the shrapnel from the Puerta de Alcalá that reminds us of the disastrous history of Spain

2023-12-03 05:09:03

“My great-great-grandfather knew perfectly well that they were going to kill him,” María del Pilar Espinosa de los Monteros told ABC two years ago. On March 8, 1921, everything happened very quickly. At that time the Puerta de Alcalá was almost 150 years old, but it was neither the first nor the last time that it would witness the horror from its stone watchtower. Two days before, the three-time President of the Government during the Restoration, Eduardo Dato, ate with King Alfonso XIII to tell him about the threats he suffered. Afterwards he went to see Antonio Maura in the Senate to tell him that he was tired and that he was going to leave office.

They arranged to talk the next morning, but the meeting never took place. At night, the vehicle that was taking Dato from the Senate to his home arrived at Puerta de Alcalá at 8:00 p.m. Just as he slowed down to turn onto Serrano Street, a motorcycle with a sidecar occupied by three men dressed in overalls approached from behind. Without the driver having time to react, two of them machine-gunned the car at point-blank range and then advanced to the side to fire two more shots at the president.

Several shrapnel impacts can still be seen on the walls of the Puerta de Alcalá, to remind the people of Madrid of that unfortunate assassination and the disastrous history of Spain. The anarchists fired so many bullets that some did not hit either the body or the vehicle, but rather the imposing monument. The wounds remained there forever, which have not been covered in this latest restoration, like others suffered during the War of Independence, in the invasion of the One Hundred Thousand Sons of San Luis in 1823 and in the Civil War.

Only during the time of Juan Barranco, mayor of Madrid between 1986 and 1989, was the possibility of repairing them considered, but it was never carried out. The supporters of leaving them uncovered as a testimony of the events experienced and suffered by this Historic-Artistic Monument of national character and Asset of Cultural Interest won, just as had been done with the marks of the 23-F shots in the Congress of the Deputies. In 2021, during the pandemic, a movement resurfaced in favor of resuming this point, with the aim of returning to this emblem of Madrid all the splendor of the facades designed by Francesco Sabatini in the last third of the 18th century, but again it returned to triumph the other current.

War of Independence

There are still visible the scratches of that fateful May 2, 1808 when Napoleon wanted to conquer us. The Puerta de Alcalá has been damaged by the French on up to three occasions. The first of them, on that first heroic day carried out by the people of Madrid, which Benito Pérez Galdós recounted in his ‘National Episodes’: «There were no voices other than weapons, weapons, weapons! Those who did not shout in the streets, shouted on the balconies. And if a moment before half of the people of Madrid were simply curious, after the appearance of the artillery they were all actors.

In the famous spontaneous uprising against the French troops commanded by General Murat, who had entered the capital shortly before, it was precisely at the foot of the now restored monument where one of the fiercest battles was fought. On the walls of El Retiro, a few meters away, a good number of patriots were shot. And on December 3 of that same year, Bonaparte’s soldiers turned the surroundings of the Puerta de Alcalá into one of the toughest fronts of the war, after fighting and winning the battle of Somosierra a few days before. The holes produced by the invading artillery in that skirmish also remained in the stone.

With hardly any rest, fifteen years later, in 1823, the Puerta de Alcalá was once again the scene of another attack by French troops, in the invasion of Spain by the One Hundred Thousand Sons of San Luis. A conquest that ended with the battle of the Trocadero, in Puerto Real, Cádiz, where a monarchical Army composed of French and Spanish soldiers, in support of the absolutism of Fernando VII, faced a small group of liberals. As they passed through Madrid, these last defenders of the 1812 Constitution dug trenches on Alcalá Street and once again exchanged shots with the enemy that ended up at the monument. And it wasn’t the last…

As it could not be otherwise, the walls of the most important gate of the capital still have the wounds of the Civil War visible. In the three years of siege that Madrid suffered by the Francoists, many of the shots from the artillery stationed in front of the Casa de Campo hit the monument. Especially against its exterior façade. We must not forget that Gran Vía, less than a hundred meters away, was popularly known as the Avenida de los Obuses.