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| 1871, Jan. 28 |
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| Paris capitulated. The Parisian population had only eight days of food left. The armistice yielded the forts to the Germans and disarmed the troops within the city. Bismarck also agreed to permit election of a representative assembly to determine whether the war should be continued or peace made. | 1 |
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| Feb. 13 |
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| The National Assembly, elected on Feb. 8, met in Bordeaux. The assembly consisted of a majority of monarchists and conservatives who wanted peace (as opposed to the continued support for the war of the Radical Republicans and Socialists). They elected Adolphe Thiers (Feb. 16) as chief of executive power. | 2 |
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| Feb. 28 |
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| Thiers introduced the terms of a peace treaty negotiated with Bismarck, providing for the cession of Alsace and part of Lorraine and 5 billion francs' indemnity with an army of occupation to remain until the indemnity was paid, and conceded to the German march into Paris (March 1–3) in victory. These negotiations were ratified in the Treaty of Frankfurt (May 10, 1871). | 3 |
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| March–May |
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| THE PARIS COMMUNE. Causes: The Paris Commune represented Parisians' horror at the conservative government under Thiers and the German march into Paris. However, they also reacted to the lifting of the moratoriums on rents and mortgages that had existed in Paris during the war, the arrest of leaders such as Auguste Blanqui, and press censorship. The precipitating incident was the government's attempt to seize the cannon that the Parisians had made during the war. | 4 |
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| March 18 |
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| After troops refused to fire on the crowd defending the cannon, the crowd executed Gen. Lecomte and Gen. Thomas. The troops retired, and Paris came under the control of the Central Committee of the National Guard. | 5 |
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| March 26 |
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| The Communal Assembly was elected and took control of the Commune. The Commune sought to decentralize the French state by enlarging the powers of municipalities, to separate church and state, and to substitute the National Guard for a standing army. Under the assembly, the Commission on Industry and Trade began plans for workers' cooperatives, and Édouard Vaillant, delegate for public instruction, began to lay the framework for a more egalitarian educational system. | 6 |
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| March–April |
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| Provincial communes. The Paris Commune sparked a series of short-lived efforts at establishing communes in other cities, especially in the south of France. These communes dissolved in the face of the army, but they included risings in Marseilles (March 23–April 4) and Lyons (April 30). | 7 |
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| April 5 |
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| Law of hostages. The Commune imprisoned a substantial number of possible political dissidents who were later executed, and created the Committee of Public Safety in April to coordinate the efforts in the civil war. | 8 |
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| May 21–28 |
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| Bloody Week began when the armies of Versailles attacked Paris. Female Communards aided the militiamen of the Commune in these battles. During the last days, about 100 hostages were killed by Communards; the armies of Versailles executed approximately 25,000 Parisians and held another 36,000 prisoners for trial and deportation. | 9 |
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