The Prussian War And The Paris Commune
There have been two critical periods in the story of France in which
history was made at a rate of rapidity rarely equalled in the history of
the world. The first of these was the era of the Revolution and the
Napoleonic regime, which has no parallel among human events in the
rapidity and momentous gravity of its changes. The second was the period
from August, 1870, to the summer of 1871, less than a year in length,
ye
Within that year was fought a great war between France and Germany, in
which the military power of France, in an incredibly brief period, was
utterly overthrown, and that nation left at the mercy of its opponent.
Within the same period the second empire of France came to a sudden and
disastrous end, and a republic, the third in French history, was built
upon its ruins. Simultaneously a new and powerful empire was founded,
that of Germany, the palace at Versailles being the scene of this highly
important change in the political conditions of Europe. During this
period also a political revolution took place in Italy, in consequence
of the French war, and Paris sustained two sieges; the first by the
German army; the second and most bitter by the French themselves,
fighting against a mob of fanatical revolutionists and ending in a
frightful saturnalia of murder, ruin and revenge.
Has there ever been a year in the world's history more crowded with
momentous events? Within that year the political status of France,
Germany, and Italy was transformed, the late emperor of France suddenly
found himself a throneless fugitive, and the people of Paris passed
through an experience unparalleled in the diversified history of that
ancient city. Of all the sieges to which Paris has been subjected, far
the strangest was that in which the scum of the city, miscalled the
commune, fought with tiger-like ferocity against the forces of the
newly-formed republic, filled with the revengeful and murderous spirit
which had inspired the masses in the first revolution.
It is the story of this tragic interlude which we propose here to tell,
premising with a brief resume of the events which led up to it.
Louis Napoleon, posing as Emperor Napoleon III. of France, a position
which he had been enabled to gain through the glamour of the name of his
famous uncle, was infected throughout his reign with the desire to
emulate the deeds of the great Napoleon. He hoped to shine as one of the
military stars of Europe, and was encouraged by the success of the war
which he fomented in Italy. His second effort in this direction was the
invasion of Mexico and the attempt to establish an empire, under his
tutelage, upon American soil. In this he ran counter to the Monroe
Doctrine and the power of the United States and was forced to retire
with his feathers scorched and his prestige sadly diminished.
But what he probably proposed to make the great military triumph of his
reign came in 1870, when, on a flimsy pretence, a misunderstanding which
called only for diplomatic adjustment, he suddenly declared war against
Germany and rashly put his armies into the field to cope with that
powerful rival. Never had there been a more unwise or suicidal
proceeding. In shameful ignorance of the real condition of the army,
which he was made to believe was "five times ready," "ready to the last
gaiter button," he marshalled against the thoroughly prepared military
power of Germany an army ill-organized, ill-supplied, without proper
reserves, and led by commanders of appalling incapacity. Maps and plans
were bad; strategy was an unknown quantity; no study had been made of
the use of the railway in war; almost everything except courage was
lacking, and courage without leadership was hopeless against the
thoroughly drilled and supplied German army and the science of Yon
Moltke, the great German strategist.
Had it been the first Napoleon, he would have made himself sure
personally as to "the last gaiter button" and all other details, but
with sublime self-satisfaction and inane blindness the Second Napoleon
put himself at the head of this unready army, inspired apparently with
the "on to Berlin" confidence of the cheering Parisian mob.
He was to be awakened suddenly and painfully from his dream of victory
and military fame. The first collision of the two armies took place on
August 2. On September 2, just one month later, the derelict emperor was
a prisoner of war in the hands of the King of Prussia, together with his
army of more than 80,000 men. He had proved an utter failure as a
commander, a mere encumbrance, without a plan of campaign, a conception
of leadership, or an idea of strategic movements. Recognizing, when too
late, his incapacity, he had resigned the general command to Marshal
Bazaine, who withdrew with a large army into Metz, and subsequently, in
a northward movement for Bazaine's relief, he found himself surrounded
at Sedan by an irresistible force and was obliged to surrender to save
his army from impending annihilation.
Such was the first act in this lugubrious drama. Two days later, on
September 4, France was proclaimed a republic. Before the end of October
Bazaine surrendered Metz to the Germans and his great army of 180,000
men was lost to France. The military force of France was vanishing with
alarming rapidity. Another event of the period, of interest in this
connection, was the loss of the temporal power of the pope, above
alluded to. The papacy had been defended by Napoleon III. against the
Italian revolutionists, and the withdrawal of the French force from Rome
left that city open to the army of Victor Emmanuel. It was occupied in
September and became the capital of the new kingdom of Italy. In
December another important event took place, the King of Prussia being
proclaimed at Versailles the head of a new empire of Germany, which
embraced all the German states except Austria.
