Era of Attacks

The Era of Attacks (in French: Ère des attentats), or the anarchist campaign of attacks from 1892 to 1894, was a terrorist campaign undertaken by various anarchist circles and actors initially against the French Third Republic, before spreading internationally. It witnessed the opposition between two tendencies within anarchism—individualist anarchists and communist anarchists—and produced the emergence of indiscrimate terrorism in the modern world.

This period was marked by great political, economic, and social instability, which pushed the anarchists to radicalize, notably with the development of the idea of 'propaganda of the deed' and the advent of more accessible methods for producing explosives, such as dynamite. After the Fourmies shooting and the Clichy affair (1891)—with the army firing on protesters in the first instance and the police engaging in a shootout with anarchists in the second—they entered into open conflict with the French state, that is, the Third Republic, which was perceived as the embodiment of the bourgeoisie and as an authoritarian regime. This dynamic spread and followed a parallel trajectory in other countries, such as Spain with Paulí Pallàs or Santiago Salvador (1893) and the United States with Alexander Berkman (1892). It also influenced broader struggles, such as anti-colonial movements, as in the takeover of the Ottoman Bank (1896) by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF).

This period also experienced significant waves of social panic, fueled by the press. It led the Third Republic to engage in a power struggle with the anarchists by curtailing liberties and targeting them with the 'lois scélérates' laws (1893–1894). French literature was also profoundly impacted, with a number of intellectuals taking an interest in anarchism through these attacks—figures such as Stéphane Mallarmé and Pierre Quillard—as well as with the literary creation of the figure of the 'anarchist terrorist'.

These events compelled Western states to lay the foundations for international police cooperation by participating in the International Conference of Rome for Social Defense against the Anarchists (1898), a precursor to Interpol.

Context

Birth and development of anarchism

Main article: History of anarchism

Child French textile worker (13 years old) - France, 1911

In the 19th century, the anarchist movement took shape. It emerged under the same conditions that saw the birth of socialism and Marxism—namely, the industrial revolution in Western Europe and the United States, which led to a massive rural exodus to urban centers. The development of heavy industry, urbanization, and, more broadly, capitalism brought about significant changes in Western societies, which later extended to the entire world.

Within this context, a number of thinkers and revolutionaries, including Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865), Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876), and Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921), defined an ideological framework. While their ideologies varied and their versions of anarchism did not necessarily align on all points, they shared a commitment to abolishing all forms of domination perceived as unjust. This included economic, political, religious, domestic, and other forms of oppression, depending on the texts.

The state was a primary target of anarchist thought, as it was seen as the entity that supported and exercised many of these dominations through its police, army, and propaganda. The Third Republic, established after the defeat of the Paris Commune, turned away from addressing social issues, which allowed the anarchist movement to grow and take deeper root in France.

Limits of language, propaganda of the deed, oppositions

Excerpt from the article L'Action, where Kropotkin supported the use of propaganda of the deed. 25 December 1880.

In 1877, the revolutionary Andrea Costa developed the concept of propaganda of the deed, a strategy aimed at spreading ideas by replacing words with actions in revolutionary struggles. He defended this idea before a conference of Italian revolutionaries, including a young Errico Malatesta. The concept spread within anarchist circles and was later taken up by Peter Kropotkin, who defended it in Le Révolté in 1880 with these words:

Since action has given birth to revolutionary ideas, it is again through action that their generalization must be ensured [...]. What we need, then, is action—action and always action. Through action, we work simultaneously for theory and practice, because it is action that generates ideas and also spreads them throughout the world. [...] But what kind of action should we take? Parliaments? Municipal councils? No, a thousand times no! Our action must be permanent revolt—through speech, through writing, through the dagger, the rifle, dynamite [...]. Everything is good for us outside of legality.

Propaganda of the deed was also a way for anarchists to go beyond what they saw as the impotence of language to describe the reality they faced in modernity. Uri Eisenzweig describes this intellectual evolution as follows:

This conception of language as a positive, transparent medium—whether or not 19th-century anarchism was fully aware of it—it was logically bound to reject, if it wanted to philosophically justify its resistance to all political mediation. [...] Hence, the almost inevitable temptation of the anarchist attack: the questioning of the denotative power of words almost necessarily generated the correlative notion of an act of communication of a non-linguistic order.

