4.

London Congress, July 27–August 1, 1896

Introductory Note

The International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress of 1896 was the largest congress yet of the Second International, attended by around 770 delegates from twenty-two countries.

This was the last congress disrupted by anarchist delegates, who turned the event into “the most agitated, the most tumultuous, and the most chaotic of all the congresses of the Second International,” in the words of Émile Vandervelde.^[1]

In the opening session, the congress voted to confirm the Zurich resolution of 1893 on the conditions of admission, which excluded anarchists from attending. The vote was 17 national delegations to 2, with 1 delegation (Italy) abstaining. The French delegation (57 to 56) and Dutch (9 to 5) voted against; the British delegation supported the Zurich resolution by a vote of 223 to 104.

At the conclusion of the event, in a motion on the next congress, it was decided to definitively settle the question of anarchist participation at future international congresses, formally suspending them from membership in the International.

The London Congress was also the first one since the death of Frederick Engels the previous year. In his opening address to the congress, Paul Singer stated, “We, along with the whole of the Congress, express our deep regret that our great teacher, Frederick Engels, who, amidst the enthusiastic applause of the representatives of the workers of all countries, closed the last International Congress at Zurich, is no longer with us to open this, the greatest of all the Congresses that have been held. Frederick Engels is dead, but his spirit, his work, his example remain. The best thanks we can give him for his life of labour and self-sacrificing devotion is to follow in his footsteps, and carry on his work.”^[2]

* * *

THE AGRARIAN QUESTION

Report from the Agrarian Commission, as amended by the congress.

The evils that capitalistic exploitation, including landlordism, produce alike for the cultivator of the soil as for the whole of society at an ever-increasing rate, can be definitively abolished only in a society in which land, like the other means of production, has become socialized, i.e., common property, which society in its corporate capacity, causes to be cultivated in the common interest and on the most scientific methods.

The conditions of land tenure and the division of classes among the agricultural population in different countries are, however, too various for it to be possible to formulate a program that shall be binding for the labor parties of all countries as regards the means for attaining this end or the particular classes to be won over.

It is nonetheless the first duty of the labor parties throughout the world, insofar as the agrarian question is concerned, to organize all the subdivisions of the agricultural proletariat in its class struggle against its exploiters.

According to these principles, the Congress leaves it to every nation to formulate, for the attaining of this end, the ways and means most suitable to the situation of their country.

The Congress declares it desirable that, in every country where there are statistical committees appointed by the labor parties, they shall combine and centralize their results by communicating among themselves their statistical abstracts, etc.

* * *

POLITICAL ACTION

Report from the Political Action Commission, presented to the congress by George Lansbury. An amendment by members of the British delegation to delete the words “independent of and apart from all bourgeois political parties” from paragraph two was rejected.

This Congress understands political action as the organized struggle in all forms for the conquest of political power, and its use nationally and locally in legislation and administration by the working class on behalf of their emancipation.

The Congress declares that with the view of realizing the emancipation of the workers, the enfranchisement of humanity and the citizen, and the establishment of the international socialist republic, the conquest of political power is of paramount importance, and calls upon workers of all countries to unite, independent of and apart from all bourgeois political parties, and to demand universal adult suffrage, one adult one vote, and the second ballot, together with the national and local referendum and initiative.

The Congress also declares that the political emancipation of women is inseparable from that of the workers, and therefore calls upon women in all countries to work and organize politically side by side with the workers.

The Congress declares in favor of the full autonomy of all nationalities, and its sympathy with the workers of any country at present suffering under the yoke of military, national, or other despotisms; and calls upon the workers in all such countries to fall into line, side by side with the class-conscious workers of the world, to organize for the overthrow of international capitalism and the establishment of international social democracy.

This Congress declares that, whatever the pretext—whether it be religious or in the interests of so-called civilization—colonial extension is only another name for the extension of the area of capitalist exploitation in the exclusive interests of the capitalist class.

* * *

EDUCATION AND PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

Report from the Commission on Education and Physical Development, presented by Sidney Webb and amended by the congress.

In presenting their report to the Congress, the Commission on Education and Physical Development desire to express their sense of the enormous importance of the subject to the socialist movement and to the well-being of the working class of the whole world. Under the present system of capitalist exploitation, the children of the masses are stunted in their physical growth, deprived of that healthy leisure which is the condition of harmonious development, and prevented from obtaining access to the education and knowledge which is the common heritage of the whole human race. Under present circumstances the parents of the proletarian class [will] struggle in vain to secure to their children those opportunities of nurture and culture without which neither a healthy family nor a well-organized society is possible.

