Albert Einstein’s reception of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics marked a major turning point for the field of theoretical physics, and in society’s broader struggle to accept increasingly complex scientific discoveries. This event also corresponds with a point in time when Einstein’s reputation in the media was finally being backed by the approval of an organization with global prestige. Thus the impact of the prize upon his fame highlights how science’s place in the public sphere was evolving dramatically during the interwar period. The decade of the 1920s is generally known as a time when traditional outlooks grappled with developments in culture and technology, and Einstein’s experiences with fame and recognition reflect an analogous conflict. From the perspective of the Nobel Committee, which had dismissed his name in the nominations for over a decade, this story reveals the challenge of maintaining authority over the entire academic field, in an age where headlines were gravitating towards entertainment above all else. Immersed in his own personal struggle to justify his controversial theories to both public and private audiences alike, Albert Einstein’s reception of the Nobel Prize in Physics sheds light on the trials and tribulations that come with being the modern world’s first celebrity scientist.

Beginning in the first few years of the 20th century, Albert Einstein made a name for himself as a thinker who would not be bound by classical schools of thought, or by the discouragement of mainstream academic institutions. In 1905, while working as a patent clerk in Switzerland, he published a paper on the photoelectric effect, which would become his gateway into relevance in the scientific community, and ultimately the justification for his reception of the Nobel Prize.¹ This paper built upon the work of Einstein’s contemporaries, but added new theories to the mix that would eventually pave the way for technological developments ranging from X-rays to digital camera sensors. His studying of the photoelectric effect was directly cited by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in the awarding of the Nobel Prize not only because it was an exceptionally topical discovery given the expansion of electricity and electrical machinery around the turn of the century, but also because it was far less controversial than his most notable work: the theory of general relativity.²

General relativity, which was first published in May of 1916, stands on par with scientific discoveries such as the debunking of a geocentric understanding of the solar system, or the first analysis of DNA in terms of how much it uprooted scientists’ comprehension of the world. Einstein had proposed such a fundamental shift in perspective that many other physicists were forced to conclude that either much of their own work was irrelevant, or that Einstein himself was merely an extraordinarily imaginative lunatic. Given the resulting uproar from the scientific community, the theory of general relativity posed a tremendous problem to the Nobel Committee and other well-established academic institutions, and to the general public as a whole.

In the world of the early 1920s, physics was not seen as a malleable field to be drastically and sporadically reshaped by the ideas of one lone thinker, it was part of a stable canon of academia, which was only to be gradually developed over time by approved experts. When observations of a solar eclipse in 1919 ultimately proved Einstein’s theories to be accurate, hordes of prestigious scientists were shockingly forced to reevaluate their authority, and the press brought the spectacle to the masses. In the proverbial “blink” of a solar eye, audiences all over the world were reading about how the theories of a largely unknown theoretical physicist had left Western civilization’s most trusted minds in disarray and confusion.

Newspapers were utterly incapable of explaining the machinations of the theory to their readers, yet felt so pressured to assert that humanity’s scientific knowledge had not collapsed completely. One subheading from Pennsylvania even reads, “Men of Science More or Less Agog… Stars Not Where They Seemed or Were Calculated to Be, but Nobody Need Worry.”³ General relativity’s dramatic confirmation and incalculable impact upon intellectual communities created a swirl of public awareness around the name Albert Einstein, which would cement him as one of the only celebrity scientists of the time, and draw increased pressure for a Nobel Prize. However, the committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences remained wary about recognizing someone who had so consistently failed to play by the rules of academic progress.

Between 1910 and his eventual reception of the Nobel Prize for 1921, Einstein was nominated by multiple fellow scientists every year except for 1911 and 1915, with many nominations mentioning both his pragmatic work on the photoelectric effect and his theoretical work on relativity. Although public audiences and leaders of mainstream academic institutions were skeptical of general relativity and the evidence of the 1919 eclipse, individuals who had experience proposing seemingly outlandish concepts in scientific fields often rallied behind Einstein, and celebrated the undeniable brilliance of his ideas. By the beginning of the 1920s, many such scientists were even writing letters to the Nobel Committee in support of Einstein’s contributions to the field of physics. While some argued that his earlier work alone should justify a Nobel Prize regardless of whether or not general relativity had been reliably proven, others went as far as to argue that even his more recent, radical work had already been essentially proven, and should thus be recognized as a revolutionary scientific achievement. In support of Einstein for the 1920 Nobel Prize, the prominent Danish physicist Niels Bohr stated that Einstein’s work, and specifically relativity were, “…advances of decisive significance for the development of research in physics.”⁴

Despite the increased support and respect from countless influential voices, the Nobel Committee repeatedly commissioned additional reports on the merit of general relativity, which deemed it undeserving of a Nobel Prize over and over again. One explanation for this polarization within the scientific community is that many of Einstein’s supporters were also theoretical physicists, and therefore had been more directly exposed to his earlier work, and were fundamentally more accustomed to experimental, imaginative theories. The Nobel Committee on the other hand, appointed people like Allvar Gullstrand to make the aforementioned reports on the reputability of relativity, although Gullstrand had made his name in ophthalmology and medicine. When his report on Einstein’s theory was published in conjunction with his considerations of the various Nobel Prize candidates in 1921, it was the first time Gullstrand had ever technically written on relativity.⁵

Particularly in 1921, these specially commissioned reports were a hindrance to Einstein’s reception of the prize. While Gullstrand claimed that general relativity was too controversial and untested to be credited with a Nobel Prize, his fellow Nobel Committee member Svante Arrhenius reported that Einstein’s earlier work on the photoelectric effect was not radical enough to be recognized on the global stage. Arrhenius had been tasked with informing the committee on whether or not Einstein’s work on the photoelectric effect alone could be justification for a Nobel Prize, but was personally of the opinion that the 1921 award should be given to an “experimentalist.”⁶ Caught between the clear internal conflict of the Nobel Committee, both Einstein and the entire scientific community was robbed of commendation that year, with no prize in physics being awarded in 1921.

In 1922, Einstein was obviously nominated once more, and the letters from other scientists flooded in again. However, 1918 Nobel laureate and well-known physicist of the time Max K. Planck took the extra step beyond writing a recommendation letter, and provided the committee with a plan that accorded Einstein proper recognition, while not dismissing the skepticisms of the past years. Planck proposed retroactively giving the 1921 prize to Einstein, and awarding the 1922 prize to Niels Bohr, who had also been nominated multiple times in recent cycles. Again the Nobel Committee conducted additional reports on the merit and scientific significance of both the photoelectric effect and general relativity, and while Gullstrand held fast to his doubtful conclusions, it was not enough to overtake the pressing evidence that Einstein deserved the prize even without taking relativity into account. On November 10, 1922, Albert Einstein was informed of his reception of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, in a note that specifically stated that it was in recognition of his work on the photoelectric effect and not on general relativity.⁷ In true “Einstein” fashion, he and his wife were halfway around the globe, visiting Japan when the Nobel Prize presentation ceremony occurred.⁸

Significance

The dichotomy between Albert Einstein’s rise to fame during the early 20th century and the Nobel Committee’s hesitance to award him the Nobel Prize in Physics is emblematic of the widespread conflict of that time between institutionalized knowledge and the common experience. World War I exposed how unabated technological development could just as quickly break civilization down as it could build it up in the first place, and from this phenomena, science and technology became sequestered to an isolated component of society. Whereas the intellectual discoveries that culminated in the invention of electric lights had swiftly altered nearly every corner of the industrialized world, the publishing of general relativity had absolutely no significance to the average person’s life. Yet the scientific community was utterly besides themselves, struggling to rectify how ideas so seemingly outlandish actually redefined their understanding of the mechanics of the universe overnight.

Science may have become more broadly integrated into the public consciousness during the 1920s, but this did not mean that it was becoming more accessible as a field, or even any more practical. Newspapers of the decade loved painting Einstein as the controversial free-spirit of academia precisely because his theories could not be understood or applied to the day-to-day realities of life. Theoretical physics was beginning to explore such otherworldly zones of knowledge, to the point where Einstein’s public persona resembled a mad scientist from a fictional tale, who had been pulled out of literature and dropped into the actual scientific community. Mainstream academic institutions were undoubtedly angered by this, as longstanding conventions dictated that research and discovery was most successful when it was clearly aimed at societal progress. However Einstein himself accepted that his place in the public consciousness, and perhaps also milestones of recognition such as the Nobel Prize, would never fully encapsulate the passion that kept him engaged in his own work. Rather his status as a well-known intellectual during the 1920s bound him to contemporary thinkers by, as Lynn Dumenil phrases it, “their shared consciousness of modern times and their role as interpreters of their culture.”⁹ With a task as daunting as interpreting quantum mechanics and relativity to mainstream audiences and reporters, it is no surprise that Einstein developed into the whimsical, imaginative presence that he is remembered for to this day.

