Tragic Week

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A depiction of the death of Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia as a result of Tragic Week.

Tragic Week (in Catalan la Setmana Tràgica, in Spanish la Semana Trágica) (July 25-August 2, 1909) is the name used for a series of bloody confrontations between the army and the working classes of Barcelona and other cities of Catalonia, backed by the anarchists, socialists and republicans, during the last week of July 1909. It was caused by the calling-up of reserve troops by Prime Minister Antonio Maura to be sent as reinforcements when Spain renewed military-colonial activity in Morocco on July 9, in what is known as the Second Rif War.

Minister of War Arsenio Linares y Pombo called up the Third Mixed Brigade of Chasseurs, which was composed of both active and reserve units in Catalonia. Among these were 520 men who had completed active duty six years earlier and who had not anticipated further service. Substitutes could be hired if one did not wish to fight - but this cost 6,000 reales, which was beyond the means of most laborers.

These actions, coupled with anarchist, anti-militarist, and anti-colonial philosophies shared by many in the city (Barcelona would later become a stronghold for the anarchists during the Spanish Civil War), led to the union Solidaridad Obrera, led by a committee of anarchists and socialists, calling a general strike against Maura’s call-up of the reservists on July 26, 1909, a Monday.[1] Despite the civil governor, Ossorio y Gallardo, receiving ample warning of the growing discontent, acts of vandalism were provoked by elements called the jóvenes bárbaros (Young Barbarians), who were associated with the Radical Republican Party (Partido Republicano Radical) of Alejandro Lerroux. By Tuesday, workers took over Barcelona, halting troop trains and overturning trams. By Thursday, there was street fighting, with a general eruption of riots, strikes, the burnings of convents.

Many of the rioters were antimilitarist, anticolonial and anticlerical. The rioters considered the Church to form part of the corrupt bourgeois structure whose sons did not have to go to war, and the flames had been fanned against the Church by anarchist elements within the city. Thus, not only convents were burned, but sepulchers were profaned and graves were emptied, with many of the rioters dancing with the corpses taken out of them.^{[verification needed]}

After disturbances in downtown Barcelona, security forces shot at demonstrators in Las Ramblas, resulting in the construction of barricades in the streets and the proclamation of martial law. The government, declaring a state of war, sent the army to crush the revolt. Barcelonan troops stationed in the city refused to shoot their compatriots, and troops were brought in from Valencia, Zaragoza, Pamplona and Burgos, who finally crushed the revolt, causing dozens of deaths.

[edit] Aftermath

Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia

Police and army casualties were eight dead and 124 wounded. Of the civilians, 104-150 (the numbers vary) were reportedly killed. The government's reaction to the riots was not only brutal but arbitrary. Over 1,700 individuals were indicted in military courts for "armed rebellion". Five were sentenced to death and executed (including the Catalan Francesc Ferrer, founder of the Escuela Moderna); 59 received sentences of life imprisonment. Alejandro Lerroux fled into exile.

General European condemnation in the press was immediate, and King Alfonso XIII, alarmed by the reaction at home and abroad, removed Prime Minister Antonio Maura from power in its wake, replacing him with the liberal Segismundo Moret y Prendergast.