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1919
• On 18 January, the Paris Peace Conference begins. As a result of the Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28 June, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania become independent, free of Austrian and Russian rule. Germany loses large areas of land, must disarm, has to pay heavy reparations and has to accept the 'war guilt' clause, acknowledging its responsibility for the war. The League of Nations, an international body supported by US president Woodrow Wilson, is also formed. • On 5 January, the Spartacist revolutionary group, led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, begins a revolt in Berlin, but on 15 January, it is brutally suppressed by paramilitary troops. • In Ireland, members of Sinn Féin (We Ourselves), a radical republican party, who have been elected to the British Parliament in Westminster refuse to attend it and form their own assembly in Dublin. The Irish War of Independence begins (ends 1921). • In Moscow, the Comintern, or Communist Third International, is founded in March with the aim of co-ordinating different Communist parties around the world. • On 13 April, at Amritsar in India, British troops massacre 379 peaceful nationalist protesters. This intensifies resentment against British rule. • John Maynard Keynes publishes The Economic Consequences of the Peace, which criticises the Treaty of Versailles, arguing that demanding reparations from Germany only increases that country's instability. • Two British pilots, John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, fly across the Atlantic. |
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