As a neighbourhood where a lot of working class people lived, it was a logical choice for the 1872 Hague Congress, also called the fifth congress of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA), held from 2–7 September. A decisive conflict took place at the meeting in a café annex conference room called "Excelsior" in the korte Lombardstraat, between the champions of the political struggle of the proletariat Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin, where Bakunin was to be expelled from the movement. Also a number of incidents would take place between supporters of the IWA on the one hand and anarchists on the other. Perhaps most dramatic was an accident, when on account of too many supporters being cramped up on a balcony of the meeting hall, it collapsed, and a number of people where severely hurt.