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==The Suppression of the Communards==
[[File:1184px-Commune_de_Paris_barricade_Place_Blanche.jpg|thumbnail|275px325px|The barricades on Place Blanche]]
After the French government agreed to a peace treaty with the Germans, the war between it and the Communards was inevitable. The new French government, under Adolphe Thiers, decided to crush the Communards and their movement. With secret German, help, who were still occupying territory around France, they despatched a large military force to Paris. <ref>Cobain, p. 218.</ref> When the Communards refused to hand over some cannon over to the French army, this was to provide the French army with the excuse it needed to crush the National Guard and all those who supported the Paris Commune.
The French army bombarded the Communards in Paris and then attacked their strongholds. The rebels resisted furiously and the fighting became known as the ‘Bloody Week’. The French army brutally crushed the rebels and it summarily executed many Communards. The rebels had also committed many atrocities, including the execution of priests. At the end of the fighting, some 18,000 people had died and 25,000 were wounded. Many Communards were imprisoned and sent to Penal Colonies in French Guinea.<ref>Merman, p. 134.</ref> The French Government was able to reassert its control over Paris. Soon after the Communards were crushed, the Prussians withdrew from France.
==Influence of the Paris Commune on Revolutionaries==
