Many towns in France have a Rue Gambetta or a Place Gambetta. Who was Gambetta?
- LEON GAMBETTA (1838-82) is perhaps best remembered for his heroic, if futile, attempt to raise the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. A radical republican lawyer of Italo-French extraction, Gambetta had proclaimed the Third Republic in September 1870 after the defeat and abdication of Napoleon II, and became Minister of the Interior in the government of National Defence. On October 7, 1870, he escaped from Paris by balloon to Tours, where he formed a conscript army to march on the capital. After some initial success, the rabble was split and defeated. Gambetta, now Minister of War, decamped with the government to Bordeaux. However, after the fall of Paris in January 1871, the government made peace and Gambetta resigned. He played a pivotal role in the Third Republic over the next 10 years, denouncing conservatism and supporting colonial expansion, and was briefly prime minister in 1881. His belief in revenge ('Always to think of it and never to say it') and anti-clericalism ('Clericalism is the enemy') struck chords among his countrymen and may account for his enduring popularity. He died in 1882 from wounds sustained in an accident with a revolver.
John Duffy, Wallasey, Merseyside.
- HE was a one-eyed Liberal Republican who to his credit argued against the persecution of the Paris communards. We have a Gambetta Street in Battersea. Once Wandsworth Council realise this they'll probably rename it after Jean-Marie Le Pen.
John O'Farrell, London SW8.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaKafqbK0rc2dqK6dop6ytHvQrpyrsV9leW15kGxqaWRgZXupwMyl