Ravachol and the Birth of Modern Terrorism
Ravachol’s bombs killed no one in 1892. Yet newspapers across Europe turned anarchist François Koenigstein into a terrorist mastermind.
On 11 March 1892, François Koenigstein – an unemployed criminal turned self-proclaimed anarchist who went by the name ‘Ravachol’ – entered an apartment building on Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris, carrying pistols in his pockets and an improvised explosive device (IED) in his hands. The weapon Ravachol heaved up the stairs to the apartment’s second floor was simple yet destructive. It consisted of an iron pot packed with sticks of dynamite and scrap metal pieces which, when the fuse was lit and the explosive detonated, would send shrapnel flying in all directions. Ravachol had constructed this device for the purpose of committing a targeted killing. Specifically, he wanted to murder a judge who had recently condemned fellow anarchists to jail for their part in a protest march that descended into a violent confrontation with police.
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