The publicity surrounding Albert Einstein after his reception of the Nobel Prize in Physics also exposed him to an emerging component of fame: the oversimplification and misinterpretation of one’s identity.¹⁰ Since newspapers could not spend columns upon columns explaining mathematical proofs of the theories that had won him the prize, they instead searched for controversy under any rock which could be turned over. This is already obvious in relation to the 1919 eclipse which was claimed to have proven general relativity, for papers immediately covered debates between frustrated scientists, without even being able to explain what was being debated. This type of press continued to become increasingly personal for Einstein throughout the twenties, as his background as a German-born Swiss citizen, who had become widely popular in England and America since roughly the end of World War I, entangled him in the web of geopolitics. Einstein himself was tremendously aware of the media’s ability to influence his public image since he gained global notoriety, stating that:

“…today in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be regarded as a bête noire, the description will be reversed and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English.”

“Einstein on the Palestine University,” The Denver Jewish News, May 11, 1921, p. 1.

Albert Einstein’s reception of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics was a monumental event both for the field of theoretical physics, and for the role of science in popular culture during the early 20th century. Throughout all the turmoil between his supporters and conservative skeptics within the Nobel Committee, the eventual achievement signified a prestigious academic institution’s recognition that they could not forever maintain authority over who became an ambassador of intellectualism. Einstein’s subsequent fame in that role was shaped by the developing celebrity culture of the 1920s, but also serves as an example of someone who did not let fame dictate their work. Nobel Prizes and newspaper headlines alike, what mattered was the sense of discovery and imagination that is still associated with the name: “Einstein.”

Citations

Footnotes

1. Jennifer Ouellette, “Einstein and the Photoelectric Effect,” American Physical Association News, January 1, 2005. ︎
2. Abraham Pais, “How Einstein Got the Nobel Prize,” American Scientist 70, no. 4 (July-August 1982): 358. ︎
3. “Confusion Regarding Conditions in the Heavenly Power Plants,” Tri-County Independent, November 10, 1919, 7. ︎
4. Abraham Pais, “How Einstein Got the Nobel Prize,” American Scientist 70, no. 4 (July-August 1982): 363. ︎
5. Ibid, 363. ︎
6. Ibid, 363-364. ︎
7. Ibid, 364. ︎
8. Jerry Adler, “When Albert Einstein Visited Japan,” Smithsonian Magazine, May 2018. ︎
9. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 149. ︎
10. Ibid, 77-78. ︎

Bibliography

• Featured Image: Karnell, Anders Wilhelm. Einstein speaks in Gothenburg, Sweden 1923. July 11, 1923. Accessed March 16, 2026. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Einstein_foto.gif.
• Adler, Jerry. “When Albert Einstein Visited Japan.” Smithsonian Magazine, May 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/albert-einstein-visited-japan-180968737/.
• “Confusion Regarding Conditions in the Heavenly Power Plants.” Tri-County Independent, November 10, 1919, p. 7.
• Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.
• Isaacson, Walter. Einstein: His Life and Universe. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007.
• Missner, Marshall. “Why Einstein Became Famous in America.” Social Studies of Science 15, no. 2 (May 1985): 267-291. https://www.jstor.org/stable/285389.
• Ouellette, Jennifer. “Einstein and The Photoelectric Effect.” American Physical Society News, January 1, 2005.
• Pais, Abraham. “How Einstein Got the Nobel Prize: Why did the Nobel Committee for Physics wait so long before giving Einstein the Prize, and why did they not award it for relativity?” American Scientist 70, no. 4 (Summer 1982): 358-365. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27851543.
• The Nobel Prize Organization. “Nomination Archive: Albert Einstein.” Accessed March 17, 2026. https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=2728.
• Wazeck, Milena. “Marginalization processes in science: The controversy about the theory of relativity in the 1920s.” Social Studies of Science 43, no. 2 (April 2013): 163-190. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43284178.

More Resources

• Arora, Jagdish Krishanlal. The Nobel Prize and Its Global Influence. Independently Published, 2025.
• Elton, Lewis. “Einstein, General Relativity, and the German Press, 1919-1920.” Isis 77, no. 1 (March 1986): 95-103. https://www.jstor.org/stable/232505.
• Greene, Brian. “Why He Matters.” Scientific American 313, no. 3 (September 2015): 34-37.
• Pais, Abraham. “Knowledge and Belief: The Impact of Einstein’s Relativity Theory.” American Scientist 76, no. 2 (Spring 1988): 154-158. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27855069.

Chris Flug

A senior at Ramapo College, majoring in American Studies and minoring in Anthropology.

In the 1920s, American culture was increasingly becoming more secularized, creating tensions between modernity and traditional religious values. The first “Miss America” pageants embodied these conflicts, as it became both a target of religious resistance and a reflection of a callback to older ideas. Americans struggled to balance adapting to modernity while preserving their traditional beliefs and values. Religion was losing its influence on Americans with many standards straying away from the strictness of Victorian attitudes. Religion and Protestantism was no longer a dominant force in cultural norms and in efforts to maintain religion, urban churches started programs that created places of worship alongside spaces for social, recreational, and educational purposes. However, many religious leaders, including Protestant ministers and Jewish leaders, faced declining attendance and decreasing support for missionary efforts. These leaders viewed the popular culture of the 1920s, dominated by materialism and the pursuit of wealth, as a decline in religious values. Religious fundamentalists and Evangelical Christians also feared that the country was experiencing a moral and spiritual decline.¹ The first “Miss America” pageants of the 1920s serve as an example of an event that religious groups sought to oppose through protests, aiming to dismantle what they considered a moral decline. The “Miss America” pageant included a bathing suit competition, which many religious groups opposed. They sought to combat the rise of swimwear in the 1920s, particularly for women, viewing it as immoral and immodest. Moral outrage from clergymen contributed to the censorship of physical appearances on public beaches, as they insisted that women cover their knees.² This influenced the “Miss America” pageant because of its emphasis on “bathing beauties”. The pageant was met with further resistance with religious groups claiming it damaged the good choices, reputation, and morals of young women. Groups like Southern Baptists and the “Atlantic County Federation of Church Women”, joined in resistance and protest. Not only did they believe it damaged women’s morals, but they also viewed it as the exploitation of women for financial gain and corrupting them by encouraging rivalry among themselves.³ These protests are credited as having an important role in why the pageant was temporarily paused in 1928 through the early 30s.

Ironically, while traditional religious groups opposed the pageant for being “immoral”, it was an event that eagerly promoted a “traditional” and “conservative” idea of femininity. The “Miss America” pageant aimed to uphold the image of a more traditional woman, distancing itself from  the “New Woman,” represented by women in politics and flappers. Before the “Miss America” pageant was established in 1921, suffragettes held suffrage pageants. They dressed up as influential women in history, seeking to raise public awareness and funds for their political efforts.⁴ However, the “Miss America” pageant focused only on beauty, based on what men and the audience viewed as beautiful. In addition, the pageant strived to distance itself from the flapper image. Flappers were young, single women who strayed away from Victorian constraints by wearing bobbed hair, shorter and less shaped skirts, darker makeup, and smoked. In contrast, the “Miss America” pageant praised “non threatening” women who had conservative hairstyles such as longer hair, were more subservient, viewed beauty as an important goal, and demonstrated capability of being a good wife, homemaker, and mother.⁵ Contestants who had longer hair were more often praised than those with bobbed or bobbed-like hair. It was an important characteristic for “Miss America” to have, especially in the earlier competitions. Pageant organizers also tried to portray the event as “above alcohol” or other habits such as smoking. Overall, the pageant wished to portray its winners as symbols of what a 1920s American woman “should be and look like”. While religious traditionalists viewed it as immoral, the pageant still sought to revive a more traditional ideal of Victorian-like femininity and virtue.

Bibliography

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.

Riverol, Armando. Live from Atlantic City: The History of the Miss America Pageant Before, After, and in Spite of Television. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992.

Latham, Angela J. “Packaging Woman: The Concurrent Rise of Beauty Pageants, Public Bathing, and Other Performances of Female ‘Nudity.'” Journal of Popular Culture 29, no. 3 (1995): 149–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1995.00149.x.

Watson, Elwood, and Darcy Martin. “The Miss America Pageant: Pluralism, Femininity, and Cinderella All in One.” Journal of Popular Culture 34, no. 1 (June 1, 2000): 105–26. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3840.2000.3401_105.x.  

Watson, E., ed. “There She Is, Miss America”: The Politics of Sex, Beauty, and Race in America’s Most Famous Pageant. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Bettmann Archive. Policewomen Checking Length Violations. Chicago, Illinois, 1921.

Bettmann Archive. 1924 Miss America from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ruth Malcomson. 1924.

Thomas, Bob. Cinema Personalities, 1923, American Actress Colleen Moore. Popperfoto/Getty Images, 1923.

Featured Photo: Atlantic Foto Service. Contestants of the 1925 Miss America Pageant. Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1925.

