Thursday, August 10, 1922. Cork taken and burned.

The Irish army, having made seaborne landings the day prior, took Cork, although the withdrawing IRA set it on fire first.  The city had been burned during the Anglo-Irish War two years prior.

One of my great-grandmother's was from Cork, although she would have left the city, at age three, well before this time period.

On the same day, IRA men Joseph O'Sullivan and Reginald Dunne were executed in London for the June 22 assassination of Sir Henry Wilson.

The Sammarinese Fascist Party was founded by Giuliano Gozi.  It would rule San Marino for twenty years, falling during the end of the Second World War, during which San Marino was a neutral tiny power.

Friday, August 4, 1922. Parabellum

An ROTC contingent was in camp, receiving training from the U.S. Army.  The tanks in these photographs were the World War One Renault pattern, one of the better tanks of the First World War.

While I'm not completely certain, I think the instructor depicted above is actually wearing hearing protection while his student shoots a Browning machine gun.  Of interest, in spite of the lessons of the Great War, none of the men in these photographs, and they're all men, are wearing helmets.

On the same day, a photographer took photos of the Coast Guard Cutter Seneca.

In an ongoing war, the Irish Free State landed 1,500 troops at three ports in County Kerry to take the Munster region from the Irish Republican Army.  The IRA was pretty rapidly losing ground in the conventional fight.

At 6:25 p.m. Eastern Time, during the internment of Alexander Graham Bell, all telephone service in the United States was suspended for one minute.

The Aliens Decree was issued by the Bolshevik government of the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic basically allowing everyone over 14 to become Soviet Citizens, and making anyone below that age Soviet Citizens, save for those who had opposed the Soviets or who failed to apply by the end of the  year.

Sunday July 30, 1922. Traffic

 

July 30, 1922. From Westchester County Archives and Records Center in Elmsford, New York. - Bronx River Parkway Reservation, The Bronx to Kensico Dam, White Plains, Westchester County, NY.

The Irish Army took Tipperary.

Thursday, July 27, 1922. Midsummer Number.

Life magazine issued its mid summer edition.

Frank N. Rainey retired, somewhere.

"Fr. N. Rainey receiving a gold watch, presented by P.M.G. Hubert Work, in recognition of his 50 yrs. service in money order division. July 27, 1922"

 

Interesting how gold watches were a retirement tradition, but that seems to have passed.

105 men escaped Dundalk Gaol after the 4th Northern Division of the Irish Republican Army blasted a hole in the prison's walls.

On the same day, Oscar Traynor, an IRA officer, was arrested by the Free State.  He'd later go on to be Minister of Defense and then Minister of Justice for post World War Two Irish governments.

Adolf Hitler was released from prison.

Tuesday, July 25, 1922. Battle of Kilmallock commences.

The Battle of Kilmallock, one of the largest conventional battles of the Irish Civil War, started.  The battle would continue on until August 5 when the evenly matched forces would see the Irish Army prevail.

It was Laddie Boy's birthday.

Thursday, July 20, 1922. Echoes of wars.

A press photographer in Washington, D. C. took a photo of men on motorcycles.

Another took a photograph of the dedication to Lt. Samuel J. Harris, U.S. World War One veteran who had died during an insurrection in Lithuania, where he was serving as a volunteer.

Around 1,000 Americans had volunteered to serve the Baltic nation against the Reds in the same time period.

German colonies were transferred officially to European powers under League of Nations' mandates.

Limerick was taken from the IRA by the Irish Army.  The Irish Army also shelled IRA held Waterford.

Saturday, July 1, 1922. The Great Railroad Strike of 1922 Starts.

Saturday weekly's were predictably patriotic on this July 1 Saturday of 1922.

The Saturday Evening Post went to press with what would have been a gender bending cover, women being an enduringly popular illustration topic then and now.

 

The Country Gentleman chose children as the theme, which they often did.

President Harding traveled to Gettysburg.

A group of Miners and Operators visited Harding at the White House.

Herbert Lord was sworn in as Director of the United States Agency of the Budget.

Lord had served in similar roles in the U.S. Army, from which he had just retired, and had proven very adept at it.

