1919 - Political Events

Political Events

The Versailles Peace Conference opens January 18 outside Paris with delegates from 27 victorious nations; 1 week later it adopts a unanimous resolution to create a League of Nations, whose members will protect each other against aggression and which will devote itself to such matters as disarmament, labor legislation, and world health (the League's covenant has been drafted in large part by London-born statesman Robert Cecil, 54, whose father was the three-time prime minister Robert Cecil, marquis of Salisbury, and who has been working on an international peacekeeping agreement since 1916; he will work for the League until it is superseded in 1945). Former German chancellor Georg, graf von Hertling, has died at Ruhpolding January 4 at age 75, and diplomat Sir Mark Sykes dies of influenza in February at age 39 while attending the peace conference. Romania's Queen Marie pleads her country's cause at the conference, where she is fêted by Clemenceaux, Poincaré, and British statesman Arthur Balfour. She was influential in bringing Romania into the war on the side of her British and Russian cousins, only to have her adopted country devastated by invading German and Hungarian armies (see Wilson's Fourteen Points, 1918).

Berlin authorities arrest socialist agitators Rosa Luxemburg, now 49, and Karl Liebknecht, 48, after an insurrection inspired by their Spartacus Party, whose members have been fomenting strikes (see 1914). The two are brutally murdered January 15 while being transferred from military headquarters to prison and Luxemburg's body is thrown into the Landwehr Canal, where it is not found until June 1. Former German officers join with others in forming the right-wing paramilitary organization Freikorps.

Germans establish a new republic with its constituent assembly at Weimar, a Thuringian city on the Ilm River far to the southwest of Berlin (the place has been selected mostly to avoid the violence at Berlin but also because its traditions are humanistic rather than militaristic). Elections held January 19 for a constitutional convention, or assembly, give 163 seats to the Social Democrats, 89 to the Catholic Center Party, 75 to the new, progressive Democratic Party, and the three parties represent a ruling coalition. Friedrich Ebert tells his countrymen, "No enemy has overcome you." He wins election as president and will head the Weimar Republic until his death in 1925. The national assembly meets February 6 to discuss the modern, democratic constitution drafted by Hugo Preuss, who serves as minister of the interior.

Bavarian prime minister Kurt Eisner loses his bid for election in February and is assassinated February 21 by a nobleman on his way to present his resignation to the Bavarian parliament. The assassination triggers a revolution, 30,000 German troops under the command of Munich-born Iron Cross recipient Franz Epp, 50, suppress the uprising with bloody violence. They kill an estimated 600 communists and socialists, and Bavaria joins the Weimar Republic.

Austria holds democratic elections in February and forms a People's Guard (Volkswehr) to resist communist efforts to take over the government (see 1918). Two such attempts are made (April 17 and again June 15) without success, some of the states (Länder) claim autonomy. Vorarlberg votes for union with Switzerland in May, Tyrol tries to secede, but political and social order is restored with parliamentary principles by the end of June (see 1920).

The Third International founded at Moscow March 2 is an organization dedicated to propagating communist doctrine with the avowed purpose of producing worldwide revolution. This Comintern will unite communist groups throughout the world.

Hanover-born newspaper publisher Alfred Hugenberg, 53, joins with industrialist Hugo Stinnes and others to found the right-wing German Nationalist Party (DNVP); formerly chairman of Krupp Armaments Co., Hugenberg owns Germany's largest film company (UFA). He soon becomes chairman of the party, and he will win election next year to the Reichstag.

Munich locksmith Anton Drexler, 35, joins with nationalist Dietrich Eckart, 51, and Wurzburg-born construction company owner Gottfried Feder, 36, to found the German Workers' Party (GWP). Austrian-born political agitator Adolf Hitler, 30, becomes the party's 54th member; a former lance corporal who distinguished himself under fire on the Western Front during the Great War, he soon brings in men who belonged to his army unit, notably his Munich-born commander Capt. Ernst Röhm, 31, who has joined the Freikorps under the leadership of Franz Epp, has access to the army's political fund, and transfers some money to the new GWP (see 1920).