Further, the use by the capitalist employer of the labor of children and young persons to displace the labor of adults is a serious menace to the standard of living even of the best-organized workmen, whilst, by reducing the level of wages, it results in no pecuniary advantage even to the families concerned. Finally, seeing that the future well-being of society depends on the constant discovery of further scientific truths, especially in regard to economic, industrial, and social organization, socialists in all countries are urged to use their best efforts to promote scientific investigation and research of the highest kind, and to demand that the necessary means for such work be provided from public funds. The following resolutions are submitted to the Congress:

RESOLUTIONS

1. That the Congress, whilst fully recognizing the value in education of independent experiment, declares that it is an essential duty of the public administration in each country to provide a complete system of education, under democratic public control, extending from the kindergarten to the university (including physical, scientific, artistic, and technical (manual work) training), the whole made generally accessible to every citizen by freedom from fees and public covering maintenance.

2. That the minimum age at which children should be exempted from full attendance at school, and legally allowed to be employed in industry, whether in factories or domestic workshops, should be gradually, but as quickly as possible, raised in all countries to at least sixteen years.^[3]

3. That the employment of any child under eighteen in any trade proved to be unhealthy or dangerous, or in night work, be absolutely forbidden by law.

4. That in order to ensure proper continuance of educational training, and to restrain the illegitimate use of child labor by the capitalist, no employer be permitted to work any boy or girl under eighteen years of age, whether in factory or domestic workshops, for more than twenty-four hours per week (the half-time system), with compulsory attendance at continuation classes.

5. That, with regard to children, at any rate, the factory legislation of all industrial countries should be uniformly fixed by international agreement; and the Congress observes that the various governments have not yet carried out the engagements to this effect solemnly entered into by them at the Berlin conference of 1891;^[4] the British government, in particular, still permitting child labor at the age of eleven.

6. That for the proper protection and education of children in the industrial centers, it is absolutely necessary that manufacturing work done at home should be as effectively regulated and inspected as work done in factories; and where a capitalist employer, in order to escape from factory legislation, gives out work to be done in the workers’ own homes, this Congress declares that he should be made legally responsible for seeing that such work is done under proper sanitary and other conditions, precisely as if it were done in his own factory.

* * *

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION

Report from the Organization Commission, presented to the congress by Charles A. Gibson. The implementation of recommendations 1, 2, and 3 related to the future creation of the International Socialist Bureau.

In presenting their report to the Congress, the commission desires to state that of the resolutions sent in, they have been able to draw up in their report those which embody the desires of the framers of the majority of the resolutions. We have been unable to recommend the publication of an international paper as desired in resolutions 7 and 8, owing to the cost, and to the fact that many of our existing socialist papers contain reports from other countries.^[5]

I

1. That in the opinion of this Congress an effort should immediately be made to create a permanent international committee, with a responsible secretary, centered in some convenient part of Europe.

2. That a small committee be appointed from this Congress to frame proposals for giving effect to no. 1, and report to the next Congress.

3. That said committee be empowered to act as a provisional committee for the movement between now and the next Congress; and that any nationality not represented on the committee by election from this Congress may send one representative to act until the international congress next meets.^[6]

II

4. This Congress recognizes the constantly growing necessity of international economic information, and invites all nationalities to exercise their utmost diligence in carrying out the resolutions of Brussels and Zurich concerning the establishment of international bureaus of information.

III

5. In view of the large emigration from European countries to America and other continents, where a highly concentrated capitalism is thereby afforded extraordinary opportunities of reducing the wages of labor, and generally overcoming any resistance of the workers to oppression and degradation;

In view also of the fact that many of the emigrants, previously connected with the labor parties and labor organizations of their respective native lands, are generally failing (chiefly because of their ignorance of the English language) to connect themselves with the militant labor bodies of their adopted countries, so that the forces lost to the European movement by emigration are entirely lost to the international movement:

The Congress recommends that arrangements be made between the European countries and the Trans-Oceanic continents for the distribution among the emigrants at European ports and on board emigrant ships of printed leaflets containing necessary information and directions; also, for such socialist agitators as America and the other continents may require to properly organize the foreign portion of their proletariat.

