Saturday, June 28, 1930

Rome:  Citing French fortifications in the Alps along the Italian border, Italy announces it will increase its military budget by US$26 million.

Berlin:  Chancellor Heinrich Bruening, in a speech before the Reichstrat, announces that he significantly underestimated the severity of Germany’s financial situation, and says drastic changes, including all of the new taxes he’s been proposing, must be implemented immediately if the country is get back on sound financial footing. 

New York:  A mob of 1,000 communists attempts to storm the British Consulate to protest British rule in India.  Five police are injured.

Saturday, June 7, 1930: Carol II's Triumphant Return to Romania

Bucharest:  Carol II, Prince of Romania, who renounced his right to the throne in 1925 after an extra-marital affair, flies into Bucharest in the middle of the night and is proclaimed king.  He is welcomed by his brother and several regiments of the military, and hailed by the public as savior of the nation, which is struggling in the Depression.  The person he would replace on the throne is his own son, Michael, age 8.  Carol says he will only rule until Michael comes of age.  The National Assembly is said to be overwhelmingly in favor of this development, and the prime minister has resigned to make way for it.

Rome:  More military display by Italy.  The air force holds a mock combat involving 20 divisions of warplanes to demonstrate the nation’s advances in air power.  This comes the day before France is scheduled to hold its own air show.

Wednesday, June 4, 1930

Berlin:  Chancellor Heinrich Bruening’s cabinet adjourns without agreeing on any new actions to solve Germany’s financial crisis.  Meanwhile representatives of the industrial community and labor unions, perhaps fed up with the government’s inactivity, reportedly hold their own bilateral discussions about cutting prices and pay wages in tandem, in an attempt to spur the economy.

 

Washington:  More evidence of the economic depression -- President Herbert Hoover considers a $3 billion federal bond issue to speed public works and get the unemployed working again.  The U.S. economic decline is said to total more than $63 billion to date.

Rome:  Foreign Minister Dino Grandi, in a speech to the Senate that appears intended to moderate (and “clarify”) Dictator Benito Mussolini’s bellicose comments from a few days before, says Italy is willing to postpone the aggressive naval building program it had announced earlier, if France does the same.  “The Italian government is disposed to postpone laying down its program for naval construction in 1930 provided the French government does the same for the program for 1930.  Considering the relative strength of the two fleets such a concession would have a greater effect on the Italian navy than on the French.”  

Wednesday, May 28, 1930

Rome:  Admiral Giuseppe Sirianni, Minister of the Navy, proposes a US$77 million naval budget, an 18.5% increase over last year despite the global depression.  He says the budget is necessary to meet dictator Benito Mussolini’s warship-building goals.

Sunday, May 18, 1930: Bellicose speeches from Mussolini; Austria's fascists release Korneuburg Oath

Florence:  Another bellicose speech from Dictator Benito Mussolini as he reviews a massive assemblage of Italian armed forces that includes 45 planes and 14,000 troops.  Seated on a magnificent horse, Mussolini watches a parade of soldiers, sailors and blackshirt militiamen that’s being called the largest gathering of Italian armed forces since the end of the World War.

“Italy’s friendship is precious, but her enmity is hard.  There is great ignorance about us.  People abroad think we are a minor people, but we are a nation numbering 40 million.  They think we are governed by tyranny, but it is the Italian people who govern.  I am certain that in order not to remain prisoners of the sea, the Italian people are capable of great sacrifices.  More important than my speech today are the big guns and machine guns which I shall see in tomorrow’s parade.  The new naval program will be carried out exactly as it was laid down in 1929, and new ships will be afloat because the fascist will is a will of iron.  There are people who think they can isolate Italy, and who would not be adverse from starting a war against the Italian people, even through the territory of a third power.  We will await them at the crossing.”

“Fascist Italy henceforth will be a unit so organized as to be unassailable and without mortal danger.  Though words are beautiful things, rifles, machine guns, ships, airplanes, and big guns are still more beautiful.  Right is a vain word unless it is accompanied by might.”

