1931 | Political Events
Political Events
Former German chancellor Hermann Müller dies at Berlin March 20 at age 54 as Adolf Hitler's National Socialist (Nazi) Party gains strength across the country (see 1930). Hitler recalls his former army commander Ernst Röhm from Bolivia, where he has worked as a military instructor, and puts him in charge late in the year of the 70,000-man Stürm Abteilung, which will have 170,000 members within a year (see 1932).
Spain's Alfonso XIII leaves the country April 14 after a 45-year reign (see 1930). A small military revolt at Jaca has led to the resignation February 14 of his prime minister Dámaso Berenguer after only 1 year in office. Berenguer was minister of war under Admiral Juan Bautista Aznar-Cabañas, and forces favoring a republic have won big in the April municipal elections. Catalan leader Francesc Macià, 71, proclaims a Catalan Republic and begins a campaign for Catalonian home rule (see 1932). Revolutionary committee leader Niceto Alcalá Zamora is freed from imprisonment to become prime minister of Spain, Berenguer is imprisoned (he will remain in prison until 1939), but Alcalá Zamora resigns October 14 when the Cortes offends his Roman Catholic sensibilities by including strongly anticlerical provisions in the constitution that it is writing. He is succeeded by Manuel Azaña y Díaz, who pushes through a draconian Law for the Defense of the Republic. The king is declared guilty of high treason November 12 and forbidden to return, the royal property is confiscated, Berenguer Dámaso is imprisoned, a new constitution is adopted December 9, and Alcalá Zamora is elected president December 11 of a Second Republic that will continue until 1939. Manuel Azaña y Díaz is named minister of war and begins a drastic reduction in the nation's armed forces (see 1933).
France elects statesman Paul Doumer, 74, president in June to succeed Gaston Doumergue (but see 1932). Former French Army marshal J. J. C. Joffre has died at Paris January 3 at age 78 and been buried with full military honors (he is credited with having won the first Battle of the Marne in 1914).
Britain's Labour government resigns August 24 in a disagreement over remedies for the nation's financial crisis, but Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald heads a new coalition cabinet that will retain power until mid-1935.
Prime Minister MacDonald convenes a second session of the Round Table Conference on Indian affairs at Westminister in September (see 1930). Mohandas K. Gandhi is released from prison and attends, at his insistence, as the sole representative of the Congress, but the talks fail to resolve differences between Hindus and Muslims or between the various princes, and the second conference ends as did the one last year with nothing to show for its efforts (see 1932).
Chinese rebels under Gen. Chen Jitang split with Gen. Chiang Kai-shek and take control of Guangzhou (Canton) April 30.
British authorities in China arrest the 41-year-old Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh (originally Nguyen That Than) June 17 (see 1945).
British forces in Burma use machine guns to suppress the rebellion that began last year. Some 10,000 peasants are killed, the revolt collapses, Saya San finds refuge on the Shan Plateau to the east, but he is captured at Hokho August 2 and returned to Tharrawaddy to face trial. Sentenced to death by a special tribunal, he is hanged at the Tharrawaddy jail November 16, but the widespread support that he obtained bears witness to the unpopularity of British rule.
Japanese militarists use the Mukden Incident September 18 as an excuse to occupy Manchuria. British statesman Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, has assured the League of Nations September 10 that "there has scarcely ever been a period in the world's history when war seemed less likely than it does at the present," but militarist Shumei Okawa, 45, cites an alleged railway explosion as provocation, Imperial Army forces seize Jilin Province September 21, and within 5 months will have taken Harbin and the three eastern provinces. The League appoints the former British governor of Bengal Victor A. G. R. Bulwer-Lytton, 55, 2nd earl of Lytton, to head an investigation team, which will blame the Chinese for their anti-Japanese propaganda and the Japanese for their aggression (the action is in large measure a reprisal for China's boycott of Japan's cotton textiles). War Minister Kazunari Mubake, 63, has incurred the wrath of war-minded leaders by trying to carry out the 1922 Washington Conference disarmament pact and been forced to resign. Prime Minister Wakatsuki Reijiro's cabinet falls in December and Constitutional Party leader Tsuyoshi Inukai, 76, becomes prime minister (but see 1932).
Chiang Kai-shek comes under pressure from communist forces led by Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung), now 37. Preoccupation with the communists and with floods on the Yangzi (Yangtze) River prevent him from mounting any military effort against the Japanese (see 1934).
Guatemalan voters elect former minister of war Gen. Jorge Ubico (Castañeda), 52, president, and he uses assassination, execution, exile, and imprisonment to thwart opposition, beginning a dictatorship that will continue until 1944 (see human rights, 1933).
El Salvador has a military coup in December that ends direct control of the presidency by coffee barons. President Arturo Araujo has been freely elected on a platform to reform the nation's feudal system, but he has upset the oligarchical plantocracy and the army that have so long dominated El Salvador. His vice president Gen. Maximiliano Hernández Martinez takes office as president, and military governments will rule the Central American country through 1979 (see 1932).
Argentine general Agustín Pedro Justo, 55, wins election to the presidency on a reactionary coalition ticket (see 1930). He has served as minister of war, agriculture, and public works, outgoing president José Félix Uriburu has rigged the election to ensure continued oligarchical control and the succession by a fellow officer (who has more support than Uriburu among other members of the military), and beginning next year Justo will inaugurate a police state whose policies will nevertheless be less extreme than those of former president Uriburu.
The U.S. Navy issues a contract March 28 to Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp. for an experimental plane that employs the first retractable landing gear, devised by cofounder Leroy Grumman (see transportation, 1930). The company moves to Valley Stream, N.Y., sets up a production line for the new FF-1, and will move next year to Farmingdale, N.Y. It will relocate to Bethpage, Long Island, in 1937 and put up a large new factory to accommodate expanding operations as it gears up to build a new 330-mile-per-hour F4F Wildcat fighter plane.
Seversky Aircraft is founded by Russian-born U.S. aeronautical engineer Alexander Procofieff de Seversky, 37, who lost a leg in the Great War. His company will manufacture pursuit planes (see Republic, 1939).
Speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth (R. Ohio) dies at Washington, D.C., April 9 at age 61. His widow, Alice (née Roosevelt), remains a leading figure in the city's social life.
Pacifist social worker Jane Addams receives the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the second woman peace Nobelist and the first since 1905. Now 71, she was vilified a dozen years ago for her opposition to the war, but the Nobel committee now calls her "the foremost woman of her nation."