German foreign minister Ulrich, graf von Brockdorff-Rantzau, 50, resigns in June after failing to dissuade his government from ratifying the Treaty of Versailles, the new constitution is adopted July 31 and provides for universal suffrage, proportional representation, and referenda, but the country is embroiled in communist uprisings mixed with conspiracies to reestablish the monarchy. Reichstag Social Democrat Georg Ledebour, now 69, is among the leaders of a communist insurrection at Berlin, but Defense Minister Gustav Noske employs ruthless measures to suppress it and uses right-wing Freikorps groups to put down leftist revolts at Bremen, Halle, Hamburg, and Leipzig, as well as in Bavaria, Brunswick, the Ruhr, Silesia, and Thuringia (see 1920).

Leftist and libertarian Milan newspaper publisher (Amilcare Andrea) Mussolini, 35, launches his Fasci Italianii Combattimento (Italian Combat Fascists) movement at a March 23 meeting in the Piazza San Sepoloro and organizes paramilitary squads to oppose his political enemies (see 1922).

Italy's Popular Party (Partito Populaire Italiano) has its beginnings in the Christian Democratic Party (Democrazia Cristiana) founded in January by Sicilian-born priest Luigi Sturzo, 47; it captures 101 of the 508 seats in the Chamber of Deputies in November elections.

Romania annexes Transylvania January 11 as Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia help themselves to other Hungarian territories. Hungarian statesman Count Mihály Károlyi, 43, takes office as president of a democratic republic January 11 but resigns March 20 when the Allied powers demand further territorial concessions; a Bolshevist coup d'état overthrows the government March 21, and revolutionary Béla Kun, 34, seizes power with a view to establishing a dictatorship of Hungary's proletariat (see 1918; 1920). Károlyi flees the country in July, monarchists regain control August 1, Romanian forces invade Hungary, capture Budapest August 4, force Béla Kun to take refuge at Vienna, plunder Hungary, are induced to withdraw November 14, but take with them everything they can carry (see 1920).

The Weizmann-Faisal Agreement signed at London January 3 calls for full cooperation between an independent Arabia and an independent Zionist state (see Balfour Declaration, 1917). Depressed at what he considers a betrayal of his promise to the Arabs, T. E. Lawrence has invited Faisal to London, but British and French leaders have no intention of honoring Lawrence's promise to Faisal of an independent Arabia, and Britain establishes the state of Iraq January 10 from the Mesopotamian villayets of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul, the three easternmost provinces of the old Ottoman Empire, giving it a name used in ancient times and excluding the small Persian Gulf sheikdom of Kuwait controlled since 1756 by the al-Sabbah family (see 1920).

British authorities in Egypt arrest nationalist leader Sa'd Zaghlul and three of his associates in March and deport them to Malta (see 1918). Sir Reginald Wingate's arrest order exacerbates the unrest that has persisted since last year, the British dismiss Wingate and replace him with Gen. Edmund Allenby, but the Egyptian government resigns. The countryside rises in rebellion, and Allenby releases Zaghlul and his associates. Zaghlul proceeds to Paris, and although he has little success in his efforts to press Egypt's case before the peace conference at Versailles, he is a national hero; a mission headed by former high commissioner for South Africa Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner, now 65, is appointed at Gen. Allenby's recommendation, but Zaghlul insists that he alone should negotiate with the British and arranges to have other Egyptians boycott the Milner mission (see 1920).

Montenegro deposes her king Nicholas I April 20 and votes for union with Yugoslavia (see 1918).

Greek troops land at Smyrna May 15 with Allied support, and Italian troops land in Anatolia (see 1915). Turkish war hero Mustafa Kemal organizes resistance to further dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire beginning May 19, but the new sultan Mehmet VI comes to power July 4 at age 57, dismisses Kemal July 8, and declares him an outlaw July 11. Kemal declares himself independent of the sultan August 5 at the Turkish Nationalist Congress. The Armistice of Mudros October 30 ends hostilities between Allied forces and the Ottoman Empire, British authorities banish former Egyptian grand vizier Halim Pasa Said to Malta, and an Allied military administration is set up at Constantinople December 8. The Committee of Union and Progress collapses, its members take refuge abroad, and the sultan dissolves parliament December 21, determined to crush the nationalists and perpetuate the Ottoman dynasty. British forces pull out of Azerbaijan at year's end (see 1920).

