1909 - Political Events

Political Events

Constantinople recognizes Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Herzogovina January 12 (see 1908). Vienna pays the Turks a £2.2 million indemnity, the Russians cancel a £20-million Turkish indemnity in return for Constantinople's recognition of Bulgarian independence, and internal strife disrupts the Ottoman Empire. The 76-year-old grand vizier Kiamil is deposed February 13 and replaced by Hussein Hilmi, 50, and the Baghdad-born general Mahmud Sevket, 51, suppresses a religious uprising against the Young Turk government in what will be remembered as the 31st of March Incident. Upwards of 20,000 Armenians are massacred. The 1st Army Corps revolts at Constantinople April 13; composed chiefly of Albanians, it forces Hilmi to resign. A 25,000-man army of liberation arrives from Macedonia April 24, a 5-hour battle ensues, and leaders of the April 13 revolt are executed. The sultan Abdul Hamid II favors a return to absolutism and is imprisoned in his palace, his 4,000-man Albanian guard surrenders to the Young Turks April 25 and gives up its arms, and the sultan is deposed April 26 at age 66 after a 33-year reign by unanimous vote of the Ottoman parliament. His helpless 64-year-old brother will reign until 1918 as Mohammed V, and Gen. Sevket is promoted to inspector general of the first three army corps and minister of war (see 1913).

Bulgarian independence gains German, Austrian, and Italian recognition April 27.

Britain, France, Russia, and Italy withdraw their forces from Crete in July and the island becomes part of Greece. Former French military leader Gaston-Alexandre-Auguste, marquis de Gallifet, dies at his native Paris July 8 at age 78.

Admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete, Spanish Navy (ret.), dies at Puerto Real April 3 at age 70, having been acquitted after the 1898 war of charges arising from the loss of his squadron to U.S. naval forces off Cuba; former Spanish pretender Carlos Maria de Los Dolores de Borbón y Austria-este, duque de Madrid (Don Carlos), dies at Varese, Italy, July 18 at age 51. The advent of liberal Roman Catholicism and the development of regionalist parties has left his Carlist Party disillusioned and fragmented.

Spain's prime minister Antonio Maura resigns under pressure in October following a general strike in July, anticlerical violence at Barcelona, and the execution of propagandist Francisco Ferrer. He has reestablished constitutional guarantees at Barcelona and Gerona, reformed local governments, made education compulsory, and will head three more short-lived governments.

Britain establishes a military intelligence agency (MI5) established October 1 in response to a suggestion by Prime Minister Asquith will survive as the world's oldest. Capt. Vernon Kell, 36, heads the agency and will remain head for 30 years; a xenophobic racist who believes that true Britons "are sorry for any of our women folk who marry foreigners," he begins compiling an "Alien Register" of resident foreigners that by 1914 will have details on 16,000 people (see MI6, 1911; communications [Official Secrets Act], 1911).

The Fianna na Eireann founded by Irish actress-patriot Constance (Georgina) de Markievicz (née Gore-Booth), 41, is a paramilitary order whose avowed purpose is to train boys to fight in the cause of Irish independence from Britain; a landed aristocrat who in 1900 married the six-foot-four-inch Polish artist-playwright Count Casimir Dunin-Markievicz, a widower 6 years her junior, the "Rebel Countess" (as she will be called) teaches her young men marksmanship and otherwise prepares them for military service in the cause of a free Ireland (see 1916).

Leopold II of the Belgians dies at Laeken December 17 at age 74 after a reign of nearly 41 years in which he has exploited the Congo, amassed great wealth at the expense of the Africans, and distressed his subjects by carrying on numerous extra-marital affairs (he took a 16-year-old prostitute as his mistress in the 1890s, shocked Europe by flaunting her, and has married her on his deathbed). Leopold's only son died as a boy in 1869; a 34-year-old nephew will reign until 1934 as Albert I.

