1921 | Political Events
Political Events
Russian revolutionist Pyotr A. Kropotkin dies at Dmitrov, near Moscow, February 8 at age 78. He returned to Russia from exile in Britain 4 years ago but has played no role in the Bolshevik revolution. Russian sailors mutiny at Kronstadt beginning February 23 as the nation's economy collapses. Bolshevik authorities tolerate no dissent and put down the mutiny by March 17, but at least 1,600 anarchists are killed or wounded, their machine guns have mowed down at least 10,000 Red Army troops, and the bloodshed shatters any hope that the destitute country will somehow emerge as a democracy.
Bolsheviks overthrow the Menshevik regime in the Republic of Georgia that was established 3 years ago; Nikolai S. Chkheidze emigrates to France.
Bolshevik-trained Mongols form the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, establish an Independent People's Government, and use Russian help to defeat a Japanese-backed puppet government (see 1911; 1924).
V. I. Lenin tells his fellow Bolsheviks in November, "We have entered a new period in which we have . . . won the right to our international existence in the network of capitalist states." Having prevailed in Russia's civil war and organized a Soviet government along traditional ministerial lines, the Bolsheviks seek to establish traditional relations with foreign powers (see USSR, 1923).
Persia has a bloodless coup d'état February 20 as former Cossack trooper Reza Khan Pahlevi, 44, ousts the incompetent and self-indulgent Ahmad Shah who has reigned since 1909 (and will remain titular shah until 1925), expels all Russian officers from the country, and starts a new regime. V. I. Lenin gives up special rights in Persia, frees her of obligations to Russia, and gives Persia joint command of the Caspian Sea (see 1924).
The Milner Report published in February recommends ending Britain's protectorate over Egypt and negotiating a treaty with the Egyptians (see 1920). Adli Yakan forms a new Egyptian government, but his rival Sa'd Zaghlul frustrates his efforts to negotiate a treaty with London, forcing Yakan to resign, whereupon Zaghlul brings out his supporters in street demonstrations designed to thwart the formation of an alternative government. Gen. Allenby has Zaghlul arrested and deported to the Seychelles; he persuades London to promulgate a declaration that incorporates the Milner Report and confers a limited degree of independence on the Egyptians (see 1922).
Former Ottoman grand vizier Mehmed Talat is killed by an Armenian at Berlin March 15 at age 46. The Treaty of Moscow signed March 16 recognizes the nationalist Turkish government of Mustafa Kemal and its possession of Kars and Ardaha in return for Turkey's retrocession of Batum. Moscow agrees to supply the nationalists with weapons and ammunition for their war with Greece in an accord that follows by 3 days an Italian agreement to evacuate Anatolia in return for economic concessions, but hostilities continue between Greece and Turkey. The Turks prevent the Greeks from reaching Angora (Ankara) only by desperate efforts. France recognizes Turkey's Grand National Assembly by signing the Treaty of Ankara (Franklin-Bouillon Agreement) October 20 while Britain continues to recognize the Ottoman sultan Mehmet VI's government at Constantinople. The nationalists have refused to ratify last year's Treaty of Sèvres, their troops have defeated the French in Cilicia (southwestern Anatolia), diplomat Henri Franklin-Bouillon agrees to evacuate Cilicia, and Turkish nationalist foreign minister Yusuf Kemal Bey agrees to a new Turkish-Syrian border with a "special administrative regime" at Alexandretta (Hatay). The agreement releases Turkish troops for combat against the Greeks (see Treaty of Lausanne, 1923). Former Ottoman grand vizier Said Halim is assassinated by an Armenian at Rome December 6 at age 58.
London issues a White Paper on the Middle East: Gertrude Lowthian Bell has written "Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia" (she serves as oriental secretary to the British high commissioner Sir Percy Cox, who has conducted a plebiscite showing 96 percent approval of installing Syria's emir Faisal I as king of Iraq) (see 1920). When told by her mother that her work was well received, Bell replies, "The general line taken by the Press seems to be that it's most remarkable that a dog should be able to stand on its hind legs at all—i.e., a female write a White Paper (see Doctor Johnson, 1763). I hope they'll drop that source of wonder and pay attention to the report itself." Faisal arrives at Basra June 23, and the RAF takes over the chief responsibility for suppressing resistance to British occupation. English-born RAF officer Arthur Travers Harris, 29, helps devise a delayed-action bomb as a terror weapon and uses it to deadly effect against civilian populations; raised in Rhodesia, he says, "The only thing the Arab understands is a heavy hand" (see Hamburg, 1943). Faisal is installed on the throne of Iraq August 23, and he will reign until his death in 1933, establishing the Hashemite dynasty that will continue until 1958 (see 1922; energy [petroleum], 1927).