The Treaty of Noailles signed June 28 obliges Germany to accept sole responsibility for causing the Great War. Germany returns to France the Alsace-Lorraine conquests of 1871, cedes other territories to Belgium and Poland, cedes her colonies to the Allies to be administered as mandates under the League of Nations, and agrees to pay large reparations.

The Treaty of Saint-Germain signed September 10 obliges the new Austrian republic to recognize the independence of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia. Austria agrees to pay heavy reparations and cede the territories of Galicia, Istria, the Trentino, South Tyrol, and Trieste. The treaty stipulates that the new republic shall stop calling itself German-Austria (Deutscheösterreich) and become simply the Republik Osterreich; article 88 forbids any Austrian union (Anschluss) with Germany without approval from the new League of Nations (see 1920).

Liechtenstein entrusts her external relations to Switzerland (see 1868). Both countries remained neutral during the Great War, Liechtenstein will become a constitutional monarchy in 1921, and beginning in 1938 she will become increasingly important as a financial center and tax haven (see 1989).

The second Treaty of Neuilly signed November 27 obliges Bulgaria to recognize Yugoslavian independence, give up her Aegean seaboard, and pay $445 million in reparations (see 1919). Premier Stamboliski helped to negotiate the first such treaty and assumes dictatorial powers that he will retain until 1923.

Finland's legislature confirms a new constitution July 17 (see 1918). Gen. Mannerheim has failed to convince the Social Democrats that he is truly committed to republicanism, so they support the liberal National Progressive Party leader Kaarlo Juho Stahlberg, 54, who has drafted the constitution, becomes the new nation's first president, tries hard to narrow the differences between "Reds" and "Whites," and will eventually grant amnesty to those who have received long prison terms in connection with last year's civil war. The right-wing parties and the Agrarian Party will form coalitions to rule during Stahlberg's presidency, which will continue until 1925 (see peace treaty, 1920).

"I have been over into the future and it works," says author-journalist Lincoln Steffens to financier and presidential adviser Bernard M. Baruch after a visit to Russia, but Steffens has been deceived. The communist system does not work, and the world will spend the rest of this century learning that while capitalism requires some government regulation to avoid its pitfalls and reach optimum productivity there is no salvation in government-regulated economies that throttle innovation. Russia, meanwhile, is embroiled in civil war between the Bolshevik Red Army and a White Russian Army led by Gen. Anton Ivanovich Denikin, 46, with Allied support. Gen. Denikin routs Red Army forces in the Caucasus February 3 to 9, but the Red Army captures Kiev February 3, invades Estonia, enters the Crimea April 8 (the day after the Allies have evacuated Odessa), and takes Ufa June 9.

British spy Sidney Reilly goes into hiding in July following a failed effort to assassinate V. I. Lenin (see 1917). British, French, and U.S. troops invade Russia in August, Anglo-White Russian forces defeat the Red Army August 10 in North Dvina, and British troops occupy Archangel September 27, but they withdraw from Murmansk October 12.

Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has its beginnings in the Government Code and Cipher School established at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, with 25 cryptologists and a support staff of 30 to monitor foreign communications. The school will come under Foreign Office control in 1922 (see 1938).

A Far Eastern Republic established April 6 tries to act as a buffer between Russia and China. Bolshevik forces expel the French from Odessa April 8 (see 1918), British troops withdraw from Baku August 19, the Allies evacuate Archangel September 30 and evacuate Murmansk October 12, and the Red Army takes Omsk November 15 and Kharkov December 13 as forces under the command of Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak fail to stem the Bolshevik advance (see 1920).

Former president Theodore Roosevelt dies suddenly at his Oyster Bay, N.Y., home Sagamore Hill January 6 at age 60; former Canadian prime minister Sir Wilfred Laurier at Ottawa February 17 at age 77.

