From Warsaw boy patriot to Comintern old revolutionary: the Pole who returned in the sealed train
“As a six-year-old boy I dreamed of becoming a rebel leader and freeing Poland from the 'Muscovites' and 'Swabians'.” — from his memoirs Za 50 Let
A Polish revolutionary who endured twenty years of tsarist prisons and Siberian exile, emerging as a gold-medal ethnographer of Siberia's indigenous peoples. He led the anti-Piłsudski split of the Polish Socialist Party into its internationalist left wing, then joined the Bolsheviks on Lenin's sealed train. He helped found the International Red Aid (MOPR), built the Soviet radio broadcasting system, and spent nearly sixty years on the front lines of revolutionary struggle, outliving the Great Purge to die of natural causes at 77.
Career timeline
1882Joins 'Proletariat', the first Polish socialist party
1884–1891Arrested, sentenced to 10 years; serves at Kara penal colony; initiates mass poisoning protest (1889)
1891–1904Exiled to Yakutia, Irkutsk, Minusinsk — ethnographic research awarded gold medal; meets Lenin and Krupskaya
1904–1907Returns to Warsaw, leads PPS left wing; pushes Piłsudski out and splits the party (1906)
1907–1914Exile in Austrian Galicia — directs workers' health fund in Drohobych, PPS-Left abroad organiser
1914–1917Swiss exile — attends Zimmerwald Conference, internationalist left activist
1917Returns to Russia with Lenin in the sealed train; commissar for Polish affairs in Kharkov
1918Joins RKP(b) with seniority backdated to 1906; serves in Ukrainian NKID and Polish Bureau
1920Member of Polrevkom — attempt to establish a Polish Soviet government in Białystok
1921Responsible Secretary of the CP(b)U Central Committee (March–December)
1922–1923Secretary of the Comintern Executive Committee (ICCI)
1925–1928Editor-in-chief of Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star)
1928–1930Editor-in-chief of Rabochaya Gazeta and children's magazine Murzilka
1931–1933First chairman of the All-Union Radio Committee — creates Soviet radio broadcasting system
1933–1937Head of museum department, RSFSR Narkompros; editor of Sovetsky Muzey
1937–1941Editor of Nasha Strana; directs Polish-language Radio Moscow broadcasts after German invasion
Armenian fedayi commander who rejected the Republic of Armenia and held Zangezur with his own division
Born in Shabin-Karahisar in the Ottoman Empire in 1865, he led fedayi units of the Dashnaktsutyun and in the First World War commanded the first Armenian volunteer battalion of the Russian army. Refusing to recognize the Republic of Armenia or the Treaty of Batum, he took control of Zangezur with his Special Striking Division in 1918. The historian Donald Bloxham writes that he sought to make it homogeneously Armenian by destroying Muslim villages, while Antranig Chalabian argues that he saved Zangezur’s Armenians from annihilation. In December 1918 he halted his advance into Karabakh at British request, and in 1919 he disbanded his unit. He died in Fresno, California, in 1927.
Career timeline
1892Joined the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
1914–1916Commander of the first Armenian volunteer battalion, Imperial Russian Army
1918Major-general; commander of the Western Armenian division
1918–1919Commander of the Special Striking Division in Zangezur
General who directed Germany’s war with Hindenburg and later joined Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch
Born to a commoner family in the Province of Posen, he served on the General Staff and won fame at Liège and Tannenberg in 1914. In August 1916 he and Hindenburg took over the Supreme Army Command; as First Quartermaster General he directed the war under a de facto military dictatorship and drove the Hindenburg Programme. His spring offensive, opened with Operation Michael in March 1918, failed; in September he demanded an immediate armistice and in October he was dismissed. After the war he spread the stab-in-the-back myth and took part in the Kapp Putsch of 1920 and Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. He sat in the Reichstag for the National Socialist Freedom Movement in 1924–1928 and died in Munich in 1937.
Career timeline
1914Liège and Tannenberg
1916–1918First Quartermaster General
1918Spring offensive (Operation Michael); dismissed in October
The American colonel who brought General Electric turbines and dam-building expertise to the Soviet Union's showcase construction site
At the 1932 Dneprostroi dedication: "The practical experience of American methods thus acquired will be a lever in raising the living standards of this country."
