March 18: Today is the anniversary of the declaration of the Paris Commune in 1871.

Napoleon III having a conversation with Bismarck after being captured in the Battle of Sedan (1878 painting by Wilhelm Camphausen)

After the historic humiliation of the French defeat in the Battle of Sedan where Otto von Bismarck of Prussia put Emperor Napoleon III, and more than 100,000 French soldiers as prisoners of war, Paris politicians tried to keep French dignity without success.

"The Paris Commune" was a socialist government that ruled Paris between March 18 and May 28, 1871 (two months and 10 days). Six months before, France was humiliated by the Prussian Army at the Battle of Sedan, when the second French Emperor, Napoleón III, was captured along with more than 100,000 French soldiers, and occupied Paris.

Two French army generals were murdered by Commune´s soldiers which led to a “Bloody Week”.

Barricaded the Rue Voltaire, after his capture by normal army during the "Bloody Week".

"The “Bloody Week" began after the murder of two Generals of the French army by the Guardians of the Commune passed the line of tolerance Parisians. The ideas of l Commune were taken from the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels, for the Revolution of 1848.

“Insurrection de Paris, La Delivrance", an 1871 lithograph portraying the end of the Paris Commune. (Image by Krause, Johansen

Radical deputies and Republicans in the French National Assembly, led by Leon Gambetta, proclaimed the new French Republic in the Hotel de Ville, and formed a National Government Defense Army, while they were surrounded by victorious Prussian troops, who came to Paris but found a Parisian sociopolitical process as an entertainment.

Adolphe Tiers he served initially as Head of State   From 1871 to 1873 (effectively a provisional President of France), then President. He lost power in 1873 to Patrice de Mac-Mahon, Duke of Magenta. 

The Commune was the growing discontent of the Parisian workers. The revolutions of 1830 and 1848 had left the idea of ​​socialism among the middle classes and industrial workers.

Paris ablaze during The Bloody Week, the final days of the Paris Commune, 21–28 May 1871

The new French parliament elected historian Adolphe Thiers, 74 years of age, as chief executive of the French Republic who managed to restore order.