resentment. The reservists were called out; families were robbed of their bread-winners. The King was hooted in Madrid. At Barcelona, when the wealthy Catholic ladies went on board the troopships to distribute medals and cigarettes to the soldiers, the men threw their gifts into the sea. The Government had enacted that young men would not be called out whose families could pay 1,500 pesetas. The poorer mothers were aflame with anger.
On July 23 the Socialists and Trade Unionists decided that there should be a general strike, in protest, over the whole country on August 2. Under pressure of one group the date was anticipated, and a committee was formed to inaugurate the strike at Barcelona on July 26. I am quoting the authentic statements of the officials. Three bodies were represented on this committee—the Socialists, Anarchists, and Trade Unionists. They worked with secrecy and energy, and completely outwitted the police, who were intensely angered to find the town on strike on July 26. The crowds gathered in the streets, stopped the trams—women everywhere taking the leading part in the work—and cut the telegraph wires. The strike drifted towards riot, and there were collisions with the police. The troops were then called out, and, on the crowd appealing to them, refused to fire. All organisation was now broken, and no step that was taken after this point was in the least premeditated, as the Protestant ministers of Barcelona have written. The crowd developed, under the influence of its own passions and the stupid provocation of the Civil Guard, into an insurgent mob.
To understand the situation entirely it is essential to note that the more serious revolt did not begin in Barcelona. Some sixteen miles off is Sabadell, an industrial town of 18,000 inhabitants, the chief manufacturing centre of the province. Intensely Republican and disdainful of the corruption of Church and State, Sabadell lost its head in the whirl of news of riot from all parts of Spain. It cut its communications, disarmed its police, and proclaimed the Republic. In the afternoon messengers arrived from Sabadell in Barcelona with the news, adding that 1,500 armed Sabadellians were ready to come and help to found the Republic. It is profoundly pathetic to picture these few thousand badly
