1916 - Political Events

Political Events

Britain withdraws her forces from the Gallipoli by early January without further losses, but Rosika Schwimmer resigns in February from the International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace as charges increase that she has been dictatorial (see 1915; 1926). The Great War spreads and becomes more savage as all hope for neutral mediation ends.

The Battle of Verdun on the upper Meuse (Moselle) River begins February 21 with a bombardment by German artillery. The Germans have launched a massive attack in hopes of breaking the stalemate of trench warfare, Krupp of Essen supplies Gen. von Falkenhayn and Crown Prince Wilhelm with 3,000 new cannon per month, while Gen. Joffre and Gen. Pétain's Allied artillery fire Vickers shells produced under a fuse patent licensed by Krupp in 1904. Von Falkenheyn is dismissed August 29 and replaced by the more aggressive Field Marshal von Hindenburg, but the Germans fail to take Verdun, they lose 337,000 killed and wounded, French casualties total 362,000 dead and wounded (the dead on both sides total about 400,000), and the battle drags on to December 18. The overwhelming majority of troops on both sides are now conscripts.

Berlin notifies Washington that German U-boats will treat armed merchantmen as cruisers. The "extended" U-boat campaign begins March 1. Three Americans perish in the sinking of the unarmed French steamer S.S. Sussex March 24 in the English Channel, and Washington warns Berlin that the United States will sever diplomatic relations unless the Germans abandon "submarine warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels." Admiral von Tirpitz resigns in March, having built the world's second largest navy and championed unrestricted submarine warfare; Berlin replies to the U.S. demand in early May, saying that merchant vessels "shall not be sunk without warning and without saving human lives unless they attempt to escape or offer resistance."

Italian troops under the command of Gen. Luigi Cadorna launch a new offensive on the Isonzo River from March 9 to 17 (see 1915); Cadorna captures Gorizia with help from Gen. Emilio De Bono, 50, and secures a bridgehead across the river in the sixth Battle of the Isonzo that continues from August 6 to 17, but Austrian artillery thwarts the Italians in the three brief, intense battles that take place in September, October, and November (see Caporetto, 1917).

An Irish Easter Rebellion begins April 24 and involves more than 1,500 insurgents. Former British consular official Roger Casement has had no success in raising a brigade of Irish war prisoners in Germany, a U-boat has landed him April 20 to support the Irish Republican Brotherhood headed by Patrick Henry Pearse, 37, but German aid fails to materialize (see Casement, 1903). Rebels who include farmer's son Michael Collins, 25, gut Dublin's General Post Office in Upper O'Connell Street, but 150,000 Irish volunteers are fighting for the king in Flanders. The British have discovered the insurgents' plans, the Easter Rising has little popular support, and it collapses in less than a week. Led by Michael Mallin and Countess Markievicz, now 48, the rebels surrender April 30 (see 1909). Wearing the green uniform of the Irish Citizen Army with breeches and puttees in imitation of her heroine, Joan of Arc, the countess walks up to the British captain outside Dublin's College of Surgeons, takes her pistol out of its holster, kisses it, and hands it to the captain, tells him she is ready, and refuses his offer of a ride to the jail, saying that she prefers to walk. Police arrest the other rebel leaders, whose defiance of British rule will lead to the proclamation of a republic. Much of Dublin has been destroyed in the fighting, 262 civilians have been killed, 141 British soldiers, and 62 rebels have lost their lives. Crowds in the street hiss at Casement and the rest. Frederick E. Smith condemns them as traitors and demands their execution in his new capacity of attorney general, popular sentiment turns against the British, and 16 rebel leaders become martyrs when convicted and hanged August 3 (see 1919). The British have arrested more than twice as many people as actually participated in the uprising, they hold Countess Markievicz for a week in solitary confinement at Kilmainham Jail while some of her cohorts go before firing squads, but her life and that of one other leader (the American-born Eamon de Valera, because he has a U.S. passport) are spared, hers "solely and only on account of her sex" (British propagandists have exploited Germany's execution last year of Edith Cavell and do not want a woman's blood on their own hands). Countess Markievicz is sentenced to "penal servitude for life" (but see 1917).

