Massacre
“METHODIST pastor W. Gibson heard a national guardsman say the next day, ‘Soon we will be crushed!’1 The shelling intensified on 12 April. Five days later, Gibson concluded, ‘It appears, from what has transpired in the Assembly of Versailles, that there are many among the deputies who would be glad to see Paris bombarded and the city burnt to the ground.’ Indeed, by 21 May, Versaillais’s shells had indiscriminately killed hundreds and perhaps thousands of Parisians and destroyed hundreds of buil...dings in neighbourhoods in western and central districts within the reach of army artillery. Ironically many of these quartiers were noteworthy for being against the Commune or at least neutral. The Commune was being pushed into a corner by the might of Thiers’s army, and it seemed increasingly unlikely they would ever recover.2 British resident John Leighton was outraged that the Versaillais, with whom he had a certain class sympathy, were ‘not content with’ battering forts and ramparts and killing not only Communard soldiers, but also ‘women and children, ordinary passers-by [including] unfortunates who were necessarily obliged to venture into the neighbouring streets, for the purpose of buying bread’.MoreLess
Read book Massacre for free
Write Review:
Guest
Read Also
7 / 10
User Reviews: