1885 - Political Events

Political Events

Britain's second Gladstone ministry ends June 9. Robert (Arthur Talbot Gascoyne) Cecil, 55, marquess of Salisbury, has headed the Tories since the death of Lord Beaconsfield in 1881, his party wins the first British election to be fought over the issue of home rule for Ireland, and he begins a brief ministry. Charles Stewart Parnell's Irish Paliamentary Party wins every seat in Ireland outside Ulster and Dublin University, a victory that persuades Gladstone to support the Home Rule Movement (see 1884; 1886).

The autonomous principality of Bulgaria unites with Eastern Rumelia despite opposition from Russia (see 1878). Bulgarian assembly (Sobranye) president Stefan Nikolov Stambolov, 31, has urged Prince Aleksandr I to take the action, and Serbia goes to war with Bulgaria November 14 in a conflict that will continue for more than 3 months (see 1886).

Spain's Alfonso XII dies of phthisis at his native Madrid November 24 at age 27 after a 15-year reign in which he has escaped two assassination attempts. The Spanish pretender Carlos Maria de Los Dolores de Borbón y Austria-este, duque de Madrid (Don Carlos), now 37, does not exercise his claim to the throne, and the prime minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo arranges a peaceful transfer of power: Alfonso's Austrian-born widow, Maria Christina de Habsburgo-lorena, 27, becomes queen regent and will serve as such until her husband's posthumous son, who will be born next year, comes of age in 1902 and ascends the throne as Alfonso XIII. She makes Liberal Party leader Práxades Mateo Sagasta, now 60, her prime minister (his fourth ministry). Former prime minister and regent Francisco Serrano y Dominguez, duque de La Torre, dies at Madrid November 26 at age 74; he recognized the accession of Alfonso XII in 1881 and was appointed ambassador to France.

Khartoum falls January 26 to the forces of al-Mahdi, who massacre General Charles "Chinese" Gordon and his garrison just before a British relief expedition reaches the city (see 1884). The Mahdi has given express orders not to kill Gordon, but although he enters the city in triumph and leads prayers in its main mosque, he dies at Omdurman June 21 at age 40, possibly of typhus, and is succeeded by his disciple Abd Allah ibn Muhammad at-Tatishi, 38, whom he has appointed caliph (khalifa) and whose Dervishes gain control of all the Sudan except for the Red Sea fortresses (see 1896).

The Berlin West Africa Conference that began in November of last year ends February 26 with a general act declaring the Congo River basin to be neutral, with freedom of trade and shipping in the area guaranteed to all parties. Portugal's claims to the Congo estuary are denied, permitting establishment of an independent Congo Free State (to which Britain, France, and Germany have previously agreed in principle) (see 1890).

The king of the Belgians Leopold II assumes the title sovereign of the Congo Free State following French recognition of the Free State and conclusion of an agreement defining the boundary between the Free State and the French Congo. Another agreement has been concluded with Lisbon giving Portugal the Kabinda Enclave; large areas of the Congo Free State are assigned to concessionaires, but the central portion is set aside as state land and the king's private domain. Demand for pneumatic bicycle tires has created a huge market for rubber, demand for pianos has created a huge market for ivory, and Leopold's men will be ruthless in exploiting the Belgian Congo to enrich the king with profits from both of these valuable commodities.

Italian forces establish themselves at Massawa with British encouragement and begin to expand their holdings in the East African highlands.

The German East Africa Company established by explorer Carl Peters obtains an imperial charter (see 1884). Germany annexes Tanganyika and Zanzibar.

Britain establishes protectorates in the southern region of the Niger River, in north Bechuanaland, and in Guinea.

The Indian National Congress founded under the direction of British colonial administrator Allan Octavian Hume convenes for the first time at Bombay (Mumbai) December 28 with 73 delegates, 54 of them Hindus (mostly Brahmans), two Muslims, the rest Parsi or Jaina (there are also 10 unofficial delegates), representing every province in British India (see Ilbert Bill, 1884). All delegates speak English, more than half are lawyers, the others are businessmen, journalists, landowners, and professors.

British troops occupy Port Hamilton, Korea.

Qing troops attack French forces on the Vietnamese side of the Chinese border, killing General François de Negrier, but the Treaty of Tianjin (Tientsin) signed June 9 recognizes France's protectorate of Tonkin in return for a promise by the French to respect China's southern frontier (see 1884). British diplomat Robert Hart, 50, has negotiated the treaty; China's General Zuo Zong-tang (Tso Tsung-tang) dies at Foochow (Fu-chou) in Fukien Province September 5 at age 73, having worked to suppress the Taiping Rebellion and urged modernization of his country.

The 15-year-old emperor of Annam leads an insurrection against the French at Hue July 4. French colonial troops suppress the uprising, and young Ham Nghi takes flight with his regent Ton That Thuyet (see 1884). They are given refuge at Cam Lo, the mountain hideaway of tribal chief Deo Van Tri, 36, who heads a semiautonomous feudal kingdom of Tai peoples in Tonkin's Black River region. Ton That Thuyet tries to assassinate Deo Van Tri in order to keep their whereabouts secret (Deo Van Tri will henceforth wash his hands of involvement in Vietnamese resistance efforts), but the French will soon catch Ham Nghi and exile him to Algeria, where he will live until his death in 1947. They will replace Ham Nghi next year with the more compliant Dong Khanh, and Deo Van Tri will come to terms with the French in 1888 in order to protect his people's independence.

Former U.S. vice president Schuyler Colfax dies at Mankato, Minnesota, January 13 at age 61; former president Ulysses S. Grant dies in agony of throat cancer at his Mount McGregor retreat in the Adirondacks July 23 at age 63 a few days after completing the final pages of his Personal Memoirs (virtually penniless, he has assigned all rights to the book to his widow, Julia, in order to keep his creditors from laying claim to it). Grant has taken tea laced with cocaine to dull the excruciating pain of his cancer; former Union Army general (and 1864 presidential nominee) George B. McClellan dies at Orange, New Jersey, October 29 at age 58. He served as governor of New Jersey from 1878 to 1881.

Former Canadian joint premier Sir Francis Hincks dies at Montreal August 18 at age 77, having served also as governor of Barbados, the Windward Islands, and British Guiana.

Louis Riel leads another Cree rebellion against Dominion authorities to protest the indifference of the Ottawa government toward the grievances of western Canadians, particularly Catholics, Native Americans, and those of mixed blood, who have seen their way of life threatened by the destruction of the bison and the encroachment of Anglo farmers (see 1869). Canadian history books will call the uprising the "Northwest Rebellion," the Métis will call it the "Northwest Resistance." Riel has become a U.S. citizen, but a delegation went to him last year requesting that he give up his Montana school-teaching post and lead the protest. He has broken with the Roman Catholic Church, establishes a government of Métis, and engages in a skirmish March 26 at Duck Lake in which 12 police and volunteers are killed along with five Métis. Dominion troops are sent west on the partially completed Canadian Pacific Railway to deal with the uprising (see transportation, 1881). Riel is defeated at Batoche, apprehended in May, charged with treason, and convicted by an English-speaking jury in what is probably a rigged trial. There being no trees on the prairie, scaffolding is built beside the headquarters of the Northwest Mounted Police, a rope attached to the scaffolding is placed around Riel's neck, and he is forced out of the second-floor window of the guard room at Regina and hanged November 16 at age 41, leaving a legacy of bitterness in Canada's western provinces.