Persia's shah Mohammed Ali Shah is deposed July 16 by the Bakhtaiari tribal chief Ali Kuh Khan, who took Teheran 4 days earlier. A Russian force has invaded northern Persia, raised the siege of Tabriz March 26, and occupied the city for the shah with savage brutality, arousing the Bakhtaiari. They replace the shah with his son Ahmad, 12, who will reign until 1925 as a puppet of radical elements (see 1921).

Cuba's U.S. administrator Charles Magoon turns over the reigns of government January 28 to the newly-elected Liberal president José Miguel Gómez, whose administration will continue until 1913 despite its toleration of graft, corruption, fiscal irresponsibility, general maladministration, and insensitivity to the exploitation of blacks (see human rights, 1912).

Colombia's dictatorial president Rafael Reyes resigns under pressure after attempting without success to conclude a treaty that would require the United States to pay only $2.5 million in compensation for taking Panama in 1903. Reyes has worked to restore his nation's economy, increasing coffee production and encouraging the construction of railroads and public works.

The U.S. government supports a Conservative Party effort to unseat Nicaraguan dictator José Santos Zelaya, who fears U.S. economic domination and what he perceives as a U.S. intention to separate his country's Caribbean coast; he executes some U.S. soldiers of fortune in December for having served in the revolutionary army, Washington breaks off relations, U.S. Marines oust Zelaya December 16, he is succeeded as president December 21 by José Madriz, and he will flee to Mexico early next year.

British parliamentarians decide that the survival of the empire depends entirely on naval supremacy (see 1906). The first lord of the admiralty Reginald McKenna, 46, initiates construction of 18 Dreadnought-class battleships, and Parliament decides that the cost of building them will require support from the colonies. Canadian nationalists oppose any financial contribution to the Royal Navy's massive construction program; Montreal-born politician (Joseph-Napoléon) Henri Bourassa, 40, resigned from the House of Commons at Ottawa in 1899 to protest support of British imperialism in the Boer War. He has twice been reelected, and although most of the opposition to the naval build-up comes from French-speaking Canadians they find some support from their English-speaking colleagues (see communications [newspaper], 1910; Laurier, 1911).

Former British viceroy to India George F. S. Robinson, 1st marquis of Ripon, dies at Studley Royal, near Ripon, Yorkshire, July 9 at age 81.

Japanese forces begin a 36-year occupation of Korea, whose people have been in a state of insurrection since the abdication of their emperor in 1907. Prince Hirobumi Itō, now 73, resigns in June after confessing failure to reform Korea's administration; a Korean nationalist assassinates him at Harbin October 26, the Yi (Choson) dynasty whose 26 monarchs have reigned since 1392 comes to an end, and former Japanese prime minister Koshaku Yamagata, now 71, takes power as virtual dictator with backing from the military and the Tokyo bureaucracy (see 1910).

The Valor of Ignorance by Denver-born soldier Homer Lea, 32, makes predictions about future world history. Lea crossed the Pacific to China 10 years ago, participated in the defense of Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion despite being undersized and hunchbacked, became an associate of the reformer K'ang Yu-Wei, and has become a general in the Chinese Army. Japan will be an aggressive power, says Lea, and will make war on the United States beginning with an attack on Hawaii (see 1941). Vietnamese prince Cuong De, 27, has studied with other Vietnamese at Tokyo's Shimbu Military Academy and helped form a movement to fight French rule in his country, but the Japanese look for French financial help and expel Cuong De at French insistence (see 1915).

Mississippi-born planter's son Edward H. (Hull) Crump Jr., 35, wins election as mayor of Memphis, Tennessee, and begins a career in which he will dominate Tennessee politics until 1948 as "Boss" Crump. He was married at age 27 to the daughter of a rich and socially prominent Memphis family and was soon elected as his ward's representative to the local Democratic Party convention. Inept at public speaking, he is adept at persuading small groups, gained election to the city council in 1905 as part of a reform movement, and has built a political machine that has brought order to the city and will soon gain power throughout the state.