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

France #1

by Alistair Horne

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 invention. But suddenly France, not least to the disbelief of her own citizens, was gripped in the vice of the Prussian armies and forced to surrender on humiliating terms. Almost immediately Paris was convulsed by the savage self-destruction of the newly formed Socialist government, the Commune.

In this brilliant study of the Siege of Paris and its aftermath, Alistair Horne researches first-hand accounts left by official observers, private diarists and letter-writers to evoke the high drama of those ten tumultuous months and the spiritual and physical agony that Paris and the Parisians suffered as they lost the Franco-Prussian war.

'Compulsively readable'
  The Times

'The most enthralling historical work'
  Daily Telegraph

'Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the civil war that still stirs the soul of France'
  Evening Standard

One of Britain's greatest historians, Sir Alistair Horne, CBE, is the author of a trilogy on the rivalry between France and Germany, The Price of Glory, The Fall of Paris and To Lose a Battle, as well as a two-volume life of Harold Macmillan.

Genres: History, France, Nonfiction, European History, Military History, War, Military Fiction

458 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1965

About the author

Sir Alistair Allan Horne was an English journalist, biographer and historian of Europe, especially of 19th and 20th century France. He wrote more than 20 books on travel, history, and biography. He won the following awards: Hawthornden Prize, 1963, for The Price of Glory; Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize and Wolfson Literary Award, both 1978, both for A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962; French Légion d'Honneur, 1993, for work on French history;and Commander of the British Empire (CBE), 2003.

Reviews

[Helga · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Paris is always in a state of premeditation…. The clouds pass across her gaze. One fine day, there it is. Paris decrees an event. France, abruptly summoned, obeys.”
-Victor Hugo

The book begins by the Great Exhibition of Paris in 1867 detailing all the glamour and the excellence at the time and then takes us to the Siege of Paris, describing the circumstances which led to the siege and the devastating aftermath.

On January 7th, Goncourt with his usual aptness summed up the outlook of a dying city; ‘The sufferings of Paris during the siege? A joke for two months. In the third month the joke went sour. Now nobody finds it funny any more, and we are moving fast towards starvation….’

But after submitting to the terms of the victorious Prussians and the establishment of the Third Republic, a revolutionary government or the Commune, mostly consisting of the National Guards, seized power in 1871 in ‘la ville lumière’, causing more havoc, devastation and fatalities.
The book ends with the defeat of the Communards just two months after seizing power.

Auguste Renoir said of the Communards:
“They were madmen; but they had in them that little flame which never dies.”

What I liked about the book was the eye-witness quotes and memoirs interspersed along the book and what I didn't care for, was long-winded sentences with a couple of explanatory parentheses each which made the reading rough.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I think about the Paris Commune, I feel a vague sort of dread. I remember visiting the famous Père Lachaise Cemetery for the first time and seeing the wall—the infamous Communards' Wall—in front of which nearly a hundred fifty insurrectionists were executed by firing squad. I was in awe of how close this distant and horrible chapter in the history of Western civilization had suddenly become—and how prosaic it all seemed: a simple stone wall with an engraved plaque hidden away in this quiet resting place. The foreign tourists who come to visit the graves of Oscar Wilde or Jim Morrison will hardly notice the wall or remember its history—if they ever really knew it to begin with. How is it that such a disturbing interlude in the tug-of-war between established authority and democratic progress has become so obscure?

It all began, of course, in 1870 with the Franco-Prussian War. As Alistair Horne suggests, the French populace, much given to that peculiar French affliction known as ennui, had become itchy for a military victory, for an assertion of its national power. The Second Empire, led by Emperor Napoleon III, had grown bloated and decadent: the ruling elite and its hangers-on were given to extravagances, to orgies, to decaying morality, while the working class grew increasingly dissatisfied.

On one of the flimsiest pretexts in modern diplomatic history, Napoleon III was pressured into attacking Prussia. Of course a belligerent seeking a point of contention will generally find one—but most will latch onto a better causus belli than a minor breach of diplomatic etiquette. But the drums of war would admit of no turning back, and the Emperor led his forces into a disastrous war with the Germans that would cast its shadow over his nation for decades to come and lead ultimately to the fall of the Second French Empire and the exile of Napoleon III to England.

The Prussians, led (figuratively) by Kaiser Wilhelm but in fact by Bismarck, quickly crushed the French and surrounded Paris. This Siege of Paris forms the basis for the first part of Alistair Horne's easy-to-admire, but difficult-to-love book The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 19870-71. Horne details what life was like for the besieged in Paris, which had no access to food, supplies, and—for the most part—the outside world. Horne relies (perhaps excessively) on the journals of a handful of Parisian residents—mainly English-speaking—to flesh out the day-to-day reality of a life with dwindling resources and only intermittent hope. American Elihu Washburne, one of the few diplomats who remained in Paris during the Siege (and, later, during the Commune) provides the most interesting perspective because he seems the least biased and proves an insightful and thorough-going observer. (Another prominent reference is the famous Edmond de Goncourt's journal.)

In the Siege section of the book, Horne gets distracted by Paris's use of hot-air balloons to communicate with the outside world and the city's evolving eating habits as the Siege progresses. Eventually, the Parisian bourgeoisie is reduced to eating their dogs and cats, as well as horses, rats, and all the animals of the Paris Zoo except the lions and tigers. Horne's fascination with these details is evident, but it unfortunately drags on the narrative momentum.

