classes for the study of chemistry were instituted in various parts.
Some Anarchists even joined the chemistry classes established by the
various institutions in and around London. Following on this came the
publication of a series of dynamite manuals. Johann Most (who, it
may be remembered, was in 1881 sent to prison here in London for a
violent article in _Die Freiheit_ applauding the assassination of the
Czar, Alexander II.) wrote a bomb-manual entitled “Revolutionary War
Science.” This was published by the German Anarchists of London in
their native tongue, and circulated largely in and around the German
colony in West London. The book was afterwards translated into English
and published in America, whence large quantities were imported into
this country and distributed among the English-speaking “comrades.” In
this book Johann Most explains exactly where bombs should be placed
in churches, palaces, ball-rooms, and festive gatherings. Never more
than one Anarchist is to take charge of any attempt, so that in case of
discovery the Anarchist party may suffer as little harm as possible.
The book contains also a complete dictionary of poisons, and preference
is given to poison from dead bodies. Poison is advocated for use
against politicians, traitors and spies.
[Illustration: “VIVE L’ANARCHIE”]
Among the French Anarchists in London, “Le Anarchiste Indicateur” was
the Bible of the bombists. This work, it is said, was written by an
ex-member of the French Detective Service. Another dynamite manual
was entitled, “Advice and Warning to the Commercial Classes,” by
“Father Gavroche,”--the _nom de guerre_ of a certain Irish-American
revolutionist--and contained instructions for the making of every kind
of bomb known, as well as for the mixing of a composition known as
Greek Fire, which it advocated as useful for throwing over policemen
and setting them afire. These publications explained the use and
manufacture of all kinds of explosives--gun-cotton, dynamite, roburite,
woodite, fulminate of mercury, picrate of potash, besides endless
explosive mixtures, of which a common one was chlorate of potash and
sugar. This latter would be mixed in about equal parts, and a small
glass tube containing sulphuric acid inserted. When the bomb was
thrown, the tube would break and an explosion result.
A curious advertisement once appeared in the _Commonweal_. It was as
follows:--
“SPECIAL NOTICE TO EMANCIPATOR GROUPS in Scotland and England. The
‘EMANCIPATOR’ (the new holey Bible) will shortly be published.”
This “holey Bible” was in reality a manual of instructions for the
making of every kind of explosive known, and was partly set up in type
when the police raided the offices of the _Commonweal_. But our smart
police were certainly out-witted by the Anarchist compositor in charge
of the place. The type, for safety, had been placed near the ceiling,
on top of a number of shelves. Having, as they thought, ransacked
every nook and cranny in the place, the police officers were about
to depart without having giving this place a thought. One of them,
however, on reaching the door, noticed the omission, and carelessly
asked the “comp” to bring down the contents. Placing a small pair of
steps against the shelves in such a way as to render them totally
unsafe to stand upon, the wily “comp” rushed up them, and, to make
believe of saving himself from falling, purposely clutched hold of the
type, dragged it to the floor with him and “pied” the lot; or, in plain
English, broke it completely up. And the police lost a “find.”
The second time the police raided the _Commonweal_ they discovered a
manuscript of explosive recipes hidden behind a loose brick in the
wall. This formed part of the indictment of the compositor who was
convicted at the Old Bailey soon afterwards for seditious libel,
incitement to murder, etc.
In August, 1891, a Revolutionary Conference was held at the Jewish
Anarchist Club, in Berner Street, E., to consider the advisability
of “action.” Representatives of Anarchism from various provincial
centres, as well as from different parts of London, attended. The
Conference decided that a number of bomb outrages should take place
in this country at an early date. One of the delegates present from
Walsall happened to be employed in an iron foundry in that place, and,
it being thought that an order from an employee would disarm suspicion,
it was agreed that he should get his firm to make a number of iron
castings for bombs. Of course, orders were not given for bomb-shells,
but for “electrical lubricators.” The matter was placed in the hands
of a prominent member of the Commonweal Group. A letter was sent to
Walsall by this individual, containing a sketch of the kind of bomb
required. This was to be a large, pear-shaped, shell, with a hole
at the top for receiving the explosive matter, and three holes at
the bottom for the insertion of detonators. The object in having the
bombs pear-shaped was so that, when thrown, they were bound to fall
on the detonators and thereby cause an explosion. When the scheme had
thoroughly matured, the bombs being safely stowed away in the cellar
of the Anarchist Club in Goodall Street, Walsall, the police, who had
all along known of the conspiracy, pounced down upon the conspirators
and conveyed them to the police station. It turned out during the trial
that the “comrade” of the Commonweal Group to whom we had entrusted the
London management of the whole affair was a police informer!
