Caught in the Middle [1 ed.] 9789048514717, 9789052603704

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Copyright © 2011. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved. Caught in the Middle, Amsterdam University Press, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Copyright © 2011. Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved.

Caught in the Middle

studies of the netherlands institute for war documentation board of editors: Madelon de Keizer Conny Kristel Peter Romijn

i Ralf Futselaar — Lard, Lice and Longevity. The standard of living in occupied Denmark and the Netherlands 1940-1945 isbn 978 90 5260 253 0 2 Martijn Eickhoff (translated by Peter Mason) — In the name of science? P.J.W. Debye and his career in Nazi Germany isbn 978 90 5260 327 8 3 Johan den Hertog & Samuël Kruizinga (eds.) — Caught in the Middle. Neutrals, neutrality, and the First World War isbn 978 90 5260 370 4

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4 Jolande Withuis, Annet Mooij (eds.) — The Politics of War Trauma. The aftermath of World War ii in eleven European countries isbn 978 90 5260 371 1

Caught in the Middle Neutrals, neutrality, and the First World War

Johan den Hertog & Samuël Kruizinga

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(eds.)

a Amsterdam 2011

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isbn 978 90 5260 370 4 © 2011, the authors / Aksant Academic Publishers / Amsterdam University Press All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, by photoprint, microfilm or any other means, nor transmitted into a machine language without written permission from the publisher. Cover design: Jos Hendrix, Groningen Lay out: Hanneke Kossen, Amsterdam Printed in the Netherlands Amsterdam University Press, Herengracht 221, nl-1016 bg Amsterdam, www.aup.nl

Contents



Acknowledgements  vii

Chapter 1

Introduction  1 »» Johan den Hertog and Samuël Kruizinga

Chapter 2 Dutch Neutrality and the Value of Legal Argumentation  15 »» Johan den Hertog Chapter 3 ‘Upon the Neutral Rests the Trusteeship of International Law’ — Legal advisers and American unneutrality  35 »» Benjamin Coates Chapter 4 Spanish Neutrality During the First World War  53 »» Javier Ponce

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Chapter 5 Britain’s Global War and Argentine Neutrality  67 »» Philip Dehne Chapter 6 not Neutrality — The Dutch government, the Netherlands Oversea Trust Company, and the Entente blockade of Germany, 1914-1918  85 »» Samuël Kruizinga Chapter 7 From Parasite to Angel — Narratives of neutrality in the Swedish popular press during the First World War  105 »» Lina Sturfelt Chapter 8 Colour-blind or Clear-sighted Neutrality? — Georg Brandes and the First World War  121 »» Bjarne S. Bendtsen

Chapter 9 The Hottest Places in Hell? ­— Finnish and Nordic neutrality from the perspective of French foreign policy, 1900-1940  139 »» Louis Clerc Chapter 10 The Other End of Neutrality — The First World War, the League of Nations, and Danish neutrality  155 »» Karen Gram-Skjoldager

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About the Contributors  173

Acknowledgements

This volume is a collection of essays whose origins lie in papers delivered at the conference ‘The First World War and the End of Neutrality?’ held at the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (niod) in Amsterdam on 5-6 March 2009. The conference was organized by Dr Madelon de Keizer and Dr Ismee Tames in cooperation with the editors. We want to extend our gratitude to the niod, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (knaw), and the University of Amsterdam for the generous financial support allowing us to organize this conference. In addition we owe many thanks to the niod for hosting the conference and for its organizational support, and to Katrina Cooper for her help in proofreading the text.

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We would like to thank all participants, on whose work the conference depended for its success, in particular we want to mention conference chairmen Prof Dr Wim Klinkert and Prof Dr Peter Romijn and keynote speakers Dr Pierre Purseigle and Dr Neville Wylie.

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1

Introduction »»

Johan den Hertog and Samuël Kruizinga

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As the [Great War] dragged on, it involved so many vital ideological principles that no compromise could be found. It developed into a deadly fight, not for a modus vivendi, but for the complete domination by the victor and the destruction of the defeated enemy. Under such conditions, neutrality became a luxury that could no longer be afforded. It had to disappear.1

In 1953, Norwegian historian Nils Ørvik, cited above, published a landmark thesis on the history of neutrality through two World Wars and the beginning of the Cold War. He identified the first of these three conflicts as the ‘seminal catastrophe’ for neutrality. The First World War proved that neutrality, both as a legal concept and as foreign policy tool, had no merit; the two later wars, which were equally ‘total’ in their aims, merely provided additional evidence for his central thesis. Ørvik takes note of the fact that the concept of neutrality thus underwent a dramatic ‘decline’ from the lofty heights of nineteenth century legal internationalism to the gritty reality of great-power politics. During the First World War, the neutrals found that what they had come to believe as their rights – most importantly their right to trade with whomever they wished, but in some cases even their territorial integrity – only applied when they could force their acceptance by the belligerents. These belligerents, however, were engaged in a struggle for survival, for their way of life. As casualties on the Western, Eastern, Arab and African fronts started to mount, it seemed ever more foolish to let the letter of the law interfere with their struggle. So, both sides encroached on neutrals’ legal and sovereign rights, while at the same time warning them that any reciprocal encroachment would result in punishment, ranging from economic sanction to war. The small neutral countries were not given much of a choice as to the maintenance of their neutrality. Squeezed, battered, and beaten from both sides, they were compelled to do what was expedient, rather than what was desirable from their own point of view. But all neutrals did not submit to the same extent. Their 1

Nils Ørvik, The Decline of Neutrality, 1914-1941: With Special Reference to the United States and the Northern Neutrals, 2nd ed. (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1971 [1953]), 16-17.

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Caught in the Middle actual bargaining power became the decisive factor in their gradual submission to belligerent pressure. The weaker they were, the greater were their humiliations.2

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Thus only those neutrals powerful or clever enough to outmanoeuvre the belligerents, for example by their control over certain raw materials or their diplomatic ability to play both sides against each other, could retain some measure of independence. Ironically, Ørvik claims that at the same time the United States was simply too powerful to remain neutral. Its world-wide political, financial and economic interests, coupled with its capacity for military power, ensured that it could not sit idly by and wait the conflict out, and had to throw its weight behind the side its own policies were most compatible with at one point or another. In this sense, neutrality ‘declined’ in three different ways: belligerents failed to respect it, small neutrals were in general too weak to effectively enforce it, and powerful neutrals were simply too strong to constrain themselves by it.3 A vulgarized version of Ørvik’s thesis pervades both the collective memory of and the vast literature on the First World War. More often than not, the neutrals are treated as a faceless and powerless collective (except, possibly, the United States, if only because its late entry into the war warrants an explanation), which the belligerents pressured into the role of impotent observers.4 The juxtaposition of ‘passive’ neutrals versus ‘active’ belligerents has created a curious, and artificial, divide in the historical writing of a war that is being increasingly appreciated as both a ‘total’ and a ‘global’ phenomenon.5 Another interesting phenomenon has been overlooked by most historians: the fact that neutrality, despite its apparent ‘decline’ during the First World War, did survive the conflict. Countries such as the Netherlands, Norway and the United States still, or once again, adopted a neutral stance during the 1930s.6 And during the Cold War, several neutrals (such as Finland and

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Ørvik, The Decline of Neutrality, 50. See reviews of Ørvik’s Decline of Neutrality by Clifton J. Child, International Affairs 30, no. 2 (Apr. 1954): 216; by Erik J. Friss, Political Science Quarterly 69, no. 2 (June 1954): 275-77; by Richard D. Challener, The Journal of Modern History 27, no. 2 (June 1955): 193-94; by Josef L. Kunz, The American Journal of International Law 48, no. 3 (July 1954): 515-16. For the lack of attention to neutrals in First World War literature, see Marc Frey, ‘The Neutrals and World War One,’ Defence Studies 3 (2000): 3-39, on 4-5. For a typical ‘vulgarized’ view on neutral states, see Henning Hoff, ‘Neutrale Staaten,’ in Enzyklopädie Erster Weltkrieg, ed. Gerhard Hirschfeld, Gerd Krumeich and Irina Rentz, 2nd ed. (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2004) 736-37. See Stig Förster, ‘Introduction,’ in Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front, 19141918, ed. Roger Chickering and Stig Förster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 1-18, and Hew Strachan, ‘Introduction,’ in The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War, ed. Hew Strachan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 1-8, on 2-4. See e.g. Ger van Roon, Small States in Years of Depression: The Oslo Alliance, 1930-1940 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1989).

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Sweden) managed quite successfully to walk the fine line between two opposing power blocs in the ideologically-supercharged Cold War.7 And Switzerland still considers itself a neutral country, despite the apparent ‘decline’ of the concept during the Great War, now almost a hundred years ago.8 Ørvik himself took note of this fact by adding a new chapter and introduction to the 1971 second edition of The Decline of Neutrality on the continuing role neutrality and neutral countries play after the Second World War. The explanation he offered for this phenomenon was that the neutrality that ‘declined’ during the Great War was actually only one variant of neutrality, the legal neutrality that originated from various international agreements (such as the 1851 Declaration of Paris) and served to shield the neutrals from belligerent economic demands. As Ørvik put it:

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The great conflicts arising between neutrals and belligerents have nearly always been connected to the seaborne trade. The essence of the neutral problem can in fact be compressed into one gross simplification. In time of war each of the belligerents wanted to cut off all trade and, if possible, all relations between his opponent and the neutrals. The latter, on their part, wanted to keep up their trade and other relations with all belligerents, without interference from any of them.9

During the Great War the neutrals were unable to resist belligerent economic demands. Therefore, this form of neutrality declined. But other ‘versions’ of neutrality persisted. Evidently, as one form of neutrality declined during the Great War, others survived, were reinvented, or were even newly created. Neville Wylie, who edited an excellent essay collection on neutrality during the Second World War, shares this view, concluding that neutrality is ‘a multifaceted and highly complex phenomenon that continues to defy simplistic categorisation.’10 So, in order to better our understanding of First World War neutrality, we must move away from Ørvik’s preoccupation with a specific subset of the concept, and embrace not only a multifaceted, but also a multinational view, in order to appreciate the impact of the war on the wide variety of countries and peoples that, at least for some time, remained neutral in the conflict. This essay collection is, to our knowledge, the first attempt at such an approach to First World War-era neutrals 7

See e.g. for recent perspectives on Swedish and Finnish neutrality during the Cold War Juhana Aunesluoma, Britain, Sweden and the Cold War: Understanding Neutrality (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) and the edited volume by Thorsten B. Olesen, The Cold War and the Nordic Countries: Historiography at a Crossroads (Odense: University of Southern Denmark Press, 2004). 8 Notwithstanding joining the un in 2002 and the eu’s passport-free Schengen zone in 2005. 9 Ørvik, The Decline of Neutrality, 12-13. 10 Neville Wylie, ‘Victors or Actors? European Neutrals and Non-Belligerents, 1939-1945,’ in European Neutrals and Non-Belligerents during the Second World War, ed. Neville Wylie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 1-27, on 26.

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and neutrality.11 This is not to say that the contributions collected herein tread entirely new ground. Several histories of neutrality in general, be it as a legal or as a political concept, have been published, but their coverage of First World War neutrality is limited due to a lack of accessible secondary sources.12 However, in many (formerly) neutral countries, there exists a substantial body of historical research devoted to that country’s First World War experience. Unfortunately, a major part of this research is only available to those speaking languages, such as Dutch and Swedish, which most Great War scholars are not able to read. This has had two unfortunate and closely-related side-effects. The first is a lack of comparative studies of First World War neutrality.13 The second is that the histories of neutral countries are wildly divergent, because their authors have only been able to take advantage of what scarce ideas and theoretical concepts developed beyond the language barrier. By collecting English-language essays from neutrality specialists from a variety of historical disciplines and national backgrounds, we hope to give vital impetus to historical cross-fertilization. Moreover, we hope that the essays presented here will provide an important starting point for better integration of belligerent and neutral war histories. For, as this essay collection will show, without a better understanding of the effects of the war on neutrals and vice versa, important aspects of First World War research (diplomatic and economic history, to name but two) will remain incomplete.

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Marc Frey, ‘The Neutrals and World War One,’ deals primarily with the so-called Northern Neutrals: Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, and focuses almost exclusively on economic warfare; Neutral Europe between War and Revolution, 1917-1923, ed. Hans A. Schmitt (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1988) deals primarily with the aftermath of the First World War, the break-up of empires, and the effects these had on several European neutral countries. 12 Daniel Frey, Dimensionen neutraler Politik: Ein Beitrag zur Theorie der Internationalen Beziehungen (PhD thesis University of Geneva, 1969); Neutrality in History / La neutralité dans l’histoire, ed. Jukka Nevakivi (Helsinki: shs/fhs, 1993); Jean Jacques Langendorf, Histoire de la neutralité: Une perspective (Gollion: Infolio, 2007); Neutrality: Changing Concepts and Practices, ed. Alan T. Leonhard (Lanham: University Press of America, 1988); Elizabeth Chadwick, Traditional Neutrality Revisited: Law, Theory and Case Studies (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2002); Stephen C. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History (Manchester University Press, 2000). 13 The Second World War, somewhat bizarrely, does not seem to share this disadvantage. During the last thirty years, several interesting comparative works have appeared, in addition to Wylie’s volume cited above. See e.g. Les Etats neutres européens et la Seconde Guerre mondiale, ed. L.E. Roulet and R. Blätter (Neuchâtel: Editions de la baconnière, 1985); Rudolf R. Bindschedler, Swedische und sweizerische Neutralität im Zweiten Weltkrieg (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1985); J.M. Packard, Neither Friend nor Foe (New York: Scribner, 1992); Christian Leitz, Sympathy for the Devil: Neutral Europe and Nazi Germany in World War ii (New York: New York University Press, 2001) and Herbert R. Reginbogin, Faces of Neutrality: A Comparative Analysis of the Neutrality of Switzerland and other Neutral Nations during ww ii (Berlin: lit Verlag, 2009).

