Today in World War I

A day-by-day recounting of the events of World War I as they happened, one hundred years later.

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The End of Today in World War I (continued)

This half will cover what became of some of the foremost personalities of the Great War after the events previously covered.

United Kingdom

King George V emerged from the war a popular leader, even if his health was not once what it was after his injury and long-term chain smoking.  He died in early 1936 at the age of 70.

Asquith and Lloyd George eventually reunited their two factions of the Liberals in 1923, under Asquith’s leadership.  Asquith supported a Labour minority government later that year, which backfired at the next election. He accepted a peerage in 1925 and died in 1928.

Lloyd George took over leadership of the Liberal Party after Asquith’s departure, but relinquished it after refusing to support the National Government during the Depression.  He did not join the War Cabinet in World War II, and served in the Commons until he was elevated to a peerage shortly before his death in 1945.

Churchill lost his seat in Parliament in the November 1922 election, and while out of office began writing his account of the First World War, The World Crisis (which I used, with appropriate skepticism, at certain points during the war).  He returned to Parliament in 1924, joined the Conservative Party, and served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer until the Labour victory in 1929.  He continued as a backbencher until the outbreak of World War II, at which point he once again became First Lord of the Admiralty, then Prime Minister after the invasion of the Low Countries.  His Conservatives were defeated in 1945, but he returned to power in 1951 until his resignation in 1955; he died ten years later.

Beatty helped negotiate the Washington Naval Treaty, and retired from the Navy in 1927. Jellicoe served as Governor-General of New Zealand from 1920-1924. Their partisans continued to debate their actions at Jutland throughout the 1920s.  Jellicoe died in late 1935; Beatty, despite his poor health, attended and died four months later.

Admiral Reginald Hall served as a Conservative MP from 1919-1923, and 1925-1929, and died in 1943.

Field Marshal Haig left the military in 1920, and spent most of his remaining 8 years advocating for former soldiers.

General Plumer served as British High Commissioner of Palestine and Trans-Jordan from 1925-1928, and died in 1932.

General Byng, once commander of the Canadian Corps, became Governor-General of Canada in 1921. In 1926, he declined to dissolve parliament on the request of PM Mackenzie King. The resulting controversy helped spur reform of Dominion status codified in 1931.  From 1928-1931, he served as the Commissioner of the Metropolitcan Police. He was promoted to Field Marshal in 1932 and died in 1935.

General Rawlinson served as the Commander in Chief in India from 1920 until his death in 1925.

Allenby remained as High Commissioner in Egypt until 1925, and died in 1936.

Sir John French resigned from the military (and as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland) in April 1921, and died in 1925.

General Gough lived until 1963, giving him plenty of time to write multiple sets of memoirs about the war. He commanded the Chelsea Home Guard early in World War II.

Sir Edward Grey served as Ambassador to the United States for a brief stint in 1919-1920, then as Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1928 until his death in 1933.

Charles Townshend was elected as a non-Coalition Conservative in a 1920 by-election, but further coverage of his troops’ fate in captivity after the surrender of Kut tarnished his reputation.  He did not stand in the 1922 election, and died in 1924.

Canada

Despite only having a high school education, Arthur Currie served as vice-chancellor of McGill from 1920 until his death in 1933. In 1927 and 1928, he was involved in a bitter libel suit against a Canadian newspaper that suggested his effort to liberate Mons on the final day of the war was needlessly wasteful of lives; he won the suit but was only awarded $500 in damages.

South Africa

Jan Smuts succeeded Louis Botha as South African PM upon the latter’s death in 1919, and served until his party was defeated in a 1924 election.  He once again became Prime Minister at the outset of World War II, and at the close of the war, became the only person to have signed both the United Nations Charter and the Treaty of Versailles.  His party was defeated by the hardline pro-apartheid National Party in 1948, two years before his death.

France

Raymond Poincaré served as French PM for two different stretches totaling over five years in the 1920s, during the first of which he ordered the occupation of the Ruhr.  He retired due to ill health in 1929, and died in 1934.

Clemenceau launched a failed bid for the presidency in 1920, then retired from politics. He died in 1929.

Pétain led the campaign to defeat Abd el-Krim in the Rif (along with the Spanish) in 1925-1926, briefly served as Minister of War in 1934, then as ambassador to Franco’s Spain in 1939.  In May 1940, as Germany invaded France, he was made Deputy Prime Minister, then became Prime Minister after the fall of Paris.  A second armistice of Compiègne was signed on June 22, and his government collaborated with the Germans until it was evacuated to Germany in September 1944. Sentenced to death for treason after the war, this was quickly commuted to life imprisonment due to his service in World War I.  He was discharged on health grounds a few weeks before his death in 1951.

Sarrail, after spending a long time in the wilderness due to his socialism, was appointed High Commissioner of Syria in 1924.  His tenure there saw the start of a multi-year revolt, and he was recalled after ordering the shelling of Damascus. He died in 1929.

Aristide Briand led the French negotiations at the Washington Naval Conference while Prime Minister, but was soon replaced by Poincaré.  He returned to power for two more brief periods later in the 1920s, and even when not PM served as Foreign Minister from 1926 until his death in 1932.  In 1926, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the Locarno Treaties, which normalized relations with Germany (including its accession into the League) in return for formal German recognition of its western borders.  In 1928, the oft-derided Kellogg-Briand Pact committed its signatories (initially, Germany, France, and the United States) to not use war to resolve “disputes or conflicts.”  

Belgium

King Albert I’s wartime service made him popular for the remainder of his reign, cut short by a mountaineering accident in the Ardennes in 1934.

Serbia

Nikola Pašić served as PM of Yugoslavia for most of the period from 1921 until his death in 1926, and was instrumental in centralizing the Yugoslav state under Serbian rule.

Japan

Katō Takaaki became Prime Minister in 1924.  During his tenure, which lasted until his death in 1926, he normalized relations with the Soviet Union, withdrawing the last Japanese forces from Kamchatka and northern Sakhalin, and extended suffrage to all men over 25.