Citations

1. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 169-186. ︎
2. Angela J. Latham, “Packaging Woman: The Concurrent Rise of Beauty Pageants, Public Bathing, and Other Performances of Female ‘Nudity,’” Journal of Popular Culture 29, no. 3 (1995): 158, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1995.00149.x. ︎
3. Armando Riverol, Live from Atlantic City: The History of the Miss America Pageant Before, After, and in Spite of Television (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992), 24. ︎
4. Elwood Watson, ed., “There She Is, Miss America”: The Politics of Sex, Beauty, and Race in America’s Most Famous Pageant (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 28-29. ︎
5. Watson, “There She Is, Miss America”, 32. ︎

grlynn

Grlynn is a Ramapo College senior majoring in history

Before the fire, Smyrna was a vibrant, diverse city, perhaps the most diverse within modern-day Turkey by the beginning of the 1920s. According to the most recent statistics before the city burned, there were one hundred and sixty-five thousand Turks, one hundred and fifty thousand Greeks, twenty-five thousand Armenians, twenty-five thousand Jews, and twenty thousand foreigners.¹ Compare this to Constantinople’s population, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, from a decade before, which had two hundred seventy nine thousand Muslims, sixty four thousand Greeks, twenty seven thousand Armenians, and 13 thousand Jews.² Smyrna’s demographics resembled those of an American city rather than one that might be part of an ethnic Greek or Turkish state. The city had four quarters: the Turkish/Muslim Quarter, Jewish Quarter, Armenian Quarter, and Greek/European Quarter. Although it would be very common to see all 4 groups outside of their quarters and mingling with each other. There was even a 5th group who resided outside of the city called the Levantines who were descendents of European immigrants that had started to assimilate into Turkish culture.³ 

Once WWI ended everyone knew that Smyrna was going to change hands, but the question was how would each of these groups fit into the state that would control Smyrna next. The Ottoman Empire, the state that governed Smyrna before, was on its last legs and the Greeks had plans to annex Western Turkey. Inside the Ottoman Empire a group of Turkish nationalists called the Young Turks, were becoming very popular and it seemed the Young Turks and the Greeks would soon be on a collision course for Smyrna. The Turks, the Greeks, and maybe even the Armenians knew what each of these states meant for them, but for the Jews it was different. They faced the same questions as the Jews in America during the 1920s: how to balance their Jewish identity with that of their state. Under the Ottoman Empire, Jews were Jews, as it wasn’t a nation-state, but under a Turkish or Greek state it was more complex. In America during the 1920s, Jews found ways to preserve their ethnic identity while embracing Americanization.⁴

The Greeks ended up being the first to make move on Smyrna after WWI ended. The Greeks at the Paris Peace conference of 1919 represented by their Prime Minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, claimed almost all of modern-day Western Turkey that bordered the Aegean Sea on the grounds that it was the historic lands of the Greeks and that many of those places had Greek majority populations. . Then on May 9 at a meeting of the big three Allied Powers, Britain, France, and the United States would decide to allow the Greeks to invade Smyrna to deter the Italians from gaining territory in Asia Minor. David Lloyd George brought up the idea to Venizelos by asking him the simple question of “Do you have troops available?”⁵ This simple question would have obvious consequences that the leaders of the big three all should of known but decided to ignore. By letting the Greeks invade they opened up Pandora’s box and the Greeks, Turks, and Armenians of Anatolia would pay a great price for it.

The Greek Invasion and Occupation of Smyrna

The Greeks invaded Smyrna on the May 15, 1919 and were greeted by the cheers of the Greek population. The Greeks had failed to plan ahead to secure the city though and the month that followed the invasion was chaos. The Greeks started looting the Turkish houses and massacres of both Turks and Greeks were committed. For a month there wasn’t even a Greek General in Smyrna.⁶

The Greek occupation and invasion of Smyrna would only last for about 3 years. The invasion only made the Turk and Greek Nationalists hate each other even more. With Greeks being resettled, Turks being kicked out, and the lower ranks of the military and Greek citizens committing violent acts against the Turks. ⁷ The Greeks decided to keep pushing East but eventually the Turks beat them back and pushed them all the way back to Smyrna. Turkish troops under the command of their nationalist commander, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, ended the Greek occupation of Smyrna on September, 9, 1922. This assured Smyrna and its diverse population that the city would be apart of a future Turkish state. But, a Turkish state was supposed to only include Turks so the question was now what would happen to the Greeks, Armenians, Levantine, and the other non-Turk populations of the city. 4 days later those population would figure out what the new Turkish leaders of the city wanted to do with them.

The Turkish Occupation

The Fire

In the afternoon on September 13, 1922 a small fire broke out in the Armenian quarter in Smyrna. This small fire would end up devouring the entire Greek and Armenians quarters of the city and heavily damaging the general European quarter of the city. This is the 1922 Fire of Smyrna. According to the Minnie Mills of the American Collegiate Institute she saw a Turkish soldier enter the building in the Armenian quarter where the first fire started and then exit with tins that containing fuel. Then soon after many other small fires started. She added that on this day the wind was blowing West away from the Turkish quarter. Mills also said that soon after Armenians start to crowd the streets but the Turks blocked the road and instructed them to go back into their houses. Mrs. King Birge who went to the top of the tower of the American Collegiate Institute also said she saw Turkish soldiers with fuel cans setting fires in the Armenian quarter of Smyrna. When George Horton, the American Consul in Smyrna, looked out his terrace on the afternoon of September 13 he saw a dark cloud of black smoke covering the city. ⁸ The fires in the Armenian quarter were only the beginning of the fire. The fire would spread to the Greek and European quarters and would last for 9 whole days.

The Americans weren’t the only ones to notice Turkish soldiers lighting fire to the Armenian quarter. A firemen who arrived to the scene of the first fire, Sargent Tchorbadjis, testified that he saw a Turkish solider lighting fire to the interior of a drawer in an Armenian house. Another firefighter, Emanuel Kastros, said he saw Turkish soldiers puring drums of petroleum in an Armenian;s house and when asked about it they said their orders were to light fire to the Armenian houses. By 2 PM almost the entire Armenian quarter was in flames and all the residents who didn’t burn in the fire or weren’t murdered by Turkish soldiers crowded the wharf. ⁹ The Armenians were now stuck in a huge crowd between the bay and the giant fire raging behind them. They would wait on the wharf for 9 days while they watched their homes and the city that they called home turn into ashes. The Armenians had lived mostly peacefully in Smyrna for centuries and now the forces that adhered to the foreign ideology of Nationalism had erased all of that history. They forced the Armenians to leave the only place they called home just because they weren’t considered Turks.

On the first day the Armenians weren’t the only ones who were in trouble. The British, the French, and the Americans had to also flee from the European quarter on the first day of the Fire. The Europeans and the Americans though had a safe far away place to retreat to. Any American, French, or British citizen was guaranteed a spot on a battleship of the coast away from the blazing heat and choking black smoke of the fire. For example, some French Catholic fathers from their Church that was on fire to the French Consulate where after that caught fire they were transferred to a French battleship.¹⁰

The Europeans and Americans did have a safe place to go to offshore but on their way there many tried to help the Greek and Armenian refugees. For example, George Horton held 2,000 refugees that consisted of Armenians, Americans, and Greeks. Horton had an American petty officer James Webster along with other American Marines guided Armenian, Greek, and American refugees to the wharf and protected them when Turkish soldiers started shooting at them on their way to the wharf.¹¹ Horton and the other Americans would end up using those same marines to push through the crowd at the wharf to get to the waterfront and leave on a ship.leaving the Another example, is when the French decided to take an Armenian girl and her immediate family onto their battleship after she showed up at the French consulate speaking great French. ¹²

By the end of the first day almost of the Armenians and Europeans had evacuated the city proper and were either stranded on the wharf or sailing back to their home countries. The Armenian and European quarters of the city were in ashes by the end of the day, but for the Greek quarter it was a different story. The Greeks had not totally evacuated the city yet as not the entire quarter was in flames and the Turks had been focusing on the Armenians all day so there were still safe places to hide in the Greek quarter. But, by the next day on September 14 the slight relief the Greeks felt would end. For example, Georgios Tsoubariots, an eleven year old Greek child at the time was hiding with his family in a Greek Church on the 13th but in the morning of the 14th bandits came with knifes and robbed them at knife point. After they fled to the inside of family tomb at a Greek Cemetery. Another Greek family, the Verkine family had survived hiding in their house the first night but on the second day the flames finally caught up to their house and they were forced to flee to the wharf.¹³

The Quay

Almost all of the refugees who were fleeing their burning homes ended up at the quay. The quay was indeed safe from the fire thanks to it being but at the quay there was much more to worry about than just the fire. Horton described the quay as he was sailing away on the night of the 13th as “a narrow water-front covered with a great throng of people-an ever increasing throng”.¹⁴ An even more detailed account by a British eyewitness, Mr Wallace, described the quay as the most tragic sight he ever saw. The quay had no food or water there and was crowded beyond capacity. They were so starved and exhausted that the fire no longer even panicked them. ¹⁵ According to the American vice-consul in the middle of the hunger, thirst, and exhausted refugees were armed Turks with clubs that were going through hitting everyone in sight.¹⁶

