OUR PARISIENNES--SUSPENSION OF ARMS FOR THE EVACUATION OF
NEUILLY--THE ARMY OF VERSAILLES AND THAT OF PARIS.
The glorious flame of Paris still hid these failings. One must have been
enkindled by it to describe it. Beside it the Communard journals, in
spite of their romanticism, show pale and dull. It is true the _mise en
scene_ was unpretending. In the streets, in the silent boulevards, a
battalion of a hundred men setting out for the battle or returning from
it; a woman who follows, a passer-by who applauds--that is all. But it
is the drama of the Revolution, simple and gigantic as a drama of
AEschylus.
The commander in his _vareuse_, dusty, his silver lace singed, his men
greyheads or youths, the veterans of June 1848 and the pupils of March,
the son often marching by the side of the father.[124]
This woman, who salutes or accompanies them, she is the true Parisienne.
The unclean androgyne, born in the mire of the Empire, the madonna of
the pornographers, the Dumas fils and the Feydeaux, has followed her
patrons to Versailles or works the Prussian mine at St. Denis. She, who
is now uppermost, is the Parisienne, strong, devoted, tragic, knowing
how to die as she loves. A helpmeet in labour, she will also be an
associate in the death-struggle. A formidable equality this to oppose to
the bourgeoisie. The proletarian is doubly strong--one heart and four
hands. On the 24th of March a Federal addressed these noble words to the
bourgeois battalions of the first arrondissement, making them drop
their arms: "Believe me, you cannot hold out; your wives are all in
tears, and ours do not weep."
She does not keep back her husband.[125] On the contrary, she urges him
to battle, carries him his linen and his soup, as she had before done to
his workshop. Many would not return, but took up arms. At the plateau de
Chatillon they were the last to stand the fire. The _cantinieres_,
simply dressed as workwomen, not fancy costumes, fell by dozens. On the
3rd April, at Meudon, the Citoyenne Lachaise, _cantiniere_ of the 66th
battalion, remained the whole day in the field of battle, tending the
wounded, alone, without a doctor.
If they return, it is to call to arms. Having formed a central committee
at the mairie of the tenth arrondissement, they issued fiery
proclamations: "We must conquer or die. You who say, 'What matters the
triumph of our cause if I must lose those I love?' know that the only
means of saving those who are dear to you is to throw yourselves into
the struggle." Their committees multiplied. They offered themselves to
the Commune, demanding arms, posts of danger, and complaining of the
cowards who swerved from their duty.[126] Madame Andre Leo, with her
eloquent pen, explained the meaning of the Commune, summoned the
delegate at the War Office to avail himself of the "holy fever that
burns in the hearts of the women." A young Russian lady, of noble
birth, educated, beautiful, rich, called Demitrieff, was the Theroigne
de Mericourt of this Revolution. The proletarian character of the
Commune was embodied in Louise Michel, a teacher in the seventeenth
arrondissement. Gentle and patient with the little children, who adored
her, in the cause of the people the mother became a lioness. She had
organised a corps of ambulance nurses, who tended the wounded even under
fire. There they suffered no rivals. They also went to the hospitals to
save their beloved comrades from the harsh nuns; and the eyes of the
dying brightened at the murmur of those gentle voices that spoke to them
of the Republic and of hope.
In this contest of devotion the children fought with men and women. The
Versaillese, victorious, took 660 of them, and many perished in the
battle of the streets. Thousands served during the siege. They followed
the battalions to the trenches, in the forts, especially clinging to the
cannon. Some gunners of the Porte-Maillot were boys of from thirteen to
fourteen years old. Unsheltered, in the open country, they performed
exploits of mad heroism.[127]
This Parisian flame radiated beyond the enceinte. The municipalities of
Sceaux and St. Denis united at Vincennes to protest against the
bombardment, revindicate the municipal franchises and the establishment
of the Republic. Its heat was even felt in the provinces.
They began to believe Paris was impregnable, and laughed much at the
despatches of M. Thiers, saying on the 3rd April, "This day is decisive
of the fate of the insurrection;" on the 4th, "The insurgents have
to-day suffered a decisive defeat;" on the 7th, "This day is decisive;"
on the 11th, "Irresistible means are being prepared at Versailles;" on
the 12th, "We expect the decisive moment." And despite so many decisive
successes and irresistible means, the Versaillese army was all the while
baffled at our advanced posts. Its only decisive victories were against
the houses of the enceinte and the suburbs.