Meanwhile, Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm and the entire Prussian court have made themselves at home in the Sun King's great palace in Versailles. In a bitter historical irony, it would be in the Hall of Mirrors there that the unification of German would be declared. All of the German domains were now a part of the German Empire under Kaiser Wilhelm. The German nation—which would harass France in the first half of the twentieth-century—was actually declared in France itself, precipitated by a war that France initiated. The Second Reich had begun.

Eventually, Paris was forced to capitulate in early 1871, inciting the fury of working class arrondissements and the leftist radicals. (Horne discusses this peculiarity in the book: the leftists, who usually disdain imperialist warfare, at least theoretically, were in fact enraged by Paris's surrender.)

Radical and working class anger grew until the republican government was forced to flee to Versailles (or else be murdered by the Parisian mobs). A new government, comprised predominantly by Jacobins, Marxists, and other anti-Bonapartists, installed itself in the Hôtel de Ville, and the Paris Commune was declared. Thiers, de facto head of the evacuated government at Versailles, regrouped and rebuilt the army. A short, gruesome civil war would ensue between the Commune and the forces of the government-in-exile at Versailles.

Eventually the army of Thiers would march on Paris and brutally crush the Commune—but not before the Communards embarked upon a scorched earth policy, setting fire to the Tuileries Palace, the Hôtel de Ville, and any building whose height or location seemed to hinder their defenses. Only by a stroke of pure luck do the cathedral of Notre-Dame and the Louvre survive today; Notre-Dame was set to be razed by the Communards, but it was adjacent to a hospital which might catch fire, so the plan was scrapped at the last moment. Many parts of Paris were in ruins—destroyed by its own citizens—and the brutal reprisals on both sides were as gruesome as they were sadistic. The Communards executed the Archbishop of Paris in their final days as a pointless act of vengeance. Now victorious, Thiers would avenge himself and his government on all Commune supporters in what can only be called massacres—like the one at the Communards' Wall in Père Lachaise.

Clearly, the Siege and the Commune are fascinating and underserved topics, and Horne, a lifelong aficionado of French history, certainly knows his stuff, but overall the book comes across as a little muddled. Horne hops around quite a bit, assuming a general familiarity on the part of his readers, and the book's clarity suffers somewhat for it. He has a great deal invested in the few perspectives he relies heavily upon (through journals), but these too hamper the momentum, situating the material in a hazy middle world between history and memoir. I'm not so sure the journal quotations enrich the history so much as they replace it at times—and some of Horne's selections, quoted at length, aren't always very interesting. I left the book with the impression of Alistair Horne as the addled professor who is always looking for his glasses when they're only just sitting on his forehead. If he focused and clarified a little more, he'd not only be a knowledgeable historian, but an entertaining one as well.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of a trilogy of books written by the author, examining key aspects of the 3 major wars between France and Germany that occurred between 1870 and 1940 - a period of time that is the same as that between the end of WWII and today. The Franco-Prussian War (perhaps more accurately termed the Franco-German War) was a subject I knew little about, although I did know that France was comprehensively defeated and that the war precipitated the unification of Germany. This book does not seek to examine the War as a whole - the lead-up to the conflict, and the first six weeks in which the French Army was crushed, are briefly described in the first few chapters, which actually I found to be rather slow reading. The focus of the book is the Prussian/German siege of Paris in 1870-71; the eventual capitulation of the French government; the subsequent rebellion within Paris and establishment of the Commune; and the civil war and second siege of the city by the counter-revolutionary forces that eventually crushed the Commune. It's a dramatic story, well-told by the author. Because these events happened less than 150 years ago, they took place amongst streets and landmarks that are recognisably those of Paris today. Anyone who has visited the city will find it hard to imagine these locations as the setting for the events described here.

The book has left me with a much better grasp of the reasons for, and the extent of, the historical divisions between Left and Right in France. I recall some years ago watching the famous 1970's Thames Television series, "The World at War", (about WWII), and the episode featuring the Fall of France. Witnesses on the programme described how in, in 1940, the French Left and Right so hated one another that both preferred conquest by the Germans to being ruled by their own internal enemies. Alistair Horne really sets out how those divisions date back to the 1793-94 Reign of Terror, the 1848 Revolution and perhaps most of all to the Commune. Some of the Leaders of the Commune were individuals capable of great cruelty, and its supporters were always liable to engage in unrestrained mob violence and the most revolting lynchings, but the excesses of the Commune pale beside the appalling atrocities committed by the "Versaillais" (the anti-Commune forces) after the Commune was suppressed, atrocities that disgusted most foreign observers and much of the rest of France. Horne quotes a British Officer, on leave of absence and in Paris at the time as commenting "What provokes me is that there seems no middle opinion ever expressed." Most tellingly, the author relates how Lenin was obsessed with the Commune and the reasons for its failure. He drew the conclusion that the Commune failed because it had compromised. It decided for example not to seize the assets of the Bank of France when those lay within its grasp, for fear of damaging confidence in the currency; and according to Lenin the Commune failed because it had not met "White Terror" with "Red Terror". When Lenin's chance came, he would make sure there were no half-measures and plenty of "Red Terror."