[Illustration: The Bomb with its nuts and screws.
Section shewing the detonator.
“PINEAPPLE BOMB” USED IN THE FIRST ATTEMPT ON KING ALFONSO IN 1905.]
One curious fact in connection with these Anarchist chemistry classes
was that they were made up almost entirely of mere boys. One of
these took home some explosive substance given him to experiment
with, but the stuff was found by his father, who, not liking the
look of it, buried it in the garden in his son’s absence. Next day
the police raided the house. This incident raised the “comrades’”
suspicions--there was evidently a spy somewhere in the camp. Following
on this came a number of police raids on the Club Autonomie, and
many private houses in London. As a result many of the schemes the
Anarchists had decided upon were hastily abandoned.
Mingling with the Anarchists I have been greatly amused at the numerous
brilliant schemes of revenge proposed by the breathers of fire and
slaughter--for, after all, most of their propositions are mere talk
and talk only. Conceited beyond belief, the average Anarchist delights
in impressing the “outsider” with his supposed bloodthirstiness and
daring. Most Anarchists I have met harbour schemes of outrage of some
kind or other, but are prevented from carrying them out by a wholesome
dread of the law. One has designs on the King or the Prime Minister;
another proposes to blow up the Stock Exchange or the Bank of England;
a third, misanthropically inclined, hates the working-classes more
bitterly than he does the makers and administrators of the law, who are
his natural enemies, and would, if he could, kill them by thousands.
Why this hatred of the working-classes it is easy to understand, for
the workers are the great obstacle between the Anarchist and the
carrying out of his crazy crotchets.
An original, if not altogether brilliant, scheme, was that the
“comrades” should invade the galleries of the large theatres, armed
with bags of lice, which were to be emptied on the occupants of the
parts below. Another scheme was to fumigate with sulphuretted hydrogen
the carriages waiting for their rich owners outside the opera houses.
A “comrade” once proposed to me a scheme whereby we were to cause a
number of explosions in one night. The idea was this: Armed with strong
catapults and several small bombs made of thick glass (I was shown
one), and filled with chemical explosives, we were to mount an omnibus
passing through the West End, and fire the bombs, by means of the
catapults, through the windows of the mansions as we passed. Needless
to say, I did not fall in with the idea.
Perhaps the most important things captured by the police as a result
of their raids were a number of secret manifestoes. One of these was
headed: “Death to the Judges! Death to the Jurors!” and concluded with
the significant words: “Comrades, you shall see us at work!” Another
secret document captured by the police was an English translation of a
French document--“The Manifesto of the French Anarchist Soldiers.”
[Illustration:
MANIFESTO
of the French
ANARCHIST SOLDIERS.
Reproduction of Heading. ]
As everyone knows, in France military service is compulsory, even
Anarchists having to serve. The “French Anarchist Soldiers” conclude
their manifesto as follows: “We are the revolted--the judges! We will
be the avengers! When they give us orders to fire, we will turn the
muzzles of our firearms upon the dressed-up scoundrels who command us!
Hurrah for Anarchy!”
At the Revolutionary Conference before-mentioned several “comrades”
volunteered to join the army, with the object of “permeating it with
revolutionary ideas.” Accordingly, a special manifesto--“An Address to
the Army”--was published and circulated largely among the soldiers.
Its watchword was “Revolt! Revolt!” and the soldiers were asked,
“What shall yours be? Several of our comrades are in your midst.” It
continued: “Will you answer their signal, or obey the commands of your
officers? Let us hope when our comrades cry ‘Revolt,’ that your answer
will thunder forth, ‘Revolt! Revolt against tyranny and robbery! Hurrah
for Anarchy and the Social Revolution!’”
VII.
ANARCHISTS AT WORK.