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Introduction

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The many neutralities of the First World War

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Nils Ørvik’s view of neutrality is deeply steeped in the realist interpretation of international affairs, which holds that nation-states are the main actors in international relations, and that the main concern of the field is the study of power. This school of thinking traces its roots back to Thucydides, contemporary author of the History of the Peloponnesian War which chronicles the 5th century BC conflict between the Greek city-states Sparta and Athens. In the so-called Melian Dialogue, Thucydides famously has one of the Athenian statesmen exclaim to the rulers of the small city-state Milos that ‘right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.’14 The Melians had attempted to remain neutral in the conflict between Sparta and Athens, but in the end were forced to yield to Athenian demands. Following Thucydides, Hans J. Morgenthau, one of the most influential realist thinkers, stated that the most critical factor in remaining neutral in a major conflict is the question of whether that neutrality brings enough advantages to the belligerents. When one of the belligerent parties feels strongly enough that this has ceased to be the case, it will use force to modify the neutral’s behaviour.15 In the Melian case, their conflict with the Athenians ended, inevitably, in Athens’ victory and, horribly, in the extermination of the entire male population of that small city. Other realists have expounded on this notion, and concluded that neutrality, as pursued by ‘small’ and ‘weak’ states (two concepts which are used interchangeably and are equally ill-defined)16, therefore must consist of a game of hide and seek wherein, Arnold Wolfers states, the neutrals did all the hiding: The desire to arouse no suspicion of partiality – and to have no occasion for being partial – leads them [the neutrals] to exercise the utmost restraint in their external dealings. Any activity in international politics […] may arouse doubts about their impartiality. Therefore, the traditionally neutral policy is one of passivity and abstention.17 14 The History of the Peloponnesian War, book 5, chap. 17, cited in Michael Handel, Weak States in the International System, 2nd ed. (London: Frank Cass & Co, 1990), 3. 15 Hans J. Morgenthau, ‘Neutrality and Neutralism,’ in Hans J. Morgenthau, The Decline of Democratic Politics, Politics in the twentieth century 1, ed. Hans J. Morgenthau (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 257-81, on 262. Cf. Hans J. Morgenthau, ‘The Resurrection of Neutrality in Europe,’ in The American Political Science Review, 33, no. 3 (June 1939): 473-86, on 486: ‘The fate of the neutrality of [these] countries ultimately will not be decided by them, but by the Great Powers; and this decision will be made, not according to legal formulae and ideological principles, but according to the real or presumed interests of those Powers.’ 16 See M. de Keizer and I. Tames, ‘Introduction,’ in Small Nations: Crisis and Confrontation in the 20th Century, ed. M. de Keizer and I. Tames (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2008), 7-24. 17 A. Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1962), 222, cited in Efraim Karsh, Neutrality and Small States (London [etc.]: Routledge, 1990), 32.

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Neutral and passive, for the realists, became synonymous. Small neutrals have no choice but to be passive, as too active and independent a stance invites disaster. For powerful neutrals, however, passivity equals loss of power, so they have no choice but to be active and thus, inevitably, must cease to be neutral. Ørvik’s view of international law was also heavily influenced by the realist perspective. According to realists, international law, or morality, should play no role in international relations. The reason for this is the fact that, although the lofty international agreements designed to prevent, mitigate or regulate warfare look good on paper, they are ultimately useless. Drafted in peacetime when the international system is under no great strain, these agreements will not survive a major conflict, if one of the belligerent parties finds that its capacity for warfare is unduly restrained by it.18 One pervasive reason for re-evaluating the ‘classical’ realist perspective on First World War neutrality is the fact that this perspective has gone largely out of historical fashion.19 In liberal, neo-realist and neo-classical theoretical perspectives, the singular focus on states as the only ‘rational actors’, behaving as ‘unitary, purposive, value-maximizing calculators’,20 is dropped.21 Although the debate is far from over (and far too complex to effectively summarize here), it is safe to say that its range has been significantly expanded to include forces above and below states.22 Therefore, alongside domestic factors, the international system has been introduced by the many critics of classical realism as an explanatory factor in the formation of foreign policy. The rules and regulations that guided this system consisted of international law. Nils Ørvik was quick to dismiss international law as a basis for neutral policy formation, but Johan den Hertog disagrees. He shows how the Dutch government adhered to international law as a means to successfully defend its neutrality. Contrary to Ørviks juxtaposition of neutrality and passivity, the Dutch realized that keeping out of the war required political and diplomatic 18 Recent explanations of the realist position include R. Lebox, ‘Classical Realism,’ in International Relations Theories: Discipline and Diversity, ed. Tim Dunne, Milja Kurki and Steve Smith (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 52-70; B. Buzan, ‘The Timeless Wisdom of Realism?’ in International Theory: Positivism and Beyond, ed. Steve Smith, Ken Booth and Marysia Zalewski (London: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 47-65 and M. Cozette, ‘Reclaiming the Critical Dimension of Realism: Hans J. Morgenthau on the Ethics of Scholarship,’ in Review of International Studies, no. 34 (2008), 5-27. 19 See Colin Elman and Miriam Fendius Elman, ‘Negotiating International History and Politics,’ in ed. Colin Elman and Miriam Fendius Elman, Bridges and Boundaries: Historians, Political Scientists, and the Study of International Relations (Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 2001), 1-36. 20 Handel, Weak States, 3. 21 Karsh, Neutrality and Small States, esp. 32, 80-83. 22 For an overview of recent developments, see Valerie M. Hudson, Foreign Policy Analysis: Classic and Contemporary Theory (Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007), 3-36; Jack Snyder, ‘One World, Rival Theories,’ in Foreign Policy no. 145 (Nov./Dec. 2004): 52-62. For the consequences of these theoretical shifts in neutrality research, see Neal G. Jesse, ‘Choosing to Go It Alone: Irish Neutrality in Theoretical and Comparative Perspective,’ in International Political Science Review / Revue internationale de science politique 27, no. 1 (Jan. 2006): 7-28, on 8-9.

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action. The Dutch, bordered by Germany and occupied Belgium on one side and the North Sea dominated by British warships on the other, had to convince both belligerent blocs they would and could stay neutral. Once one of the parties feared the other would have too many advantages, an attack on the strategically important country might be preferable. As the war progressed, the belligerents did pressure the Netherlands into giving in on several important questions which threatened the precarious balance the Dutch government strove so hard to maintain. However, by basing its conduct on (relatively uncontested areas of) international law, the Dutch government managed to diffuse potentially dangerous situations without running the risk of being accused of favouring the other side. Den Hertog bases his arguments on three examples of serious diplomatic controversies: the fisheries question of 1916, the question of armed merchant ships, and the ‘sand and gravel’ question. The position of the neutral United States in debates regarding international law is equally interesting, not the least because the matter is still the subject of considerable controversy. In the 1930s, a revisionist school of historians formed which, in contrast to the semi-official histories published during and after the war, held that the United States behaved in an unneutral fashion, giving the Allies substantially more leeway than the Central Powers in matters regarding international law. This gave the Allies an edge, cemented Allied-us relations and made American belligerence inevitable.23 The revisionist school’s arguments have been developed in the momentous work of John Coogan, The End of Neutrality, in which he claims that adherence to international law might have prevented American participation in the war and might have strengthened the international position of all neutrals. Benjamin Coates claims that these arguments reflect the American neutral attitude at the foundation of the republic, which, as a small power, preferred isolationalism to ‘entangling alliances’. At the turn of the twentieth century, this had changed, and for the us, neutrality ‘required transatlantic engagement.’ According to the President’s legal advisors, the United States’ mission was to strive for a world governed by law. In their opinion this required it to be partially remade in America’s image: liberal and democratic. This ‘higher’ goal, Coates demonstrates, trumped other considerations, including the comparatively petty legal squabbles between the us and Britain concerning neutral trade. In contrast, the American legal advisors counselled the President to take a much harder line on German transgressions, most importantly unrestricted submarine warfare, because they felt that where Britain bent the rules in their favour, Germany broke them. This set a dangerous precedent and would, if unchecked, be detrimental to the legal advisors’ twin goals of furthering American national interests and promoting international law. 23 See John Coogan, The End of Neutrality: The United States, Britain and Maritime Rights, 1899-1915 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981) for an influential modern proponent of this view.

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In stark contrast to America’s nascent global power status, Spain, as Javier Ponce’s contribution to this essay collection illustrates, was a nation preoccupied with its relative decline. The 1898 war with America lost Spain its most prized overseas possessions, but arguably more important was the effect it had on the country’s geostrategic and domestic situation. Its army and economy lay in shatters, and relationships between army command, parliamentary government and the influential king were frail at best. The result was, on the one hand, an ‘impotent’ Spanish neutrality, which had few options, military or otherwise, of resisting Entente demands. The only reason the Entente did not press for Spanish belligerency was the weakness of the Spanish army, which would have been a burden instead of an asset. On the other hand, the Spanish king rejected outright cooperation with the Allies, fearing both for his international prestige and his domestic position. In an effort to strengthen his weakened monarchy, he dedicated himself to diplomacy, offering himself as a mediator between the warring powers and secretly aiding Germany, even when his country was firmly within the Entente’s sphere of influence. His goal was furthered by the Spanish geographical position, far from the battlefields and, most importantly, far out of Germany’s reach. Thus Spanish ‘impotence’ and location lead to a neutrality that presented possibilities for diplomatic action, which, for the Spanish king, resulted in some considerable successes. All neutral countries were also in one way or another involved in the economic war between Central Powers and Entente, with differing consequences for each of them. Far more than merely a ‘blockade’ of one party by the other, this economic war consisted of a world-wide struggle for (access to) markets and raw materials, with a view to securing a strategic advantage, starving the enemy populace into submission or revolt, and securing a head start in the renewed economic competition which was to follow the conclusion of peace. In one sense, neutral states formed the no-man’s land in this economic war: a contested area between fronts where Allies and Central Powers fought for economic domination. However, the neutrals could effect a certain level of control over this economic conflict, although the extent to which this was possible differed between neutral countries. Moreover, the neutrals felt the effects of economic war themselves, as they had to adapt their national economies to the exigencies of war. Neutrals therefore shared some of the hardships experienced on the home fronts of belligerent countries, and reacted to them in similar ways: by introducing rationing, by a tighter control of the economy by the government, or by government-sanctioned intermediary groups. The wartime restructuring of neutral economies and their organizations had long-lasting effects, and the various responses to the economic war helped shape its outcome and that of the post-war global economy.24 24 Georges-Henri Soutou, L’or et le sang: Les buts de guerre économiques de la Première Guerre mondiale (Paris: Fayard, 1989); Eric W. Osborne, Britain’s Economic Blockade of Germany, 1914-1919 (London: Cass, 2004).

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For Argentina, far-off from the battlefields, this offered some surprising possibilities, states Philip Dehne. Argentina became an important participant in the economic war, supplying much-needed foodstuffs and some valuable raw materials to the Entente. At the same time, British warships and control over telegraph cables blocked most direct German trade with Argentina. The British Government hoped to consolidate and extend its influence into the post-war period, by ousting the many German businesses who had set up shop in booming pre-war Argentina. The Argentine government, however, did not consider stopping all trade with Germans to be in their best interest, and was able to use Entente reliance on Argentine grain, meat and financial institutions to thwart British economic plans for their country. The Dutch government, on the contrary, lacked such power. A vital part of the pre-war global economy, its economy was dependent both on overseas trade (which the British could control due to its uncontested command over the North Sea) and access to the German market. Early in the war, Samuël Kruizinga shows, the Entente posed the Dutch Government with an impossible dilemma: either cut all ties with our enemies, or all overseas imports will cease. Meanwhile, the German Government made it clear that it expected the Dutch to honour their prewar economic treaty obligations, threatening war if they did not. In this situation, international law proved an unreliable, and, for some, even an unwanted guide. Therefore, the Dutch Government decided to delegate the matter to a group of influential businessmen, who succeeded in finding a solution which saw the Netherlands cooperating with the Entente blockade to an unparalleled degree, without seriously endangering political and economic relations with Germany. Forming the Netherlands Oversea Trust Company (not), these businessmen managed to retain a measure of autonomy from both the Entente and the Dutch government, reshaping the Dutch economy in the process. Gradually, however, it dawned on the Dutch government that it had created a monster, and that infighting between the government and its economic usurper had a profound influence on Dutch capabilities to withstand economic pressure from both Germany and Britain. Neutrality also had cultural connotations. In First World War studies, cultural histories have experienced somewhat of a boom during the last twenty years. This broad field explores the experiences of daily life during the war, the way those experiences shaped and re-shaped the mentalities of the inhabitants of belligerent countries, and (later) the commemoration of the war.25 In Sweden, Lina Sturfelt shows, the cultural concept of neutrality took the form of several collective narratives of self-understanding which developed during the war. On one hand some 25 Antoine Prost & Jay Winter, The Great War In History: Debates and Controversies, 1914 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 25-30.

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Swedes, looking back to their glorious warrior past, equated neutrality with selfish passivity and degeneration. True to the Social Darwinist tradition, they longed for war in order to rejuvenate their country. Others had a much more positive view of Sweden’s nonaligned status. They were thankful that neutrality saved them from the horrible fate of Belgium, which fell victim to the designs of the Great Powers. A third discourse equated neutrality with moral superiority. Neutrals remained objective and could therefore judge the belligerents, who were blinded with hate. This neutrality was also highly self-assertive, stressing, for example, the need to provide relief or help pows. From 1918 onwards, Sturfelt demonstrates, the latter narrative came to dominate, and provided the blueprint for Swedish cultural neutrality during the Second World War and the Cold War. Interestingly, Sturfelt notices that the Netherlands seems to have experienced a reversal of this trend, as the narrative of self-assertive neutrality seems to have virtually disappeared there by the war’s end.26 Neutrals did not only debate the war and their place therein amongst themselves. Representatives from belligerent countries actively debated with neutrals, in order to convince them of the justness of their cause. Moreover, belligerents valued neutral opinion, especially when so-called ‘unbiased’ views seemed to strengthen their own case. The importance of neutral public opinion had a downside, as Bjarne S. Bendtsen demonstrates. He describes the case of formerly world-famous Danish critic and scholar Georg Brandes, who published regularly and internationally on topics related to the war. In doing so, he was drawn into long drawn-out polemics with French politician Georges Clemenceau and Scottish playwright William Archer. Both eventually came to despise Brandes’ staunch neutral stance, and his advocacy of peace through reconciliation, equating it with moral relativism or, perhaps worse, thinly-veiled pro-Germanism. Bendtsen shows that in a total war of words, cast in terms of a battle between good and evil, the neutrals slowly lost their moral high ground and were increasingly seen as cowards, war-profiteers or enemy collaborators. These attitudes were not confined to the belligerent press. Louis Clerc demonstrates that during the War, French government views of the neutral North were guided by the notion that the neutrals were selfish and pedantic moralists at best, whose freedom and democracy the French were defending with their very blood. After the First World War, however, French official views of the Scandinavians split along party lines. Left wing advocates of the League of Nations model of

26 See e.g. Ismee Tames, Oorlog voor onze gedachten: Oorlog, neutraliteit en identiteit in het Nederlandse publieke debat, 1914-1918 (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2006). Tames’ book, detailing Dutch opinion makers’ highly public discussion on the nature of Dutch neutrality and nationality during the First World War, the reception of German and British views on the war in neutral Holland, and the activities of the belligerents’ propaganda services in Holland, is currently being translated into English.

