Events, Verisoph

c. October 1903 Bondelswarts Nama uprising 0 cit. The Bondelswarts Nama rise against German rule in the south of the colony, protesting land seizures, taxation, and mistreatment. German forces suppress the revolt, but the unrest signals the grievances that will soon erupt into the larger Herero uprising and, later, a wider Nama rebellion. war ●

21 January 1903 Militia Act of 1903 creates the National Guard 0 cit. Congress passed the Militia Act of 1903, known as the Dick Act after its sponsor Senator Charles Dick, replacing the outdated 1792 militia laws. It formally organized the state militias as the National Guard, required them to follow Regular Army organization and standards, and provided federal funding, arms, and training in exchange. The law set the legal foundation for the modern National Guard and its federal-state relationship. politics / war ●●●

1903 Guantanamo Bay is held against Cuba's objection 0 cit. A 1903 lease signed under US military occupation gives Washington control of Guantanamo Bay for a naval station. After the 1959 revolution Cuba rejects the arrangement and refuses to cash the annual rent checks, but the United States keeps the base. It is the oldest overseas US base and the clearest case of one held over the host country's protest. diplomacy / war ●●

c. 1903 African levies do much of the conquest 0 cit. British columns were small, so conquest ran on African manpower. Maasai levies, Mbeere fighters, Ndia Kikuyu, and King's African Rifles askari, many of them Sudanese and Swahili, provided the numbers and were paid largely in captured cattle. The empire set neighbour against neighbour and let the losers fund the winners' loyalty. society / war ●●

January 1904 to 1908 Herero and Nama Wars 0 cit. no story Germany crushes Herero and Nama uprisings and drives survivors into the desert and concentration camps. The campaign is widely regarded as the twentieth century's first genocide. war ●●●

6 December 1904 The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine 0 cit. President Theodore Roosevelt claimed a right for the United States to intervene in the affairs of Latin American states. The corollary justified repeated military actions in the region. politics / war ●●

12 January 1904 to 1908 Herero and Nama genocide 1 cit. After the Herero and Nama rose against German colonists, German forces drove survivors into the desert and confined others in death camps. Tens of thousands died in what is widely regarded as the first genocide of the twentieth century. society / war ●●●●

12 January 1904 Herero uprising begins 0 cit. Herero fighters led by paramount chief Samuel Maherero attacked German settlers and military posts, protesting land seizure, cattle confiscation, and settler abuses. The uprising killed around 120 German settlers in its opening days, while sparing women, children, and non-German foreigners under Maherero's instructions. Germany responded by sending large reinforcements under General Lothar von Trotha. war ●●●

11 August 1904 Battle of Waterberg 0 cit. German forces under General Lothar von Trotha encircled Herero fighters and civilians at the Waterberg, deliberately leaving one route open toward the waterless Omaheke desert. Tens of thousands of Herero, including noncombatants, fled into the desert, where German patrols were ordered to seal off waterholes. Most of those who fled died of thirst and starvation in the following weeks. war ●●●

2 October 1904 Von Trotha issues the extermination order 0 cit. General Lothar von Trotha issued a written proclamation, the Vernichtungsbefehl, declaring that every Herero found within German territory, armed or unarmed, with or without cattle, would be shot, and that the Herero people must leave the land or be destroyed. Waterholes were poisoned or guarded to block any return from the desert. The order is widely cited by historians as the first documented genocide of the twentieth century. war ●●●

October 1904 Nama uprising under Hendrik Witbooi 0 cit. Nama leader Hendrik Witbooi, who had earlier signed a protection treaty with Germany, broke with the colonial administration and took up arms alongside other Nama groups. Nama fighters waged an effective guerrilla campaign against German forces for over a year. Germany's response again included mass internment and killing of captured fighters and civilians. war ●●●

12 January 1904 German colonization of Southwest Africa and the Herero and Nama genocide 0 cit. German colonial forces crushed an uprising by the Herero and Nama peoples against land seizures and forced labor, driving survivors into the desert to die of thirst and starvation and later interning them in concentration camps. Historians and, in 2021, the German government itself have recognized the killings as genocide. It stands as one of the most extreme instances of colonial violence in the Scramble for Africa. society / war ●●

