The Siege Tightens: A City Divided

The morning of Tuesday, May 23, 1871, dawned bright and clear over Paris, belying the grim reality unfolding in its streets. For weeks, the city had been locked in a brutal civil conflict between the revolutionary Paris Commune and the French government forces under Adolphe Thiers. By this point, the front line had stabilized into a north-south axis running from the Batignolles station through Saint-Lazare, past the British Embassy and the Palais de l’Industrie, across the Seine to the Chamber of Deputies, and down the Boulevard des Invalides to the Montparnasse station. The western third of Paris remained firmly under government control, while the eastern sectors saw Communards frantically constructing over 500 barricades in anticipation of the final assault.

This confrontation represented the culmination of months of tension between Paris and the French government following France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. The Commune, established on March 28, had implemented radical social reforms and challenged the authority of the national government based at Versailles. Now, Marshal Patrice de MacMahon’s forces were preparing their final push to retake the city, setting the stage for one of the most violent episodes in modern European history.

The Military Offensive Unfolds

In the early hours of May 23, government forces launched coordinated attacks along multiple fronts. General Ladmirault executed a sweeping flanking maneuver, advancing along the interior of the city walls to the Porte Saint-Ouen, capturing all gates along the way. Upon reaching the northernmost Porte de Clignancourt, his forces turned right toward the strategically vital Montmartre heights. Simultaneously, General Clinchant’s troops breached the barricades at Batignolles and advanced directly toward Montmartre’s southern face.

The military strategy reflected the government’s determination to crush the Commune decisively. The Versailles army employed classic siege tactics adapted to urban warfare, using their numerical superiority and better organization to gradually constrict the Communards’ positions. By mid-morning, Clinchant’s forces had reached Place de Clichy while Ladmirault’s right wing occupied the Montmartre cemetery, creating a three-pronged assault on the Commune’s most formidable stronghold.

Human Tragedy Amidst the Fighting

As government troops advanced through Batignolles, individual tragedies unfolded that illustrated the terrible human cost of urban warfare. One particularly poignant incident involved M. and Mme Paris, a couple known for their missionary work among the rag-pickers of Paris. After enduring a day of intense fighting around their home on Pereire Boulevard, Mme Paris awoke on Tuesday morning relieved to find the nearby barricades abandoned. Her happiness proved tragically short-lived when her brother, driven by curiosity, peeked through a curtain and was fatally shot in the lower abdomen. The bullet passed through his body and also killed Mme Paris, who had been entering the room with a cup of hot chocolate.

This personal tragedy exemplified the precarious position of civilians caught between the combatants. Non-combatants throughout Paris faced similar dangers as the fighting intensified, with many becoming unintended casualties of stray bullets, artillery fire, or the generalized violence that characterized the street-by-street combat.

The Defense Crumbles

Benoît Malon, who had organized a determined rearguard action at Batignolles, found himself surrounded at the 17th arrondissement town hall. After somehow slipping through Versailles army lines, he reached Montmartre only to encounter a disheartening scene: unfinished barricades, unusable artillery, and a defense force that had dwindled to approximately 100 men on the northern slopes facing Ladmirault’s division-sized force.

The most determined resistance came from an unexpected quarter: a 25-woman battalion led by the formidable Louise Michel. These women fought a desperate retreat along the Boulevard de Clichy, defending barricade after barricade as they fell back through Place Blanche—later to become known for Paris’s more notorious nightlife—to Place Pigalle, where many were forced to surrender. Only about 15 women, including Michel and Ekaterina Dmitrieff, continued fighting. Michel had orders to destroy Montmartre if necessary, but the opportunity had passed. That afternoon, she encountered the mortally wounded General Dombrowski, who had just withdrawn from Clignancourt. “We are lost!” he told her before collapsing on Rue Myrha. When the Polish exile’s body was carried to the Hôtel de Ville, fighters at the barricades rendered him unprecedented honors with a meticulous rifle salute.

The Fall of Montmartre

From the observation deck at his friend Burty’s house, where he was effectively held prisoner, writer Edmond de Goncourt watched the battle unfold. He and others thought they saw through their opera glasses the tricolor flag raised over Montmartre, just before bullets forced them to abandon their glass observatory. Their observations proved accurate. By 1:00 PM, Clinchant’s troops had raised their flag at the Solférino Tower, where the March 18 insurrection had begun, reclaiming the more than 100 cannons that had sparked the conflict.

The capture of Montmartre marked a psychological and strategic turning point. This symbolic heart of the Paris revolution, whose capture had signaled the Commune’s birth, now represented its impending demise. The heights provided commanding views over Paris and their loss deprived the Communards of their strongest defensive position and artillery emplacement.

