The Government in Versailles Was Not Ready for a War

Some in the communal council were trying to avoid provoke a war, never quite realizing that their very existence was provocation enough. Adolf tierre had now up his estimate and believed that it would take a hundred and 50 thousand men to subdue paris. Jules favre, the foreign minister of the government of national defense, wrote to chancellor ottovon bismarck begging for the p o ws to be released faster and faster. He promised that those troops would be used to crush the rectionaries in paris and to restore the social order.