It was not until the death of Bakounine, in 1876, that the propaganda
of action can be said to have commenced in earnest. At the
revolutionary conference of Berne, held this very year, was proclaimed
the era of violence by Italian extremists who had attached themselves
to the Anarchist doctrines of Bakounine. “The Italian Federation,” they
announced, “is of opinion that open rebellion, resorted to with a view
to back up by deeds the profession of Anarchist principles, is the only
effective method of propagating the doctrine.” These words were soon
to be carried into effect. In April, 1877, an Anarchist revolutionary
attempt took place in the Italian province of Benevento. Malatesta,
Cafiero, and Ceccarelli, at the head of a band of revolutionaries,
burnt the archives at Letino and San Galo, and laying hands on whatever
arms and money they could find, distributed them to the mob. The
next year, 1878, was a record year for its attempts on the lives of
monarchs. On May 11, at Berlin, whilst the Emperor was passing, a
boy of nineteen, Hoedel, fired several revolver shots, for which he
was afterwards executed. In the following month a second attempt was
made by a Dr. Nobiling, resulting in the Emperor being wounded in
seven places. October saw an attempt on the life of the King of Spain
at Madrid, for which a young Anarchist named Moncasi was executed.
On November 17, at Naples, a cook of twenty-nine years, Passanate,
stabbed the King of Italy, but the wound was only slight. Early in
the same year General Trepoff, the Chief of Police at St. Petersburg,
was assassinated by a young woman named Vera Zassulitch, in revenge
for his alleged ferocity towards a Nihilist named Bogolionboff, for
which she was afterwards, strange to say, acquitted. On August 16, at
St. Petersburg, General Metzenseff, Chief of the Imperial Police, was
stabbed to death by two Nihilists, who escaped by using their revolvers.
[Illustration:
_[Exclusive News Agency._
A RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONIST,
Who shot herself to escape arrest for complicity in a plot against the
Czar in 1905. ]
Next year saw the Chief of the Odessa Secret Police murdered also--this
time by strangulation. The murderers left a note on the table saying
that the execution was carried out by the Revolutionary Committee.
Prince Kropotkin established this year at Geneva the Anarchist paper,
_Le Revolte_. Several daring attempts were made this year upon the
life of the Czar of Russia, Alexander II. On April 14, Solovieff
fired several shots without hitting him. On December 1, 1879, a mine,
tunnelled out beneath the railway over which the Czar had to pass,
exploded at the passing of the Imperial train, but the Czar had
fortunately passed by another train half an hour earlier. Another
attempt was made on February 17, 1880. This time the Czar’s dining-room
was blown up with dynamite; but again the Czar providentially escaped,
his dinner having been put off to a later hour. However, fate overtook
him in the year following. A bomb was thrown under his carriage on
March 13, by a young Nihilist named Ryssakoff, but missed; the Czar
got out to walk, but was mortally wounded by a second bomb thrown by
another Nihilist named Grinevetsky, who died the next day of wounds
received from the guard. Six persons in all were executed for this,
one of whom, Sophie Petrovskaya, daughter of an ex-Governor of St.
Petersburg, organised the whole series of plots. This last was a
determined attempt, for had the Czar gone another way, a loaded
mine awaited him. The bombs were brought from a house occupied by
Navorotsky and Hess Helfmann. When the police came to arrest them,
Navorotsky fired on his comrade, but missed him in the darkness, and
then blew out his own brains.
On December 30, 1880, a young Anarchist named Otero fired two shots at
the King and Queen at Madrid, for which, on April 17, he was executed.
In March, a young man, Mlodetsky, who fired on General Melekoff, was
hanged.
On May 27, 1882, was first published in Italian, the work of Stepniak
on “Underground Russia.” A meeting of French and Swiss Anarchists at
Geneva proclaim their total separation from the political parties,
Socialist, or otherwise.
In 1883, sixty-six Anarchists were sentenced at Lyons for conspiracy,
including the famous and undoubtedly sincere Prince Kropotkin, who is
now living in England. On May 26, in Spain, the trial of the “Mano
Negra” (black hand) secret society of Christian Anarchists began.
Louise Michel, the “Red Virgin” of the Commune, was this year condemned
to six years’ imprisonment for plundering bakers’ shops, after an
unemployed demonstration. Cyvoct, condemned to death for having incited
the riots of October 22 and 23 at Lyons, was afterwards reprieved and
sent to penal servitude.
At Leipzig, on January 18, 1885, Reinsdorf and two other Anarchists
were condemned to death, and two others to penal servitude, for causing
explosions in the Frankfort-on-Maine police-barracks. In revenge for
these hangings, a police commissioner named Rumpf was stabbed in front
of his own house. On October 11, Kropotkin’s “Words of a Rebel” was
published in French.