By the 19th of September conditions at the quay became even worse. Decaying corpses were spread among the hundreds of thousands of people stranded and disease was rampant thanks to contaminated food and water. The Allies had refused to use their ships in the Smyrna harbor to help the starving masses of refugees. Luckily, thanks to one man’s intense resolve to help the people on the quay they wouldn’t have to say their much longer. This man was Asa Jennings, an employee of Smyrna’s YMCA. Jennings through a combination of bluffing and pure luck had convinced the Greeks to put him in charge of all Greek ships in the Aegean and an American ship to escort them to Smyrna. By morning of September 24 his rescue fleet arrived at the quay.¹⁷

Jennings had made it to Smyrna with a fleet of Greek ships, but getting the ships to come was the easy part comparatively to his next task. There were hundreds of thousands of refugees on the quay who were desperate for help to escape the fire and only a limited amount of ships. The Turkish authorities didn’t make it easy at first for Jennings to rescue them and put severe restrictions on Jennings rescue effort. Eventually the Turkish authorities realized this was how they would get rid of the non-Turks of the new Turkish state and started helping the evacuation effort. All of the living refugees on the quay would be evacuated to Greece where refugees either or used a jumping off point to immigrate to other countries like France, the United States, and Canada.¹⁸

Aftermath

There are conflicting reports on the amount of the shear cost of human life the fire had caused. The lowest estimates of the time from the newspapers said 120,000 people had died. The United States had spent over 95 millions 1922 dollars on relief for the refugees of Smyrna.¹⁹ Later estimates said 100,000 people died while another 100,00 were deported to the interior.²⁰ Newspapers in America and England at the time did talk about the death and destruction, but it was a lot more focused on the American and British destruction that was done. The front page of the Washington Times from September 16, 1922 said in big letters “U.S. Suffers Loss of 15,000,000 in Great Fire Sweeping Smyrna” and under that in small letters they put “300,000 homeless.²¹ The Birmingham Post in England titled their article on December 2, 1924 “£20,000,000 Involved in Insurance Claims. The article was about how an insurance company went to court to have it decide if the fire was an accident or not as his clients were trying claiming it wasn’t an accident to reap the insurance benefits.²² The American, British, and other European governments were pushing the narrative that the Turks started the fire yet here were British businessmen trying to go against all the proof that those governments had stated just so they didn’t have to suffer the loss of property in a place that was in conflict for years before the fire.

At the end of the day the specific human and monetary cost of the damage doesn’t matter. What matters is the Turks purposefully set the fire to purge all the non-Turks from one of the most diverse cities in Asia Minor by almost all accounts of the time. What matters is once the fire ended hundreds of thousands of people were now homeless and kicked out of the only home they ever knew. What matters is that almost the entire cultural history of two populations who lived in Smyrna peacefully for centuries was erased in the matter of weeks. What matters is that Turkish historians still deny today that the Turkish military had any involvement in the fire despite the hundreds of personal accounts of the fire by Greeks, Armenians, and other who say otherwise.

Sadly in Turkey and Greece the animosity between the two populations only grew until the Greco-Turkish war ended with the Treaty of Lausanne and the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations in 1923. The convention didn’t transfer though just the Greek and Turkish populations in each state like it is popularly thought. The text of the agreement specifically says that Greek Orthodox Christians in Turkey will go to Greece and Muslims in Greece will go to Turkey.²³ There were ethnic Greeks and other ethnicities in Turkey who were Greek Orthodox and Muslims in Greece who weren’t Turkish and so they got caught up in the fight and had to leave their homes. 1.6 million people left their homes and transferred to their new declared countries as said by a bunch of leaders who had not asked them whether they wanted to move or not. The Fire of Smyrna was only a small part and precursor to this much larger conflict.

The Fire of Smyrna and the 1920s

Smyrna before the fire could very much be described as a “melting pot” just like how many people described America in the 20s. Both the people of Smyrna and all of the over the world, especially in America were trying figure whether being a “melting pot” was a good or bad. In the 1920s it was decided in many places including America and Smyrna that this was bad and their countries needed to be more homogenous. The Turks did this with the Fire of Smyrna and the population transfer at the end of it. The Americans did this by enacting immigration legislation and calling for the Americanization of immigrants that were already there.²⁴ The Greeks, Turks, and other ethnicities were also forced with Grecification and Turkification when they arrived in their newly assigned countries. In Greece the refugees were forced to live in poverty in the worst quarter of Athens, but they forged a community there.²⁵ The same was true for American immigrants like Mexicans who lived in poor conditions but forged a community through that.²⁶

Another big theme of the 1920s persistent in the narrative of the Fire of Smyrna was the rise of cooperate power. American and other European corporations had a lot interests in Smyrna as seen by the earlier mentioned news articles. In the 20s it was a popular opinion that business should just be allowed to pursue their interests with as government interference as possible and was favorable towards business in general.²⁷ This explains the context behind why so many foreign newspapers were covering the loss suffered by business in the fire because many people genuinely wanted to know about it and probably thought businesses should be able to recoup their losses from the fire.

Another big theme of the 1920s persistent in the narrative of the Fire of Smyrna was the rise of cooperate power. American and other European corporations had a lot interests in Smyrna as seen by the earlier mentioned news articles. In the 20s it was a popular opinion that business should just be allowed to pursue their interests with as government interference as possible and was favorable towards business in general.²⁷ This explains the context behind why so many foreign newspapers were covering the loss suffered by business in the fire because many people genuinely wanted to know about it and probably thought businesses should be able to recoup their losses from the fire.

Significance

The Fire of Smyrna is just one small example of the many crimes that were committed before and after the Greco-Turkish War by both governments, the consequences of Nationalism, and European intervention. Nationalism was a European invented ideology that had spread to one of the few places in the world where multiple different peoples, ethnicities, and religions had gotten a long for almost a thousand years. All over the Middle East in the post WWI era massacres just the like Fire of Smyrna motivated by Nationalism. Hundreds of thousands of people died then and still die today because Europeans decided to spread the ideology that caused them to fight the biggest and deadliest war to ever be fought in history at the time to the places they colonized and traded with. Massacres like the Fire of Smyrna should not just be used an example of why genocide needs to be prevented, but why Nationalism is a flawed ideology that leads to conflict not peace. Neither the Turks nor the Greeks started the conflict that led up to the Fire of Smyrna, the Europeans started. Its the same for almost every other conflict in the Middle East. One people for one land always leads to crimes like the Fire of Smyrna happening whether that was the intention or not. People need to realize in battles all over the world that the battles they are fighting are not their battles, but the battles foreign nations wanted them to fight. They need stop blaming each other for starting conflicts and instead blame the real culprits, European colonial powers.

The Fire of Smyrna on a Map of Modern Day Izmir

Additional Resources

• Greek Genocide Resource Center provides online access to resources on the atrocities the Ottoman Empire and Turkey committed against from 1914 – 1923.
• Armenian National Institute is a website dedicated to the study of the Armenian Genocide.
• Levantine Heritage Foundation is a website dedicated the study and preservation of the communities in the Levant from the 1600s to the 1900s. The website has a lot of really amazing information about the Greek and Armenian communities in Smyrna before the fire and was one of my main resources when making my map.

Footnotes

1. George Horton, The Blight of Asia: an Account of the Systematic Extermination of Christian Populations by Mohammedans and of the Culpability of Certain Great Powers; with the True Story of the Burning of Smyrna, (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1926), 101. ︎
2. Kemal H. Karpat, Ottoman Population 1830-1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics, (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 102. ︎
3. ︎
4. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s, (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 260-262. ︎
5. Michael Llewyn Smith, Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor 1919-1922, (New York: St Martins Press, 1973), 78-81. ︎
6. ︎
7. ︎
8. Horton, Blight of Asia, 144-145. ︎
9. Giles Milton, Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922: Destruction of a Christian City in the Islamic World, (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 307-309. ︎
10. Ibid, 308. ︎
11. Ibid, 312. ︎
12. Horton, Blight of Asia, 152. ︎
13. Milton, Paradise Lost, 329-332. ︎
14. Horton, Blight of Asia, 152. ︎
15. “Smyrna’s Last Days: A Manchester Man’s Experience” in The Martyrdom of Smyrna and Eastern Christendom: A File of Overwhelming Evidence, Denouncing the Misdeeds of the Turks in Asia Minor and Showing Their Responsibility for the Horrors of Smyrna, ed. Lysimachos, Oeconomos, (Plymouth, UK: The Mayflower Press, 1922), 52-54. ︎
16. Milton, Paradise Lost, 336. ︎
17. Ibid, 354-360. ︎
18. Ibid, 361-373. ︎
19. Horton, The Blight of Asia, 173-175. ︎
20. Milton, Paradise Lost, 373. ︎
21. “US Suffer Loss of $15,000,000 in Great Fire Sweeping Smyrna”, Washington TImes, (Washington D.C., District of Columbia), Sep 16, 1922. ︎
22. “The Law Courts: Sequel to the Great Fire At Smyrna: £20,000,000 Involved in Insurance Claims”, Birmingham Post, (Birmingham, UK), 2 Dec, 1924. ︎
23. Treaty of Lausanne IV: Convention Concerning The Exchange on Greek and Turkish Populations, (Hellenic Resources Network, 1923), ︎
24. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 203-206. ︎
25. Milton, Paradise Lost, 374. ︎
26. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 251. ︎
27. Ibid, 32-34. ︎
28. Ibid, 32-34. ︎

Bibliography

• Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.
• Horton, George. The Blight of Asia: An Account of the Systematic Extermination of Christian Populations by Mohammedans and of the Culpability of Certain Great Powers; with a True Story of the Burning of Smyrna. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1926.
• Karpat, Kemal H. Ottoman Population 1830-1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000.
• Milton, Giles. Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 – The Destruction of Islam’s City of Tolerance. New York: Basic Books, 2008.
• Oeconomos, Lysimachos. The Martyrdom of Smyrna and Eastern Christendom: A File of Overwhelming Evidence, Denouncing the Misdeeds of the Turks in Asia Minor and Showing Their Responsibility for the Horrors of Smyrna. Plymouth, UK: The Mayflower Press, 1922.
• Smith, Michael Llewellyn. Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor, 1919-1922. New York: St Martins Press, 1973.
• The Law Courts: Sequel to the Great Fire At Smyrna: £20,000,000 Involved in Insurance Claims”. Birmingham Post.(Birmingham, UK). 2 Dec, 1924. ︎
• “US Suffer Loss of $15,000,000 in Great Fire Sweeping Smyrna”, Washington Times. (Washington D.C., District of Columbia). Sep 16, 1922.

