March 8, 1921. The Occupation of the Ruhr Commences.

French, Belgian and British troops occupied Düsseldorf, Duisburg, and Ruhrort due to German reparation payment failures.  The U.S., meanwhile, announced that it would continue to occupy the Rhineland.

It's well know that the French "occupied the Ruhr" in 1923, but it rarely seems to be  understood that this started as an overall Allied action in 1921.  The initiation of the occupation was limited, but none the less the event didn't start in 1923, but 1921.

February 28, 1921. The Kronstadt Rebellion.

Sailors had been an integral part of the Russian Revolution, and indeed they'd been an integral part of revolutions in Russia, and in Europe in general.  Revolutionary left wing sailors had revolted in Russia in 1904, 1905, 1906 and most importantly, in 1917.  Indeed, in some ways the rebellion of Russian sailors in 1917 had heralded the onset of the Russian Revolution.

All of which made the uprising that started on this day in 1921 a momentous one.  On this day, Russian sailors, taking the view that the Bolsheviks had betrayed the Russian Revolution, rose up against the Communist government on the port island of Kronstadt, just off of St. Petersburg.

Communism was proving to be a disaster.  Indeed, it was such a disaster that even though the Reds had only defeated the Whites, as we now recognize that defeat, a couple of months prior, the unworkable oppressive nature of the Communist dictatorship was already apparent.  The sailors rebellion at Kronstadt was in reaction to that.

The sailors were not "White", but rather left wing revolutionaries themselves.  They were heavily influenced by a concept of localism that some regard as anarchistic, but which might be most analogous to the views of the Greens, who sought to allow individuals the greatest possible freedom in the economy and in their personal lives.  They expressed their goals in the form of fifteen published points.

These read:

Having heard the report of the representatives of the crews dispatched by the General Meeting of the crews from the ships to Petrograd in order to learn the state of affairs in Petrograd, we decided:

1. In view of the fact that the present soviets do not represent the will of the workers and peasants, to re-elect the soviets immediately by secret voting, with free canvassing among all workers and peasants before the elections.

2. Freedom of speech and press for workers, peasants, Anarchists and Left Socialist Parties.

3. Freedom of meetings, trade unions and peasant associations.

4. To convene, not later than 1 March 1921, a non-party conference of workers, soldiers and sailors of Petrograd City, Kronstadt and Petrograd Province.

5. To liberate all political prisoners of Socialist Parties, and also all workers, peasants, soldiers and sailors who have been imprisoned in connection with working-class and peasant movements.

6. To elect a commission to review the cases of those who are imprisoned in jails and concentration camps.

7. To abolish all Political Departments, because no single party may enjoy privileges in the propagation of its ideas and receive funds from the state for this purpose. Instead of these Departments, locally elected cultural-educational commissions must be established and supported by the state. This is the reason for the inclusion of this document in a collection otherwise devoted entirely to official publications.

8. All ‘cordon detachments” are to be abolished immediately.

9. To equalize rations for all workers, harmful sectors being excepted.

10. To abolish all Communist fighting detachments in all military units, and also the various Communist guards at factories. If such detachments and guards are needed they may be chosen from the companies in military units and in the factories according to the judgment of the workers.

11. To grant the peasant full right to do what he sees fit with his land and also to possess cattle, which he must maintain and manage with his own strength, but without employing hired labor.

12. To ask all military units and also our comrades, the military cadets, to associate themselves with our resolutions.

13. We demand that all resolutions be widely published in the press.

14. To appoint a traveling bureau for control.

15. To permit free artisan production with individual labor.

The resolutions were adopted by the meeting unanimously, with two abstentions.

President of the Meeting, PETRICHENKO.

Secretary, PEREPELKIN.

Suffice it to say, their rebellion would not be a success.  Some have noted that it hastened the implementation of Lenin's New Economic Order, but that program itself was only intended to be temporary and indeed, given Lenin's death, it certainly proved to be.

Some regard the Kronstadt Rebellion as the final practical act of the Russian Civil War.  By this point in time the Whites had been defeated in western Russia and, to a large degree, their defeat in the East was a foregone conclusion.  The rebellion, however, represented a dangerous internal threat from the left.  Had it succeeded, which it always had very little chance of doing, it would have created a more democratic left wing Russian regime, although one that was still likely to be a radical one.

On the same day, Panamanian troops halted an advance by Costa Rica in a border war that had developed between the two nations.  U.S. troops landed in Panama City to protect U.S. interest in that nation, which obviously were centered on the Canal.

France mustered troops, including colonial troops, on the German border in anticipating of occupying the Ruhr due to the failure of Germany to provide timely reparation payments.