French Minister of War Gen. Joseph S. Galliéni retires for reasons of health in March and dies at Versailles May 27 at age 67. Revered as the savior of Paris in the 1914 Battle of the Marne, he is buried at the Hotel des Invalides after a national funeral.

The Battle of Jutland (Skagerrak) rages in the North Sea from May 31 to June 1 as British and German fleets bombard each other with 1,000-pound shells in what will prove the only major naval engagement of the war. Ships of the Royal Navy outnumber those of its German counterpart, but poor communications cause its commander in chief, Admiral Sir John (Rushworth) Jellicoe, 56, to lose contact with the German fleet at a critical juncture and the German admiral Reinhard Scheer, 52, escapes to his base at Wilhelmshaven, having lost one battleship, a cruiser, a destroyer, and 2,545 dead; the Royal Navy loses one battleship, one battle cruiser, four light cruisers, five destroyers, and at least 6,907 men (three British cruisers blow up when German shells penetrate to their powder magazines: H.M.S. Indefatigable loses all but two of her 1,019-man crew; H.M.S. Queen Mary loses all but nine of her 1,285-man crew; and Rear Admiral Sir Horace Hood's flagship H.M.S. Invincible loses all but six of her 1,026-man crew). The outcome is undecisive, the Royal Navy holds the blockade, and Admiral David Beatty, now 44, is named commander-in-chief of the Grand Fleet, succeeding Jellicoe (Beatty has lost two ships during the hard-fought encounter but inflicted severe damage on the Germans, although few German ships are actually lost).

The Royal Navy cruiser H.M.S. Hampshire hits a German mine off the Orkney Islands June 5 while en route to Russia with Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st earl Kitchener (of Khartoum and Broome); he was on his way to reorganize the Russian Army but drowns at age 65 as the ship sinks with all hands.

British forces at al-Kut surrender to the Ottoman Turks April 29 after a siege that has continued for nearly 5 months and are taken prisoner. The secret Sykes-Picot Agreement signed in January by British diplomat Sir Mark Sykes, 36, with his French counterpart calls for a division of the Middle East between the two powers (see Syria, 1922), with the understanding that both are prepared to recognize an independent Arab state or confederation of states, with Britain having "priority of right of enterprise and local loans" in one area, France in another, neither of them to acquire or permit a third power to acquire, "territorial possessions in the Arabian peninsula, nor consent to a third power installing a naval base either on the east coast, or on the islands, of the Red Sea."

An Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks begins June 5 with an attack on the garrison at Medina, whose officers surrender June 10 (information supplied by Orientalist Gertrude Lowthian Bell has helped the British foment the revolt; see 1915). The 60-year-old sharif of Mecca Hussein Ibn-Ali has previously supported the Turks, who appointed him sharif and protector of the holy places in 1909, but he has switched sides at the persuasion of his 31-year-old third son, Faisal, who has been pressing the Turks for Arab self-rule while his father was negotiating with the British in Egypt. Faisal met with Arab nationalists in Syria last year while returning from Istanbul and participated in drafing a secret Damascus Protocol. T. E. Lawrence has befriended Faisal in a plot engineered by Gen. Kitchener and his staff; English Arabist Harry St. John Philby, 31, has learned many Arab dialects, befriended Lawrence, and may have had a hand in the scheme, which has the support of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan governor general Sir Reginald Wingate, now 54, at Khartoum (see Aqaba, 1917). Sir Mark Sykes of the British Foreign Office has designed a black, white, green, and red flag for Hejaz, Hussein is proclaimed king of the Arabs October 29, and he founds the Hashemite dynasty that will rule the newly independent Hejaz until 1924 (see Transjordan, 1923).

