KROBATIN, ALEXANDER, Freiherr von (1849–), Austro-Hungarian field-marshal, was born at Olmütz in 1849. Krobatin was recognized as a sound technical expert in munitions; he did successful work as head of a department and as chief of a section in the War Ministry. From Dec. 1912 to April 1917 he was War Minister, and during the war supported the army in the field by bold and comprehensive measures. After his resignation from the Ministry of War he commanded the X. Army operating against Italy on the Carinthian and Tirolese fronts.
KROPOTKIN, PETER ALEXEIVICH, Prince (1842–1921), Russian geographer, author and revolutionary (see 15.928), returned to Russia in June 1917, after the revolution, expressing in a farewell letter to The Times his gratitude for the hospitality which he had received in England. His short period of residence in Russia was full of disappointment, as his criticisms of the Bolshevist regime caused him to be regarded with suspicion by the extremists. After various contradictory reports of his death had been received it was ascertained that he had died at Moscow after a long illness Feb. 8 1921.
KRÜMMEL, OTTO (1854–1912), German geographer, was born at Exin, near Bromberg, July 8 1854. He was educated principally in the university of Göttingen, and approached the subject of geography at first through the study of classics, and by the historical road. But in 1883 he succeeded to the chair of geography at Kiel, and in that seaport found the connexion of his subject with marine investigations which directed his subsequent career. He retained his chair at Kiel until 1911, and during his tenure of it he introduced the science of oceanography to public interest through his handbook Der Ozean (1886), completed Boguslavsky’s work on oceanography in Ratzel’s series of geographical handbooks (1887), joined, and published an account of, the “Plankton expedition” on board the “National” in the North Atlantic Ocean (1889), served on the International Council for the Study of the Sea (1900–9), and finally produced the great work of his life, the Handbuch der Ozeanographie, in 1907–11. In 1911 Krümmel quitted Kiel to take up the professorship of geography at Marburg. He died at Cologne Oct. 12 1912.
KÜHLMANN, RICHARD VON (1873–), German diplomatist, was born March 17 1873 at Constantinople. From 1908 to 1914 he was councillor of the German embassy in London, and was very active in the study of all phases of contemporary political and social life in Great Britain and even in Ireland. During the World War he was successively councillor of embassy at Constantinople, minister at The Hague and, from Sept. 1916 till Aug. 1917, ambassador at Constantinople. He was then appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and represented Germany at the Brest Litovsk negotiations, which on March 3 1918 led to the treaty of peace with Russia. He also negotiated the Peace of Bucharest (May 7 1918) with Rumania. In these negotiations he had to encounter the opposition of the Higher Command of the army, and, in particular, of Ludendorff, who desired fuller territorial guarantees on Germany’s eastern frontier, the establishment of a German protectorate over the Baltic States and stronger precautions against the spread of Bolshevism. In July 1918 he delivered in the Reichstag a speech on the general situation, in the course of which he declared that the war could not be ended by arms alone, implying that it would require diplomacy to secure peace. This utterance was misinterpreted in the country, and the Higher Command was drawn into the controversy which arose over it, so that Kühlmann’s position became untenable. He was practically thrown over by the Chancellor, Count Hertling, in a speech intended to explain away his statement and, after an interview with the Emperor at the front, he tendered his resignation (July 1918).
KÜLPE, OSWALD (1862–1915), German philosopher (see 18.242), was born at Candau, Courland, Aug. 3 1862. He was educated at the universities of Leipzig, Berlin, Göttingen and Dorpat; in 1891 he became lecturer in philosophy at Würzburg, holding subsequently (1894–1909) the chair of philosophy and aesthetics in that university, at Bonn (1900–13) and at Munich from 1913 until his death in 1915.
KUN, BELA (1886–), Hungarian Communist leader, was born in 1886 of a Jewish family in Transylvania, and became a journalist and an official in the Workmen’s Insurance Office in Kolozsvar. Enrolled in the Hungarian army during the World War, he was a prisoner of war in Russia, when he was instructed by Lenin for the purposes of Communist propaganda, and after the collapse of the Central Powers he was sent back to Hungary with a commission to set up a Soviet Republic. From March 21 to Aug. 1 1919 he was People’s Commissary for Foreign Affairs in the Soviet Republic, and after its fall he found refuge in Austria (see Hungary). In July 1920 he succeeded in escaping to Russia, where he was employed by the Soviet Government.
KUPRIN, ALEXANDER IVANOVICH (1870–), Russian writer, was born in 1870. He passed through the cadet school and military college at Moscow, and in 1890 entered the army as lieutenant. In 1897 he resigned his commission in order to devote himself to literature. He first made a name by his stories of Russian army life, and later wrote many satires on various sections of society. He is considered. to be, after Chekhov, the most popular writer of short stories in Russia. His short stories include Rekajizori (The River of Life, 1916); Duel (first published 1907; English translation 1916) and Sasha (1920).
KURDISTAN (see 15.949). During the last eight years of his reign Sultan ʽAbdul Hamid pursued the policy of attracting to his person those Kurdish leaders whom he found to have the greatest local power, and of creating the impression that he looked to the Kurds as his special adherents. There were at the time several descendants of the Badr Khan Bey and Baban families in exile in Constantinople, and from these certain members were given considerable Government posts in the capital and in Syria and Anatolia. By this means the Sultan contrived to exact some taxes, and succeeded in producing a state of the country more tranquil than had existed for several generations. In the north Ibrahim Pasha Milli, and in the south the Sheikh of Barzan and Sheikh Said Barzinja of Sulaimani, became the great leaders, while Saiyid Taha of Shemsdinan held the greatest power in central Kurdistan.
When in 1908 the Turkish Revolution occurred, resulting in the deposition of the Sultan and the victory of Enver Bey’s Young Turk party, Kurdistan remained generally loyal to the old régime, and Ibrahim Pasha Milli and Sheikh Said of Sulaimani both declared themselves loyalists. The former gathered a considerable army and terrorized the country in the neighbourhood of ʽUrfa, Diarbekr, Mardin and Nisibin, while Sheikh Said and the Sheikh of Barzan led a condition of rebellion extending over the whole of central and southern Kurdistan. In 1908 Sheikh Said of Sulaimani was murdered in Mosul, an event which only aggravated matters in southern Kurdistan and excited a sympathy for the family even deeper than had existed before. In 1909 Ibrahim Pasha Milli was defeated and lost his life and comparative order was restored in his district.
Meanwhile southern Kurdistan, led by Sheikh Mahmud, the son of Sheikh Said, continued in a state of rebellion, in which the two most active tribes were the Jaf and the Hamawand. Various means were tried to quell the rebellion. Sulaimani was occupied in 1910 after heavy bribes had been paid to Sheikh Mahmud; Mahmud Pasha, leader of the Jaf, was induced to go to Mosul and there detained for a year. Mustafa Pasha Bajlan, of the Khaniqin district, was likewise detained in Bagdad in 1912. In this year military measures at last succeeded against the Hamawand tribe, which fled en masse to Persian territory.
At the outbreak of the World War conditions were not favourable to the Turks in Kurdistan. An insurrection had occurred in Bitlis, the Hamawand were still virtually outlaws and the whole country refused to respond to the call to a jihad against the British. In the south a small volunteer force of cavalry was eventually raised, but after fighting against the British at Shuʽaiba near Basra it returned to Kurdistan owing to the ill-treatment it received at the hands of the Turks. With the preoccupation of the Government in the war, Kurdistan remained for the time being untouched and indifferent.
In 1915 the official massacre of Armenians occurred, but
