- Asia
Soviet annexation
The Red Army entered Baku in April 1920 against little resistance, ending the democratic republic and bringing Azerbaijan under Soviet rule.
Era: The Baku oil boom and the 1918 republic
Sources: Azerbaijan: Russian suzerainty and the road to independence · Encyclopædia Britannica
- Europe
Zeligowski's Mutiny and the seizure of Vilnius
Polish forces under General Zeligowski, secretly directed by Pilsudski, seized Vilnius and its region; a 'Republic of Central Lithuania' was created and annexed by Poland in 1922.
Era: Independence and the Interwar Territorial Disputes
Sources: Vilnius dispute · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Europe
Battle of Warsaw
Polish forces under Pilsudski halted the advance of the Soviet Red Army outside Warsaw, securing the independence of the young republic in the Polish-Soviet War.
Era: The Second Republic, the Second World War and the Nazi-Soviet Catastrophe
Sources: Jozef Pilsudski · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Partitions of Poland · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Africa
RAF bombing ends the Dervish state
Britain uses the Royal Air Force to bomb the Dervish forts, including Taleh; the movement collapses and Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan dies of illness later that year.
Era: Colonial Partition and the Dervish Resistance
Sources: Dervish movement (Somali) · Wikipedia, Fifth Expedition (Somaliland), 1920 · Wikipedia
- Europe
Treaty of Riga partitions Belarus
The treaty ending the Polish-Soviet War divided Belarus between Poland and Soviet Russia along the line of the first partition; western Belarus went to Poland and the east became the Byelorussian SSR.
Era: People's Republic, Soviet Republic and Terror
Sources: Belarus: The emergence of the Belorussian S.S.R. · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Asia
Red Army conquest
The Soviet Red Army invaded, took Tbilisi after heavy fighting and proclaimed the Georgian SSR on 25 February 1921, incorporating Georgia into the Soviet Union.
Era: Republic, Soviet Conquest and the Georgian SSR
Sources: Georgia: Independent Georgia · Encyclopaedia Britannica, History of Georgia · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Africa
- Europe
Defeat and Soviet incorporation
After years of war between Bolshevik, Polish, White and Ukrainian forces, the People's Republic was defeated; most Ukrainian lands were incorporated into the Soviet state, while Galicia passed to Poland.
Era: National Awakening and the Ukrainian People's Republic
Sources: Ukraine: World War I and the struggle for independence · Encyclopaedia Britannica, History of Ukraine · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Europe
Asia Minor Catastrophe
The Greco-Turkish War ended in the rout of Greek forces and the destruction of Smyrna in 1922; the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne mandated a population exchange that brought over a million refugees into Greece.
Era: The Modern Greek State
Sources: Greece (country overview and history) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1919–1922 Greco-Turkish War (Asia Minor Catastrophe) · GlobalSecurity.org
- Europe
Civil War over the Treaty
The Treaty split the movement: pro-Treaty forces under Michael Collins fought anti-Treaty republicans under Éamon de Valera in a civil war that the Free State won at heavy cost.
Era: Rising, Independence and Partition
Sources: Irish History Timeline – From 1916 to Today · GPO Witness History Museum, Dublin
- Africa
Pacification of Libya
Italian forces wage a war of 'pacification', crushing resistance and deporting Cyrenaica's population into concentration camps where tens of thousands die.
Era: Italian Colonisation and the Resistance
Sources: Italian concentration camps in Libya · Wikipedia, Italian colonization of Libya · Wikipedia
- Europe
The Klaipeda Revolt
Lithuania staged a revolt that seized the Allied-administered Klaipeda (Memel) Territory; the powers accepted the outcome and recognised Lithuanian sovereignty over the port and its region.
Era: Independence and the Interwar Territorial Disputes
Sources: Memel dispute · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Asia
Conquest of the Hejaz and the holy cities
Abdulaziz's forces took Mecca and Medina, ending Hashemite rule in the Hejaz and bringing the holy cities under Saudi control.
Era: Unification and the Founding of the Kingdom (1902-1932)
Sources: Unification of Saudi Arabia · Wikipedia, Saudi Arabia: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- North America
Sandino's resistance
Augusto César Sandino wages guerrilla war against the Marines and National Guard, becoming a hemispheric symbol of resistance to US intervention.
Era: Intervention, Sandino, and the Somoza Dynasty
Sources: César Augusto Sandino · Encyclopædia Britannica
- Africa
Kongo-Wara rebellion
The Gbaya prophet Karinou led a mass revolt against forced labour and railway recruitment; the French killed him in December 1928 and crushed the uprising by 1931, with thousands dead.
Era: French Equatorial Africa to Independence
Sources: Kongo-Wara rebellion · Wikipedia, Central African Republic — History · Encyclopaedia Britannica
War & Rupture in the 1920s
Every event in the Terralore archive tagged war and rupture — wars, invasions, conquests, battles and armed conflict, narrowed to the 1920s — 15 of them, drawn from 14 nations, running from 1920 to 1928. Each entry keeps the sources it was verified against and links back to the chronicle it came from.
- Events
- 15
- Nations
- 14
- Earliest
- 1920
- Latest
- 1928
- Europe
- 7
- Africa
- 4
- Asia
- 3
- North America
- 1
Every entry below is the same record, with the same sources, as the one on its nation’s chronicle.