German aviators Oswald Boelke and Max Immelmann each score eight victories in the skies over France January 12 and promptly receive membership in the order Pour le Mérite established in 1740, being awarded the medal popularly known as the Blue Max. Now 25, Boelke won the Iron Cross at age 23 for completing more than 40 missions and has created eight rules for combat pilots: 1. Try to secure advantagess before attacking. If possible, try to keep the sun behind you; 2. Once you have started an attack always carry it through; 3. Fire only at cross range, and only when your quarry is properly in your sight; 4. Always keep your eye on your opponent and do not let yourself be deceived by ruses; 5. In any attack it is essential to come at your enemy from behind; 6. If the opponent dives on you do not try to evade his onslaught but rather fly to meet it; 7. When over enemy lines never forget your line of retreat; 8. Attack in groups of four or six, and when the fight breaks up into a series of single combats take care that several do not go for one enemy plane. Immellmann, also 25, was awarded the Iron Cross in August 1915 after inventing the simultaneous loop and roll known as the Immelmann turn that has become a standard air combat maneuver. W-12 seaplanes designed by Ernst Heinkel for the Hansa Brandenburg Flutzeugwerke enable Kaiser Wilhelm's Luftwaffe to maintain air superiority over the North Sea (see Heinkel, 1911). Pilot Friedrich Christiansen will soon have 21 confirmed kills flying the W-12; Heinkel works on the W-20 that will succeed the W-12 and be the only practical monoplane to see service in the war.

French pilots struggle to gain control of the air from the Germans, who have held mastery for a year flying Fokkers equipped with A. H. G. Fokker's 1915 synchronizing gear that permits pilots to fire through their rotating propeller blades (see 1912). The Escadrille Americaine has gone into combat May 15 with seven U.S. volunteer pilots flying Nieuports in support of the French. Kiffin Rockewell downs a German plane May 18 for the Escadrille's first victory. The British introduce new de Havillands and Farman Experimentals in July, and the German ace Max Immelmann is either shot down in a dogfight July 18 at age 26 or (the Germans will claim) goes down after his Fokker fighter malfunctions and he shoots off his own propeller. French aircraft designer Marcel-Ferdinand Bloch, 24, has introduced the first variable-pitch propeller to give French pilots an edge over the Germans (see transportation, 1947).

The Battle of the Somme from July to mid-November is the bloodiest battle in human history and follows the largest artillery barrage in history (1,437 British guns rain 1.5 million shells on the enemy along an 18-mile front in the course of 7 days, and the artillery is heard as far away as Hampstead Heath, London). Hoping to end the stalemate of trench warfare with a major breakout, the British follow up their artillery offensive with a massive infantry attack: at 7:30 in the morning of July 1, just 2 minutes after five gigantic mines dug under the German lines have blown up, 66,000 British troops come out of the trenches and advance on the enemy in a ceremonial step of one yard per second, Tyneside Scotsmen march to bagpipes while the 8th East Surreys come out kicking footballs and firing Lewis Guns, but the Germans emerge from their bunkers and mow down advancing foot soldiers with machine guns firing 600 rounds per minute: 14,000 fall in the first 10 minutes by one account. Boer War veteran Gen. Henry Seymour Rawlinson has ordered the daylight attack to accommodate French artillery observers despite the known advantages of attacking at first dawn, he has not coordinated his artillery barrage with the needs of his infantry, and one-third of all the British shells fired are duds. July 1 is the bloodiest single day in British history, with 57,470 British casualties, including 19,240 dead, 35,493 wounded, 2,152 missing, 585 taken prisoner. The Germans sustain 8,000 casualties that day. The 140-day offensive involves 3 million men along a front of some 20 miles, the Allied armies lose 794,000 men, the Central Powers 538,888, the Allies drive the Germans back no more than seven miles at any point, and the Germans will regain most of the lost ground in 1918.

