1888 | Political Events
Political Events
"We Germans fear God, and nothing else in the world," says Prince von Bismarck February 6 in a speech to the Reichstag at Berlin. He has allowed terms of last year's Triple Alliance renewal to leak out as a discouragement to Russian and French ambitions.
Germany's Wilhelm I dies at Berlin March 9, less than 2 weeks before his 91st birthday, after a 27-year reign that has seen the unification of Germany under Bismarck. Wilhelm is succeeded by his son Friedrich Wilhelm, 57, but the new emperor is terminally ill with throat cancer and can communicate only by notes; he dies June 15 and is succeeded in turn by his 29-year-old son, whose left arm was shriveled by a difficult birth. He will reign until 1919 as Wilhelm II, the last German monarch.
France relieves General Boulanger of his command after he has twice come to Paris without leave (see 1886). He is removed from the army list on the recommendation of a council of inquiry composed of five other generals, but although wounded in an embarrassing duel with the anti-Boulangist Charles Thomas Floquet, 60, the popular "Man on Horseback" revanchist hero Boulanger is elected to the Chamber for the Nord (see 1889). Former French military leader Achille Bazaine dies in poverty at Madrid September 28 at age 77, having lived in exile since his escape from prison in 1874.
Crimean War veteran George Charles Bingham, 3rd earl of Lucan, dies at his native London November 10 at age 88, having been promoted last year to the rank of field marshal.
Britain establishes a protectorate over Sarawak March 17 and over North Borneo May 12, but the North Borneo Company continues to hold and administer North Borneo, as it has since 1881, and Sir Charles Brooke (knighted this year) continues to rule Sarawak, as he has since 1868 (see 1917).
Bugandans depose their kabaka (ruler) Mwanga after a 4-year reign in which he has driven out Christian missionaries and their supporters, who had gained influence among his tribal chiefs (but see 1890).
The Matebele king Lobengula, 55, accepts a British protectorate and signs a treaty October 30 giving the Cecil Rhodes interests exclusive mining rights in Matabeleland and Mashonaland.
Former Argentine president Domingo Sarmiento dies at Asunción, Paraguay, September 11 at age 77.
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite dies at Washington, D.C., March 23 at age 71 after 14 years as head of the high court and is succeeded by Maine-born jurist Melville W. (Weston) Fuller, 55, who will preside until his death in 1910; Congress promotes Philip H. Sheridan to major general June 1 but he dies at Nonquitt, Massachusetts, August 5 at age 57.
U.S. voters elect Indiana Republican Benjamin Harrison, 55, in the November presidential election, although President Cleveland actually receives a 100,000-vote plurality in the popular vote. A grandson of the ninth president, Harrison is a machine politician whose position as governor offsets the fact that Cleveland's vice president is a Hoosier. He wins his home state (Cleveland carried it 4 years ago), and he receives 233 electoral votes to Cleveland's 168. Cleveland has refused to campaign, New York helps make the difference as it did in 1884, and again it is the Irish vote that swings the state, this time in reaction to a statement by the British minister to Washington that Cleveland would be friendlier to Britain than Harrison, a remark the Republicans use to support their contention that Cleveland's tariff position would favor British industrial interests. (Tammany Hall does not support Cleveland because he is perceived as an opponent of political patronage.) (see 1889).