This is a readable narrative history, but also one that leaves the reader much better informed about the Commune and its place in history, both in terms of what went before it, and what came after.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alistair Horne's The Fall of Paris discusses one of modern France's most chaotic periods: the Franco-Prussian War and the short-lived Paris Commune. Horne engrossingly sketches the "carnival empire" of Napoleon III, whose inept, adventurist ruler alienated Europe through his aggressive foreign policy and his own people through his corruption and violence. Thus when Otto von Bismarck maneuvers France into an ill-conceived war with Prussia, Napoleon finds little sympathy - and an embarrassing train of military defeats, culminating in Sedan where the Emperor himself is captured. As French officials try to negotiate a peace with the ungenerous Prussians, the capitol endures a harrowing siege complete with bombardment of civilians and mass starvation: fine Paris restaurants are reduced to serving rat, dog and various forms of elephant meat, with the finest wines and gourmet sauces of course. Famine and defeat lead in turn to the rise of the Commune, a conglomerate of radicals who destroy Napoleon's government and attempt to establish a collectivist state. But their leaders are rent by internal dissension and a weakness towards violence worthy of the Terror, while the French establishment (with Prussia's blessing) unleashes a savage military reaction that quashes all hope of Revolution. Horne (A Savage War of Peace, etc.) proves an expert in navigating the cultural, political and military flow of events; he's a bit less convincing trying to discuss the Commune's radical politics, which seem ill-defined and inspired purely by frustration with the war. Even so, the book provides a vivid slice of French history, indelibly rendered by a master historian.

[Tyler Lees · Rating 4 out of 5]

A long read, and a rather different topic, but well-written and fascinating. This book does not tell the story of the Franco-Prussian War; rather, it tells the story of Paris during the disastrous war and the subsequent devastating rise of the Commune and its suppression, and ultimately provides a survey of a dark episode that shapes France even today.

This book is the first in a trilogy, covering three crucial years in the formation of modern France and modern Europe: 1940 and the defeat of France, 1916 snd the battle of Verdun, and this book, which covers the siege of Paris and ultimate defeat of the French in the Franco-Prussian War, and the immediately following civil war.

I picked up this book in order to better understand the events leading up to the First World War; as France's defeat in 1870-1871 was key to factors leading to 1914. But this book focuses on Paris, and its role during the war, and its birth of the Commune.

As a history of the Commune, this book is a necessary read; it shows the political factors that led to its rise, and Horne goes to great lengths to explain what it was and what it was not. For example, it was not on par with the Great Terror of the French Revolution of 1792 - but the potential was there. And it was not the ideal Communistic peoples' state the Marx mythologized it to be - but its failures held many lessons Lenin made sure to learn.

If you are trying to understand what helped create the bloodshed of the 20th Century, this is an excellent place to begin.

[Michael Kotsarinis]

A concise account of the closing act and the aftermath of Franco-Prussian War.
This book besides providing a full and rich account of the siege and the Commune, helps the reader understand how interconnected these two events were and gives a quite unbiased account of the Commune.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Franco-Prussian War is the Commune which followed is not studied to any extent in the US. And yet our painful involvement in the two subsequent world wars would seem to make this war something that Americans should be interested in since it foreshadows so much of the 20th Century's horrors. Germany's stated need to conquer and dominate Europe is clearly articulated by Bismarck that, in my opinion, no one should have surprised by later German aggression.
What struck me, among other things, were the examples of unbelievable stupidity, e.g., the French not realizing that the Germans had a single rail supply line; the French army not bringing horses to Montmartre in order to drag away the captured cannon; the Communards not realizing they had no way of arming said captured cannon---the list goes on and on.
I look forward to reading the other volumes in Horne's trilogy.

[Andrew Daniels · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is informative and well researched, but not a great success for me.
I did not love the author's writing style, I felt he was too influenced by the 19th century oriented books he has read, and that this showed in his flowery writing style. Also, I think its good if you speak French to understand this book.

He loves to constantly compare it to the Siege of Leningrad, (which he partly misunderstands) and never to any other sieges...

I learned a lot about the Commune and the war of 1870, but some of the war discussion was tedious and involved that blow-by-blow order of battle type stuff that is so common in military history. I felt I didn't get some of the context, hard facts and information I wanted, so this book left me a bit wanting. I would have preferred a more crisp and clear narrative.

[Tim Preston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating story of the downfall of France's Second Empire and violent birth of its Third Republic, as experienced by its capital city, Paris, in the thick of the storm, amid France's shock defeat in the Franco-Prussian War 1870-71.

The book contains, as this review will also contain, just enough military history to make sense of and provide context to its
main subjects. These are the hardships and near starvation of the people of Paris under seige, and the subsequent turmoil of a crazy, radical left-wing regime called the Paris Commune, eventually suppressed by what in terms of their politics can be called 'moderate' forces. However, they were far from moderate in the murderous way they dealt with their radical enemies.

The author Sir Alistair Horne, as he was by the time he died, aged 91 in 2017, first published 'The Fall of Paris' in 1965, revised 2007. There will be newer books on the subject more up to date with research, but there may never be another as well written and interesting.

In 1870, France was ruled by an Emperor, Louis Napoleon, of the Bonaparte family that, more than 70 years before, produced a brilliantly successful military commander, the first Emperor Napoleon. Even though failed at the end, memories of Napoleon I's many great victories left France widely assumed to be, and still thinking herself, the World's leading military power, despite the more rapidly growing population and economy of her German neighbours.

