Flowers to attack Alfonso XIII in Main Street
It was 1:55 p.m. when an explosion turned the shouts and cheers for the newlyweds into cries of suffering and pain. A bouquet of flowers stumbled on the streetcar line and fell on the public watching the Kings' carriage pass by. The 28 fatal victims of the attack may have been monarchists or perhaps just onlookers, but what is certain is that their lives were taken. In their memory and in the memory of the more than 100 wounded we can see in front of number 84 of Calle Mayor in Madrid the Monument to the victims of the attack against Alfonso XIII and Victoria Eugenia.
The attack
King Alfonso XIII and Victoria Eugenia had just been married in the Jerónimos and were riding through the streets of Madrid in a carriage pulled by white horses, waving to the crowd that swirled around them. From the balcony of the pension of number 88 of Mayor Street, Mateo Morral throws a bouquet of flowers, inside a homemade bomb ready to explode, the bouquet hits the streetcar line and falls on the crowd. Twenty-eight people are killed, including civilians and soldiers, and more than 100 are wounded; the King and Queen are unharmed. It is May 31, 1906
Mateo Morral -The anarchist who attempted to assassinate Alfonso XIII-.
Mateo Morral was a teacher at the modern school, he was 26 years old, single and from a well-to-do family. For some a terrorist and for others someone who wanted to change things. Of his motivations, plans and alliances we know much and little at the same time, some theories indicate that there were influential people behind the attack hoping that it would succeed to change the state model in the country, there are many conjectures and few proven data.
Two days after the attack Mateo Morral was arrested in Torrejón de Ardoz, and when he was taken to the barracks he took out a pistol that he had hidden, killed the agent who was guarding it and later committed suicide with the same weapon. Current studies have shown that "he committed suicide", the bullet hole is incompatible with a close range shot.
Portrait Mateo Morral
The monument to the victims
The monument is from 1963 and is located in the main street in front of number 84, it measures 2.6 meters. In bronze we can see an angel kneeling with a scroll that reads "Madrid 1906 - 1963", behind the coat of arms of Madrid with the royal crown. On the granite pedestal on which it sits there is a marble plaque that reads "In memory of the victims of the attack against SS. MM. D. Alfonso XIII and Dª Victoria Eugenia on May 31, 1906".
It is the work of the sculptor Federico Collaut-Valera, author of works such as the well-known winged victory on the dome of the Metropolis Building or some of the sculptures of the monument to Cervantes in Plaza España.
Curiosities
If we look at the press of the time, the attack was carried out from the fourth floor of number 88 of Main Street, if we look at the balconies we will not discover anything because number 88 is today number 84 and the fourth floor is today the fifth floor (the old mezzanine became the second floor).
But we have a good clue to identify the balcony from where Mateo Morral made the attack, since today a bouquet of flowers can be seen hanging in remembrance of the event.
Number 84, Main Street
Balcony of the attack
The monument we know today was not the first one in honor of the victims of the attack. In 1908, two years after the event, another monument, more grandiose, was installed in the same place, but it was demolished and dismantled during the Civil War.
During the civil war, Calle Mayor was renamed Calle Mateo Morral.
Mateo Morral had already announced his intention a few days before the attack by carving it into a tree in the Parque del Retiro.
Executed will be Alfonso XIII on the day of his wedding - Un irredento- Dinamita
Mateo Morral left his intentions inscribed on a tree in the Retiro (Photo ABC).
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