12 January 1904 Herero uprising begins under Samuel Maharero 0 cit. Herero fighters under paramount chief Samuel Maharero attack German farms, traders, and soldiers around Okahandja, launching an armed uprising against land seizure, debt bondage, and colonial abuse. Maharero orders that women, children, missionaries, and non-German foreigners be spared, a restraint the German response will not reciprocate. war ●●●

c. May 1904 Kaiser sends Lothar von Trotha to crush the uprising 0 cit. Facing a stalled colonial campaign, Berlin appoints Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha as supreme commander in German South-West Africa with orders to suppress the Herero uprising by any means necessary. Von Trotha arrives with reinforcements and, according to his own later writings, an intent to annihilate Herero resistance rather than negotiate a settlement. politics / war ●●

c. August 1904 Herero driven into the Omaheke desert 0 cit. German troops pursue Herero survivors of Waterberg into the Omaheke, a waterless stretch of the Kalahari, killing stragglers and driving the main body away from the few waterholes. Thousands of Herero men, women, and children die of thirst and starvation in the weeks that follow. war ●●●

c. September 1904 German troops poison and guard Omaheke waterholes 0 cit. German patrols seal off and, according to multiple contemporary accounts, poison wells along the edge of the Omaheke to prevent Herero survivors from returning for water. Soldiers shoot Herero who approach the waterholes, turning the desert into a killing ground by denial of water rather than direct combat alone. war ●●●

2 October 1904 Von Trotha issues the Vernichtungsbefehl (extermination order) 0 cit. Lothar von Trotha issues a written proclamation declaring that any Herero found within German territory, armed or not, with or without cattle, will be shot, and that no women or children will be spared but will be driven back to their people or fired upon. The order is read aloud to German troops and posted in Herero-inhabited areas, formalizing a policy of extermination that historians treat as the founding document of the genocide. politics / war ●●●

c. October 1904 Nama uprising begins under Hendrik Witbooi 0 cit. Hendrik Witbooi, leader of the Nama and a longtime signatory of German protection treaties, breaks with the colonial administration and calls Nama groups to arms as news spreads of the treatment of the Herero. The Nama wage an effective guerrilla campaign against German forces across the south of the colony for the next three years. war ●●●

12 January 1904 Herero and Nama Genocide Begins 1 cit. Herero fighters rose against German colonial rule; General Lothar von Trotha responded with an extermination order driving the Herero into the Omaheke desert to die of thirst. Nama fighters who rose the following year met the same policy. Historians estimate that 24,000 to 100,000 Herero and roughly half the Nama population died, making this the first genocide widely recognized as such in the 20th century. politics / war ●●●

c. 1904 Kinjikitile Ngwale and the maji war-medicine 0 cit. The prophet Kinjikitile Ngwale, said to be possessed by a spirit linked to the deity Bokero or Hongo, gave followers a sacred water called maji that was believed to turn German bullets into water. The medicine crossed ethnic lines and knit many peoples into a single movement against forced cotton labor and German rule. Germans hanged Kinjikitile in 1905 as the revolt began, but the maji cult he founded carried on without him. politics / religion / war ●●●

1904 The Gusii Resistance and the 1904 Expedition 4 cit. When the British first pushed into the Gusii highlands in 1904, a military force met resistance, killed many people, and raised the Union Jack over the district. The Gusii, or Abagusii, a Bantu farming people ringed by pastoralist neighbours, had a reputation for independence and would not submit quietly. The 1904 violence opened a period of raids and reprisals that ran on for years. politics / war ●●

1904 The Iriaini expedition against Kikuyu and Embu contested 0 cit. A large punitive expedition in 1904 struck Kikuyu and Embu communities in the Iriaini area, seizing around 11,000 head of stock. British losses were light, while African deaths were put at well over a thousand in the accounts that survive. Those death figures trace back mainly to Meinertzhagen's diary and remain disputed, so the toll is marked contested even though the expedition itself is documented. economy / war ●●●

c. 1904 Britain turns on the Embu and Meru holdouts 0 cit. Once Kikuyu resistance was broken, the British moved against their eastern neighbours, the Embu and Meru, who had refused to submit and lay outside administrative control. These Mount Kenya communities had watched the fate of the Kikuyu and declined to accept posts, taxes, or garrisons. The refusal set up a run of military expeditions to force them into the protectorate. politics / war ●●

5 September 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth 0 cit. Peace ending the Russo-Japanese War, mediated by Theodore Roosevelt, giving Japan control of Korea and southern Manchuria interests. It was the first modern great-power peace brokered by the United States. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

July 1905 to 1907 Maji Maji Rebellion 0 cit. Peoples of German East Africa unite in revolt against colonial forced labor. German suppression and induced famine kill up to 300,000 people. war ●●

