Siege of Paris
The Prussians surrounded Paris in September 1870 and starved it into surrender in nineteen weeks. The French emperor had already been captured with an entire army at Sedan on 2 September, and a republic was declared in Paris two days later, refusing to cede an inch of territory or a stone of its fortresses. Moltke's answer was not to storm the strongest fortifications in Europe but to sit down around them with 240,000 men and cut every road and railway. Paris held perhaps two million people and a garrison of regulars, mobiles and National Guard, and the government of national defence tried repeatedly to break out and was beaten each time. Léon Gambetta left by balloon in October to raise armies in the provinces, and some sixty-five other balloons carried mail out; pigeons brought microfilmed replies back in. The city ate its way down the scale as the winter turned severe. Horses first, then dogs, cats and rats sold openly by weight, and finally the animals of the zoo, including the two elephants. The Germans began shelling the city in January at Bismarck's insistence, killing a few hundred people and hardening opinion rather than breaking it. Paris capitulated on 28 January 1871, eleven days after the German Empire was proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. The peace terms, and the National Guard's refusal to be disarmed, produced the Commune in March and a second siege by a French army that killed far more Parisians than the Prussians had.
- Year: 1870 CE
- Category: Military