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Introduction

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collective security embraced the notion that the small Scandinavian states could lead the international community by their democratic and pacifist example. Meanwhile, right wing critics continued the wartime tradition of chastising neutrals as ‘freeloaders’ with exceptionally big mouths. When international tension during the Interbellum period grew, this last attitude gained the upper hand, although admiration for neutral Finland’s defense against the Soviet Union in the 1940-41 Winter War caused a brief reversal. Karen Gram-Skjoldager also explores the effects of First World War neutrality on the Interbellum period. She shows how Georg Cohn, the legal advisor of the Danish Foreign Ministry, developed the idea of ‘neo-neutrality’, that was linked to left wing Danish foreign political ideas, focussing on collective security instead of legal codifications. After the war, Denmark, like other neutral countries, hesitated to join the League of Nations, because League covenant article 16 could force them to participate in economic, and possibly also military, sanctions against other countries. This they considered incompatible with neutrality. However, GramSkjoldager demonstrates that the concept of neo-neutrality provided the Danes with the means to combine League membership and neutrality. Neo-neutralists hold that the League covenant presented them with an opportunity to redevelop the concept in an internationalist fashion, in which preventing war became the neutrals’ highest goal. In that sense, the idea of a ‘just war’ against enemies of peace was no longer at odds with neutrality. Next to political, cultural, economic and legal elements, neutrality had a military component as well. Here, too, we can discern varied interpretations of the role of the military amongst the different neutral countries. For example, in August 1914, hoping that a showing of the colours would dissuade the belligerents from violating its neutrality, the Dutch government fully mobilized its 200,000 men strong army. In contrast, however, their Swiss and Danish counterparts elected to reduce the strength of their armies after August 1914, counting on the fact that this show of peaceful intentions would show that they would be no threat to any of the belligerents’ military plans. So, neutral governments read the international situation differently, and their actions were further circumscribed by domestic factors: the relation between the military and the government in each country differed, as did the internal political situation. Different neutral military attitudes to war and defence forced belligerents to adapt their strategic operations to accommodate them. Moreover, there existed a risk of neutral states joining one side, or of an invasion by one group of belligerents which would open a new front and would have to be opposed by the other. The British General Staff, for example, developed plans to invade the Netherlands, both as a means to attack the Germans in the rear and to support Dutch resistance to a potential invasion. Military neutrality carried other challenges with it, as well. Both belligerent blocs warned neutrals that they needed to effectively defend their territory against the other, lest their enemies make use

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of ill-guarded neutral ground to mount a sneak attack. However, neutrals’ abilities to defend their own territories were often compromised by the many additional tasks neutrality imposed on them, especially in neutral countries situated close to the fighting itself. For example, belligerent soldiers who had strayed over the border had to be interned and watched (to prevent them from using neutral territory in combat manoeuvres), and every inch of the border had therefore to be watched. This spread neutral troops so thin, that it became progressively harder to have enough troops ready and on standby in strategic locations (as opposed to the border) to repel invaders.27 In this collection of essays, the military component of neutrality receives little attention. This oversight is deliberate, since Wim Klinkert and Herman Amersfoort are slated to publish an edited volume on small and neutral states in the age of total war in 2010, and to this volume we happily refer the interested reader.28

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Conclusions From the width and depth of the studies presented in this volume, we can safely conclude that First World War era neutrality was indeed a multifaceted phenomenon, not easily captured by one, relatively simple, narrative of decline. Certainly, neutrals felt the ever greater push of total war and struggled to maintain their independence of action. However, the following essays will show that the pressures of war caused a multitude of different coping mechanisms to spring up, ranging from the cultural to the economic, from the legal to the military. These mechanisms were varied, differing from country to country and sometimes even from person to person. These mechanisms ensured that neutrality survived the war, albeit as a changed and utterly more complex concept. In this volume we have collected a number of case studies regarding these different aspects of neutrality from a number of different countries. We could have added chapters on Belgium, Switzerland, China and numerous other countries that remained neutral during (part of) the war. We similarly omitted institutions, such as the Vatican or the International Red Cross, which were also undeniably neutral. And we have only touched upon the infinite number of different aspects of neutrality. From this volume we can conclude that neutrality as a legal phenomenon was not restricted to the classical idea of the guaranteed neutrality as it came into being in the nineteenth century in Switzerland (1813), Belgium (1830), 27 For several examples of where neutrality policy and military preparedness were at odds, see M.M. Abbenhuis, The Art of Staying Neutral: The Netherlands in the First World War, 1914-1918 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006), 77-94. 28 Small Powers in the Age of Total War, ed. H. Amersfoort and W. Klinkert (Leiden: Brill, 2010).

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Introduction

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and Luxemburg (1867), nor is it only a matter of legal codifications which other countries had to adhere to in times of war. Instead the legal neutrality was in – changing – use as part of several forms of neutrality that were not exclusive for each country. It is for this reason that this volume’s jumping off point is not this classical guaranteed neutrality, nor is it possible to give a full scale overview of all alternative aspects of neutrality. This would require a much more exhausting project than possible in a collection such as presented here. What we do hope to have done however, is show that these different kinds of neutrality could, and did, coexist. Not only were there significant differences at country level (which do suggest that the neutral ‘home front’ was a very important factor, next to geography and distance from the battlefields) in determining each country’s neutrality policy), but even within one single country the notion of what constituted neutrality was continually contested. A ‘defensive’ neutrality of political non-involvement could coexist with a desire to participate by fostering peace or exchanging pows. In Sweden, to cite one example, different cultural notions of neutrality existed at the same time: ideas of neutrality as selfishness for example coexisted with opinions of moral superiority. Moreover, we hope to have made a compelling case for more comparative research on First World War neutrality. The essays presented here already prove that interesting results can be gained from comparing the peculiarities of individual countries, but we believe it is imperative that more researchers engage in multi-country studies focusing on different aspects of neutrality instead of preparing a mosaic of analogies and differences of the experiences of neutral countries during the war. How can we explain, for example, why some neutral countries were much more successful in resisting economic demands by the belligerents than others? Why were there, amongst different neutral countries, so many wildly varying ideas concerning international law? What accounts for the different strategies employed in neutral countries to end the war and create a durable peace? What aspects of neutrality were carried into the Interbellum era, and which were left behind? In answering these, and other, questions, we should also consider actors above or below state level: economic organizations such as the not and similar institutions in other neutral countries, the League of Nations, individual members of Governments or neutral opinion makers whose voice was often heard far beyond the borders of their countries. To answer such questions, students of neutrality should not take individual countries with their own particularities as the starting point of their investigations, but rather discern local variations in the way neutral countries dealt with similar challenges. Finally, these studies must show what role neutrals and neutrality played in the First World War itself. Although the neutrals had no access to the core experiences of war, i.e. fighting, suffering and dying in battle, their beliefs and actions could and did influence both the course of the war and the peace that was to follow it.

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We hope that the following essays on those ‘caught in the middle’ of the bloodiest military conflict in human history, standing apart but bound to the war and the belligerents in countless ways, will serve as a useful starting point.

2

Dutch Neutrality and the Value of Legal Argumentation

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»»

Johan den Hertog

Soon after the outbreak of the Great War, neutral countries experienced the sudden collapse of the rights and duties which had, before the horrors of war shattered peacetime status quo, been accorded them. In the last few pre-war years, these rights and duties had been carefully codified into law. Especially during the Hague Peace Conference of 1907 and the Declaration of London on maritime rights of 1909, the international community had worked hard to codify the rights and duties of neutrals.1 Because it was deemed of paramount importance by all participating nations, this development in international law aroused a great deal of debate.2 Only at the outbreak of war did these well-meaning attempts to stabilize the world via an international legal code collapse. Even though the House of Lords rejected the Declaration of London in 1911, the British government still worked at getting it ratified. After Britain joined the war against the Central Powers, however, the British Government came to realize that it would be advisable to determine which parts of the international code it could adhere to without limiting its capacity to fight the enemy. This was especially salient with regard to Britain’s relation with the European neutrals, who insisted on their established right to trade with whomever they wished. The Allies not only wanted to block all transit traffic to Germany, they also wanted a substantial share of neutral products, especially potatoes, fish and dairy products, for low prices. In addition, they wanted to prevent export of indigenous neutral produce to Germany. The Germans, on the other hand, for exactly the same reason – preventing products reaching the enemy – launched their U-boat-campaign in 1915, thus threatening the lives of neutral sailors. These were severe infringements on the carefully described rights of neutrals as codified in 1907 and 1909.

1 2

Stephen C. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 127-41. John W. Coogan, The End of Neutrality: The United States, Britain, and Maritime Rights, 1899-1915 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), 15-16.

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These infringements on the agreed rights of neutrals brought the historian Nils Ørvik to the conclusion that World War One spelled the end of neutrality. He dismissed the system of international law created before the war as a ‘sky-high artificial structure,’ devoid of real-world meaning. To this he added his vision that neutral countries relying on this structure of international law, and thus counting on a legal status as a neutral, made themselves dependent upon ‘absolute nonparticipation and passivity.’3 It meant that once belligerents did not adhere to the recent codifications, all that remained for the neutrals was submissive acceptance of belligerent actions. Neutrals, according to Ørvik, retained only limited bargaining power, because the belligerents realized that acting too harshly or too brashly might drive neutrals into the hands of the enemy. Therefore, he concluded, ‘during the First World War, the important arguments [between neutrals and belligerents] were not based on international law; what counted was bargaining.’4 Those in neutral countries who still thought international law to be a valuable instrument in foreign policy could thus be considered unworldly idealists. Using the recent judicial codifications as the basis of their arguments, they did not realize that for the belligerents, might made right. In Ørviks’ view this reliance on international law to protect neutrality necessarily meant a passive attitude. According to him, political bargaining in international relations was therefore no part of this legal defence of neutrality. The two concepts clearly conflicted. For a small neutral country such as the Netherlands, this question of whether international law had any relevance for a neutral during the war was of the utmost importance. From the nineteenth century onwards, the vast majority of the country situated between Britain and Germany considered neutrality, due to the Dutch geographical position, an obvious choice. Moreover, the country had a long tradition in the field of international law. Law was looked upon as the best method of defending neutral status. During the war this attitude did not change. Both Minister Loudon of Foreign Affairs and Minister-President Cort van der Linden tried to adhere to these rules as much as possible. Loudon became (in)famous for the endless legal reproaches he sent to the belligerent governments after each new encroachment upon Dutch neutral rights.5 And Cort van der Linden’s attitude can be summed up by his remark to parliament regarding German submarine warfare, that complaints relating to belligerent actions should be based on international law, because even

3 4 5

Nils Ørvik, The Decline of Neutrality, 1914-1941: With Special Reference to the United States and the Northern Neutrals, 2nd ed. (London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1971 [1953]), 37. Ørvik, Decline of Neutrality, 39. Hubert P. van Tuyll van Serooskerken, The Netherlands and World War i: Espionage, Diplomacy and Survival (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 354.

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when this law was undermined by almost all parties, only a country which still adhered to it could be considered truly impartial, which was the best guarantee for its safety.6 This attitude was not uncontested, however, even among Loudon and Cort van der Linden’s contemporaries. Some doubted the value of international law, saying it was better to determine what the Dutch political interests were and to side with the parties which could further these interests. Holding onto neutral rights as far as possible despite all infringements could only mean that at some time or other one of the belligerents would lose the conviction that a neutral Netherlands was valuable. A belligerent could think the enemy had more advantages and thus decide to attack in order to make use of the strategically important Netherlands itself. Even amongst cabinet ministers this was a serious point of deliberation.7 However, the majority of the ministers rejected this view. Thus the government steadfastly retained the legal position of neutrality even though some diplomats and journalists periodically expressed criticism. In 1982 historian Cornelis Wels sided with the critics in his description of Dutch neutrality politics. He argued that the Dutch defended their legal opinions instead of their neutrality and interests. Wels, echoing Ørvik, stated that the Dutch had lost touch with reality in their obsession with law, as much as in the passivity that according to him was necessarily part of the legal approach.8 Similarly, James Porter stated that Dutch diplomatists could be divided into ‘idealistic’ and ‘pragmatic’ neutralists; the former based their policy on international law, the latter on what they perceived to be the best interests of their country.9 And finally, Ismee Tames stated that amongst Dutch publicists, international law had lost much of its appeal about halfway through the war. Instead, attention was directed to national interests which were often considered to be in opposition to international law.10 This does however raise questions. Was there such a strict antithesis between law and interest for the government? Was the Dutch government really so hopelessly out of touch with reality by sticking to international law; that is to say, did Loudon and Cort van der Linden really fail to see that the practice of war now

6

Cort van der Linden, Handelingen der Staten-Generaal: Tweede Kamer (Parliamentary debates Second Chamber) [henceforth htk], 28 Nov. 1917, 511. 7 Cabinet minutes, 1 and 3 Oct. 1914, in Bescheiden betreffende de buitenlandse politiek van Nederland 1899-1919, ed. C. Smit (The Hague: Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, 1957-1974) [henceforth bbbp], 4: 145-59 (no. 171). 8 C.B. Wels, ‘De Belgisch-Nederlandse confrontatie op de conferentie van Parijs (1919) en de continuïteit in de Nederlandse buitenlandse politiek,’ in Acta: Colloquium over de geschiedenis van de Belgisch-Nederlandse betrekkingen tussen 1815 en 1945 (Gent: Erasmus, 1982), 397-414, on 406. 9 James John Porter, ‘Dutch Neutrality in Two World Wars’ (PhD Diss., Boston University, 1980), 1-3. 10 Ismee Tames, Oorlog voor onze gedachten: Oorlog, neutraliteit en identiteit in het Nederlandse publieke debat 19141918 (Hilversum: Verloren, 2006), 126-27.

