Johannesburg—Johns Hopkins University
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and its stubborn attitude with respect to the civil power and Parliament. Had it not been well known that Joffre was a moderate Republican, this last—always, to the French political mind, indication of a possible coup d’état—would alone have caused Joffre’s overthrow. Millerand fell from power chiefly because he would not reassert the Ministerial rights usurped by G.H.Q. Briand followed, and his ingenuity was taxed to the utmost in pacifying criticism while retaining Joffre, behind whose imperturbable authority the bureaux of G.H.Q. acted as they pleased. In Dec. 1915 the endeavour to impose an effective control on G.H.Q. took shape in the appointment of Joffre as commander-in-chief of French forces in all theatres; but in assuming the new and wider responsibility Joffre managed to retain his immediate command of the armies of the western front, from which it had been intended to remove him by this step. Complaints, however, which had grown more and more audible as each offensive of 1915 ended in disappointment, came to a head in the winter of 1915–6 when the French Parliament became alarmed about the state of the Verdun front. To direct inquiry by the Government, Joffre returned a direct answer that this front was safe and well equipped—coupled with a protest against any reports bemg listened to other than his own,—and when the storm of the German offensive broke upon this front, found it weak, and nearly swept it away, Joffre’s prestige received a blow from which it did not recover. Although the policy of the Briand Government towards the general survived both the resignation of Galliéni and the secret session on Verdun, the slow progress of the battle of the Somme and the disastrous sequel to Rumania’s intervention led in Nov. to the final step being taken. Nivelle was placed in charge of the armies in France, Sarrail restored to his independence as commander in the east, and Joffre called to Paris as “technical adviser to the Government” (Dec. 13). A few days later (Dec. 16) he was created a marshal of France—the first since 1870. Thenceforward his rôle in the war was that of a spectator, except for a period in which he was sent on a mission to the United States (spring 1917). Marshal Joffre was elected a member of the Académie Française in 1918. Having in July 1914 been given the grand cross of the Legion of Honour, he had received the still higher honour of the médaille militaire in Nov. 1914.
His evidence before the Briey Commission as to the early events of the war, republished under the title La préparation de la guerre et la conduite des opérations, is the most important document that has appeared on the French side concerning 1914. The story of his tenure of the command, on its political side is given in Mermeix’s Les Crises du Commandement, part i.
Johannesburg, Transvaal, S. Africa (see 15.431). At the 1911 census the pop. within the municipal area was 237,104, compared with 155,642 in 1904. In the interval Johannesburg had outstripped Cape Town in number of inhabitants and had become the largest city in Africa S. of Egypt. In 1919 the pop. was estimated at 260,000, of whom 149,750 were whites (the white pop. in 1904 having been 83,903).
Though other industries were developed the life of Johannesburg continued to be bound up with the working of the Witwatersrand gold-mines, and it is the business centre for the other municipalities on the Rand, some of which grew at a more rapid rate than Johannesburg itself. Improvement in the amenities of the town were carried out with energy, largely the result of the activities of the town council which acquired and worked all public utility services and possessed live stock and produce markets. New law courts, a new town hall and a municipal art gallery (the last in Joubert Park) were completed between 1910 and 1915. Eighty acres of Milner Park were given in 1916 by the town council as a site for a university; owing to the World War building did not begin till 1920. The proposed university became a constituent college of the university of South Africa, and includes the S.A. School of Mines and Technology (situated in Plein Square), and, since 1919, schools of anatomy and art. Many street improvements were effected, the suburbs provided with open spaces, and churches, clubs and handsome business premises erected by private enterprise. The Asiatic and native locations at Vrededorp, little over a mile from the centre of the city, were however allowed to remain in an insanitary and shocking condition. The S.A. Asiatic Inquiry Commission after a visit in 1920 wrote of the location, “It is difficult to conceive of a worse slum existing in any part of the world.”
Johannesburg retains its position as the chief horse-racing centre in South Africa, and from 1919, when an aerodrome was laid out, it also became a centre for air travel.
The rateable value of the municipality for 1919–20 was £34,358,000 (including £14,565,000 land value) and the rate 7d. in the £ on site values. The municipal income in 1918–9 was £1,988,000, the expenditure £1,934,000. In that year the net profit on the trading departments' transactions (gas, electricity, tramways, water and markets) was £149,000.
Johannesburg was the scene of serious riots in 1913–4 arising out of strikes by white miners and railwaymen and of anti-German riots in 1915 when, following the sinking of the “Lusitania,” property valued at fully £500,000 was destroyed. In 1917 the first S.A. trade union congress was held in the city. In 1919 there were strikes and disturbances among the native workers in the mines.
John, Augustus Edwyn (1879–), British painter, was born at Tenby on Jan. 4 1879. He received his art education at the Slade School, London, and afterwards worked in Paris, later spending some time in Provence. He became a regular exhibitor at the New English Art Club, and in 1901–2 was teacher of art in the university of Liverpool, returning to London in 1902. He early became prominent as a powerful draughtsman and painter with a fine sense of design. His earlier work includes “The Way Down to the Sea” (1906), lent by Mr. John Quinn to the Metropolitan Museum of New York; “The Kitchen Garden,” “The Smiling Woman” (1910) and “The Mumpers” (1912). For the Arts and Crafts Exhibition at Burlington House 1916, he executed a mural decoration illustrating “Peasant Industry.” During the war he held a commission as official artist in the Canadian Corps, and exhibited at the Canadian War Memorial Exhibition 1919 a cartoon for a large decoration, “Canadians opposite Lens.” He was later commissioned by the Imperial authorities to paint the chief characters of the Peace Conference. These portraits include two of the Emir Faisal and of Mr. W. M. Hughes, and those of Lt.-Col. T. E. Lawrence (presented to the Tate Gallery by the Duke of Westminster), Sir Robert Borden and Mr. Massey. He also painted portraits of Mr. Lloyd George (1916), Mr. Bernard Shaw (1916), Lord Fisher (1917), Lord Sumner (1918–9) and the Marchesa Casati (1918–9). His etchings form an important part of his work, the majority being produced between 1901–10. They include portraits, single figures and groups. He is marked among his contemporaries by his choice of figure subjects and a preference for small plates. He is represented in the Tate Gallery by several pictures, including “The Smiling Woman,” “Peasant Industry,” “Robin” (1917–8), and “Rachael,” and in the Print Room of the British Museum. His early work, with its definite contour enclosing areas of colour, relates him to the quattrocento Italian painters. Distortion for personal emphasis and decorative effect is another marked characteristic. In 1921 he was elected A.R.A.
John, Griffith (1831–1912), Welsh missionary, was born at Swansea Dec. 14 1831. He was brought up a Congregationalist, and at the age of eight was admitted to full membership of his chapel. When only fourteen he delivered his first sermon at a prayer meeting; at sixteen he became a regular preacher, and was subsequently trained at the Brecon Congregational College for the ministry. In 1853 he offered his services to the London Missionary Society, and after two years' training sailed for Shanghai in 1855. His work in China covered a period of 55 years. In 1861 he went from Shanghai through the provinces of central China, which he was the first Christian missionary to penetrate, and he claimed that with his colleagues he had established over 100 mission stations in Hu-peh and Hu-nan. He acquired an intimate knowledge of the Chinese language and literature, and translated the New Testament and a great part of the Old into more than one Chinese dialect. In the Yang-tsze valley he founded a theological college for native preachers, which bears his name. In 1911 his health finally gave way and he returned to England. He died at Hampstead July 25 1912.
Johns Hopkins University (see 15.460) moved in 1916 to its new site at Homewood in the northern suburbs of Baltimore,