Some anarchist theorists abandoned propaganda of the deed as early as 1883, as Kropotkin came to see this method as too violent and indiscriminate. However, this tactic was later adopted both by individualist anarchists during the so-called "era of attacks" and by public opinion and the media, particularly the press, which found in the label "anarchist" a convenient categorization for this emerging form of terrorism.

The opposition between anarchists like Kropotkin and Jean Grave—who had come to reject propaganda of the deed—and anarchist terrorists, often linked to the individualist anarchist movement, such as Ravachol, became evident in the declining sales of Le Révolté in the 1890s. This journal was surpassed by L'En-dehors and Le Père Peinard, two more radical anarchist newspapers.

Events

Fourmies, Clichy (1891), and the 'coming vengeance'

Main articles: Fusillade de Fourmies and Clichy Affair

Posthumous portrait of Maria Blondeau, detail from an illustration of the Fourmies shooting victims during the 1 May 1891 demonstration (L'Intransigeant Illustré).

In the early 1890s, the situation in France was highly volatile, with particularly tense relations between the authorities and the labor movement, within which anarchists were active. This tension erupted on 1 May 1891, during International Workers' Day, in two pivotal events.

The first took place in the town of Fourmies, where textile workers' wages had dropped by 20% over a few years, leading to discussions about launching a strike. A group of a few hundred people, led by Maria Blondeau, gathered in front of Fourmies' church, where they encountered the army. After clashes between the groups, the commanding officer gave the order to fire on the crowd, only stopping when priests intervened. Ten people were killed by the army, including a child.

That same day, a small group of anarchists marched toward Clichy. On their way, they encountered four policemen, leading to a confrontation. Some of the anarchists entered a nearby bar to buy something to drink. Shortly after, the police stormed the bar to seize what they considered a "seditious symbol"—a red flag carried by the group. Gunfire was exchanged. Three members of the group, Henri Decamps, Charles Dardare, and Louis Léveillé, refused to surrender and were struck with sabers. They were then taken to the Clichy police station, where they were pistol-whipped and kicked before being left without medical treatment or water.

In August, during their trial, the prosecutor sought the death penalty for all three. Two of them received harsh sentences—five and three years in prison.

These two events further radicalized anarchists in France. A group in the 15th arrondissement of Paris began calling themselves "Vengeance for Fourmies". Before the trial of the Clichy accused, around 700 anarchists gathered and declared, "The life of a policeman is worth less than that of a dog". In December 1891, the first anarchist attack was thwarted when three bombs were discovered at the Clichy police station.

1892: Explosions and fears

Ravachol and Meunier

On 29 February 1892, a bombing targeted an elite residence on Rue Saint-Dominique, causing neither casualties nor significant damage.

Meanwhile, François Koënigstein, known as Ravachol, an anarchist militant, decided to take direct action in response to these events, particularly the Clichy Affair. On the night of 14–15 February 1892, he and other anarchists stole thirty kilograms of dynamite from a quarry in Soisy-sur-Seine, giving him access to a significant arsenal for preparing attacks.

After making his first bomb, Ravachol initially planned to blow up the Clichy police station, but as he was unable to bypass the police presence, he instead decided to assassinate Judge Benoît, who had sentenced the Clichy defendants. On 7 March 1892, accompanied by Rosalie Soubère (Mariette) and Charles Simon (Cookie), two fellow anarchists, Ravachol placed a bomb in the middle of the building where the judge lived, without knowing the exact floor. The bomb exploded, killing no one, slightly injuring one person, and missing the judge entirely.

Four days later, on 11 March 1892, another anarchist, Théodule Meunier, began his own attacks by setting off a dynamite stick outside the Lobau barracks in the 4th arrondissement. Ravachol, dissatisfied with the failure of his attack on the judge, planned another assassination—this time targeting the prosecutor who had sought the death penalty for the Clichy anarchists. With Cookie’s help, he prepared a new bomb containing 120 sticks of dynamite. However, information from a police informant led to Cookie and other anarchists being arrested before they could carry out the attack, though Ravachol himself managed to escape.

On 27 March 1892, Ravachol placed his bomb in the building where prosecutor Bulot lived and then fled. The explosion injured seven people but did not harm Bulot, who was not present at the time. A few days later, Ravachol was arrested after being denounced by Very, the very owner of Le Very café, where he had been staying. The attacks and Ravachol’s arrest threw France into turmoil. Many foreign tourists staying in Paris chose to leave for safety reasons, while the anarchist press in the years following began publishing guides on how to make bombs and poison, such as La Salute è in voi.

