1912 - Political Events

Political Events

China becomes a republic January 1 with Sun Yat-sen as provisional president (see 1911). The boy emperor Pu Yi (P'ui-i) abdicates February 12 (he is given a pension and a summer palace near Beijing (Peking) but permitted to live in the Forbidden City, where he will remain until 1924), and the National Assembly elects northern general Yuan Shikai as provisional president February 15. Gen. Yuan controls the army and police; now 52, he has his queue cut to symbolize the end of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty; Sun Yat-sen resigns to unite the country, whose treasury is empty and whose provinces are in the hands of rival warlords, but Yuan Shikai will soon try to make himself dictator (see 1913). Population pressures on China's finite resources of land and water have created rebellions in the final decades of the Qing dynasty, rebellions sparked not only by the disruptions of Western imperialism but also by rural unrest. Intellectual leader Liang Qichao, now 38, returns from exile in Japan and helps found the Progressive Party (Jinbudang [Chinputang]). The Dalai Lama returns to Tibet in June and his titles are restored (see 1910; 1913).

Vietnamese nationalist Phan Boi Chau reorganizes his resistance movement against French rule (see 1904). Having abandoned his idea of restoring the monarchy, he establishes the Vietnamese Restoration Society (Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi) at Guangzhou (Canton), but the group fails in a plan to assassinate the French governor general of Indochina, and Chau will be imprisoned at Guangzhou from 1914 to 1917 (see 1925).

Japan's Meiji emperor Mutsuhito dies July 30 at age 60 after a 45-year reign that has restored imperial power (see 1867; 1868). Mutsuhito is succeeded by his 33-year-old son Yoshihito, who will reign as the Taisho emperor until 1926, a period that will see Japan emerge as a world power of the first rank.

Irish-born New Zealand politician William F. (Ferguson) Massey, 56, becomes prime minister and signs legislation enabling freeholders to buy their land at its original value. A onetime farmer outside Auckland, Massey will remain in office until his death in 1925, giving a nonpolitical commission responsibility for civil-service positions but using such repressive measures against striking miners and dock workers that he will unintentionally help opponents form a Labour Party in 1916.

French statesman Raymond Poincaré, 51, forms a ministry January 14 that will wrestle with problems of Morocco, Italy's Tripolitanian war, and the Balkan wars. Former premier Henri Brisson dies at Paris April 11 at age 76.

Royal Navy lieutenant Charles Samson flies a Shorts S27 biplane off a platform built on the stationary battleship H.M.S. Africa January 19 and in May flies a plane off the moving ship Hibernia during the Royal Fleet Review at Weymouth, inaugurating an era of naval air power. The Royal Flying Corps authorized by royal warrant May 13 supersedes the Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers, sustains its first fatal crash July 5 near Stonehenge, continues flying as usual, and by year's end has 12 manned balloons and 36 biplanes for use as fighter aircraft (see Trenchard, 1913).

The U.S. Navy tries in July to launch a plane from the deck of a ship, using a catapult powered by compressed air, but the plane crashes into the sea (see 1911; aircraft carrier, 1918).

Denmark's Frederik VIII visits Hanburg, leaves his hotel for a solitary evening walk, suffers a heart attack, and dies June 14 at age 69 after a 6-year reign (his body is not identified until later). His 41-year-old son will reign until 1947 as Kristian X.

Montenegro declares war on the Ottoman Empire October 8, the Turks decline October 12 to undertake reforms in Macedonia demanded by the great powers, Constantinople declares war on Bulgaria and Serbia October 17, the Greeks join the conflict, and the Turks suffer major reverses.

The Treaty of Lausanne October 18 ends the 12-month war between Italy and the Ottoman Turks (see 1911). Italian forces have occupied Rhodes and the other Dodecanese Islands in May; peace talks began in July; and Constantinople, under pressure in the Balkans, has finally agreed to give up Tripoli, with Italy to exit the Dodecanese Islands as soon as the Turks exit Tripoli.

Bulgarian forces triumph October 22 at Kirk Kilisse in Thrace, the Serbs gain a victory October 24 to 26 at Kumanovo, and Bulgarian troops under Mikhail Savov, 55, win the Battle of Lule Burgas October 28 to November 3, bringing them to the last lines of defense before Constantinople. Moscow warns that it will use its fleet to resist a Bulgarian occupation of Constantinople, and the Bulgarians fail in an attack on the Turkish lines.

Serbian forces overrun northern Albania and reach the Adriatic November 10; they gain victory at Monastir November 15 to 18, but Austria declares her opposition to Serbia having access to the Adriatic and announces her support for an independent Albania, which declares independence from the Ottoman Empire November 28 (see 1924). Austria and Russia begin to mobilize, but an armistice December 3 ends most of the hostilities (see 1913).

Egyptian minister of justice Sa'd Zaghlul resigns after a dispute with the khedive Abbas Hilmi II after 6 years of government service in which he has won praise from the British viceroy Evelyn Baring, 1st Lord Cromer, for cooperating "with Europeans in the introduction of Western civilization into the country" (see 1910). Zaghlul's compliance has antagonized Egyptian nationalists (but see 1913).

New Mexico enters the Union January 6 as the 47th state; Arizona enters February 14 as the 48th.

U.S. Marines land in Honduras in February, in Cuba 4 months later, and in Nicaragua in August to protect American interests. They will remain in Nicaragua until 1933.

Peru's president Augusto Leguía y Salcedo completes his term in office, having served since 1908 as a tool of the ruling oligarchy. He travels to London, where he will remain until 1919.

Former U.S. governor of the Philippines Gen. Arthur MacArthur (ret.) dies of a heart attack at Milwaukee September 5 at age 67.

Former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt wins all the Republican primaries, but party bosses beholden to Wall Street block his nomination by the convention. Sen. Robert M. La Follette (R. Wis.) has organized the National Progressive Republican League to oppose the policies of President Taft, but his health fails temporarily, so Roosevelt incorporates La Follette's group into a new Progressive Party (called the "Bull Moose" Party after Roosevelt is badly wounded by a would-be assassin in Wisconsin October 14 and says he feels "fit as a bull moose"); the so-called "Man on Horseback" runs on a platform that calls for federal aid to agriculture, a federal income tax, and new federal agencies to regulate business. He wins 88 electoral votes and 28 percent of the popular vote. No other party will hereafter deny the nomination to anyone who sweeps the primaries, and no Republican candidate for federal office in this century will defy the nation's moneyed interests. President Taft wins only 8 electoral votes and 23 percent of the popular vote; socialist Eugene Debs polls more than 900,000 votes; and New Jersey governor Woodrow Wilson receives 435 electoral votes with 42 percent of the popular vote to give Democrats control of the White House for the first time since Grover Cleveland left office in 1897.

Argentina's oligarchical legislature establishes universal and compulsory male suffrage beginning at age 18 with a secret ballot under legislation passed at the insistence of Buenos Aires-born Radical Party leader Hipólito Irigoyen, 60, who has gained the support of President Roque Sáenz Peña.

Cuban troops put down large demonstrations by black workers in Oriente Province, where Evaristo Estenoz and Pedro Ivonet have organized a movement to protest a ban of political associations based on color and race, secure better jobs, and gain more political patronage (see politics, 1909). President José Miguel Gómez will leave office next year, but his successor Mario García Menocal will continue the pattern of corrupt maladministration set by both his predecessors.