A self-taught dam engineer, Hugh Lincoln Cooper made his name by taming the Horseshoe Rapids at Niagara (1907) and spanning the Mississippi at Keokuk (1913), rising to become America's foremost hydroelectric builder. In 1926 the Soviet government invited him as chief consultant for Dneprostroi; he supplied General Electric turbines, supervised every phase of construction, and delivered Europe's largest power station eight months ahead of schedule in 1932. That September the USSR awarded Cooper and five other American engineers the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, the first time the decoration went to a foreigner. He remained an anti-communist all his life, but without his dam there would have been no flagship achievement for the First Five-Year Plan.
Career timeline
1907Completed Toronto Power Generating Station, Horseshoe Rapids, Niagara
1913Completed Keokuk Dam and power plant, Mississippi River
1914Consultant, Aswan Dam power conversion (interrupted by WWI)
1917–1918Supervising engineer, US Army Corps of Engineers; colonel
1919Completed Lake Zumbro Hydroelectric Plant, Minnesota
1924Completed Wilson Dam, Alabama (later part of TVA)
SPD politician who proclaimed the republic from a Reichstag window on 9 November 1918 and became Weimar’s first head of government
On 9 November 1918, he proclaimed Germany a republic from a Reichstag window. In June 1919, he resigned as head of government rather than sign the Treaty of Versailles.
A printer from Kassel who became an SPD journalist and Reichstag deputy, he joined Prince Max of Baden’s cabinet in October 1918. On 9 November, hearing that Liebknecht was about to proclaim a socialist republic, he proclaimed a republic first from a Reichstag window, to Ebert’s fury. A People’s Deputy, he became head of government in February 1919 but resigned in June rather than accept the Treaty of Versailles. He was mayor of Kassel in the 1920s, survived a far-right cyanide attack in 1922, went into exile in 1933 and died in Copenhagen.
Career timeline
1903Entered the Reichstag and served in the leadership of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) parliamentary group.
1917Was elected chairman of the SPD.
1918Became vice president of the Reichstag in June and a Social Democratic minister in Max von Baden’s cabinet in October. Proclaimed the republic from a Reichstag window on 9 November and joined the revolutionary provisional government, the Council of the People’s Deputies.
1919Was appointed head of government of the Weimar Republic on 13 February. On 20 June, he refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles and resigned with his cabinet.
General who led the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia in 1918–1920 and kept it strictly neutral in the Russian Civil War
Born in Texas in 1865, the son of a Baptist minister, he graduated from West Point in 1889, fought in the Philippine–American War and served on the Army General Staff. In 1918 he was given the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia on the direct orders of President Wilson and reached Vladivostok in September. Ordered to stay strictly apolitical, he concentrated on keeping the railway running and on the evacuation of the Czechoslovak Legion, and refused pressure to help Kolchak’s Whites. He condemned the killing and robbery committed by the soldiers of Semyonov and Kalmykov and suspected Japan of planning to annex eastern Siberia. The last American soldiers left on 1 April 1920. He retired in 1928, wrote the memoir America’s Siberian Adventure, and died in New Jersey in 1940.
Career timeline
1889Graduated from West Point
1899–1902Served in the Philippine–American War
1909Assigned to the General Staff in Washington
1918Promoted brigadier general; commander of the 8th Division
1918–1920Commander of the American Expeditionary Force, Siberia
British general who led Dunsterforce across Persia to defend Baku in 1918
Born in Lausanne in 1865, he went to school with Rudyard Kipling and was the model for “Stalky” in Kipling’s stories. An officer of the British Indian Army, he served on the North-West Frontier and in China. At the end of 1917 he was given command of Dunsterforce, an Allied force of fewer than 1,000 men drawn from the Mesopotamian and other fronts, which left Baghdad in January 1918 and crossed Persia. In August 1918 he took up the defence of Baku, then held by the Centro Caspian Dictatorship, but on 14 September he abandoned the city before the Ottoman assault. He died in Devon, England, in 1946.