The Lewis Gun carried by British Tommies is a machine gun invented in 1911 by a U.S. Army officer; its weight is about half that of a Vickers machine gun, and six can be produced in the time that it takes to make one Vickers, but the commander in chief of British forces Gen. Douglas Haig is found to have said at a War Council April 14 of last year, "The machine gun is a much overrated weapon; two per battalion is more than sufficient." Like other top officers, Haig does not visit the front lines, saying that he considers it his duty to remain behind lest the sight of wounded men affect his judgment.

More of Europe is drawn into the Great War. Germany and Austria have declared war on Portugal in March, Romania declares war on Austria August 27, Italy on Germany August 28, Germany, Turkey, and Bulgaria on Romania. Field Marshal von Mackensen moves his forces into Romania, whose territory will be entirely occupied by the Germans next year.

The first tanks to be used in warfare go into action September 15 in the Battle of the Somme. British writer and Boer War veteran Ernest Dunlap Swinton, 48, has adapted the caterpillar tread invented by Benjamin Holt (see agriculture, 1911), but the contraption weighs close to 30 tons, has a top speed of less than three miles per hour, requires four men just to steer it, and is little more than a movable armored platform carrying a machine gun. A one-man French tank produced by Renault and nicknamed "the mosquito" is much lighter and can be moved by truck, saving wear and tear on the tread, which is subject to breakdown. Both sides of the conflict depend primarily on horse cavalry.

The de Havilland DH-4 bomber designed by Geoffrey de Havilland of Aircraft Manufacturing Co. (Airco) and flown for the first in August is a highly maneuverable two-seat plane with a top speed of 143 miles (230 kilometers) per hour that enables it to outfly most fighter planes. The U.S. Government will select it for production next year and build nearly 5,000 DH-4s (see transportation, 1914; 1920).

The French-built Spad S.7 fighter plane designed by engineer Louis Bechereau reaches the front in September and gains quick popularity. Its 150-horsepower, water-cooled Hispano-Suiza engine gives the single-seat machine a speed of 106 miles per hour that makes up for its lack of maneuverability in combat with planes whose maximum speed is only 85 mph.

Breslau-born German pilot Manfred von Richthofen, 24, completes his training September 17 and promptly shoots down a British Farman biplane, using skills learned from Oswald Boelke, who recruited him on the Eastern Front. A minor member of the nobility, Baron von Richthofen attached a machine gun to the top wing of his Fokker Albatros reconnaissance plane in the Battle of Verdun's waning days and shot down a Nieuport before being sent to the Eastern Front. The Nieuport landed behind French lines, and the Farman is his first confirmed kill. He sees his hero Boelke killed October 28 following a minor midair collision in which one of Capt. Boelke's wing brushed the undercarriage of his comrade Erwin Bohme's Fokker; both had scrambled with two other pilots to intercept British ace Lanoe Hawker in a dogfight over the Somme, Boelke has been credited with 40 kills, but in his haste to get airborne he has neglected to strap himself in. The German high command names von Richthofen to succeed Boelke as leader of the unit (which is renamed Jasta Boelke), and he shoots down Hawker after a long dogfight over Bapaume November 23. Dead at age 25 with a bullet through his head, Major Hawker has commanded the 24 Squadron since February and been credited with a total of seven kills (see Richthofen, 1917).

German zeppelins follow up last year's raids on England with 41 more such raids. The worst comes October 13, and on November 28 the Germans make their first airplane raid on London. The Germans have introduced Albatros and Halberstadt planes and begun flying in formation.

The German ambassador at Washington complains in November that U.S. flyers violate American neutrality, Paris orders that the Escadrille Americaine be called simply Escadrille 124, its members protest and call themselves the Lafayette Escadrille, a name (Escadrille Lafayette) that becomes official December 9. The group will grow to number 45, but never more than 30 at a time (see 1917).