In 1886, the French Anarchist Gallo was sentenced to twenty years’
penal servitude for attempted murder. At a meeting of Anarchists in the
Haymarket, Chicago, a bomb thrown kills eight policemen. For this four
German Anarchists--Parsons, Spies, Fischer, and Engel--were tried on a
charge of “constructive murder” and executed in the year following.
Convicted of burglary and incendiarism, Clement Duval, a French
Anarchist, is sent to penal servitude for life, on January 29, 1887.
In 1888, at an Anarchist meeting in Havre, Louise Michel was fired
at by a fanatical anti-anarchist named Lucas. Although dangerously
wounded, Louise protected Lucas from the fury of the Anarchists, and
afterwards appeared as a witness on his behalf at the trial, and
managed to get him acquitted.
Next year, 1889, another French Anarchist, Pini, was sentenced for
forging bank-notes. The following year saw the assassination of
General Seliverstoff, formerly Chief of the Russian Secret Police, by
Stanislaus Padlewski, a Pole, who managed to escape arrest and reach
America, where, a few years back, he committed suicide.
[Illustration: “VIVE LA COMMUNE!”]
In 1892, six Anarchists were arrested at Walsall and sentenced to terms
of five and ten years for bomb-making. This was the first indication
of the existence of active Anarchism in England by British subjects.
From this year occurred a perfect epidemic of bomb-throwing. In
Paris, several explosions occurred, for which the Anarchist Ravachol
was arrested. On the eve of his trial the Café Very, in which he was
recognised, was the scene of an explosion; and an intimidated jury
found him “guilty with extenuating circumstances.” He was sent to
penal servitude for life, but was tried afterwards for murdering a
poor old hermit and executed. The execution of the “Chicago Martyrs”
was “avenged” this year, on October 29, by the assassination of the
Mayor of Chicago. In January the peasantry of Xeres, in Spain, incited
by the Christian Anarchists of the “Mano Negra” secret society, armed
themselves and attempted to take possession of that town, with the
object of pillage. They were driven back by the soldiery, and four
leaders, the Anarchists Zarzuella, Lamela, Bisiqui, and Lebrijano,
taken prisoners, and afterwards put to death. This was followed by
numerous bomb-explosions all over the peninsula. In Paris an abortive
attempt was made to blow up the house of the Princess de Sagan. In
America, the great strike at Carnegie’s Steel Works, at Homestead,
at which pitched battles between armed strikers and Pinkerton police
were frequent, culminated in the attempt of the Anarchist Berkmann to
shoot the manager, Frick, for which he was afterwards sent to penal
servitude. In Spain an attempt was made to blow up the Parliament
(Cortes), for which, two years later, an Anarchist named Ferriera was
sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment. On November 8, a bomb placed
before the Paris offices of the Carmaux Mining Company was discovered
by the police and removed to the Rue des Bons Enfants police station,
where it exploded and killed four policemen.
In 1893, at Barcelona, a bomb was thrown from the gallery of the
Liceo Theatre, killing some twenty persons. For this iniquitous crime
Salvador Franch and six other Anarchists were shot. In Paris, August
Vaillant threw an explosive bomb into the French Parliament from one of
the public galleries. The missile exploded in mid-air, wounding more
or less severely some sixty persons, including deputies, ushers, and
visitors. He was guillotined two months later. In England an Anarchist
leader named Conway was sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment
for an attempted jewel robbery. On September 24, a dynamite bomb was
thrown by the Spanish Anarchist Pallas at Marshal Martinez Campos,
who was about to review the troops at Barcelona. The bomb exploded
among the staff-officers, killing a sergeant of the Civil Guard and
injuring a general. The Marshal’s horse was killed under him, but he
himself escaped with a severe contusion. Pallas was afterwards tried by
court-martial and shot. At Madrid, on July 2, a bomb exploded before
the house of Signor Canovas, ex-President of the Council, killing an
Anarchist named Ruiz, who was the author of the attempt. This same
year the Anarchist Schinhi was sentenced at Viterbo in Italy to eleven
years’ penal servitude for shooting a policeman. During some popular
disturbances in Italy, the Anarchists attempted to throw a train off
the line at Avenza, and to cause a bomb explosion at the Monarchical
Club at Leghorn.
