Tragic week (Argentina)

Tragic Week

Disturbances during Tragic Week
Date	January 1919
Location	Buenos Aires, Argentina
Also known as	Semana Trágica
Participants	Argentine Anarchists, Patriotic League
Deaths	700

Tragic Week (Spanish: Semana Trágica) was a series of riots and massacres that took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the week of January 7, 1919. The riot was led by anarchists and communists, and was eventually crushed by the Argentine Federal Police under Luis Dellepiane and the intervention of the Argentine Army, Argentine Marine Corps and Argentine Navy.

From 1902 until 1909 the FORA (Federacion Obrera Regional Argentina) was founded by Italian immigrant Pietro Gori, an Italian anarchist of international renown) waged a long campaign of general strikes against the employers and against anti-labour legislation. In May 1904, a clash between workers and police left two dead and fifteen injured. In 1907, the feminist-anarchist league was established in Buenos Aires. Toward the end of this decade there arose a situation in which the brutality of the authorities and the militancy of the workers incited each other to greater heights, until, on May Day, 1909, a giant gathering marched through Buenos Aires and was broken up by the police, who inflicted some 12 killed and a hundred wounded. It was reported at the time that anarchists had provoked the violence. Argentine President José Figueroa Alcorta narrowly himself escaped death when an anarchist bomb was thrown at him while he was driving in Buenos Aires on 28 February 1908. The government officials were again thrown into panic when a 19-year-old anarchist, Ukrainian immigrant Simón Radowitzky, killed with a hand-held bomb the city's police chief, Ramón Falcón and his aide Alberto Lartigau, who were driving through Callao street in Buenos Aires on 15 November 1909. On 16 October 1909, bombs exploded at the Spanish consulate in the city of Rosario, injuring an anarchist and damaging the building. In late 1909, as a result of Falcón's assassination the self-styled "Patriotic students" known as Juventud Autonomista was formed. On 25 May 1910, in an effort to disrupt the Argentine centennial celebrations in Buenos Aires, an anarchist gave a bomb to an unsuspecting boy to carry into a cathedral, the bomb however exploded prematurely and the boy was killed and another lost both arms. On 28 June 1910 another bomb exploded in the Teatro Colón and 20 theatre-goers were injured and the Senate and Chamber of Deputies passed a bill providing for capital punishment for those anarchists responsible for causing death. On 9 July 1916, an attempt to assassinate Argentine President Victorino de la Plaza was made by a gun-wielding self-confessed anarchist. The attempt was made while the president was reviewing a troop march past during celebrations of the one-hundred anniversary of Argentine independence. On 9 February 1918, violent strikes took place across Argentina and regular troops were rushed to the affected areas after anarchists wrecked trains, destroyed tracks and burned carriages laden with wheat.