Consequently, the French complacently blundered into an unnecessary War with Germany in 1870 and waged the War inefficiently. Somehow, both France's main armies were surrounded and forced to surrender. The Emperor, leading one of those armies in person, became a Prisoner of War in Germany.

This humiliation was the end of his regime, but the French leaders who came to the fore in the crisis, like Gambetta and Thiers, found it hard to accept that France was really beaten, and had to negotiate peace based on that reality. The war continued and the Germans beseiged Paris.

The Franco-Prussian War had its own unique character, due in part to its particular moment in technology.

The American Civil War has been called the Railroad War. The present War in Ukraine is the War of the Drone. The seige of Paris in 1870-71 was the day of the hot air balloon. which kept Paris, encircled by German troops, in contact with the rest of France.

The Germans developed the World's first anti-aircraft gun to try to stop the balloons, obliging the French to launch most flights at night. Gambetta became the first prominent political leader in the World to fly, escaping Paris in a balloon to help organise resistance in the rest of the country.

As hot air balloons cannot be steered, only taken higher or lower, the crew could do little more than take off and hope for the best as to where they landed. Usually, they came down somewhere in France or Belgium and could deliver sacks of mail and despatches to the authorities. One balloon was swept by the wind out into the Atlantic and its crew never seen again. Others landed in Germany and were captured. One drifted for hours over unbroken thick clouds until the crew caught sight of mountain peaks and realised they were over Norway.

While the seige of Paris involved trench warfare and artillery bombardment, this was not as devastating as trench warfare was to be in the First World War. The artillery shells of 1870-71, propelled by and containing gunpowder, had less range and destructive power than the cordite and High Explosive in use by 1914-18, nor did the Germans wish to devastate Paris. The countryside around the City never became like the lifeless, heavily cratered landscapes of mud of the later Verdun and the Somme, nor, fortunately, did Paris become like Stalingrad in 1942-3.

With food supplies cut off, Parisians were reduced to eating rats, dogs, cats and zoo animals; this in Paris, the city with more famous chefs and famous restaurants than anywhere else on Earth. Not to be entirely defeated, top chefs used their skills to invent sauces and recipes to enhance the flavour of rat. (As the saying almost goes 'If life gives you nothing but rats, make some Ratatouille!') Observers noticed that dogs and cats, who also began to be eaten, became wary of humans. Cats, being more sceptical and less impressed by humans, seemed to understand this more quickly than dogs.

The authorities had prepared for the situation by pasturing beef cattle in the public park the Bois de Boulogne to supply meat. However, they had not thought to keep a herd of dairy cattle. Little children's health suffered from lack of milk.

Even so, while Parisians went hungry, no one has been proved to have actually died of starvation unlike e.g. in the Seige of Leningrad in World War II.

After France finally accepted peace terms, including loss of border territory and payment of large reparations, the French turned on each other, in what was both a conflict between left and right and between the Capital and the rest of the country. A left-wing Paris Commune was proclaimed. Not far away, at Versailles, Thiers, formerly a constitutional monarchist, but now prepared, for the sake of order, to accept a moderate Republic, gathered an army to put down the Commune.

The Communards never set out a clear programme. They did not establish socialism but they were hostile to the Church, Monarchy and aristocracy. They murdered the Archbishop of Paris and revived the French Revolutionary Calendar. They have ever afterwards inspired a, probably misplaced, romantic enthusiasm in left-wing circles. Two of Karl Marx's daughters married ex-leaders of the Commune.

Both the violence and chaotic incompetence of the Communards may be seen for example when they decided to massacre 48 prisoners, priests or former police under the previous regime. The execution was so disorganised that any supporter of the Commune with a gun could turn up and take part in the killing. Once it was over, there was one more dead body than there had been prisoners, indicating that the Communard executioners had accidentally shot one of their own number along with the priests and policemen.

Foreigners found it impossible to find Parisians to give an unbiased explanation of what was going on; everyone was committed to one side or the other. One of the few to try to steer a middle course was Clemenceau, then Mayor of the Paris district of Montmartre, who half a Century later would be Prime Minister of France in the First World War.

By the end, everyone knew Germany was now the leading Power in Continental Europe. Some consequences of that are portrayed in other books by the same author Alistair Horne, about Verdun in 1916 and the Fall of France in 1940.

[Jan Underhill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was recommended by a friend in the course of a Facebook discussion in which an author I like mentioned his near-ignorance of the Franco-Prussian War. I had to admit to the same, and found it odd, as I hold a B.A. History, and while the term is familiar, I couldn't begin to discuss it in any detail. I have corrected that situation, and now find it disturbing that the events that took place in Europe within a decade of the American Civil War and hugely influenced all the major phenomena that eventually engulfed American consciousness in the 20th century (two World Wars, Communism) are so very poorly understood.

This account is fast-paced and engrossing, and it can't be helped that the events and human behavior can only be described as appalling to the point where it's profoundly disheartening to read about. No novelist would choose to subject readers to such a a litany of poor choices, failures of judgement and sheer incompetence as well as bad luck, in the course of creating a narrative. Do I dare hope that learning from waste and horror might help us to avoid repeating it? The following 100+ years don't lead me to feel that's likely. But I feel my understanding of the many more familiar events that followed has been enhanced, and peopled with fascinating characters. It was a tough but worthwhile enlightenment.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

For years I would have confidently said that the book in English you needed to read about the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 was this by Alistair Horne. Even after the 2003 publication of 'The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870-1871' by Geoffrey Wawro I would have still insisted on Alistair Horne's book because despite not being about the Franco Prussian war it dealt with everything that was important about the war. But I must admit the 2023 publication of 'Bismarck's War: The Franco-Prussian War and the Making of Modern Europe' by Rachel Chrastil put me in two minds because what she wrote was not a military history like Wawro's but a reexamination of the past in the lioght, not of evidence, but new ways of thinking about the past and is written into or out of history.