The Great Railroad Strike of 1922 commenced, with any major railroad strike being a national disaster at the time.  It would run into August.

In Wexford, the IRA derailed a train, that somehow being a revolutionary act that made sense, somehow.

Construction commenced on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri. It was the first planned regional shopping center.  It is still in operation.

Friday, June 30, 1922. End of the Four Courts Seige

An explosion and fire at the Four Courts resulted in a cease fire, and then a surrender of the IRA men occupying the structure.

The United States agreed to end its occupation of the Dominican Republic, which had started in 1916.  The last U.S. troops would withdraw in 1924.

Congress passed the Lodge-Fish Resolution endorsing the Balfour Declaration.  The State Department opposed the move.

Wednesday, June 28, 1922. The start of the Irish Civil War.

The Irish Civil War is regarded as having commenced on this day in 1922 with an artillery strike on the Four Courts in Dublin.

Four Courts burning.

The Irish Republican Army had occupied the Four Courts since April 14, hoping to spark a conflict with the British. The Irish government ignored until British demands that it be addressed made that impossible.  The Irish Free State borrowed two artillery pieces and 200 shells from the British and first demanded that the IRA remove itself from the building, which they refused to do.

What exactly occurred remains unclear. It's not certain who have the order to commence the bombardment.  Some IRA survivors maintained they were actually getting ready to surrender when it commenced.  Some suggest that British artillerymen in small numbers were provided with the guns, but if so, there's no definitive proof of that.

The event would spark the commencement of the Irish Civil War between the Irish Free State and the Irish Republican Army, which would last about a year.

The Syrian Federation, under the French mandate, came into existence.

Flag of the French mandate in Syria.

Monday, June 26, 1922. A British warning.

"Everything is radio on Marconi's yacht - a "personal dance" on board the palatial vessel while on the trip to Albany Showing Josephine Young of Riverside, Conn., and J.W. Elwood of New York, equipped with a portable radio outfit dancing to the tunes of a broadcasted fox trot while making the trip to Albany on Senator Guglielmo Marconi's yacht Elettra."  June 26, 1922.

 

Secretary of State for the Colonies Winston Church warned the Irish government that if it did not act to oust rebels in the Four Courts, the British would. This in a speech before parliament.

Thursday, June 22, 1922. Sir Henry Wilson assassinated.

Sir Henry Wilson, a British Field Marshall, was assassinated outside of his home in London by members of the Irish Republican Army

Wilson was from County Longford, Northern Ireland, and had briefly been a Unionist politician after retiring from the army.  He was noted as a political intriguer and had role in the unsuccessful introduction of conscription in Ireland during World War One as well as the pre-war Curragh Mutiny.  In the latter event, he encouraged British officers to resign rather than to take action against the Ulster Volunteers.  He opposed Irish independence to the end, and that likely cost him his life at the hands of those who also were for union, but not of the type that he was.  

Wilson regarded himself as Irish and in fact spoke with an Irish accent.  He was a member of the Church of Ireland, as would be expected, that being the Irish expression of the Anglican Communion, although he was known to occasionally attend Catholic services.  Interestingly, he did so even though he objected to its Roman orientation, and he was personally low church in the Anglican Communion.

Wilson was a controversial figure, although one who was generally popular in the British Army, and he had a long period of military service, having entered the British Army in 1882.

Easter Sunday, 1922

 April 16 was Easter Sunday in 1922.

On that date, Michael Collins survived an assassination attempt when his attackers failed to recognize him in Rutland Square in Dublin, and shot at some cars instead.  Collins was carrying a revolver and fired at his would be attackers.

Germany and Soviet Russia entered the Treaty of Rapallo which renounced all territorial and financial claims the two countries had against each other and restored diplomatic relations.

Japan's famous Imperial Hotel sustained damage in a fire.

Sunday, March 22, 1922. Before jackhammers.

Usually, if I put a newspaper up here, it's due to some historically significant event it discusses.  But that's not the case here.  In this case I put it up as the cartoon depicts a tool that never even occurred to me.  A "pounder", which is probably not what it was called, is shown. Something that came before, apparently, hydraulic jack hammers.