27 May 1905 Battle of Tsushima 0 cit. The Japanese Combined Fleet under Admiral Togo destroyed the Russian Baltic Fleet, which had sailed halfway around the world to reach the Pacific, in one of the most one-sided major naval battles in modern history. Most of the Russian fleet was sunk or captured for minimal Japanese losses. The defeat helped force Russia to end the Russo-Japanese War and marked Japan's arrival as a modern naval power. war ●●●

27 June 1905 Potemkin mutiny 0 cit. Sailors on the Russian battleship Potemkin mutinied after officers ordered the execution of crewmen who refused to eat maggot-infested meat, killing several officers and taking control of the ship. The mutiny, occurring amid the wider 1905 Russian Revolution, became a symbol of the tsarist navy's harsh discipline and poor conditions for enlisted sailors. The crew eventually surrendered the ship in Romania. politics / war ●●

September 1905 Shark Island concentration camp operates at Lüderitz 0 cit. German authorities interned thousands of Herero and Nama prisoners, most of them women, children, and the elderly, on a small exposed peninsula at Lüderitz with minimal shelter, food, and clothing. Forced labor, starvation, disease, and exposure killed a majority of those held there, giving the camp a mortality rate among the worst of any camp in the colony. Survivors and later historians have called Shark Island one of the earliest death camps of the modern era. war ●●●

29 October 1905 Hendrik Witbooi killed in battle 0 cit. Nama leader Hendrik Witbooi died from wounds received while leading an attack on a German supply convoy. His death was a severe blow to organized Nama resistance, though scattered fighting continued for several more years. Witbooi is remembered in Namibia as a national hero of the anti-colonial resistance. war ●●

c. January 1905 German colonial camps holding Herero prisoners established 0 cit. As Herero survivors surrender or are captured, German authorities begin interning them in camps at Windhoek, Swakopmund, Karibib, Okahandja, and elsewhere, putting prisoners to forced labor for the colonial railway, harbor works, and settler farms under armed guard. Overcrowding, starvation rations, exposure, and disease produce death rates that contemporary missionaries and officials describe as catastrophic. society / war ●●

c. March 1905 Shark Island camp opens at Lüderitz 0 cit. German authorities open a camp on a small, wind-scoured, waterless peninsula at Lüderitz, transferring Herero and later Nama prisoners there for forced labor on harbor and railway construction. Prisoners live in the open with almost no shelter, food, or medical care; the camp becomes known among Herero and Nama survivors as "Death Island." war ●●●

c. November 1905 Jacob Morenga leads continued Nama resistance 0 cit. After Witbooi's death, Jacob Morenga, of mixed Nama and Herero descent, takes up leadership of Nama guerrilla resistance, drawing on Cape Colony supply lines and cross-border sanctuary to keep fighting German forces into 1907. His campaign forces Germany to keep large numbers of troops tied down in the south of the colony. war ●●

c. 1905 Shark Island Concentration Camp 1 cit. German colonial authorities operated a camp on Shark Island near Lüderitz where captured Herero and Nama prisoners, mostly women and children, were held in extreme cold and forced into hard labor. Death rates were catastrophic, with some historians calling it a death camp. The camp closed in 1907 after most of the surviving prisoners had died; it is frequently cited as the earliest link in the chain that runs to the German camps of the 1930s and 1940s, though the two systems were built decades apart by different regimes. society / war ●●

19 October 1905 Killing of Koitalel arap Samoei 6 cit. Koitalel arap Samoei, the orkoiyot who led Nandi resistance, was shot dead by a party under British officer Richard Meinertzhagen, ending organised Nandi opposition. The circumstances are contested: Nandi tradition and many historians hold that he was killed treacherously during a meeting arranged under a truce, while Meinertzhagen claimed self-defence. The killing is remembered in Kenya as a colonial assassination. politics / war ●●●

19 October 1905 Koitalel arap Samoei and the Nandi resistance 0 cit. The orkoiyot Koitalel arap Samoei led the Nandi in more than ten years of resistance to British advance, fighting the railway and punitive columns pushing through their land. In 1905 the officer Richard Meinertzhagen lured him to a meeting under a truce and shot him dead. His killing broke organized Nandi resistance and marks the colonial hinge where independent Kalenjin society gave way to British rule. politics / war ●●●

19 October 1905 Killing of the Nandi orkoiyot Koitalel arap Samoei 0 cit. Koitalel arap Samoei, the Nandi spiritual leader who had guided an eleven-year resistance to the Uganda Railway, was killed at a meeting arranged under a flag of truce near Kapsabet. A British party led by Meinertzhagen shot him and his companions at close range. The killing broke Nandi resistance within weeks and is corroborated beyond his diary, though his self-serving version of the details is contested. diplomacy / war ●●●