Career timeline
1884Commissioned lieutenant, British Army
1900–1902Service in China during the Boxer Rebellion
1915Temporary brigadier general, commanding the Jhelum Brigade
Freikorps commander who tried to keep Germany's eastern influence in Finland and the Baltic
White Army quartermaster Hannes Ignatius described him as the "true regent of Finland."
He led the Baltic Sea Division to the aid of the Finnish Whites in 1918, then commanded the German troops and Freikorps in Latvia in 1919, retaking Riga but backing a coup against the Latvian government he saw as an obstacle. Recalled after Cēsis, he led far-right veterans' movements in the Weimar years.
Career timeline
1895Assigned to the Great General Staff
1914Led the 76th Infantry Regiment, wounded at the First Battle of the Marne
1918Commander of the Baltic Sea Division, aided the Finnish Whites, then 'German General in Finland'
1919Commander of the VI Reserve Corps, retook Riga, defeated at Cēsis (Wenden) and recalled
1920Commander in Berlin during the Kapp Putsch
1924–1933Chairman of the United Patriotic Associations of Germany (VVVD)
Polish general who seized Vilnius in a staged 'mutiny' and set up Central Lithuania
On 9 October 1920 Vilnius was occupied not by the Polish general Żeligowski, but by the Lithuanian Żeligowski.
A Polish general from the Russian imperial army, he seized Vilnius on 9 October 1920 in a 'mutiny' agreed with Piłsudski and set up Central Lithuania, an affair that blocked Polish-Lithuanian relations until 1938. He died in London in 1947.
Career timeline
1888Commissioned infantry officer, Russian imperial army
1917–1918Organized Polish units in Russia; commander, 4th Polish Rifle Division
Jurist who shaped Finland’s republican constitution and, as its first president, sought to reconcile the defeated Reds
Born in Suomussalmi in 1865, he was a jurist and a constitutionalist of the Young Finnish Party who resisted Russification by legal means. He was senator for trade and industry in the Mechelin Senate in 1905–1907, professor of administrative law at the University of Helsinki in 1908–1918 and Speaker of Parliament in 1914. As chairman of the Constitutional Council from 1917 he led the drafting of the republican constitution, and in 1918 he backed a republic against the constitutional monarchy favoured by the victors of the civil war. Elected the first president by Parliament in July 1919, defeating Mannerheim by 143 votes to 50, he favoured peace with Soviet Russia, pardoned most of the Red prisoners and ratified the Treaty of Tartu. He did not seek re-election in 1925, was kidnapped by Lapua Movement activists in 1930 and died in 1952.
Career timeline
1905–1907Senator for trade and industry in the Mechelin Senate
1908–1918Professor of Administrative Law, University of Helsinki
1914Speaker of the Parliament of Finland
1917–1918Chairman of the Constitutional Council
1918First President of the Supreme Administrative Court
German socialist and a leading figure in the workers’ council movement.
A social-democratic journalist, Däumig joined the Independent Social Democratic Party during the First World War and became influential among Berlin radicals and the revolutionary shop stewards. As a leading member of the Berlin workers’ council executive in November 1918, he sought to make the council system the basis of the constitution, but lost to supporters of a national assembly. In 1920 he led the USPD left into the Communist International and became co-chair of the United Communist Party of Germany. He resigned as co-chair with Paul Levi in February 1921, left the party after the March Action and Levi’s expulsion, and helped found the Communist Working Group; in 1922 he rejoined the USPD.
Career timeline
1901Began working for Social Democratic newspapers in Gera, Halle and Erfurt.
1911Joined the Berlin Social Democratic newspaper Vorwärts to cover military affairs and workers’ education.
1916After leaving Vorwärts, campaigned for the Independent Social Democratic Party.
1918Became a leader of the revolutionary shop stewards and a leading member of the Berlin workers’ council executive.
1920Entered the Reichstag as an Independent Social Democrat, backed acceptance of the Bolsheviks’ 21 conditions and affiliation with the Communist International, and became co-chair of the United Communist Party of Germany in December.