Ravachol, in front of a guillotine, painted by Charles Maurin in 1893

On the eve of Ravachol’s trial, 25 April 1892, a bomb exploded at Le Very, targeting the café owner who had turned him in. Two people were killed, including the owner. The bomb had been placed by Théodule Meunier and Jean-Pierre François (Francis). Ravachol’s trial was assigned to the same prosecutor, Bulot, whom he had previously tried to assassinate. He was initially sentenced to life in prison but was retried in June of that year and condemned to death for a prior murder and other crimes he had likely not committed. He was guillotined on 11 July 1892, without ever revealing the location of the remaining dynamite, which the authorities never found.

Contrary to the intended effect of his execution, Ravachol’s death elevated him to the status of a martyr among anarchists. In the months following his attacks and execution, Parisian society was gripped by a panic-stricken fear of further anarchist attacks, fearing that new incidents would occur at any moment. This fear was heightened by the authorities' knowledge that workers in the suburbs of Paris had access to dynamite and were smuggling it from their workplaces for planned attacks.

Meanwhile, similar dynamics unfolded in the United States. Anarchist Alexander Berkman attempted to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick for his role in suppressing the Homestead strike.

Repression and Malatesta’s criticism

Throughout France, hundreds of anonymous letters were sent in the following months, announcing planned attacks or threatening landowners. The Third Republic used these bombings as justification to intensify repression against anarchists. The government expanded its network of informants, began seizing anarchist publications, conducted widespread raids, and granted full power to the Parisian police. In this context, law enforcement carried out significant arrests, such as the detention of sixty-six individuals suspected of advocating propaganda of the deed in April 1892. The authorities also expelled foreign anarchists, including Errico Malatesta.

In reality, Malatesta’s expulsion deprived the regime of a potential means to ease tensions. The Italian revolutionary opposed propaganda of the deed, as he outlined in an article titled A Little Theory, published in August 1892. In this piece, he criticized individualist anarchists for their reliance on it. While he acknowledged that terrorism and other revolutionary methods would be justifiable, he insisted that anarchists should not act “beyond the limits of necessity”. Instead, he argued that they should operate like surgeons, targeting specific enemies while avoiding unnecessary suffering. For Malatesta, anarchist struggle was inherently violent in the preparation for revolution, but he warned that “hatred does not produce love, and one cannot rebuild the world through hatred”. His stance showed the divide within anarchist circles between individualist anarchists and communist anarchists.

Radicalization of Henry and the Carmaux-Bons Enfants bombing

Main article: Carmaux-Bons Enfants bombing

Representation of the Carmaux-Bons Enfants bombing in Le Petit Journal (19 November 1892)

Alongside these developments, Émile Henry, initially an anarchist opposed to Ravachol’s methods, gradually became radicalized over the course of 1892. He strongly disagreed with Malatesta after reading his article and responded in a reply published in the same newspaper, L'En-dehors by Zo d'Axa. In his response, Henry emphasized that Malatesta had always called for violent and revolutionary actions, that he risked establishing new hierarchies through the anarchist organizations he sought to create, and, most importantly, that he would attempt to impose limits on individual freedom, the very foundation of anarchism. He stated:

Will future Ravachols have to submit their plans for approval to a sort of Grand Tribunal, where Malatesta or someone else will sit in judgment, deciding whether the acts are appropriate or not?

Henry thus became progressively radicalized, drawing inspiration from a tirade by the anarchist Souvarine in Germinal, a novel by Émile Zola, which influenced him. In this passage, the fictional character declares:

'Nonsense!' repeated Souvarine. 'Your Karl Marx is still clinging to the idea of letting natural forces take their course. No politics, no conspiracies, right? Everything out in the open, solely for wage increases... Spare me your evolution! Set fire to the four corners of the cities, mow down the people, raze everything to the ground, and when nothing remains of this rotten world, perhaps a better one will emerge.'