Italy

King Victor Emmanuel III abdicated in 1946, in an attempt to save the monarchy after his decades-long collaboration with Mussolini.  He was unsuccessful, and died the next year.

Pietro Badoglio warmed himself to Mussolini, and was appointed Chief of Staff in 1925.  In the late 1920s and early 1930s, he led a genocidal campaign to pacify Libya, and in 1935 he completed the Italian conquest of Abyssinia. He was dismissed as Chief of Staff following Italian defeats in Greece in late 1940. In 1943, the king named him Prime Minister, and a hasty armistice was negotiated with the Allies.  His fascist ties eventually made his position untenable, and he left office the next year. He died in 1956.

Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz

Hussein abdicated as King of Hejaz shortly before the Saudi conquest of the area in 1924.  Feisal, after his defeat in Syria in 1920, became King of Iraq from 1921 until his death in 1933; in the final year of his reign, the British mandate ended and Iraq officially gained its independence.

TE Lawrence returned to military life in 1922, published his Seven Pillars of Wisdom about his time in the Arab Revolt in 1926, and died in a motorcycle crash in 1935.

Greece

Venizelos returned to power briefly in Greece in 1924, then again after a landslide victory in 1928.  He helped normalize relationships with Italy, Yugoslavia, and Turkey, before the Great Depression led to another defeat in 1932.  He left Greece in 1935 following a failed coup by his supporters, and died the next year.

United States

Woodrow Wilson remained bitter at the Treaty of Versailles’ defeat, and spent much of his last years in a delusion plan to mount a bid for a third term in 1924; he died in February 1924 before these could come to fruition.

William McAdoo again sought the Democratic nomination in 1924, and led on the first ballot, but ties to those implicated in the Teapot Dome scandal and an endorsement from the KKK doomed his chances.  He served one term as a Senator from California in the 1930s, and died in 1941.

Pershing served as the US Army Chief of Staff from 1921 to 1924, and largely retreated from public life afterwards, although he did play a role in promoting aid to the United Kingdom in 1940.  His rank of General of the Armies meant he still outranked the five-star generals created in World War II. He died in 1948.

Admiral Sims won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1921 book The Victory at Sea which described his experiences in the war. He retired in 1922, and died in 1936.

William Jennings Bryan moved his focus away from politics after 1920 and concentrated on religion, mounting a failed bid for Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the USA and participating in the Scopes Monkey Trial shortly before his death in 1925.

Charles Evans Hughes served as Harding’s Secretary of State, and was instrumental in the negotiation of the Washington Naval Treaty. He returned to the Supreme Court, this time as Chief Justice, in 1930, serving as Chief Justice through the New Deal era until his retirement in 1941. He died in 1948.

Germany

Kaiser Wilhelm II remained in exile in the Netherlands until his death in 1941, even after the German conquest of the country in 1940.  His son, Crown Prince Wilhelm, returned to Germany in 1923 and involved himself in politics until the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. He died ten years after his father, in 1951.

Hindenburg was elected President in 1925 and served until his death in 1934; in 1933, he appointed Hitler as Chancellor.

After the Beer Hall Putsch, Ludendorff ran for President in 1925 as the Nazi candidate, receiving barely more than 1% of the vote. He fell further into conspiracy theories and was sidelined by the Nazis after their rise to power; he died in 1937.

Wilhelm Groener served as minister in several governments during the Weimar Republic, before leaving politics in 1932. He died in 1939.

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was forced out of the military after being involved in the Kapp Putsch, and became involved in monarchist politics later. Hitler apparently offered him the ambassadorship to the United Kingdom in 1935, but he declined. He died in Hamburg in 1964.

Mackensen became involved in far-right politics in the 1920s, even endorsing Erzberger’s murder.  He and the Nazis enjoyed a tenuous relationship; they enjoyed his propaganda value, but did not like his committed monarchism. He died in late 1945.

Count Bernstoff helped to found the liberal German Democratic Party in 1921, and served in the Reichstag until 1928. He left Germany after the Nazis came to power in 1933, and died in Geneva in 1939.

Admiral Tirpitz continued his involvement in far-right politics, and served in the Reichstag for the German National People’s Party for a few years in the 1920s, before dying in 1930.

Austria-Hungary

Empress Zita lived in exile in various countries for the rest of her life, outliving her husband by 77 years, never remarrying until her death in 1989.

Admiral Horthy continued to serve as Regent of Hungary, allying with Nazi Germany during the war, until the Nazis deposed him after concluding an armistice with the Soviets in October 1944.  He was freed by the Allies after the end of the war and lived in exile until his death in 1957.

Ottoman Empire

Mustafa Kemal became the first President of the new Turkish Republic from 1923 until his death in 1938, and played an outsized role in shaping modern Turkey.

Russia

Lenin continued as the effective head of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union until his death in early 1924.  Trotsky lost the power struggle after his death, went into exile in 1929, and was assassinated by an agent of Stalin in Mexico City in 1940.

Kerensky lived in exile in France until 1940, and then in the United States until his death in 1970.

Romania

General Averescu served as Prime Minister twice in the 1920s; in his second government, he attempted to align himself with Mussolini’s government in Italy. He remained politically active until his death in 1938.

Finland

Mannerheim was made Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Army upon the Soviet invasion in November 1939, and remained in place until he became President in August 1944.  He concluded the war with the Soviet Union and joined the Allies.  After the end of the war, he resigned as president in 1946, and died five years later.

Mexico

Pancho Villa ended his hostilities in 1920, after the assassination of President Carranza, but was himself assassinated by political enemies in 1923.

Final Words

Thanks again to all my readers, and to all those I thanked three years ago.

After seven years and one gender transition (tumblr will have its due, after all), it’s time to finally close the book here.  I will not be doing a similar project for World War II, but might do something for the 150th anniversary come 2064.

