Tuesday, 15 October 1929: "Stocks have reached a permanently high plateau"

United States: 

Yale Economist Irving Fisher, in a speech at the Purchasing Agents Association, makes the statement that stocks have reached “what looks like a permanently high plateau.” 

Germany: 

French forces begin evacuating Coblenz, Bad-Ems and Worms as part of the early withdrawal of foreign forces from German soil negotiated in the Young Plan.  

To see a map of Weimar Germany showing the Rhineland

Monday, 14 October 1929

China: 

The civil war between nationalist government and rebel forces, which has been fought off and on for over two years, breaks out in fresh fighting.  Rebel forces are reportedly pouring in to the southern province of Honan, and working to set up a rival capital in Peking to that of Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist government in Nanjing.  

Sunday, 13 October 1929: Soviet Action Again Near Khabarovsk

Manchuria:  

SOVIET FORCES ATTACK MANCHURIA SOUTHWEST OF THE RUSSIAN TOWN OF KHABAROVSK.  In one of the largest strikes of the border conflict so far, 800 Russian troops cross the Amur River late tonight under covering artillery fire and occupy the town of Linkianghsien, at the confluence of the Amur and Sungari rivers, in Manchuria.  The soviets reportedly began artillery bombardment of the Manchurian side of the river on October 11, intensifying it late tonight in advance of the incursion.  One report says the Russians sank three Manchurian gunboats, drowning all 500 crewmen.  Manchurian/Chinese forces have reportedly been harassing Russian river traffic, laying mines and shooting at passing boats.  This attack is a reprisal.

At Lahasusu, according to official dispatches, Chinese troops are in disorderly retreat from advancing Soviet forces, which are pursuing them deep into Manchurian territory and harassing them with artillery fire.  The retreating Chinese reportedly plunder stores along the way.

Nagoya, Japan:  

Prime Minister Osachi Hamaguchi, in a speech at a political rally of his party, says he hopes the London Naval Conference, to which his country recently accepted its invitation, will achieve not only limitations in navies, but actual reduction.  Under existing naval treaty, Japan is allowed 60% as many capital naval ships as Great Britain and the United States.  "We don't resent the assignment to Japan of naval ratios inferior to those of Great Britain and America.  But that ratio must not fade below the minimum requirements for the safety of the empire.  We hope the disarmament problem is entering a brighter phase."  He says such an outcome would "keep faith with the spirit of world peace and lighten the taxation load of all peoples."

Osachi Hamaguchi

Saturday, 12 October 1929

Berlin:  

The German government issues an official statement calling the Liberty Law campaign being pushed by Alfred Hugenberg (see Oct. 9) “a monstrous attempt to incite the German people against the government and annihilate the ten year good will policy of the republic with Germany’s former enemies.”  The statement urges Germans to reject the Liberty Law, and notes that Germany's foreign policy since the World War has secured such positives as reductions in the required war debt reparations payments, and liberation of the Rhineland.

Manchuria:

A Soviet flotilla on the Amur River opens fire on Chinese gunboats and land positions near Lahasusu. According to official dispatches, the firing starts at 5:30 a.m., and in short order, three Chinese gunboats are sunk.  A fourth is captured by the Russians, along with 7 barges and an army transport steamer.  The soviets lose no vessels, although 16 are killed, including the chief of the soviet Amur River Fleet.

Thursday, 10 October 1929

New York:  

Stocks tick upward 1.8%.  The market is at 353, higher than it started the month, as the rally from Saturday continues.

Leningrad:  

The first “anti-religious” university in Russia, and presumably in the world, opens.  The institution, named for Ivan Skvortsov-Stepanov, an early Soviet revolutionary and leader of atheism in Russia, is intended to prepare students to become active propagandists of militant atheism.  It opens with 300 students on the one-year anniversary of Skvortsov-Stepanov's death.

Wednesday, 9 October 1929: Prussia Declares Stahlhelm Illegal

Berlin: 

The government of Prussia, the state that makes up some 60 percent of Germany, bans the Stahlhelm (“Steel Helmets”), a nationalist paramilitary organization, in two provinces, on grounds that it is effectively an army.  The move is in response to the Stahlhelm’s support of the the Liberty Law campaign.