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required active political bargaining for the last vestiges of sovereignty, as Ørvik suggested? In fact Loudon and Cort van der Linden were of course not blind to the belligerents’ contempt for neutrals’ rights. Nevertheless, they did stick to their legal arguments, because they thought such were still useful, even in a world where only serious political bargaining could salvage a degree of neutral sovereignty. They thus rejected the idea of an antithesis between law and national interest. Moreover, the belligerent disinclination to further adhere to the legal codifications of the Second Hague Peace Conference and the Declaration of London did not mean that the belligerents could abstain completely from any legal justification of their actions. They fell back on general principles of natural law to explain their wartime behaviour. Also when sticking to Ørviks’ strictly realistic vision of belligerents and neutrals bargaining for their interests, belligerents would always face questions from neutral countries and their inhabitants about the belligerent attitude. Such argumentation was of enormous importance, especially in a time when public opinion counted as much as it did during the Great War. In this article the aim is to show how the Dutch government in these circumstances tried to defend its neutrality by using international law as a tool for political and diplomatic bargaining. This will be done by means of three examples: the socalled fisheries question of 1916, discussions about armed merchantmen in Dutch ports, and the so-called sand-and-gravel question. The course of these wartime disputes leads one to ask what adherence to a legal status as a neutral actually meant for a neutral government’s and society’s room to manoeuvre. Since reference to a legal neutrality appears to have been of value for active political bargaining, the legal status did not force a neutral to a necessarily politically passive attitude, as Ørvik suggested. In this article it will be shown that neutrality as a political choice can take different forms, in all of which the legal concept of neutrality remains important.

British blockade and the fisheries question The growing Allied dismissal of international law started very soon after the outbreak of war. The British mined the North Sea and detained neutrals’ ships if they were unsure their cargoes would remain in neutral territory. The strict mildness of American president Wilson’s complaints enhanced this policy. Without strong backing from the usa, small neutrals like the Netherlands were almost powerless to change this attitude of the British government. The only indisputable reference to maritime law that was left, was the blockade. Nominally, this was a tight blockade by war ships preventing access to a port, a method that according to maritime law could only be relied upon when it was really effective. The British government

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now used the word blockade for all actions of its economic warfare, and historians have done so ever since.11 For the Dutch, this blockade was a disaster. The Dutch government had, via the Rhine Shipping Treaty of 1868, agreed not to prohibit exports to Germany. Thus the government was legally unable to accede to British demands. As can be read in Samuël Kruizinga’s article in this volume, the Dutch found a unique solution. Although the government could not prohibit overseas imports passing through to Germany, private businessmen could do so by means of the Netherlands Oversea Trust (not). Unfortunately, from 1916 onwards the Allies did not content themselves merely with the blocking of transit traffic to Germany. They also wanted to prevent indigenous neutral produce from reaching the enemy. In this case all considerations of international law seemed forgotten. The British government instituted a new Ministry of Blockade that was only nominally part of the Foreign Office. Minister Lord Robert Cecil worked autonomously and from a powerful position. He frequently participated in the meetings of the War Cabinet, the small group of ministers who made British policy.12 Later in his life, he dedicated himself to the League of Nations and for this was awarded the 1937 Nobel Peace Prize. However, during the Great War he did little to keep the neutrals out of the war. During 1916, Cecil managed to make several trade agreements that put Norway and to a somewhat lesser degree Denmark into the Allied sphere of economic influence.13 In the summer, the British also reached an agreement with Dutch agricultural producers regarding the export of a substantial share of Dutch produce; this is discussed in Samuël Kruizinga’s article in this volume. This massive interference with belligerent governments’ access to neutral farmers’ produce was intended to check the normal development of prices and markets. A product not included in these agreements was fish. Attempts to regulate the sale of the fish catch appeared extremely difficult. Soon discussions about this product led to colossal clashes that demonstrate the negative consequences for the Dutch of the British attempts to bypass international law. In Norway, long discussions paved the way for agreements between the British and Norwegian governments regarding the sale of almost all exported fish to Britain for fixed prices. 11

Coogan, End of neutrality, 155-56; Arthur Marsden, ‘The Blockade,’ in British Foreign Policy under Sir Edward Grey, ed. F.H. Hinsley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 488-515, on 490; Neff, The Rights and Duties, 151-52. 12 Marsden, ‘Blockade,’ 510; Michael Roper, The Records of the Foreign Office, 1782-1968, 2nd ed. (Richmond: Public Record Office, 2002), 137. 13 Marion C. Siney, The Allied Blockade of Germany, 1914-1916 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1957), 187-94, 205-12, 225-40; Olav Riste, The Neutral Ally: Norway’s Relations with Belligerent Powers in the First World War (Oslo: Universitetsvorlaget, 1965), 92-119; Taage Kaarsted, Great Britain and Denmark, 1914-1920 (Odense: Odense University Press, 1979), 196-97, 213-14.

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One of the main reasons for the strong British bargaining position was that Great Britain could to a large extent control the supplies and equipment for the fishing industry.14 In the case of the Netherlands, Germany was much better prepared, the British authorities admitted, to deliver such supplies.15 Concurrently, the Dutch government was unwilling to prohibit the export of fish. For the Dutch, the threat of Germany was much more severe than it was for Norway. In the end the envoy in the Hague, Johnstone, rightly concluded that it was useless to attempt negotiations with Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Loudon, because the Dutch government would in the case of fish adhere to its rule that everyone could buy on the Dutch market those products not required for Dutch home use. In other words, he concluded that government interference in the free market on behalf of one of the belligerents was simply unneutral.16 The government would clearly adhere to impartial operations as far as possible. Cecil thought this an incredible mode of conduct for a small democracy that, in his eyes, had the greatest interest in an allied victory. He minuted on Johnstone’s report, ‘In view of this, should we not try to capture all Dutch fishing boats carrying fish cargoes to Holland?’ Cecil hoped that paying a small indemnity would allow him to keep most fishermen from conducting business and thus stop exports to Germany.17 A few days later, the Admiralty issued orders to the fleet accordingly. In the Netherlands, this British action aroused severe indignation. Several prominent papers howled about shame and disgrace. The social-democratic Het Volk (‘The People’), for example, carried a statement about an ‘act of war against a neutral country.’18 Of course the fishermen were also angry, their wives even more so. While the fishermen were kept in British ports, their spouses wrote frantic letters to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking them to set their husbands free. Nevertheless, after the fishermen were detained, Loudon stuck to his legal position. He never took up the task of starting direct negotiations with the British to come to an agreement about fish, like the Norwegian government had done. Doing so would be considered unneutral by the Germans, something the Dutch, due to the geographical proximity to Germany, had more reason to fear than relatively distant Norway. When protesting against the seizure and detention of fishing boats, Loudon stuck to the line that according to international law, the fishermen should be set free and compensated for the inconvenience. Moreover, he again stressed that a neutral country was not allowed to prohibit the export of its products to just 14 Riste, Neutral Ally, 103. 15 ‘Memorandum on the question of declaring all fish and fish products contraband,’ annex to Board of Trade to fo, 28 Mar. 1916, British National Archives, Kew [henceforth bna], fo 382/750, 68202. 16 Johnstone to fo, 12 July 1916, bna, fo 382/750. 17 Ibid.; See also notes Cecil on memo Restriction of Enemy supplies Department ‘Dutch Fish,’ 21 June 1916, bna, fo 382/750, 124010. 18 De Nieuwe Courant, 22 July 1916 avondblad; Het Volk, 22 July 1916.

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one of the belligerents. What was not used for home consumption must be sold freely on the market to the highest bidder. Only internal considerations like stock exhaustion were a reason for export prohibitions.19 When the fishing question was discussed in parliament, Loudon stuck to this position with a detailed explanation of his complaints against the British. He emphasized his legal arguments and underlined his opinion that if the English wanted to commandeer a bigger share of Dutch fish and thereby reduce German exports, they should simply outbid the Germans! Dutch members of parliament were enthusiastic about this way of thinking. ‘Very true, very true,’ many of them exclaimed loudly, breaking the parliamentary rules of conduct.20 The press also applauded the minister’s firm stance.21 In short, in press and in parliament Loudon’s legal complaints were seen as the best way to put pressure on the British. The British understood the dangers of Jhr. John Loudon (1866-1955), Minister of Foreign these complaints and the resultant negative Affairs of the Netherlands, 1913-1918. Portrait by public opinion about the detention of the Philipp Alexius de Laszlo, 1920 (rkd/Iconografisch fishermen. In their own country they had Bureau, The Hague). carefully excised all mention of the fishermen from their presses, a Dutch journalist noted.22 They could not control the anger or censor publications in the Netherlands, and so these were highly dangerous to the British position. Just before the detention of the fishermen, the British experienced a surge of relative goodwill in Dutch public opinion after the sinking of some valuable Dutch ships by the German U-boats. All this could be undone by the fisheries question, so Johnstone warned from The Hague.23 Also the Dutch envoy in London used this argument to underline the importance of a correct atti-

19 20 21 22

Johnstone to Grey, 28 July 1916 and Loudon to Johnstone, 26 July 1916, bna, fo 382/751, 149934. Loudon, htk, 28 July 1916, 2612. Nieuwe Courant, 28 July 1916 avondblad and 29 July 1916 ochtendblad; Het Volk, 29 July 1916. Report of J. Reinecke van der Stuwe, Apr.–Aug. 1916, Dutch National Archives The Hague [henceforth dna], Losse aanwinsten Nationaal Archief 1852-1979 (2.21.01), file 313. 23 Johnstone to Hardinge, 27 July and 3 Aug. 1916, Cambridge University, Hardinge Papers, file 23.

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tude toward the Dutch.24 The Dutch government thus did not passively accept the capture of fishermen, even though it was unwilling to negotiate with the British about the fishing situation. It restricted itself to putting pressure on the Allies by diplomatically and publicly stressing the unlawfulness of the British actions, and the consequences of this for the public. The striking thing is that this was enough to convince the British they could not perpetually block Dutch fishing, as Cecil had initially contemplated doing. The Allies, who saw themselves as fighting the war for democracy and the small nations, feared losing the goodwill of those countries. This conviction aided the fishing companies, in their lengthy negotiations with Great Britain, in their efforts to get the fishermen back in business. The fishing company in IJmuiden was now able to make new arrangements, and soon representatives of the other fishing concerns were able to follow suit. Cecil had to accept that stopping all exports to Germany by hindering the ships was impossible. For much more money than he had initially been prepared to pay, he could now buy between 20 and 35 percent of the catch from the assorted companies.25 Thus, the fisherman kept their income while the Dutch government never went further than pointing to its legal position and pressing the British for a private agreement. This appeared to be of enormous advantage with regard to Germany. There was no cause for accusations of unneutral behaviour, as would have been the case with government agreements such as Norway had concluded. Moreover, the German envoy was glad to see the public outrage British behaviour had caused in the press and in Dutch society at large.26 Bargaining was partly responsible for this success. The British could not block all Dutch fishing by withholding supplies and tools like they could in the case of Norway, and like the way they could withhold animal fodder for farmers. But neither could they simply hold all fishing vessels indefinitely. It would have led to too much censure. However, this bargaining worked only in the context of the legal approach. For the government, the legal approach kept Germany at a distance by use of private agreements. If the Dutch government had itself negotiated, this would have been impossible. Moreover, the juridical vocabulary was rhetoric, albeit highly valuable rhetoric, intended to put pressure on the British. In the end, it would have been very difficult for Britain to justify its behaviour to the neutral public. In the first years of the Great War this opinion was considered to be of great value, as Johnstone’s comments demonstrate.

24 Grey to Johnstone, 9 Aug. 1916, bna, fo 382/751, 157347. 25 D.J. Gouda, De Nederlandse zeevisserij tijdens de eerste wereldoorlog, 1914-1918 (Haarlem: Schuyt, 1978), 53-56; Siney, Allied Blockade, 203. 26 Kühlmann to Bethmann Hollweg, 24, 25, 28 July 1916, 16 and 17 August 1916, bbbp, 7: 76-88.

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Thus, during the first years of the war, this method of allowing private parties to make arrangements while the government stuck to legal concerns worked out very well. From 1917 onwards, however, things changed dramatically. New topics came to the forefront, which required new attitudes.

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Armed merchant ships and submarines The Germans tried as hard as the Allies did to starve the enemy, but in the end had to resort to other means. The Germans did not have the option of a surface blockade, but had to use their submarines to strike at enemy shipping from below. Unfortunately for them, the blockade was potentially much more advantageous than the submarines since the use of submarines invariably meant loss of lives, instead of the loss of trade which resulted from Allied interference. It was therefore more difficult to use such methods against neutrals when a blockade was at first glance more humane. Such actions could lead to a neutral outcry, not only in the usa but also in the Netherlands. The fear of such an outcry was one of the reasons that German ‘unrestricted’ submarine campaigns against all shipping, belligerent and neutral, in the ‘Danger Zone’ surrounding Britain and France had in 1916 been very short lived.27 However, as long as the Germans officially accepted the proviso not to torpedo neutrals, thus maintaining a positive image of their country, Dutch trade with Great Britain would go on. It meant that German restraint would be paralleled by Allied policy to seriously hinder traffic to Germany with the not and the Allied agreements on delivery of neutral products. This loss of the neutrals as a source of supplies was one of the reason the Germans embarked in February 1917 on a campaign of unrestrained submarine warfare. From then on, they not only torpedoed ships flying an enemy flag but neutral ships as well, despite the consequences for neutral opinions about their country. Meanwhile, the Allies continued to force the Dutch to ship their native produce to England. Of course, these shipments would deprive the submarine campaign of its effectiveness, which situation could become highly dangerous: the Germans might decide to attack the Netherlands. That would enable them to use Dutch harbours and confiscate Dutch produce. Indeed, in February 1917 the German military leader Erich Ludendorff was no longer tolerant of any concessions to the

27 Joachim Schröder, Die U-Boote des Kaisers: Die Geschichte des deutschen U-Boot-Krieges gegen Großbritannien im Ersten Weltkrieg (Bonn: Bernard & Graefe Verlag, 2003), 211-19; Marc Frey, Der Erste Weltkrieg und die Niederlande: Ein neutrales Land im politischen und wirtschaftlichen Kalkül der Kriegsgegner (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1998), 79-81.