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The End of Today in World War I

November 11 2021, Arlington--Three years beyond the armistice seems a good enough place to finally bring my coverage of the post-war events to a close.  There are still plenty of loose (or, honestly, dropped) threads left over from the war that would continue more than three years past the armistice, and I would feel remiss if I just stopped here without providing at least some conclusion.

Russia:

The defeat of Wrangel in November 1920 ended the last major White threat to Soviet power in Russia, though localized threats on the periphery would continue for at least two more years.  Makhno’s Black Army of anarchists in Ukraine, after a brief alliance with the Reds against Wrangel, were forced into exile by August 1921.  The last Armenian resistance in the mountains southeast of Yerevan was crushed in July 1921.  Georgia saw continued small-scale guerilla fighting and a large rebellion in August 1924, though this failed to take Tblisi and was swiftly crushed.

The Soviets had thought they had largely secured control over Russia’s former holdings in Central Asia with the fall of Bukhara in September 1920.  However, guerilla resistance by the Basmachi movement continued.  In November 1921, former Ottoman leader Enver Pasha arrived to assist the Soviets, but soon defected to the Basmachi in a misguided continuation of his wartime plans for a grand pan-Turkish state.  Enver reinvigorated the Basmachis and they seized large portions of present-day Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.  The Soviets, in return, made political concessions to the Muslims in the area while simultaneously bringing the full might of the Red Army to bear.  After suffering multiple defeats, Enver Pasha was killed in a foolhardy cavalry charge on August 4, 1922.  Local Basmachi resistance would continue for another year or two, and occasional cross-border raids from Afghanistan for a decade after that.

In the Far East, Japanese withdrawal towards Vladivostok allowed the Soviets to secure the crucial rail junction of Chita in October 1920.  Most of the remnants of Kolchak’s forces fell back with them (or left the country entirely), but General Ungern-Sternberg decided instead to invade Mongolia in an insane plan to restore the Mongolian Empire.  In February 1921, he captured Ulaanbaatar from the Chinese and returned Bogd Khan to power, but he was ousted by the Soviets and Red Mongolian forces in July, and was captured and executed later in the summer.  The Mongolian People’s Republic was established (with Bogd Khan kept as head of state until his death in 1924) and would remain until the end of the Cold War.

A brief White offensive took Khabarovsk, 500 miles north of in the winter of 1922, but they were repulsed by February.  Vladivostok only fell to the Reds after the Japanese evacuated in October 1922.  Some White resistance remained around Okhotsk until June 1923, and the Japanese did not fully withdraw from Kamchatka and northern Sakhalin until 1925.

On December 28 1922, with the Civil War all but over, the Soviet Union was officially created by the agreement of the Soviet governments in Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, and Transcaucasia.

North Africa:

Despite his great victory at Annual, Abd el-Krim was not able to push onto Melilla and eject the Spanish from the eastern Rif.  A stalemate ensued, and a large faction in Spanish politics preferred abandoning Morocco entirely.  In September 1923, General Primo de Rivera seized power in a coup and planned to pull back from Morocco, but under coup threats from junior officers, instead fortified the remaining Spanish positions.  In 1925, Abd el-Krim’s forces invaded French Morocco, reaching as far as Fez.  The French responded with overwhelming force with a large army under Pétain, along with aircraft, artillery, and chemical weapons, and Abd el-Krim surrendered in May 1926.

Egypt had nominally been an Ottoman possession (albeit under British administration) until the outbreak of World War I, and the end of the war saw increased demands for Egyptian sovereignty, leading to mass strikes and protests in the spring of 1919.  These were crushed by the British, and the following negotiations with moderate Egyptian nationalists were inconclusive. Lloyd George wanted to maintain the protectorate, but in early February 1922 General Allenby, now British High Commissioner in Egypt, threatened to resign. On February 28 1922, the United Kingdom unilaterally declared the independence of the Kingdom of Egypt, but reserved power over Egypt’s defense, minority rights, “the protection of foreign interests in Egypt,” and Sudan.  These reserve clauses would remain in effect until Nasser seized power thirty years later.

Turkey and Greece:

In the summer of 1921, the Greeks launched a major new offensive towards Ankara, hoping to decisively defeat Kemal’s Turkish nationalist government.  However, the Greeks were largely alone in this effort; the French, Italians, and Soviets had all warmed to Kemal and conducted arms trades with (or, in the case of Soviets, gifted arms to) Turkey.  The British were still friendly to the Greeks, but less so after Venizelos’ election defeat and King Constantine’s restoration to the throne.  After fierce battles in August and September 1921 25 miles from Ankara, the overextended Greek forces were halted and forced to fall back.  In October, the French signed a treaty with Kemal’s government, largely settling the modern-day border between Syria and Turkey (excepting the area around Alexandretta [İskenderun], which remained under French control until 1937 before joining Turkey after a disputed referendum in 1939).

The Allies, realizing that the Treaty of Sèvres was dead, were willing to renegotiate, but Kemal, having the upper hand militarily in Anatolia, refused. On August 26 1922, Kemal broke through the still-overextended Greek lines and pushed towards Smyrna [İzmir], reaching the city on September 9.  A fire engulfed the Greek and Armenian parts of city in the following days.  Over 150,000 refugees were evacuated to Greece, while tens of thousands more perished in the fire or were deported to the Anatolian interior.  The stunning defeat led a revolution in Greece by the end of the month, returning pro-Venizelos forces to power and forcing King Constantine to abdicate for a second time, this time in favor of his first son, George; Constantine would die in exile a few months later.

With Smyrna secured, Kemal soon moved on towards the Straits and Constantinople.  Lloyd George, Churchill, and a small number of Conservatives in the coalition government called for defending the Straits against Kemal, even if it meant war with Turkey.  However, the other Conservatives, along with, in a notable change from 1914, Canadian PM Mackenzie King, were opposed to war.  On October 11, the Allies agreed to an armistice with Kemal at Mudanya, in which the Greeks agreed to evacuate what is now European Turkey up to the Maritsa river.  The wartime coalition in Britain broke apart, and Conservative Bonar Law became Prime Minister later in the month before winning an overall majority in elections the next month (which saw the Liberals, still split between Lloyd George and Asquith, relegated to third-party status behind Labour).

