The Mobs Attack Churches and Religious Houses

But while the mob, as a whole, was neither murderous nor rapacious, it was blind and superstitious in its rage against all things associated with religion.

Continuing Spanish Civil War Prelude,
with a selection from Barcelona Outbreak by William Archer. This selection is presented in 5 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Spanish Civil War Prelude.

Time: 1909
Place: Barcelona

In view of such a resolution as this, we need scarcely look much further for the connecting link between antimilitarist and anticlerical manifestations. But it happens that we know precisely whence the immediate suggestion of incendiarism proceeded. On Sunday, the 25th, the day before the strike and two days before the revolt, Senor Lerroux’s newspaper, El Progreso, the most influential in Barcelona, contained an article, headed with the English word

REMEMBER!

recalling the fact that that day was the anniversary of a great outburst of convent-burning in 1835, and deploring that, in these degenerate times, there was no likelihood of its repetition! No one who has read this article can have the smallest doubt as to who lit the first torch. Ferrer, I may remark, was at this time on bad terms with the Republicans and their organ, El Progreso. Not the slightest attempt has been made to connect him with the (literally) incendiary article. Yet he is in his grave, while the responsible editor of El Progreso, Don Emiliano Iglesias, is in the Cortes.

As to the constitution and behavior of the convent-burning mobs, there is an almost ludicrous conflict of evidence, or rather of assertion. The clericals try to make them out worse than fiends, the anticlericals depict them as almost angelic in their chivalry and humanity. On August 4th the Correspondencia of Madrid published a communication from its Barcelona correspondent in which he declared that, on the night of July 27th, “mad drunk with blood, wine, lust, dyna mite, and petroleum, with no other desire than to kill for killing’s sake,” the rebels destroyed the convents and massacred their inmates.

Who can tell the number of dead, wounded, and burned who are buried beneath the ruins? . . . Spare me the recital of the details of the martyrdom of the monks, of the ill treatment of the nuns, of the brutal way in which they were sacrificed. … I can only say that many died at the foot of the altar, stabbed by a thousand women; that others were torn to pieces, their limbs being carried about on poles; that not a few were tortured to death; and that all passed to another life with the crown of martyrdom.”

This is a fair specimen of history as it was written on the days immediately succeeding the outbreak; and, though everyone now admits that it is delirious nonsense, the clerical party, while abandoning the details, still writes as though the general picture were a true one. As a matter of fact, the hecatomb of martyrs reduces itself, even by Catholic computation to four: two priests shot, one suffocated in the cellar of his burning church, and one nun brutally killed. For the last outrage the evidence seems to be very insufficient; for the death of the three priests, and the mutilation of the body of one of them, the evidence is pretty strong. It is absurd, then, to pretend, as some people do, that the mob was absolutely seraphic in its ardor; but it is certainly very remarkable that, in such a wild outbreak, murder, and even fatal accident, should have been so infrequent. There is abundance of evidence, from the mouths of priests and nuns themselves, that the general temper of the mob was not in the least homicidal, and that they took pains to have the buildings cleared of their inmates before setting fire to them. Even so, no doubt it was sufficiently alarming and distressing for hundreds of religious ladies to be forced to quit their sanctuaries at a moment’s notice, and see them delivered to the flames. It is with no view of defending the conduct of the rabble that I insist upon the essential difference between burning an empty convent and burning it over the heads of its inmates.

But, if the revolt was far from being a massacre, at least, say some, it was a scene of unbridled rapine. On this point, too, the opposing parties take up violently contradictory positions. It would be ridiculous to suppose that in a great city like Barcelona, not noted at any time as a home of all the virtues, the destruction of half a hundred rich ecclesiastical buildings should be wholly unaccompanied by robbery. There is no reason to doubt that the dregs of the populace, the camp- followers of the revolt, committed many depredations. But there is clear evidence that robbery was not the motive of the main body of the incendiaries. They were bent on destruction, not on theft. They made bonfires, not only of objects of sanctity, but of objects of value. No bank was attacked; no store, other than gun-stores; not one of the many splendid houses of the commercial magnates of Barcelona. The word “sack” is no more justly applicable to the events than the word “massacre.”

But while the mob, as a whole, was neither murderous nor rapacious, it was blind and superstitious in its rage against all things associated with religion. Its deeds show no trace of any rational leadership. It did not, for instance, single out for destruction those institutions which competed unfairly in confectionery, laundry work, or other industries. The great majority of the buildings destroyed lay under no such suspicion. Some were inoffensive houses of retreat; not a few were charitable institutions for the benefit of the working classes themselves. One (I am credibly assured) was a creche or day-nursery for infants, which is now sadly missed. But while this proves the lack of reason in the crowd, it also proves the failure of these charitable institutions to establish themselves in popular esteem. Priests and nuns engaged in education complain bitterly that the parents of some of their pupils, and even the pupils themselves, were prominent among the rioters — a fact that may clearly be interpreted in more ways than one. But the main allegation against the mob — now that the charge of massacre proves to be unfounded — is that they desecrated tombs and paraded the streets with the embalmed bodies of religious ladies. The fact is undoubted. In more than one convent the niches of the crypts were broken open and bodies dragged to light, to the total number, it is said, of about thirty-five. But it is no less certain that the motive of this profanation was a desire to ascertain whether there were any sign of the nuns having been tortured, or even buried alive. It was found, as a matter of fact, that many of the bodies had their hands and feet bound together; and, though this is susceptible of a quite innocent explanation, it was not unnaturally taken at first as confirming the most sinister rumors.

William Archer begins here. Perceval Gibbon begins here.

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