The Irish Civil War started on June 28, 1922, and lasted approximately ten months, ending on May 24, 1923. Even though this war started in June 1922, the Irish had been fighting for their independence way before that. In reality, the Irish started fighting for their independence from Great Britain in 1919. Great Britain refused Ireland’s departure to leave the United Kingdom and to be an independent country. Ireland and Britain fought in over a two-year war, with many casualties and land destroyed. Despite the majority of Irish citizens wanting to leave the United Kingdom summit districts in Ireland, did not want to leave the United Kingdom. This created a separate territory, called Northern Ireland, that voted to remain in the United Kingdom and have close connections with Great Britain. However, England was unwilling to give up all of Ireland, and they suggested negotiating new terms to make Ireland an independent country while remaining in the United Kingdom. 

The Build-Up to the Civil War:

After the war against the United Kingdom, Ireland, in the majority of the population, didn’t want to give up the hopes of Ireland becoming an independent country. Even though there were a lot of lives lost, homes destroyed, and a lack of motivation, Ireland would not go back to the old rules the United Kingdom had under. So Ireland’s parliament and England’s parliament agreed to negotiate terms on how independent Ireland would be, what terms they no longer have to follow, and what terms they still have to follow. Despite Ireland’s resentment toward negotiating with Britain, they realized it was better to negotiate than have more bloodshed and damage to their country. Ireland brought their top-ranking officials in the military and in politics to negotiate the new terms for Ireland’s independence. However, Britain also brought its brightest and most highly ranked commanders to negotiate on behalf of the United Kingdom the terms of Ireland’s independence.

In November 1921, negotiations started with Britain and Ireland on what would ultimately determine how much control the United Kingdom would have over Ireland. Negotiations were held at 10 Downing St. in London. The people who were negotiating on Ireland’s behalf were people like Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith, and Robert Barton. The people negotiating on behalf of the United Kingdom were people like David L George, Lorn Birkenhead, Authen Chamberlain, and even Winston Churchill. To this day, we still do not know what the negotiations were like in what specific topics either side we’re fighting for. A lot of it was to remain confidential and were to be announced when Ireland reached their homeland. Ultimately, the treaty was finally signed on December 6, 1921, with all members in the room signing their names on the document. The treaty was called the “Anglo-Irish Treaty,” which gave the United Kingdom less control of Ireland, but still stayed in power, uncertain things the country did. The United Kingdom parliament and members ultimately agreed to the new terms; however, it would be quite different in Ireland. Now the people who negotiated these terms have to convince the Irish citizens and parliament that Ireland is finally gaining its independence.

The Anglo-Irish Treaty was finalized and now just has to be passed in the Irish parliament. The negotiators had to convince the Irish parliament of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which would ultimately prevent another war or conflict with Britain. Some of the terms and regulations that Irish citizens and government must obey are the following:

• Recognized parliament for non-imperial affairs: The Irish parliament can make decisions on behalf of its citizens, but not from a broad perspective. 
• Financial Autonomy: the British would only have some control of Ireland’s finances.
• Small Military Force: Ireland could have only a limited number of military troops. However, British troops would ultimately leave Ireland.
• Ireland State remains within the British Empire: Ireland will remain in the United Kingdom and must swear allegiance to the British monarchy for any person in elected office. 
• The Royal Navy would patrol Irish Waters: the British controlled the waters around Ireland
• Ulster’s Six Counties can choose to join or not: Give counties the option to remain completely in the control of the United Kingdom. (Northern Ireland)¹

The treaty finally reached the public and the Irish parliament, and there were many different opinions about the treaty. Some members of parliament didn’t like all the terms in the treaty but ultimately agreed, and some parliament members agreed to the treaty not because they liked it but because they didn’t want more conflict or division with Britain. However, there was a group of parliamentarians who were completely outraged by the terms they had to follow and obey. Some members stated that this was the opposite direction of Irish independence and believed that the negotiators just applied to anything that England said. Ultimately, the Anglo-Irish Treaty went up for a vote on January 7, 1922. It passed the Irish parliament 64 to 57 in favor of the treaty. This sparked a whole new division in Ireland, no longer with the United Kingdom, but now between their own citizens.

This image represents the 1922 election and what parties held what seats. As well as how the outcome of the Anglo-Irish Treaty passing happened. Red: Labour Party 17 seats, Green: Anti-treaty party 36 seats, Light Green: Pro-treaty 58 seats, Yellow: Farmer’s Party 7 seats, Blue: BPG 1 seat, White: Independent 9 seats. (Irish general election 1922)

The passing of the treaty raised high tensions in Ireland, not just in parliament, but around the whole country. Due to the passage of the treaty, some ministers of parliament started resigning. On January 14, 1922, Éamon de Valera, Cathal Brugha, and Austin Stack resigned from their post. From January to June, tensions rose throughout Ireland on the treaty and the new rules they must obey. This tension created two sides in Ireland: the Irish Free States (also called pro-treaty forces) and the Anti-Treaty IRA (also called anti-treaty forces). Ultimately, the forces of the two sides would become a reality when a man named Michael Collins and his forces attacked the Four Quarts, which ultimately would be the start of the Irish Civil War. 

The Two Sides in the War:

At the beginning of any war, there are always multiple sides that become frustrated and take action, which ultimately results in fighting and battles. In the Irish Civil War, there were two sides to the war, and one of the sides was the Pro-Treaty Forces. The people who aligned with these forces agreed with the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the rules that came with it. They believe this is one step forward to Irish independence and the country being an independent nation. Some members did not even agree with every measure and term in the treaty but did not want to raise conflict or more bloodshed with the British Empire. Some of the leaders of the pro-treaties forces were people like Arthur Griffin, Richard Mulcshy, Elon O’Buffy, and most notably Michael Collins. Collins is an important figure, being a high-ranking politician and military officer, as well as being the commander and chief of the Irish free state forces. He was also the cause of the start of the Irish Civil War when he directed an order to bombard the Four Quarts in Dublin, which anti-treaty forces had taken control of two months prior. This side also had the support of the United Kingdom and its military forces.

“Deputies have spoken about whether dead men would approve of it, and they have spoken whether children yet unborn would approve it, but few have spoken of whether the living approve it.”

-Michael Collins, Dáil debate, Christmas 1921.³

On the other side of the Civil War was the Anti-Treaty IRA. The anti-treaty for us is that they will do anything in their power—even go to war again with the United Kingdom—to finally have Ireland as an independent nation. They believed that the British Empire was keeping Ireland from doing great things economically and self-governing their citizens. They believe the Anglo-Irish Treaty favors England more than it does Ireland. The leaders of the anti-Treaty forces were people like Liam Lynch, Frank Allen, and most notably Éamon de Valer. Valera was one of the first ministers to speak out against the treaty and was the first to resign from parliament when the treaty passed. He could not plan on behalf of the anti-treaty and got Irish citizens to volunteer in the army to fight the pro-treaty forces. However, his charisma and popularity would ultimately get him in trouble with British forces being in prison for speaking against the Anglo-Irish Treaty and fighting for complete independence from the British Empire.

Beginning & End of the War:

The Four Courts were occupied by anti-treaty forces that took control of Dublin in the beginning of April. Michael Collins and pro-treaty forces were starting to exert pressure on the UK and their own forces about the anti-treaty forces’ control of the Four Courts. Winston Churchill told Michael Collins that if he did not get control of Dublin by August 10, he would inevitably have to send British troops to Ireland to stop the conflict. Michael Collins ultimately made the decision to bombard the courts on June 28, 1822, to get control back and push the anti-treaty forces out of Dublin. This is considered the start of the Irish Civil War and the first battle.