“If by chance something should happen on the frontier, then we people, black shirts, army and former service men, would be at our posts ready to break the proud and vain attack.”  The crowd responds with cries of, “Down with France!”

In France, the full text of Mussolini’s similarly combative speech from yesterday is reprinted in many newspapers.

 

Korneuburg, Austria:  The fascist Heimwehr paramilitary releases the “Korneuburg Oath,” a declaration condemning both “Marxist class struggle” and “liberal-capitalist economic system,” as well as rejecting the Western democratic parliamentary and multi-party systems, and calling for an authoritarian system in Austria.  A translation of the text of the oath:

“We want to renew Austria completely.  We want the Republic of the Heimwehr.

From every comrade we demand an unshrinking belief in the mother country, utter fervor of coopration and a passionate love of homeland.  We want to reach for power in the state and reorganize state and economy for the benefit of the entire people.

We must forget our own interests, must subordinate all the ties and demands of the parties to our objective, because we wish to serve the community of the entire German people.

We reject Western democratic parliamentarianism and the party state.  We want to replace it with the autonomy of the corporations and strong governance that will not be formed from party representatives, but from leading figures from the major corporations and the most capable and proven men of our popular movement.

We shall fight against the corruption of our people by the Marxist class struggle and the liberal-capitalist economic system.  We want to realize the autonomy of the economy on the basis of occupational groups.  We shall overcome the class struggle and establish social dignity and justice.

We want to increase the prosperity of our people through a native economy of public utility.  The state is the embodiment of the nation as a whole; its power and leadership ensure that the corporations remain integrated in the imperatives of the national community.

May every comrade feel and avow himself to be an upholder of the new German state thinking; may he be prepared to sacrifice property and blood; may he know the three powers: belief in God, his own firm will, and the word of his leaders.”

Harbin, China:  A raid by soviet authorities on the Japanese consulate at Blagovestchensk, Russia, is provoking an outraged response by Japan.  Russia says it suspected the consulate of being involved in smuggling food from Manchuria into Siberia, and raided the facility to investigate.  Japan countercharges that the allegations are false, no evidence of such smuggling was found, and that the real issue is that Russian farmers and fishermen are starving due to Russian food shortages.  Japan says 300 starving miners ransacked a railway station searching for food, and trains on the Trans-Siberian Railroad have been held up for food as well.  “The threatening atmosphere is deepening daily in the villages in the vicinity of Khabarovsk due to a shortage of food throughout Siberia and as a result the Red Army stationed at Vladivostok has been mobilized in order to cope with the situation.”  Japan dispatches its consul from Harbin to investigate the situation.  

Saturday, May 17, 1930

Florence:  Dictator Benito Mussolini, after months of relative quiet, gives a bellicose speech before 200,000 screaming fascists, emphasizing the military might of Italy and her readiness to battle her enemies.  “There are people who think they can isolate Italy, and who would not be adverse from starting war against the Italian people, even through the territory of a third power.”  It is widely understood that Mussolini refers to France, whose relations with eastern European countries, Italy believes, are intended to isolate Italy.  “Fascist Italy henceforth will be a unit so organized as to be unassailable and without mortal danger.  Though words are beautiful things, rifles, machine guns, ships, airplanes and big guns are still more beautiful.” 

The French Ambassador to Italy visits Italian Foreign Minister Dino Grandi to express his displeasure. 

Paris:  Foreign Minister Aristide Briand has presented a proposal to the 26 European countries that are members of the League of Nations, calling for a federation of European states.  Some in the U.S. press are calling the idea a “United States of Europe.”  Briand first floated the concept in a speech last year, but now has presented it, fully formed, in a “Memorandum on the Organization of a Regime of European Federal Union.”  It is a bold proposal, though not without some precedent in European history.  Some fear Italy and Germany will view it as an attempt to isolate them and expand French influence over the continent.

Berlin:  Three people are killed when communists and nazis, on their way home from various political gatherings, clash in street brawls.