On November 1, the Turkish General Assembly dissolved the Ottoman Empire.  Final peace negotiations for a treaty to replace Sèvres dragged on for months, but a treaty was finally signed in Lausanne on July 24 1923.  Kemal’s government in Turkey was recognized by the Allies, with essentially its modern borders.  The fate of Mosul was to be left to the League of Nations, which eventually decided in favor of Iraq in 1926.  Civilian ships were allowed free passage through the Straits, and Turkey’s European border was to be demilitarized (on both sides). Related agreements between Turkey and Greece resulted in large-scale population transfers, with over 1.5 million Greeks from Turkey moved to Greece and 500,000 Muslims in Greece moved to Turkey.  This did not apply to the Greek population in Constantinople (and a few Turkish islands), whose rights were recognized explicitly in the Lausanne treaty.  

The Allies finally left Constantinople on October 4 1923, and Turkish forces entered the city two days later.

All efforts to prosecute those responsible for the Armenian genocide ended with Lausanne, though by this point the Armenian assassination campaign had killed many of the top leaders, culminating with the killing of Djemal Pasha in Tblisi in July 1922.

The Middle East:

Britain’s Hashemite allies, ejected from Syria by the French in July 1920, were given, effectively, consolation prizes in Britain’s new mandates in the Middle East.  Feisal was made King of Iraq in August 1921 (after the British had suppressed revolts there the previous year), and his elder brother Abdullah Emir of Transjordan in April 1921. Their father, Hussein, remained in power in the Hejaz, and even declared himself Caliph after Turkey dissolved the Caliphate in 1924.  However, his relations with the British deteriorated, as Hussein repeatedly refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles.  With British support, the Saudi rulers of Nejd invaded Hejaz, taking Mecca without resistance in October 1924 and Medina and Jeddah fell in December 1925 and January 1926.  The Saudis soon established a protectorate over Asir (home of the Idrisids, who had by this point been ejected from Yemen by Imam Yahyah), though fighting in the area would continue until the early 1930s, when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was officially declared and Yemen signed peace treaties with the Saudis and the British.

Japan and China:

The day after the burial of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington, an international conference on arms limitation convened in Washington.  After extensive negotiations (in which the Americans were aided by cryptologic successes against the Japanese), the UK, the US, and Japan agreed to a 5:5:3 ratio in battleships, and a limit in tonnage for battleships (both for individual ships and overall); France and Italy were limited to a 1.67 ratio.  This averted an expensive naval arms buildup that some blamed for the buildup of tensions before the First World War.  Japan agreed to give up its concession in Shandong (around Tsingtao), a huge win for China and the United States, though they remained economically dominant in the area.  The United States recognized Japan’s claim to the island of Yap, and the Anglo-Japanese alliance dating from 1902 was officially dissolved.  Further construction of fortifications in the western Pacific was forbidden.

The treaty had a mixed reaction in Japan; although the 5:3 ratio was much more favorable to Japan than the equivalent ratio of Japanese and US economic bases, it was still viewed as a snub in ultraconservative circles.

Eastern Europe:

A portion of western Hungary, including the city of Sopron, had been assigned to Austria by the Treaty of Trianon, and was due to be transferred in August 1921.  However, elements of the local Hungarian population in Sopron resisted Austrian entry, and organized a plebiscite in December in which Sopron’s population voted by a 2-1 margin to remain in Hungary.  This was ultimately recognized by the Allies, though the rest of the territory was transferred to Austria as planned.

On October 21 1921, the former Emperor Charles flew into Hungary in a monoplane, formed a provisional government in Sopron, and prepared to march on Budapest.  Horthy, who was ostensibly serving as Charles’ regent, quickly organized a resistance and soon outnumbered Charles’ forces, as Hungary’s neighbors prepared for yet another invasion of the country.  On November 1, Charles left for exile in Madeira, and within days parliament officially dethroned the Habsburgs (although Horthy remained as regent).  Charles died of pneumonia in April 1922.  His nine-year-old son, Otto, became the head of the Habsburgs in exile, and would remain so until his death in 2011.

Poland’s puppet Republic of Central Lithuania, based in Vilnius, held elections (boycotted by most of the non-Polish population) in January 1922; the resulting government asked to be annexed by Poland, which was granted in March.  Lithuania refused to recognize this, and still claimed Vilnius as its capital.  The Allies attempted to defuse the situation by offering the Lithuanians French-occupied Memel [Klaipėda] in exchange for recognizing Polish control of Vilnius.  The Lithuanians refused, and the Allies prepared to make Memel a free port like Danzig.  Instead, the Lithuanians staged a revolt in Memel (like the one the Poles had staged in Vilnius) in January 1923 and soon seized control of the city.  The Allies protested, but acknowledged the Lithuanian presence as a fait accompli.

Ireland

On December 6 1921, the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed.  Within a year, Ireland was to become the Irish Free State, a British Dominion in the same vein as Canada. Northern Ireland would have the option to withdaw (which it quickly exercised). King George V would remain as head of state, and members of the Dáil would have to swear an oath of loyalty to him. Britain would retain control of Berehaven, Queenstown [Cobh], and Lough Swilly, which would become known as the Treaty Ports. Ireland would assume an appropriate portion of the United Kingdom’s debt.