Still no one who knows Horne as the author of 'A Savage War for Peace' or the other two volumes in this triptych of France in war and crisis would ever say that any book by him is no longer useful. Horne is an exemplar of the best kind of history. Read him, but don't forget Chrastil.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb.

Good history should read like a good novel. This book certainly does that.

It is a long time since I read this exciting book, but little did I know that one day I should make unexpected use of it.

One of the characters described in the narrative is Frederick Reitlinger, who escaped from besieged Paris in a hot air balloon. I have discovered that this gentleman, who was sent by Thierry to plead with the English and the Austrians to intercede with the Germans to relieve their grip on Paris, was one of my relatives. For more about this see: http://yameyamey.blogspot.co.uk/2012/...

[Tim Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, Bismarck and Moltke inflicted a resounding defeat on the French and changed the balance of power in Europe forever. They created a united Germany complete with the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine freshly seized from France. But it was not the walkover that it sometimes seems. The French had their chances and under better leadership, they might have severed the Prussian supply lines or broken out of the siege of Paris.

The siege was a long one and the rich dined while the poor went hungry. However, very few rats were actually eaten and very few adults actually starved to death. The dead were mostly infants.

The revolution and Commune that broke out in Paris immediately afterwards is wreathed in even greater myth. (Marx made it the central case study of revolutionary failure. Lenin took the lesson very much to heart.) Though they have given the name to communism, the communards were not in fact communist. They weren’t even particularly revolutionary. They simply wanted the right to municipal self-government for Paris, such as existed in most large European cities at the time, including other cities in France.

The main claim to fame of the Paris Commune of 1871 was the brutality with which it was extinguished. Here too, the myth exceeds the facts. Men, women and children certainly were shot out of hand, but not the 50 000 some authors claim. If 20 000 were killed at the barricades or murdered after they had surrendered, there were still 40 000 prisoners in government hands afterwards. (Only a few dozen of these were executed or exiled, and only after proper trial.) And since the revolutionary National Guard was alleged to number 200 000 at one point, we can see that the vast majority of them had simply slipped away from Paris or melted back into the slums from whence they came.

So why was the repression so brutal? There are many theories. I feel it stems from the stunning failure in the Franco-Prussian war. Parisians and provincials, workers and bourgeois, armed and civilian: each felt betrayed by the other. The Commune and its repression were each at bottom a search for scapegoats for the national humiliation.

[Noah Goats · Rating 4 out of 5]

According to Goodreads I started reading this over two years ago, but the fact that it took me so long to finish it doesn’t mean I didn’t like it. I liked it a lot; I just sort of let a lot of time pass between reading the siege half and the Commune half.

Paris suffered terribly in 1870-1871. Their arrogant emperor Napoleon III got them into an unwise war with the Prussians and after he was captured Paris found itself under siege. They were outgunned and out-led by the Prussians and they never really had a chance as they hunkered behind their fortifications and began to starve.

After a humiliating armistice agreement was signed, radical left wing elements in Paris rose up and declared the Commune. The Commune was incompetently led and hopelessly divided from the beginning, and the story of the fighting that resulted in its destruction is harrowing.

Alistair Horne is a very good writer and he does this exciting and important story justice.

[Mshelton50 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent story of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War and the time of Commune. Should be of interest to anyone interested in France and French history.

[J.P. Mac · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the late 19th century, a torpid, decadent France chose to boost its sagging prestige by declaring war on Prussia. Germany of the day was a loose federation of kingdoms led by Prussia's Kaiser Wilhem under the guidance of Bismarck. The Second Empire under Napoleon III assumed the conflict would be short and victorious.

However the French army was routed and the city of Paris besieged. The Second Empire fell, giving way to a republican government. Relying on accounts of those inside the city, Horne tells a tale of hope and patriotic bombast that gave way to starvation, eventual defeat, and the brief bloody rise of a predominately leftist government of Jacobins, Marxists, and other anti-Bonapartists. They were known as the Commune.

Following acceptance of Prussian peace terms, the republican government was forced to flee to Versaillies to escape the Commune's wrath. From there, the French government counter-attacked. With the support of the army, they now besieged Paris once again. The Commune dissolved into squabbling factions. Armed workers defended their neighborhoods as the military attempted to regain control over the fractious capital.

Hornes use of contemporaneous accounts allows the reader insights into what the inhabitants of Paris thought, ate—or didn't eat—felt, and desired. There's a great deal on the French use of balloons during the Prussian siege to communicate with unoccupied France and the rest of Europe. Less may've been more. The same goes for Horne's regular inclusion of French sentences minus translations. But the book tells the story well and notes the historical echoes that reverberated from the twin events of war and Commune.