New York:  Police battle a crowd of 2,000 communists when they attempt to free picketers who had been detained after ignoring a court injunction not to demonstrate.  Four are arrested.

Sunday, May 4, 1930

Madrid:  Students shouting “Viva el rey!” enter a theater where Republicans have gathered and start hitting the meeting’s leaders over the head with sticks, sparking a riot.  From there, the fighting spreads outside, and eventually to the street in front of a hotel where the meeting’s speaker is staying.  Several are injured and arrested.

Rome:  Benito Mussolini reviews 25,000 fascist youth who have been participating in a camp.  Mussolini praises their morale and discipline.

Austria:  Chancellor Johann Schober, who had just promised the League of Nations he would disarm the country’s militarized political factions as a condition for receiving financing to improve Austria’s infrastructure, returns home to find a 10,000-man march being held by the nationalist Heimwehr paramilitary in Vienna, and 16,000 uniformed socialists gathering in St. Polten.  Police with machine guns keep the peace.

Washington:  More than 1,000 economists sign a letter to President Herbert Hoover, asking him to veto the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill pending in Congress.  The bill would raise tariffs on more than 20,000 import products to record levels, in hopes of protecting domestic producers during the economic depression.  The economists say it will have the opposite effect, provoking reprisal tariffs from other countries and worsening the depression.

Manchuria:  Warlord Zhang Xueliang, de facto ruler of Manchuria, is reportedly acquiring a small “air force” of bombers and scout planes after suffering under Russia’s air superiority during the Soviet incursion into Manchuria (see Nov. 17, 1929).  

Sunday, 27 April 1930

Rome:  Italy launches four new cruisers and a submarine in a festive event celebrating the country’s naval power.  Additionally, 90,000 members of fascist youth organizations are received into the Black Shirts, Mussolini’s fascist paramilitary, in ceremonies around the country.  They receive rifles to commemorate the occasion.

Madrid:  Melquiades Alvarez, former monarchist, criticizes King Alfonso in a speech, saying the king “forever” ignored his duties under the constitution of 1876 by allowing the dictatorship of Manuel Primo de Rivera.  Alvarez says a republic is now what Spain needs.

Berlin:  More bad economic news: the government announces that tax revenues were 70 million marks below budget for the fiscal year ended March 31. 

London:  Still more bad economic news: unemployment in Great Britain is higher than at any time in the last four years.

China: The nationalist government announces that martial law will be in effect for Shanghai May 1, in anticipation of communist unrest on May Day.  The government arrests 150 suspected communist agitators, detains 100 more, and displays weapons it says were planned for use in May Day uprisings.

Friday, 18 April 1930

Zurich:  Political exiles from fascist Italy report that political prisoners of dictator Benito Mussolini’s government, being held in prisons on the Lipari Islands in the Mediterranean, are being killed by their guards – two, at least, are reported dead.

Berlin:  More bad economic news: reports measuring economic activity such as railway car loadings of coal and other heavy goods are all down from the same time last year. 

Bydgoszcz, Poland:  Nine members of the Deutschtumbund, a German organization in the areas of Poland that were taken from Germany after the World War, are sentenced to prison for sabotaging Polish administrative decisions and spying.

Wednesday, 19 March 1930: Religious War of Words Continues

It's a day of religious "warfare of words."

Vatican City:  Pope Pius XI leads a special prayer service and mass at St. Peter’s for persecuted Christians in soviet Russia.  50,000 attend.  A Russian choir sings, and Orthodox Greeks join in Slavic chants during the service. 

 

Vienna:  Communists attack and break up a meeting of the Czechoslovakian Catholic People’s Party, which was protesting religious persecution in Russia. 

Moscow:  Meanwhile, the press here is full of anti-Pope messages.  The Atheist magazine publishes an article entitled, “Down With the Pope,” which calls the Pope the world’s biggest landowner and the capitalist scion of a Milan textile family.  The article goes on to boast that 33 churches, 2 cathedrals and 10 chapels were closed in one soviet in the past week, and 9 villages threw “God’s rubbish” from their homes, namely icons, church fences and bells, ecclesiastical robes and altar draperies.  The gold, silver, iron and other items filled 50 carts.  The magazine goes on to insist that the 240 remaining churches in the Moscow soviet be closed.  “We must turn the red capital into a godless city this year.” 