The Treaty provided for Irish independence, of a sort, but there was substantial opposition to the Treaty, lead by Eámon de Valera, who demanded nothing short of a fully republican Ireland.  In April, anti-Treaty forces seized the Four Courts in Dublin.  In June, the pro-Treaty forces won a convincing majority in the first Free State election. Four days later, Field Marshal Henry Wilson (formerly Chief of the Imperial General Staff), who was now a MP from Northern Ireland, was assassinated by the IRA in London.  The British threatened to attack the Four Courts in response, but the Free State government (led by Michael Collins) pre-empted this by attacking the building themselves.  After a week of fighting, the pro-Treaty forces were victorious; among the dead was anti-Treaty leader Cathal Brugha.

Although the Free State was securely in control of Dublin, a civil war broke out in the rest of the country, with anti-Treaty forces concentrated in the south and west.  With British support, the Free State was able to defeat most of the anti-Treaty forces by the end of 1922, although Michael Collins himself was killed in an ambush in August.  Guerilla fighting continued until a ceasefire in May 1923. De Valera ultimately took the oath and re-entered Free State politics in 1927.

Italy

The postwar period saw increased labor unrest and socialist activity.  Mussolini’s Fascists took advantage of disappointment around Italian gains in the war and anti-socialist sentiment to first win seats in parliament in 1921, while his Blackshirts actively helped suppress strikes. In October 1922, he became aware that D’Annunzio was planning a demonstration to mark the 4th anniversary of the victory over Austria-Hungary on November 4, and decided to pre-empt it by organizing a march on Rome from Naples (although he himself drove).  The King refused to take action against Mussolini, and instead made him Prime Minister.

Germany

The Germans signed the Treaty of Rapallo in April 1922 with the Soviets, normalizing their relations and beginning trade between the two countries.  It also began secret military cooperation between the two countries, explicitly violating the Treaty of Versailles.  Two months later, industrialist Walther Rathenau, who as Foreign Minster had arranged the treaty, was assassinated by the same offshoot of the Ehrhardt Brigade that had assassinated Erzberger the previous year.

On January 11 1923, in response to German defaulting on reparations payments in the midst of a hyperinflation crisis, France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr, despite opposition from the United Kingdom and the United States.  On January 24 1923, the last American troops left the Rhineland.  In August 1924, the Dawes Plan (drawn up by an American member of the Reparations Commission) was agreed to; it reduced reparations payments, offered American loans to Germany, and arranged for the French departure from the Ruhr within a year.

The occupation increased support for the far right in Germany.  Taking inspiration from Mussolini’s success in Italy, Ludendorff and Hitler attempted their own version in Munich, the Beer Hall Putsch in October 1923, which failed within a day.  After the ensuing trials, Ludendorff was acquitted, and Hitler ultimately only served one year in prison.  

Hindenburg was elected President of Germany in 1925; Ludendorff, with whom he was once joined at the hip, was eliminated in the first round with barely 1% of the vote as the Nazi candidate.

In 1930, after the start of the Great Depression, German reparations were reduced yet again by the Young Plan, with additional financial backing provided by American banks.  With German reparations payments apparently secure, the French withdrew from the Rhineland on June 30, 1930.

This post is already incredibly long, so I’ll spin the second half into a new post.

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Unknown Soldier Interred in Arlington

Chief Plenty Coups of the Crow Nation, pictured at the burial of the Unknown Soldier.  The sarcophagus familiar to modern visitors was not completed until 1931.

November 11 1921, Arlington--On Armistice Day 1920, the United Kingdom and France had both buried unknown soldiers in places of honor--the former in Westminster Abbey, the latter under the Arc de Triomphe.  In 1921, the United States followed suit.  An unknown soldier was transported back across the Atlantic from France, where he laid in state in the Capitol rotunda for two days.  On Armistice Day, the same day that the peace treaty with Germany would finally enter into effect, the casket was at the front of a procession down Pennsylvania Avenue as far as the White House, followed on foot by President Harding and General Pershing.  

Wilson in a carriage at the end of the procession down Pennsylvania Avenue.

At the end of the procession were Woodrow and Edith Wilson in a rented carriage.  The New York World wrote that the “pale face of the man who gave his health and strength to uphold the same ideals for which the Unknown Soldier died seemingly unleashed the pent-up emotions of the watchers.”  Wilson did not continue on to Arlington, due to a combination of his health concerns preventing him from climbing the stairs at the amphitheater there, and Harding’s desire not to be upstaged by his predecessor.

General Jacques of Belgium, General Diaz of Italy, Marshal Foch of France, General Pershing of the United States, and Admiral Beatty of the United Kingdom, pictures at the dedication of the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City on November 1.

At the service in Arlington, President Harding gave a brief speech.  He was followed by General Jacques of Belgium, Admiral Beatty (who presented the Unknown Soldier with the Victoria Cross), Marshal Foch, and General Diaz.  The four military men were at the end of a tour of the United States, along with General Pershing, which also included the groundbreaking of the Liberty Memorial (now the National World War I Memorial) in Kansas City on November 1.  Also in attendance were a large number of foreign civilian notables, among them Arthur Balfour and French PM Briand, who were in Washington for the start of the Washington Naval Conference on arms limitation the next day.

The burial service ended with a brief statement by Chief Plenty Coups of the Crow Nation, the sounding of “Taps” on a bugle, and a twenty-one gun salute.

Sources include: Patricia O’Toole, The Moralist (includes image credit for the picture of Wilson).

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US Senate Ratifies Peace Treaties

October 18 1921, Washington--Despite multiple attempts, the Treaty of Versailles had failed to reach the required two-thirds majority for ratification in the US Senate.  The Harding Administration negotiated and signed new treaties with Germany, Austria, and Hungary, dropping American participation in the League of Nations or most other international commitments from Treaty of Versailles.  Nonetheless, there was still determined opposition to the new treaties, and it was no means clear that the new treaties would not meet the same fate.  Wilson, now living in DC, attempted to organize Democrats against the treaty, while a few die-hard irreconcilables opposed the treaty as they feared any recognition of any aspect of the Treaty of Versailles would lead to the United States joining the League of Nations in the future.  Ultimately, however, the treaty with Germany was ratified by a wide margin, 66-20, with more than half of the Senate Democrats voting in favor.  The other treaties were ratified by a similar margin.  Wilson, fuming at this final defeat, called the treaty’s supporters “the most partisan, prejudiced, ignorant, and unpatriotic group that ever misled the Senate of the United States.”