* * *

WAR AND MILITARISM

Report from the War Commission, presented by Emmanuel Wurm and amended by the congress.

Under capitalism the chief causes of war are not religious or national differences but economic antagonisms, into which the exploiting classes of the various countries are driven by the system of production for profit.

Just as this system sacrifices unceasingly the life and health of the working class on the battlefield of labor, so it has no scruple in shedding their blood in search of profit by the opening up of new markets.

The working class of all countries should rise up against military oppression on the same ground that they revolt against all other forms of exploitation under which they are victimized by the possessing classes.

To attain this object they must acquire political power, so as to abolish the system of capitalist production, and simultaneously refuse, in all countries, to governments that are the instruments of the capitalist class, the means of maintaining the existing order of things.

Standing armies, whose maintenance even in times of peace exhausts the nation, and the cost of which is borne by the working class, increase the danger of war between nations, and at the same time favor the brutal oppression of the proletariat of the world. This is why the cry “Lay down your arms!” is no more listened to than the other appeals to humanitarian sentiments raised by the capitalist classes.

The working class alone has the serious desire, and it alone possesses the power, to realize universal peace.

It demands:

1. The simultaneous abolition of standing armies and the establishment of a national citizen force.

2. The establishment of an international tribunal of arbitration whose decision shall be final.

3. The final decision on the question of war or peace to be vested directly in the people in cases where the governments refuse to accept the decision of the tribunal of arbitration.

And it protests against the system of secret treaties.

The working class will only attain these objects by securing the control of legislation and by entering into an alliance with the international socialist movement, whereby peace may be finally assured, and the real fraternity of peoples permanently established.

* * *

THE ECONOMIC AND INDUSTRIAL QUESTION

Report from the Economic and Industrial Commission, presented to the congress by Hermann Molkenbuhr. A minority report from the commission, calling for discussion of the question of the general strike, was rejected; that resolution can be found in the appendix.

I

In the opinion of this Congress, the workers of all nations should strive continuously as a class for the socialization of the means of production, transport, distribution, and exchange; the whole to be controlled by a completely democratic organization in the interests of the entire community, thus emancipating the laboring class and the people at large from the domination of capitalism. This Congress considers that national and international action in this complete socialist sense is becoming more necessary every day, in view of the disappearance of free competition and the rapid growth of national and international monopolies controlled by huge organizations of the capitalist class. Petroleum, oil, sewing cotton, certain minerals, large iron castings, etc., are now controlled by combinations of capitalists who aspire to fix both prices and wages in these trades. Such powerful corporations cannot be effectively countered by ordinary trade unions or isolated political action. A more complete organization of the workers is essential to overcome successfully the machinations of these great companies; and this Congress recommends that steps be taken to organize an international agency to call attention to the movements of these corporations, which frequently use political intrigues to further their ends, and should endeavor to bring about the socialization of such enterprises by national and international enactment.

In other directions the increasing power of mankind to produce wealth, instead of being turned to the advantage of the community, is proving [to be] the cause of gluts and commercial crises, national and international. The workers in coal, iron, leather, cotton, and other trades are in all countries thrown out of work and deprived of their livelihood by the action of economic causes which, so far, they have been unable to control. In all civilized nations the absolute need for the substitution of ownership by the community for such a chaotic system is being recognized; and the great coal mines, the great iron works and chemical works, the railways, and the larger factories have all reached the stage where their nationalization and socialization present no difficulty from the economic point of view.

This Congress, therefore, calls upon the workers of the world to proceed at once to urge definite measures of socialization, nationalization, and communization in their respective countries, keeping one another fully informed as to what each nationality is doing in this direction, so that whatever policy is resolved upon may be adopted, so far as possible, simultaneously.

II

The trade union struggle of the workers is indispensable to resist the economic tyranny of capital, and thereby better the actual condition of the toilers. Without trade unions no living wage and no shortening of hours of labor can be expected. By this struggle, however, the exploitation of labor will only be lessened, not abolished. The exploitation of labor can only be done away with entirely when society has taken control of all the means of production, including the land and the means of distribution. This, however, requires in the first instance a system of legislative measures. In order to carry out those measures completely, the working class should be the dominating political power, which depends on the standard of organization attained. The trade unions, therefore, help to consolidate the political power of the laboring classes by reason of their organizing efforts. The organization of the working class is incomplete and unfinished so long as it is political only.