Pravda, official publication of the communist central committee, criticizes the Pope for his “personal enmity” for the soviets.

Berlin:  

Communist mobs attack churches holding prayer services for persecuted Christians in Russia.  The communists parade around the city all day in protest of the Pope’s prayer service in Italy.  But as night descends, they grow bolder and more violent.  In one working district, a group of communists bursts through the doors of a church shouting, “Long live the red front!” and ridiculing God.  The congregation rushes at the intruders and drives them out of the church, and a melee ensues.  Police arrive to break it up.

In another working district, communists attempt to raid a Catholic church, but are fought off by a guard established by the church members.

Yet not everything happening today is of a religious tone.  Minister of the Interior Karl Severing orders all funds for the police in the state of Thuringia suspended pending an investigation into charges that Wilhelm Frick, the nazi Minister of the Interior of that state, is plotting treason against the government.  This is in response to a manifesto issued by Frick (elected earlier this year), which denounced the federal government and called the public to support nazi ideas for nationalist rule.  The Prosecutor General will begin an investigation. 

Thursday, 6 March 1930: International Unemployment Day Rattles European, U.S. Cities

International Unemployment Day

New York – Detroit – Chicago – Boston – Milwaukee – Pittsburgh – Philadelphia – Cleveland – Washington – Seattle -- Berlin – Hamburg – Munich – Vienna – Manchester:  

In dozens of cities in Europe and the United States, International Unemployment Day is observed with demonstrations and marches, many of which erupt into riots, all organized by the Communist International, or COMINTERN. 

In New York, a crowd estimated at widely divergent numbers – from 35,000 to 110,000 – marches down Broadway toward city hall, and is broken up by an estimated 1,000 police.  As many as 100 are injured and another 100 arrested.  Police Commissioner Grover Whalen calls it the worst riot in the city since the World War. 

In Detroit, a crowd estimated from 30,000 to 100,000 turns out for a demonstration that devolves into a two-hour battle with police, who charge the crowd with horses, injuring anywhere from 5 to 26.  31 are arrested. 

In Chicago, a crowd estimated from 10,000 to 50,000 marches peacefully for four hours.  Crowds in other U.S cities range from 50,000 in Boston to 10-25,000 in Cleveland, where the crowd battles police.  Seattle sees 10,000 demonstrators battle police.  International Unemployment Day is reportedly observed in a total of 30 U.S. cities.

In Washington, several hundred communist demonstrators march in front of the White House.  Some attempt to climb the White House fence and are pulled down by spectators.  Then the whole crowd is dispersed by police with tear gas.  9 are injured, 13 arrested. 

In Berlin, where demonstrations were banned, smaller groups of demonstrators nevertheless clash with police in various outbreaks.  One is killed and 14 injured, half police.  270 are arrested.  Two people are killed in Halle, Germany, where marchers attack police by throwing rocks.  56 are arrested in Munich.

 

In Bilbao, Spain, 400 communists and socialists battle each other, some with gunfire.  Police arrest 40. 

In Vienna, a crowd of 1,500 attempts to rush police guarding the university district, where students are shouting derision at the marchers. 

Moscow:  Meanwhile, the Soviet newspapers Pravda and Izvestia publish front-page editorials urging workers and the unemployed worldwide to rise up in revolt against capitalism. 

International Unemployment Day in New York

Elsewhere:

London:  Meanwhile, back at the stalled naval conference, the French delegation returns, now that France finally has a government again.  Work on caps and parity of naval fleets is expected to resume.  

Moscow:  The government evicts 5,326 traders, former noblemen, landlords, officers and other members of the non-laboring class, from their homes, freeing up 33,367 square meters of living space, which the government then distributes to industrial workers and demobilized Red Army soldiers. 

