[The following is in regards to an attempted terrorist assassination directed at the Russian Tsar, Alexander II. Here, a terrorist revolutionary had snuck into the Winter Palace and planned a detonation of dynamite in a room beneath the dining room, designed to explode just as the royal family was sitting down to dinner. However, the family was delayed in another room by a tardy guest. The aftermath, however, was horrifying for those servants in the room, as well as the soldiers garrisoned in a room below the explosion.]
While Alexander II and his family were fortunate enough to escape the explosion unscathed, at least physically, there were others who suffered hideously. The amount of dynamite smuggled gradually into the palace by the resident assassin turned out to be insufficient to blow the royals to pieces but more than enough to decimate a large group of guards gathered in their quarters directly beneath the dining room. Hearing agonized screams, the emperor’s sons rushed to the source.
”When we ran in, we found a terrible scene,” recalled the future Alexander III: “the entire large guards room where people lived was blown up and everything had collapsed more than six feet deep, and in that pile of brick, plaster, slabs and huge mounds of vaults and walls lay more than fifty soldiers covered with a layer of dust and blood. It was a heartbreaking picture, and I will never forget that horror in my life!”
Source:
Farquhar, Michael. “Chapter 11 – Alexander II (1855-1881): “A Crowned Semi-Ruin”.” Secret Lives of the Tsars: Three Centuries of Autocracy, Debauchery, Betrayal, Murder, and Madness from Romanov Russia. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2014. 212. Print.
Further Reading:
Alexander II (Russian: Алекса́ндр II Никола́евич, tr. Aleksandr II Nikolayevich)
Alexander III (Russian: Алекса́ндр III Алекса́ндрович, tr. Aleksandr III Aleksandrovich)
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