Polish general Jozef Pilsudski, 49, obtains recognition of an independent Poland from the Central Powers November 16. Pilsudski 2 years ago organized an independent Polish army of 10,000, acting in secret. He has fought with Austria against Russia but has resigned his command because of German and Austrian interference in Polish affairs (see 1918).

The Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Josef dies at Vienna's Schönbrunn Palace November 21 at age 86 after a 68-year reign. He is succeeded by his 29-year-old grandson, who became heir to the throne in 1914 when the archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated at Sarajevo; the young man favors a negotiated peace with the Entente powers and will reign until 1918 as Karl I.

The British hospital ship Britannic launched in 1914 sinks in 50 minutes November 21 after hitting a mine (or being torpedoed) while en route to pick up 3,500 wounded from the Aegean island of Lemnos for transfer to Naples. The ship has 1,136 aboard and 30 are killed, most of them by the Britannic's own propellers.

Britain's Asquith government resigns December 4 (the Liberal Party has allegedly given domestic political considerations precedence over the war effort) and a war cabinet takes over. The new prime minister is Welshman David Lloyd George, now 63, who succeeded the late Lord Kitchener as secretary of state for war in July. Lloyd George has favored an Allied attack in the Middle East, opposing the strategy of Gen. Douglas Haig and Imperial General Staff chief William R. Robertson, who believe that the war can and must be won on the Western front (see 1918). Arthur J. Balfour becomes foreign secretary.

The odious Russian faith-healer Grigori Efimovich Rasputin, 45, dies at Petrograd December 31 at the hands of a group of noblemen, led by Prince Felix Youssopoff, 27, who are bent on ridding Russia of the monk's corrupting influence on Nicholas II and the czarina Aleksandra. Rasputin had ingratiated himself with the court by promising a cure for the hemophilia that afflicts the czarevich; he is shot, stabbed, and eventually drowned (see 1918; Bolshevik revolution, 1917).

Former Mexican president Victoriano Huerta dies in exile at El Paso, Texas, January 13 at age 61. Pancho Villa raids Columbus, N. Mex., March 9, killing 17 Americans; a 7,000-man U.S. punitive expedition moves into Mexico March 15 under the command of Gen. John J. Pershing, 55 (see 1914). The Missouri-born Pershing has orders to "capture Villa dead or alive," but although he uses planes in his search for the outlaw bandit, Villa eludes him, and Pershing will withdraw in early February of next year.

Argentine statesman Hipólito Irigoyen takes office as president and will serve until 1922 (see 1912). Now 63, the Radical Party leader has been elected by secret ballot and will work with his followers in the Congress to keep the country neutral during the Great War.

U.S. Marines land at Santo Domingo in May to restore order (see 1905). Formal occupation of the Dominican Republic begins November 29 and will continue until July 1924 (see Trujillo, 1930).

Puerto Rican patriot-statesman Luis Muñoz Rivera dies at Santurce November 15 at age 57.

A U.S. National Defense Act passed by Congress June 3 provides for an increase in the standing army, which now numbers only 130,000 men, by five annual stages to 175,000 men with a National Guard of 450,000 and an officers' reserve corps. Former Confederate Army cavalry officer John Singleton Mosby has died at Washington, D.C., May 30 at age 82. The Wilson administration emphasizes "preparedness" as sentiment against neutrality increases; the president appoints an advisory commission whose members include Wall Street financier Bernard M. Baruch, now 46.

Boston lawyer Louis D. Brandeis is sworn in June 5 as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (see human rights, 1890). Now 59, Brandeis has aligned himself with progressive causes, President Wilson's nomination of a man who will be the high court's first Jewish justice has sparked debates that have gone on for months, the Senate has confirmed Brandeis's appointment by a vote of 47 to 22, but 27 senators have abstained. The new member of the court will go to great lengths to master procedural details, research the facts, and use the law to help shape social, economic, and political aspects of life on the premise that the individual is the basic force in society but has limited capabilities.