1921Resigned as co-chair of the United Communist Party of Germany with Paul Levi in February. After the March Action, he left the party and helped found the Communist Working Group.
1922Rejoined the Independent Social Democratic Party with the Communist Working Group.
A Pole who passed through the German and Russian revolutions and tried to bring revolution home
As the Red Army prepared to march on Warsaw in 1920, he joined Radek in repeatedly urging Lenin to halt — warning him not to overestimate the revolutionary consciousness of the Polish worker.
Co-founder of Polish communism, he established the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland (SDKPiL) in 1893 together with Rosa Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches. Active in the German SPD's left wing, he helped build the Spartacus League and the German Communist Party, and after the Russian Revolution joined the Bolsheviks, becoming one of Lenin's close advisers on agrarian policy. During the Polish-Soviet War of 1920 he served as chairman of the Polish Provisional Revolutionary Committee, and later became the first chairman of International Red Aid (MOPR) and first rector of the Communist University of the National Minorities of the West.
Career timeline
1889Co-founded Polish Workers' Union
1893Co-founded SDKPiL with Luxemburg and Jogiches
1896Doctorate from Zurich University
1906–1907SDKPiL delegate to RSDLP London Congress; candidate CC member
1914–1918Spartacus League; imprisoned in Germany for anti-war activity
Politician who gave up the Labour chairmanship in 1914 over war credits and later became Britain’s first Labour prime minister
He resigned as Labour chairman in 1914 over Britain’s entry into the war and war spending; in 1931 he led a national government and lost Labour’s support.
Born into poverty in Lossiemouth, Scotland, he became an organiser of the Independent Labour Party and Labour and was chairman of the party from 1911. When Labour backed the government’s war credits in August 1914 he resigned the chairmanship and was fiercely attacked for his opposition to the war. In 1924 he became Britain’s first Labour prime minister and recognised the Soviet Union, returning as prime minister in 1929. Forming a National Government with the Conservatives in the crisis of 1931, he was expelled from Labour. He died at sea in 1937.
Career timeline
1893Joined the Independent Labour Party and worked as a journalist in London.
1906Elected MP for Leicester.
1911Became chairman of the parliamentary Labour group.
1924Became Britain’s first Labour prime minister.
1929Led a second minority Labour government and included opposition leaders in a national government amid rising unemployment.
Journalist who overthrew the Bavarian monarchy in Munich in November 1918, proclaimed the People’s State and was assassinated the next year
He organized the November 1918 Bavarian Revolution, overthrew the monarchy and proclaimed the People’s State; he was assassinated in February 1919 while on his way to resign.
Born to a Jewish merchant family in Berlin, he was a theatre critic and editor of the SPD’s Vorwärts before moving to Munich. He joined the USPD against the war and was jailed for leading the munitions strike of January 1918. On 7 November he led demonstrators from a rally on the Theresienwiese round the barracks, and the next day proclaimed the People’s State of Bavaria and became premier. His publication of documents on German war guilt earned him the right’s hatred. Heavily defeated in the January 1919 election, he was assassinated by Count Arco-Valley on 21 February on his way to resign.
Career timeline
1890–1895Contributing editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung.
1898Joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
1900–1905Edited Vorwärts.
1907–1910Chief editor of the Fränkische Tagespost in Nuremberg.
1917Joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD).
1918Convicted of treason for inciting a munitions workers’ strike, he was imprisoned at Stadelheim and released in October under a general amnesty.
1918–1919Served as the first republican premier of the People’s State of Bavaria.
The revolution's underground organizer, always behind the scenes, until he had to lead
On 10 March 1919, still investigating the killings of Luxemburg and Liebknecht, Jogiches was arrested and shot in the back of the head in Berlin's Moabit prison within hours. His last words to an interrogator: 'You will never find these murderers.'
Polish-Jewish Marxist revolutionary. Co-founded the SDKPiL with Rosa Luxemburg in 1893, the main forerunner of the Communist Party of Poland. During the First World War he was the key behind-the-scenes organizer of the underground Spartacus League in Germany. For decades Luxemburg's closest political comrade and personal companion, a brilliant organizer who struggled to write for himself. After Luxemburg and Liebknecht were murdered in January 1919, Jogiches took over KPD leadership and investigated their killings, only to be assassinated by the same Freikorps milieu two months later.