Given the harsh peace treaty, the Franco-Prussian War planted the seeds for future, more devastating conflicts that saw France invaded in 1914 and invaded and conquered twenty-six years later. In addition, the lessons of the Commune were keenly absorbed by the Bolshevik Lenin. Fearing feckless factionalism, Lenin outmaneuvered and crushed his allies and ruthlessly butchered his foes. As Horne writes, "How much of the ferocious brutality with which the Russian Reds fought for survival was attributable to the ever-present memory of May 1871 . . . . (The date the Commune fell.)

"Fall" is part of a hat trick written by Horne on the Franco-German wars from the late 19th to the mid 20th century. He touches on the First World War in his chronicle of the 1916 battle of Verdun. The Second World War is covered in an account of France's rapid collapse in 1940.

History buffs will enjoy this.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough and unexpectedly balanced view of the events of 1870-1871, which Horne rightly points out are key to understanding the conflicts that will emerge in the 20th century.

Horne has his weak moments, aside from his long-windedness. Some off-putting and outdated racial language is used very unnecessarily. Here is Horne describing a massacre inflicted by Europeans on Europeans:

…what is most difficult for the imagination to grasp is that this dark Holocaust took place not in some remote African territory, or by the whim of some long-dead Oriental despot, but… in a city which… had regarded itself as the Citadel of Civilization.

This is perhaps a revealing view into Horne’s mind. I find this quotation to be part of Horne’s writing style, the type of thing written by an English “Sir” such as Horne.

It’s interesting to me that this penchant for veering off into (frequently uncomfortable) tangents also causes Horne to write some of his *best* work, in addition to the type of quote above. I was particularly hooked by the introductory chapters, which introduce the characters and forces of the conflict through a description of the 1867 World’s Fair. Horne takes a moment to deliver some fantastic prose that will probably stick in my mind for years:

Within just three years of the closing-down of the Great Exhibition, badly beaten French soldiers would be encamped upon the Champs-de-Mars; la ville lumière (City of Lights) besieged by that amiable, courteous King of Prussia, her lights extinguished through lack of fuel, her epicurean populace reduced to a diet of rats. A few months more, and that same king would be crowned emperor over the prostrate body of his former host’s fallen Empire; his coronation followed by one of the harshest peace settlements ever imposed by one European state upon another.

I’m not quite sure how the end this review, other than by saying that I’ll be thinking about this book for quite a while. In a lot of ways, that’s a major endorsement. This book delivers a factual and thematic lens for understanding the influences which led up to the 1870-1871 “débâcle” and the conflicts which emerged from it, as well as some… “flair”, I’ll call it.

[Debbie Robson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a bit of a scout around before I bought The Fall of Paris by Alistair Horne but this book suited my needs exactly. Years ago when I started my trilogy I decided to kill off my main character’s (secret) grandfather during the commune of 1871. But this year as I have done more research, particularly on the life of Mary Cassatt, I realised I would have to rethink my French character’s life and death.
I needed a book that would succinctly look at both the siege of Paris and the rise of the Paris Commune. Horne does this in easy to read prose. The beauty of having a kindle edition is how easy it is to search for things. I quickly discovered that Tommy Bowles (the grandfather of the Mitford sisters) was a lively correspondent for the Morning Post and I read all excerpts that Horne had chosen. Through this book I was able to hone down my storyline to a Garde Mobile in 1870 rather than a Communard in 1871. This is a must read for anyone interested in the history of Paris during those turbulent years.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doesn't measure up to The Guns of August, so my comparison is probably unfair coming right after I read that classic. Felt like Horne got too bogged down in color and details he dug up, so much so that I skimmed the actual battles of Bloody Week because I just wanted to see the end already.

[Renato · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really exhaustive volume on the subject. It opens on a light note with the Exposition Universelle of 1867, where the Second Empire entertained foreign dignitaries and emperors with the degree of pomp it was known for, and ends with a bitter premonition of far greater and bloodier wars in the next century. Everything is well documented, also thanks to the memoirs and diaries kept by British and American expats, and several telling anecdotes are presented to the reader. All events are described in details and most of the main characters have background histories presented when they enter the scene. All in all a bit of a ponderous reading, with its endless twirl of French politicians and military leaders and its continuous references to Paris geography (which is understandable as Paris' sociodemographics was intertwined with its geography), a knowledge Horne takes for granted and which i am unfortunately lacking. On a personal note, reading the book feels like a witnessing a deadly avalanche coming down: monumental mistakes cause events to set in motion slowly at first, only to get bigger and bloodier, more fundamental judgment errors are made causing grief and destruction to go down a downward spiral, ever increasing until the bitter, catastrophic end.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The Fall of Paris” while focused on the long siege of Paris in the winter of 1870-1871, then on the rise and fall of the Commune which resulted, is decidedly Francocentric with little attention paid to the Prussians or to the general balance of power in Europe. Setting the mood and descriptions of quotidian detail seem to be Horne's primary objective, followed closely by a brisk, almost novelized story, with analysis a distant third.
Consequently, it is an excellent introduction to the subject and the reader will come away knowing who did what and when and will have a image of the whole affair, but will not gain any theoretical insights.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduces a chunk of history I've never heard mentioned or alluded to, never mind taught in schools. I understand a lot more about the backdrop leading to WW1 now than I did before... and I've still got the 40 years between Prussia's victory over France & the outbreak of the First World War to read up on.

While I can vaguely see why the Paris commune's failure would radicalize some socialists, I'm not sure why anyone would bother trading one set of bastards for another (then again, I'm speaking from what would be a bourgeois luxury of choice).