For months, a coalition of groups called the Reich Committee for the German People’s Petition has been campaigning, sometimes violently, for the Liberty Law, which opposes the Young Plan, would discontinue war debt payments altogether, and even prosecute government officials who support the Young Plan. The coalition was the brainchild of Alfred Hugenberg, a nationalist press baron who owns multiple newspapers, and is made up of many groups, including the German National People’s Party, a nationalist political party of which Hugenberg is head, and the radical, fascist, fringe National Socialist German Worker’s Party (nazis).  The coalition was formed to drum up support for a national plebiscite on the Liberty Law, to be conducted in October.  Under German law adopted after the World War, if 10 percent of voters nationwide sign a petition in favor of a proposed law, the Reichstag has to take up the measure. Hugenberg’s plebiscite is intended to gather the necessary signatures to force the Liberty Law to the Reichstag.

Also part of the coalition is the Stahlhelm, the largest of the many paramilitary organizations that operate in Germany, boasting some half a million members.  President Paul von Hindenburg is its honorary president.  The Stahlhelm is heavily comprised of former soldiers, and serves as an unofficial army reserve of sorts, after the standing German army was required to shrink under the Treaty of Versailles.  It was pro-nationalist from its beginning, and often serves as a kind of armed wing of Hugenberg’s political party.

Prussia’s Minister of the Interior issues his ruling in reprisal for the Stahlhelm’s sometimes heavy-handed activities in support of the Liberty Law, including violence.  The minister is a socialist, and much of Prussia is socialist-leaning.  Prussia issues a handbill as well, stating:  “The German government as well as an overwhelming majority in the German nation, realizes that the improvement in Germany’s international position cannot be forced by any German law, but is only obtainable step by step through constant efforts and negotiations with other powers.”  

Stahlhelm with old imperial flag

Moscow:  

Pravda, newspaper of the communist party, launches a new occasional feature titled, “To Know Our Enemies in Order to Hate them.”  It’s a review of capitalist countries, with the United States winning the honor of being evaluated first.  “Millions of European proletarians who sought freedom and happiness on American farms are disillusions after paying a bitter price.  Farmers are being reduced to beggars.  Taxes aggregate 30 percent of the value of farm production, while from four to five million workers are permanently unemployed.  Workers do not get vacations.  They are given no means to support themselves properly, and are likely one morning to find their jobs gone when they return to work.  Millionaires’ daughters order colored limousines to match every new gown.”

“Hence we must imbue communists with a real hatred for capitalists so that communists will fight harder.  Those American communists who refuse to believe in the inherent rottenness of American capitalism are being expelled.  Business is their god, money their king and commerce their ruler; but, as churches and thrones were crushed, so this American paradise will be crushed.”

Harbin, Manchuria:  

The U.S. consulate here receives a report from Leonard Lilliestrom, U.S. Vice Consul, confirming reports of atrocities by Red Army soldiers against White Russians in Hailar and Manzhouli.  Among the gruesome details: soviet cavalry has surrounded villages and forced males over 10 to the edge of town where they are mowed down with machine gun fire.  An estimated 150 White Russians have been killed by the soviets.

Elsewhere: 

Jaryczowo, Poland:  Anti-semitic unrest among ethnic Ukrainians flares into violence and death.  Last night a mob of Ukrainians attacked a synagogue during evening prayers, resulting in four Ukrainians killed and 11 Jews and 5 Ukrainians injured as the Jews fought back with candlesticks and furniture.  Today a large Ukranian mob attacks Jewish merchants, wounding 7, vowing revenge for the deaths of their kin.  Police are out in force, as both groups are heavily armed.

Hungary:  Jewish students are beaten in schools after distributing handbills.  Schools in Hungary have been known to ban Jewish students from classes with Hungarians, and Jews who protest this can face mistreatment.  

Rome: The fascist government bans certain editions of Jack London novels, branding them “anti-fascist.”

Tuesday, 8 October 1929: London Naval Conference Invitations Get Reactions

London:

Great Britain’s invitations to France, Italy, Japan and the United States, to participate in the naval conference announced last week during Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald’s meetings with U.S. President Herbert Hoover, are received at the various capitals.  France indicates it will accept, but makes clear it will fight a suggestion that the submarine be abolished.  France further suggests it will not accept limitations on cruisers, destroyers and submarines along the lines established for capital ships at the Washington Naval Conference, held in 1921-22 and involving nine nations.  Italy’s unofficial sources say Rome will accept too, but hold a stance similar to France’s.  The fascist press, however, nonetheless takes the opportunity to warn against the “imperialist” attitudes of Great Britain and the United States.