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Erzberger Honored in Death by German Center, Left

A massive crowd rallies outside the former Royal Palace and the Kaiser Wilhelm Monument, expressing their support for the Republic.  Both structures were demolished by the East German government after World War II, though a reconstruction of the palace was completed in 2020.

August 31 1921, Biberach--Matthias Erzberger, leading advocate of peace since July 1917 and signer of the Armistice, quickly became a bête noire to the German right, who viewed him as a traitor.  By 1921, he had retreated to the backbenches of the Reichstag.  Organisation Consul, a violently anti-Semitic and ultranationalist terror group formed after the dissolution of the Ehrhardt brigade (the main force behind last year’s Kapp Putsch), assassinated Erzberger on August 26.  The two assassins escaped Germany and would not stand trial until after World War II.

His funeral, on August 31, became a political rally for his Zentrum party; the keynote speaker was his long-time ally, Chancellor Joseph Wirth.  In Berlin, over 100,000 workers, mostly members of the SDP and other left-wing parties, demonstrated in support of the fragile German Republic.

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US, Germany Sign Peace Treaty

August 25 1921, Berlin--Republican objections to the League of Nations had prevented American ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, and Harding’s election to the presidency in 1920 sealed its fate.  This, however, left the United States still officially at war with Germany.  On July 2, 1921 the United States officially declared that the state of war with Germany, Austria, and Hungary was over, but a formal peace treaty still needed to be signed.  This came on August 25, with a brief treaty signed in Berlin.  This effectively was the United States ratifying the Treaty of Versailles with extreme reservations:

The United States would not join the League of Nations or the International Labour Organization.

The United States would not concern itself with Germany’s borders or other strictly European matters agreed to in the treaty.

The United States did not recognize the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles considering German concerns outside Europe (apart from the surrendering of her colonies); in particular, this included the handover of Shantung to the Japanese.

The United States would not attempt to conduct war crimes trials of the Kaiser or other German war criminals.

The United States would not join the International Labour Organization.

The United States would not be compelled to participate in any commission called for by the Treaty of Versailles.

In the same week, similar treaties were signed with Austria and Hungary; the United States never declared war on Bulgaria or the Ottoman Empire.

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Battle of Annual

General Silvestre pictured in 1921, before his death, along with much of his army, at Annual.

July 22 1921, Annual--Spain had received a protectorate over portions of northern Morocco in 1912, but had not consolidated their power in the mountainous Rif, away from their strongholds in Ceuta and Melilla.  Many in Spain were opposed to colonial adventures in Morocco, and the First World War may have postponed Spanish action there, both due to economic hardship caused by the war and perhaps by uncertainty over Morocco’s status should Germany win the war.  However, by 1920, with Allied victory secure, King Alfonso XIII pushed for a Spanish military conquest of the region.

However, Spain would face severe opposition in the Rif, led primarily by Abd el-Krim, who had been imprisoned during the war for alleged pro-German intrigues.  The limited Spanish presence in the east outside Melilla was confined to blockhouses with limited ability to support each other and with unreliable water supplies.  Abd el-Krim’s men seized an outlying blockhouse and laid siege to another at Igueriben.  Spanish General Silvestre brought a relief expedition to the larger fort at Annual, arriving on July 21.  Igueriben fell that night, and the Rifians then surrounded Annual.  Silvestre finally realized that he had overextended his forces, and on the morning of the 22nd ordered an immediate evacuation and retreat back to the east.  However, the retreat almost immediately turned into a rout, and the Rifians, despite being numerically weaker than the Spanish, killed or captured at least 90% of the Spanish forces. Silvestre was killed in or committed suicide during the battle.

In the coming weeks, the Rifians overran most of the Spanish positions outside Melilla, killing at least 13,000 Spanish soldiers.  The “Disaster of Annual” launched Spain into an immediately unpopular war in Morocco, and much of the blame was placed on King Alfonso.  Abd el-Krim, in the meantime, was able to declare an independent Republic of the Rif in September.

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Anglo-Irish Truce

July 11 1921, London--The Sinn Féin sweep of the Southern Irish elections, winning every seat unopposed except the ones associated with Trinity College, put a deadline on British efforts in Ireland.  A Southern Irish government was, by the terms of the Government of Ireland Act 1920, to be established no later than July 12.  Sinn Féin, following its usual abstentionist policies, would not take their seats in any Southern Irish parliament, leaving the British forced to either impose military rule on all of Southern Ireland, or reach a negotiated settlement with Sinn Féin.  The former was never seriously considered, so it became a question of finding an agreeable basis for negotiations with the Irish.

At the opening of the Northern Irish parliament on June 22, King George gave a conciliatory speech.  In the meantime, Jan Smuts, who had recently arrived from South Africa for a conference, began his own negotiations through Tom Casement (brother of the late Roger), and both agreed that a peaceful solution could be found which did not involve British recognition of an Irish Republic.  Casement and Smuts arranged the release of additional negotiators, and a truce was agreed to on July 9, entering into effect on July 11.  The terms were slightly unclear, with the Irish and British ultimately publishing different versions, but both sides would stop attacks and raids, and the British would cease military maneuvers and searches.

The truce came as something of a surprise to many in the IRA, and it would attract some criticism from those who felt they could beat the British without making concessions regarding Ireland’s political future.  British criticism of the truce was more muted, as it was clear the only alternative was a military occupation of the whole island that nobody was in favor of after nearly seven years of war.

Sources include: Michael Hopkinson, The Irish War of Independence

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Tulsa Race Massacre

Greenwood destroyed.

June 1 1921, Tulsa--White mob violence against black communities had abated nationwide since the Red Summer of 1919, but the threat was still ever-present and materialized once again at the end of May 1921 in Tulsa.