April 12, 1920 Sonora rebels, the Ruhr Rebellion ends.

The revolution in Mexico, and that's what it now was, was back on the front page of American newspapers.

As part of this process, Sonoran Governor Adolfo de la Huerta resigned his office in preparation for taking up the part of a revolutionary soldier once again.  In his place, Plutarco Elías Calles became Governor.  Calles was already a figure in Sonoran politics and had been a general in the Mexican revolution and a supporter of Carranza. At this time, he was supporting Obregon and De La Huerta.

Plutarco Elías Calles, who later took Mexico to the edge of fascism and across the line of sectarian brutality.

Calles was a true radical and his policies were brutal, particularly against the Catholic Church.  He'd later become the President of Mexico from 1924 to 1928 when his policies resulted in the Cristero War, which might be regarded as the final stage of the Mexican Revolution as well as the point at which Mexican democracy basically essentially a joke in some ways, so much so that when his policies resulted in the assassination by a Cristero supporter of Obregon, who was set to resume office, he became a type of dictator and founded the National Revolution Party, which governed Mexico from its founding until 2000.  Calles himself at this point flirted with fascism, which had an influence upon him.

Calles would ironically fall at the hands of an associate, Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, who became President of Mexico in 1934.  Cárdenas proved to be independent of his patron and acted against Calles' supporters.  Ultimately Calles was charged with being a member of revolutionary conspiracy and deported, ironically, to the United States in 1936.  Supposedly Calles was reading Mein Kampf at the time of his arrest.  As an exile, he made contact fascists in the United States although he rejected their anti Semitism and of course their hostility to Mexicans.  He was allowed to return to Mexico, in retirement, in 1941, and began to modify his views, supporting Mexico's entry into World War Two.

Cárdenas, for his part, remained a revolutionary, but not a fascist, and continued the suppression of the Catholic Church throughout his Presidency.  That feature of Mexican politics would not abate until 1940 when Manuel Ávila Camacho became President.

While this site is not, obviously, the history of Mexico website, all of this ties into the purpose of this blog which was to look at events in the 1890 to 1920 time frame with a particular focus (among other focuses) on the Border War with Mexico.  While this phase of this time frame and the attendant history are clearly winding down, the events described here are critical elements of it.  Over time, we've seen a democratic revolution that took the eclectic Francisco I. Modero into office as a true democrat devolve into continual revolutionary cycles which at one time promised to put a collection of democrats in power, only to have that fall apart and leave the radical Venustiano Carranza in charge.  In 1920, that was flying apart as Carranza schemed to control who would replace him as President of Mexico. That would ultimately see the more radical Obregon come to power followed by Calles, who was an extremist who flirted with fascism during his lifetime.  Only beginning in 1940 did Mexico begin to turn away from that direction, although it would take sixty years for real democracy to return to the country after that date.  In 1920, it was dying.

Oskar von Watter.  He commanded German government forces that entered the Ruhr to put down the Communist rebellion there.  In 1934 he'd cause a monument to be put up in Essen in honor of Freikorps soldiers who had died in the 1920 rebellion.  He died in 1934 and was buried in Berlin's Invalid Cemetery, a cemetary associated with Prussian military figures.

On the same day the Ruhr Rebellion in Germany came to an end with the German government firmly in control  General von Watter ordered his soldiers to abstain from "unlawful behavior", but it was too late.  Reds caught with firearms were simply killed in many instances.

April 9, 1920. Spring in Washington D.C.

In  Washington D.C., equestrians participated in a paper chase on this day in 1920.

Elsewhere, Germany informed France that it would be responsible for property loss and the loss of life in the regions France had moved in to occupy, an ironic statement in light of the fact that the Germany government wasn't shy about the use of force on its own soil.

April 8, 1920 More Strife

On this day in 1920, the British were confronting riots in Jerusalem.

British troops at the Jaffa Gate, April 8, 1920.

Things had been building up for awhile as competing interests struggled concerning the future of the city and who would be allowed to live there and who control things there, while the British struggled to keep a lid on it all.  The British ended up declaring martial law to calm the violence.

One place the British had determined not to struggle was in the Ruhr. They informed the French that they would not be entering into Germany. Only Belgium agreed to assist the French.  Germany appealed to the League of Nations but, as it was not yet a member, its appeal was rejected.  The German government in turn voted to withdraw from the region in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles, which it shortly accomplished, but its entry had already accomplished it goal of suppressing the Communist rebellion there.

In Central America, Tragic Week commenced which saw the country in revolutionary turmoil as rebels seized the capitol and the government in turn shelled it.  Ultimately, rebel forces would overturn the government, which was militarist in nature.

