Republicanism, Anarchism, Anticlericalism, and the Attempted Regicide of 1906

Abstract

On May 31, 1906, King Alfonso XIII and his new bride, Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg, were off to the Royal Palace after their wedding when a bomb hidden within a bundle of flowers exploded as they passed Calle Mayor, 88. The Royals were not hurt, but twenty-four spectators and soldiers were killed and over one-hundred others were wounded.1 The scene was tremendously macabre. Guy Windham, a British colonel who observed the royal procession and claimed that he was among the first to get to the royal carriage, mentioned that he was relieved the King and Queen were safe and sound. However, just a few feet away there were “such horrible things, as awful as those that could be seen in the war.”2 When the smoke cleared, security officials could see that one of the horses pulling the royal carriage had its belly blown open splattering blood onto the Queen’s white gown.3 The Count of Romanones, Alvaro Figueroa y Torres, who as Minister of the Interior (Gobernacion) was in charge of the security detail for the wedding wrote that he would never forget the blood splatter, the cries of anguish and pain, and the acrid smell of the explosive materials used for the bomb. Romanones suggested that what nauseated him most in the room was the bitter smell of the explosives mixed with the smell of medicine the assassin took for a venereal disease.4