On Memorial Day, May 30, a 19 year-old black shoeshiner, Dick Rowland, entered the elevator operated by 17-year-old white Sarah Page, on his way to use the segregated bathroom on the top floor of the building.  A clerk in a nearby store heard a scream, saw Rowland running from the building, and called the police.  Page denied an assault had taken place, did not want to press charges, and said that Rowland had done nothing beyond grabbing her arm.  It has been speculated that Rowland tripped as he entered the elevator, and grabbed onto a shocked Page as he fell, before understandably fleeing the scene, knowing the likely fate of a black man found alone with a screaming white woman.

Roland was arrested the next morning, and was taken to the city jail, and then to a more secure location at the top of the Tulsa County Courthouse to protect him from a possible lynching.  The afternoon edition of the Tulsa Tribune reported the story under the headline “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl In an Elevator,” and a now-missing editorial discussed (and perhaps called for) Rowland’s potential lynching.  By sunset, a white crowd of several hundred had gathered outside the courthouse.

Two hours later, a few dozen black World War I veterans arrived from the Greenwood neighborhood with guns to help defend the courthouse from a lynch mob.  Some of the mob went to secure arms of their own; the National Guard did prevented them from raiding the armory, but many others retrieved their own guns from their houses.  After 10 PM, another group arrived from Greenwood to offer additional defense for the courthouse.  Gunfire soon broke out; the black men retreated towards Greenwood, while the white mob pursued and looted stores for more guns and ammunition.  The National Guard units in the area defended the courthouse, the armory, and a few other buildings, along with detaining a number of black Tulsa residents, but did not take any action against the rioting white population.

Gunfire continued through the night, along with the occasional automobile raid into Greenwood.  At around 1 AM, fires were set in black businesses at the southern end of Greenwood; fire fighters were kept away by force.  After sunrise, large numbers of armed white men moved into Greenwood, supported from the air by at least one plane.  A handful of the rioters were killed by black defenders, but the neighborhood was quickly overwhelmed; many were able to flee to the north, but several thousand were detained.

Martial law was declared shortly before noon, and the rioting stopped within minutes, though the fires continued.  Greenwood was destroyed, and up to 300 Tulsa residents, the vast majority black, were killed.  None of the perpetrators were convicted of any crimes; the police chief was dismissed later in the summer and imprisoned on unrelated charges.  Dick Rowland was released in September, the charges against him dropped.

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Battle of Annaberg

May 26 1921, Oppeln [Góra Świętej Anny]--The Polish and French had attempted to prevent Freikorps from reaching Upper Silesia, but were only able to delay them by a few weeks.  On May 21, the Germans launched an attack on the Annaberg hill, which dominated the surrounding Oder valley.  They were able to take the hill and hold it against Polish counterattacks, but a lack of artillery prevented them from pushing much beyond it.  The Poles officially abandoned their efforts to retake the hill on May 26, and fighting only continued on a limited basis for the next month.  The final division of Upper Silesia would largely follow the German-Polish lines after the battle.

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IRA Burns Dublin Custom House

The Customs House on fire.

May 25 1921, Dublin--Fighting during the Irish War of Independence had so far been on a smaller scale: ambushes, assassinations, and the like. Éamon De Valera, President of the Dáil, pushed strongly for a higher-profile engagement, over Michael Collins' objections. At 1 PM on May 25, the IRA stormed the Custom House in Dublin and began making preparations to burn the building. However, before they could finish and evacuate the building, British Auxiliaries arrived and began firing at the IRA inside, who quickly set the building on fire. The IRA quickly ran out of ammunition and could not hold out for long in a burning building, and at least 80 IRA members were arrested. Fire brigades were also held up by the IRA and arrived too late to save the building, which burned to the ground. The Irish tried to claim the burning of the Custom House as a propaganda victory, but the capture of so many men was a serious blow.

This took place against the backdrop of the previous day's elections, called for in both Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which had first formalized the partition of the island. Apart from the four seats reserved for Trinity College, the Southern Irish seats were uncontested and swept by Sinn Féin, who would not take their seats in a parliament they had not agreed to and did not recognize. In the north, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) took two-thirds of the vote and three-quarters of the seats, with the remainder split between Sinn Féin and the remnants of the Irish Parliamentary Party. The Government of Ireland Act 1920 had not included all of Ulster to secure such a Unionist majority in the north, but had also included a large Catholic minority simply to give Northern Ireland a larger region on the map.

Sources include: Michael Hopkinson, The Irish War of Independence.

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Poles Seize Portions of Silesia

Polish paramilitaries with a derailed train during the uprising.

May 3 1921, Katowice--The Upper Silesian plebiscite in March had retuned a solid majority for Germany over Poland. Unlike most other post-war plebiscites, however, the plebiscite results did not immediately determine the border, but would instead be used by the Allies to guide the drawing the border. This left a lot of room for interpretation, with the French wanting to assign most of the highly-industrialized parts of Silesia to their Polish allies, but the British wanting them assigned to Germany to make sure the German economy could afford to pay war reparations to Britain.

As April progressed, the Poles feared that the British position would prevail at the negotiations, and they began to plan to force a fait accompli on the ground. On the night of May 2-3, Polish special forces destroyed all the rail connections between the area and the rest of Germany, and the next day Polish paramilitaries moved in and seized control of much of the disputed area. There were Allied troops in the area, but French forces were largely content to give the Poles free rein, while the British and Italians could only offer limited support to the Germans; no concerted effort was made to stop the fighting or get the Poles to withdraw

The destruction of the rail bridges, and a French decree against the arrival of paramilitaries from the rest of Germany, made it difficult for German reinforcements to arrive (or for reprisals to be carried out against the local Polish population), but Freikorps members trickled into the area nonetheless over the next few weeks.

