Spain from Within

by Rafael Shaw

Here, by way of parenthesis, I should like to call attention to the courage and devotion to duty shown by both the King and the Queen on this occasion. It was considered advisable by the Ultramontane Government that the young wife and mother should accompany her husband to the city which has been made to bear such an evil reputation as the home of anarchy and sedition. The nation watched the proceedings with admiration. “What courage the Queen had, to face the chance of another bomb being exploded in her presence so soon after that tragedy in Madrid!” said those who appreciated the human fear which they knew must be concealed under the smiles demanded by the exigencies of her position. Not a word of this was permitted to appear in the Press, of course. It was only the common talk of the common people. But one little paragraph slipped, through some mismanagement, into a popular paper, which revealed the Queen’s realisation of the danger she might be running. It was to the effect that “the alteration of their Majesties’ itinerary, by which they would spend two days in Madrid instead of travelling direct to Cataluña from Vienna, was dictated by the Queen’s wish to embrace her children before going to Barcelona.” The next day the paragraph was corrected by a careful explanation that the Queen had wished to see the royal children because they were suffering from childish ailments. But the people were not deceived by the second notice. They said that Doña Victoria’s conduct was worthy of a Queen of Spain.

I do not believe that the people of Barcelona would hurt a hair of Queen Victoria’s head, nor that they would have raised a hand against King Alfonso had he appeared there during the riots of 1909: what advantage his secret enemies might have taken of his presence during the disturbances is another matter. And my personal belief is that the people of Barcelona were not responsible for any of the bomb outrages which have made their city a byword in Europe.

Two things go to show that the industrial classes in Barcelona had nothing to do with the bombs. The first is that they are too clever to commit stupid crimes by which their class could not possibly benefit. The second is that during the “Red Week,” when Barcelona was given over to mob law, the mob, said to be responsible for the bomb outrages, did not explode a single bomb. It is not likely that if letting off bombs were the favourite occupation of the criminal classes of Barcelona, they would have lost the opportunities afforded them during the first three days of the riots. Yet when the rising was quelled and the whole province was under martial law, the bombs began again, and twenty-three were reported to have been exploded between August 15th and October 20th.

The stringent censorship exercised then and for three months afterwards prevented Europe from hearing of either this remarkable feature of the riots or their real object. But every one in Spain knew perfectly well that the riots were directed solely against the Religious Orders, whereas the bomb outrages never affected a building belonging to the Church or a person attached to the Clericalist party so long as Maura held office.

Is there any previous instance in history of a mob, said to be composed of the lowest and most degraded of the community, firing monasteries, convents, and churches, while they left public buildings, banks, and rich men’s dwellings untouched? Is there any other revolt on record in which troops of people containing the dregs of the criminal classes protected and brought food to orphanages supported by the objects of their attack? And can we find a parallel, in the circumstances, to the organisation which had the markets opened for two hours every morning and kept its forces under such complete discipline that during those two hours persons of either sex could walk all over the town secure from molestation?

These things I have heard from people of unimpeachable veracity who were in Barcelona at the time; not only Catalans and Spaniards, but also foreigners unconnected with any political party. I do not attempt to deny that some half-hundred or so of buildings belonging to the Church and the Religious Orders were damaged or destroyed, nor that many evil deeds were done by the criminal hangers-on of the movement; nor do I at all desire to minimise the crime of destroying property to gratify feelings of personal revenge. But I do say that the mob, as a mob, behaved with extraordinary self-restraint, and proved by their conduct that they had no complicity with the miscreants who for so long terrorised the unoffending inhabitants of Barcelona by exploding bombs, without apparent intent to injure.

No one disputes that every suspect in the province was imprisoned or fled from the country when the iron hand of military law closed on the insurgents. Nevertheless the bomb outrages began again after the “Red Week” came to an end, and only ceased with the fall of Maura and his Cabinet of repression.

I have related in the previous chapter the continued shooting from the roofs of the town, after the riots were quelled, by persons who were never seen, and the stories that were told of the secret arming of the Religious Orders. When we remember that the hope of the Ultramontanes lies in a Carlist restoration, which is only possible through a revolution, and that a revolution cannot be brought about except by fomenting unrest and discontent in the country, and when further we recall that the bomb explosions ceased with the fall of Maura’s Ministry, when the officials of a Government not in sympathy with the aspirations of the Religious Orders might have instituted inconvenient inquiries had the bombs continued, it may at any rate be conjectured, in the absence of any evidence as to who instigated this long series of comparatively harmless outrages, that their authors were the only party who expected to benefit by a subversion of the social order such as might have ensued had the patience of the people given way under this long series of provocations. This theory of the bombs, I may add, is that held by the working classes.

From the moment that Moret took office in October, 1909, Barcelona began to resume her normal aspect, although the constitutional rights were not restored until the new Civil Governor and the new Captain-General had taken possession of their respective offices and reported that the whole province was quiet.

From that date a strict watch was kept upon newspaper reports of explosions, and the Heraldo got into trouble for publishing a paragraph saying that what proved to have been merely a slight explosion of gas was a bomb. The authorities at once explained to the Press that the explosion was purely accidental, and that no one in Barcelona had for a moment believed it to be otherwise, yet the report that it was a bomb had reached the Heraldo office in a form circumstantial enough to deceive an experienced editor.