10 February 1906 HMS Dreadnought launched 0 cit. The Royal Navy launched HMS Dreadnought, the first battleship with an all-big-gun armament and steam turbine propulsion, which made every existing battleship in the world obsolete overnight. The ship gave its name to a new class of warship and triggered an intense Anglo-German naval arms race in the years before the First World War. Naval planners around the world scrapped or redesigned building programs in response. technology / war ●●●

c. 1906 Death rates peak in the concentration camp system 0 cit. Mortality in the camp system, above all at Shark Island, reaches its worst point during the southern hemisphere winter of 1906, with missionary and medical reports recording death rates among interned Herero and Nama estimated at 30 to 50 percent annually. German military and colonial reports of the period record the camp populations as women, children, and elderly people far outnumbering able-bodied male prisoners. society / war ●●●

c. 1906 German researchers begin shipping skulls and remains to Berlin 1 cit. German physicians and colonial officials, including camp doctors, order Herero and Nama prisoners, some still alive, to prepare skulls and other body parts of the dead for shipment to anatomical and anthropological institutes in Germany. Some accounts describe prisoners forced to boil and scrape flesh from skulls of their own dead using shards of glass, sending the remains for study under theories of racial hierarchy. science / war ●●●

c. 1906 Bambatha rebellion 0 cit. Chief Bambatha led a Zulu revolt against a new poll tax imposed by the British colony of Natal. The rising was put down with heavy loss of life, and thousands of Zulu were killed. It was one of the last armed challenges to colonial rule in southern Africa before the era of mass political movements. economy / politics / war ●

c. 1906 The Conquest of Embu and Meru 1 cit. After subduing the Kikuyu, the British turned on their neighbours the Embu and Meru, who had refused to submit. A large expedition, again involving Meinertzhagen and drawing on Mbeere and Kikuyu auxiliaries, overwhelmed Embu resistance around 1906, and administrative posts soon followed in Meru. Local resistance continued in quieter forms, but the old councils of elders lost their power to appointed agents of the government. politics / war ●●

1906 The Nandi Removed and Their Land Taken 8 cit. Koitalel arap Samoei was killed on 19 October 1905 after British officer Richard Meinertzhagen lured him to a supposed peace meeting under truce and shot him at close range. With Koitalel dead, a punitive field force drove the Nandi from much of their land, seized cattle, and confined them to a reserve. Their high, fertile country was handed to white settlers and to the railway, and the Uasin Gishu plateau nearby became prime settler farmland. economy / war ●●

10 February 1906 HMS Dreadnought 0 cit. Launched at Portsmouth in 1906, HMS Dreadnought carried an all-big-gun main battery and steam turbines that made her faster and more powerful than any battleship afloat. She was so far ahead that she made all existing battleships obsolete, including Britain's own. The design reset the naval race and gave her name to a whole class of warship. technology / war ●●●●

1906 Conquest of Embu 0 cit. In 1906 a strong colonial expedition overwhelmed Embu resistance, aided by Mbeere fighters and Kikuyu of Ndia acting as levies. Homesteads were burned and stock seized in the standard punitive pattern. Administrative stations followed at once, ending Embu self-rule and pulling the area into the protectorate, though passive resistance continued for years. politics / war ●●

c. 1906 The disputed scale of the killing contested 0 cit. How many people died in the pacification of central Kenya is genuinely unclear. The most cited figures, running into the thousands, come from Meinertzhagen's diaries and other participant accounts that had reason to exaggerate or to understate. No reliable census of the dead exists, so historians treat the totals as estimates rather than settled facts. society / war ●●

1906 Police Ordinance puts Kenya policing on military lines 2 cit. The Kenya Police was legally constituted by the 1906 Police Ordinance. Official DCI history states that up to 1907 the force was organised along military lines and trained in a military manner. Kenya did not begin with a community-policing ideal. It began with a disciplined colonial force built for order, labour control and settler security. politics / society / war ●●●●