Tripoli:  Native forces serving Italy clash with a fleeing band of Libyan resistance fighters south of the city, headed by Sulelman Sefennasser.  He and one of his sons are killed in the fighting, and his wife and five other sons are taken prisoner, along with the entire caravan.  

Saturday, 22 February 1930

Berlin:  Police raid the headquarters of the communist central committee and discover plans for a nationwide march on Berlin.  Meanwhile, Austrian Chancellor Johann Schober, fresh off his visit to and treaty with Italy (see Feb. 7), visits Berlin, giving rise to rumors that he may be seeking a revival of the alliance between Germany, Austria and Italy from before the World War.  He is scheduled to stay for 3 days.  The city holds no official reception for him, however, due to its dire financial situation.

 

Genoa:  The government suppresses the newspaper Genoa Caffaro, which clears away competition for the fascist newspaper Genoa Journal. 

Moscow:  The Society of the Godless, a soviet atheist body, announces that 3,380 churches, synagogues and mosques have been closed in Russia since the communist revolution in 1917 -- 1,380 were closed last year alone.  

Friday, 14 February 1930

Libya:  The Italian air strafing and bombing of fleeing Libyan resistance fighters, and their civilian family members, continues along the Libya-Algeria border. 

Spain:  2,000 strikers march to a large factory in Madrid, seeking to incite the women workers there to join them.  They clash with police.  Unemployment has soared in Spain after the resignation of dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera and the discontinuation of his large public works programs.  Food riots and other unrest are leaving many injured and arrested throughout the country.  A mob in Barcelona attacks the headquarters of the Patriotic Union, which supported de Rivera. 

Philadelphia:  250 alleged communists storm city hall to protest rising unemployment.  Police break up the attack and arrest 17.  Unemployment in the city is said to be at 200,000.

Thursday, 13 February 1930: Soviet Press Fires Back at Churches

Libya:  

Italian air strafing and bombing of fleeing Libyan resistance fighters, and their civilian family members, continues along the Libya-Algeria border. 

Moscow:  

The Soviet press fires back at Russia’s religious critics around the world.  Pravda, the official communist newspaper, says of the Pope’s recent criticisms of Russia’s persecution of religion: “His appeal is really a call to the nations to sever relations with the Soviet Union, for the soviet never will allow foreigners to interfere in their religious policy.  So far, all evil yelping against the soviets lacked only the Holy Father’s sweet voice.  This representative of God on earth hitherto preferred to hold his peace; he thought the weakening Orthodox Church would clear the way for Rome.  Only now, when he has become convinced that the working class in Russia intends to wipe out all superstitions without distinction of creed, has his Holiness decided to take up the defense of persecuted religion.  This head of the Catholic Church certainly is less interested in the problems of the Orthodox Church, Judaism, or even Catholicism than the worldly goods it may involve.  This means indifference to the progress of our industrialization, to collectivization of our agriculture, which spoil the beauty sleep of the western birds of prey.  Like every other financier and exploiter of labor, the Pope is an enemy of the working class.  That is why he appeals to all countries to make religious freedom a condition of recognizing the soviets.” 

The Komsomolskal Pravda, newspaper of the Young Communists’ League, publishes a cartoon of a bloated Pope holding a swastika with a small cross nailed upon it. 

London:  

Religious persecution in soviet Russia dominates discussion in the House of Commons.  Foreign Secretary Arthur Henderson, answering questions from legislators, says “Reports as regards the religious situation in Russia are receiving serious consideration of his majesty’s government.  The house may rest assured that his majesty’s government will use its influence in support of the cause of religious liberty and freedom of religious practices.”  British Ambassador to Moscow, Sir Esmond Ovey, is ordered to investigate reports of religious persecution in Russia, and the House of Lords passes a resolution denouncing Russia for its anti-religious activity.  Joseph Hertz, Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, joins his voice with those of the Catholic and Anglican churches in protest of Soviet religious persecution. 