I'm going to have to add this book to my library: there's much more to be learned from it -- I'll be going back to it in a few years.

[William Dearth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave this book five stars not so much for the quality of the writing but for the content. This is a very sad and disturbing account of a social catastrophe that rivals the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the 900 day siege of Leningrad starting in 1941. The role of women is particularly interesting in the scope of their brutality that reminds one of women's role during the French Reign of Terror in 1793.

This book does qualify as a "page turner" but for me, Horne's style is a touch awkward at times. From a historical perspective though it qualifies as required reading.

[Raja · Rating 2 out of 5]

I added this book to my shelf long ago, on the mistaken impression that it described the real events that were the basis for Les Miserables. Once I realized, three quarters of the way through, that this was not so, my desire to keep slogging through the endless litany of inept French zealots and the British author's evident contempt for the lot of them was vastly diminished, until the book itself dropped from my hands and I could go no further.

[Sharilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Currently reading. A nice readable history of Paris. I'm really enjoying this.

[Alison]

My love of Paris lead me to this beat up paperback at the English bookstore in Toulouse...

[Timons Esaias · Rating 4 out of 5]

My opening words aren't about the writing of the book, but about how badly printed this version is. Penguin editions are generally reliable, in my long experience, but this Penguin UK (printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd) is printed on soft, unpolished slightly gray paper, probably too absorbent, and all the letters are too thick and dark, and the chapter-head block print reproductions are smears of black. In a few spots, a line of type seems to have been slightly shorter than the rest (loose in the chase) and only those lines are easily readable. The text is probably five stars, but the reading experience must exert a penalty.

I was hoping for a clear, readable narration of the events and their context, and that is exactly what this book provides, with a couple of non-crucial exceptions. It starts with the Great Exhibition of Paris in 1867, which ironically sets the scene and context. (Many of the people who will be in Paris for the Siege, notably the Prussians, are there in 1867.) We then get the European situation, followed by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, an efficient description thereof (but no maps), and Paris is invested by page 60. The first siege (Prussians vs. Paris) lasts until page 244, and then the Prussians withdraw a bit, occupying the eastern fortresses. The last 187 pages involve the revolt of Paris and the second siege (French vs. Paris), the famous Paris Commune. I very much felt that this was a proper proportion.

The narrative relies on the papers of the logical observers (Goncourt, Washburne, Child, Daudet), who tend to be the go-to sources in any discussion of the period. They are that for a reason, and I plan to read Michael Hill's version of the relevant Washburne papers in the coming weeks. But there are scores of other sources in here, and the book has a good ratio of summarizing narrative to direct quotations. There are some illustrations other than the smears at the top of chapters, printed on white slick paper, and clear. Would that the five maps (4 quarter-Paris maps, and one of the Great Sortie) had been similarly printed. They are mushy and only partly legible.

This brings up a rant that applies to almost all history books printed since 1960. This household is heavily equipped with detailed maps of countries and cities from various eras. None of the airplanes, trains or cars I've traveled in has ever been. Nor coffee shops where much of my reading is done. If you are a writer or publisher, putting out a book of history that mentions place names, then INCLUDE THE APPROPRIATE FRIGGIN' MAPS, AND MAKE SURE THE FRIGGIN' PLACE NAMES ARE ON THE FRIGGIN' MAPS.

Don't make me come after you.

Reading this book during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, and watching the citizenry and the politicians stupidly misbehaving in the news, then reading it in the book, was enlightening. And depressing. I did admire the Aftermath section, and its clear notes about the lessons that contemporary and later revolutionaries (Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin) took from the Commune. I suspect there might have been a similar root to the actions of right-wing revolutionaries, but it's not pursued.

The whole episode is an object lesson on what happens when the government loses track of reality, and fails to effectively govern, and the factions of the nation all want to rule, but decline to actually govern.

The best lines of the book are these: "On the evening of the 27th, the noise had seemed particularly 'desperate', like 'a great ship in distress, furiously firing off its maroons'. The simile reminded him of the wreck of a ship filled with Italian mimes, which he had once seen from Bastia some ten years earlier. He could not help comparing the last moments of the Commune to the drowning of wretched clowns and harlequins off the rocks of Corsica... "

It would have been nice to have an endpaper timeline, to avoid losing track during episodes where the narrative shifts back and forth.

An oddity, especially clear during the week of the final assault of the French government troops, is that Horne mostly just skips a discussion of what happened at night. He jumps from evening of one day to morning of the next, even though there must have been fighting, must have been troop movements, must have been more meetings than it seems from his story.

Bottom line: if you want a good, balanced history of the Siege and the Commune, this'll do nicely. May luck bring you a better-printed copy.