The neighbourhood of the Porte-Maillot, the Avenue de la Grande Armee,
and the Ternes were continually lighting up with conflagrations.
Asnieres and Levallois were filling with ruins, the inhabitants of
Neuilly starving in their cellars. The Versaillese threw against these
points alone 1500 shells a day; and yet M. Thiers wrote to his prefects,
"If a few cannon-shots are heard, it is not the act of the Government,
but of a few insurgents trying to make us believe they are fighting,
while they hardly dare show themselves."
The Commune assisted the bombarded people of Paris, but could do nothing
for those of Neuilly, caught between two fires. A cry of pity went up
from the whole press. All the journals demanded an armistice for the
evacuation of Neuilly; the Freemasons and the _Ligue des Droits de
Paris_ interposed. With much trouble, for the generals did not want an
armistice, the delegates got a suspension of arms for eight hours. The
Council appointed five of its members to receive the bombarded people;
the municipalities prepared them an asylum, and some of the women's
committees left Paris to assist them.
On the 25th, at nine o'clock in the morning, the cannon from the
Porte-Maillot to Asnieres were silent. Thousands of Parisians went to
visit the ruins of the Avenue and the Porte-Maillot, a mortar of earth,
granite, and fragments of shells; stood still, deeply moved, before the
artillerists leaning on their famous pieces, and then dispersed all over
Neuilly. The little town, once so coquettish, displayed in the bright
rays of the sun its shattered houses. At the limits agreed upon were two
barriers, one of soldiers of the line, the other of Federals, separated
from each other by an interval of about twenty yards. The Versaillese,
chosen from amongst their most reliable troops, were watched by officers
with hangdog looks. The Parisians, good fellows, approached the
soldiers, speaking to them. The officers immediately ran up shouting
furiously. When a soldier gave a polite answer to two ladies, an officer
threw himself upon him, tore away his musket, and pointing the bayonet
at the Parisiennes, cried, "This is how one speaks to them." Some
persons having crossed the boundary marked out were taken prisoners.
Still five o'clock struck without any massacre having occurred. The
Avenue grew empty. Each Parisian on returning home carried his sack of
earth to the fortifications of the Porte-Maillot, which found themselves
re-established as if by magic.
In the evening the Versaillese again opened fire. It had not ceased
against the forts of the south. That same day the enemy unmasked on this
side the batteries he had been constructing for a fortnight,--the first
part of the plan of General Thiers.
He had on the 6th placed all the troops under the command of that
MacMahon, his stains of Sedan still upon him. The army at this time was
46,000 strong, for the most part the residuum of depots, incapable of
any serious action. To reinforce it and obtain soldiers, M. Thiers had
sent Jules Favre whining to Bismarck. The Prussians had set free 60,000
prisoners on harsher conditions of peace, and authorised his gossip
Thiers to augment to 130,000 men the number of soldiers round Paris,
which, according to the preliminaries of peace, were not to have
exceeded 40,000 men. On the 25th April the Versaillese army comprised
five corps, two of them, those of Douai and Clinchant, composed of the
released prisoners from Germany and a reserve commanded by Vinoy, all in
all 110,000 men. It increased to 170,000 receiving rations, of whom
130,000 were combatants. M. Thiers displayed real ability in setting it
against Paris. The soldiers were well fed, well dressed, severely
overlooked; discipline was re-established. There occurred mysterious
disappearances of officers guilty of having given utterance to their
horror at this fratricidal war. Still this was not yet the army for an
attack, the men always scampering away before a steady resistance.
Despite official brag, the generals only counted upon the artillery, to
which they owed the successes of Courbevoie and of Asnieres. Paris was
only to be overcome by fire.
As during the first siege, Paris was literally hemmed in by bayonets,
but this time half-foreign, half-French. The German army, forming a
semi-circle from the Marne to St. Denis, occupying the forts of the east
and of the north; the Versaillese army, closing the circle from St.
Denis to Villeneuve St. Georges, mistress only of Mont-Valerien. The
latter could then only attack the Commune by the west and south. The
Federals had then the five forts of Ivry, Bicetre, Montrouge, Vanves,
and Issy to defend themselves, with the trenches and the advanced posts
that united them to each other, and the principal villages, Neuilly,
Asnieres, and St. Ouen.