Meanwhile, at the naval conference, reliable reports surface that Japan has agreed to a 66-2/3 ratio of cruisers compared to the United States and Great Britain.  This would represent an increase from Japan’s current 60% ratio, but less than the 70% Japan came into the conference seeking.  “Japan attaches special importance to eight-inch gun cruisers, and desires to maintain here a minimum strength sufficient for national defense, taking into consideration the strengths held by the other powers,” says Raijiro Wakatsuki, of Japan’s delegation, in an official statement before the conference.  But he makes no mention of the 70% ratio, which observers thought he would.  Thus the belief that Japan has agreed to yield on its stated demands.  “This certainly leaves the door wide open for future discussion and is not in any sense the ultimatum which might be apprehended in some quarters,” says an unofficial spokesman for the U.S. delegation. 

Yet Japan is unwilling to make such an explicit statement officially, in part because Japanese elections are coming up next Tuesday, and the delegation is concerned that the present government would be perceived as having backed down in London.

Elsewhere:  

Paris:  Russia claims French police have arrested the Second Secretary of the Soviet Embassy in the case of the disappearance of Alexander Koutiepoff.  Paris police deny the charge. 

Offenbach, Germany:  Communists and nazis clash in a street battle.

Berlin:  More impact from the global economic depression: The government decides to appropriate no funds for completion of a second Deutschland-class heavy cruiser, sometimes called a “pocket battleship,” which would be one of six Germany is allowed under the Treaty of Versailles.  An estimated $14 million is needed to complete it.

 

Spain: The depression also adds to the new government’s difficulties in getting established after the resignation of dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera.  Parades and demonstrations by the unemployed have left Madrid and Barcelona under heavy police presence.

Italy:  Still more impact from the global economic depression: unemployment is reported over 462,000.

Wednesday, 12 February 1930: Anglicans, Catholics Protest Soviet Religious Persecution; "Two-Thirds Ratio" for Japan Emerges from London Conference

Libya:  

Italian occupying forces battling Libyan resistance fighters step up their tactics.  Rodolfo Graziani, colonial governor and head of Italian forces in Libya -- who is reportedly furious at his inability to obtain a decisive battle with the rebels -- orders his air force to fly missions along the Libyan-Algerian border, harassing the rebels as they try to evade the Italians by slipping across.  According to one source, the warplanes bomb and strafe “the herd of humanity, consisting of soldiers, but also a multitude of women and children.”  Rebel leader Abd en-Nebi Belcher, with those following him, manages to cross the border and surrenders to the French at Fort Charlet in the Algerian desert oasis of Djanet. 

Great Britain:  

The Church of England joins the Catholic Church’s condemnation of religious persecution in Russia.  In speeches given simultaneously to separate bodies, the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Anglican Church, and the Archbishop of York, head of the Catholic Church in England, jointly denounce anti-religious activity by the Soviet Russian government.

 

“I feel bound to refer to a matter lying heavy on our conscience.  It stirs the strongest feelings.  It is the cruel and persistent persecution of all forms of religion which the soviet government continues to wage,” the Archbishop of Canterbury says.  “It is a record almost unparalleled in history of religious persecutions.  It is not any one form of religion which has been assailed, but it is every belief in God.  The persecution has been accompanied by popular blasphemies and obscenities and ridicule, encouraged, and even ordered, by the government.  I hoped there would be some mitigation of this cruel and barbarous policy, but it seems to be continuing even more relentlessly than before.  As Christian men, we cannot keep silent.  The time has come when the church should express its corporate sympathy by a united act of intercession.”

The Archbishop of York says, “No words can be too strong to express the indignation and abhorrence with which we hear day by day the news of persecutions in Russia.  Anything possible to mitigate the horrors of that persecution and bring it to an end ought certainly to be done.  There is real danger, however, lest we relieve our own feelings at cost to the very people whom we wish to succor.  Nothing could be more disastrous than to give the persecuting government the smallest ground to appeal to patriotism in support of its own policy.” 