[Peter Corrigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the other two in Alistair Horne's superb trilogy in French history many years ago but of course this should have been first, though it was actually written second (1965), after 'The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916' (1963). But it was worth the long wait for several reasons. I had this sitting around and while watching the current events in the CHAZ or the CHOP or whatever it was called, it dredged up thoughts of previous attempts at leftist utopias. The Paris Commune of 1870-71 being one of the great examples of an early attempt in 'modern' history. These events emerged from the bitter Franco-Prussian war which is necessarily covered in modest but very interesting detail to set the stage. For a much more detailed treatment of that conflict Michael Howard's excellent book (1961) is cited frequently. He also goes into some detail on the Siege of Paris and some of the amazing stories that ensued from it. Perhaps most notably the daring saga of the hot-air balloons which trafficked messages out (very few if any in) of Paris over the Prussian lines. Eventually the French lose the war, Louis-Napoleon is deposed, the Second Empire toppled. In some ways the real war starts then as out of the defeat emerge the Parisian Socialist government (to be known forever as the 'Commune') is formed. Consisting of a highly uneven group of leftists and other shady or just opportunistic characters, the Commune seeks of course to overthrow many central pillars of French society (some that certainly needed some adjustment). An early 'manifesto' issued by Commune is interesting in light of today's news, as it calls for, among other things, the suppression of the Police. Destruction or subversion of the police is a pillar of modern revolutionary movements. There are almost too many names to even begin going down the list in this book and their various moments of incandescence and influence and most have faded into obscurity (as do we all) but Horne does a superb job of bringing to life the characters, ideas and highlights (and many more lowlights) of life in the Commune. Maybe you see some names on a placard or street in Paris today. The forces of 'reaction', the center and right of French thought, gather forces near Versailles and lay siege to Paris yet again (the Prussians remained to the east). The savagery with which this short Civil War was conducted makes our own look like a Sunday picnic. Paris itself was badly damaged, far more than in the preceding war, as the Prussians never stormed the city. The Louvre and Notre Dame barely escaped destruction. There were deep antecedents in French history contributing to the ferocity; of course the French Revolution (still only 80 years or so in the past), but also uprisings in 1830, 1848 and I think 1851. All of them emerged from the deep left-right fissure in French society (workers v. bourgeoisie, royalty v. 'democracy', rich v poor--pick your pairing). The violence of those uprising and their suppression deepened existing divisions and resentments on both sides, adding to the particular barbarity of the Commune itself and it's even more savage suppression. Many hundreds (by the Commune) and thousands (by the Thiers-led government) were executed, often summarily. Altogether this is a fascinating and rather even-handed look at a critical moment in French and even world history. With all you hear today about the ascent of Marxist ideologies, here is Karl Marx himself on the sidelines (in London) watching and cheering on the events. His future son-in-law was a participant in Paris and Marx wrote an important pamphlet right after the fall of the Commune 'The Civil War in France', in which he apparently distilled many of the lessons for incorporation into the ideology he espoused. Lenin too was a serious student of the Commune and took lessons from it to heart in the ruthless conduct of the Bolshevik Revolution.

[Adam Glantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

As history, the story this account of the Franco-Prussian War and its aftermath seeks to tell is one of origins. Contrasting with the residual Congress of Vienna-type order of Louis-Napoleon's Exhibition, the Siege of Paris and the Commune transform the world into one of Great Power competition, culminating in two World Wars, and revolutionary Communism, which reached its most ruthless apogee under Stalin.

But on the face of it, prior to the embedded historical analysis, Alistair Horn's work is about hubris. France, the bearer of a cutting edge civilization in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, went to war in 1870 without seeing the need for planning or organization. Its elites were apparently satisfied to put their destiny in the hands of lesser military men with little drive, imagination, or initiative. And its strategic ace in the hole was widely seen to be the levee en masse, with few apparently imagining that it might not work in the technological world of the late 1800s as well as it did in the one of the 1700s.

In a similar vein, the Commune, though identified by Marx and Lenin as the social wave of the future, was in some ways conservative and backward looking: it aped the forms and styles of the 1792 Revolution, as though these alone could magically right all wrongs, socioeconomic and national. Its putative democratic and inclusive character were contradicted by its naked assertion of the primacy of Paris over the majority of the French people.

This is not to say that anyone else looks particular good here. During the war, the supposedly brilliant Prussian general staff made serious errors and were only saved by the fact that the French made worse errors. Perhaps worst of all was Bismarck's uncharacteristically short-sighted spitefulness, which set the stage for future wars between France and Germany. And as for the Commune, its extremism was more than matched (and in fact: catalyzed) by the excessive vengeance of Thiers and his forces in Versailles.

But history doesn't remember these factors as well as others, and it remembers nothing so well as Marx's interpretation of the Commune as the first example of revolutionary socialism in history. In that respect, Horn's account is a salutary corrective in revealing the human story behind the future symbolism.

[Ethan S · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first book in Alistair Horne’s trilogy about the conflict between Germany and France, followed by his book on Verdun 1916 and the fall of Paris in 1940. An excellent history covering the siege of Paris at the end of the Franco-Prussian was and the following Commune of Paris that was ruthlessly put down by the Versailles government. Horne is a fantastic historian, and the events covered are fascinating. It does help to have some knowledge of the Franco-Prussian war leading to this as his focus is mostly on the end of the conflict and the resulting Commune of Paris.
My only gripe, which is a small one but also carriers through his other work it Horne’s refusal to translate French into English throughout the book, anything less than a sentence and he just presents it in the original French, leaving a non French speaker to have to look up a translation or guess at the meaning through context. This is a small complaint but I have the same one of his Verdun 1916 book. Other than that it’s an extremely readable history, covering a period not well known but momentous in the after effects, heavily influencing the following half decade of history. The defeat and humiliation of France by a newly powerful Germany can be said to have lead directly to the environment that allowed WWI to happen, and the Commune was extremely influential on both Marx and more importantly Lenin and how he would takes the lessons learned and use them when the opportunity for revolution in Russia came some 40 odd years later. Highly recommended.