But the economic struggle also calls for political action by the laboring class. Whatever the workers gain from their employers in open disputes must be confirmed by law in order to be maintained, while trade conflicts may in other cases be rendered superfluous by legislative measures.

The more the international organization and cooperation of the capitalist world market are perfected, the more the international cooperation of the working classes in regard to trade union action—more especially the protection of labor by law—becomes necessary.

In the near future international cooperation of the proletariat on the following lines will be necessary:

I. Abolition of all tariffs, duties on articles of consumption, and exportation premiums.

II. International factory and labor-protection laws.

Whereas in regard to the latter point, the resolutions of the Paris Congress are reaffirmed, the Congress resolves temporarily to limit the palliative legislation to:

(a) To demand the legal eight-hour day.

(b) To abolish the sweating system [sweatshops], and to introduce legislative protection for the workers who do not work in factories, workshops, etc.

(c) The recognition of the unassailable right of combination and coalition of both sexes. Further, it is the duty of trade unions to admit as members women working in the particular trade and to try to carry out the principle of equal wages for equal work for both sexes, and also to admit apprentices in order to form them into a special section of adherents and in order to carry on their socialist and trade education.

The resolutions adopted at the Paris Congress were:

1. The legal eight-hour day, to which it is proposed to add that six hours’ night work constitute an equivalent for eight hours’ day work.

2. Abolition of child labor under the age of fourteen, and limitation of the working day to six hours a day for all between fourteen and fifteen.

3. Prohibition of night work, save in trades in which continuous running is a necessity.

4. Prohibition of night work for both sexes under the age of eighteen.

5. At least thirty-six hours of complete leisure in each week.

6. Prohibition of those industries and methods of production which specially injure the health of the workers.

7. Abolition of the truck system.^[7]

8. The inspection of all industries—whether carried on in factories, small workshops, or at home—by paid inspectors, at least half of whom should be chosen by the workers.

To accomplish this, economic and political action must go hand in hand.

Therefore, the Congress declares the organization of the workers in trade unions to be an urgent matter in the struggle for the emancipation of the working class, and in connection with similar resolutions passed at the Brussels and Zurich congresses, considers it to be the duty of all workers who endeavor to liberate labor from the yoke of capitalism to join the unions in their respective trades.

In order to make the trade unions as effective as possible they are recommended to organize national trade unions in their respective countries, thus avoiding waste of power by small independent or local organizations. Especially, difference of political views ought not to be considered a reason for separate action in the economic struggle; on the other hand, the nature of the class struggle makes it the duty of the labor organizations to educate their fellow members up to the truths of Social Democracy.

Trade unions should also admit female workers into their ranks, and secure for them equal wages for the same kind and amount of work, and should not appeal for restrictive legislation against the immigration of aliens.

In the struggle for better wages and conditions of work, the trade unions ought to control the application of the existing laws for the protection of labor.

The Congress considers that strikes and boycotts are necessary weapons to attain the objects of trade unions. What is most essential is the thorough organization of the working classes, as the successful management of a strike depends on the strength of its organization.

In order to have a uniform international trade union movement, a central trade union commission should be constituted in every country. These commissions shall collect statistics about the labor market and shall exchange these statistics, together with other regular reports on important events in each country.

It should be the special duty of the trade unions of all countries to take care that workers coming from another country become members of the union of their respective trades and do not work for less than trade union wages.

In case of strikes, lockouts, and boycotts, the trade unions of all countries should assist one another according to their means.

III

The economic and industrial development is going on with such rapidity that a crisis may occur within a comparatively short time. The Congress, therefore, impresses upon the proletariat of all countries the imperative necessity for learning, as class-conscious citizens, how to administer the business of their respective countries for the common good.

Amendments to Economic and Industrial Reports adopted by Congress

(1) No woman to be allowed to work for six weeks before and after confinement, and to receive maintenance from a State Maternity Department during such term of prohibition (Mrs. Hicks). (2) The minimum age of child labor to be raised to sixteen years (Mr. Quelch). (3) Wherever private employment fails, public employment should be provided at the public cost (Dr. Pankhurst). (4) No restriction to be placed upon immigration (Jewish Workers). (5) The May Day demonstration to be a demonstration against militarism as well as in favor of the eight hours (Swiss delegation). (6) Mutual efforts to be made against “alien” blacklegs in case of trade disputes (Mr. D. Hennessey). (7) Abolition of “home work” whenever possible (Mr. Herbert Burrows). (8) To include apprentices in unions, formed into a special group, and to give them a socialistic and technical education (French delegate).