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Dutch which may impede submarine warfare.28 Therefore the Germans were the most dangerous of the belligerents because their economic warfare brought them fewer advantages. German submarine warfare caused Anglo-Dutch friction as well. The British Government realized, as did the press, that Dutch neutrality, although largely favourable to them, still had several distinct disadvantages. One of the most important of these was the Dutch refusal to allow British merchant ships, armed to defend themselves against submarine attack, into their harbours. The Dutch classified these ‘armed merchant ships’ as warships. According to the Dutch neutrality proclamation, warships were not allowed to enter Dutch harbours. With the threat of the U-boat-campaign this was an important point of contention for the British. Charles Hardinge, permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office, considered arming merchant ships to be the most effective method of dealing with the danger of German submarines. He had therefore already asked the envoy in the Hague, in November 1916 when rumours of an impending submarine war had begun to reach Britain, what measures he thought were possible against the Dutch regulation. ‘I presume there is no chance of getting them to reverse it publicly,’ Hardinge admitted, but he seriously considered other means. Johnstone thought it would be worth trying to send a ship into a Dutch harbour with a concealed gun and await the Dutch reaction.29 A real solution, however, seemed difficult and the question was put aside for some time. With the outbreak of unrestricted submarine warfare, the problem of armed merchant ships became acute. Once again, Cecil especially was highly critical of the Dutch stance. In his eyes the Dutch had ‘been consistently pro German in their actions since the outbreak of war.’30 The refusal to allow armed merchantmen entrance to their harbours was just one example of this. Of course, he knew that fear of the Germans was by now a deterministic element in Dutch behaviour, but he never accepted that this fear was reasonable. As he said, ‘If I thought that there was any real danger of the Germans invading Holland, I should have more sympathy with the Dutch, but I am convinced that at this stage in the war the Germans will not do that.’31 Cecil certainly miscalculated, with near-disastrous consequences for the Dutch. Convinced that the Dutch had an exaggerated fear of Germany which paralysed them, he proposed a policy of continuing ‘without paying too much regard to

28 Johan den Hertog, Cort van der Linden (1846-1935): Minister-president in oorlogstijd (Amsterdam: Boom, 2007), 576-78. 29 Hardinge to Johnstone, 22 Nov. 1916; Johnstone to Hardinge, 30 Nov. 1916, Cambridge University, Hardinge Papers, file 27. 30 Cecil to Townley, 5 Mar. 1917, bna, fo800/195 (Cecil papers). 31 Ibid.

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Dutch susceptibilities.’32 He was determined to get Dutch approval to enter Dutch harbours with armed merchant ships, and in order to do so he tried out Johnstone’s suggestion. In March 1917 an armed ship named Princess Melita tried to enter the port of Hoek van Holland, near Rotterdam. The port authority, following instructions based on the neutrality proclamation, sent it away. However, it came back. The authorities now gave the ship permission to enter once the crew had jettisoned its cannon. After some time the ship departed again. By requiring the captain to discard the ship’s weaponry, the Dutch made it clear they would not deviate from the policy regarding armed merchant ships. This policy aroused a lot of criticism from both Britain and France.33 However, the Germans were critical of the Dutch warship policy as well. Around the same time as the Princess Melita’s repeated attempts to enter a Dutch port, two German submarines had run aground on the Dutch coast. These were most definitely warships and thus they were interned, even though the Germans claimed that the submarines had been forced by necessity to enter Dutch territorial waters and, therefore, internment was not necessary. The Dutch persisted however, arousing German wrath. In German eyes, they had been discriminated against. The British could arm their ships against submarines and just by leaving their cannons behind they could enter a Dutch harbour, while the submarines were interned!34 It was an additional reason for Ludendorff to prepare for an attack. He went so far as to propose to the Dutch minister president that he should be allowed to arrange a ‘preventive’ occupation of Zealand. At this time a substantial part of the German military was in a warring mood as far as the Dutch were concerned. They thought, as the German military attaché in The Hague said, that the more enemies Germany had, the more they could get when concluding the peace.35 Cecil was thus definitely wrong in his view that the Germans would never attack the Netherlands. The Dutch attitude toward both the Allies and the Germans in this highly critical moment in the war is illustrative in understanding the legal approach of the Dutch government. Toward Germany, it was imperative to convince Ludendorff that the Dutch wished to and could stay neutral, and thus would never give the Allies disproportionate advantages. How could the government justify that the British ship had left the Netherlands while the German submarines were not 32 Ibid. 33 Townley to fo, 7 Mar. 1917, bna, fo 372/1064, 50097; Allizé to Briand, 8 Mar. 1917, Archives diplomatiques françaises, Ministère des Affaires étrangères, salle de lecture Nantes [henceforth mae Nantes], Archives des postes diplomatiques français à l’étranger, La Haye, file 373; Cecil to Townley, 10 Mar. 1917, bna, fo 372/1064, 50097; Townley to fo, 13 Mar. 1917, bna, fo 372/1064, 54529. 34 Gevers to Loudon, 16 Mar. 1917, bbbp, 5 part 1: 69-71. 35 Lersner to Kriege, 26 Mar. 1917, Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin [henceforth paaa], R22225; Lersner to aa, 3 Apr. 1917, paaa, R8326.

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yet free in spite of German protests? The solution lay in pointing to an external reference, namely international law. The Dutch government therefore proposed solving the question of the submarines by an international court of arbitration. A group of jurists from the Netherlands, Germany, and neutral countries would judge the issue. They set one of the boats free, the other not. This brought the issue to a close, although Von Holtzendorff, the highest-ranking admiral, immediately expressed hope that the second boat would also be set free.36 In a certain sense this conclusion was a kind of bargain, but the important thing is the way in which the outcome was justified. Only the judgement of an external court could protect the Dutch against criticism. German leaders would never accept arguments which suggested a political necessity to cooperate with Britain in the case of the Princess Melita, nor were they open to considering the ongoing internment of submarines as politically necessary. In combination with the diminishing value of the Netherlands as a source of supplies, this would be an argument to attack the Dutch. For Ludendorff the lack of available soldiers was a consideration, but he would still choose war if the Dutch impeded his own war-making capabilities or if he was no longer convinced that the Dutch would or could withstand Allied attempts to use Dutch soil. Thus international arbitration was the solution. In addition, Loudon sent the Germans long legal treatises to justify the Dutch behaviour instead of pointing to English demands. An interesting point is that as long as such debates dragged on, the chance that German politicians opposed to war with the Dutch could prevent Ludendorff from attacking was improved. If only because of Cecil’s scepticism about a German attack, Loudon was unable to convince the British that the German menace was a reason to adhere to his views regarding armed merchant ships. Prominent businessmen Van Aalst and Kröller initially spoke honestly to the British envoy about the imminent German threat, but soon afterwards Loudon went so far as to prohibit Van Aalst from expressing this concern.37 Cecil could say that such arguments only proved that the Dutch had a pro-German bias. According to Cecil, the Dutch did not deserve much consideration if they behaved in such a manner. Therefore, Loudon needed impartial guidelines with which to counter Cecil’s accusations of a pro-German attitude. This was indeed the way he and the envoy in London reproached the Allies: they consistently emphasized the Dutch neutrality proclamation prohibiting armed merchant ships entry into Dutch ports. Similarly, Minister President

36 For a detailed discussion, see Den Hertog, Cort van der Linden, 585-602. 37 Townley to Balfour, 13 Mar. 1917, bna, fo 372/1064, 61470; C.J.K. van Aalst, Aanteekeningen van Dr. C.J.K. Van Aalst ten tijde van den Wereldoorlog, 1914-1918 (n.p.: Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, n.d.), 20 Mar. 1917 [henceforth Diary Van Aalst]. The Van Aalst diaries are available online at http://magnum.inghist.nl/ Onderzoek/Projecten/vanaalst.

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Cort van der Linden, when speaking to the French envoy, emphasized that all he wanted was a juridically sound solution.38 Of course the Allies realized that fear of a German attack was a strong motivator for Dutch legal resoluteness. Eventually the new British envoy Townley, who succeeded Johnstone early in 1917, admitted that this fear was justified and that too harsh a policy could even ‘lead to war between us and Holland.’ Hardinge was convinced by Townley’s assessment of the situation, and advised Prime Minister Lloyd George that the policy towards the Dutch should be reviewed. Cecil, however, insisted that the question of armed merchantmen should not be dropped, nor should the blockade be relaxed. He made it known that if the war cabinet decided on a more lenient policy he would carry it out. ‘But it should be made clear that it is not mine.’39 These considerations never led to a British or French acceptance of the Dutch rule on armed merchantmen. In London it was decided to keep as much pressure on the Dutch as circumstances made possible.40 Loudon therefore had to go on with the legal debate about the rights and duties of neutrals. Whenever possible, Loudon employed delaying tactics or tried to smother the debate in verbose legal language.41 He never mentioned the German position, however. It was only to the Austrian envoy to the Hague that he dared to say that he would never yield to either Allied pressure on armed merchantmen nor to German pressure regarding interned submarines. A refusal to both parties was the only reasonable policy for the Dutch. Every other attitude would lead to accusations of bias, maybe even war.42 This legal argumentation was Loudon’s only option if he wanted to stick to this impartiality. In the end this legal quibbling went on for months, and during that time any real measures against the Netherlands were put on hold. In this way the question finally faded away against much more pressing problems. This did not mean that legal argumentation as such convinced Ludendorff not to attack and to accept the solution about his submarines, nor did the Allies simply accept all Dutch legal arguments. In the end, the decisive factor was that both belligerents were unwilling to go to war with the Dutch. Ludendorff would only abstain from an attack as long as he was convinced that the enemy had no disproportionate advantage from Dutch neutrality. On the other hand, the Dutch 38 Allizé to mae, 15 Mar. 1917, Archives diplomatiques, Ministère des Affaires étrangères, salle de lecture Paris [henceforth mae Paris], A-guerre 1914-1918, file 1072, 70. 39 Townley to Hardinge, 29 Mar. 1917, Cambridge University, Hardinge Papers, file 30. 40 fo to Townley, 31 Mar. 1917, bna, fo 372/1064, 63898. 41 Good examples of the delaying tactics: Loudon to Allizé, 17, 26 May 1917, mae Nantes, Archives des postes diplomatiques français à l’étranger, La Haye, file 373. Further Diplomatieke bescheiden betreffende de toelating van bewapende handelsvaartuigen der oorlogvoerenden en onzijdigen binnen het Nederlandsche rechtsgebied, augustus 1914-november 1917 (The Hague, 1917) for a collection of 20 records on the subject until November 1917. 42 Széchényi to Czernin, 4 Apr. 1917, Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv Wien [henceforth hhsta], pa-i, file 889.

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had to convince the Allies that their behaviour was not pro-German, otherwise the severity of Allied measures would only increase, as the attitude of Cecil proves, up to the moment that Germany became dangerous. Clearly the Dutch had to maintain an equilibrium and bargaining was indeed crucial to this task. International law served as an essential tool in this bargaining, and moreover could keep the discussion going thus postponing more severe measures. This happened on the German side as well, with international arbitration, and just as clearly on the British side with the endless legal discussions between Loudon and the Foreign Office. For the British, it was very difficult to forgo this argumentation. Since they could be satisfied with their position (their blockade was in the end much more effective than the submarine campaign) and thus did not want war, the internal discussion of whether they were driving the Dutch into German clutches or provoking a German attack on the Netherlands had been paramount to a decision about the amount of pressure to be put on the Dutch. However, a country that presented itself as fighting for small democracies had to find justification for this behaviour in the face of Dutch complaints. An answer had to be given to the Dutch who held fast to legal argumentation and carefully refrained from arguments about the German threat. Thus, necessarily, the British legal arguments had to address the reflections on the German menace in the debates with the Dutch. It meant that the diplomatic discussions about international law had to go on, which drove the Foreign Office to despair. However, as long as the British did not want war, these debates were inevitable. Thus the Dutch task of actively trying to get the British to limit their measures in order to keep the Germans out of their country (difficult given Cecils attitude) was well served by legal argumentation.

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Sand and gravel Even in the last phase of the war, when the belligerents’ attempts to encroach on Dutch sovereignty reached a maximum, the government’s legal approach remained important. This period perfectly illustrates how the legal argumentation remained part of the active and independent Dutch neutrality policy, even in times when the belligerents’ demands brought the Dutch to the brink of war. Cecil, who remained convinced that the Dutch were untrustworthy and proGerman, kept pressing for more concessions. The most important one concerned the dangerous sand-and-gravel question. Since 1915, the Allies had been concerned about the German practice of transporting sand and gravel to Belgium using Dutch waterways. The Allies suspected that the Germans used this sand and gravel to reinforce trenches and build concrete bunkers on the Western Front. In that case, the Dutch were allowing the transit of war materials for use by one of the belligerents, which was forbidden by international law. The Germans, how-

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ever, claimed they used the materials for civil purposes, namely repairing Belgian roads. If that were so, putting a halt to the transits would be impossible. Since the 1880s, the Germans and the Dutch had had an agreement allowing free use of Dutch rivers.43 In 1917, the Allies brought this question to a head, when they discovered that the transit volume had grown enormously. No one could prove, however, that the Germans were using the materials for purposes of war. This made it dangerous to prohibit transits which would deprive the Germans of their last advantage regarding a neutral Netherlands. There was no impartial reason to defend such a measure and thus the Dutch would be vulnerable to the danger of acquiring a pro-Allied image. It was therefore a significant concession when Loudon decided to restrict the transit trade as allowed in 1917 to what he considered the maximum amount that could plausibly be claimed as civilian purposes during one year. Loudon told the Allies this amount had been reached on the 15th of August. The Allies, therefore, assumed that no additional transports would take place during 1917.44 However, in order to secure German assent regarding the maximum amount of sand and gravel to be transported through the Netherlands, the Dutch had been forced to accept a German counter-concession. The Germans stated that they feared the rivers would be frozen during the first months of 1918, and therefore demanded that they be allowed to transport part of next year’s allowance during the period leading up to November, 1917. After November, the Dutch would close their borders to such transits until March 1918.45 The Allies were furious about this last concession. According to Cecil, the Dutch were pro-German and ungrateful. Moreover, he still did not believe the Germans would ‘ever retaliate more than commercially’ even were the Dutch forced to cut off all trade with Germany.46 Cecil’s conclusion therefore was clear: the British could use maximum force to stop the Dutch from enacting their presumed proGerman policies. By way of retaliation, he blocked all Dutch telegraph communication with overseas countries. Since the Dutch had no telegraph cables of their own and were forced to use British cables, this cut Dutch merchants off from their overseas markets in the Americas and Asia, most notably in the Dutch East Indies. Dutch businessmen reproached the Government and entreated it to get the British to lift the embargo. Loudon was therefore eager to solve the sand-andgravel question as quickly as possible. Once again, he resorted to his now well-

43 Van Tuyll, Netherlands and World War One, 211-25 and Maartje M. Abbenhuis, The Art of Staying Neutral: The Netherlands in the First World War, 1914-1918 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006), 135-38 both discuss the sand-and-gravel question. 44 Townley to fo, 8 Aug. 1917, bna, fo 372/1020. 45 Loudon to Rosen, 5 Sept. 1917, Bundesarchiv Berlin, R901, file 86972. 46 Cecil to Townley, 24 Oct. 1917, bna, fo 800/195 (Cecil papers).