Career timeline
1885Founded one of Vilnius's first underground socialist study circles
1890Fled conscription to Zürich; met Rosa Luxemburg
1892Founded the Social-Democratic Library publishing house
1893Co-founded the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland (SDKP, later SDKPiL) with Luxemburg
1905–1906Led SDKPiL Central Committee in Warsaw; arrested, sentenced to 8 years' hard labor, escaped
1907Elected candidate member of the RSDLP Central Committee at the London Congress
1916–1918Directed the underground Spartacus League; oversaw the Spartacus newsletter
1919.01–03Took over KPD leadership; led the investigation into the murders of Luxemburg and Liebknecht
Last chancellor of the German Empire, who sought the armistice, announced the emperor’s abdication and handed power to Ebert
On 9 November 1918, as revolutionary demonstrations spread in Berlin, Max von Baden announced the emperor’s abdication and transferred the chancellorship to Friedrich Ebert.
Heir to the grand-ducal house of Baden and a former Prussian army officer, he won moderates’ respect in the war through Red Cross and prisoner-of-war relief work. Chancellor from 3 October 1918, he brought the SPD into government, asked the Allies for an armistice and carried the constitutional amendment that made the Empire a parliamentary monarchy. On 9 November, with Berlin full of demonstrators, he announced the emperor’s abdication without his consent, handed the chancellorship to Ebert and withdrew. In 1920 he founded the Salem boarding school with Kurt Hahn.
Career timeline
1918.10.03Became German Empire chancellor and brought the SPD and other majority-party representatives into the cabinet.
1918.10Sought an armistice from the Allies and advanced constitutional amendments shifting the Empire toward parliamentary government.
1918.11.09Announced the emperor’s abdication and transferred the chancellorship to Friedrich Ebert.
The soldier-politician who began as a socialist, became Head of State of reborn Poland, broke the Red Army's westward drive at Warsaw in 1920, and later ruled through a coup-built authoritarian regime
To be defeated and not to yield, that is victory; to be victorious and to rest on one's laurels, that is defeat.
Born 5 December 1867 at Zułowo manor (now Zalavas, Lithuania, then Vilna Governorate of the Russian Empire), second son of a noble szlachta family that sources characterize either as Polish or as Polonized Lithuanians. Arrested in March 1887 over the plot against Alexander III and sent to five years of Siberian exile, he joined the Polish Socialist Party in 1893, led it, and edited its underground organ Robotnik from 1894. In the First World War he raised the Polish Legions on Austria's side, was imprisoned at Magdeburg after the 1917 Oath crisis, became Chief of State of reborn Poland in November 1918, and broke the Red Army's drive at Warsaw in 1920. He ruled as the strongman of the Sanacja regime after the May 1926 coup, jailed opponents in the Brest trials and Bereza Kartuska, signed a non-aggression pact with the USSR in 1932, and died of liver cancer in Warsaw on 12 May 1935.
Career timeline
1887–1892Siberian exile for implication in the plot against Alexander III
1892–1908Leader of the Polish Socialist Party; publisher of its organ Robotnik
1908–1914Organized the Combat Organization and Riflemen's unions; trained military cadres in Galicia
1914–1917Commander, 1st Brigade of the Polish Legions under Austria-Hungary
1917–1918Imprisoned in the Magdeburg fortress for refusing the oath of loyalty to Germany
1918.11–1922.12Head of State (Naczelnik Panstwa)
1919–1921Commander-in-chief of the Polish army in the Soviet-Polish War
1926.05Returned to power in the May coup
1926–1935Strongman of the Sanacja regime; War Minister and twice premier
1932Concluded the Soviet-Polish non-aggression pact
An entomologist who carried scientific expertise into international relief
“Can we stop with feeding children alone while their natural protectors are allowed to die?”