The American Communist Party has its beginnings in a local of the Communist Labor Party founded at Kansas City by socialists who include Staten Island, N.Y.-born feminist and labor agitator Ella Bloor (née Reeve), 57, who adopted the name Bloor when she wrote pieces of investigative reporting for Upton Sinclair at the turn of the century. A fiery speaker for the party, she is known as "Mother Bloor." She opposed the war, hailed the Bolshevik revolution, and will be arrested more than 30 times. But there are only about 70,000 professed communists in America.

Bombings by suspected anarchists disrupt eight U.S. cities June 2 and continue through the summer. One of the June 2 bombs severely damages the Washington, D.C., home of Moosehead, Pa.-born Attorney General A. (Alexander) Mitchell Palmer, who was appointed to his position in March, having served as alien property custodian and run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate. Now 47, Palmer has supported woman suffrage, opposed child labor, championed tariff reform, and written an essay ("The Case Against the Reds") declaring that communism is "eating its way into the homes of the American workman." With encouragement from Congress, Palmer begins a series of well-publicized raids on labor union offices and the headquarters of communist and socialist organizations, especially those of resident aliens who have fewer rights than citizens (see 1920).

Federal authorities release anarchist Emma Goldman from prison September 27, release Alexander Berkman a few days later, but soon take them to Ellis Island (see 1917). The Supreme Court upholds conviction of Russian propagandists opposing U.S. intervention in Russia. Justices Holmes and Brandeis dissent from the ruling handed down November 10 in Abrams v. United States. Holmes says, "Only the emergency that makes it immediately dangerous to leave the correction of evil counsels to time warrants making any exception to the sweeping command, 'Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech,'" but Washington, D.C.-born Justice Department lawyer J. (John) Edgar Hoover, 24, handles deportation cases involving alleged communist revolutionaries and calls Goldman "the most dangerous woman in America" (Hoover will become assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] in 1921; [see crime, 1908]). Federal authorities deport Berkman, Goldman, and 247 other Russians December 21 aboard the transport ship S.S. Buford (see Goldman, 1921).

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom is founded with help from former Wellesley College economics and sociology professor Emily Greene Balch, 52, who serves as international secretary. Wellesley did not renew her appointment because of questions about her "patriotism."

Britain's House of Commons seats its first woman member after Virginia-born Viscountess Nancy Witcher Astor (née Langhorne), 40, is elected as a Conservative to succeed her husband as member from Plymouth. A close friend of Romania's Queen Marie, she met and married émigré New York-born real estate heir Waldorf Astor, now also 40, in 1906, becoming one of the richest women in England. An agricultural expert, Waldorf has succeeded to his late father's title October 18, inherited ownership of the London Observer, and moved to the House of Lords. "Obviously I can't say that the best man won," Lady Astor jokes, "but the best policy did."

Sinn Fein Party members of Parliament proclaim an independent Irish Republic January 21 and organize a Parliament of their own (see 1916). Countess Markievicz gains release from Holloway Gaol March 6 following the death of another prisoner from influenza in Gloucester Gaol and returns to Dublin March 15. The Dail Eireann includes Sinn Fein president Eamon de Valera, now 37, who gains release from prison in the spring through the efforts of Michael Collins, who was himself released with many others before Christmas in 1916. Countess Markievicz is appointed secretary for labour in the new government with support from the Irish Women Workers Union, headed by Helena Molony (see 1918). But the countess makes a speech in May at Newmarket urging a boycott of English manufacturers, authorities deem her remarks seditious, she is arrested June 13, the British suppress the Dail Eireann September 12, they hold the countess in Cork Jail until October 16, firebombing and murders of constables and police officers become so common that scores of officers leave their jobs each month, and war begins November 26 between the 14-year-old Sinn Fein and British regulars (see 1920).

Former Brazilian president Francisco de Paula Rodrigues Alves dies at Rio de Janeiro January 16 at age 70; he was reelected last year but had not yet taken office.

Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata is lured into attending a meeting at the hacienda of Chinameca in his native Morelos state and is shot to death April 10 at age 49 by Carrancista soldiers.

Former Nicaraguan dictator José Santos Zelaya dies at New York May 17 at age 65.