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‘Duo: Watch out, miss! He’s getting into your yard!’ Britain and Germany encroach on Dutch neutrality, fearing each other’s malicious intentions regarding the neutral Netherlands. Cartoon by Johan Braakensiek in De Amsterdammer, 28 July 1917 (c/o Pictoright Amsterdam 2010).

known methodology. Loudon felt that a definite refusal to Germany on the matter was out of the question. The only effective method would be to indirectly persuade them to accede. The government could not do this, and he therefore asked businessman Van Aalst to privately contact the Austrian envoy, in order to enlist that German ally’s aid in the matter. Indeed, Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs Czernin was prepared to take up the question in Berlin, but unfortunately the Germans refused to negotiate directly with anyone but Loudon. It thus appeared impossible to persuade the Germans to conduct internal talks and revise their policy. Loudon however understood all too well that the option of direct DutchGerman negotiations would lead to German demands that were impossible to fulfil with regard to Cecil’s attitude.47 Thus Loudon’s only option was sticking to his legal approach. In Parliament, he stated that he could only stop the transit of sand and gravel when he was provided 47 Széchényi to Czernin, 12 and 23 Oct. 1917; Czernin to Széchényi, 21 Oct. 1917, hhsta, pa-i, file 889; Diary Van Aalst, 12 Oct. 1917.

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with proof that the material was used for the construction of German trenches and bunkers. Once again, international arbitration of the matter was discussed, but Loudon was not prepared to suggest such a solution to the British as long as they held the Dutch business world hostage.48 So long as definite proof of German malicious conduct was not forthcoming, Loudon and his envoy in London continued to stress the German right to transport materials for Belgian purposes under the 1907 Hague Conventions. Only if the British provided him with proof of use for war purposes would he change his position, even though Loudon as well could (behind the scenes) not hide his conviction that there was a serious chance that the sand and gravel was ending up in the trenches. Of course such proof was very difficult to provide; thus the telegraph cables remained blocked, even after the transits were actually suspended from 15 November until March 1918. The Dutch could do nothing about it in their ongoing legal disputes. The topic of arbitration was also discussed again. In an effort to have the telegraphic embargo lifted, Loudon even contemplated an agreement on international arbitration, but to engage in such with neutral participants was out of the question for the British. They proposed a British-Dutch arbitration committee, but this was unacceptable to Loudon, who felt that the Germans might see this as ultimate proof of Dutch collusion with the Allies.49 Only in February 1918, when resumption of the transits and thus a new round of negotiations with Germany was approaching, did Cecil end the telegraphy block.50 The Allies had learned all too well that the Dutch would never be prepared to lever strong demands to Germany if this would seem the result of an Allied threat. Without such a perceived threat, the Dutch could take a firmer stance toward Germany. The day after the Allies lifted the blockade, the Dutch tried again to limit the transits when discussing new volume agreements for the spring.51 However, during March 1918 the Germans unleashed a series of attacks on the Western Front which, for a time, seemed to decide the war in their favour. The Allies reacted by confiscating Dutch ships moored in their ports, in order to transport more troops from America to Europe. This only boosted German demands. Now that the Allies had the ships, the Germans thought themselves entitled to benefit from the neutral Netherlands as well. They now not only wanted to transport sand and gravel, but also food for horses and even war materials. In the end the sand-and-gravel question became part of broader negotiations, and in April 1918 sparked serious German threats which brought the Netherlands to the brink of war. The Allies realised that a Dutch-German war, very much not in their inter-

48 49 50 51

Loudon, htk 1917-1918, Aanhangsel, 29. Orally answered question of Van Hamel. De Marees van Swinderen to Loudon, 14 Jan. 1918, bbbp, 5 part 1: 348-53. De Marees van Swinderen to Loudon, 8 Feb. 1918, bbbp, 5 part 1: 379-81. Porter, Dutch Neutrality, 219.

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est, was dangerously close at hand. They accepted limited German use of Dutch waterways and even railways for several products, but they continued to restrict the transits as much as possible into the last month of the war. The sand-and-gravel question shows that in 1918 the Dutch had to accept severe infringements on their sovereignty. It also shows that in the end ordinary political bargaining was needed to solve the matter. The solution was a quid pro quo: the Allies had the ships, so the Germans got the transit. In this way, bargaining was the means to maintaining independence. Nevertheless, in these negotiations legal arguments always had a prominent place. Loudon based the transit limitations on legal argumentation regarding the use of sand and gravel for civilian purposes. Only with legal proof of use for war purposes, he believed, could he block all transit. Otherwise, he had to fall back on an obviously pro-Allies motivation with dangerous consequences for Dutch independence. This was of primary importance toward Germany, because Germany was in truth the most dangerous country. Not only could it attack easily, the Netherlands quite simply provided them the least benefit and thus a greater reason to attack. In this situation, publicly urging the British to moderation out of fear of Germany would only lead to the perception of the country as one which did not wish, and would not be able, to withstand Allied encroachments on its neutrality. Additionally, the British, especially Cecil, were not open to arguments based on fear of Germany. Therefore, also on the Allied side, legal argumentation was still necessary to limit their measures for the same reasons as during the Princess Melita-case.

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The concord of law and interest These three examples of Dutch use of legal arguments show how these arguments always form a part of political and diplomatic negotiations. They were a very useful tool for the active diplomacy the Dutch employed to maintain neutrality. In the first phase of the war, belligerents were still keen on keeping public opinion in neutral countries favourable. Therefore, the British could not neglect Loudon’s legal arguments. They had to give an answer, and finally had to give in and negotiate with the fishermen themselves. During the second phase of the war, public opinion was still of value, but it became more difficult to abstain from strong measures. The Germans became more dangerous. Only with international arbitration could the Dutch avoid voicing opinions which could be called pro-Allies, and it also served the interests of the German politicians who did not want war. The British had less reason to go to war with the Dutch (their economic warfare had proved most effective) but consequently had to limit their measures in order to prevent Germany from attacking the Dutch. However, since Cecil was

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so sceptical about a possible attack, limiting British measures was a crucial task for the Dutch. It was clear that Cecil would not listen to arguments about a German threat, while such arguments would on the other side lead to a dangerous ‘pro-Allies’ image, thus this task was best served by keeping the legal discussion going. This was the case during the entire war. The sand-and-gravel question was one of the best examples of the fact that the Dutch task of keeping its neutrality was in the end one of actively arranging a quid pro quo exchange to keep the balance. Moreover, keeping the legal discussion going also often meant postponing the next harsh step planned by belligerents. That is why Loudon’s delaying tactics served the Dutch so well. The Dutch legal approach to neutrality was therefore not so much characterized by strict passivity, but by independent action utilizing external guidelines and the help of unofficial intermediaries, usually businessmen like Van Aalst. Only in this way could the Dutch avoid accusations of unneutral behaviour. By using international law this way, the Dutch foreign minister saw no antithesis between law and political interest. Thus, where Nils Ørvik stated that traditional neutrality collapsed and made room for bargaining when the important arguments were not about law, his vision only partially conforms to the Dutch case. Traditional neutrality was not synonymous with complete non-participation and passivity, but instead required independent action which precluded undue preference for one party or the other. The Dutch maintained this kind of neutrality, also during the Great War, even though the collapse of the legal framework constructed just before the war and the infringements on their sovereignty were of course enormously disadvantageous. Thus although the legal system of the Hague Peace Conferences and the London Maritime Conference of 1909 completely broke down, this did not mean the end of the Dutch legal approach to neutrality. This shows that the concept of neutrality cannot be equated with a legal and passive attitude as has been too easily done by historians like Ørvik and Wels. Neutrality may appear in a more or less passive form, for example in the case of guaranteed neutrality. But it can often require active participation in bargaining. Also in this case arguments based on a legal concept of neutrality can be relevant.

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3

‘Upon the Neutral Rests the Trusteeship of International Law’



Legal advisers and American unneutrality

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»»

Benjamin Coates

In 1914, many considered the United States to be the world’s leading neutral nation.1 Neutrality and nonentanglement in European affairs formed a tradition virtually as old as the republic itself. When war broke out in Europe, the country seemed well positioned to maintain this stance. The commitment to neutrality was popular. The president, Woodrow Wilson, was officially devoted to it. Moreover, picking a side in the war was also fraught with domestic political danger: it was hard to predict how the large number of recent immigrants of diverse ethnicities, who maintained close ties with their homelands, would react in such a situation. Finally, the country had enough power to defend its neutral rights against any belligerent. Nevertheless, not only did the u.s. eventually enter the war in April, 1917, but critics contend that it was effectively ‘unneutral’ by mid-1915. Those critics point to the fact that almost all American exports of munitions and other crucial goods, such as foodstuffs and raw materials, went to the Allies, and very few to the Central Powers. Moreover, they contend that the Wilson administration did too little to resist the expansive – and illegal – British blockade that enforced this imbalance. Meanwhile, the u.s. categorically rejected Germany’s attempts to use submarines to intercept Allied shipping. And, unlike small European neutrals (such as Belgium or Greece) who abandoned neutrality only under belligerent duress, America entered the war of its own volition.2 Defenders of Woodrow Wilson’s wartime 1

2

I would like to thank Anders Stephanson of Columbia University, Trygve Throntveit of Harvard University, and the attendees of the ‘End of Neutrality’ Conference in Amsterdam for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Any errors are the sole responsibility of the author. Robert W. Tucker, Woodrow Wilson and the Great War: Reconsidering America’s Neutrality, 1914-1917 (Charlottesville, va: University of Virginia Press, 2007). The most detailed development of this argument is John W. Coogan, The End of Neutrality: The United States, Britain, and Maritime Rights, 1899-1915 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981). See also Charles Callan Tansill, America Goes to War (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1938); Edwin Montefiore Borchard and William Potter Lage, Neutrality for the United States (New Haven: Yale

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policy dispute elements of this account. While everyone agrees that American policy disproportionately benefited the Allies, some deny allegations that this policy was illegal or that meaningful alternatives existed.3 Wilson’s motivations remain similarly contested.4 Nevertheless, the best recent analysis makes a powerful case that American policy failed to uphold a ‘strict neutrality.’5 Behind American unneutrality, most critical accounts suggest, lay a disregard for international law. Britain’s seizures of American shipping violated clearlydefined neutral rights. By failing to protest adequately, the United States abandoned a viable legal case and allowed British malfeasance to persist. If policymakers had only followed unbiased legal advice, America could and would have remained neutral.6 To evaluate these claims, this paper analyzes four legal advisers to the Department of State: Robert Lansing, James Brown Scott, Chandler P. Anderson, and Eugene Wambaugh. Lansing served as Counselor, the Department’s chief legal position. For advice, he turned to Anderson and Wambaugh, and, especially, to Scott.7 Scott also chaired the Joint State-Navy Neutrality Board, a three-member

3

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4

5 6 7

University Press, 1937). For a comparative perspective, see Nils Ørvik, The Decline of Neutrality, 1914-1941, with Special Reference to the United States and the Northern Neutrals, 2nd ed. (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1971 [1953]). Arthur Link contends that American policy was in fact strictly neutral, while Ernest May terms it ‘benevolent neutrality.’ Arthur S. Link, Wilson: The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914-1915 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960); Ernest R. May, The World War and American Isolation, 1914-1917 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959). Others absolve Wilson by contending that strict adherence to neutrality under international law was virtually impossible under new conditions of warfare. Ross Gregory, The Origins of American Intervention in the First World War (New York: W.W. Norton, 1971). Patrick Devlin also focuses on the breakdown of international law, but implies that Wilson’s actions were driven more by ideological and psychological factors in any case. Patrick Devlin, Too Proud to Fight: Woodrow Wilson’s Neutrality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975). Realist critics contend that Wilson relied too heavily on international law. They equate law with idealism. As this paper shows, the relationship was more complicated. See George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy, expanded ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984 [1951]), chap. 4. The historiography on Wilsonian foreign policy is vast. Among the standard works are Thomas J. Knock, To End all Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); John Milton Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983); N. Gordon Levin, Woodrow Wilson and World Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968); Lloyd Gardner, Safe for Democracy: The Anglo-American Response to Revolution, 1913-1923 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984); Lloyd Ambrosius, Wilsonian Statecraft: Theory and Practice of Liberal Internationalism during World War i (Wilmington, de: sr Books, 1991). Tucker, Wilson, 81. For an historiographical overview, see ibid., chap. 3. See especially Coogan, End of Neutrality, 193; Alice M. Morrissey, The American Defense of Neutral Rights, 19141917 (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 1939). Wambaugh served as ‘Special Counsel’ between 10 August 1914 and 26 September 1914, providing over forty opinions during that period. See Eugene Wambaugh, ‘Official Memoranda Filed by Me as Special Counsel for the Department of State,’ 1914, copy in Harvard Law School Library Special Collections. Anderson was in Europe at the war’s outbreak, and initially remained in London to advise the American ambassador. When he returned to the United States in February 1915, Lansing convinced him to stay in Washington as an adviser. Benjamin T. Harrison, Dollar Diplomat: Chandler Anderson and American Diplomacy in Mexico and Nicaragua,

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group created in August, 1914 to provide policymakers with official legal opinions.8 Though they were prominent members of the international legal profession, these advisers counselled unequal responses to German and British violations of the law. This stance was a logical outcome of their pre-war beliefs. Ironically, it was precisely their commitment to international law itself that underwrote the abandonment of traditional neutrality. International law was not merely an apolitical body of rules administered by disinterested technicians. It must be understood in a political and ideological context. Highly conscious of America’s new power after 1900, international lawyers supported an ambitious legalist project that sought to reform world politics in the American image. In this context neutrality took on a new meaning. No longer accompanied by a commitment to political isolation, neutrality now required transatlantic engagement in order to preserve the possibility of a law-governed world. The political assumptions that underlay this vision proved incompatible with strict neutrality.

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Beyond traditional neutrality Americans had always considered themselves leading defenders of neutrality, but the meaning of that conception changed over time. Shortly after gaining independence, the United States took a leading role in transforming neutrality from a questionable and contingent practice into a legally-defined institution. In 1794 it enacted domestic legislation to enforce neutral duties, thereby reassuring belligerents that neutral countries could remain rigorously impartial during war.9 The u.s. also advocated expansive neutral rights. In 1812 the young country went to war with England in part to defend the right to trade with any belligerent. In the following years, America updated its neutrality laws at home and pushed for greater neutral rights abroad, including the immunity of private property at sea.10 Traditional American neutrality reflected the interests of a small, weak nation.11 Enshrining rights and duties in international law, its promoters reasoned, would prevent u.s. entanglement in European politics and wars while preserving access to profitable trade. In conjunction with the Monroe Doctrine, it might forestall 1913-1928 (Pullman, wa: Washington State University Press, 1988), 13-18. Scott was a Special Adviser. Link, Struggle, 48-49. 8 Sandra Taylor Caruthers, ‘The Work of the Joint State-Navy Neutrality Board, 1914-1917’ (ma thesis, University of Colorado, 1963), 1-2. 9 Alfred P. Rubin, ‘The Concept of Neutrality in International Law,’ in Neutrality: Changing Concepts and Practices, ed. Alan T. Leonhard (New York: University Press of America, 1988), 23-25. 10 John Bassett Moore, Principles of American Diplomacy (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1918), 61; Coogan, End of Neutrality, 17. 11 Ørvik, Decline, 73.