* * *

MISCELLANEOUS RESOLUTIONS

Report from Commission on Miscellaneous Matters, presented to the congress by J. Bruce Glasier.

1. That this Congress declares the fundamental right of liberty of conscience, of speech, and of the press, and the right of public meeting and combination, both locally and internationally, of the workers and all other sections of the people for the attainment of political, industrial, and social change.

2. The Congress calls upon the workers to use their strongest efforts in their respective countries to obtain an amnesty for political prisoners; and expresses its condemnation of the system of police provocation of plots designed to bring discredit upon and provoke repressive measures against advanced movements; and further calls for the immediate exposure of and investigation into all cases concerning which suspicion exists that the convictions have been obtained by any such detestable methods.

3. That agencies by which the workers may obtain employment are a matter of public necessity, and should not be used for private speculation or profit-making, and in view of the gross abuse and corruption attached to employment registries conducted by private persons, the Congress urges the abolition of such registries, and demands the institution of free registries or labor bureaus conducted by the municipalities or bona fide trade unions.

4. Owing to the circumstance that the German, Austrian, Spanish, and several other sections have sent no delegation to this commission, it has been thought inadvisable to bring in any report on the subject of an international language; but it recommends that the chairman put the question from the chair to the Congress by nations as to which of the languages—English, French, or German—they would prefer to adopt; none of the nations speaking these languages to vote when their own language is put to the meeting.^[8]

* * *

THE NEXT CONGRESS

Motion by Wilhelm Liebknecht for the Bureau (Standing Orders Committee), as amended by the congress. The most significant aspect of this resolution was a decision by the Second International to exclude anarchists from all future international congresses.

The Standing Orders Committee of the Congress is entrusted with the duty of drawing up the invitation for the next congress by appealing exclusively to:

1. The representatives of those organizations that seek to substitute socialist property and production for capitalist property and production, and which consider legislative and parliamentary action as one of the necessary means of attaining that end.

2. Purely trade [union] organizations which, though taking no militant part in politics, declare that they recognize the necessity of legislative and parliamentary action; consequently anarchists are excluded.

Each nationality shall verify the credentials of its delegates, with right of appeal, to a special commission elected by all the nationalities represented at the congress. The credentials of all nationalities sending less than five delegates to be referred to the Credentials Commission to deal with in the same way as disputed credentials.

Resolved that the next congress be held in Germany in the year 1899. In case it should be impossible to hold the congress in Germany, it is decided that it shall be held in Paris in the year 1900.

* * *

SOLIDARITY WITH SOCIALIST MAYOR OF LILLE

Motion by James Leakey, adopted by acclamation.

That the delegates assembled at this Congress express their sympathy with Citizen Delory, suspended from his functions as mayor of Lille by the reactionary prefect of the department, on account of disturbances intentionally fomented by the Clerical Party, and [the delegates] encourage the socialist municipality of Lille to continue the good work they have begun.^[9]

* * *

PROTEST AGAINST ANTILABOR RULING

Motion by W. Stevenson, adopted by acclamation.

That this Congress of representative workers records the expression of its indignation at the abominable observations of Justice Grantham yesterday, in the action against the trade union officials of the pianoforte trade, wherein he describes workmen joining a trade society as obtaining the strength of brute beasts depriving them of reasoning power.^[10]

* * *

THE FIGHT AGAINST RUSSIAN TSARISM

Motion by Swiss delegation, adopted by acclamation.

The Congress notes the eminently remarkable fact that has never yet occurred, viz., the representation of Russian working-class organizations at an international congress.^[11] It hails with joy this fresh awakening of the proletarian movement, and in the name of the working-class fighting the good fight wishes for its Russian brethren courage and indefatigable perseverance in their fight against bitter tyranny. The organization of the Russian working class is the best guarantee against tsarism, one of the last strongholds of European reaction.

* * *

GREETINGS TO BULGARIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATS

Motion by Bulgarian delegation, adopted unanimously.