Washington protests when the London Official Gazette blacklists some 30 U.S. firms under the British Trading with the Enemy Act of July 18; Britain's refusal to permit U.S. imports of German knitting needles needed in U.S. mills has drawn a sharp protest from Washington in May. The German freight submarine Deutschland that arrived at Baltimore July 9 with a cargo of dyestuffs arrives in November at New London, Conn., with a cargo of chemicals, gems, and securities.

A bomb explosion disrupts the San Francisco Preparedness Parade July 22, killing nine and wounding 40. Labor leader Thomas J. Mooney, 34, and Warren K. Billings, 22, deny accusations that they planted the bomb, Mooney is convicted and condemned to death, Billings is given life imprisonment. Mooney's sentence will be commuted late in 1918, he will be released early in 1939; Billings will be released late in 1939 and pardoned in 1961. But acrimony over the affair will continue for years.

The Black Tom explosion July 30 blows up munitions loading docks at Jersey City, N.J., killing seven men, injuring 35, and destroying $40 million worth of property. German saboteurs are generally considered responsible.

A Naval Appropriations Act passed by Congress August 29 authorizes $313 million for a 3-year naval construction program. The Battle of Jutland has shown the value of dreadnoughts and light cruisers.

Bethlehem Steel builds submarines for the British and obtains a U.S. contract for 88 vessels to be built on a cost-plus basis, with half the savings under cost to go to Bethlehem. The company will build the ships for $93 million, $48 million below estimate, and Bethlehem will have a profit of $24 million.

"I believe that the business of neutrality is over," says President Wilson in late October to the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce. "The nature of modern war leaves no state untouched." Wilson wins reelection on a platform that includes the slogan "He kept us out of war," but he believes that he has lost until late returns from California give him 23 more electoral votes than his Republican opponent, Justice Charles Evans Hughes of the Supreme Court. The president's 4,000-vote edge in California gives him 277 electoral votes to 254 for Hughes, who receives 46 percent of the popular vote to Wilson's 49 percent.

Montana voters elect the first U.S. congresswoman. Republican Jeanette Rankin, 36, has crisscrossed the state on horseback and says that Montana women got the vote "because the spirit of pioneer days is still alive."

The Indian Home Rule League is founded by Annie Wood Besant, now 69, who next year will become president of the Indian National Congress (see 1919). The Lucknow Pact adopted by the Indian National Congress at Lucknow December 29 and by the All-India Muslim League December 31 will lead to Hindu-Muslim cooperation in working toward self-government (see Government of India Act, 1919).

China's president Yuan Shikai dies June 6 at age 56, having tried to make himself president for life and, when that failed, to create a new imperial dynasty with the objective of uniting the country under central leadership. He has alienated the conservative civilian and military forces that supported him 4 years ago, and the Japanese have backed the widespread opposition to his leadership. 

Vietnam's Nguyen emperor Duy Tan dies after a 9-year reign and is succeeded by Nguyen Bun Dao, 31, who will reign until 1925 as the emperor Khai Dinh, advocating cooperation with French colonial authorities in order to modernize what he considers a technologically backward country and thereby enable it to take its place among more advanced nations.

The Philippine Autonomy Act (Jones Act) signed into law by President Wilson August 29 announces America's intention to "withdraw their sovereignty over the Philippine Islands as soon as a stable government can be established therein" (see 1902). The act replaces the U.S.-dominated Philippine Commission that has governed the islands since 1901 with an elective Senate and extends voting rights to all literate Filipino males (it also incorporates a bill of rights). The act permits the U.S. governor general to veto any measure passed by the new legislature, but Governor General Francis B. Harrison will rarely exercise his veto, and by the end of his term in 1921 he will have replaced most of the Americans in Filipino civil service jobs with Filipino nationals (see Wood-Forbes Mission, 1921).

Former Japanese general Prince Iwao Oyama dies December 10 at age 74.