Events of great moment, as may be seen, were occurring with startling
rapidity. Before the surrender of Bazaine the advance of the German army
had appeared before Paris and on September 19 the siege of that city
began. Soon it was so closely invested that food could not enter and the
only way out was by balloon. The German bombardment did little damage to
the great city, which was defended obstinately. But the Germans had a
powerful ally within, where the grisly demon of famine threatened the
defenders.
Meanwhile Gambetta, the most ardent patriot left to France, was seeking
with nervous energy to raise fresh armies in the south; Garibaldi, his
sword free from duty in Italy, had come to the aid of France; all
patriots were called to the ranks and a struggle of some importance took
place. But all this practically ceased on the 28th of January, 1871,
when an armistice brought the hopeless resistance of Paris to an end.
Almost at once the war died out on all sides, the Germans occupied all
the forts around Paris, and France lay at the mercy of Germany, after a
struggle of six months' duration.
The first siege of Paris had terminated; a second and more desperately
contested one was at hand. On March 13 the German army around Paris,
which had been given the triumph of a march into the conquered city,
set out on its return home and the authorities of the new republic
prepared to take possession of their freed capital.
They were to find the task one of unlooked-for difficulty. On March 18
the revolutionary element of the city rose en masse, organized under
the name of the Commune, took possession of Paris, and prepared to
defend it to the death against the leaders of the new-formed government,
whom they contemned as aristocrats.
The story of the Commune is a shameful and terrible one. Beginning in a
fraternization of the National Guard with the mob, its advent was sealed
with murder. In a contest on the 18th for the possession of some cannon
General Lecomte ordered his men to fire on the insurgents. They refused.
A gentleman standing in a crowd of angry men on the street corner said:
"General Lecomte is right." He was immediately seized and quickly
recognised as General Clement Thomas, a brave officer who had done
gallant service during the siege. This sufficed him nothing with the
mob. He and General Lecomte were at once dragged away to prison. At 4
o'clock that same day they were brought out by a party of the insurgent
National Guards, and after a mock trial were taken to a walled enclosure
and shot down in cold blood. They were the first victims of the mob,
which had early begun to burn its bridges behind it.
On the following day the leaders of the outbreak met at the
Hotel-de-Ville. They all belonged to the International, a secret society
formed for the abolition of property, religion, rulers, government, and
the upper classes, and the reduction of the community to a state of
anarchy or something resembling it. They called upon the citizens to
meet in their sections and elect a commune--the new form of government
advocated by the Anarchists, in which destruction of all existing
institutions was to precede reconstruction from the bottom upwards.
Events now moved rapidly. A delegation from the few men of note left in
Paris proceeded to Versailles, where the government of the republic was
in session, and demanded that special municipal rights should be given
to the people of Paris. The refusal of this request precipitated the
insurrection. The furious people at once elected a revolutionary
government, choosing the most extreme of the revolutionists, who
organized what was called the Council of the Commune. This consisted of
eighty members, of varied nationality, seventy of them never having been
heard of in Paris before. They had risen from the bottom of the deep sea
of anarchy to assume control.
On the 3d of April the civil war broke out--Paris against Versailles,
the army under the Assembly of the republic against the National Guard
in sympathy with the Commune. The Germans, who still held two of the
forts in the vicinity of Paris, looked grimly on at the tragedy about to
be played upon the stage which their hands had erected.
The war began with murder. Dr. Pasquier, a distinguished surgeon,
bearing a flag of truce, met two National Guards on the bridge of
Courbevoie, near Neuilly, where the body of Napoleon had been brought
ashore thirty years before. After a brief debate one of the soldiers
ended the colloquy by blowing out the doctor's brains. As soon as
General Vinoy, in command of the army of order, heard of this murderous
act he ordered the guns of Fort Varelien to be turned upon the city.
On the following morning five columns of the troops of the Commune
marched out to take the fort, lured by the confident impression that the
soldiers under Vinoy would fraternize with them. They were mistaken. The
guns of Fort Varelien hurled death-dealing missiles into their columns
and they were quickly in full retreat. Flourens, a scientist of fame who
had joined their ranks, fell dead. Duval, one of their generals, was
captured and was quickly shot as a traitor. The other leaders were at
once sent to prison by the angry Council on their return and the Commune
ordered that Paris should be filled with barricades.
