1896 - Political Events

Political Events

Bulgaria's Prince Ferdinand gains recognition from Russia and then from other powers following the conversion of his 2-year-old son, Boris, to the Orthodox faith, but Bulgaria remains a principality of the Ottoman Empire (see 1887; 1908).

Former Spanish general Manuel Pavía y Lacy dies at Madrid October 22 at age 82.

Assassins kill the shah of Persia Nasir-ad-Din at his native Teheran May 1 at age 65 after a 48-year reign that has seen the growth of Russian power in his country. Having curbed the power of the clergy, opened the country's first Western-style school, introduced telegraph and postal services, and launched the country's first newspaper, he has been impressed with the technology that he saw on three visits to Europe (1873, 1878, and 1889), but the shah has grown increasingly conservative and resistant to modernization in a changing world. He is succeeded by his incompetent 43-year-old son, who will reign until 1907 as Muzaffar-ad-Din (see 1906).

Armenian revolutionaries attack the Ottoman Bank at Constantinople August 26; Ottoman forces retaliate with a 3-day massacre of Armenians, killing at least 3,000.

Boer forces in South Africa defeat L. Starr Jameson at Krugerdorp January 1, force him to surrender January 2 at Doorn Kop, and turn him over to the British for trial in England, where he is convicted but receives only a light sentence (see 1895). A telegram of congratulations to President Paul Kruger of Transvaal from the German kaiser January 3 strains Anglo-German relations, and mutual suspicions set in among the Boers and British in South Africa, with Petrus Joubert gaining support for his opposition to President Kruger.

Cecil Rhodes resigns the Cape Colony premiership January 6, and a committee of the Cape Assembly finds him guilty of having engineered last year's Jameson raid. The Transvaal government signs a defensive alliance with the Orange Free State in mid-March; it fortifies Pretoria and Johannesburg with munitions ordered from Europe (see Anglo-Boer War, 1899).

British forces take Kumasi (Coomassie) January 18 and imprison the Ashanti king in the Fourth Ashanti War (see 1874; 1899).

Ethiopian warriors hand Italian troops a crushing defeat near Adwa March 2, forcing Rome to sue for peace (see 1887). Commander in chief of Italian forces in Africa since 1891, Oreste Baratieri, 54, was named governor of Eritrea 3 years ago and has opened that country to foreign investment, but his forces are no match for those of the Ethiopian emperor Menelek II, and they flee the field in panic (Baratieri will be court-martialed but acquitted). The only African country never to have been colonized, Ethiopia will remain independent. The Treaty of Addis Ababa October 6 withdraws the Italian protectorate (see 1898; Tripartite Pact, 1906).

Matebele tribesmen in Rhodesia begin a new uprising against British colonial settlers. The chimurenga (war of rebellion) will continue for 18 months before British troops suppress the bid for self rule, inflicting heavy casualties.

A French expedition to claim the Sudan sets out for Fashoda in the southern Sudan under the command of Jean Baptiste Marchand, 33, who has traced the Niger River to its source and explored the region from the Niger to Tengrela. The French have been working their way from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean with a view to establishing an area of influence that will counter British efforts to colonize the continent from Cape Town to the Mediterranean, and Marchand's group includes seven French officers and 100 Senegalese soldiers (see 1897). Anglo-Egyptian troops begin a reconquest of the Sudan under the command of General Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 46, who builds a railroad as he advances with an army of 25,000 British, Egyptian, and Sudanese soldiers (see 1885). He takes Dongola September 21, and although the Mahdi leader Abd Allah tries to resist he will find British machine guns insurmountable (see Battle of Omdurman, 1898).

France proclaims the African island of Madagascar a French colony August 6, having dispatched General Louis-H.-G. Lyautey from Tonkin to conquer the country (see 1897).

Manila-born patriot Andres Bonifacio, 33, leads a revolt in August against Spanish rule in the Philippines (see 1872). The nationalist Katipunan society that he founded 5 years ago has grown to have an estimated 100,000 members, drawn mostly from peasantry, with ceremonies modeled on those of the Masonic order and branches in central Luzon and on Panay, Mindoro, and Mindanao. Spanish friars have found evidence of the Katipunan's plans and forced it to start the uprising before it was ready; colonial forces suppress the insurrection, obliging Bonifacio to retreat to Montalban in the north while his 26-year-old lieutenant, the municipal mayor Emilio Aguinaldo, continues the resistance (see 1897).

Madrid appoints Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, 57, marqués de Tenerife, governor general of Cuba (see 1895). Having fought against the Cuban rebels from 1868 to 1872, he became governor-general of the Canary Islands, then of the Balearic Islands, and then of the Philippines, where he helped suppress native uprisings 8 years ago. He imposes strict antirebel measures in Cuba (see 1897).

Canadian prime minister Sir Mackenzie Bowell resigns early in the year following the resignations of half his ministers. He is succeeded by former Nova Scotia premier Sir Charles Tupper, now 74, but the Conservative Party loses in the general elections in June, and the first French-Canadian premier takes office July 1. Quebec Liberal Wilfrid Laurier, 55, will hold power until late 1911.

Utah enters the Union as the 45th state January 4 following adoption of a state constitution banning polygamous marriage (although Mormons will not entirely abandon polygamy).

Lawyer (and former U.S. secretary of the treasury) Benjamin H. Bristow suffers an attack of appendicitis June 18 and dies at his New York town house June 22 at age 64.

"You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold," says Nebraska Christian fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan, 36, in a speech July 8 at the Democratic National Convention. His oratory in support of free silver wins him the nomination, and the Populist Party also nominates Bryan.

Ohio governor William McKinley, 53, gains the Republican nomination with support from Cleveland industrialist Mark Hanna. "All attempt to array class against class, the classes against the masses, section against section, labor against capital, poor against rich, or interest against interest, is in the highest degree reprehensible," says McKinley. Employers put pressure on workers to vote against "anarchy" and "revolution" lest they jeopardize their jobs, and a rise in wheat prices before election day alleviates agrarian discontent. Bryan fails to attract urban voters, and while he wins 176 electoral votes by carrying the South, the Great Plains states, and the Rocky Mountain states, McKinley wins 271 electoral votes and gains election with a 600,000 plurality in the popular vote.