The vulnerable point of the enceinte facing the Versaillese was on the
south-west, the salient of the Point du Jour, defended by the fort of
Issy. Sufficiently covered on the right by the park, the castle of Issy
and a trench uniting it to the Seine, commanded by our gunboats, this
fort was overtopped in front and on the left by the heights of Bellevue,
Meudon, and Chatillon. M. Thiers armed them with siege pieces which he
had sent from Toulon, Cherbourg, Douai, Lyons, and Besancon--293
ordnance pieces--and their effect was such that from the first days the
fort of Issy was shaken. General Cissey, charged with the command of
these operations, immediately commenced manoeuvring.
To crush the fort of Issy and that of Vanves, which supported it, then
to force the Point du Jour, whence the troops could deploy into Paris,
such was M. Thiers' plan. The only object of the operations from St.
Ouen to Neuilly was to prevent our attack by Courbevoie.
What forces and what plan did the Commune oppose?
The returns stated about 96,000 men and 4000 officers for the active
National Guard; for the reserve, 100,000 men and 3500 officers.[128]
Thirty-six free corps claimed to number 3450 men. All deductions made,
60,000 combatants might have been obtained had they known how to set
about it. But the weakness of the Council, the difficulty of supervision
and repression, allowed the less brave and those who did not stand in
need of pay, to shirk all control. Many contrived to limit their
services to the interior of Paris. Thus for want of order the effective
forces remained very weak, and the line from St. Ouen to Ivry was never
held by more than 15,000 or 16,000 Federals.
The cavalry existed only on paper. There were only 500 horses to drag
the guns or the waggons and to mount the officers and estafettes. The
engineer department remained in a rudimentary state, the finest decrees
notwithstanding. Of the 1200 cannon possessed by Paris, only 200 were
utilised. There were never more than 500 artillerists, while the returns
stated 2500.
Dombrowski occupied the bridge of Asnieres, Levallois, and Neuilly with
4000 or 5000 men at the utmost.[129] To protect his positions he had at
Clichy and Asnieres about thirty ordnance pieces and two ironclad
railway carriages, which from the 15th April to the 22nd May, even after
the entry of the Versaillese, did not cease running along the lines; at
Levallois, a dozen pieces. The ramparts of the north assisted him, and
the valiant Porte-Maillot covered him at Neuilly.
On the left bank, from Issy to Ivry, in the forts, the villages, and the
trenches, there were 10,000 to 11,000 Federals. The fort of Issy
contained on an average 600 men and 50 pieces of 7 and 12 centimetres,
of which two-thirds were inactive. The bastions 72 and 73 relieved him a
little, aided by four ironclad locomotives established on the viaduct of
the Point du Jour. Underneath, the gunboats, re-armed, fired on
Breteuil, Sevres, Brimborion, even daring to push as far as Chatillon,
and, unsheltered, cannonaded Meudon. A few hundred tirailleurs occupied
the park and the castle of Issy, the Moulineaux, Le Val, and the
trenches which united the fort of Issy to that of Vanves. This latter,
exposed like Issy, valiantly supported its efforts with a garrison of
500 men and about 20 cannon. The bastions of the enceinte supported it
very little.
The fort of Montrouge, with 350 men and 10 to 15 ordnance pieces, had
only to support the fort of Vanves. That of Bicetre, provided with 500
men and 20 pieces, had to fire at objects hidden from its view. Three
considerable redoubts protected it--the Hautes Bruyeres, with 500 men
and 20 pieces; the Moulin Saquet, with 700 men and about 14 pieces; and
Villejuif, with 300 men and a few howitzers. At the extreme left, the
fort of Ivry and its dependencies had 500 men and about 400 pieces. The
intermediate villages, Gentilly, Cachan, and Arcueil, were occupied by
2000 to 2500 Federals.
The nominal command of the forts of the south, first confided to Eudes,
assisted by an ex-officer of Garibaldi, La Cecilia, on the 20th passed
into the hands of the Alsatian Wetzel, an officer of the army of the
Loire. From his headquarters of Issy he was to superintend the trenches
of Issy and of Vanves and the defence of the forts. In reality, their
commanders, who often changed, did just as they pleased.
The command, from Issy to Arcueil was, towards the middle of April,
entrusted to General Wroblewski, one of the best officers of the Polish
insurrection, young, an adept in military science, brave, methodical,
and shrewd, turning everybody and everything to account; an excellent
chief for young troops.[130]
All these general officers never received but one order: "Defend
yourselves." As to a general plan, there never was one. Neither Cluseret
nor Rossel held councils of war.