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European challenges to American hegemony in the Western hemisphere. Neutrality, therefore, developed in tandem with a policy of unilateralism and political isolation. A legally-defined neutrality supported goals both ideological and pragmatic.12 However, when the u.s. found itself embroiled in its own Civil War, it claimed extensive belligerent rights. To prevent trade with the Confederacy, its navy intercepted European merchant shipping while its courts justified the seizure of neutral cargoes, even those en route from one neutral port to another.13 Europeans complained, for the policy seemed to contravene America’s previous support for neutral rights.14 Yet because it remained consistent with a broader commitment to political isolation, Americans did not admit to any real inconsistency. They continued to consider themselves leading advocates for neutrality, and historians have assumed that the ‘traditional’ approach endured until World War i.15 But in fact, changing views of international law and American national identity began to undermine this relationship even before 1914.16 Victory over Spain in 1898 gave Americans a heightened awareness of their country becoming a world power.17 Around the same time, international lawyers in the country began to professionalize their discipline, and did so with an eye toward the new strategic situation. Upon the founding of the American Society of International Law in 1906, asil Vice President Oscar Straus declared, ‘[w]e are a world power and we must put world-power clothes on to meet the situation.’18 As the lawyers saw it, the United States could no longer isolate itself from an interconnected world.19 But neither could it emulate European-style imperialism, which was politically unpopular. Becoming the leading advocate for international law suggested an alternative great power identity for the United States, based not on the will for conquest, but on the desire to spread American values and ideals to the world.

12 Walter McDougall, Promised Land, Crusader State: The American Encounter with the World Since 1776 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., Mariner Books, 1997), 42; Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), chap. 6. 13 Stephen C. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), chap. 6. For court decisions, see John Bassett Moore, A Digest of International Law (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906), 7: 697-739. 14 Moore, Digest, 7: 1260-61. 15 Coogan, End of Neutrality, 25-28; Jürg Martin Gabriel, The American Conception of Neutrality after 1941 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002), chap 1. 16 Benjamin Coates, ‘Transatlantic Advocates: American International Law and u.s. Foreign Relations, 18981919’ (PhD diss., Columbia University, forthcoming). 17 Raymond Esthus, ‘Isolationism and World Power,’ Diplomatic History 2 (Spring 1978): 117-18. 18 ‘Root Heads New Body on International Law,’ New York Times, 13 Jan. 1906. 19 Oscar S. Straus, et al., Open Letter, 24 Nov. 1905, asil, Washington, d.c., American Society of International Law Papers, Box 1.

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For these lawyers, international law was not simply the elaboration of rules and procedures, but part of a broader ideology. Along with their European counterparts, they envisioned international law as part of an evolutionary process grounded in liberal assumptions. By educating public opinion, the international lawyer’s job was to actively shape an emerging global consciousness.20 At the same time, American international lawyers ‘domesticated’ these ideas for a national audience. They focused their efforts on the creation of an international court, and convinced the u.s. government to take the leading role in promoting its creation.21 Providing a legal, impartial tribunal would depoliticize world affairs, just as domestic reformers removed corruption from economics and governance.22 They modelled this tribunal explicitly on the u.s. Supreme Court, suggesting that America had a special role to play. Spreading international law became a secular mission to reshape the world in America’s image.23 Neutrality therefore had different connotations for the international lawyers of 1912 than it had for the policymakers of 1812. In its traditional, politically isolationist, form, American neutrality meant abstention from engaging in international affairs, and therefore made no distinction between belligerents. But the purely legal course advocated after 1900 implied that belligerents could now be judged.24 It removed international law from the context of diplomacy, privileging the discovery and application of correct principles over the management of competing interests. As a world power, America had a duty, these lawyers believed, to cultivate a global environment in which international law could flourish. To be ‘neutral’ was not to be indifferent but to promote impartial, apolitical judgment.25 This echoed the thoughts of some British jurists – such as John Westlake – who had called for a reconsideration of the just war tradition. Law ought not to merely regulate war, 20 International lawyers in this period were not the pure ‘positivists’ that historians portrayed for so long. David Kennedy, ‘International Law and the Nineteenth Century: History of an Illusion,’ Quinnipiac Law Review 17 (1998): 99-138. Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law, 1870-1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Casper Sylvest, ‘International Law in Nineteenth Century Britain,’ British Yearbook of International Law 2004 75 (2005): 9-70. 21 On the proposed court, see Francis Anthony Boyle, Foundations of World Order: The Legalist Approach to International Relations, 1898-1922 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 37-55. 22 Carl Landauer, ‘The Ambivalences of Power: Launching the American Journal of International Law in an Era of Empire and Globalization,’ Leiden Journal of International Law, 20, no. 2 (2007): 325-58. 23 C. Roland Marchand, The American Peace Movement and Social Reform, 1898-1918 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 62. 24 Court proponents laid special stress on the ‘legal’ nature of the court. See discussion in American Society for Judicial Settlement of International Disputes Proceedings 1-6 (1910-1913, 1915-1916). 25 In most neutrality literature, ‘impartiality’ refers to equal assistance to belligerents, rather than to judgment. See, e.g., Gabriel, American Conception, 11; Tucker, Wilson, 59. My meaning here is closer to that used by Pål Wrange, who describes impartiality as ‘independent engagement … based on an assessment of the facts in the light of norms.’ Pål Wrange, ‘Impartial or Uninvolved? The Anatomy of 20th Century Doctrine on the Law of Neutrality’ (PhD diss., University of Stockholm, 2007), 1047.

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Frontispiece to the proceedings of the American Society for Judicial Settlement of International Disputes, vol. 1 (1910).

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but to end it by administering justice.26 Rather than using international law to protect national interests, the United States would make the protection of law into an interest in itself. Little room remained for the politically isolationist constraints of traditional American neutrality. Before 1914, however, international lawyers did not fully realize the vast implications of their project for u.s. policy. They promoted international law in the abstract rather than tailoring neutrality laws to changing American interests. In 1904, Alfred Thayer Mahan, the famous naval strategist, offered a different approach. He proposed that the u.s. abandon its customary support for the immunity from capture of private property at sea. ‘[W]hat was expedient to our weakness of a century ago is not expedient to our strength today,’ he explained. The United States ought to expand belligerent rights as much as possible so as to ‘fasten our grip on the sea.’27 While some legal advisers and policymakers sympathized with this argument, ultimately the traditional policy persisted.28 National ideology trumped national interests. Immunity of private property, said one lawyer, ‘made for civilization.’ The question ought not be reduced to ‘the level of national needs and interests’ but should be examined ‘from the humanitarian and international standpoint.’29 This logic explains the reaction of American legalists to the failure of the international prize court in 1911. Proposed as a means to provide neutral owners of seized cargoes with an impartial alternative to national prize courts, the court plan languished when Britain refused to ratify the Declaration of London (a codified body of maritime law upon which the prize court would have based its rulings).30 Tellingly, the loss of safeguards for American shippers was not what most upset American international lawyers. As Elihu Root – a former secretary of state, and a mentor to Lansing, Scott, and Anderson – explained, the ‘real significance’ of the British rejection of the Declaration of London was the setback it represented to the movement for a world court. ‘The Prize Court Convention,’ he explained, represented ‘the advance guard of the proposed judicial system, the experiment upon which the success of the whole plainly depends.’31

26 Wrange, 243. For an American citation of this strand of thought, see Philip Marshall Brown, ‘Munitions and Neutrality,’ asil Proceedings 10 (1916): 40. 27 Quoted in Coogan, End of Neutrality, 57. 28 Coogan, End of Neutrality, 57-69; Calvin DeArmond Davis, The United States and the Second Hague Peace Conference: American Diplomacy and International Organization, 1899-1914 (Durham, nc: Duke University Press, 1975), 139-40. 29 Joseph Choate, quoted in Davis, Second Hague, 171-72. 30 Scott noted that the existence of such a court might even have prevented the war of 1812 by giving justice to American shippers. James Brown Scott, ‘The International Court of Prize,’ American Journal of International Law 5, no. 2 (1911): 305. 31 Elihu Root, ‘The Real Significance of the Declaration of London,’ ajil 6, no. 3 (1912): 591-93.

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International lawyers’ changing conceptions of neutrality are also evident in the 1913 publication of The Neutrality Laws of the United States by the Division of International Law of the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace.32 On the surface, the book seemed to continue past practice: it reviewed American neutrality legislation since 1794 and recommended updates to reflect modern conditions. But the Division intended its publication to serve broader goals. By modernizing its neutrality laws, the United States would set in motion a process of reform; its laws would be ‘a model to the nations.’33 As James Brown Scott – the director of the Division – explained: When we think of peace, we go on to the presumption that our intentions are honorable as well as pacific, and that the other nations should be, as it were, brought into our camp. It seemed best to us to … [put] our house in order, to consider in how far we as a nation conform to the requirements of neutrality …34

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Unlike in 1794, when neutrality legislation aimed to keep Europe at arms’ length, here it was framed as a move to engage the rest of the world and bring it toward the United States – ‘into our camp’ – as Scott put it. The commitment to neutrality was a necessary precondition for American leadership. The legal advisers of 1914 – Lansing, Scott, Wambaugh and Anderson – were products of this intellectual milieu. Each belonged to the international legal profession and shared its goals.35 Though not all were as optimistic as Scott – Lansing in particular tended toward the cynical – each believed that with American leadership, international law could eventually replace war.36

32 Charles G. Fenwick, The Neutrality Laws of the United States (Washington, d.c.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1913). 33 James Brown Scott, introduction to ibid., iii-iv. 34 Scott to Henry S. Drinker, 4 May 1914, Columbia University, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Carnegie Endowment of International Peace Papers, vol. 259. 35 Scott was the secretary of the asil, Anderson was the treasurer, and Lansing served on the executive committee. Wambaugh was also a member. asil Proceedings 4 (1910). 36 Though Lansing had doubts about the power of international law in the present, he ‘believed that the inevitable increase in moral sensibilities would eventually transform national societies and thus change profoundly international relations.’ Daniel M. Smith, Robert Lansing and American Neutrality, 1914-17 (Berkeley, ca: University of California Press, 1958), 8. Note that while not all international lawyers believed in the emancipatory power of law, the attitudes described here predominated in the discipline’s professional organizations. See Coates, ‘Transatlantic Advocates.’

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Reacting to Britain and Germany

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This broader ideological project shaped the way the advisers interpreted the law after 1914. It provided a conceptual vocabulary through which they understood the war’s developments. A neutrality of abstention no longer seemed respectable to the advisers. As a leader of neutrals, America’s duty consisted not in validating its own rights but in defending the possibility of a law-governed world. James Brown Scott thus complained when the United States did not protest officially the German invasion of Belgium.37 Neutrals, he explained, had a duty to protest even where their own interests were not directly threatened: ‘[t]he material injury is … the violation of the principle of law, not merely the injury to the life or property of the citizen of the neutral nation.’38 He later lamented that the u.s. government had ‘only protested when our interests were involved,’ claiming that this ‘smacks of materialism.’39 ‘I was anxious that we should, from the very beginning,’ he wrote to a French correspondent, ‘stand forth as the advocate of international law.’40 Or as one colleague put it: ‘upon the neutral rests the trusteeship of international law.’41 America would be the sole trustee, it turned out. The United States rebuffed Scandinavian proposals for a conference of neutrals that would collectively defend neutrality. Lansing explained the refusal as a consequence of America’s geographical distance from the European neutrals,42 but it is difficult not to read it as expressing an unwillingness to dilute American leadership.43 In any event, in 1914 defending international law meant asserting neutral rights. The State Department declared at the war’s outbreak that American citizens were free to export contraband – including arms and ammunition – to belligerents, subject only to risk of capture.44 Since the British Navy controlled the high seas, the Allies reaped the benefits of American trade. The u.s. soon became Britain’s arsenal.45 Although this policy aroused controversy, it accorded with law and tradition: American governments had always claimed a right to export, and inter-

37 Scott to Robert Lansing, 4 Feb. 1915, Georgetown University Library, Special Collections Division, James Brown Scott Papers [henceforth jbs], Box 13. 38 Scott, ‘The Right of Neutrals to Protest Against Violations of International Law,’ ajil 10, no. 2 (Apr 1916): 343. 39 Scott to M.G. Gram, 2 May 1915, jbs, Box 14. 40 Scott to Louis Renault, 7 May 1915, jbs, Box 11. See also Wambaugh to Lansing, 18 Sept. 1914, no. 35 in Wambaugh, ‘Official Memoranda,’ 190-96. 41 Jesse Reeves, in asil Proceedings 10 (1916): 60. 42 Lansing, Memorandum of Meeting with Swedish Minister, 1 Dec. 1914, American National Archives ii, College Park, md [henceforth ana], rg 59, 763.72111/4331½. 43 Ørvik, Decline, 114-15. Ørvik sees this as an explicitly anti-neutral move; I suggest it reflects a different conception of neutrality. 44 Lansing to Woodrow Wilson, 10 Oct. 1914, ana, 763.72112/133½. 45 Gregory, Origins, 43.