April 6, 1920. Contests.

"At Walter Reed Hospital today the American Forestry Assn planted a memorial tree for the American Legion Post 21. Photo shows Mrs Walter Reed widow of the famous Physician for whom the hospital is named planting the tree which is the first of its kind to be enrolled on the honor roll".  April 6, 1920.

An event that started off as a deluded monarchist plot against the Germans Socialist democracy ended up brining, on this day, a French occupation of portions of the Ruhr while, as the same time, the Reichswehr was fighting in some Ruhr cities.

Anyone should have been able to see that a monarchist coup would bring a Communist revolution, but the plotters hadn't.  Now, not only had they brought regions of Germany back into civil war, they'd brought on a treaty entitled invasion of Germany's most industrial region.

On the same day, the Soviets agreed to the creation of a Far Eastern Republic, a rump state on the Russian Pacific Coast that was seen as a buffer state, with no real independence, between the Soviet Union and Japan, and hence a means of bringing to an end the ongoing strife with the Japanese who remained in the region as part of what had been the Allied mission to Russia.

The republic would last about two years before being absorbed into the Soviet Union.

In the American primary elections, Herbert Hoover, who had announced as a Republican candidate for the Presidency, took fourth place in the GOP contest in Michigan but first place in the Democratic contest there.  Hiram Johnson of California took the state for the GOP.  Johnson had been Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party Vice Presidential running mate.

April 4, 1920. Treasure Island released, France announces advance, Soviet Union requires workers to have identification.

On this day in 1920, the film Treasure Island, or rather one of its earlier (not its earliest) versions, was released.  The popular novel has lead to frequent cinematic adaptations.

On the same day France announced it was going to occupy German cities in the Ruhr due to the failure of the besieged Ebert government in Berlin to withdraw the Reichswehr from that region.  On the same day the benighted government of the workers in the Soviet Union announced that all the benighted had to carry identification as to their place of employment so as to be able to make sure that they were remaining benighted.

April 2, 1920. The end of the Ruhr Uprising, Irish Republican protests in Washington, Processions in Jerusalem.

The Reichswehr and the Freikorps entered the Ruhr in earnest, and in violation of the Versailles Treaty, on this day in April, 1920.

The German government could not secure permission for their entry but it had little choice but to send them.  The Ruhr Uprising by this point was only successful as it had no armed opposition inside most of the Ruhr.  The entry of the German Army ended that.

Ebert promised no retaliation, but in fact the German government and government aligned forces executed a large number of German Reds who fell into their hands. The revolution was crushed, but the French would occupy some German cities in retaliation for their refusal to allow German forces in the Ruhr being ignored.

On the same day, for the second day in a row, there were female protests in Washington D.C. in support of an independent Irish republic.

And also on that day, the country that was not yet providing for that Irish independence leant a military bad to a procession in Jerusalem that was otherwise made up of locals of that city, including a boy scout troop.

March 27, 1920. Germany's Treaty Violations noted, Borah says something about Wood, maybe.

On this day in 1920 the German civil war in regions left inside the Versailles Treaties prohibition on German military power continued on in rebellion. Both the Ruhr and Westphalia had seen armed worker revolts as a result of the Kapp Putsch and now neither region's labor fighters were willing to stand down and instead were trying to take German in a more leftward direction.  The Allies, however, wouldn't agree to let the German Army in.

On the same day, Germany was found to have violated the Treaty, which in fact was pretty obvious.  Germany had been limited to 204 artillery pieces and was prohibited to have aircraft, but in fact, through the help of the quasi official but technically civilian Freikorps, it had 12,000 artillery pieces and 6,000 aircraft.

The size limitations placed on the German military were never realistic, no matter what a person otherwise thinks of the Versailles Treaty. Indeed, the Weimar Republic had no choice but to violate them.  Realistically, the only alternative the Allies had to allowing Germany to have a fairly sizable military would have been to actually occupy the country, as it did following World War Two.  As it was, Germany was left a functioning, albeit barely, republican state that had to contend with internal revolution as well as a very unstable situation in the immediate post war world to its east.  Those concerns practically necessitated the retention of artillery and aircraft.

Their prohibition and the very early incentive to avoid that prohibition, which in part was done through the reliance on right wing monarchical militias help fuel a sense of resentment in the military which would later help bring about the Second World War.  It was certainly not solely responsible for it by any means, but it was an element of that.

On the same day the Cheyenne State Leader opted for a nearly nonsensical primary election headline.

Apparently that meant that highly respected Senator Borah of Idaho was taking some swipes at leading GOP Presidential contender, General Leonard Wood.

Elsewhere, on this Saturday, people went shopping.