London:  Meanwhile, at the naval conference, the Japanese delegation finally responds officially to the U.S. proposal that was presented to them Feb. 6.  The U.S. proposal reportedly called for Japan to accept a 60% ratio of cruisers to the U.S. and Great Britain, consistent with the ratio Japan is permitted in other categories of warships.  Japan had come to the conference, however, seeking a 70% ratio.  Japan’s reply, however, is not made public.  

Germany:

Ruesselheim:  Six-hundred communist agitators take over the Opel automobile manufacturing plant briefly, forcing workers out.  Police quickly subdue the agitators and restore order, arresting two German legislators who were involved.

Berlin:  Debate on the Young Plan continues in the Reichstag, with Joseph Wirth, Minister of the Occupied Areas, recommending approval.  “We finally agreed to the Young Plan in the confident hope that in America too there would sometime be a race of men who would not merely want to squeeze out of Germany and Europe everything possible, but who would let ethically moral principles count.” 

Tuesday, 11 February 1930

Berlin:  The Reichstag debate on the Young Plan grows rowdy when Alfred Hugenberg, the nationalist politician who spearheaded the Liberty Law campaign opposing the plan, proclaims vociferously that it will bring about Germany’s ruin.

 

London:  At the naval conference, France and Japan oppose the call by the U.S. and Great Britain for abolition of submarines.  France says lesser naval powers cannot do without the submarine, noting that subs are no different from other warships as instruments of death.  Japan says the submarine has legitimate military uses for defense, reconnaissance and in warding enemies out of national waters.  But both nations say they support limitations on submarine warfare.  Japan is “emphatically opposed to unlimited submarine warfare as witnessed during the World War.”

Paris:  An anti-communist crowd marches on the Soviet Embassy in protest of the recent disappearance and alleged abduction of former White Russian General Alexander Koutiepoff.  Police break up the marchers before they reach the embassy.

Cleveland, USA:  More effects of the global economic depression: a crowd of 3,000 unemployed people storms city hall and clashes with police, demanding food and jobs, shouting “work and wages, or we’ll fight.”  There are conflicting reports of who starts the actual fighting, however.  Reporters say members of the crowd begin shouting, “The police are clubbing us” before any clubbing has in fact begun, and that this cry was in reality a signal for the rest of the crowd to try to break through the police line.  It is only then that the police begin the clubbing.  In any event, at one point as many as 30 rioters and six police are lying on the city hall steps, being trampled by the rest. 

Rome:  Still more effects of the global economic depression: two of Italy’s four largest banks -- Credito Italiano and Banca Nazionale di Credito -- merge after suffering huge losses. 

Monday, 10 February 1930

Trieste:  The offices of the Popolo di Trieste, the official fascist party newspaper, are bombed, wrecking the editorial and composing rooms.  Sixteen people are injured, four seriously.  

Friday, 7 February 1930

Rome:  

Austria and Italy sign a Treaty of Friendship and Conciliation.  The countries fought on opposite sides in the World War, and the issue of former Austrian subjects in southern parts of the Tyrol region, who now live in Italy based on the redrawn post-war borders, has been a sore point between the two countries.

The pact calls for the creation of a conciliation committee to which differences between the two countries can be referred.  Austrian Chancellor Johan Schober gave Italian dictator Benito Mussolini the grand cordon with the gold star of merit to thank him for Italy’s friendship, including support for Austria at the recent Hague war debt reparation conference.

Observers, including the Austrian press, debate the significance of the treaty.  Some see it as part of a strategy by Mussolini to encircle Yugoslavia.  Others see it as a way for both Schober and Mussolini to resist “pan-Germans” in Austria, who see closer alliance with Germany as Austria’s future.

 

London:  

At the naval conference, the British delegation makes headlines the day after the U.S. delegation.  Prime Minister Gordon MacDonald joins in the U.S. call for the abolition of submarines; calls for a suspension of building battleships until 1936, with the ultimate hope that battleships may be abolished too; calls for tonnage limitations on cruisers; and more.  The conference, MacDonald says, “Ought not only reduce existing fleets and building programs, but put an end finally to competition in naval armaments and thus constitute an important step for ultimate elimination of the causes of war and the establishment of peace on an unassailable foundation.”  As with the U.S. announcement the day before, the Japanese delegation is not commenting on the British announcement.

