Today in History: August 29-September 2
Today in History: August 29-September 2
The Nazis invade Poland, the Third Crusade culminates in a treaty, and more
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Happy Labor Day to those who are celebrating! I’m on a bit of a break but we’ll return to our regular schedule tomorrow.
August 29, 1526: The first of two battles involving the Ottoman Empire near the town of Mohács, in what is now southern Hungary, ends in a decisive Ottoman victory. The Ottomans were concerned about potential Habsburg expansion into the Balkans (prompted by King Louis II of Hungary’s 1515 marriage to Mary of Habsburg) and were being encouraged by their emerging French allies to attack their common Habsburg foe from the east. Louis died during a panicked retreat and his Jagiellonian dynasty died with him. Hungary effectively ceased to exist as a kingdom, with its northern and western portions coming under Habsburg rule and the rest held as an Ottoman vassal. The battle opened central Europe up to the Ottomans, a state of affairs that would reach a high water mark of sorts in their failed 1529 siege of Vienna.
August 29, 1842: Britain and Qing China sign the Treaty of Nanking, ending the 1839-1842 First Opium War. China was obliged to pay reparations to Britain and Hong Kong became a British colony, which it remained until 1997. The treaty also ended China’s “Canton System,” which had forced all foreign trade to run through the port city of Guangzhou (Canton) and was the means by which the Chinese government controlled those foreign commercial interactions, and forced the Qing to accept unequal conditions on Chinese-British trade.
August 30, 1363: The navies of two competing factions of the Red Turban rebels vying to replace the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty—one led by Zhu Yuanzhang and the other by Chen Youliang—begin a five week battle on China Lake Poyang. When it was over, Chen Youliang was dead and Zhu Yuanzhang’s faction was ascendant. Zhu and his forces eventually overthrew the Yuan and he took the throne as the Hongwu Emperor, the first ruler of China’s Ming Dynasty.
August 30, 1922: The Republican Turkish army defeats an occupying Greek force at the Battle of Dumlupınar in western Anatolia. In their victory the Turks destroyed the better part of an entire Greek army corps and began driving the rest of the Greek army toward the western Anatolian coast. The Greek position was untenable and they withdrew completely from Anatolia in mid-September.
August 31, 1907: Britain and Russia sign the Anglo-Russian Convention, which closes arguably the last chapter in their “Great Game” rivalry in Asia, at least until the 1917 Russian Revolution. The two empires, having already agreed to mark Afghanistan as the frontier between their domains, further agreed to divide Iran into spheres of influence (Russian in the north, British in the south), to recognize Afghanistan as part of Britain’s sphere of influence, and not to interfere in Tibetan affairs. There’s a case to be made that the Cold War brought the “Great Game” back, but historians generally mark that as something different and consider the true Great Game to have ended with this convention.
August 31, 1957: The Malayan Declaration of Independence is proclaimed by Tunku Abdul Rahman, then-Chief Minister of the Federation of Malaya. The declaration acknowledged the end of the British protectorate over the nine Malay states that made up the federation. This date is annually commemorated as Malaysian Independence Day, but there is a bit of controversy about that because Malaysia didn’t come into existence until 1963, when the former British colonies of North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore joined the federation (Singapore left a couple of years later). Some folks in North Borneo and Sarawak take issue with their “independence day” commemorating an event that took place before they were part of the country.
September 1, 1880: A decisive British victory at the Battle of Kandahar ends the Second Anglo-Afghan War. British authorities deposed Afghan Emir Ayub Khan Barakzai and replaced him with his more pliable cousin, Abdur Rahman Khan.
September 1, 1939: Nazi Germany invades Poland. The German offensive began a week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the USSR and a day after the pact’s ratification by the Supreme Soviet. The initial German invasion overwhelmed the outgunned Polish military, and a subsequent invasion by the Red Army on September 17 sealed Poland’s fate and resulted in a partition of the country. The invasion is regarded as the start of World War II, as it triggered French and British declarations of war against Germany.
September 1, 1969: The Libyan Free Officers Movement, led by a young colonel named Muammar Gaddafi, overthrows King Idris of Libya in a coup d’état. Idris had been broadly unpopular, seen as siphoning off a disproportionate share of Libya’s newfound oil wealth and viewed as tyrannical by tribes that were accustomed to a great deal of autonomy. He was also in poor health, and when it became known that he planned to abdicate in favor of his nephew on September 2 the officers moved to preempt that. Gaddafi declared the founding of the “Libyan Arab Republic” and then set about implementing a political and economic program aligned with that of his idol, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, including its tenets of Arab socialism and pan-Arabism as well as its authoritarian elements.
September 2, 31 BCE (or thereabouts): Octavian’s forces decisively defeat the navy of Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the naval Battle of Actium. Actium effectively marked the end of the war between Octavian and Antony, as both Antony and Cleopatra subsequently retreated to Alexandria and eventually committed suicide after Octavian besieged the city. His rival gone, Octavian became the first emperor of Rome, taking the title Augustus to mark his new status.
September 2, 1192: The Third Crusade effectively ends with the Treaty of Jaffa, under the terms of which Richard the Lionheart and Saladin agreed to a three year cessation in hostilities, during which time Saladin would allow Christian pilgrims to visit any holy sites in his territory, including Jerusalem. Richard agreed to surrender the city of Ascalon (modern Ashkelon) to Saladin, but only after destroying its fortifications. The treaty was the product of Richard’s realization that he lacked the manpower to besiege Jerusalem and that he needed to return home to defend his French territories.
September 2, 1870: The Prussian Third and Fourth armies thoroughly defeat the French Army of Châlons at the Franco-Prussian War’s Battle of Sedan, in northeastern France. In military terms the Prussian victory was of significant importance. The entire Army of Châlons, which had been trying to come to the Army of the Rhine’s aid during the Siege of Metz, was eradicated, suffering some 18,000 casualties and a whopping 104,000 soldiers captured. In political terms the impact was massive. It just so happens that French Emperor Napoleon III had accompanied the Army of Châlons to Metz, and he was among those taken prisoner. Two days later, an uprising in Paris saw whatever was left of the empire give way to the “Government of National Defense,” which attempted to salvage the war but ultimately surrendered in January 1871 and transitioned into the French Third Republic.