Spanish Civil War Prelude

This series has eight easy 5 minute installments. This first installment:
Did Ferrer Instigate the July Uprising?.

Introduction
Seldom has the trial and execution of any individual roused such universal interest as did that of Francisco Ferrer. All Europe and even far-off America raised its voice in protest against the farcical trial, and in horror at the execution. This interest was not aroused by Ferrer’s personality, but by the far greater forces behind him, the rising leftwing in Spain.

Ferrer was the one wealthy anarchist in Spain. An aged woman had left him her fortune to be expended on “the cause.” Except for this he might have lived and died unnoted; but his wealth dragged him into prominence. When the city of Barcelona rose in revolt, Ferrer got swept up in it.

The following accounts of the outbreak by William Archer, and of Ferrer’s trial by Perceval Gibbon, caused wide comment when they first appeared, because of their clearness and their fairness. These articles appeared in McClure’s Magazine.

The selections are from:

• Barcelona Outbreak by William Archer.
• Trial of Ferrer by Perceval Gibbon.

For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

There’s 5 installments by William Archer and 3 installments by Perceval Gibbon.

We begin with William Archer (1856-1924). He was an American journalist and critic.

Time: 1909
Place: Barcelona

On October 9, 1909, Francisco Ferrer was sentenced to death on the charge of being the “author and chief” of what is known as the “Revolution of July” in Barcelona. On October 13th the sentence was executed in the trenches of the fortress of Montjuich. Instantly there arose in almost all the principal cities of Europe a storm of protest. In Paris there was fighting in the streets, resulting in one death and many injuries. In London a demonstration took place in Trafalgar Square, and the police had some difficulty in protecting the Spanish Embassy from attack. Great meetings of protest were held in Rome, Lisbon, Berlin, Brussels, Zurich, and many other places. Demonstrations took place in front of the Spanish Consulate in almost every seaport of France and Italy. The execution was denounced as a judicial crime of the blackest type, and Ferrer was glorified as a martyr of free thought, done to death by a sinister and vindictive clericalism. Nine days later the Maura Cabinet resigned, its fall being due in great measure to the evil repute it had brought upon itself and upon Spain by hurrying Ferrer to his death. But, when the tempest of popular fury had subsided, the Roman Catholics of all countries came forward to the rescue and vindication of their Spanish brethren. They said (quite truly) that not one in twenty of the people who shouted themselves hoarse in honor of the atheist martyr knew anything of the facts of his case. They said that he had certainly been concerned in Morral’s attempt upon the King and Queen of Spain, though he had so skillfully covered his tracks that the crime could not be brought home to him. They said that he had engineered the Barcelona revolt in order to make money by a stock-exchange gamble. And, finally, they said that, after a trial conducted in strict accordance with the law of the land, he had been proved beyond a doubt to have acted as organizer and director of an insurrection which had been accompanied by murder, sacrilege, and unprecedented scenes of rapine and havoc. “Did anyone ever deserve death,” they asked, “if this man did not?”

Assuredly he deserved death, by the laws of all nations, if he was the instigator and director of the rising. But was he? That is the point which we have to investigate.

It was in this character, and in no other, that he was condemned. The prosecution formally renounced at the outset all attempt to bring home to him any individual act of violence. It was as “author and chief of the rebellion” — “autor y jefe de la rebellion” — that he was found guilty and shot. The phrase occurs not only in the actual sentence of death, but nearly twenty times in the three speeches for the prosecution, published with the sanction of the Spanish Government.

It is unfortunate that the word “anarchism” is so closely associated in the popular mind with the throwing of bombs. In Spain, where a great majority of the working class are Anarchists, in the sense of being opposed to a centralized state, people have tried to escape from the ambiguity by employing another word, acratism, which may be interpreted “opposition to power.” An acratist Ferrer certainly was, and his whole teaching was directed toward the inculcation of dogmatic acratism. It was antireligious, antimonarchical, antipatriotic, antimilitarist, anticapitalist. Though opposed on principle to rewards no less than to punishments, he broke through his principle and offered a reward for an inscription, to be placarded in his school-rooms, showing the absurdity of doing homage to the national flag. Such observances were “atavisms” (a favorite word of his) which he detested.

Public order was disturbed on May 31, 1906, by the throwing of a bomb at the wedding procession of the King and Queen of Spain. They escaped uninjured, but fifteen people were killed and many wounded. The perpetrator of the crime, Mateo Morral, had for some time been librarian in the Escuela Moderna. Ferrer was arrested and the school was closed. Every effort was made to have him tried by a military tribunal, but the efforts failed. After spending a year in prison, he was acquitted by a civil tribunal, which held that the prosecution had “failed to establish any link between the presumption engendered by the opinions of the accused and the actual misdeed committed.”

Prohibited from reopening his school, Ferrer devoted himself to the publishing business, which he called the Libreria de la Escuela Moderna, and to the work of educational propaganda already referred to. Thus he passed two years tranquilly enough; until, on July 9, 1909, “a scrimmage at a border station” in Morocco started the train of events which was destined to lead to his destruction.

As the tragedy approaches it is time to set the scene.

In the city of Barcelona between the mountains and the sea, there are more than half a million industrious but excitable and turbulent people. There is great wealth. On the Paseo de Gracia and other magnificent avenues the rich merchants and manufacturers have built themselves houses that in point of expensiveness would do credit to Fifth Avenue, though the Neo-Catalan architecture is too often hideous in its eccentricity. In the lower quarters of the town, on the other hand, one gathers — what I believe to be the fact — that there is little or no very dire poverty. The Catalonian workman is exceptionally well off. The climate of Barcelona is almost perfect; unemployment is rare; food is cheap, lodging not extravagantly dear. The so-called Paralelo, a noble boulevard largely given up to workmen’s cafes, theaters, and variety shows, affords at night the most brilliant and animated spectacle of its kind I ever saw. For a few cents the workman can spend his evenings in a really palatial cafe, debating, playing games, and imbibing highly colored but not too poisonous refreshments. Drunkenness is very rare; so are “crimes of passion.” But beneath this smiling and prosperous surface there lurks every form of faction and discontent.

Perceval Gibbon begins here.

More information here and here and below.

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