The year 1894 was a year of great Anarchist activity. In England, the
Anarchist Martial Bourdin blew himself to pieces with his own bomb
while bent on destroying the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park. Two
Italian Anarchists, Polti and Farnara, who had given a Blackfriars
Road firm of engineers an order for iron bomb-shells, were sentenced
in June to ten and twenty years respectively. It is surmised that
their intention was to blow up the Stock Exchange or the Houses of
Parliament. In this year, also, David Nicoll, editor of the notorious
_Commonweal_, was sent to prison for an article advising murder. In
July, the compositor and assistant of this paper were sentenced to six
months apiece for seditious libel. This year, also, Rolla Richards,
a Deptford Anarchist, was condemned to seven years for blowing up a
number of post-offices in South London. A Birmingham Anarchist, C.
C. Davis, for smashing a jeweller’s window with a brick wrapped in a
copy of the _Walsall Anarchist_, and scattering the jewellery in the
roadway, was sent to eighteen months’ imprisonment. In France, the
chief Anarchist event was the assassination of President Carnot. As the
French President was driving at Lyons a young Anarchist named Caserio
Santo mortally wounded him with a dagger. The assassin acted on his
own initiative alone, but the police depositions made it abundantly
clear that he must have heard the assassination of Carnot continually
discussed in Anarchist circles. On July 26, the Anarchist Meunier,
extradited from England, was sent to penal servitude for life for an
explosion at the Café Very. Early in the year Emile Henri threw a bomb
from the balcony of the Café Terminus, wounding twenty-four persons
and causing two deaths. He also confessed himself to be the author of
the abortive attempt in 1893 against the Carmaux’s Company’s office,
and was afterwards guillotined. On March 15, Joseph Pauwells exploded
a bomb and himself at the Madeleine Church, Paris; and an unsuccessful
attempt was made to blow up the Chamber of Deputies at Rome. On April
4, an explosion occurred at the Café Foyet, opposite the Luxembourg
Palace, wounding an Anarchist poet named Laurent Tailhade. In the same
year, a bomb placed over the door of a room in the Rue Saint Jacques,
by an unknown person giving the fictitious name of “Rabardy,” wounded
the landlady, Madame Calabresi, who afterwards died. The police were
directed by “Rabardy” to a house in the Rue Faubourg St. Martin, where
also a bomb was placed over a door, but this was detected and exploded
by them at a safe distance, by means of electric wires. For these
crimes a German Anarchist named Muller, in May, confessed himself the
author. A French Anarchist shoemaker, Leauthier by name, aged twenty
years, was this year condemned to hard labour for life for wounding M.
Georgevitch, the Servian Minister in France, at a Paris restaurant.
From the age of sixteen, when Leauthier first became an Anarchist, his
character was observed to change; he showed signs of a disturbed mind;
became morose; and in November of 1893 wrote to Sebastian Faure, the
Anarchist leader, saying that he felt he must attack a _bourgeois_. In
Italy an attempt was made to assassinate Signor Crispi.
The two following years saw a lull in Anarchist activity, due mainly
to the severe repressive measures employed by the various Governments.
But in 1897 occurred the murder of Antonio Canovas del Castillo, the
Spanish Premier, by the Anarchist Angiolillo.
This was followed shortly after, in 1898, by the cowardly murder of
the Empress Elizabeth of Austria by an Anarchist named Luccheni, who,
condemned to life-long solitary confinement, is reported to be more
or less demented, spending the grey hours of his silent existence
in abyssmal despair, varied by periods of ethereal and frightful
excitement.
In 1900, King Humbert of Italy was stabbed to death by the Anarchist
Bresci, who, unable to endure the terrible punishment of solitary
immurement for life, preferred to die in his cell by his own hand.
[Illustration: LUCCHENI,
The cowardly assassin of the Empress of Austria.]
In the following year, 1901, President McKinley was assassinated by a
Polish Anarchist named Czolgosz while in the act of holding a reception
at the Temple of Music in the Buffalo Exhibition. On February 27, this
same year, M. Bogoliepoff, Russian Minister of Education, was killed.
In 1902, Hirch le Kuch, a Russian Anarchist, made a murderous attack
on Lieutenant-General Whal, Governor of Wilna, for which he was hanged
on June 11. April 15 saw the assassination of M. Sipiaguine, Russian
Minister of the Interior, who was shot four times in the vestibule of
the Council of the Empire, in St. Petersburg.
In 1903, the Russian General Bogdanovitch, Governor of Ufa, was killed
on May 19.