FIRST FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM -- 19TH CENTURY --

WILLIAM MELVILLE

THIS IS A GREAT EYE OPENER 
WHAT WENT ON ALREADY AT THE END OF THE 19TH CENTURY AND STILL GOES ON. 
 ABSOLUTELY AMAZING.

A book written by Alex Butterworth about the first war on terrorism. There was a serial of bombings in London and Europe at the end of 19th century and its history still has to be fully revealed. The book is called 'The World That Never Was' and the author put in a lot of effort into research.

Apparently, across Europe there was a high alert and for weeks undercover agents reported increased terrorism. One report was about a planned synchronised bombing attacks and the other a suspected assassination of heads of state.

All this sounds like a fiction film but there was a thorough research on a pile of deteriorating papers of French police' reports. These reports from the 1894 give a glimpse on a 'first war on terrorism' and it wasn't the Islamic fundamentalists but anarchists.

Admittedly there was a high immigration and amid revolutionaries finding safe heaven while in their homeland was political upheaval.  In the 1890 whole areas were foreign colonies in London. The most dangerous people were the Russians; plotting bloody action against their own government

Peter Rachkovsky, the head of Russia's sinister political police the Okharana, was brilliant and unscrupulous. From his Paris HQ he skilfully disrupts the activities against the Tsar. The father of the Tsar Alexander II they had assassinated in 1881. Rachkovsky used any method he could, such as sabotage, blackmail, propaganda and provocation.

Victoria showed herself and her government as liberal.  The Tsaristic Russia was seen as tyrants and anybody who seeked shelter in Britain was protected. But Rachkovsky knew how to sway the public opinion. A bomb scare implied coming from a foreign anarchist would soon help the change.

Inspector William Melville, Inspector of the British Special Branch was against the immigrants and a letter stated that he was willing to work with the Russians. Before the end of the year Melville planned the kind of bomb scare Rachkovski needed.

In Fitzroy Square in central London the grand Georgian Houses were full with immigrant families. A plot was hatched.  Anarchists in Walsall were making the bomb.  In January 1892, Melville arrested the Walsall man as he arrived in London and soon arrested the others.

Who was behind the whole set-up? There were rumours of a black book which detailed the Special Branch. But first it was under the 30 years secret act and then it supposed to be destroyed during the Second World War.

Finally in 2002 a Special Branch officer 'rediscovered' contents revealing that a teacher from an anarchist school was paid by Melville, was the man behind it. The so-called book was three vast ledgers and each line listed and cross-referenced letters sent or received by Special Branch. Even then you had to sign a document to reveal nothing of the contents. Mr Alex Butterworth who wrote the book 'The World That Never Was' insisted on the Freedom of Information law. The Metropolitan Police prevented him for three years. The Information Commissioner finally agreed for documents to be realized.

The Met appealed, the Information Tribunal heard testimony from three senior counter-terrorist officers and the ruling was that the names should be kept secret to avoid future informers being put off. The documents turned out to be a sea of black ink which could have been a historical evidence.

To protect informers is a very good reason but we are talking here about documents over a century old. Another reason for secrecy would be Melville involvement with the Russian Okhrana.  In 1893 Melville became chief inspector of Special Branch. Anarchist terrorism set Europe alight and the people of Paris and Barcelona lived in fear of bombings. In February 1894 in London a bomb was carried by a young Frenchman exploded near the Greenwich Royal Observatory.

Joseph Conrad, used the story as the basis for his novel 'The Secret Agent' which pointed at the Russian embassy. Conrad claimed it was a fiction. However, Alex Butterworth's research showed it was facts. Within weeks of the Greenwich bombings a bomb exploded in the Belgium city of Liege. Letters found in the flat pointed to the Russian embassy in Paris again Rachkovsky's agent.

Within a few years the attacks ran its course but the facts remained that Rachkovsky's war on terror' was a terrible 'blowback'.

His forgery of 'The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion' which supposed to be a plan for Jews to achieve worldwide domination; started off an anti-Semitism which snow-balled into the gas chambers.

THIS SHOULD BE A WARNING TO ALL OF US -- HOW SOMETHING LIKE THAT CAN SNOW-BALL INTO A HOLOCAUST.  IT ALWAYS STARTS SMALL - SO DON'T IGNORE IT.

The then home secretary Charles Clarke insisted after the bombings in 2005 that the 19th century war on terror held lessons for us today.

Alex Butterworth wrote a book 'The World That Never Was' and it will give many more information.