It would be a death-blow to the radicals and, at the same time, be a propaganda victory for the German forces.

Some raised questions about whether a full-assault against a defended city could be achieved without substantial artillery bombardment, but Bismarck was worried slamming the city with siege guns for longer would turn world opinion against the German cause given the scale of the collateral damage likely. Four days, he reasoned, would be enough time to weaken the defences without provoking outrage in the foreign press and giving other nations a reason to intervene.

The date of the assault was set for the last day of February and four days before, on 24th, the large siege guns began to fire.