That the Congress send its fraternal greetings to the Third National Congress of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party, which meets on Sunday, August 2 at Sofia.

* * *

VIOLENCE AGAINST IMMIGRANT WORKERS

Motion by Italian delegation, adopted unanimously.

Seeing that the recent regrettable riots at Zurich are the result of the economic and moral servitude under which the greater part of the Italian immigrant workers live under capitalism,^[12] the Congress declares that the results of that economic competition of the workers, which prevents the solidarity of the proletariat, can only be got rid of by the propagation and organization of socialism.

* * *

REMEMBRANCE OF FIRST INTERNATIONAL

Motion by Alfred Léon Gérault-Richard, adopted by the congress.

That the Congress record its respectful and grateful remembrance of those who more than thirty years ago founded, in this very town of London, the International.^[13]

* * *

SOLIDARITY WITH CUBA, CRETE, AND MACEDONIA

Motion by Paul Argyriadès, adopted by acclamation.

The French delegation, having carried a resolution in favor of those struggling for emancipation in Cuba, Crete, and Macedonia, asks the Congress to vote its wishes for the emancipation of these three nations who are struggling for their political and economic liberty.^[14]

Footnotes

Quoted in Georges Haupt, La Deuxième Internationale, 1889–1914: Étude critique des sources, essay bibliographique (Paris: Mouton & Co., 1964), p. 150. ↑
International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress, London 1896 (London: Twentieth Century Press Limited, n.d.), p. 7. ↑
The draft resolution on education and physical development presented to the congress included as point 2 the following: “That the school arrangements should include one meal a day in common as in the cantines scolaires, without invidious distinction between rich and poor; and that adequate provision be made for the complete maintenance and education, according to the best methods, of all orphan or destitute children,” quoted in International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress, London 1896, pp. 35–39. This was deleted following an amendment proposed by Edith Lanchester and Mary Gray and approved by the congress, and the subsequent points were renumbered. ↑
Presumably a reference to the Berlin conference of 1890, convened by the German government. ↑
Resolutions 7 and 8 on international organization are not included in the official record and have not been located for this volume. ↑
The published proceedings of the 1896 London Congress say the following concerning the resolution on international organization: “Owing to the prohibitive laws in general continental States against international combination, recommendations 1, 2, and 3 were finally abandoned after having been passed by the congress.” See Full Report of the Proceedings of the International Workers’ Congress, London, July and August 1896 (London, “The Labour Leader,” n.d.), p. 39. ↑
The truck system refers to capitalists paying workers in company scrip, rather than money. ↑
Concerning the miscellaneous resolutions, the published proceedings state here that “the President to save time put the resolution which was carried by acclamation. He then put the first three paragraphs of the report, which were carried unanimously. As to the fourth paragraph the President pointed out that it was impossible considering how late it was to carry out the suggestion made in it.” See International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress, London 1896, p. 51. ↑
In 1896 Gustave Delory was elected mayor of Lille, becoming the first socialist mayor in France. ↑
In July 1896 Justice William Grantham presided over a lawsuit by a London piano maker alleging that picketing strikers had made it impossible for him to practice his trade, and were in violation of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act of 1875. Justice Grantham issued instructions to the jury that by picketing the strikers were doing something “they have no right to do by law.” The jury found for the manufacturer and awarded him damages. ↑
Up to ten Russian delegates attended the 1896 London Congress, headed by Georgy V. Plekhanov. ↑
In July 1896 riots directed at Italian immigrant workers erupted in Zurich, Switzerland, with a number of the immigrants’ homes destroyed. In the wake of this violence, some 1,500 Italian families were evicted from their homes, and 6,000 Italian workers were forced to leave the area. ↑
A reference to the founding meeting of what was to become the International Workingmen’s Association (the First International), held in London on September 28, 1864. ↑
A war for Cuba’s independence from Spain began in 1895, coming after earlier wars in 1868–78 and 1879–80. By 1898 Spain was bogged down by the independence forces, but following the Spanish-American War Cuba fell under US domination.
In 1895 an independence rebellion began in Crete, then a possession of the Ottoman Empire. Crete became independent in 1898. In 1908 it declared union with Greece.
Macedonia, then under Ottoman control, was the scene of an 1893–1908 war conducted primarily between Greek and Bulgarian forces. ↑