15 June 1907 Second Hague Peace Conference 0 cit. A larger follow-up conference of 44 states expanded the rules of warfare and arbitration. It reinforced the idea of a codified body of international law governing relations between states. politics / war ●●

c. April 1907 Shark Island camp closed 0 cit. German authorities close the camp at Shark Island after its death toll, documented at several thousand Herero and Nama prisoners, draws criticism even from within the colonial administration. Estimates of deaths at the camp between 1905 and its closure range from roughly 1,000 to 3,000, out of an interned population never much larger than that. war ●●

c. 31 March 1907 Colonial administration declares the uprisings over 0 cit. The German colonial government formally declares the Herero and Nama wars ended, after roughly 80 percent of the pre-war Herero population and roughly half of the Nama population have died from combat, exposure in the Omaheke, and camp conditions, according to the scholarly consensus drawn from German census and mission records. Survivors are stripped of land and cattle by decree and required to carry identification passes, restricted from owning livestock or land, and bound into a colonial labor system. politics / war ●●●

18 August 1907 The Stuttgart Congress and the war question 0 cit. The Second International's Stuttgart congress adopts a resolution committing socialist parties to work against militarism and war. An amendment pressed by Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg and Julius Martov added that, should war break out, socialists should use the resulting crisis to hasten the fall of capitalism. How far parties would actually resist a war was left unresolved. diplomacy / politics / war ●●

1908 Otenyo, Moraa and the 1908 Gusii Rising 4 cit. The young warrior Otenyo Nyamaterere, urged on by the prophetess Moraa wa Ng'iti, speared the British administrator Northcote, who survived, and sparked a rising that took a month to put down. A punitive expedition raided the cattle enclosures of Kitutu and seized several thousand head, and Otenyo was captured and shot by firing squad. Gusii tradition holds that his head was taken to Britain, and to this day elders campaign for its return, though the details rest on oral accounts. politics / religion / war ●●

1908 Otenyo, Moraa and the Gusii rising of 1908 0 cit. As British administration pushed into Gusii country, the prophetess Moraa Ng'iti roused resistance and the young warrior Otenyo Nyamaterere speared the district officer G. A. S. Northcote, who survived the wound. The British answered with a punitive expedition that burned villages, seized cattle and killed many Gusii, and Otenyo was later captured and executed. The rising marks the hinge where Gusii independence gave way to colonial conquest. politics / war ●●●

1908 Otenyo Nyamaterere spears the British commissioner 0 cit. In the 1908 Gusii rising against British taxation and rule, the young warrior Otenyo Nyamaterere, inspired by the prophetess Moraa Ngiti, speared and wounded the British officer G.A.S. Northcote. The British answered with a punitive expedition that killed many Abagusii and seized their cattle. Otenyo was hunted down, captured, and executed, and he is remembered as a Gusii hero of resistance. politics / society / war ●●●

1908 Subjugation of Meru 1 cit. The Meru, on the north-eastern shoulder of Mount Kenya, were subdued by a military expedition in 1908, with the Tharaka among those putting up the hardest fight. As elsewhere, allied African auxiliaries did much of the fighting and cattle were carried off. A British post at Meru followed, completing the encirclement of the mountain by 1910. politics / war ●●

January 1908 Moraa wa Ngiti inspires the Gusii rising contested 0 cit. Moraa wa Ngiti was a Gusii seer and healer who urged her people to resist the British after troops seized thousands of Gusii cattle in early 1908. Oral history says she blessed the warriors and gave them charms, and inspired her kinsman Otenyo Nyamaterere, who speared and wounded the British officer Northcote. The rising was put down and Otenyo was executed. Her spiritual leadership rests on Gusii oral tradition, so the detail is contested, but the revolt itself is documented. religion / war ●●

1908 The colonial intrusion and the crisis of authority 1 cit. British conquest in 1907 and 1908, led by E. B. Horne, stripped the generation-sets of their political core by ending warfare, disarmament, and territorial defence, leaving the kiama as little more than a court for settling disputes. Famine, epidemics, and wartime demands then killed perhaps a quarter to a third of the people. Anne-Marie Peatrik argues the crisis deepened when H. E. Lambert recognised the njuri ncheke as the official "tribal authority" in the 1930s, a selective body that masked the real generational divisions rather than restoring the old order. politics / society / war ●●●●

1 October 1909 Secret Service Bureau founded 0 cit. The British government set up the Secret Service Bureau to counter German espionage and to run British intelligence gathering abroad. It was a joint Admiralty and War Office body, headed jointly by Captain Vernon Kell and Commander Mansfield Cumming. It is the common ancestor of both MI5 and MI6. politics / war ●●●

April 1909 Adana massacre 0 cit. Amid the political turmoil that followed the Young Turk revolution, mobs and troops kill Armenians in the city and region of Adana. Estimates of the dead generally range from about 15,000 to 30,000. The violence shows that the change of Ottoman government had not made Armenians safe. politics / war ●●