The first battle of the Irish Civil War was called the Battle of Dublin. Where pro-treaty forces and anti-treaty forces fought for control of the four courts and Dublin as a whole. The battle started on the 28th of June and lasted until the 5th of July, when, ultimately, pro-treaty forces got control back of the four quarts and Dublin from the anti-treaty forces. Ultimately, 44 soldiers were killed, a couple hundred were wounded, and 35 citizens were killed and over 100 wounded as well. Despite the bloodshed and people injured during this battle, it still did not stop both forces from fighting for what they ultimately wanted. Both sides continued the fight despite the bloodshed, injuries, and destruction in their own countries; there were no signs of them slowing down in the early months of the war. July, August, and September are where the most bloodshed happened, as well as destruction and battles. However, the war would take a dramatic turn at the end of August when news broke out about a certain man.

On August 22, 1922, about two months into the war, the commander-in-chief of the pro-treaty forces, Michael Collin, was killed in battle. This brought a new wave of supporters to the pro-treaty forces, who supported the treaty and even joined the fight. Ultimately, the man who replaced Collins as commander-in-chief was called Richard Mulcahy. Despite Collins’ death, the fighting did not stop, with both forces coming at each other from all angles and around the whole country. The Irish parliament, which was controlled by the pro-treaty forces, tried passing legislation to stop the fighting and prevent more bloodshed and destruction in their country. 

However, on May 24, 1923, over 10 months into the war, a man named Frank Aiken, told the anti-treaty forces to “dump their arms” and surrender. This decision ultimately got the approval of Éamon de Valera, knowing that this war would not go anywhere and that innocent people were dying because of it. This officially marked the end of the Irish Civil War. Despite the war being over, there was still conflict between the pro-treaty forces and the anti-treaty forces, with some people being killed and assassinated after the end of the war. Months later, the anti-treaty forces finally accepted the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The treaty was ultimately put into law on March 31, 1922, and stayed the same for a couple of decades until the Irish attempted a second try to gain their independence in 1949 from the United Kingdom, and that battle had a different outcome than this one.

Significance:

The reason why I picked this topic was because of the interest I have in the United Kingdom and the empire they have built throughout the centuries. The United Kingdom or the British Empire was one of the biggest empires in the world controlling over 90% of the world at one point. But since 1776, the British Empire has been losing its colonies and countries for years, and there is a reason for all of them many of them are quite different. Sometimes the British Empire was OK with giving up some countries or negotiating with them for partial independence. Despite the British going easy on other countries, that was not the case with Ireland with the British fought tooth and nail to keep Ireland part of the United Kingdom. It always interests me how the Irish got into a Civil War with their people, and how different it was compared to the American Civil War. Hence the reason why I picked the Irish Civil War was to understand how desperate the Irish were to gain independence and how powerful/influential the United Kingdom was trying to keep them in their empire.

 Bibliography

1. The Great War. 2021. “Treaty That Caused Irish Civil War – the Anglo-Irish Treaty 1921 (Documentary).” Youtube. November 26, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4h8XTRj6Oc. ︎
2. “File: Michael Collins 1921.Jpg.” n.d. Wikimedia.org. Accessed March 26, 2024. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michael_Collins_1921.jpg. ︎
3. “‘They’ll Never Shoot Me in My Own County’ — Famous Quotes from Michael Collins.” 2022. Irishexaminer.com. August 20, 2022. https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-40942814.html. ︎
4. “File: Eamon de Valera c 1922-30.Jpg.” n.d. Wikimedia.org. Accessed March 26, 2024. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eamon_de_Valera_c_1922-30.jpg. ︎
5. “30 Best Eamon DE Valera Quotes with Image.” 2023. Bookey.App. September 4, 2023. https://www.bookey.app/quote-author/eamon-de-valera. ︎
6. joekilgobinet. 2009. “The Irish Civil War 1922 1923.” Youtube. May 31, 2009. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ayLHPLROg. ︎
7. “Timeline of the Irish Civil War.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. March 26, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Timeline_of_the_Irish_Civil_War&oldid=1215710689. ︎

The first connection this book brings to the Irish Civil War, or its whole independence attempt is corporate lobbying. In America, a lot of corporations had many politicians in their pockets by striking down certain legislation and rights that would harm or cost corporations money. So that meant for workers many of the rights that they needed or wanted were not being granted by the government because of corporations in politicians’ pockets. This situation could connect with the politicians in Ireland to the parliament in the United Kingdom. Before the Irish Civil War, the United Kingdom had major control of Ireland, and many of the decisions that were made for Ireland were made by the UK parliament. This meant the citizens of Ireland if they wanted rights or certain legislation to pass, would have to convince people that do not even live in their country to pass these rights or legislations. The author explains how corporations had control of the federal government in America and is the same as the UK’s parliament having complete control of Ireland’s government and the decisions they made.

The second connection the author brings up in the book that coincides with the Irish Civil War is the women’s rights movement. When comparing women’s rights in the Irish Civil War, countless things are different, but there are also major similarities. Like in America, women were fighting for the right to vote, and be represented in their government. However, in Ireland, they were fighting for the same rights but instead of just women, it’s all the citizens of Ireland. Ireland did get some representation in parliament, but not enough to make significant changes to its country. This involved a conflict in which Ireland wanted to be independent and not rely on Britain or the United Kingdom for self-governance. Women want their voices heard and participate in the act of voting and being able to represent. Ireland wanted the same thing of being represented equally under parliament and the British monarchy. Henceforth the reason the Anglo-Irish Treaty was developed. 

Overall when comparing America in Ireland’s problems these two events are pretty different in what they are fighting for. However, they are the same in the rights they are fighting for. One of them is the government which is supposed to represent them while not being controlled by someone else. (Corporations/UK’s government) As well as people fighting to have equal representation under their government in the voting process and self-representation. (women’s suffrage/Anglo-Irish Treaty) 

• Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. United States: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995.

The Battle of Four Courts, also known as the Four Courts Incident, was a pivotal event in Irish history that occurred during the Irish Civil War. The conflict began in June 1922, when the Irish government, led by Michael Collins, attempted to suppress the activities of the anti-treaty forces, who opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty that had established the Irish Free State. The battle took place in Dublin between June 28 and July 5, 1922, and destroyed the Four Courts, a significant historical and cultural site in Ireland.

The Four Courts was a complex of buildings that served as the seat of the Irish judiciary. It was a symbol of Irish legal and constitutional authority and had been occupied by the anti-treaty forces since April 1922. The government viewed the occupation as a direct challenge to its authority and decided to take action to regain control of the building. The Four Courts were garrisoned by over 100 men, all armed with small arms. In anticipation of the Provisional Government’s assault on the Anti-Treaty IRA, the IRA began to dig in, mining the surrounding area and barricading entrances. The Four Courts now resembled a fortress, rather than grand courthouses. Barbed wire was laid down to impede any attempt to attack, firing positions were manned by men with rifles, and a few Lewis machine guns were also amongst the Anti-Treaty IRA’s arsenal. 

On June 28, 1922, the Irish government launched an attack on the Four Courts. The attack was led by Irish Free State Army troops under the command of General Eoin O’Duffy. The Provisional Forces began their siege with a heavy bombardment of static weapons, which was overall ineffective. The anti-treaty forces, led by Cathal Brugha, responded with heavy resistance, and the battle quickly escalated into a full-scale conflict, there were other notable political leaders of the IRA on the ground such as Ernie O’Malley and Oscar Traynor. Despite their notable positions, they were foot soldiers like any other IRA member. The fighting lasted for several days, with both sides suffering heavy casualties. The anti-treaty forces were eventually defeated, and the Four Courts were heavily damaged by artillery fire. Although fighting lasted a few days and both sides lost men, the day-to-day average Dubliner was the one who truly suffered. On the first day, there are articles that mention that four civilians were confirmed killed by crossfire and an estimated 15 combatants slain in total.  

The Battle of Four Courts had significant repercussions for the Irish Civil War and Irish history more broadly. It marked a turning point in the conflict and led to the eventual defeat of the anti-treaty forces. The battle also had a lasting impact on Irish culture and identity. The destruction of the Four Courts, a symbol of Irish legal and constitutional authority, was seen by many as a tragic loss for Irish nationalism.

The Battle for the Block

During the Battle of Four Courts, in the neighboring area colloquially known as “the Block” fighting also raged on. Before the hostilities began, the IRA took up defensive positions in over 10 of the buildings along “the Block.” The garrisons were armed with small arms and provisions to withstand an assault or siege launched by the Provisional Government and or British Forces. The “Block” spanned over three streets, the most notable being O’Connell Street, these streets would become the epicenter of fighting after the Four Courts fell. The soldiers that were stationed in the Block were now facing the same situation that their comrades faced earlier at Four Courts. The Irish Republican Army was now outgunned and outmanned by the Provisional Government. The Provisional Government bombarded the neighborhood with 6 lbs guns, instilling panic amongst the Irish Republican Army’s ranks. The Provisional Government used three armored cars to assault the Block, and the Irish Republican Army had no heavy ordinance to combat that armored vehicles. That plus the artillery pieces shifted the advantage in the Provisional Government’s favor.