The men were also abandoned to themselves, being neither cared for nor
controlled. Scarcely any, if any, relieving of the troops under fire
ever took place. The whole strain fell upon the same men. Certain
battalions remained twenty, thirty days in the trenches, while others
were continually kept in reserve. If some men grew so inured to fire
that they refused to return home, others were discouraged, came to show
their clothes covered with vermin and asked for rest. The generals were
obliged to retain them, having no one to put in their places.
This carelessness soon destroyed all discipline. The brave wanted to
rely only upon themselves, and the others slunk from the service. The
officers did the same, some leaving their posts to assist the fight at a
contiguous place, others returning to the town. The court-martial
sentenced a few of them very severely. The Council quashed the
sentences, and commuted one condemnation to death to three years'
imprisonment.
As they recoiled from rigour, from regular war discipline, they ought to
have changed their method and their tactics. But the Council was now
even less capable of showing will of its own than on the first day. It
always lamented that things were at a stand-still, but did not know how
to set them going. On the 26th, the military commission, declaring that
decrees and orders remained a dead letter, charged the municipalities,
the Central Committee, and the _chefs-de-legions_ with the
reorganisation of the National Guard. Not one of these mechanisms
functioned methodically; the Council had not even thought of organising
Paris by sections; the Central Committee intrigued; the _chefs de
legions_ were agitated; certain members of the Council and generals
dreamt of a military dictatorship. In the midst of this fatal wrestling,
the Council discussed during several sittings whether the pawn-tickets
to be given back gratuitously to their owners should amount to twenty or
thirty francs, and whether the _Officiel_ should be sold for five
centimes.
Towards the end of April, no observer of any perspicacity could fail to
see that the defence had become hopeless. In Paris, active and devoted
men exhausted their strength in enervating struggles with the bureaux,
the committees, the sub-committees, and the thousand pretentious rival
administrations, often losing a whole day in order to obtain possession
of a single cannon. At the ramparts, some artillerists riddled the line
of Versailles, and, asking for nothing but bread and iron, stood to
their pieces until torn away by shells. The forts, their casemates
staved in, their embrasures destroyed, lustily answered the fire from
the heights. Brave skirmishers, unprotected, surprised the line-soldiers
in their lurking-places. All this devotion and dazzling heroism were
spent in vain, like the steam of an engine escaping through hundreds of
issues.
FOOTNOTES:
[124] Appendix IV.
[125] And what sublime faith in their naivete! We heard in an omnibus
two women on their return from the trenches. The one wept; the other
said to her, "Do not distress yourself; our husbands will come back. And
then the Commune has promised to take care of us and of our children.
But no! it is impossible they should be killed in defending so good a
cause. Besides I would rather have my husband dead than in the hands of
the Versaillese."
[126] "My heart bleeds to see that only those ready to volunteer engage
in the combat. This is not, citizen delegate, a denunciation; far from
me such a thought; but I fear lest the weakness of the members of the
Commune should cause our great projects for the future to miscarry."
This heroic letter is taken from a book, _Le Fond de la Societe sous la
Commune_, which contains documents found by the army in different
mairies and administrations. The work in general is an odious
caricature, of which the author himself, a Joseph Prudhomme, in the
shape of a bloodhound, is certainly the most ridiculous trait.
[127] Appendix V.
[128] Very approximate numbers. The return of the _Officiel_ of the 6th
May is very incomplete. In general, these statements were erroneous,
fictitious, especially after the administration of Meyer.
[129] The figures which I give have been carefully verified _de visu_,
first during the struggle, afterwards with generals, superior officers,
and functionaries of the War Office. General Appert has drawn up merely
fantastic returns. He has created imaginary brigades, manufactured
effective returns by counting as regular combatants all men who, at any
time, might have been told off for active service, and constantly
duplicated the items of his accounts. He has thus contrived to give more
than 20,000 men to Dombrowski, and as much as 50,000 to the three
commanders--quite ridiculous figures. His report swarms with mistakes as
to names and functions; he does not even know the names of certain
general commanders. It possesses no kind of historical value.
[130] A member of the Council discovered him, and presented him at the
War Office, where he explained his ideas: "But," it was remarked to him,
"this is word for word what Felix Pyat does not cease saying to us." "A
few days ago," answered Wroblewski, "I sent Felix Pyat a memorandum."
Rossel went to Pyat's bureau, and there found the memorandum. For
several days this trickster had been making capital of the ideas of
Wroblewski without the least allusion to their author, and astounding
the Commission by his common sense and technical knowledge.