The Politics of Self-Determination

Prott, Volker

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198777847.001.0001

“…51 In contrast, the disputed borderlands between Germany and the new Polish and Czechoslovak states were repeatedly raised in the discussion of Allied war aims, but no consensus had been reached since the discussion began in earnest after the opening of the Russo-German Brest Litovsk peace talks in December 1917. 52 The Allied Governments, at a meeting of the Supreme War Council on 3 June 1918, formally pledged themselves to the Versailles Declaration that sought "the creation of a united and independent Polish State, with free access to the sea". 53 To fulfil this declaration, the Foreign Office initially hoped that a "commission The Foreign Office memorandum on the "Settlement with Germany" was emblematic of the problems facing the British Delegation in Paris.…”

Section: Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

“A House of Cards Which Would Not Stand”: James Headlam-Morley, the Role of Experts, and the Danzig Question at the Paris Peace Conference

Kaufman¹

2020

Aspects of British Policy and the Treaty of Versailles

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Recent years have witnessed increasing interest amongst international historians on the influence by experts on foreign policy decision-making. Most work thus far has concentrated on American foreign policy since 1945, but this analysis broadens the focus to consider the impact of experts on British decision-makers through the use of informal networks below the level of Cabinet ministers whilst debating the future of the city of Danzig at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. It shows that despite a tendency by the protagonists to interpret their actions as subverting the official role and function of the Foreign Office, sufficient evidence can be found to suggest that through the use of back-channels to David Lloyd George, the prime minister, via Philip Kerr, his private secretary, some officials, such as James Headlam-Morley, within the Office managed to influence high-level decision-making at Paris. Whilst experts must be seen as acting alongside professional diplomats, rather than marginalising them, a focus on the subject helps explain different approaches taken by participants at the Conference, and why senior figures such as Sir Eyre Crowe came to approve their intervention in the dispute over Danzig. It also allows a new view to be taken of why the compromise decision was taken, despite the guiding principles laid down by the peacemakers in the year before the Conference opened. 2 Among all the territorial problems dealt with at Paris none was more difficult than that of Danzig. .. . This question was the cause of acute differences of opinion within the British delegation itself, and was debated with great persistency between the Allies during the four months which preceded the settlement. The decision eventually arrived at was essentially a British one; it was suggested by members of the British delegation and carried through by the Prime Minister in the face of much opposition. Headlam-Morley, April 1925 2 Writing in April 1915, Lewis Namier, recently demobbed from the 20 th Royal Fusiliers owing to his poor eyesight, warned that "Pharisaic doctrine is almost as dangerous as the mongerer in 'political geography'". 3 His warning was apposite, as the Great War was in the process of destroying the established order of multinational empires in Central and Eastern Europe. The question that confronted statesmen was: what would replace them? There was little agreement, save for the principle of national self-determination of peoples as a way to prevent a future war, when the present conflict was at least in part caused by the divisive force of frustrated nationalism. This concept, however, was far from a panacea to solve all of Europe's problems. In applying the principle of "political self-determination" in the disputed areas of the continent, Namier suggested, "perhaps we should be guided by instinct rather than strict logic". In these short lines, the future prominent historian of eighteenth century England outlined the key issue facing the peacemakers: the almost impossible task of matching a peace based on ...

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“…51 In contrast, the disputed borderlands between Germany and the new Polish and Czechoslovak states were repeatedly raised in the discussion of Allied war aims, but no consensus had been reached since the discussion began in earnest after the opening of the Russo-German Brest Litovsk peace talks in December 1917. 52 The Allied Governments, at a meeting of the Supreme War Council on 3 June 1918, formally pledged themselves to the Versailles Declaration that sought "the creation of a united and independent Polish State, with free access to the sea". 53 To fulfil this declaration, the Foreign Office initially hoped that a "commission consisting of representatives of Germany and Poland" should be appointed to determine the new frontier, which would "leave a clear strip of territory in German hands, connecting East Prussia and Pomerania, Danzig being left to Germany" under the provision that the German government would grant Poland "full and free communication with the open sea, and will either establish the town of Danzig as a free port, or will permit, as an alternative, a free port to be established on German territory under Polish sovereignty".…”

Section: Take Down Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

“A House of Cards Which Would Not Stand”: James Headlam-Morley, the Role of Experts, and the Danzig Question at the Paris Peace Conference

Kaufman

¹

2019

Diplomacy & Statecraft

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Recent years have witnessed increasing interest amongst international historians on the influence by experts on foreign policy decision-making. Most work thus far has concentrated on American foreign policy since 1945, but this analysis broadens the focus to consider the impact of experts on British decision-makers through the use of informal networks below the level of Cabinet ministers whilst debating the future of the city of Danzig at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. It shows that despite a tendency by the protagonists to interpret their actions as subverting the official role and function of the Foreign Office, sufficient evidence can be found to suggest that through the use of back-channels to David Lloyd George, the prime minister, via Philip Kerr, his private secretary, some officials, such as James Headlam-Morley, within the Office managed to influence high-level decision-making at Paris. Whilst experts must be seen as acting alongside professional diplomats, rather than marginalising them, a focus on the subject helps explain different approaches taken by participants at the Conference, and why senior figures such as Sir Eyre Crowe came to approve their intervention in the dispute over Danzig. It also allows a new view to be taken of why the compromise decision was taken, despite the guiding principles laid down by the peacemakers in the year before the Conference opened.

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“…However, the emergence of the successor states in East-Central Europe between 1918 and 1919, as well as the consolidation of new multi-ethnic polities in East-Central Europe, also meant the progressive abandonment of the self-determination rhetoric, as well as its steady replacement with a new principle: the protection of ethnic, cultural and religious minorities (Dyroff, 2020;Prott, 2016). In some ways, the emergence of the 'minority question' in the early 1920s as a transnational field of theoretical debate was regarded as an adaptation to the new geopolitical environment of the main terms of the prior discussion about the nationality principle and national self-determination.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Home‐rule versus non‐territorial autonomy? Western European national movements and their views on the minority question, 1919–1939

Seixas

¹

2022

Nations and Nationalism

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The leading elites of the ethnonationalist movements that developed in the aftermath of World War I in Western Europe usually refused to see their nations and territories as 'national minorities'. In their view, they were stateless nations or nationalities. However, in the aftermath of World War I, the prior international discussion on the nationality principle was increasingly replaced with the notion of 'minority rights', enhanced by the implementation of the Minorities Treaties by the League of Nations. Thus, the term 'national minority' emerged as a label that permitted ethnonationalist activist to present their claims on the international stage. This became evident in the participation

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The Politics of Self-Determination

Cited by 31 publications

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“A House of Cards Which Would Not Stand”: James Headlam-Morley, the Role of Experts, and the Danzig Question at the Paris Peace Conference

“A House of Cards Which Would Not Stand”: James Headlam-Morley, the Role of Experts, and the Danzig Question at the Paris Peace Conference

“A House of Cards Which Would Not Stand”: James Headlam-Morley, the Role of Experts, and the Danzig Question at the Paris Peace Conference

Home‐rule versus non‐territorial autonomy? Western European national movements and their views on the minority question, 1919–1939

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