Making the World Safe for Autocracy

John McCutcheon's cartoon at the end of last Saturday's Graphical History Tour alluded to a "dictatorship bug" from Europe, so this week's episode takes a look at what was bugging Europe in September of 1923.

"Will the Cop Let Him Get Away with It" by Sam Armstrong in Tacoma News-Tribune, Sept. 6, 1923

Corfu is a narrow, 40-mile (64 km) long island due west of the Greek-Albanian border. The two countries disputed where their border should extend, and took their case to a council of British, French, and Italian ambassadors, chaired by an Italian general, Enrico Tellini.

Greece accused Tellini of siding with Albania, so the Greeks were the suspected culprits when Tellini and four others traveling with him were ambushed and killed at a Greek-Albanian border crossing on August 27. Italy responded by bombarding and occupying the island on August 31, arresting the Greek prefect of the island. Mussolini announced that Corfu had belonged to Venice for four centuries before being ceded to Napoleonic France, then to Great Britain, and to Greece only since 1864.

"Another Successful Operation" by Keith Temple in New Orleans Times-Picayune, ca. Sept. 28, 1923

While much of  Europe was focused on the Corfu crisis, Yugoslavia was preoccupied by Bulgarian guerilla attacks in Macedonia. The Bulgarians wanted to reclaim territory lost to Serbia at the end of World War I (Bulgaria having sided with the Central Powers during the war).

Bulgarian communists reportedly tried taking advantage of the situation, attempting, but failing, to overthrow the government. Prime Minister Aleksandar Tsankov, who had just come to power through a coup in June, declared martial law, and there was some thought that the crisis may have been fabricated in order to justify the move.

"No Wonder He's Getting Tired" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Sept. 14, 1923

On September 14, Spanish military officers staged a coup in Barcelona. King Alfonso XIII accepted the resignation of the cabinet of Prime Minister Manuel García Prieto and asked coup leader Captain Miguel Primo Rivera to form a new government. 

"The Passing Show" by Gustavo Bronstrup in San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 15, 1923

Primo Rivera's military dictatorship would last through the rest of the decade.

In Germany, Chancellor Gustav Stresemann called off his citizens' passive resistance to French and Belgian occupation of the Ruhr; but France vowed to continue the occupation until German reparations were paid in full. Given the worthlessness of the Deutschmark, full payment of reparations any time soon was highly improbable.

"From the Frying Pan Into the Fire" by Winsor McCay for New York American, ca. Sept. 22, 1923

American editorial cartoons of this period expressed much more sympathy for the plight of former enemy Germany and growing hostility toward former ally France.

"Divided They Fall" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., before Oct. 4, 1923

At the end of September, monarchist separatists in Bavaria and the Rhineland rebelled against the German government with plans to crown Crown Prince Rupprecht king.

But that gets us into October, and I'm not quite done with September yet.

"Poor Butterfly" by O.C. Chopin in San Francisco Examiner, Sept. 4, 1923

Not all disasters were man-made — at least, to begin with. An earthquake registering 7.9 on the Richter scale devastated Tokyo and Yokahama on September 1, 1923. The quake hit just before noon local time as many were cooking their meals, sparking massive firestorms and a fire whirl that incinerated a crowd sheltering in a department store. The death and destruction were compounded by landslides and a tsunami. The death toll surpassed 105,000 (including the American Consul General in Yokahama and his wife).

But man was responsible for making the disaster even worse. Sparked by rumors that resident Koreans in the Kantō region had poisoned local well water, the Japanese military, police, and vigilantes —condoned by some within the government — slaughtered an estimated 6,000 people that day. The victims of the Kantō Massacre were mainly ethnic Koreans, as well as Chinese and Japanese people mistaken to be Korean, plus Japanese communists, socialists, and anarchists.

"There's My Old Neighbor" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Sunday Star, Sept. 2, 1923

Since today happens to be Independence Day in Mexico, I can't let the day go by without mentioning normalizing of relations between that country and mine. Great Britain, France, Belgium and Cuba quickly followed suit in recognizing the Obregón government.

At home, President Álvaro Obregón was derided as un entreguista (a sellout, literally "delivery man") for agreeing to U.S. demands to renounce his country's intention to expropriate foreign oil companies in Mexican territory. A subsequent rebellion led by Obregón's former Finance Minister, Adolfo de la Huerta, would be harshly put down within months.