Above all, Henry also reacted to the brutal dismissal of Jean-Baptiste Calvignac, a socialist and trade unionist working at the Carmaux mine, after his election as mayor of Carmaux, a large-scale strike erupted within the mine and its associated glassworks. What began as a small local movement quickly spread and gained national attention, including from prominent socialists, like Jean Jaurès. This prompted the government to send in the army to force the workers to return to work. Although the social movement was not over and would, in fact, continue after Henry's death, he saw the moment when President Émile Loubet brought in the army as proof that peaceful methods would not work. He then decided to take action and carry out an attack targeting the headquarters of the Compagnie minière de Carmaux in Paris. The fact that the building he targeted was entirely occupied by members of the bourgeoisie reassured him, as he believed he would not be killing any innocents. Furthermore, if the police were alerted to the attack and managed to seize the bomb, it would be the officers who would die instead—an outcome Henry considered equivalent. The individualist anarchist was clear in his stance:

The entire bourgeoisie lives off the exploitation of the unfortunate, and it should pay for its crimes as a whole [...] Either I would kill the rich, or I would kill the police.

After coordinating with other anarchists, Henry sent a parcel bomb to the company's headquarters at 11 Avenue de l'Opéra, which arrived on the morning of the 8 November 1892. The parcel contained a tilt-sensitive bomb, a type never before used except by Russian nihilists, making it particularly lethal. The building's concierge took possession of it and handed it over to the police. The bomb exploded at the police station on Rue des Bons-Enfants at 11:37 a.m., killing four police officers and a company worker.

News of the attack reached London, where Kropotkin, Malatesta, and Charles Malato appeared shocked by the events. Meanwhile, Henry managed to escape to the United Kingdom and was initially ruled out as a suspect. The police even broke into his room in his absence but found nothing to incriminate him. The anarchist press seized on the event to support him, with Le Père Peinard even noting that the employee was among the victims because the police had refused to move the package themselves, deeming the act "beneath them". Henry’s independence from traditional anarchist circles made it more difficult for the police to track or identify him, as their informants within anarchist organizations were unable to recognize or locate him at first.

In London, he was initially suspected of being a police informant, notably by Louise Michel. Henry engaged in polemics against anarchists in the city who rejected propaganda of the deed.

1893-1894: Continuation of attacks, lois scélérates, and the birth of indiscrimate terrorism

Continuation of attacks and birth of indiscriminate terrorism

Main article: Liceu bombing

Representation of the Liceu bombing in Le Petit Journal illustré (25 November 1892)

In April 1893, Henry supported the Belgian general strike of 1893, during which the Belgian regime wavered after refusing to grant universal male suffrage. The anarchist took part in the riots that accompanied the strike and allegedly fired on the police, later expressing surprise at not having been arrested. The situation deteriorated further, and tensions spread. On 24 September 1893, in response to the torture and execution of anarchist militants in Spain, Paulí Pallàs threw two bombs at Arsenio Martínez Campos. However, he missed his target, instead killing a soldier and five civilians. He was subsequently executed.

In this Spanish-French context, two attacks occurring just days apart in November 1893 are considered the first instances of mass or "indiscriminate" terrorism. The first took place in Barcelona on 7 November 1893, when Santiago Salvador Franch threw two bombs into the bourgeois people of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, killing twenty people. A few days later, on 13 November 1893, Léon Léauthier stabbed a man named Rista Georgevitch simply because he "looked bourgeois". Georgevitch himself did not understand why he was being attacked, his first words after being stabbed being: 'Ah, this is too much, I don’t know this man'.

These two initial indiscriminate attacks were met with public and media panic, with some newspapers recognizing the unprecedented nature of these acts. They marked a significant shift in terrorism: the general public had now become a target.

On 9 December 1893, Auguste Vaillant attacked the Chamber of Deputies with a bomb, though this was a more traditional form of anarchist terrorism, aimed at state representatives and the bourgeoisie. During his trial, Vaillant defended his attack, declaring that his bomb was 'the cry of an entire class demanding its rights'. His lawyer echoed this sentiment, stating: 'If the deputies do not care about the unfortunate, the unfortunate will take care of the deputies'. Vaillant was sentenced to death and subsequently executed.

On 12 February 1894, seeking to avenge Vaillant and now embracing the concept of mass terrorism, Émile Henry carried out the bombing of the Café Terminus, before being arrested, tried, and executed. These three attacks—by Salvador Franch, Léon Léauthier, and Émile Henry—were followed by highly publicized trials, during which the new nature of this form of terrorism was openly acknowledged. Henry declared that he had intended to 'shoot in the pile', while Salvador Franch stated:

I had declared war on the bourgeoisie and wanted to exterminate as many of these individuals as I could. The bourgeoisie condemned me to starve, and I wanted to take revenge on these traitors. I sought to dissolve society through fear. My vengeance is not directed at anyone personally but at the bourgeois entity as a whole.