Vernon Kellogg was an entomologist and science administrator whose work at Stanford advanced zoology and the institutionalization of scientific research in the United States. His wartime service with Herbert Hoover's relief work in Belgium brought him into postwar international humanitarian operations. After inspecting the Volga famine zone in 1921, he reported to Washington that relief could not be limited to children while their parents and other adults died, helping support the American Relief Administration's expansion. His career shows a scientific specialist becoming an agent of administrative and ethical judgment in the face of mass starvation.
Career timeline
1867–1894Raised in Kansas, he studied biology and entomology at the University of Kansas, Stanford University, and the University of Leipzig.
1894–1920Professor of zoology at Stanford, where he established the department and researched insect taxonomy and evolution.
1915–1916Directed the American Commission for Relief in Belgium, organizing aid for wartime refugees and civilians.
1917–1920Published on relief and war and continued supporting Hoover's food and international relief work.
1921.09As an ARA special investigator, accompanied the first food train and inspected the Volga famine zone.
late 1921Briefed Hoover in Washington on the need to expand relief to adults as well as children.
1921–1933Served as the National Research Council's first permanent secretary and helped organize scientific research and public science.
General who struck the 1918 secret pact with Ebert that preserved the officer corps and later served Weimar as defence and interior minister
On 10 November 1918, he made a secret telephone pact with Ebert, pledging army support for the new government while preserving the officer corps’ command.
A Württemberg staff officer and railway transport expert, he ran the War Office in the war, directing munitions production and labour mobilisation. In October 1918 he succeeded Ludendorff as First Quartermaster General and in November told the emperor that the army no longer stood behind him. On the night of 10 November he struck a secret telephone pact with Ebert, trading the army’s support for the preservation of the officer corps’ command. He later served as transport, defence and interior minister and fell in 1932 over his ban on the Nazi SA.
Career timeline
1884Entered the army.
1912Became head of the General Staff’s railway department, overseeing wartime troop movement and supply.
1918In October replaced Ludendorff as first quartermaster general; after the armistice, worked with Ebert on troop repatriation and volunteer units to suppress the uprising.
The voice of Action Française, the polemicist who pushed a scandal from the page into the street day after day
Through January 1934 his columns called out the implicated deputies one by one, and on the morning of 6 February the paper urged its readers to come to the Chamber that evening. At the front of the columns that filled the square that night were the Camelots du Roi, the action squads of Action Française
The son of the novelist Alphonse Daudet, a medical student turned polemicist, who founded the daily Action Française with Maurras and set its tone. He sat as a deputy for Paris from 1919 to 1924, and his method of personal attack and denunciation left its mark on a generation of French political language. After losing a libel case brought over his claim that the police had killed his son Philippe in 1923, he fled to Belgium in 1927 and returned under an amnesty in 1930. In January 1934 he printed the names of the politicians touched by the Stavisky affair day after day, building the picture of a 'republic of thieves' that carried the paper's readers to the square on 6 February.
Career timeline
1867–1890Born in Paris, son of Alphonse Daudet; studies medicine
1900–1908Turns royalist and joins Action Française
1908–1942Co-founder and leading writer of the daily Action Française
1919–1924Deputy for Paris
1923–1927The lawsuits over his son Philippe's death; convicted of libel and flees to Belgium
1930Returns under an amnesty
1934.01–02The press offensive over the Stavisky affair that produced the demonstration of 6 February
Aristocratic soldier who rose from Russian Imperial lieutenant general to Marshal of Finland, facing the Soviet Union in two wars
"Forts, cannons and foreign aid will not help unless every man himself knows that he is the guard of his country."
A Swedish-speaking Finnish aristocrat who served 30 years in the Imperial Russian Army, rising to lieutenant general through the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War. In the 1918 Finnish Civil War he commanded the White Army to victory, then as regent consolidated Finland's independence, telling the London Times that 'the historic mission of Finland is to drive Bolshevism out.' As commander-in-chief in the Winter War and Continuation War, he led outnumbered Finnish forces against the Soviet Union, fighting alongside Nazi Germany but refusing to assault Leningrad. Elected president in 1944, he concluded peace with the USSR and expelled German forces in the Lapland War, leaving Finland the only Eastern European nation to escape occupation.
