On October 7, 1870, when the disaster of the Battle of Sedan, during the Franco-Prussian War, the leader Léon Gambetta had to flee Paris in a balloon that was surrounded and besieged by the Prussian army.

Portrait of Léon Gambetta by Léon Bonnat.

The victory in the Battle of Sedan between France and Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Prussia won easily against the bold declaration of war by impetuous Napoleon III (nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte).

Gambetta proclaiming the Republic of France, from the painting by Howard Pyle. 

Napoleon III was put in prison by Prussian troops. So Gambetta quickly requested the deposition of the Emperor Napoleon III, called Législatif Corps and the establishment of a republic in the Hôtel de Ville. Nevertheless, Prussian troops surrounded and blockaded Paris.

Seriously, Gambetta is epic, he flew a besieged Paris on a hot air balloon and gathered an army to fight off the invader.

Léon Gambetta in an act of great ability flees mounted on a balloon inflated with hot air and said: "l'indignation exclut calm him!"

From the air he invited other members of the Government of National Defense to flee Paris and setting up the rule in Tours ... William I of Prussia was crowned as Kaiser of the new German Empire and humiliates the French.

Leon Gambetta left Montmartre in a balloon to raise a resistance army in the provinces to relieve the beleaguered city of Paris, by Pat Nicolle.

October 6: Louis XVI and his family were forced to leave the Palace of Versailles by a mass demonstration of women who went to Versailles to force him to govern from Paris, in 1789.

An illustration of the Women's March on Versailles, 5 October 1789.  Louis XVI had to agree to accompany them back to Paris.

Only a new popular uprising could force the king to accept changes to the French political system, and this actually occurred, spurred by food shortages and rising prices.

The women hailed by onlookers on their way to Versailles: The March of Women to Versailles on the 5th and 6th of October 1789.

Scarcity of bread caused high prices by the chronic shortage of food which was the spark the started the French Revolution. Angry women gathered in the market place known as the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and forced a nearby church to toll its bells continuously.

On October 5, 1789, a crowd of about six thousand women from different social classes: workers, shopkeepers, prostitutes and housewives went to the Palace of Versailles, armed with sticks, spears, and even pistols and muskets, in order to protest to the king to administer the nation from Paris.

The angry attack on Hotel de Ville in Paris, 5 October 1789. The Women's March on Versailles.

The King of France was forced to move to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, and had to accept the Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and decrees affecting the Catholic Church ten days later. The French Revolution was consolidated.

October 5: King Alfonso VII of Leon and Castile recognizes Portugal as a kingdom, on October 5fh 1143.

By the Treaty of Zamora, Portugal gained independence from the Kingdom of León, with the presence of Alfonso I of Portugal and the Pope's representative, Cardinal Guido de Vico. Both kings (cousins) promised lasting peace, despite the fact that bitter relations developed between them.

The Treaty of Zamora (1143) recognized Portuguese independence from the Kingdom of Leon and Castile.

Thanks to the victory of Afonso I of Portugal, in the battle of Ourique in 1139, against Muslims, Afonso I of Portugal won the support of the Archbishop of Braga, who favored the establishment of the new kingdom of Portugal.

The vision of D. Afonso Henriques.

Meanwhile, Alfonso VII of León and Castile regarded the independent ruler of Portugal as nothing but a rebel. Both kingdoms were in conflict during the following years.

"The Miracle of Ourique" by Domingos Sequeira  (1793): Part of Portuguese Reconquista.

Finally, the Treaty of Zamora in 1143 established peace between both kingdoms and the Portuguese independence.

Both kings were busy trying to expel the Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula.

October 4: Today is the anniversary of full French Revolution! On October 4, 1795, after Robespierre was guillotined in July, the royalists and the Jacobins revolted: The 13 Vendémiaire, Year 4, was the name given to the clash between Royal forces and the revolutionaries in Paris.

Paris went into a state of confusion, chaos, and rebellion. Leaders of the National Convention had to ask General Napoleon Bonaparte, who had just arrived from his successful campaign in Egypt, to bring order.

Again they set up the young officer, because they thought that no one was able to stop such a revolt, not even the bravest of political leaders. Napoleon then gave the surprise and reassured order and authority in Paris and throughout France.

For the umpteenth time, Napoleon became a national pride. Corrupt politicians and everyone, absolutely everyone else, even the most prestigious historians, had to keep their words and desires against a young General 26 years of age, who returned victorious from founding five republics and appease Egypt.

Napoleon became a national hero after defeating the Royalist insurrection that had threatened the National Convention and the French Revolution itself. Bonaparte was nicknamed Général Vendémiaire, a title which he later claimed would be his first title of glory.

October 3: Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Philippi in Macedonia, among the triumvirs Mark Antony and Octavian who confronted the murderers of Julius Caesar, Brutus and Cassius.

