3-028-418 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Strike at the Creuzot Ironworks: arrival of the Lancers, 1870. View of '...the strike among the workmen, ten or eleven thousand in number, employed in the great iron-foundry and machine-factory of Messrs. Schneider and Company, at Creuzot [ie Le Creusot], in Burgundy. [The dispute arose from disagreements over the management's handling of the workers' savings bank.]...The aspect of this affair became so threatening that the Mayor of Creuzot, or the Prefect of the Saone-et-Loire, telegraphed to the Government for a military force, to prevent violence and bloodshed. The arrival of a regiment of Lancers, in prompt compliance with this request, is the subject of another Illustration, which shows the squadrons of cavalry massed in the public square of the town, the Place de la Mairie, and inspected by the Mayor. A battalion of infantry followed, and other troops, altogether making a force of nearly 5000 men; but their mere presence at Creuzot was sufficient to keep the peace...The distribution of the Marseillaise, M. Rochefort's revolutionary journal, which contained inflammatory articles in favour of the strike, was stopped by order of the magistrates...[The strike] was happily brought to an end in the middle of last week'. From "Illustrated London News", 1870.