Career timeline
1889–1917Cavalry officer, Imperial Russian Army; retired as lieutenant general, 1917
1918Commander-in-chief, White Army; led victory in Finnish Civil War
1918–1919Regent of Finland (head of state)
1931–1939Chairman, Finnish Defence Council
1939–1944Commander-in-chief, Finnish Defence Forces (Winter War & Continuation War)
From Foch's brilliant staff officer to a general of defeat and accommodation
On 12 June 1940, Weygand advised the French government to capitulate.
Maxime Weygand was a French general who served as Ferdinand Foch's key staff officer in the First World War, coordinating Allied operations and reading the armistice terms to the German delegation in 1918. Between the wars he carried French military influence in Poland and the Levant, then became commander-in-chief of the French armies in May 1940 and, after the German breakthrough, judged that continued fighting in metropolitan France was no longer feasible and advised an armistice. He joined the Vichy government and later directed French North Africa, choosing limited accommodation with Germany while enforcing antisemitic measures harshly. Detained after the war on treason charges and cleared in 1948, he later defended Marshal Pétain's memory.
Career timeline
1885–1888Studied at Saint-Cyr and the Saumur Cavalry School
1914–1918Chief of staff to Foch and senior staff officer at Allied Supreme Headquarters
1918Read the armistice terms at the Compiègne negotiations
1920Military adviser to the Inter-Allied Mission in Poland
1923–1924High Commissioner of the Levant
1931–1935Vice-president of France's Superior War Council and Inspector-General of the Army
1940.05–06Commander-in-chief of the French armies; advised an armistice
1940.06–1941.11Vichy Minister for Defence and Delegate-General in North Africa
1942–1945Held by Germany, including internment at Itter Castle
Editor of the Social Democratic Népszava who was murdered by an officer detachment in 1920 for exposing the White Terror
A former schoolteacher, he wrote for Népszava from 1903, led the organisation of teachers, and in 1906 became president of the Free Association of Hungarian Teachers. He was state secretary for education in Mihály Károlyi’s coalition government, but during the Soviet Republic declined any role on grounds of principle and criticised the dictatorship of the proletariat in the National Assembly of Councils. In September 1919 he became responsible editor of Népszava and wrote articles exposing the White Terror. On 17 February 1920 officers of the Ostenburg detachment abducted and murdered him together with his colleague Béla Bacsó and threw the bodies into the Danube. Horthy’s amnesty of 1921 ensured the killers were never punished.
Career timeline
1897–1898Editor of Népszava
1906President of the Free Association of Hungarian Teachers
1918–1919State secretary for education under Károlyi
1919Responsible editor of Népszava
1920Murdered by officers of the Ostenburg detachment
First prime minister of the Mongolian People's Republic, diplomat of the old regime
On 23 September 1924 a constitution-drafting commission chaired by Prime Minister Tserendorj was set up, and on 26 November 1924 the first Great Hural unanimously adopted its 6-chapter, 50-article constitution declaring Mongolia's first republican order.
Born in 1868 at Kherlen Bayan Ulaan as a subject of the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu's Great Shabi, he learned Mongolian, Manchu, Chinese and Russian and worked as a scribe and translator in the Manchu administration in Khüree from 1885 to 1911. After the 1911 independence he entered the Foreign Ministry, serving as deputy foreign minister in 1913-1915 and first-ranked minister in 1915-1919. He signed the 1919 renunciation document under Chinese occupation and became deputy foreign minister in the revolutionary government of 1921. Appointed prime minister in 1923, he headed the 1924 constitution-drafting commission and became the republic's first prime minister. After 1926, as Moscow tightened control, he resisted the abolition of private property and the persecution of the Buddhist Church, and he died of illness in office in 1928; sources give his death as 13 February or 13 November 1928.
Career timeline
1885–1890Scribe in the Manchu administration in Khüree
1890–1904Teacher at the Russian consulate's translator school
1904–1911Chinese-language translator in the Manchu ministry in Khüree (6th rank)
1913–1915Deputy foreign minister of Autonomous Mongolia
1915–1919First-ranked minister of foreign affairs
1923–1928Prime minister of Mongolia, from 1924 of the Mongolian People's Republic