After the second battle at Philippi, Octavian went back to Rome to get things under control, and Mark Antony headed eastward with the intention of carrying out Julius Caesar's plan to conquer Parthia.  Octavian reached his destination, but Antony was sidetracked.

On October 3, 42 BC, the Roman main conspirators against Julius Caesar were Marcus Junius Brutus and Cassius, who once killing Caesar were to invade the Roman eastern provinces in the Balkans and as far as Syria.

Philippi location

The three leaders who took the Roman power were Lepidus, Antony and Octavius. They formed a triumvirate (system of government by three allied people).

First Battle of Philippi

Marco Emilio Lepidus, with the same name as his father, wanted to outdo his two allies and seized Sicily. There he put his tombstone! Then Antony and Octavian divided the Roman Empire in half. Marco Antonio took the East and so ended up where Cleopatra ruled in Egypt.

The Via Egnatia linked the Aegean and Adriatic seas and connected Rome with its eastern empire.

In the battle of Philippi, the towns of Amphipolis and Apollonia served as supply camps for the Caesareans.

Finally, Octavian defeated Antony's army who committed suicide believing that Cleopatra had committed suicide first. When she learned of the suicide of her lover Marco Antonio, she grabbed one of her poisonous snakes, maybe a cobra which bit one of her breasts was thus was found dead in her quarters.

October 2: Today is the anniversary of the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Syria against the leader of the Christian Crusades, the French Balian d'Ibelin who surrendered to Saladin, on October 2nd, 1187.

After capturing Jerusalem in October 1187, Saladin's civilized act in signing the peace treaty

and saving Christian blood was indeed a pious act.

Saladin ended the first Kingdom of Jerusalem, after 88 years of Crusader governments. European Christians sought revenge with the Third Crusade, led by the legendary Richard the Lionheart, Philip Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa, separately.

After numerous attempts by the Crusaders of Jerusalem to capture Egypt, the great sultan Salah al-Din, called Saladin by Europeans, seized Cairo in 1187.

The defeat Saladin handed the Crusaders meant the end of the first Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Muslims knew the "Crusaders" and the "Franks". Jerusalem had been taken by the Christians in 1099, during the fierce and bloody campaign of the First Crusade, where they massacred Jews, Christians, and even Muslims as well, after Pope Urban II preached about the "conquest of the Holy Land".

After Saladin's victory at the Battle of Hattin, the same Sultan asked the Jews to return to Jerusalem and allowed them rearranged in the Holy Land.

Although the Third Crusade was somewhat successful, he failed to recapture Jerusalem. That led to the signing of the Treaty of Ramla in 1192, whereby Jerusalem will continue under Islamic control, but allowing Christians to make pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

October 1: Today is the anniversary of the installation of the Congress of Vienna in 1814.

Map of Europe, after the Congress of Vienna, 1815: The national boundaries within Europe are set by the Congress of Vienna, 1815.

With the defeat of Napoleon I and send to lifelong exile, the great powers met in Vienna, capital of the Austrian empire, by invitation of Emperor Francis I and his foreign minister, Prince Klemens von Metternich.

Congress of Vienna:  1. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington   2. Joaquim Lobo Silveira, 7th Count of Oriola   3. António de Saldanha da Gama, Count of Porto Santo   4.  Count Carl Löwenhielm   5. Jean-Louis-Paul-François, 5th Duke of Noailles   6. Klemens Wenzel, Prince von Metternich   7. André Dupin   8. Count Karl Robert Nesselrode   9. Pedro de Sousa Holstein, 1st Count of Palmela 10. Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh 11. Emmerich Joseph, Duke of Dalberg12. Baron Johann von Wessenberg 13. Prince Andrey Kirillovich Razumovsky 14. Charles Stewart, 1st Baron Stewart 15. Pedro Gómez Labrador, Marquis of Labrador 16. Richard Le Poer Trench, 2nd Earl of Clancarty 17.    Wacken (Recorder) 18. Friedrich von Gentz (Congress Secretary) 19. Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt 20. William Cathcart, 1st Earl Cathcart 21. Prince Karl August von Hardenberg 22. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord 23. Count Gustav Ernst von Stackelberg

The main negotiating agenda of the Congress was to restore the two basic powers of the old European system: the absolute monarchy and the power of the Church. They also had to redesign the new map of Europe to divide what Napoleon had invaded.

Major Participants In The Congress of Vienna.

The Congress of Vienna is regarded as the most important meeting for peace in the history of international relations until its time. Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 were the referents of the Congress of Vienna where diplomatic negotiation and public international law that had emerged from the Peace of Westphalia and were implemented in European politics.

The philosophy of restoration defended three principles of legitimacy: 1. Return of the throne to its rightful owner who received it from God, before the French Revolution. 2. Balance: an international order led by the great powers in which no country is hegemonic. 3. Intervention: right to intervene in a State affecting international order or violating any of the above principles of order.

Outcome of the Congress of Vienna