Though the Commune had imprisoned the unsuccessful generals, they were
infuriated at the execution of General Duval and sought in the
dignitaries of the church the most exalted hostages they could find
against such summary acts. On the night of the 6th Monseigneur Darboy,
Archbishop of Paris, his chaplain, and eight other priests were
arrested. The cure of the Madeleine and his vicar had before been
seized. Other priests were later taken into custody and the prison at
Mazas was well filled with these so-called hostages. The fury of the
leaders of the revolt led them to other excesses against religion, the
churches being closed, the arms cut from the crosses, and red flags hung
in their stead.
The outrages were not confined to the church. In the words of a resident
of Paris: "The motto of the Commune soon became fraternity of that sort
which means arrest of each other." Before the Council was two weeks old
many of its leading members had found their way to prison. Dissensions
had broken out in its midst, and the stronger victimized the weaker.
By April 7 a personage calling himself General Cluseret had, as some one
expressed it, "swallowed up the Commune." He called himself an American,
and had been in the Union service in the American civil war, but no one
knew where he was born. He had served in the Chasseurs d'Afrique and in
the Papal Zouaves, and after the fall of the Commune escaped from Paris
and became a general of the Fenians, nearly capturing Chester Castle in
their service.
This man became absolute dictator over the revolted city, with its two
million of inhabitants; yet after three weeks of this dictatorial rule
his star declined and he found himself in prison at Mazas, to which he
had sent so many others.
Leaving these details for the present, we must return to the war, which
was soon in full blast. The assault of April 4 repulsed, the guns of
Fort Varelien were opened upon the city and the second bombardment of
Paris in that memorable year began. The guns of its friends were more
destructive than those of its foes, the forts taking part in the
bombardment being much nearer the centre of the city. Their shells
damaged the Arch of Triumph, which the Prussians had spared; they fell
alike on homes, public buildings and churches; alike on men, women and
children, friend and foe.
Under order of General Cluseret, the dictator of the Commune, every man
was ordered to take part in the defence of the city. His neighbors were
required to see that he did so and to arrest him if he showed a
disposition to decline. For the seventy-three days that the power of the
Commune lasted Paris was a veritable pandemonium, the fighting, the
arrests, the bombardment keeping the excitement at an intense pitch. The
people deserted the streets, which were silent and empty, except for the
soldiers of the Commune--a disorderly crew in motley uniforms--the
movement of ammunition wagons, and the other scenes incident to a state
of war. But the usual swarming life of Paris had vanished. There was no
movement, scarcely any sound. The shop-windows were shut, many of them
boarded up, red flags hanging from a few, but as a rule the very
buildings seemed dead.
This is the story told by one observer, but another--perhaps at a
different period of the bombardment--speaks of well-dressed people
"loitering in the boulevards as if nothing were going on. The cafes,
indeed, were ordered to close their doors at midnight, but behind closed
shutters went on gambling, drinking and debauchery. After spending a
riotous night, fast men and women considered it a joke to drive out to
the Arch of Triumph and see how the fight was going on."
On the 9th of April the army of Versailles began to make active assaults
upon the forts held by the soldiers of the Commune, and with such effect
that confusion and dismay quickly pervaded its councils. As the struggle
went on the fury and spirit of retaliation of the insurgents increased.
New hostages were arrested, the palace of the archbishop was pillaged,
and in the first week of May the destruction of the house of M. Thiers,
the president of the republic, was decreed. It was a beautiful mansion,
filled with objects of art and valuable documents used by him in writing
his historical works. Some of these were removed, but most of them were
consumed by the flames. On the 12th of May the Commune, now inspired by
the spirit of destruction, ordered the levelling of the famous column in
the Place Vendome, describing it as a symbol of brute force and false
glory.
This famous column, one hundred and thirty-five feet high, formed on the
model of Trajan's column at Rome, had been erected by Napoleon I., cast
from cannon taken from his foes, and surmounted by a statue of Napoleon
in his imperial robes. On May 16 this proud work of art fell, being
pulled down with a tremendous crash by the aid of ropes fastened to its
upper part. It is pleasant to be able to state that this fine work of
art has been restored. Its attempted destruction filled the army of
Versailles with a spirit of revenge, which led them, on their entering
Paris a few days later, to deal with the insurrectionists with brutal
and merciless energy. They had other and abundant cause for this
feeling, as the reader will perceive in the recital of the later deeds
of the desperate Commune.