British authorities in Ireland sentence Countess Markievicz to 2 years' hard labor for having founded the Fianna in 1909 (see 1920). Unionist Party leader James Craig, 50, takes office June 22 as prime minister of Northern Ireland (he will hold the position until his death in 1940); Sinn Fein leader Michael Collins and others engineer a truce between the British and Irish armies, it takes effect July 11, and the countess is released July 24 (see 1923; Collins, 1922). Southern Ireland gains Dominion status December 6 in a treaty signed with Britain (see 1920). The Catholic Irish Free State (Eire) gains independence December 6 under terms of a treaty negotiated in part by Britain's lord chancellor Frederick E. Smith, now 49, who has been created Viscount Birkenhead and next year will be made 1st earl of Birkenhead; the new Free State embraces 26 of Ireland's 32 counties, but the six counties in Protestant Northern Ireland remain part of the United Kingdom and conflict between the two will continue (see IRA, 1922).
Yugoslavia's Peter I dies at Topaderi, near Belgrade, August 16 at age 77 after less than 3 years as monarch of the new nation. He is succeeded by his 33-year-old son, who will reign until 1934 as Aleksandr I (see 1929).
Two former German officers shoot left-wing Catholic Center Party deputy Matthias Erzberger, 45, to death in the Black Forest at Baden August 26 as violence increases in the Weimar Republic (see Kapp, 1920). Erzberger negotiated the peace terms that were signed in November 1918 (see Rathenau, 1922). Former German chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg has died at Hohenfinow January 1 at age 64, Austrian political extremist Georg, Ritter von Schönerer, at Rosenau bei Zweitl August 14 at age 79. The eccentric former Bavarian king Ludwig III dies at Sternberger See October 18 at age 76.
Former Luftwaffe pilot Friedrich Christiansen persuades aircraft designer Ernst Heinkel to move to Travenmude and resume his previous career (date approximate; see 1916). The Treaty of Versailles has forbidden Germany to maintain an air force, Heinkel has returned to his native Swabia and started an electrical components factory, but Christiansen has urged him to design a collapsible seaplane that could be carried on U-boats, Japanese and U.S. agents have connived in the plan, and Heinkel will build a plane (the U-1) that can be assembled in 33 seconds, climb to 3,300 feet in 6 minutes, and attain a top speed of 87 miles per hour (see 1922).
Portugal has a revolution following the assassination in October of a founder of the 11-year-old republic.
U.S. House minority leader and former speaker of the House Champ Clark (D. Ky.) dies at Washington, D.C., March 2 at age 70; Supreme Court Chief Justice Edward D. White at Washington, D.C., May 19 at age 75 (President Harding appoints former president William Howard Taft to replace him, and Taft will head the court until 1930); former civil service reformer and trust buster Charles J. Bonaparte dies at his native Baltimore June 28 at age 70.
North Dakota voters recall Gov. Lynn Frazier, 46, who has been charged with promoting radical socialism and using the state's public libraries to spread "the propaganda of free love" (he is actually a devout Methodist who does not smoke or drink). Bank failures and plunging prices of beef and wheat have fueled a grassroots movement to remove the Minnesota-born farmer, who is serving his third 2-year term, he signed the law himself that provided for recall (see California, 1911), and he is the nation's first governor to be recalled, but he will be elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican next year and serve until he loses a bid for reelection in 1940 (see California, 2003).
Billy Mitchell sinks a former German battleship in the Chesapeake Bay July 21 to prove his contention that a strategic air force makes large navies obsolete. Brig. Gen. William Mitchell, 41, led a mass bombing attack of nearly 1,500 planes in 1918, his Martin M-2 bombers are twin-engined biplanes whose 418-horsepower Liberty engines give them a top speed of 98 miles per hour, they drop 1,000 bombs in the morning and 2,000 bombs in the afternoon as Congressmen look on, and the 22,800-ton Ostfriesland becomes the first capital warship to be sunk by bombs from U.S. planes (see 1925).