29 September 1911 to 18 October 1912 Italo-Turkish War 0 cit. no story Italy seizes Ottoman Libya and the Dodecanese islands, using aircraft in combat for the first time. Ottoman weakness revealed by the war helps trigger the Balkan Wars. war ●●

1911 Xinhai Revolution and fall of the Qing 0 cit. An uprising at Wuchang in October 1911 sparked a revolution that spread across China. It ended more than two thousand years of imperial rule. politics / war ●●●●●

1 November 1911 First recorded aerial bombing in warfare 0 cit. During the Italo-Turkish War, Italian aviator Giulio Gavotti dropped small grenades by hand from his monoplane onto Ottoman positions near Tripoli, the first aerial bombardment in the history of warfare. Italy had also used aircraft for reconnaissance earlier that year, another military first. The episode showed early European militaries that aircraft could serve as offensive weapons, not just scouts. technology / war ●●

August 1911 The Official Secrets Act of 1911 passes in a day 0 cit. Amid a public panic about German spies, Parliament rushed a sweeping new Official Secrets Act through in a single day with almost no debate. Its notorious Section 2 made the unauthorized sharing of any official information a crime, no matter how trivial or harmless. The catch-all clause stayed on the books until 1989 and became a model for secrecy laws across the British Empire. politics / war ●●●

1911 Muhumusa and the Nyabingi resistance 0 cit. The Nyabingi movement of the Uganda-Rwanda borderlands centered on a female spirit, Nyabingi, whose priestesses claimed her power to heal and to command. The best known, Muhumusa, led armed resistance to German and then British authority until her capture and detention by the British in 1911. The cult continued under other mediums for years, and its persistence pushed the British to outlaw it. politics / religion / war ●●

28 November 1912 Independence of Albania 0 cit. no story Ismail Qemali declares Albania independent from the Ottoman Empire at Vlore during the First Balkan War. politics / war ●●●

1 January 1912 Proclamation of the Republic of China 0 cit. no story The Republic of China is proclaimed after the revolution that ended the Qing dynasty; its government has been based on Taiwan since 1949. politics / war ●●●

8 October 1912 to 30 May 1913 First Balkan War 1 cit. no story Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro drive the Ottoman Empire from almost all its European territory. The victors immediately quarrel over the spoils. war ●●●

c. 1912 Rise of the Ikhwan Movement 0 cit. Ibn Saud organized Bedouin tribesmen into settled Wahhabi military-religious communities called the Ikhwan. The Ikhwan became the shock troops of his conquest of Arabia. religion / war ●●●

13 April 1912 Royal Flying Corps formed 0 cit. Britain established the Royal Flying Corps as the air arm of the British Army, absorbing the earlier Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers. It flew reconnaissance and, increasingly, combat missions on the Western Front during the First World War. In 1918 it merged with the Royal Naval Air Service to create the Royal Air Force. technology / war ●

24 November 1912 The Basel Manifesto against war 0 cit. An extraordinary congress of the Second International, convened in Basel Cathedral as the Balkan Wars raised fears of a wider conflict, issues the Basel Manifesto. It warned governments that a European war would be met by the united resistance of the working class. Two years later most of the same parties backed their own nations in the First World War. diplomacy / politics / war ●●

1912 to 1913 The Balkan Wars 0 cit. A coalition of Balkan states drives the Ottomans out of nearly all their remaining European territory in the first war, then fights over the spoils in the second. The empire loses almost its entire European heartland and sees another huge wave of Muslim refugees. The defeats deepened the sense of crisis on the eve of World War I. politics / war ●●

1912 The D-Notice system asks the press to stay quiet 0 cit. Britain set up a joint committee of officials and newspaper editors that issued Defence Notices, requests to the press not to publish material said to endanger national security. The system was voluntary and had no legal force, but editors mostly complied. Supporters called it a sensible partnership; critics called it a polite form of censorship that trained the press to self-silence. politics / war ●●

1912 The Third Home Rule crisis and the arming of Ulster 0 cit. A third Home Rule Bill passed in 1912 but was fiercely resisted by Ulster unionists, who signed a mass covenant and formed the armed Ulster Volunteers. Nationalists responded with their own Irish Volunteers, and both sides imported weapons. The country edged toward civil conflict before the First World War suspended the crisis in 1914. politics / war ●●