By the date now reached the army of order was rapidly gaining ground.
The fort of Vauves was taken; that of Mont Rouge was dismantled;
breaches were opened in the barricades, and by the 20th of May the army
was in the streets and fighting its way onward against a desperate
defence. The carnage was frightful; Dambrowski, a Pole and the only able
general of the Commune, was killed; prisoners on both sides were shot
down without mercy; there were barricades in almost every street and
these were hotly defended, the courage of despair in their defenders
making the progress of the besieging army a slow and bloody one.
The rest of the story is all blood and horror. The desperate leaders of
the Commune determined that, if they must perish, Paris should be their
funeral pyre. On the night of May 24 the city became a scene of
incendiary rage. The Hotel-de-Ville was in flames; the Palace of the
Tuileries was burning like a great furnace; the Palace of the Legion of
Honor, the Ministry of War, the Treasury were lurid volcanoes of flames;
on all sides the torch had been applied.
Not only these great public buildings, but many private houses were
consigned to the flames. All the sewers beneath Paris had been strewn
with torpedoes, bombs, and inflammable materials, connected with
electric wires, and the catacombs in the eastern quarter of the city
were similarly prepared. It was the intention of the desperate
revolutionists to blow up the city, but fortunately, before their
preparations were completed, the army of order was in control and
sappers and miners were sent underground to cut the electric wires
leading to these mines of death-dealing explosives.
But the capture of the city came too late to save the lives of many of
the "hostages" whom the Commune had sent to prison. Not content with
burning the architectural monuments of the city, as the last effort of
baffled rage they condemned these innocent victims of their wrath to
death. On Wednesday, May 24, the venerable archbishop and five others of
the imprisoned priests were taken from their cells and shot to death. On
Thursday fifty more, priests and others, were similarly slaughtered.
A large number of captives remained shut up in the prison of La
Roquette, around which, on Saturday the 27th, a yelling crowd gathered,
thirsting for their lives. They, knowing that their rescuers were
fighting within the city, determined to defend themselves and convert
the prison into a fortress. Poiret, one of the warders, horrified by
what had already been done, was the leader in the resolution, in which
he was joined by the Abbe Lamazan, who called out:
"Don't let us be shot, my friends; let us defend ourselves. Trust in
God; he is on our side."
The sergents de ville, captives in the story below, had made the same
resolution. They had no arms, but they barricaded the doors and resolved
to defend themselves from the murderous throng outside, howling for
their blood. Two guns and a mortar had been brought by the mob to fire
on the prison and the moment was critical.
Suddenly there came a lull in the uproar. Something had taken place. In
a few minutes more the crowd broke up and dispersed, dragging away the
guns they had brought. Word had reached them that the Council had fled
from its headquarters to Belleville and a sudden panic seized the mob.
Yet that night they returned, howling and cursing, while a barricade
near by was still held by the insurgents. But with the early dawn this
was abandoned, the mob melted away, and soon after a batallion of
rescuers marched up and took possession of the prison. The captives were
saved. Their resistance, seemingly so desperate, had proved successful.
That day, Sunday, May 28, ended the rule of the Commune. The Versailles
troops, who had been fighting their way steadily from street to street
since the 21st, completed their work, the whole great city was in their
hands, and the rule of the Commune was over.
The Commune had left devastation behind it. On every side were
smoldering ruins, including the great municipal buildings, the law
courts, and other public edifices, two theatres, eight whole streets,
and innumerable private houses, while the dead bodies of its victims lay
where they had been shot down. The soldiers, infuriated by the ruin
which they beheld on all sides, were savage in their revenge. Every man
seized whose hands were black with powder was instantly shot, many
innocent persons perishing, since numbers had been forced to the
barricades. The story of what took place during those bloody days of
retribution is too long to tell, and it must suffice to sum it up in the
frightful death roll of fourteen thousand persons--six thousand of them
killed in open fight, eight thousand executed in bitter revenge.
The executions over, the prisons were filled to bursting. Count Orsi
tells us that six hundred men were locked up in the wine cellars of
Versailles, forty-five feet underground. He himself, falsely seized
through the malice of an enemy, spent ten days in this horrible place
amid the scum of the insurgents. As for the members of the Council of
the Commune, some escaped, some were executed, others were transported
to New Caledonia, a lonely isle in the far Pacific--from which they were
subsequently freed when the hot blood of that year of revengeful
retribution cooled down.