During his trial, Franch also declared, 'I felt capable of exterminating the bourgeoisie en masse by myself', a statement that deeply shocked the courtroom audience. Anarchist circles recognized the unprecedented nature of these attacks. For instance, Sébastien Faure, commenting on the Café Terminus bombing in La Presse, wrote:

What may be surprising at first glance about last night’s explosion is the choice of location made by its perpetrator. To me, this attack is linked to the execution of Vaillant; it marks the beginning of reprisals. Yet this Breton [Henry’s name was not yet known] chose a café frequented by peaceful bourgeois instead of targeting politicians, magistrates, or Deibler [the executioner]—in short, anyone directly or indirectly responsible for Vaillant’s execution.

Gilles Ferragu describes the evolution of terrorism as follows, reflecting on these changes in perspective:

By striking 'at random', Émile Henry redefines the parameters of the attack, ultimately surpassing the old pattern of tyrannicide in favor of modern terrorism, in that it blindly targets a society defined both as a target and as an objective enemy (the 'bourgeoisie'). The very formulation used by Henry to describe his act reflects his political vision. From a social echo standpoint, as seen through its media resonance, the result is striking, defining for a long time the canons of terrorist dramaturgy and the stages of their treatment by the media: attention shifts from the victims to the investigation, then focuses on the terrorist and their trial, ultimately leading to the restoration of order through execution.

A few months after the bombing of the Café Terminus, Sante Geronimo Caserio assassinated French President Sadi Carnot by stabbing him, and was subsequently sentenced to death.

Lois scélérates (villainous laws)

Main article: Lois scélérates

Following the attacks by Vaillant and Sante Geronimo Caserio, the French Chamber of Deputies passed a series of three laws between December 1893 and July 1894. These laws, nicknamed the "lois scélérates" (villainous laws), aimed to intensify the repression of anarchism in a dynamic of escalating crackdown. Anne-Sophie Chambost provides insight into their novelty, writing:

The 'marmite' of Vaillant on 9 December 1893 intensified repression to such an extent that the laws seemed to be the result of a politically opportunistic exploitation, which mistreated the principles of criminal law (presumption of innocence and the principle of proportionality of sentences). In order to exclude anarchist propaganda from the scope of press law (which was relatively liberal), the law of 12 December 1893 amended the law of 29 July 1881 in its Articles 24, 25, and 49 (creating the offense of glorifying acts deemed to be crimes, to target direct and indirect provocations; increasing penalties for provocations that did not lead to action; removing certain restrictions from the 1881 law regarding seizures and preventive arrests); the law of 18 December 1893 amended Article 265 of the Penal Code (associations of wrongdoers) to prosecute any form of agreement made to prepare or commit attacks on people or property (even in the absence of execution); after the attack by Caserio against President Carnot, the law of 28 July 1894 targeted anarchist activities by banning anarchist or anti-militarist propaganda, regardless of its form: in addition to public propaganda and press offenses, the legislator added private propaganda; the law also modified the jurisdictional rules set by the press law (substituting the correctional police court for the assize court).

Legacy

Influences

Literature

The period and the anarchist attacks that took place during it had a lasting influence on literature. In France, authors such as Stéphane Mallarmé, Pierre Quillard, and Paul Adam became interested in anarchism through these attacks. According to Eisenszweig, this interest is quite limited and focuses more on the attacks themselves than on anarchism as such. He argues, for example, that Mallarmé remained on the margins of anarchist ideology and was primarily interested in it through the lens of terrorism.

International police cooperation

To address the issues raised by these developments, Western states convened the International Conference of Rome for Social Defense against the Anarchists (1898), a meeting of Western police forces aimed at coordinating the fight against anarchism. This marked the beginnings of European police cooperation and heralded the creation of Interpol.

Influence on other terrorisms

The methods developed by Western anarchists during this period spread beyond Europe, notably to the Ottoman Empire, where they influenced the early acts of terrorism by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), such as the Ottoman Bank takeover (1896) and the Nejuik Operation (1905).

Bibliography

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