The U.S.S. Jupiter is the first U.S. aircraft carrier (see Royal Navy, 1918). Converted from an 11,050-ton collier, she has a stem-to-stern flight deck 534 feet (163 meters) in length and will be commissioned for fleet service in September of next year as the U.S.S. Langley, but catapult launches will not be perfected until the 1930s.
Former British first sea lord Louis Alexander Mountbatten, 1st marquess of Milford Haven, dies at London September 11 at age 67.
Japan's prime minister Takashi Hara is assassinated by a young right-wing fanatic at Tokyo November 4 at age 65. Founder of the powerful Seiyukai Party, Hara compromised with the nation's oligarchs, sent a military expedition to Siberia in 1918, took office in late September 1918, formed the first cabinet in accordance with principles parliamentary organization, encouraged the extension of suffrage, suppressed labor organizations, suppressed the independence movement in Korea, and supported naval armament.
The Washington Conference on Limitation of Naval Armaments opens November 12 and hears U.S. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes say, "Competition in armament must stop." Hughes announces that the United States is prepared to scrap immediately 15 old battleships and to cancel construction of nine new battleships and six new cruisers, some of them 85 to 90 percent complete. Naval power is generally believed to have given the Allies their margin of victory in the Great War; the announcement that Washington is prepared to scrap two-thirds of the U.S. battleship fleet stuns the conferees, many of whom believe that such a decision would be suicidal (see 1922).
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery across the Potomac from Washington, D.C., November 11 (a sculpture by Thomas Hudson Jones, now 30, will be installed on the tomb). Similar memorials were created last year in Europe, inspired possibly by a chaplain who in 1918 saw a crude wooden sign at the front with the words "An Unknown British Soldier" scrawled on it.
The Battle of Annoual in Morocco July 21 ends in defeat for a Spanish army at the hands of Rif resistance forces under the command of Abd el-Krim, 36, who chases the Spaniards into the suburbs of Melilla and establishes a Republic of the Rif with himself as president. An anarchist has assassinated Spain's prime minister Eduardo Dato Iradier March 8; Gen. Fernandez Silvestre commits suicide when the Rifs kill 12,000 of his 20,000 men, and news of the disaster at Annoual produces a political crisis at Madrid (see 1923).
Former Egyptian grand vizier Halim Pasha Said is assassinated by an Armenian at Rome December 6 at age 58.
Australian voters elect their first female member of Parliament March 13.
President Harding sends a fact-finding mission to the Philippines (see Jones Act, 1916). Republicans have raised questions about retiring governor general Francis B. Harrison's policy of preparing the islands for independence by replacing Americans with Filipinos in civil-service jobs; this has resulted in a notable deterioration in services, the critics charge, and the president has asked Gen. Leonard Wood and W. Cameron Forbes to investigate; the Wood-Forbes Mission reports in October that the islands are ill prepared for independence, with many educated Filipinos preferring the status quo. News of the report creates a furor in the Philippines. Gen. Wood is named to succeed Harrison, he will serve as governor general until his death in 1927, but although efficient and honest, he will never gain any popularity among the people (see Tydings-McDuffie Act, 1934).
Former Colombian president and dictator Rafael Reyes (Prieto) dies at Bogotá February 19 at age 70.
A Mexican mob carrying red flags invades the lower chamber of the Congress in late May; fearing for their lives, the Majority Deputies arm themselves as anarchists and ultra-Radicals stage a series of disturbances at Mexico City.
Canada's Union Government loses in the national elections, Prime Minister Meighen is unseated, and Liberal Party leader W. L. (William Lyon) Mackenzie King, 47, becomes prime minister December 21 even though his party falls slightly short of having a majority in the federal Parliament at Ottawa.
Canada's Parliament gets its first female member following the election of Agnes Mcphail (née Campbell), 31, as representative of the United Farmers of Ontario; she will champion the cause of women in the workforce. Canadian feminist Nellie McClung is elected as a Liberal in Alberta; she will try without success to liberalize the province's divorce laws and fail to win reelection in 1925.
President Harding commutes the prison sentence of Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs December 25 to time served (see 1918), Debs is released, and a tumultuous crowd greets him on his return to his native Terre Haute 3 days later.