Thus ends the remarkable story of that year of war, insurrection, and
devastation, the whole due to the overweening ambition of one man, Louis
Napoleon, who wished to shine as a great conqueror. The destiny of
France lay in his hand alone. He blindly decided upon war. The result
was the humiliation of France, the death of thousands of her sons, the
overthrow of her government, the frightful saturnalia of the rule of the
Commune, and the loss to France of two of her provinces, those of Alsace
and Lorraine, and a war indemnity of one thousand million dollars. Such
terrors march in the train of blind and unrestrained ambition.
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During the past two and a half centuries the great empire of China has been under foreign rule, its emperors, its state officials, its generals and trusted battalions, being of Tartar blood, and the whole nation being forced to wear, in the shaved h... The Raids Of The Sea-rovers
While Central and Southern Europe was actively engaged in wars by land, Scandinavia, that nest of pirates, was as actively engaged in wars by sea, sending its armed galleys far to the south, to plunder and burn wherever they could find footing on ... The Railroad In Turkestan
On the 24th of January, 1881, Edward O'Donovan, a daring traveller who had journeyed far through the wastes and wilds of Turkestan, found himself on a mountain summit not far removed from the northern boundary of Persia, from which his startled ey... The Reign Of A Glutton
The death of Nero cut all the reins of order in Rome. Until now, as stated in a preceding tale, some form of hereditary succession had been followed, the emperors being of the family of Caesar, though not his direct descendants. Now confusion reigne... The Reign Of Otho Ii
Otho II., Emperor of Germany,--Otho the Red, as he was called, from his florid complexion,--succeeded to the Western Empire in 973, when in his eighteenth year of age. His reign was to be a short and active one, and attended by adventures and fluc... The Reign Of Taitsong The Great
The history of China differs remarkably from that of Japan in one particular. In the latter a single dynasty of emperors has, from the beginning, held the throne. In the former there have been numerous dynasties, most of them brief, some long extend... The Relief Of Londonderry
Frightful was the state of Londonderry. "No surrender" was the ultimatum of its inhabitants, "blockade and starvation" the threat of the besiegers; the town was surrounded, the river closed, relief seemed hopeless, life, should the furious besiege... The Rescue Of Thebes
On a certain cold and wet evening, in the month of December of the year 379 B.C., seven men, dressed as rustics or hunters, and to all appearance unarmed, though each man had a dagger concealed beneath his clothes, appeared at the gate of Thebes, ... The Retreat Of Napoleon's Grand Army
In the spring of 1812 Napoleon reached the frontiers of Russia at the head of the greatest army that had ever been under his command, it embracing half a million of men. It was not an army of Frenchmen, however, since much more than half the total... The Retreat Of The Ten Thousand
We have now to tell of one of the most remarkable events in Grecian history, to describe how ten thousand Greeks, who found themselves in the heart of the great Persian empire, without a leader and almost without food, marched through the land of ... The Return Of Columbus
In the spring succeeding the fall of Granada there came to Spain a glory and renown that made her the envy of all the nations of Europe. During the year before an Italian mariner, Christopher Columbus by name, after long haunting the camp and cour... The Revenge Of Coriolanus
Caius Marcius, a noble Roman youth, descended from the worthy king Ancus Marcius, fought valiantly when but seventeen years of age in the battle of Lake Regillus, and was there crowned with an oaken wreath, the Roman reward for saving the life of a ... The Revolt Of The Gladiators
At the beginning of the first Punic War, or war with Carthage, a new form of entertainment was introduced into Rome. This was the gladiatorial show, the fights of armed men in the arena, the first of which was given in the year 264 B.C., at the fune... The Revolt Of The People
The overthrow of the kings of Rome did not relieve the people from all their oppression. The inhabitants of that city had long been divided into two great classes, the Patricians, or nobles, and the Plebeians, or common people, and the former held i... The Ring Of Polycrates
Near the coast of Asia Minor lies the bright and beautiful island of Samos, one of the choicest gems of the AEgean archipelago. This island was, somewhere about the year 530 B.C., seized by a political adventurer named Polycrates. He accomplished ... The Rise Of The Manchus
Twice had a Tartar empire been established in China, that of the Kin dynasty in the north, and that of their successors, the Mongols, over the whole country. A third and more permanent Tartar dynasty, that of the Manchus, was yet to come. With the s... The Rival Kings Of Granada