In news of the day, the Allies agreed to amend the Treaty of Sevres, the peace treaty with the now defunct Ottoman Empire, but Turkish Nationalist refused to sign it as long as Greek forces, now fighting alone in Turkey, remained there.

Anti treaty officers of the Irish Republican Army convened a convention in Dublin.  The one-day convention rejected the treaty and the authority of the Dail.

Friday, March 17, 1922. St. Patrick's Day.

 Irish patriot Michael Collins addresses a crowed at Skibbereen in County Cork, Ireland.  The Irish Civil War was about to commences.

St. Patrick's Day 1922 was the first such day in an Ireland newly restored to independence after 500 years of English occupation.  It was also, unfortunately, one that was only quasi peaceful, as the Irish Civil War was about to break out.

While in the United States such things no longer occur, St. Patrick's Day also used to be a day of racist agitation by groups that saw their opposition to Catholicism as something to make a public protest about.  One such group with the Ku Klux Klan, which on this day held a parade in Washington, D.C.  The parade features this group of airborne racist flying above the demonstration dropping leaflets.

Interestingly enough, the swastika that appeared on the tail of this plane was not yet associated with Nazism, so the use here foreshadows the horrors that symbol would later be associated with.

Wednesday, February 22, 1922. Remembering Washington.

It was Washington's birthday.

Or, more properly, it is Washington's birthday.  He was born on this date in 1732 to Johan and Mary (nee Ball) Washington.

Pro and anti factions of Sinn Fein signed a truce regarding cooperation with the Irish Free State and agreed to revisit the topic in three months.

WOR in New York began regular broadcasting with a mix of music and news.

Friday, February 10, 1922. Idle guns?

On this day in 1922 a photographer toured the Navy Gun Shop, no doubt for a story on armaments now deemed to be somewhat unneeded.

ON this day, President Harding, hoping to keep them unneeded, appeared in the Senate to personally appeal for the ratification of the treaties.

Of course, many of these tubes were replacement tubes for barrels that became worn in use, and therefore some would go on to use anyhow.  And indeed, battleships, the heaviest of all surface warships, would continue to be built through the end of the Second World War.   And some of these guns would go on to serve in Army coastal batteries.

One thing that was also occurring, of course, is that technology was moving on.  The recent Great War had seen the full scale deployment of submarines, whose danger was appreciated, and the introduction of aircraft carriers, whose danger was not.

And radio was coming in.  Above we see the Secretary of the Navy on this day with a radio-telephone, a new thing.

Of course, aspects of the old world hung on.

Muslim woman in India (probably Pakistan), on this day in 1922.

The Irish Republican Army attacked an Ulster Special Constabulary patrol in County Tyrone.  The civil war, and the terrorist war, was arriving.

Saturday, January 21, 1922. The Irish Race Conference of 1922 convenes.

On this day in 1922, Pope Benedict XV was so near death, that some newspapers were reporting that he had in fact passed away.

The Saturday journals hit the newsstands. 

The Saturday Evening Post featured an illustration by Ellen Bernard Thompson Plyle, a noted illustrator whose career had been interrupted by her role as a mother during part of it. Born in 1876, she retured to illustrations in the late 1910s and had a substantial carrier until her death in the 1930s.

The New York Evening Post experimented with a full color, full page, Krazy Kat.

On the same day, the Irish Race Conference of 1922 commenced in Paris. The conferences, of which there have been several, sought to bring representatives of all of the "Irish Race" together to confer on topics, with the 1922 topic being the treaty with the UK.

While the treaty was largely supported by the Irish, the conference rejected it in favor of a united Ireland with "full" independence.

Monday, January 9, 1922. Éamon de Valera loses his bid for reelection.

Éamon de Valera narrowly loses the gamble he made on January 4, and fails to survive a vote to reelect him as President of Ireland.  The Dail nonetheless rises to cheer for him in recognition of his central role in the path to Irish independence.  

He lost by two votes, with three members of the Dail not voting, including de Valera. The abstentions were in recognition that a yes vote would have rejected the treaty, creating an added irony to the entire matter.  The entire matter is hard to reconcile, but had the three votes been ones to reelect, it would have amounted to throwing the entire country into chaos over a single vote.