Former Peruvian president Augusto Leguía y Salcedo is recalled to the presidency. Some elements of the nation revolt, but Leguía's followers seize power July 4 in a coup d'état and install him in the office that he vacated at the end of his first time in 1912. Now 56, Leguía will break with the old oligarchy, force many prominent political figures to go into exile, preside over the creation of a new constitution, but rule as a dictator until 1930.

President Wilson suffers a stroke at Wichita, Kansas, in late September while on a tour to rally support for ratification of the Versailles peace treaty. Rushed back to Washington, D.C., he suffers a massive stroke October 2 as isolationist Republican senators mount opposition to joining the League of Nations that Wilson has championed; they gain support from Americans disillusioned since 1918 with participation in foreign wars and fearful of losing the nation's traditional independence in international affairs. The president's second wife, Edith, now 47, has decoded secret messages and even attended peace talks in her husband's stead as smaller strokes have left him increasingly disabled, and she decides whom he will and will not see during the longest period of a presidential disability since the shooting of President Garfield in the summer of 1881. She prevents his physician from announcing news of the president's condition (his left side is completely paralyzed, but the public hears at first that Wilson has suffered indigestion, then that he has nervous exhaustion) and carries on in his place without public knowledge (some will call her the "First Woman President").

The U.S. House of Representatives unseats Wisconsin socialist congressman Victor Berger November 10; Berger's district reelects him in December, but the House will declare his seat vacant next January.

The U.S. Senate rejects the Versailles Treaty and rejects U.S. membership in the League of Nations. President Wilson is powerless to fight isolationists, led by Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge (R. Mass), who have particularly attacked Article X of the treaty, the one that insures the permanence of the territorial boundaries agreed upon at Versailles and requires any member of the League to help any other member who comes under attack. The president has called this "the heart of the covenant," but critics assail it as a threat to U.S. sovereignty and constitutional authority to declare war; the November 19 Senate vote fails to come up with the two-thirds majority needed for ratification, and isolationist sentiment will prevail in America for more than 20 years.

France acquires mandate control of Syria from Turkey and of Togo and Cameroon in Africa from Germany. Belgium acquires Burundi and Rwanda and will administer them as "protectorates" along with the Congo until 1962.

Afghanistan's Amir Habibollah returns to Jalalabad after a hunting trip at Kalagosh and is assassinated February 20 at age 46 after an 18-year reign in which he has kept his country aloof from the European war despite widespread popular support for the Ottoman Turks against Britain, thereby incurring the anger of young anti-British militants. He has opened Afghanistan to Western technology, introduced electricity, automobiles, and Western medical practices, founded schools and a military academy, started a weekly newspaper, and agreed to accept British counsel in foreign affairs in return for an annual subsidy of £160,000. His 26-year-old son Amanullah is governor of Kabul, controls the country's arsenal and treasury, and is crowned despite the prior claim of his uncle Nasrullah (Amanullah will not assume the title king until 1926). Britain has controlled Afghanistan's foreign policy since 1880, when Amir Abdur Rahman concluded Anglo-Afghan agreements that provided protection from Russian aggression and a financial subsidy plus war matériel; Amanullah demands a revision of those agreements, London balks, and a third Anglo-Afghan war begins May 3. Exhausted by losses sustained in the Great War, Britain negotiates at Rawalpindi, Mussoorie, and Kabul, concluding a peace that leaves Afghanistan free of British control. Amanullah becomes a national hero and will reign until 1929.

The Rowlatt Acts passed by Parliament in February extend the wartime powers of the 1915 Defence of India Act, and the Government of India Act (Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms) incorporates most of the principles agreed upon at the end of 1916 in the Lucknow Pact: it provides for elections to be held next year, introducing some degree of democracy for the first time into the executive branch of Britain's colonial administration on the subcontinent. The Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms increase the number of native members of the viceroy's executive council from at least two to at least three, turns the legislative assembly into a bicameral body with lower house (the Legislative Assembly) and upper house (Council of State). The lower house is to have 140 members, of whom 100 are to be elected, and 40 of the 60 members of the upper house are to be elected. Liberal Party leader Edwin Samuel Montagu, 40, has helped introduce the measure, having worked as parliamentary undersecretary to the India Office from 1910 to 1914 and become secretary of state for India in 1917. The new law introduces a system of double government (diarchy), dividing the executive branch of each provincial government into an authoritarian part (which controls justice, police, land revenue, and irrigation) and a part responsible to the electorate (which controls agriculture, forests, fisheries, education, public health, and public works) (see 1935).