The battle also had a significant impact on the development of the Irish state. The government’s decision to use force against the Four Courts was controversial and divisive and led to a deepening of political divisions within the country. The aftermath of the battle saw the establishment of a more authoritarian regime in Ireland, which was marked by the suppression of political dissent and the use of state violence against perceived opponents. This can also attribute to the turbulent remainder of the century Ireland still had instore, with constant infighting between religious sects and ideologies.

In conclusion, the Battle of Four Courts was a significant event in Irish history that had far-reaching consequences for the development of the Irish state and Irish culture. The conflict marked a turning point in the Irish Civil War and led to the eventual defeat of the anti-treaty forces. The battle also had a lasting impact on Irish identity and nationalism and was a source of controversy and division within the country for many years to come.

Citations

Fewer, M. (2019). THE BATTLE OF THE FOUR COURTS, 28–30 JUNE 1922. History Ireland, 27(4), 44–47. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26853089

Foster, G. (2006). In the Shadow of the Split: Writing the Irish Civil War. Field Day Review, 2, 294–303. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30078650

RTE.ie History. (2022, June 15). The Battle of Dublin. RTE. https://www.rte.ie/history/battle-of-dublin/2022/0615/1305019-the-battle-of-dublin/

Pegum, M. (2016). The Battle of Mount Street Bridge, Easter Week, 1916. Dublin Historical Record, 69(2), 146–156. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44984377

jbennis

Joe is a Sophomore at Ramapo and a Global Communications major enrolled in Discovering Digital History.

Letter to the Congress I

I would urge strongly that at this Congress a number of changes be made in our political structure.

I want to tell you of the considerations to which I attach most importance.

At the head of the list I set an increase in the number of Central Committee¹ members to a few dozen or even a hundred. It is my opinion that without this reform our Central Committee would be in great danger if the course of events were not quite favourable for us (and that is something we cannot count on).

Then, I intend to propose that the Congress should on certain conditions invest the decisions of the State Planning Commission² with legislative force, meeting, in this respect, the wishes of Comrade Trotsky³– to a certain extent and on certain conditions.

As for the first point, i.e., increasing the number of C.C.⁴ members, I think it must be done in order to raise the prestige of the Central Committee, to do a thorough job of improving our administrative machinery and to prevent conflicts between small sections of the C.C. from acquiring excessive importance for the future of the Party.

It seems to me that our Party has every right to demand from the working class 50 to 100 C.C. members, and that it could get them from it without unduly taxing the resources of that class.

Such a reform would considerably increase the stability of our Party and ease its struggle in the encirclement of hostile states, which, in my opinion, is likely to, and must, become much more acute in the next few years. I think that the stability of our Party would gain a thousand-fold by such measure.

Lenin

December 23, 1922

Letter to the Congress II

Continuation of the notes.
December 24, 1922

By stability of the Central Committee, of which I spoke above, I mean measure against a split, as far as such measures can at all be taken. For, of course, the whiteguard⁵ in Russkaya Mysl⁶ (it seems to have been S.S. Oldenburg⁷) was right when, first, in the whiteguards’ game against Soviet Russia he banked on a split in our Party, and when, secondly, he banked on grave differences in our Party to cause that split.

Our Party relies on two classes and therefore its instability would be possible and its downfall inevitable if there were no agreement between those two classes. In that event this or that measure, and generally all talk about the stability of our C.C., would be futile. No measure of any kind could prevent a split in such a case. But I hope that this is too remote a future and too improbable an event to talk about.

I have in mind stability as a guarantee against a split in the immediate future, and I intend to deal here with a few ideas concerning personal qualities.

I think that from this standpoint the prime factors in the question of stability are such members of the C.C. as Stalin and Trotsky. I think relations between them make up the greater part of the danger of a split, which could be avoided, and this purpose, in my opinion, would be served, among other things, by increasing the number of C.C. members to 50 or 100.

Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General⁸, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. Comrade Trotsky, on the other hand, as his struggle against the C.C. on the question of the People’s Commissariat of Communications has already proved, is distinguished not only by outstanding ability. He is personally perhaps the most capable man in the present C.C., but he has displayed excessive self-assurance and shown excessive preoccupation with the purely administrative side of the work.

These two qualities of the two outstanding leaders of the present C.C. can inadvertently lead to a split, and if our Party does not take steps to avert this, the split may come unexpectedly.

I shall not give any further appraisals of the personal qualities of other members of the C.C. I shall just recall that the October episode with Zinoviev and Kamenev⁹ [See Vol. 26, pp. 216-19] was, of course, no accident, but neither can the blame for it be laid upon them personally, any more than non-Bolshevism can upon Trotsky.

Speaking of the young C.C. members, I wish to say a few words about Bukharin¹⁰ and Pyatakov¹¹. They are, in my opinion, the most outstanding figures (among the youngest ones), and the following must be borne in mind about them: Bukharin is not only a most valuable and major theorist of the Party; he is also rightly considered the favourite of the whole Party, but his theoretical views can be classified as fully Marxist only with great reserve, for there is something scholastic about him (he has never made a study of the dialectics, and, I think, never fully understood it).

December 25. As for Pyatakov, he is unquestionably a man of outstanding will and outstanding ability, but shows too much zeal for administrating and the administrative side of the work to be relied upon in a serious political matter.

Both of these remarks, of course, are made only for the present, on the assumption that both these outstanding and devoted Party workers fail to find an occasion to enhance their knowledge and amend their one-sidedness.

Lenin

December 25, 1922

Bibliography

“Письмо В.И. Ленина к съезду о сохранении единства партии, создании устойчивого ЦК, способного предотвратить раскол партии, с характеристикой некоторых членов ЦК (И.В. Сталина, Л.Д. Троцкого, Н.И. Бухарина, Г.Л. Пятакова, Г.Е. Зиновьева, Л.Б. Каменева), пр: Ленин.” Главная. Accessed May 03, 2021. http://lenin.rusarchives.ru/dokumenty/pismo-vi-lenina-k-sezdu-o-sohranenii-edinstva-partii-sozdanii-ustoychivogo-ck-sposobnogo.

Michael Kilduff

Michael Kilduff is a history major at Ramapo College of New Jersey. He is looking to become a high school history teacher after going to graduate school for history education.

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was born on April 22, 1870 in Streletskaya Ulitsa, Simbirsk, now Ulyanovsk, Russia to Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov and Maria Alexandrovna Blank. Lenin was a very smart child, graduating top of his class before attending Kazan University. He lost both his father and his older brother, Alexander, at a young age. Ilya died of a brain hemorrhage in 1886 and Alexander was executed later the same year for conspiracy to assassinate Tsar Alexander III.

Lenin was arrested and then expelled from Kazan University for leading a demonstration against government restrictions that banned student societies. The Ministry of Internal Affairs exiled him to his family’s estate in Kokushkino. There he would first be introduced to revolutionary ideas. Lenin’s mother was able to convince the Ministry of Internal Affairs to let him return to Kazan (but not for school). There he was introduced to the works of Karl Marx.

Lenin would move to St. Petersburg in 1893. There, he would meet his future wife Nadezhda “Nadya” Krupskaya. He would also get exiled for a second time in 1897. He was sentenced to 3 years in Siberia. Nadya would be exiled to Siberia in 1898 and they would marry a few months later. After Lenin’s second exile in 1900, he would move to Munich where he established his newspaper, Iskra (translation: Spark). With the newspaper, he first adopted the pseudonym Lenin. In 1902, he moved to London where he met fellow Marxist and future revolutionary, Leon Trotsky.

Lenin would return to St. Petersburg after the Revolution of 1905, believing it safe for him to return following Tsar Nicholas II’s liberal reforms. He would meet Stalin wile back in Russia. He would only stay for two years before he was forced out in fear of being arrested by the Tsar’s attempt at getting rid of opposition. Lenin and his wife would move throughout Europe before finally settling in Bern, Switzerland.

In 1917, with Russia struggling in World War I, the February Revolution succeeded to force Tsar Nicholas II to abdicated. Lenin believed that this was the perfect time to return to Russia. However, Russia continued to fight in the war so there was no way for him to travel. He was able to make a deal with Germany that if they got him back to Russia, he would take control and make Russia exit the war. So with the help of the German government, Lenin traveled back to Russia.

It would take Lenin until October to take control of Russia. Interestingly enough though, he was not in St. Petersburg for most of the Revolutionary period. He was hiding in Helsinki, Finland because the provisional government were trying to arrest him. He arrived in St. Petersburg at the start of October and would lead a relatively bloodless coup that would end in victory for the Bolsheviks.

Lenin was voted to lead this new government. Lenin would sit as chairman of this new government until his death in 1924. Lenin’s time in charge was filled with conflict and oppression. His armies were fighting someone throughout most of his reign. At first, it was the Germans and Austro-Hungarians. After being beaten by the Central Powers, the nation was in ruin and Russia would enter a civil war. Lenin would slowly beat his opposition, but by the civil war ended in 1923, Lenin was slowly dying.

On January 21, 1924, Lenin fell into a coma and died later that day in his Gorki Mansion. On January 27, his body was transported to Moscow, the new capital of Russia, where it was place in a mausoleum. As of May 2021, his body still remains in a transparent casket inside the mausoleum.