Of course, as it would turn out, it was merely a prelude to violent chaos.  De Valera and Sinn Fein were about to take the country into a civil war over the distinctions between dominion and full republic status for Ireland.

In Laramie, they were not only reading about the situation in Ireland that would lead to war, but had the chance to see a film that depicted American troops, including it was claimed local Laramieites, fighting i the recent Great War.

Sunday, January 8, 1922. Éamon de Valera walks out, Irish Free State walks in, Col. Charles Young dies.

Éamon de Valera refused to recognize the events of the prior week and declared that the Republic of Ireland had not been disestablished.

Of course, it was debatable if the Irish had actually called the Republic into being in the first place, although that argument could be legally made on the basis that they voted, except for those in Ulster, for parliamentarians who chose to separately assemble, an interesting, and brilliant, approach by Irish Republicans.  Now, however, those same parliamentarians in the same body had voted to accept the treaty, something De Valera had regarded as legitimate right up until. . . this day.

His walking out didn't stop Dubliners from rejoicing at the approval of the treaty. That this would result in a civil war, while feared, was not yet fully appreciated.

Of local interest, the Casper Herald was reporting that the city's merchants were losing $1,000,000 a year in local sales to mail orders, showing how long that complaint has existed.

Col. Charlies Young, whom we've written about here before, died in Lagos, Nigeria as a result of a stroke while serving as the US military attaché in Liberia.

Young's death was somewhat ironic in that he was an outwardly vigorous man whose excellent military service should have placed him in position for a senior leadership in the Army during the Great War.   He was instead involuntarily retired on the pretext of ill health, with the service citing high blood pressure, which he then challenged by riding from his home in Ohio to Washington, D. C. by horseback.  

The fear had been that if Young was allowed to command during World War One, he would have white officers under him as he'd be eligible for promotion to Brigadier General.  In fact, he'd already commanded a mix race command in the field during the Punitive Expedition as a result of a battlefield event without incident.

His long ride had led to his reinstatement in the Army, but as a military attaché.  His death on an expedition to British Nigeria ended up ironically proving the point of his forced retirement, even though it had been a pretext.  He was 57 at the time of his death.

It would take a year for his body to be returned to the United States due to a British legal requirement that those dying in Nigeria be buried there.

An election was held in Polish puppet state Central Lithuania, in which a majority of voters cast ballots to remain part of Poland.  About half of the tiny entities' territory was occupied by Poles or had a population of Poles. The putative state included Vilnius.  

Friday, January 6, 1922. De Valera makes the vote personal, The Literary Digest writes about Japan, and the Feds raid Oshkosh.

The debate had been ongoing in the Dáil over the peace treaty that had been negotiated and already now approved by the British Parliament.  Irish President Éamon de Valera had taken a hands off approach during those negotiations, but now was opposing ratification of the treaty, hoping instead for full separation with no oath.  

On this day, perhaps sensing that the debate was swinging against him, he declared that he "could not carry on until I know if I have the support of this Dáil ... I appeal to this House to re-elect me, give me a vote of confidence so that I can stand on the rock of an independent Irish republic. If you want this treaty you can elect someone else".

The Wyoming State Tribune was correct, Ireland was teetering on the brink of civil war, and over an issue that would have been incomprehensible as recently as 1914.  It frankly made no sense, except in the heated atmosphere of post World War One Irish politics.

De Valera's proclamation suggested that he'd accept the results of the vote, however, and that he'd not lead his supporters personally into a civil war.

The Wyoming State Tribune ran a full page for an advertisement about another island nation, Japan.

Or, more precisely, it ran an advertisement for The Literary Digest's upcoming issue on Japan.

Japan had been a looming issue for American foreign policy for at least a couple of decades, but by the early 1920s its modern navy, prior defeat of Russia in the Russo Japanese War, and its role as an Allied power, albeit a highly self-interested Allied power in the Great War was causing increasing concern.

Revenuers raided Oshkosh, Wisconsin:

Raid! When the Feds Hit Oshkosh in 1922