Participation of women in the armed defense of the revolutionary Paris Commune (1871) against troops of the national French government, and the resulting arrest, imprisonment, deportation, exile, and death of thousands of women.
The Paris Commune, an insurrection waged by the lower classes of Paris, lasted from March 18 to May 28, 1871, following the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). The national government, which had declared a Republic in September 1870, had fled to Bordeaux. The four-and-a-half-month Prussian siege of Paris had further radicalized and organized the lower classes of Paris as they stood alone against the enemy. Early in the morning on March 18 after the fighting with Prussia had ended, women discovered that French troops were attempting to remove cannon purchased and used by Parisians to defend the city against the Prussians. Rousing citizens to the scene, the women and Paris National Guard personnel fraternized with government forces, resulting in their retreat. Later the same day, Parisians executed two of the rival military leaders, resulting in heightened tensions between Paris and the national government, now seated at Versailles and led by Adolph Thiers. Civil war formally erupted on April 3 when government troops began bombing the city and its environs; during the last week of May, known as the "Bloody Week," Versailles troops entered the city. Street fighting and outright massacres ensued, resulting in the deaths of 30,000 Parisians. Women supported, fought, and died in this revolution from the early morning hours of March 18 through its end on May 28.
During the Commune, women fought alongside men, served in front line ambulance corps, and endured all the hardships of battle. Some received public commendations in newspapers, often signed by the men from their battalions; the photographs of quite a few survive, often taken after their sentencing at military trials following the defeat of the Commune. One communard, using the male pseudonym Andre Leo, published her views in the Commune newspaper, La Sociable. Writing to the military leader of Commune forces on May 8, she declared,Do you know, General Dombrowski, how the [Paris Commune] was made? By the women . . . the necessity of taking one’s part in the Revolution, is the liberty and responsibility of every human being, with no limit except common law, without any privilege of race, or of sex.
Women such as Louise Michel, Hortense David, Christine D’argent, Victorine Rouchy, and Alix Payen fought, cared for the wounded, and left evidence of their participation in the historical record.
Observers also drew illustrations of dozens of women dressed in military attire at rifle practice, marching drills, and aboard cannon boats in the Seine. Although the minister of war for the Commune declared he did not want women in the ranks, they came anyway, serving in wide-ranging capacities and generally demanding to be paid. Many served as canteen and ambulance workers in the city and on the battlefield, discovering that distinctions between those jobs and armed combat existed only theoretically. In at least some cases, canteen workers entering combat with their National Guard units officially began receiving guns as of April 7, only days after bombardment began; many others argued that, as members of a National Guard unit, they had the right, even the obligation, to bear arms for personal and Commune defense.
In the closing days of the Commune, when government troops fought in the Paris streets against barricaded communards, women regularly challenged the courage of their male compatriots, threatening them with death, replacement by women, or both—if they did not fight well. In one case, Nathalie Lemel threatened Commune troops at a barricade, calling them cowards, telling them that if they did not defend the barricade well, the women would—and they eventually did. At her arrest, Lemel and other witnesses reported that she, with hands and lips now blackened with gun powder, had fought for forty-eight hours straight with no food, adding with much contempt, "We are beaten, but not vanquished!"
Women became the targets of attacks by Versailles troops, especially given their association with setting fires to significant buildings in Paris during the last week. Eventually represented as petroleuses, or female arsonists, the truth or falsity of women’s activities became less important than the troops’ impression that hysterical, "unnatural" women and their grimy children lurked around every corner ready to destroy property. This, combined with recurring discoveries that Commune troops behind barricades included women, led Versailles troops vehemently to search out women for arrest, and often, massacre.
Women generally saw their own participation linked to their tenuous economic circumstances, made worse by months of war and siege. They viewed the Commune as an opportunity to receive jobs and equal pay and status with men, which women often demanded as part of this social revolution. The male leadership needed the support and active assistance of women. Therefore they often listened to their demands.
Although women carried weapons and participated in armed combat for many reasons, their actions became linked to a world turned upside down, and violent repression was the response of the enemy. According to Alexandre Dumas, the women communards or fils—to him not truly female—became women "only when dead," when their anatomy alone and not their words or actions determined their categorization. Just as women had "made the revolution" early on and sustained it by their labors, they fought and died for it at its demise.
