October 7, 1870 · Paris Theater
October 7, 1870
With Paris surrounded by German forces and all land communication cut, the Government of National Defense used hot-air balloons to maintain contact with the provinces. On October 7, 1870, Minister of the Interior Léon Gambetta departed Paris in a balloon, was nearly shot down by German rifle fire, nearly crashed in a tree, and landed in the Vosges before making his way to Tours, where he threw himself into the task of organizing national resistance with extraordinary energy. In the following months Gambetta raised new armies — the Armies of the Loire, the North, and the East — from scratch, conscripting hundreds of thousands of men, improvising arms and equipment, and attempting to organize a levée en masse that might relieve Paris before it starved.
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