29 June 1913 to 10 August 1913 Second Balkan War 0 cit. no story Bulgaria attacks its former allies over the division of Macedonia and is quickly defeated by Serbia, Greece, Romania, and the Ottomans. The unstable settlement feeds the tensions that explode in 1914. war ●●●

c. May 1913 Saudi Conquest of Al-Hasa 0 cit. Ibn Saud took the eastern province of Al-Hasa from the Ottomans, extending Saudi rule to the Persian Gulf coast. The region later proved to hold vast oil reserves. politics / war ●●●

c. 1913 Suppression of the Giriama uprising 0 cit. When the Giriama resisted taxation, labour demands, and colonial control, the British launched a punitive campaign in 1913 and 1914, burning the sacred Kaya shrine, imposing heavy fines, and forcing removals. The resistance was linked to the prophetess Mekatilili wa Menza, who was arrested and detained. Police and administration forces enforced the crackdown. religion / war ●●

August 1913 Mekatilili wa Menza Defies Arthur Champion 0 cit. At a public meeting in August 1913 the administrator Arthur Champion demanded Giriama men for labour and closer submission to the government, and the elderly Mekatilili wa Menza rose to refuse him. She rallied the Giriama, especially the women, and administered binding oaths at the sacred settlement of Kaya Fungo against cooperating with the colonisers. Arrested that October and exiled far away to Kisii, she became the enduring symbol of Giriama resistance, her story carried largely through oral tradition. politics / religion / war ●●●

c. 1913 Punitive expeditions and the disarmament of the northern pastoralists 3 cit. Across the early decades of colonial rule British columns mounted repeated punitive patrols against Somali, Borana, Rendille, and Gabra herders, seizing stock, burning settlements, and confiscating firearms and spears. Disarmament left communities exposed to raiders while the state offered little protection in return. The dates span many separate operations, so the year given is approximate for a long campaign of coercion. politics / war ●●

c. 1913 The Dervishes build the fortresses at Taleh 0 cit. After earlier reverses and a period when Britain pulled back to the coast, the Dervish state consolidated in the interior and built stone fortresses at Taleh in the Nugaal valley. The Sayyid governed a functioning statelet with its own administration and defenses. The same year, Dervish forces killed British commander Richard Corfield at the Battle of Dul Madoba, a defeat later remembered in Somali poetry. politics / war ●●

1913 Mekatilili wa Menza leads the Giriama resistance 0 cit. In 1913 and 1914 the Giriama rose against British demands for forced labor, taxes, and eviction from their land, rallied by the woman leader Mekatilili wa Menza and the elder Wanje wa Mwadorikola. She revived binding oaths through the kifudu and mwanza dances to unite people against the colonial government. Britain crushed the revolt, burned the sacred kaya at Kaya Fungo, and deported her, but she became a lasting symbol of resistance. politics / war ●●●

1913 The Giriama rise under Mekatilili and are crushed 0 cit. The Giriama leader Mekatilili wa Menza rallied her people against British demands for taxes, forced labour, and porters, administering unifying oaths and invoking the authority of the sacred kaya elders. In her famous confrontation with the officer Arthur Champion she used the fowl and feather challenge to defy British power. The British crushed the 1913-14 rising, burned the sacred Kaya Fungo, killed scores, fined the Giriama, and deported Mekatilili to distant Gusii country, from which she is said to have walked home. politics / religion / society / war ●●●

October 1913 Mekatilili leads the Giriama against the British 0 cit. Mekatilili wa Menza led the Giriama resistance of 1913 to 1914 against colonial demands for labour, taxes, and land. She organised meetings, oaths, and open defiance until the British arrested her in October 1913 and exiled her far inland to Mumias. She escaped and returned, and the wider Giriama war followed before the British crushed it. She stands as a documented woman leader of armed and organised anti-colonial resistance. politics / war ●●●

28 June 1914 Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand 0 cit. Gavrilo Princip shoots the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife Sophie during a state visit. politics / war ●●●●●

28 July 1914 Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia 0 cit. After Serbia accepts most but not all of the July Ultimatum, Austria-Hungary declares war, one month to the day after the assassination. politics / war ●●●●●

1 August 1914 Germany declares war on Russia 0 cit. Germany answers Russian mobilization with a declaration of war, activating the long-planned two-front strategy. politics / war ●●●●

4 August 1914 Germany invades Belgium; Britain enters the war 0 cit. German armies cross into neutral Belgium; Britain, guarantor of Belgian neutrality, declares war on Germany the same day. politics / war ●●●●

5 September 1914 to 12 September 1914 First Battle of the Marne 0 cit. French and British forces halt the German advance on Paris; both sides dig in, beginning four years of trench warfare. war ●●●●