In Tokyo the invitation surfaces immediate rumors of a rift between civilian and military officials.  Naval officers oppose the suggestion of a five year extension on the moratorium on building new capital ships.  Civilian officials, however, are reportedly open to the idea.

 

Jaroslav, Russia:  

Soviet police arrest the archbishop here, the Bishop of Kinchema, a large group of other church officials, and a group of businessmen, on charges that they are engaged in a “counterrevolutionary” plot.

 

Cavalla, Greece:  

More than 1,000 tobacco workers on the island of Thassos, agitated by communists, seize a small ship and sail here to force authorities to distribute the money of the Tobacco Workers’ Unemployment Fund to them whether they are employed or not.  Officials are warned in time, however, and close the harbor to the ship, which eventually returns to Thassos.  Workers in Cavalla, however, stirred up by the excitement, take to demonstrating and rock-throwing before they are dispersed by police.

Harbin, Manchuria:  

Dispatches from here report that raiders from Russia, thought to be soviet soldiers, have crossed into Manchuria and killed 140 White Russian men, women and children.  “White Russians” were Russians who fought against the communists (or “Red” Russians) in the Russian Civil War, were driven eastward in their losing effort, and finally fled into Manchuria.  They were accused by the Soviet Union of being behind the disruption of the Chinese Eastern Railway in Manchuria.

Monday, 7 October 1929

Washington: 

Ramsay MacDonald, in the first speech ever given by a British Prime Minister to the U.S. Senate, promises that war between the United States and Great Britain will be an "impossibility" if both nations will do their part to implement the Kellogg-Briand Pact.*  "There can be no war.  Nay, more, it is absolutely impossible, if you and we do our duty in making the peace pact effective, that any section of our arms, whether land or sea or air, can never again come into hostile conflict."  

Ramsay MacDonald

Sunday, 6 October 1929: USA and Great Britain Announce London Naval Conference

Madison, Virginia, USA: 

President Herbert Hoover and British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, conferring at Hoover's private Rapidan Lodge, jointly announce they will invite five world powers to a naval conference in London in January 1930.  Purpose will be resumption of talks on parity and caps in naval fleets of the U.S., Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan.  

Negotiations had been going on for six months between the countries about such a gathering.  A previous naval treaty was signed in 1922 among the five nations -- all victors in the World War (accordingly, neither Germany nor Russia are to be invited to the conference).  That treaty was intended to limit the construction of new navy "capital ships" -- battleships, heavy cruisers and aircraft carriers -- in an attempt to prevent an arms buildup that might contribute to another war.  This conference would revisit those terms.

Hoover and MacDonald on White House steps

Bucharest:

Government officials say they suspect yesterday's assassination attempt on Alexandru Vayda-Voevod, Minister of the Interior, was intended to be the start of a broader campaign of communist unrest in Romania and throughout the Balkans.  Authorities say soviets recently held a conference at Odessa, Soviet Union, to discuss agitation in the Balkans in the wake of the failure of "International Red Day," August 1, on which the West European Bureau of the Communist International (COMINTERN) had called on workers throughout the world to hold demonstrations in the streets.  At this Odessa conference, Romanian authorities charge, the communists laid plans to join forces with autonomy movements in the Transylvania and Bessarabia regions of Romania, in an attempt to bring about revolution.  The government orders extra police guards at public buildings.

Warsaw:  

Socialist demonstrations on Socialist Youth Day against the government of Josef Pilsudski turn into a riot.  Police move in to restore order and arrest the demonstration’s leaders.

Saturday, 5 October 1929

Bucharest: 

An assassination attempt is made on Minister of Interior Alexandru Vaida-Voevod.  As Vaida-Voevod is approaching his automobile after leaving his office, a man approaches and fires a single shot which shatters the car window but misses the minister.  Captured later, the assailant says his act is revenge for the shooting of 30 striking miners in Lupeni, Romania, two months ago by the military.  Authorities suspect communist backing for the attempt.  

Paris:  

Twenty police and 100 socialists are injured when communists attack a meeting being held by the socialists to discuss world peace.  The communists beat dozens of socialists before police arrivee to restore order.

New York: 

One of the fastest rebounds in New York Stock Exchange history ends a two-day skid.  Share values rise nearly 5% on weekend trading.