"In the hand of God is the destiny of princes. He alone giveth empire," piously says an old Arabian chronicler, and goes on with the following story: A Moorish horseman, mounted on a fleet Arabian steed, was one day traversing the mountains which ... The Rival Queens
From the days of Clovis to the days of Charles Martel and Charlemagne the history of the Frankish realm, so far as its kingship is concerned, is almost a blank. It was an era of several centuries of incompetent and sluggish monarchs, of whom we can ... The Rivalry Of Tristram And Palamides
When morning again dawned over the forest and the smiling fields that surrounded the castle of Epinegris, the two brothers rode out, taking with them the blessings and prayers for good fortune of those they left behind. But had they known into wha... The Rock Of Gibraltar
The great Mediterranean Sea has its gate-way, nine miles wide, opening into the Atlantic, the gate-posts being the headland of Ceuta, on the African coast, and the famous rock of Gibraltar, in southwestern Spain, two natural fortresses facing each... The Romantic Story Of The Prince Of Tezcuco
About a hundred years before the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, there reigned over the kingdom of Tezcuco, in the valley of Mexico, a monarch whose history is as interesting and romantic as any that can be found in the annals of Europe. His story... The Royal And Diamond Jubilees Of Queen Victoria
In the year 1887 came a great occasion in the life of England's queen, that of the fiftieth anniversary of her reign, a year of holiday and festivity that extended to all quarters of the world, for the broad girdle of British dominion had during h... The Sabine Virgins
A tract of ground surrounded by walls does not make a city. Men are wanted, and of these the new city of Rome had but few. The band of shepherds who were sufficient to build a wall, or perhaps only a wooden palisade, were not enough to inhabit a cit... The Sacred War
There were two places in Greece which had been set aside as sacred,--Plataea, the scene of the final defeat of the Persian invaders, and Delphi, the seat of the great temple of Apollo, in whose oracles all Greece placed faith. We have already seen... The Sacrifice Of Virginia
In the year 504 B.C. a citizen of Regillum, of much wealth and importance, finding himself at odds with his fellow-citizens, left that city and proceeded to Rome, with a long train of followers, much as the elder Tarquin had come from Tarquinii. His... The Sea Fight In The Waters Of Japan
On the memorable Saturday of May 27, 1905, in far eastern waters in which the guns of war-ships had rarely thundered before, took place an event that opened the eyes of the world as if a new planet had swept into its ken or a great comet had sudde... The Sea-kings And Their Daring Feats
From the word vik, or bay, comes the word viking, long used to designate the sea-rovers of the Northland, the bold Norse wanderers who for centuries made their way to the rich lands of the south on plundering raids. Beginning by darting out suddenly... The Second Conquest Of The Capital Of Mexico
The ancient city of Mexico, the capital of the Aztecs and their Spanish successors, has been the scene of two great military events, its siege and capture by Cortez the conqueror in 1521, and its capture by the American army under General Scott in... The Second Day Of The Tournament
When the next morning dawned, Tristram, Palamides, and Gareth, with La Belle Isolde and her ladies, all arrayed as before in green, took horse at an early hour, and rode into the fresh forest. But Dinadan was left still asleep in bed. As they pass... The Seven Against Thebes
Among the legendary tales of Greece, none of which are strictly, though several are perhaps partly, historical, none--after that of Troy--was more popular with the ancients than the story of the two sieges of Thebes. This tale had probably in it a... The Siege Of Belgrade
The empire of Rome finally reached its end, not in the fifth century, as ordinarily considered, but in the fifteenth; not at Rome, but at Constantinople, where the Eastern empire survived the Western for a thousand years. At length, in 1453, the T... The Siege Of Calais
Terrible and long-enduring had been the siege of Calais. For a whole year it had continued, and still the sturdy citizens held the town. Outside was Edward III., with his English host, raging at the obstinacy of the French and at his own losses du... The Siege Of Fort Schuyler
All was terror in the valley of the Mohawk, for its fertile fields and happy homes were threatened with the horrors of Indian warfare. All New York State, indeed, was in danger. The hopes of American liberty were in danger. The deadliest peril th... The Siege Of Jerusalem
Christ had not long passed away from the earth when the reign of peace and brotherly love which He had so warmly inculcated ceased to exist on the soil of Judaea. Forty years after He foretold the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem that noble ed... The Siege Of Saragossa
On the banks of the Ebro, in northwestern Spain, stands the ancient city of Saragossa, formerly the capital of Aragon, and a place of fame since early Roman days. A noble bridge of seven arches, built nearly five centuries ago, crosses the stream,...