23. People’s Will Finally Get Their Man
People’s Will tried to kill Alexander II Tsar in December of 1879 with explosives on a railway, but missed his train. They tried again two months later with a bomb in his palace, but he was not in the room when it exploded. The frightened Tsar declared a state of emergency and set up a commission to repress the terrorists. Within a week, People’s Will attempted to assassinate the commission’s head. Amid mounting repression, including the hanging of People’s Will activists, caught distributing illegal leaflets, the group doggedly persisted in its efforts to get the Tsar.
They finally succeeded on March 1st, 1881, when a People’s Will assassin, waiting in ambush along a route frequently taken by Alexander II, threw a bomb under his carriage. The explosion killed a guard and wounded others, but the carriage was armored, the Tsar was unhurt, and the bomb thrower was captured. Acting on the spur of the moment, the shaken Tsar stepped out of the carriage whose armor had just saved his life. As he inspected the damage and carnage, Alexander crossed in gratitude for his narrow escape. A second assassin, hidden in the gathering crowd, spotted him. Shouting “it is too early to thank God!“, he threw another bomb, that exploded directly beneath the Tsar’s feet. A third assassin in the crowd, ready with yet another bomb in case the first two failed, had no need to throw his explosives.
