Chapter 1050 Cavaignac

The battle in Paris was bloody and brutal, and most of the barricades were destroyed in the first round of attacks.

At this time, the French military urgently needed a victory to prove their worth, and for this they did everything they could.

Not only did they use the most elite troops, but they also used a large number of new weapons that had not yet been put into the battlefield.

However, all this was just the beginning. Bilfour resigned and went into exile in Britain, and the government of the Second French Republic was in chaos.

Ledru-Rollin felt that his time had come. He publicly stated that he was the best candidate to succeed the interim president. He mobilized members of the Mountain Party to take over the government.

This naturally aroused opposition from other parties, and a full-scale fight broke out in the Congress Hall again.

At this time of internal and external troubles, Cavaignac's subordinates could no longer sit still. They all advised the "hero" who had just suppressed the Paris uprising to be promoted to "Protector of the Country".

In fact, the military had long been dissatisfied with those politicians. They felt that France's predicament at this time was entirely caused by the politicians' reckless command.

In addition, the status of soldiers has been declining since the Napoleonic Wars. They also want to change this situation, so establishing a military government will undoubtedly be the best choice.

Cavaignac has neither a glorious resume nor enough prestige to deter the army, and even lacks talent for commanding operations.

It is not a wise move to choose to divide the troops and advance lightly at the first time.

But Cavaignac is a staunch republican. He did not accept to become the Protector of the Country, nor did he let Ledru-Rollin steal the position of interim president.

Cavaignac led his troops to stop the farce of the Mountain Party. Most people in the parliament have been waiting for an iron-fisted figure to appear and lead France out of the predicament.

The appearance of Cavaignac gave these people hope, and someone found Lamartine hoping that he could persuade Cavaignac.

But it was firmly opposed by Lamartine.

"You shameless people, you are destroying the Republic! I will never let anyone destroy the Republic! Never!"

But the development of things soon exceeded Lamartine's control. First, a member of parliament proposed to declare martial law, enter an emergency, and grant all the powers of the parliament to General Cavaignac.

Although many Republican leaders expressed clear opposition, the final voting result was surprising. In the parliament of nearly 600 people, there were less than 60 votes against.

Cavaignac actually had the power equivalent to that of the Protector of the Country at this time. He immediately mobilized all the troops around Paris to clean up Paris.

Paris, Place de la Concorde.

The sky was covered with dark clouds, and the drizzle made people feel cold.

The soldiers stood neatly in the square, waiting for the instructions of the supreme commander of the army of the Second French Republic.

The square was very quiet, because these soldiers from other provinces knew that France had reached a critical moment at this time.

The continuous defeats have brought the foreign enemies to the doorstep of France, and at this time Paris is in chaos again, which is a disaster for France.

Cavaignac walked up to the platform in silence, and only the heavy breathing and the sound of leather boots hitting the ground could be heard in the drizzling rain.

The soldiers raised their heads and looked at the platform in front of them, and Cavaignac took a deep breath.

"France has reached the most critical moment! I don't need to say more, you should all understand what this means.

What I want to say now is that without pain and sacrifice, nothing can be consolidated. Those cowards and termites hiding behind the barricades are no longer our people!"

Cavaignac raised his left hand and shouted loudly.

"They are the enemies of the Second French Republic! They betrayed our motherland! They put our great motherland in danger for their own selfish interests. We must completely eliminate them!"

"Long live the Second French Republic!"

"Long live!"

"Long live freedom, equality and fraternity!"

"Long live!"

Cavaignac mobilized the soldiers' emotions to the peak, and thunderous applause and shouts broke out in the square.

"Cavaignac!"

"Cavaignac!"

"Cavaignac!"

The soldiers shouted his name and swore in their hearts to fight for the Second French Republic.

These soldiers from the provinces firmly believed in Cavaignac's words. They firmly believed that the rebels in Paris at this time were the source of France's decline. As long as they were eliminated, good days would return.

Nearly 8,000 of the nearly 50,000 rebels were beaten to death on the spot, and most of the others were sentenced to exile to the colonies, and some leaders were sentenced to hanging.

However, in order to solve the rebellion problem once and for all, Cavaignac ordered a city-wide search and prohibited civilians, especially workers, from keeping guns in their homes.

Within a week, 100,000 rifles and 3.7 million rounds of bullets were confiscated, saving a large amount of military expenditure.

The French Second Republic government's mobile forces arrested 25,000 suspects, executed 2,100 without trial, exiled 12,000, and sentenced the rest to prison terms ranging from two to twenty years.

Although Cavaignac solved the workers' uprising in Paris with thunder and lightning, unlike the same period in history, the French Second Republic did not have a peaceful external environment.

In the north, Henri Arsène led the French Northern Army back to France after the first head-on confrontation with Archduke Karl's main force.

But the battle to retake Belgium was not as easy as imagined. The Belgian Republic supported by the French fought with the main force of Archduke Karl until the last moment.

Franz and Archduke Karl both hoped to take Brussels without bloodshed with the reputation of Leopold I.

After all, in the stereotype, Leopold I enjoyed a high reputation in Belgium, so it should not be difficult to do this, but the reality is that the puppet government supported by the French refused to negotiate.

What's more terrible is that one of Leopold I's guards killed the envoy sent by the puppet government to negotiate on the spot in anger.

Franz could not know the identity of the guard, but later more than 300,000 German coalition forces had to leave tens of thousands of bodies in this city with a population of less than 80,000.

Archduke Karl himself finally realized the cruelty of urban street fighting, and he finally understood why Franz attached so much importance to street fighting.

If every city in France was like Brussels, then even if the German coalition had two million troops, it would not be able to conquer France.

After liberating Belgium, Archduke Karl did not continue to attack the French mainland as planned. Henri Arsene led his army back to Lille safely, but he was not happy at all.

Henri Arsene began to conceive a defense line from the Strait of Calais in the west to the Ardennes Plateau in the east to resist possible attacks by the German coalition forces

At the same time, the situation on the Italian battlefield began to reverse. The Austrian Empire, which had control of the sea, directly cut off the supply of the French army.