1881 | Political Events
Political Events
French socialists found a Central Revolutionary Committee (Comité Révolutionnaire Central) following the death at Paris January 1 of radical socialist Auguste Blanqui at age 75 (he had spent more than 33 years of his life behind bars).
Russian troops under the command of General Mikhail D. Skobelev capture Turkmen stronghold of Gokte (or Geok-Tepe; later Gokdepe) in the Persian province of Khorasan January 24. Now 37 and known as the "white general" because he always dresses in a white uniform for battle and rides a white horse, Skobolev took command last year of the campaign against the Turkmens in the Central Asian region between the Caspian and Aral seas; he has all males in the vicinity put to death, forces the tribes into submission, and moves against Ashkhabad (later Ashgabat), wresting the region from the control of Uzbeks who have held it since the 15th century, but St. Petersburg concludes an alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, Skobolev is recalled, and he is given command of the Minsk Army Corps.
Russia's Aleksandr II is assassinated at St. Petersburg March 13 at age 62 after a 26-year reign. A bomb tears off his legs, rips open his belly, and mutilates his face in an act organized and carried out by Sophia Perovskaya, who heads a band of Nihilist terrorists of a populist fringe group. The leadership of the People's Will (Narodnaya Volya) is arrested, and the group is taken over by Vera Nikolaevna Figner, 28, who has organized a resistance movement within the army and navy, written propaganda, and plotted to blow up the czar's train (see 1880). London authorities shut down anarchist Johann Most's 3-year-old weekly paper Die Freiheit for glorifying the assassination, and a court sentences him to 16 months' imprisonment (see 1882); the czar liberator is succeeded by his six-foot four-inch son, who was tutored beginning in 1865 by former Moscow University political philosopher Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev, now 53. Now 36, the new czar will reign until 1894 as Aleksandr III, following the reactionary advice of Pobedonostsev, who since last year has been director general of the Most Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church; Aleskandr begins a wave of repression and persecution. Statesman-explorer Graf Nikolai Muravyov dies at Paris November 30 (November 18 Old Style) at age 72.
Romania and Serbia win independence from Constantinople, and the Serbs make an alliance with Austria-Hungary. Thessaly and the Arta district of southern Epirus are awarded to Greece in May, but Prime Minister Aléxandros Koumoundhouros is frustrated in his hopes of annexing the cities of Joánnina (Janina) and Preveza; he will resign in March of next year.
Former British prime minister and novelist Benjamin Disraeli, earl of Beaconsfield, dies at his native London April 19 at age 76.
Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell agitates for home rule and is imprisoned on charges of obstructing operation of a new land policy (see 1879; Boycott, 1880). From prison, Parnell directs tenant farmers to pay no rent, thus enhancing his power, but a new Land Act put through by Prime Minister Gladstone eases conditions in Ireland (see 1882).
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Noah Swayne retires January 25 at the request of President Hayes, who has promised to appoint Swayne's friend Stanley Matthews in his place. Now 76, Swayne has had an undistinguished career on the bench.
Former New York mayor Fernando Wood dies at Hot Springs, Arkansas, February 14 on his 69th birthday. House of Representatives majority leader at his death, he is remembered by his detractors as the mayor who defended slavery during the Civil War, but admirers remember him as an opponent of harsh Reconstruction measures; German revolutionary politician Friedrich Hecker dies at St. Louis March 24 at age 79, having served as a colonel in the Union Army during America's Civil War. He has admired the German empire established 10 years ago but could never reconcile himself to Prussian leadership.
Sen. Roscoe Conkling (R. N.Y.) and Sen. Thomas C. Platt (R. N.Y) resign their Senate seats in May when President Garfield refuses to follow Conkling's advice with regard to the appointment of a new collector of the port of New York and sends federal appointees instead. Conkling, now 51, fought Garfield's nomination and refused to support the party ticket last year; he retires from politics. President Garfield is shot July 2 by a disappointed office seeker while waiting for a train at the Washington, D.C., depot of the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad ("My God! What is this?" he exclaims). Physicians are unable to find the bullet in his body, and Alexander Graham Bell is brought in to probe for it with an electrical metal-detector that he and another man have invented, but although the device has worked successfully on other Civil War veterans it fails at the White House because nobody mentions that the president's bed has a mattress with metal coil springs. The bullet is later found lodged in Garfield's back muscles a few inches from its entry point, encased in a protective cyst that has formed around it; the wound becomes infected because the doctors have used unsterile instruments, Garfield is taken in September to a seaside cottage at Elberon, New Jersey (a special railroad track is laid to bring his train to the cottage door), and he dies there September 19 at age 49. Vice President Chester A. Arthur, now 51, is sworn in as president at his 123 Lexington Avenue, New York, town house; the first president since George Washington to take the oath of office at New York, Arthur abandons his support of the spoils system, from which he has personally benefited as collector of the port of New York, and follows Garfield's policy of avoiding party favoritism in his appointments. Garfield's assassin, Charles J. Guiteau, is a Republican "Stalwart" who had sought to gain office by making Arthur chief executive, and although he has a history of mental illness he will be hanged in June of next year.
Baltimore-born Maryland Civil Service Reform League chairman Charles Joseph Bonaparte, 30, joins in organizing a National Civil Service Reform League (see Pendleton Act, 1883).
Former Confederate Army general John C. Pemberton dies at Penilyn, Pennsylvania, July 13 at age 66; former Union Army general Ambrose E. Burnside at Bristol, Rhode Island, September 13 at age 57. He served as governor of Rhode Island from 1866 to 1869 and has been U.S. senator from that state since 1875.
Japan's first political parties are formed.
Boers in the Transvaal repulse British forces January 28 at Laing's Neck and defeat them February 27 at Majuba Hill, where the governor and commander-in-chief of the Natal colony, Sir George Pomeroy Colley, is killed at age 45 (see 1880). Pieter A. Cronjé forces the surrender of the British garrison at Potchefstroom in March as leaders of the two sides meet to arrange a general armistice, and the Treaty of Pretoria concluded April 5 gives independence to the South African Republic of the Boers, albeit under British suzerainty (see 1899).
Egyptian nationalist Colonel Ahmad Arabi al-Misri, 42, leads a revolt against the Turkish and Circassian officers who have dominated the country's army (see 1880). Resentful of European influence in his country, Arabi and two of his colleagues draw up a petition in January against the Circassian war minister. The three are arrested and court martialed, but mutineers release them, and the khedive Tewfik replaces the war minister with one of Arabi's friends. Unrest continues, Tewfik appoints a new ministry following a military demonstration at Cairo in September, and he convenes the Assembly (see 1882).
France acquires Tunisia May 12 under terms of the Treaty of Kasser Said (Treaty of Bardo, or of Al-qasr As-sa'id) as Premier Jules Ferry, now 49, works to expand the French colonial empire (see 1878). A 36,000-man French expeditionary force has been sent at Ferry's urging with the ostensible purpose of subduing Tunisian Kroumer attacks on the Algerian border. The treaty provides for indefinite French occupation, a curb on the bey's authority, a reorganization of Tunisian finances, and a French resident minister to act as a liaison between Paris and the Tunisian authorities (see Cambon, 1882).