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Fascist Violence in Bolzano

April 24 1921, Bolzano—Despite firm prohibitions from the Allies on Austria joining Germany, the idea remained quite popular there. On April 24, despite no official recognition from the Austrian government (let alone the Allies), the portions of Tyrol remaining in Austria held a plebiscite on becoming part of Germany, and the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the idea. Nothing would become of this (nor a similar vote in Salzburg in May) until the 1938 Anschluss.

South Tyrol, on the other hand, was now part of Italy, despite a majority-German population. They did not take part in the plebiscite, but Italian fascists saw the opening of the Bolzano Spring Fair that same day, complete with a parade in traditional German costumes, as part of the same movement. On that morning, local fascists joined with others who arrived by train and attacked the parade, killing one and injuring fifty. Only two fascists were arrested, and they would be released within a week after a threat of further violence from Mussolini, who was the undisputed leader of the extreme right since D’Annunzio’s ignominious expulsion from Fiume in December 1920.

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Soviets Retake Yerevan

April 2 1921, Yerevan--The Soviets took over most of Armenia in December 1920, seeming a better alternative to the approaching Turkish armies.  Soviet control was short-lived, after the Soviets quickly alienated much of the population, the Dashnaks were able to retake Yerevan and much of the surrounding area in mid-February.  After conquering Georgia and negotiating a peace treaty with the Turks in March, the Soviets were once again able to concentrate on Armenia, launching an offensive on March 24 and retaking Yerevan on April 2.  The Dashnaks fell back into the mountains in the Syunik province, where they continued to fight against the Soviets until July.

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Emperor Charles Attempts to Reclaim the Throne of Hungary

March 27 1921, Budapest--The Romanians, after their successful invasion, had allowed monarchists to take over the government in Hungary.  Many Hungarian monarchists were still loyal to the Habsburgs, but the Allies and Hungary’s neighbors were adamant that neither former Emperor Charles nor any other Habsburg would be allowed to rule in Hungary.  As a result, when the monarchy was officially restored in March 1920, there was no monarch, and Horthy was declared Regent.

Charles wanted to return and claim the throne, and believed he would have support from the Hungarian people and French PM Briand, while Hungary’s neighbors would not again intervene in an internal Hungarian matter.  He shaved his mustache and arrived in Hungary on March 26, hoping that the Easter holidays would smooth his return to the throne.  The next day, Easter Sunday, Charles met with Hungarian PM Teleki near the Austrian border early in the morning.  Teleki told Charles he had come back “too soon, too soon” and that he should head back to Switzerland; an attempt to claim the throne now could lead to civil war and another round of invasions.

Undeterred, Charles proceeded to Budapest to meet with Horthy, dragging him away from his Easter dinner.  Teleki’s car conveniently made a wrong turn on the way, and he was not present at the meeting.  Charles attempted to appeal to Horthy’s oaths he had taken to him personally as his Emperor, and while this did have an effect, he reminded Charles that he had also sworn an oath to the nation of Hungary.  Horthy eventually gave Charles three weeks to leave Hungary, whether to return back to Switzerland or to attempt to claim the Austrian throne in Vienna.  Charles incorrectly interpreted this as Horthy telling him he would try to arrange his restoration to the throne within three weeks.

Over the coming days, it became clear that Charles’ optimism was ungrounded; the Czechs and Yugoslavs threatened war if he were restored, the Hungarian Diet voted in favor of Horthy’s continuation as Regent, and Briand refused to offer any support; Charles returned to Switzerland, defeated, on April 5.

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Plebiscite in Upper Silesia

A map of the plebiscite results, with red areas voting for Poland and gray areas voting for Germany.  Complicating a division of the region was the fact that many of the towns in the east had large German majorities, but were surrounded by Polish-majority countryside.

March 20 1921, Opole--The Treaty of Versailles called for a plebiscite in Upper Silesia to decide on the final border between Germany and Poland in that economically-valuable region.  Allied troops had been sent to the area to administer the plebiscite and to attempt to keep the various German and Polish paramilitary forces in the area under control; a recent need for British reinforcements had precluded British participation in the occupation of Düsseldorf.  One concession the Germans had won in the negotiations in Paris was the right of anyone born in the area to return for the plebiscite, even if they had left decades ago, and multiple German trains brought in such eligible voters.

The vote was held on March 20, and the results featured a substantial lead for Germany, 59.6 - 40.4%, out of over a million votes cast.  However, unlike in other plebiscites, where a vote in a pre-defined region meant that the region would join one country or another, the results of the vote in each commune were to be used as input in the drawing of the border (along with “geographical and economic conditions”).  Quickly, it became apparent that the French favored a final border far more favorable to Poland than the British did, so the plebiscite did not resolve much by itself.

Sources include: Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919.  Image Credit: Leo Baeck Institute.

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Crossbarry Ambush

March 19 1921, Crossbarry--The war in Ireland had escalated since Bloody Sunday, but for the most part the pattern in much of the country was occasional ambushes of British troops and police by IRA flying columns, followed by British reprisals.  On March 19, the British attempted to reverse this pattern and trap a several IRA columns near Crossbarry, about 12 miles southwest of Cork.  The British had learned of their presence from a prisoner captured in a failed train ambush the previous month.  Several hundred British troops proceeded to the area by lorry, then began a sweep on foot and by bicycle to lessen their chance of detection; they did manage to kill one IRA officer before the IRA realized what was happening.  The IRA, despite only having 104 men, decided to try to fight their way out of the encirclement before the cordon tightened too close, and laid an ambush for one of the approaching British columns.

This ambush was successful, and the IRA then defeated three additional British columns in turn before effecting their escape from the area under fire.  Six IRA men were killed; British figures are disputed, but range from ten to thirty.  The fighting at Crossbarry was, according to historian Michael Hopkinson, “the closest approximation to a conventional battle in the whole War,” demonstrating the vastly different character of the Irish War of Independence when compared to other European conflicts of the time period.

Sources include: Michael Hopkinson, The Irish War of Independence.