Global Terrorism

members of the government, and maintained that “not one drop of superfluous blood should be shed.” A good example of this was the planned attempt on the life of Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich in 1905. When the terrorist assigned to the assassination saw that the duke’s children were with him in his carriage, he immediately gave up the attempt. By that date, the Narodnaya Volya had been almost wiped out following their assassination of Czar Alexander II on March 1, 1881. The first terrorist hurled his bomb at the czar’s sleigh. It missed, and soldiers seized the terrorist. As Alexander stepped from the sleigh, remarking, “Thank God, I am safe,” a second man sprang from the crowd with another bomb and killed both the czar and himself. Brutal interrogation of the surviving terrorist soon provided enough information to round up the members of the organization, who were convicted and hanged.

The body of the Russian Czar Alexander II, lying in state before his funeral in 1881. Two bombers from the revolutionary movement Narodnaya Volya attacked his sleigh, close by the Winter Palace, as it passed through the streets of St Petersburg.

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The Rise of Terrorism