28 June 1914 Assassination at Sarajevo 0 cit. Gavrilo Princip shoots Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife Sophie. The murder sets off the July Crisis and the First World War, which destroys four empires and remakes the world order. politics / war ●●●●●

September 1914 British Wellington House propaganda bureau 1 cit. Britain set up a secret War Propaganda Bureau at Wellington House in September 1914 to shape opinion at home and in neutral countries, especially the United States. It pioneered modern state wartime propaganda. politics / war ●●●

28 July 1914 to 1918 The First World War and the Empire at War 0 cit. Millions of soldiers from India, Africa, Canada, Australia, and beyond fought for Britain in the war. Their service strengthened both imperial ties and demands for greater self-rule. war ●●●●●

1 August 1914 Russia Enters the First World War 0 cit. Russia mobilized in support of Serbia and went to war against Germany and Austria-Hungary. Heavy casualties, poor supply, and economic strain steadily undermined support for the monarchy. politics / war ●●●●

1914 Krupp's Big Bertha howitzers used in the First World War 0 cit. In 1914 Krupp's huge Big Bertha siege howitzers smashed Belgian fortresses at the start of the war. Krupp was the main artillery supplier to the German war effort. technology / war ●●●

1914 to 1918 World War I turns the United States into the world's creditor 0 cit. Wartime loans and arms sales shifted the United States from a net debtor to the world's leading creditor nation, while Britain ran up heavy debts to American lenders. The financial balance of the Atlantic began tilting westward. economy / war ●●

September 1914 South African forces invade German South-West Africa 0 cit. As part of the First World War, forces of the Union of South Africa invaded German South-West Africa on behalf of the British Empire, opening a new front against the small German colonial garrison. The campaign combined South African army units with local volunteer forces and moved on multiple fronts from the south and coast. German forces retreated steadily northward over the following months. war ●●

4 August 1914 MI5 rounds up German spy network at outbreak of WWI 0 cit. Within hours of Britain declaring war on Germany, Vernon Kell's Home Section arrested most of a German intelligence network that had been under surveillance since before the war. About twenty agents were rounded up on a single day, crippling German espionage in Britain for the rest of the war. The operation was widely seen as an early success for what would become MI5. politics / war ●●

4 August 1914 The collapse of the Second International 0 cit. When the First World War begins, most socialist parties rally behind their own governments rather than opposing the war as they had pledged. The German Social Democrats' vote for war credits on 4 August 1914 became the symbol of this reversal. The International split along national lines and effectively ceased to function, a betrayal in the eyes of antiwar socialists such as Lenin. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

1914 The British state buys into Persian oil 0 cit. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company, formed out of the D'Arcy concession, gained a controlling investment from the British government at the urging of Winston Churchill, who wanted secure fuel for the Royal Navy. This tied Britain's military and strategic interests directly to Persian oil. The company, later Anglo-Iranian and then BP, would keep the lion's share of oil profits for decades. economy / politics / war ●●

November 1914 The Ottomans enter World War I 0 cit. The empire joins the Central Powers alongside Germany and Austria-Hungary after a secret alliance and a naval attack on Russian ports. The decision, driven by the Young Turk leadership, tied the empire's fate to Germany's and opened fronts from the Caucasus to Mesopotamia to the Sinai. Defeat would end the empire. diplomacy / politics / war ●●●

1914 Churchill puts the Royal Navy on oil 0 cit. As First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill drives the switch of British warships from coal to faster oil-fired engines, and the government buys a controlling stake in Anglo-Persian. Oil became a matter of national security, tying the state directly to the industry. politics / war ●●●

1914 The Giriama Uprising and the Burning of Kaya Fungo 0 cit. The Giriama refusal to supply labour hardened into open revolt in 1913 and 1914, met with a military campaign that killed hundreds and drove people from their land. Colonial forces razed Kaya Fungo, the sacred forest shrine at the heart of Giriama religion and authority, and imposed a heavy collective fine and demands for carriers for the coming world war. Destroying the kaya was an attack on the community's very identity, meant to break the elders and the spirits who sanctioned resistance. economy / religion / war ●●

1914 The First World War drains British power 0 cit. The war of 1914 to 1918 cost Britain enormous sums and turned it from the world's leading creditor into a debtor, largely to the United States. British industry and manpower were strained to the limit, and much overseas investment was sold off to pay for the fighting. Britain won the war but came out of it financially weakened and dependent on American credit. economy / politics / war ●●●●