The new Government of India Act limits the franchise to men of property and education, but the number of Indians eligible to vote for representatives to provincial councils is expanded to 5 million (only 1 million are eligible to vote for Legislative Assembly candidates, and only 17,000 to vote for Council of State members).

The Amritsar Riots for Indian self-government produce a massacre April 10. Some 10,000 unarmed Sikh men, women, and children gather in the city's Jallianwa Bagh that Sunday in violation of a ban on public assemblies (see Gandhi, 1914): Sikh separatists have fortified the 314-year-old Golden Temple (Harimandir) and take up positions in it. The local British commander, Gen. Reginald (Edward Harry) Dwyer, 54, uses the occasion to retaliate for the killing of four Europeans and the beating of a woman missionary; he calls out 50 troops and without giving the demonstrators adequate warning has his men fire into the screaming crowd. They fire continuously until all 1,650 rounds in their guns have been discharged: 379 people lie dead in the enclosed area, having had no way to flee, and the 1,200 wounded receive no medical attention. The governor of the Punjab Province places the entire province under martial law April 15, Nobel poet-novelist Rabindranath Tagore repudiates the knighthood he was given in 1915, Annie Wood Besant alienates her followers by supporting the imperial policy of repression, but Calcutta-born lawyer Chittaranjan Das, 48, goes to the Punjab as a member of the unofficial Jallianwala Bagh Inquiry Committee. An official commission of inquiry censures Gen. Dwyer for his action, he is relieved of his command and forced to resign, but when he returns to Britain he is lionized by imperialists and given a jeweled sword inscribed, "Savior of the Punjab." More than 250,000 Ghurkas have fought for the crown in Asia and Europe at the height of the Great War, and Ghurkas will continue to play a major role in Britain's armed forces despite the ill treatment accorded them, but the Jallianwala Bagh massacre turns millions of Indians into fervent opponents of the raj, which heretofore has enjoyed the trust of most people. Chittaranjan Das attends the Amritsar Congress and antagonizes Annie Wood Besant by advocating a policy hostile to implementation of the new British laws (see Gandhi, 1920).

Korean nationalists begin a series of demonstrations March 1 at Seoul demanding independence from Japan, whose government agrees to withdraw from the issue of Vietnamese independence in return for French help in controlling the rebellious Koreans (see 1909; Cuong De, 1915). The Samil Independence Movement spreads to other parts of the country, and before it is suppressed in March of next year about 2 million Koreans will have participated, 7,000 will have been killed by Japanese police and soldiers, 16,000 will have been wounded, 46,000 arrested, 10,000 tried and convicted, and 715 private houses destroyed by fire, along with 47 churches and two school buildings, but the Japanese will continue to rule Korea until 1945.

China has a wave of demonstrations and protests beginning May 4 amidst anxieties that the government has been complicit in transferring German rights to Japan (see 1917). More than 3,000 students from 13 colleges and universities converge on Beijing's Tiananmen Square to demonstrate their anger. Students, merchants, and workers in other cities organize strikes and boycotts of Japanese goods as patriots of all classes united in denouncing Japanese aggression. Public pressure forces the government to release all arrested students, the unpopular foreign minister is removed, and Chinese delegates to the Versailles Conference refuse June 28 to sign the peace treaty because it does not grant China's requests. The May Fourth Movement marks the beginning of Chinese nationalism; warlord Duan Qirui (Tuan Ch'i-jui) comes under attack, and rival warlords form a coalition against him (see 1920).

South Africa's prime minister Louis Botha dies at Pretoria August 27 at age 56 after 9 years in office and is succeeded by his colleague Jan Christiaan Smuts, now 49, who helped him found the Boer Party Het Volk (The People) in 1905.