The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71

by Alistair Horne

Book Overview

Alistair Horne's The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune, 1870-71 is the first book of Alistair Horne's trilogy, which includes The Price of Glory and To Lose a Battle and tells the story of the great crises of the rivalry between France and Germany. The collapse of France in 1870 had an overwhelming impact - on Paris, on France and on the rest of the world. People everywhere saw Paris as the centre of Europe and the hub of culture, fashion and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140052100
• ISBN13: 9780140052107
• Release Date: April 1981
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 560 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 1.0" x 1.0"

Customer Reviews

The fall of Sodom and the rise of a legend

Many historical events derive their importance principally from the strong emotional appeal they hold for future generations. The Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) is a notable case in point. The military defeat of the French Army by the upstart Prussians was staggering in both its totality and swiftness. The near term impact of the war appeared to be the remarkable validation of what has come to be known as the railroad, rifle and telegraph "revolution in military affairs" along with the strategic benefits of the centralized General Staff system under Moltke. But the impact of the war and its immediate aftermath on twentieth century politics was significantly more profound than alterations to military organizations and strategy. Alistair Horne lets the story of the military struggle and the catastrophic French defeats at Metz and Sedan rest with Michael Howard and his celebrated history of the war. Instead, he directs his energy and formidable pen to the two events that had a broader and deeper impact on the world - the siege of Paris and the brief municipal assembly that governed the city in the spring of 1871, the notorious Commune. These two events claimed perhaps 30,000 victims. It is no exaggeration that they indirectly led to 30 million more. The relatively brief siege of Paris (September 1870 to January 1871) was mild in comparison to other historical examples, Horne writes. For instance, the Prussian conquest of the City of Lights lasted 130 days and claimed some 6,000 lives, just six of whom were reported to have died from starvation. The German siege of Leningrad, on the other hand, lasted 900 days and claimed over one million souls, including over 9,000 a day from starvation and the elements in January 1942. Moreover, every Leningrader was involved in the resistance; the people's militia (Opolchenie) fought tenaciously side-by-side the Red Army. The Parisians, Horne says, spent the better part of the investment drunk, carousing, and engaging in incendiary political rabble-rousing. The futility of the French resistance is exemplified by the two symbols most associated with the siege: the hot-air balloons that formed the city's only contact with the outside world (65 balloons were launched during the siege, including one that blew off course all the way to Norway) and the hunting of rats as the food supply dwindled (brewery rats traded at a premium over the sewer variety). The defeat and humiliation of the city was so complete, especially for the young officers and rising political figures (Foche, Petain, Joffre and Clemenceau were all in their twenties and shaped by these events) that the path to national redemption led directly to the First World War. The crushing indemnity (which was somewhat miraculously paid off in a few years) and the loss of territory was painful, "but far more serious for so proud a nation were the unseen wounds; the shame, the outrageous reversal of fortune, the slur on her virility. The deep i

Forgotten story remarkably told

I'm trying to think of a more elegant way to put it, but sometimes you've just gotta say: this is a really good book. "The Fall of Paris" is a remarkable job of storytelling, but it's also a primer of how a talented researcher and writer can synthesize an incredible amount of information from a diverse range of sources and turn it into a densely-packed, but still highly readable, narrative. The author balances broad-view scene-painting with an eye for personality and detail. In short, it's a very impressive work. In an era when the sanguinary nature of the French Revolution is downplayed ("excesses") or fading from memory, the even more bloody life and death of the Paris Commune seem already long forgotten. For a number of reasons, that's not a good thing. The role of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune in stoking the fires of 75 years of German-French animosity is only the most obvious example. Less apparent, but just as important, is the example the Commune provided to future "leaders of the people" like Lenin and Stalin, and the way it transformed internal French politics. This book is an excellent work in its own right, and deserves to be read simply on the merits of what it says about the events themselves. But the value of Horne's series of titles on Franco-German conflicts (of which this is the first of three books), and the influence these events had in their time and continue to have in ours, make an even stronger case for spending time in these pages.

Essential

Five years after our Civil War, the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) devastated France (150,000 dead, 150,000 wounded), resulted in civic revolt (another 4,000 dead and 24,450 wounded), and exacted the largest war indemnity (and territorial surrender) of the time. In some respects, it was a laboratory for Bismarck/Germany to test what worked best in our war: strategic mobility, railroads, rapid logistical support, long range artillery (with percussion fuses and black powder), and civilian terrorism. Victorious German states celebrated unification under the Second Reich in, of all places, Versailles. Many apologists cite the post-WW1 Versailles Treaty (1919) as a punitive episode that victimized Germany and ensured WW2. This book proves them wrong. France, equally ravaged in the Franco-Prussian War, paid the indemnity early, recovered, and moved on. Forty three years later she was invaded again by the same enemy in WW1 (this time she would lose well over a million souls and many wounded). This work is lucid, comprehensive, and well worth reading

Debacle

Zola called the 1870 Battle of Sedan a "Debacle," and gave his fictionalized account of this event the same title. In that battle, which decimated the French Army and all but sealed Paris's fate, Emperor Napoleon III and the elan of the French infantry were simply no match for German generalship and Krupp cannon. Horne's "Fall of Paris" picks up from the Sedan debacle and explores what was, for most purposes, a much worse debacle, namely the ruinous siege of Paris, the capitulation and the subsequent civil unrest in which the Paris authorities refused to recognize the so-called "official" French government and instead instituted the Commune - a short-lived ultra-left government which itself was later suppressed by the reformed French Army. This is a tale virtually without large-scale heroes, yet which contains many indivisual acts of courage, notably in smuggling out news and keeping the population fed during the Siege. Horne writes with humanity; strange it is in this complex kaleidoscope of politics and motives that you can't even find the Prussians too villanous - even as they send trained falcons up to prey upon the carrier pigeons.

Captures the excitement of the period

Horne's style makes the story of the Paris siege and commune every bit as compelling, fast-moving and vivid as the best fiction. You get a real sense of the various characters of the period, the opportunistic, the proud, the inept, the comical and the horrific. Brings this exciting, tumultuous time to life with poetic language and insightful observations. I am looking forward to reading more books by this author.