Lenin’s Testament

In March of 1923, Lenin had his third stroke¹. He was forced to spend more and more time away from the government in his Gorki Mansion. Determined to shape the Soviet Union towards a better future, he decided to write a letter to his comrades in the government. Over a span of 13 days – December 23, 1922 to January 4, 1923 – Lenin would write his three part letter. In the first part of the letter, Lenin proposed changes to the government’s structure and personnel. He wanted reforms in the Central Committee for fear that it “would be in great danger if the course of events were not quite favourable for us².” In the second part, Lenin purposed that the State Planning Commission be given more legislative power. He believed that, for certain situations, the State Planning Commission had more expertise and knowledge than the Central Committee. In the third and final part of the letter, Lenin questions the role of nationalism. He wanted his successors to rid the Union of nationality to create a more unified Soviet state.

Contents of the Letter

Stalin is too rude and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man in his stead who in all other respects differs from Comrade Stalin in having only one advantage, namely, that of being more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more considerate to the comrades, less capricious, etc.

Vladimir Lenin (1923)

Events following Vladimir Lenin’s Death

By the time of Vladimir Lenin’s death, Joseph Stalin had already consolidated power in the Central Committee. As described in Leon Trotsky’s “On the Suppressed Testament of Lenin,” Stalin suppressed the letter from both the public and congress. The letters would not be released until 1953 by Nikita Khrushchev’s Soviet government.

Significance and Impact on the 20s

Lenin’s Testament has huge significance, but little impact on the 1920s. Because Stalin suppressed the letter, Lenin was not able to hurt him postmortem. Even if he did not suppress it, Stalin probably had too much power for it to actually do anything. Any protests caused from the letter would have been violently suppressed.

However, this letter shows that Stalin was not supposed to be Lenin’s successor. Based on the letter, Lenin could have potentially chosen Trotsky to lead the nation. Trotsky was a strong leader who organized the events leading to the October Revolution and he controlled the army during the civil war. Another possibility would be one of the younger communists like Nikolai Bukharin or Georgy Pyatakov. Bukharin in particular was very popular among the communists and according to Lenin, “a most valuable and major theorist³.”

Citations

Bibliography

Fischer, Louis. The Life of Lenin. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964.

Lenin, Vladimir. “Vladimir Lenin to the Congress of the Soviet Union”. Letter. Moscow: Kommunist, December 22, 1922 to January 4, 1923. Vol. 36. 593-611. From Lenin Internet Archives. Lenin Collected Works. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/congress.htm.

Sebestyen, Victor. Lenin the Dictator: An Intimate Portrait. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2017.

Trotsky, Leon. “On the Suppressed Testament of Lenin”. The New York Times, October 18, 1926. From Lenin Internet Archives. Trotsky Collected Works. https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/12/lenin.htm.

Volkogonov, Dmitri. Lenin: Life and Legacy. Translated by Shukman, Harold. London: HarperCollins, 1994.

Michael Kilduff

Michael Kilduff is a history major at Ramapo College of New Jersey. He is looking to become a high school history teacher after going to graduate school for history education.

Post-WWI Italy and the Creation of Fascism

In the 1920s, Italy was still a new country, especially going by European standards. The various regions in the country all having different cultures, economies, dialects, and politics. Some of the biggest differences were between northern and southern Italy. The industrial north was home to many wealthy, educated people, while the agricultural south was home to many uneducated peasants, with about 80% of the southern population being illiterate¹. These differences caused the country to be very disunited. Italy suffered from economic problems after the war since hundreds of thousands of returning soldiers were now unemployed. People were becoming fed up with the ineffective Italian government. Some felt a similar revolution to the one in Russia needed to happen in Italy. More than ever, the country needed a strong, unifying figurehead. One returning soldier would soon believe that he was the man for the job.

Benito Mussolini was an editor for the Socialist Party newspaper before the war. The Socialist Party expelled Mussolini for him supporting Italian entrance into World War One². Mussolini was then drafted into the army. During the war, Mussolini became more nationalistic and moved away from socialism. After the war, on March 23, 1919, Mussolini founded the fascist movement, with most of its original members comprising of war veterans. The movement was nationalistic, anti-liberal, and anti-communist. As to what the movement actually wanted, that would change often. He at first called for a republic with universal suffrage, then he endorsed the monarchy and the church and did not want elections, before finally settling on dictatorship³. In the end, he did not seem to care what the movement was, as long he could get more people to follow him. And get more people to follow him he did, with Mussolini gaining 10s of thousands of supporters by 1922.

The March on Rome (and Other Cities)

Mussolini and his supporters soon schemed a way to seize power. On the night of October 27-28, 1922, thousands of Mussolini’s “black shirts”, the fascist militia, would descend upon many Italian cities. The plan was to seize post offices, telegraph offices, railway stations, police stations, and government buildings. This would cripple the weak Italian government and ensure they could not mobilize and effective response to the main event: Rome itself. In Rome, the black shirts would confront the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III. They would demand that he make Mussolini the prime minister of Italy. The current prime minister, Luigi Facta, knew that the fascists were planning a coup. Despite this did not believe that it was a serious threat ⁴.

The black shirts were ready for a fight, with some of them armed with rifles and hand grenades⁵. They however did not find much of a fight, with the black shirts being able to seize cities such as Pisa, Florence, Venice, Rovigo, and Bologna, and many more, without a fight. Only in the city of Cremona did law enforcement put up any sort of resistance. This fighting resulted in the deaths of four black shirts and seven police officers before the fascists were able to seize the city⁶. In a few hours, Mussolini supporter’s had taken over most of the infrastructure and communication in Italy. Now they had their eyes set on Rome, with the first black shirts moving on the city in the early hours of October 28.

Once the Italian government had learned of what had transpired, Facta and the loyal generals had to scramble to come up with a way to protect Rome and the King. They wanted to declare a state of siege (the equivalent of martial law in the United States), and succeeded in doing so. However, the King would refuse to sign it, and would have it revoked⁷. It is not completely known why the King made this decision. The only explanations from him that exist are statements that he made in 1945 after the death of Mussolini and the end of World War Two. These are unreliable as he made them in retrospective to serve a propaganda purpose⁸. There is evidence to suggest that the ineffectiveness of the Italian parliament upset the King, but even then that would not be enough for him to give the country to Mussolini with no resistance. The most likely theory is that the King had heard the reports of violence that had occurred in other cities, and was fearful that if he allowed the state of siege it would cause a civil war. It is also likely that the King doubted the loyalty of the army. Many fascists were ex-soldiers and there were plenty of fascists sympathies in the army⁹. Mussolini would then become the youngest Prime Minister in Italy’s history.

Italy itself received the March on Rome rather well . Many were glad that their was some form of strong and stable leadership in Italy, after years of weak government. Even in the government itself, many were not too bothered by Mussolini. Many government officials underestimated him and believed they could influence him with ease¹⁰. The entire world felt Mussolini’s coup, and was likewise received rather well. Countries like Britain and the United States would rather have seen fascist coups happen over communist revolutions. The success of the March on Rome would then inspire other people to try similar coups in other countries, including Hitler in Germany.

Significance

This event, like many things in the 1920s, was a product of the First World War. Specifically, how countries were unable to recover from the war which led to people resenting their governments. In Italy’s case, even though it was a supposed “victor” of the war, the economic and political problems the country had before the war only became worse after the war. The core of the black shirts were made up of disgruntled World War I veterans who felt that their government had done them a disservice. This was a sentiment felt in many countries, especially in Europe. The March on Rome would end up inspiring many across the continent. Mussolini went from a figure known only in Italy to becoming known worldwide in only three days.

The build up to World War Two happened the second that World War One ended, and the March on Rome demonstrates this. Not even four years after the end of the war, the government of a major European power was toppled, with a new ideology taking over. Fascism would soon spread and take root in other European countries. The success of the March on Rome would directly inspire Hitler to undertake the Beer Hall Putsch. These fascist leaders would all have their own ambitions and the result would be Europe once again plunged into conflict.

Citations

Bibliography

• Albanese, Giulia. The March on Rome: Violence and the Rise of Italian Fascism. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis, 2019.
• Lyttelton, Adrian. The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy, 1919-1929. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987.
• Delzell, Charles F. “Remembering Mussolini.” The Wilson Quarterly (1976-) 12, no. 2 (1988): 118-35. accessed March 2, 2021, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40257305
• Sprigge, C.J.S. “WHEN MUSSOLINI LED THE MARCH ON ROME: The Dramatic Scene of Fifteen Years Ago is Described by an Eye-Witness of the Event.” New York Times (1923-Current File), Oct 31, 1937. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www-proquest-com.library2.ramapo.edu:2443/historical-newspapers/when-mussolini-led-march-on-rome/docview/102144926/se-2?accountid=13420.
• Featured Image: Quadriumviri e Mussolini a napoli. Illustrazione Itlaiana, October 24, 1922. Accessed March 2, 2021. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Quadriumviri_e_mussolini_a_napoli.JPG.

Nicholas Buonocore

Nicholas Buonocore is a student at Ramapo College who toke the Discovering Digital History course in the Spring 2021 semester. He was a junior at Ramapo studying history while taking this course.