Germany:   

Berlin:  President Paul von Hindenburg, the Reichstag, and the cabinet of Chancellor Hermann Mueller give their government entertainment appropriations to charity in hopes both of setting an example and leading the way in confronting Germany’s worsening economic situation.

Munich:  A newspaper publishes an article by an anonymous writer which states that the former Kaiser Wilhelm II expects to be recalled to rule.  The author, said to be a former nobleman and officer in the imperial German army, says he dined with Wilhelm in Doorn, Holland, where he lives.  “You are trained to obey and to serve, and what have you done with your new freedom?  What will you do when the president you have chosen for yourselves dies?  I will tell you.  The nation will call its Kaiser.”  

Saturday, 25 January 1930

Libya:  

Italian troops raise their flag over the city of Murzuq, captured four days ago, in a ceremony attended by Libya’s colonial governor and head of Italian military forces in Libya, Marshal Rodolfo Graziani.  Capture of the city is considered important in Italy’s campaign to suppress resistance fighters in the Fezzan area of southwestern Libya.  Italian forces also have captured the nearby town of Ubari. 

New York:  

Two-hundred communist agitators battle police in City Hall Park.  They are protesting the recent death of a worker who was shot by police while picketing a fruit and vegetable stand.  A police force nearly matching the size of the communist gathering is on guard.  At a pre-arranged signal, demonstrators try to race through the police lines to mount the city hall steps.  That’s when police start swinging.

Monday, 20 January 1930: Second Reparations Conference Ends

The Hague:  

The Second Reparations Conference ends, with all 18 officially represented debtor and creditor nations signing the agreement enacting the Young Plan as the new World War debt reparation payment framework.  A flurry of late-night, last-minute wrangling produced agreements satisfactory enough to Italy and Hungary that they, too, agreed to sign.  The agreement calls for Hungary to pay its creditors 13.5 million gold crowns per year from 1942 to 1966, and Austria to pay 1 million gold crowns per year over the same period. 

Only Czechoslovakia, despite signing, refuses to renounce its rights under the Treaty of Versailles.  No sooner than Belgian Prime Minister Henri Jaspar, who is presiding over the meeting, has read the preamble to the agreement, than the head of the Czech delegation asks for the floor.

“My country much regrets to introduce reservations into these agreements, but inasmuch as the Eastern European accord which has been reached is of such a nature that in the arbitration of our disputes with Germany, if the verdict is pronounced in favor of the Czechoslovakians, they would receive nothing, while if the verdict favors Germany we would have to pay, you can easily understand that in signing these accords, Czechoslovakia cannot consent to renouncing her rights under the Treaty of Versailles.”

This brings a sharp rebuke from Philip Snowden, Great Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, one of such vehemence that observers say it surpasses anything from the contentious August 1929 meetings of the same conference.  Nevertheless, by the end, Snowden is saying “the nations gathered around the conference table by their act of signature are no longer enemies and allies, but from now on must be friends.”

Of course, there’s a reason why some of the powers represented are so eager to finish up business: they and much of the world – despite the seriousness of purpose of The Hague conference – are more interested in the other conference that’s about to start in London.

To view a photo of the closing conference

Murzuk, Libya:  

Italian forces under Duke Delle Puglie, backed by a handful of warplanes, battle Libyan resistance fighters here, finally taking the town after fighting that kills 50 and wounds 24.  Twelve more are taken prisoner.  Italy has 18 native soldiers (fighting for Italy) wounded. 

Moscow:  

The Bezbosnik (Godless) newspaper publishes a report which says that Russia will soon issue a decree authorizing soviet officials to expel all foreign missionaries and clergy from the country.  The decree will supplement an earlier one which already prohibited any new missionaries from entering Russia, and also prohibits foreign religious organizations from sending money, literature or other forms of aid to people of faith in the country.  The decree will apply to Christians, Jews and Muslims.