At a time when the future seemed brightest, the Republic was suddenly startled by the news of the assassination of President Caceres on Sunday afternoon, November 19, 1911. The president, with a single companion, was returning from a drive along the new road to San Geronimo. At Guibia, a suburb of the capital, a number of conspirators rushed for the carriage, seized the reins of the horse and began to shoot. The president's companion fled, but Caceres, a fearless man and an excellent shot, returned the fire. Almost simultaneously a bullet shattered his right wrist. The coachman lashed the horse in an attempt to escape, but the horse reared and threw the carriage against a hedge. The coachman then dragged Caceres from the carriage and assisted him to the stable of a house on the roadside, adjoining the American legation, but the conspirators meantime continued to fire furiously and several shots struck the president. Seeing their object accomplished, the assassins withdrew, and the president, mortally wounded, was carried to the American legation, where he expired a few minutes later.
The conspirators were a handful of malcontents led by General Luis Tejera, a young man of prominent family, at one time governor of the capital under Caceres, but lately estranged. Caceres had known of Tejera's seditious sentiments but refused to take them seriously. Immediately after the shooting, the conspirators hastened away in a waiting automobile, carrying with them their leader Tejera, who had been wounded in the leg during the affray. At the Jaina ferry the automobile was accidentally precipitated into the river, and the wounded man was fished out half drowned. The other conspirators left him in a hut by the road and escaped. Tejera was found by the pursuers, taken to the fort in Santo Domingo City, and summarily executed.
The commandant of arms of the capital, General Alfredo M. Victoria, who controlled the military forces, permitted his own ambitions to influence him more than the welfare of his country. Being only twenty-six years old, he was not of the constitutional age to be president, but listening to the counsel of scheming politicians, he dominated the situation by force of arms and brought about the selection of his uncle, Eladio Victoria, as provisional president. The latter was a senator from Santiago province, and had at one time been a member of Caceres' cabinet, but he was not regarded as of presidential calibre and his selection provoked general surprise and indignation. General Victoria's army was a potent argument; it withered the ambition of other aspirants to the presidency, and Senator Victoria was elected provisional president and entered upon office December 6, 1911. In the following February the usual form of public election was gone through and on February 27, 1912, he took the oath of office as constitutional president. His nephew occupied important cabinet positions under the new administration.