The World in 1919

1919 was a pivotal year. While the Paris Peace Conference dominated the headlines, events elsewhere in the world would have a major impact on the 20th century and beyond. In Ireland, Egypt, India, China and the Middle East, Britain, France and Japan faced gathering resistance to their rule. Nationalist leaders like Gandhi, Saad Zaghlul, and Ho Chi Minh made an early mark, whilst the leaders of the Irish rebellion against Britain enjoyed more immediate success. In 1919, the world seemed poised between triumphant imperialism and emerging nationalism. 1919 witnessed fear of communism on a global scale, fuelled by Bolshevik success in Russia, a short-lived revolutionary government in Munich and Bela Kun's seizure of power in Hungary. In Italy and Germany, Fascism and National Socialism emerged as alternative to both communism and the bourgeois status quo, whilst in the United States Attorney General Mitchell Palmer's attempts to quell radicalism and enforce Prohibition launched the career of J. Edgar Hoover.