1894 - Political Events

Political Events

Britain's fourth Gladstone ministry ends March 5 after Prime Minister Gladstone has shattered the Liberal Party with his fight for Irish home rule. The Liberals retain power with Archibald Philip Primrose, 46, 5th earl of Roseberry, as prime minister. A celebrated orator and wit, he married Hannah Rothschild, the only daughter of banker Baron Amschel de Rothschild, in 1878, and thus allied himself with the richest heiress in Britain, but Roseberry's cabinet is divided. He meets with antagonism in the House of Lords, and his ministry will achieve little.

Former Hungarian president Lajos Kossuth dies at Turin March 20 at age 91; his son Ferenc, 53, returns from exile to lead the Independence Party in the Parliament at Budapest.

Bulgaria's Ferdinand I forces his prime minister Stefan N. Stambolov to resign May 31 after a despotic 6½-year regime in which Stambolov has used terrorist tactics to suppress opposition (see 1887).

French president Marie François Sadi Carnot dies at Lyons June 24 at age 57 after being stabbed by Italian anarchist assassin Santo Caserio. He is succeeded by Jean Casimir-Perier, who will serve only 6 months.

The pamphlet "Caligula" by pacifist German journalist-historian Ludwig Quidde, 36, satirizes Kaiser Wilhelm II. Quidde has been editor since 1889 of the Deutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, his publication is tremendously popular, but a court convicts him of lèse-majesté and gives him a 3-month prison term.

Russia's Aleksandr III dies of nephritis at his Lavadia Palace in the Crimea November 1 at age 49 after a 13-year reign. His son, 24, will reign until 1917 as Nicholas II, the last Romanov monarch (he marries Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstad, 22, at St. Petersburg November 26).

The Treaty of Marrakech January 29 ends a 5½-month war between Morocco and Spain. Spanish minister of war Arsenio Martínez Campos has negotiated the peace settlement.

The Congo Treaty signed May 12 with the king of the Belgians Leopold II gives Britain a lease on a wide corridor between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Albert Edward in return for a lifetime lease to Leopold of vast territories west of the Upper Nile and north of the Congo-Nile watershed. German protests force the British to abandon their corridor and give up the possibility of a Cape Town-to-Cairo railroad, and French threats force Leopold to make an agreement August 14, giving up his claim to the northern part of his lease.

Dahomey becomes a French colony June 22 following a March 15 Franco-German agreement on the boundary between the French Congo and the Cameroons that have been a German protectorate since 1885 (see 1893). French imperialists have hopes of taking over the southern part of the former Egyptian Sudan and forcing the British to evacuate Egypt by threatening to divert the course of the Nile, but Irish-born Egyptian army sirdar (commander in chief) Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 44, works energetically to build an effective fighting force, and the Royal Niger Company engages British colonial administrator F. D. Lugard to race the French for treaty rights to explore the Middle Niger; Lugard will obtain the rights despite being wounded in the head by a poisoned arrow (see 1892; 1895; Kitchener, 1896).

The Republic of Hawaii is proclaimed July 4 with Judge Sanford Ballard Dole, 50, as president (see 1893). The republic gains U.S. recognition August 7, and the royalist revolt that begins December 8 is quickly suppressed (see 1898).

Adherents to a 34-year-old Korean religious-political movement occupy the southwestern city of Chonju in May, waving banners that decry corruption and foreign influence; China and Japan both send troops, the occupation of Chonju has ended by the time they arrive, but neither the Chinese nor Japanese withdraw. Japanese naval forces sink the British ship Kowshing carrying Chinese troops in Kanghwa Bay July 25 and defeat a Chinese fleet. The Korean regent declares war on China July 27, China and Japan declare war on each other August 1, and the Japanese win easy victories in the ensuing months under the direction of General Aritomo Yamagata, 56 (see 1876). Berlin and Washington reject a British invitation to Germany, France, Russia, and the United States to join in a united move to intervene (see 1895).

Former British secretary of state for war and the colonies Henry George Grey, 3rd earl Grey, dies at his native Howick, Northumberland, October 9 at age 91, having tried in the 1840s and early 1850s to give the colonies home rule to whatever extent possible.

The Dutch East Indies rebel against the government of Queen Wilhelmina, now 14, but the revolt is suppressed. Another uprising in 1896 will be put down only with great difficulty (see 1922).

Spanish minister for the colonies Antonio Maura, 41, resigns following rejection by the cortes of reforms that would have granted autonomy to Cuba (see 1879). Spain cancels a trade pact between Cuba and the United States (see 1895).

Colombia's dictatorial president Rafael Nuñez dies at his El Cabrero plantation outside Bogotá September 12 at age 68, having served as president three times and dominated the nation's government since 1880.

Britain's first governor general of the Dominion of Canada Sir Charles Stanley, 4th Viscount Monck (of Ballytrammon), dies at Enniskerry, County Wicklow, November 29 at age 75. Queen Victoria swears Canada's Prime Minister Sir John Thompson into the privy council at Windsor Castle December 12, whereupon he drops dead at age 50 after just 2 years in office. He is succeeded as prime minister by English-born fellow Conservative MacKenzie Bowell, 70, a newspaper publisher who has served as a cabinet minister in three governments and will hold office until 1896.

Former Confederate Army general Jubal A. Early dies at Lynchburg, Virginia, March 2 at age 77, still unreconciled to the defeat of the Confederacy; former Union general Nathaniel P. Banks dies at his native Waltham, Massachusetts, September 1 at age 78.