COMMUNARD FIGHTERS

THE HILLTOP LOST, GENERAL WALERY WROBLEWSKY REFUSED THE COMMAND OF THE REMAINING TROOPS AND FOUGHT ON AS AN ORDINARY SOLDIER:

        Mosaic outside the seat of Les amis de la Commune

A Polish nobleman exiled for participating in the insurrection of 1863, he has survived in Paris by lighting street lamps, then as a typographer.

La Commune defeated, he manages to escape Paris and flees to England. With the help of Marx, Engels and Polish refugees he founds a printing establishment and publishes Lissagary's account. He returns to Paris in 1885, where he dies poverty-stricken in 1908). 

-- Unsigned article in a publication of Les amis de la Commune, n° 33, 2008 (in French) 

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The legendary 101st battalion: "Rage alone commands those demons," of the 13th or Mouffetard,* "undisciplined, hoarse, with torn clothes and banner, who mutiny if they rest and as soon as

they have been withdrawn from battle, must be plunged into it again."

  -- Lissagary

*Where Hemingway hears Communard memories

Serizier, the commander:

       Cover photo

            Elements d'une histoire de la Commune dans le 13e arrondissement by Gérard Conte, 1989

 

Marie Jean-Baptiste Sérizier wears his cap boldly to the side and looks intensely into the camera as he leans against his sword.  

A Communist tanner

and militant in the workers' associations of the 13th,

he blustered, drank, beat his wife

and was an extremely brave and effective soldier.

For his last fight,

please click back.

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Next,

The Communard spirit continues