The Brutality of Repression

With Montmartre captured, the suppression of the Commune turned increasingly brutal. Though Thiers later claimed in his notes and memoirs that he had given “the strictest orders” for soldiers to “control their anger,” the Versailles troops interpreted differently his earlier call for “complete atonement.” The bloodshed that followed would exceed even the Terror of the French Revolution and the violence of the 1917 Petrograd uprising in its intensity.

In Montmartre alone, approximately 49 Communards were arrested and taken to 6 Rue des Rosiers, where Generals Lecomte and Thomas had been executed on March 18. Forced to kneel before the same wall, they were shot without trial. This pattern of summary executions would become increasingly common as government forces advanced, reflecting the authorities’ determination to eliminate not just the Commune’s military resistance but its ideological foundation.

Stiffening Resistance Elsewhere

Even as Montmartre fell, resistance stiffened elsewhere under the leadership of Eugène Varlin, Walery Wróblewski, and Maxime Lisbonne. Varlin, ignoring conflicting orders from the Hôtel de Ville, organized the Commune’s most coordinated defensive action from his positions on the Left Bank. At the crossroads of Boulevard Raspail and Boulevard Saint-Germain, he maintained a strong reserve force that could reinforce either the well-defended barricades on Rue de l’Université along the river or those on Rue Vavin in Montparnasse.

For two consecutive days, government forces suffered heavy casualties with minimal progress in these sectors. The fighting demonstrated that despite the loss of Montmartre, the Commune retained significant defensive capabilities and determined fighters who would contest every street and building.

The Bloody Center

The most brutal fighting occurred along the central section of the front as Clinchant’s forces swept down from Montmartre and Pigalle toward the flanks of the Commune’s operational center near the Opera. To his right, General Douay’s troops pressed forward, encountering fierce resistance from Communards who understood that surrender likely meant execution.

This central sector contained some of Paris’s most iconic landmarks, which now became battlegrounds and symbols of the struggle. The fighting demonstrated how civil conflict transforms urban spaces, turning places of culture, commerce, and daily life into fortified positions and killing grounds. The destruction of property paled beside the human cost, but the physical damage to Paris would require years to repair and would leave lasting scars on the city’s topography and collective memory.

Cultural Context and Social Divisions

The Week of Blood occurred against the backdrop of profound social and political transformations in France. The Commune emerged from decades of tension between radical Paris and more conservative rural France, between working-class aspirations and bourgeois interests, between revolutionary tradition and established order. These divisions had deepened following France’s defeat by Prussia and the disastrous siege of Paris, during which the population had suffered terribly while the government fled to Versailles.

The Commune’s social measures—including separation of church and state, abolition of night work in bakeries, and remission of rents—reflected its radical character and explained the government’s determination to crush it completely. The violence of the suppression reflected not just military necessity but the desire to eradicate what conservatives viewed as a dangerous social experiment that threatened the very foundations of society.

Legacy and Historical Significance

The Week of Blood left an indelible mark on French history and collective memory. The official death toll remains disputed, but estimates suggest between 10,000 and 20,000 Communards were killed during and after the fighting, with thousands more imprisoned or deported. The brutality of the repression shocked contemporaries and continues to influence historical interpretation of the events.

For the French Third Republic, the crushing of the Commune eliminated the revolutionary threat from the left but created a lasting division between the working class and the state. The memory of the Bloody Week became a rallying cry for socialist and communist movements worldwide, with Karl Marx describing the Commune as the first example of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”

The events also influenced military tactics and urban warfare doctrine, demonstrating both the effectiveness of coordinated attacks against insurgent positions and the terrible human cost of such operations. The destruction of large parts of Paris, including the burning of the Tuileries Palace and the Hôtel de Ville, led to significant rebuilding efforts that shaped the modern city.

Modern Relevance

The Paris Commune and its violent suppression remain relevant today as examples of the dynamics of revolution, state violence, and collective memory. The questions raised by the events—about the right to rebellion, the limits of state authority, and the relationship between social justice and political order—continue to resonate in contemporary political discourse.

The Week of Blood also represents an early example of the challenges of urban warfare that would become increasingly common in subsequent conflicts. The tactics employed by both sides, the difficulties of distinguishing combatants from civilians, and the devastating impact on urban infrastructure all anticipate similar challenges in more recent conflicts from Stalingrad to Sarajevo to Mosul.

Finally, the Commune’s legacy endures in French politics and culture, representing both the revolutionary tradition and the deep social divisions that have periodically surfaced throughout French history. The memorials to the Communards, the annual ceremonies at the Mur des Fédérés in Père Lachaise cemetery where many were executed, and the ongoing historical debates all testify to the enduring significance of these events in the French national consciousness.

The Week of Blood stands as a watershed moment in modern history, when the hopes of social revolution collided with the realities of state power, leaving a legacy of inspiration and tragedy that continues to shape our understanding of revolution, repression, and the price of ideological conflict.