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national law as codified in the Hague Conventions supported them.46 While other nations had voluntarily banned such exports,47 legal advisers claimed that changing the law during wartime would be unneutral.48 Though Germany groused, even its ambassador had to admit the legality of the practice.49 What drew more ire was the divergent manner in which the u.s. responded to British and German contraventions of the law. At first, Britain posed the greater threat to American neutral rights. In August 1914, the u.s. requested that all belligerents conform to the rules laid out in the Declaration of London.50 The Central Powers – recognizing that the Declaration’s creation of a free list would facilitate importation of useful goods like copper and rubber – gave their conditional assent.51 But London signalled that it would follow the Declaration only with modifications that permitted tighter control of neutral shipping.52 Some of these modifications seemed to violate traditional neutral rights.53 Over the next month, Lansing, Scott, and Eugene Wambaugh worked in tandem to prepare a response. Their draft note protested vigorously – so vigorously, in fact, that Colonel Edward House (President Wilson’s unofficial deputy) together with British Ambassador Cecil Spring-Rice prevented its transmission, substituting in its place a more anodyne communiqué.54 Despite, or perhaps because of, these conciliatory gestures, Britain ignored American entreaties, and over the next several months added further restrictions, culminating in a March, 1915 Order in Council banning virtually all trade with Germany.55 In throttling trade, the British

46 Moore, Digest, 7: 955-73; ‘Convention Concerning the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers in Naval War,’ Art. 7, 18 Oct. 1907, in The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, ed. James Brown Scott (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1909), 2: 511. 47 During the Franco-Prussian War, Belgium, Switzerland, and Japan prevented the shipment of arms (Neff, Rights and Duties, 106). During wwi, Brazil, China, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden prohibited the exportation of munitions, although it was unclear ‘whether the real ground for the embargoes was to conserve supplies, to avoid enmity of belligerents, to retaliate against ‘some vexatious measure of the belligerents’, or to maintain a strict neutrality.’ Carlton Savage, Policy of the United States Toward Maritime Commerce in War (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1936), 2: 43. 48 Lansing to Wilson, 10 Dec. 1914, ana, 763.72111/1332½. 49 Johann von Bernstorff to Lansing, 15 Sept. 1914, in Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1914 Supplement: The World War (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1928) [henceforth frus 1914], 572-73. 50 William Jennings Bryan to Walter Hines Page, 6 Aug. 1914, frus 1914, 216. 51 frus 1914, lxii. 52 For text of the Order, see Walter Hines Page to Secretary of State, recd. 26 Aug. 1914, frus 1914, 218-20. 53 Coogan, End of Neutrality, 154-68. 54 The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, ed. Charles Seymour (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1926), 1: 307-8. 55 For text of the Order, see Walter Hines Page to Secretary of State, 15 Mar. 1915, in Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1915 Supplement: The World War (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1928), 143-45.

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went even further than the Americans had during the Civil War, stretching accepted rules of international law beyond their breaking points.56 The u.s. complained but did not press the issue.57 Since trade with the Allies continued meanwhile, Germany deemed the position unneutral.58 Although Wilson offered little opposition to British policy, his legal advisers considered protest essential. Reaffirming neutral rights was vital not solely for the interests of American shippers, but for the institution of neutrality as a whole.59 A law violated with impunity could hardly be called a law. In dozens of memoranda, they rejected British legal arguments and recommended strongly-worded protests.60 Wambaugh complained in September 1914 that British policy was ‘so injurious to neutral comRobert Lansing (1864-1928), Secretary of State (1915-1920) merce and so inconsistent with general International Law as to bring it wholly (u.s. Department of State). within the legal right of a neutral … to protect its commerce by war.’61 Lansing warned that to acquiesce would place the u.s. ‘in a position where its neutrality and impartiality are doubtful or open to question.’62 The Neutrality Board deemed Britain’s March 1915 Order in Council ‘a grave violation of neutral rights’ and compared it to the British conduct 56 In effect, the Order claimed the rights of a blockade without assuming its responsibilities under the law. Instead, it extended continuous voyage to all goods – not just contraband. Even the British government’s International Law Committee advised that belligerent rights provided insufficient justification for this practice. Neff, Rights and Duties, 151-53. See also Coogan, End of Neutrality, 224-25. 57 Coogan, End of Neutrality, chap. 9-10. 58 Link, Struggle, 352. 59 Too much fealty to American interests could be detrimental. In 1915, Lansing told Anderson he needed him to remain an official department adviser because Solicitor Cone Johnson ‘was so much under the influence of the cotton interests’ that he required close supervision. Memorandum by Anderson, 8 Sept. 1915, Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division, Chandler P. Anderson Papers, Roll 1 [henceforth cpa]. 60 Caruthers, ‘Neutrality Board,’ 61-62; Wambaugh, ‘Official Memoranda.’ 61 Wambaugh to Lansing, 9 Sept. 1914, no. 26 in Wambaugh, ‘Official Memoranda,’ 149-51. 62 Lansing to Page, 26 Sept. 1914, ana, 763.72112/126.

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that had precipitated the War of 1812.63 Violations must not go unchallenged, for ‘[t]he maintenance of the public law of the world – international law – is a matter of deepest concern to the whole world, which will lapse into barbarism if respect for international law be lost.’ So serious were the violations that ‘a mere protest would be inadequate.’64 Some historians have suggested that if American policymakers had listened to these complaints, the u.s. might have retained its neutrality. John Coogan deemed the Board’s response to the March 1915 Order in Council ‘Scott’s policy of confrontation,’ portraying it as a path not taken.65 But this misreads the nature of the legal advisers’ proposals. To effect a change in British policy, American protests would have needed to be accompanied by credible threats of reprisal – such as those made to Germany in response to its submarine campaign.66 While the advisers counselled a sharper tone in American protests, they did not contemplate this type of aggressive action.67 In fact, what the advisers feared most was that insufficient protest might cause an excitable public to demand war with Britain. Wambaugh fretted that ‘hot heads’ might ‘insist upon action against Great Britain and the allies,’ while Lansing worried that bitter reactions might roil the American melting pot, turning American ethnic groups against one other.68 It was necessary to walk a fine line between protesting enough to assuage public opinion and uphold the law, but not so much as to actually risk conflict with Britain.69 British violations of international law could be solved through legal means, the advisers reasoned. Even Wambaugh, who had suggested that violent reprisals might be justified, advocated no more than a formal protest combined with a commitment to pursue post-war arbitration.70 The u.s. should continue to follow the rules set forth in the pre-war system of international law. Arbitration would restore the losses of American shippers and confirm the relevance of the system. The Neutrality Board’s problem with ‘mere protest’ was not its ineffectuality but its lack of detail. To prove America’s legal case irrefutably, the situation demanded

63 64 65 66 67 68

Neutrality Board, Memorandum no. 75, 18 Mar. 1915, ana, M367-173. Neutrality Board, Memoranda nos. 71 and 71bis, 6 Mar. 1915, ibid. Coogan, End of Neutrality, 234. Ibid., 254. Memorandum by Anderson, 20 Mar. 1915, cpa; Tucker, Wilson, 105-6. Wambaugh to Lansing, 8 Sept. 1914, in Wambaugh, no. 24 in ‘Official Memoranda,’ 139-40; Smith, Lansing, 20. See also Lansing to Page, 28 Sept. 1914, frus 1914, 232-33. 69 Smith, Lansing, 46-47. 70 Wambaugh to Lansing, 9 Sept. 1914, no. 26 in Wambaugh, ‘Official Memoranda,’ 149-51. Anderson omitted even the formal protest. See Anderson, ‘Memorandum of reasons why the United States should acquiesce without protest …’, 21 Oct. 1914, cpa.

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not reprisals, but rather a lengthy explication of ‘certain broad principles.’71 War was not in the cards.72 Legal advisers took a very different stance towards Germany. The Neutrality Board deemed the torpedoing of the British ship, the Falaba – resulting in the death of one American citizen – not only ‘illegal’ but ‘revoltingly inhuman.’73 Legal advisers broadly concurred in the Wilson government’s strict protest to Germany’s initial declaration of a submarine war zone in February of 1915, and Lansing pushed hard for an aggressive response to the sinking of the Lusitania.74 If British violations could be addressed through post-war arbitration, German behaviour necessitated ultimatums, armed preparedness, and perhaps war.75 Why this difference? The submarine blockade did present unique challenges. Lansing’s argument that British violations of the law cost only money, while German submarines cost American lives was not purely a rationalization.76 It was also more difficult to justify submarine warfare under existing law. States had frequently expanded the definition of contraband during war, but no one had claimed the right to sink merchant ships without first allowing for the safety of those on board.77 However, the best explanation for legal advisers’ reaction is their attitudes about Germany itself. Early on, legal advisers decided that a German victory had to be prevented. Even before the sinking of the Lusitania, Chandler Anderson wrote in his diary that ‘[i]f Germany wins, it threatens the existence of popular government throughout the world, and it is inconceivable that the greatest republic in the world should lend itself to the destruction of popular government.’78 A few months later, Lansing confided in a personal memorandum that ‘I have come to the conclusion that the German Government is utterly hostile to all nations with democratic institutions …’79 When the u.s. finally entered the war in 1917, Scott declared: ‘I feel that the United

71 Neutrality Board, Memorandum no. 71bis. 72 By 1916, the Neutrality Board deemed the disagreement ‘irreconcilable by diplomatic methods’ but proposed that any further notes close ‘with a reference to the treaties of arbitration between the two Governments by which the points at issue between them may, and in the opinion of the Board should, be settled.’ Neutrality Board, Memorandum no. 137, 15 May 1916, ana, M367-176. 73 Cited in Caruthers, ‘Neutrality Board,’ 88. 74 Smith, Lansing, 50-51; Savage, Maritime Commerce, 2: 56-57; Caruthers, ‘Neutrality Board,’ 90. 75 Devlin, Too Proud, 206. 76 Smith, Lansing, 142. On the other hand, malnutrition caused by the Allied blockade contributed to the deaths of several hundred thousand German civilians. A.C. Bell, A History of the Blockade of Germany (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1961 [1937]), 671-72. See also Tucker, Wilson, 134-35. 77 Tucker, 136-39; Devlin, Too Proud, 283-84. See also discussion in asil Proceedings 9 and 10 (1915-1916). 78 Memorandum by Anderson, 3 May 1915, cpa. 79 Lansing, ‘Consideration and Outline of Policies,’ 11 July 1915, Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division, Robert Lansing Papers [henceforth rl].

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States are justified in declaring war against Germany, and I feel that it would have been justified had it done so at a very much earlier date.’80 Historians have attributed this bias to a combination of propaganda and Anglophilia.81 To be sure, the legal advisers held England in high regard;82 and Allied allegations stoked their mistrust of Germany.83 But Germany had long been suspect in the eyes of American international lawyers.84 In 1909, Elihu Root called Germany ‘the great disturber of peace in the world’ which had ‘persistently stood’ against ‘progress’ in law.85 German nationalism was seen as a threat to an internationalist future. Pre-war hopes of converting German opinion shrivelled after the invasion of Belgium. If international law rested on the power of public opinion, how could it survive in a world dominated by the Kaiser?86 A 1916 document reveals the continuity between pre-war and wartime views. In that year the American Institute of International Law published a ‘Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Nations.’ Written largely by James Brown Scott, it represented a culmination of pre-war ideas, a ‘statement of the fundamental principles of international law, as they are understood in the New World.’87 It portrayed international law as an American mission, self-consciously adopting the language of America’s Declaration of Independence.88 Where the latter defended ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’ the new Declaration promised rights to independence and security of territory.89 A world of law, Scott added, relied on the ‘American conception of the state’ – namely, popular democracy.90 In the context 80 Scott to Louis Renault, 26 May 1917, jbs, Box 11. 81 Tansill, America Goes to War, 168. 82 For instance, in 1913 Scott planned a celebration of ‘the Centenary of One Hundred Years of Peace between English-Speaking Peoples.’ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Year Book for 1913-1914 (Washington: ceip, 1914), 43-44. 83 E.g., Albéric Rolin to Scott, 28 Sept. 1914, jbs, Box 10. Recent investigations suggest that though exaggerated, widespread German atrocities did occur. See John Horne and Alan Kramer, German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000). 84 ‘It is curious to note,’ Scott wrote in 1914, that the country alleged to have committed the worst violations of law ‘had not, up to a few years ago, a single chair in all its great educational system exclusively devoted to the teaching of international law.’ ceip, Year Book for 1913-1914, 105. 85 Philip C. Jessup, Elihu Root (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1938), 2: 310. 86 Lansing’s biographer asserts that his opposition to Germany stemmed from a ‘realist’ assessment of the threat posed to American interests. However, as Robert Tucker argues, Lansing’s writings show little analysis of the balance of power. He was more of an ideologue than a strategist. Smith, Lansing, 19; Tucker, Wilson, 34. 87 James Brown Scott, foreword to The American Institute of International Law: Its Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Nations (Washington, dc: aiil, 1916). 88 These edicts, Scott noted, ‘are not based upon the doctrine of inherent rights or of natural law, but upon decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in laying down and applying principles of justice and rules of law to cases involving the rights and duties of nations.’ ceip, Year Book for 1917 (Washington, d.c.: ceip, 1917), 98. 89 Scott, Declaration, 87. 90 Ibid., 46

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of the war, this could only be understood as a rejection of Germany. Lawyers in France and England trumpeted the Declaration gleefully.91 The legal advisers thus made plain what had previously been implied: creating a world of law in the American image required that leading powers be states with ‘democratic institutions’ which followed the rule of law in their domestic affairs.92 A ‘neutral’ or ‘impartial’ view of the situation, at least when filtered through the eyes of the legal advisers, deemed British violations of neutral rights insignificant in comparison to a broader German threat.

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Armed merchantmen and submarines It was the defence of the right of Americans to travel on British ships – in defiance of German submarine warfare – that led directly to the decision to enter the war. A brief look at the legal advisers’ opinions on this issue suggests how a commitment to law could just as easily undermine as preserve neutrality. Soon after the war began, the Neutrality Board ruled that armed ships could maintain a peaceful status so long as they carried guns solely for ‘defensive’ purposes.93 This became official u.s. policy.94 It was a momentous decision, for categorizing all armed vessels as warships – as the Dutch did – might have disrupted British access to American ports.95 By doing the opposite, the government assured its citizens that they could travel on British ships without fear of attack.96 A later critic deemed the ruling ‘legally unsustainable,’ contending that any armed ship ought to be treated as a man of war.97 The Neutrality Board, led by Scott, defended its decision by citing American case law and the opinions of international legal experts.98 A conclusive judgment either way is difficult because the situation in 1914 bore so little relation to the context in which legal rules had developed. Before the 1850s, merchant ships frequently carried guns to defend themselves from privateers; their weak armament was no match for a naval cruiser, and would not likely be used to interfere with visit and search. But the introduction of the submarine changed the equation. A well-aimed volley from even a small

91 C. Dupuis, ‘Une déclaration américaine des droits et devoirs des nations,’ Revue Générale de Droit Internationale Public 24, no. 3-4 (1917): 300-316. 92 Lansing, ‘What Will the President Do?’ 3 Dec. 1916, rl. See also ceip, Year Book for 1917, 96. 93 Caruthers, ‘Neutrality Board,’ 27-28. See also Wambaugh to Lansing, 22 September 1914, no. 40 in Wambaugh, ‘Official Memoranda,’ 223-26. 94 Department of State, ‘The Status of Armed Merchant Vessels,’ 19 Sept. 1914, frus 1914, 611-12. 95 See Johan den Hertog’s chapter elsewhere in this book. 96 Tucker, Wilson, 132-33 97 Borchard and Lage, Neutrality, 43. 98 Neutrality Board, Memorandum no. 41, 22 Oct. 1914, ana, M367-172.

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gun could cripple a surfaced submarine.99 Distinguishing ‘defensive’ from ‘offensive’ armament was difficult, and Germany claimed that its submarines could not conduct traditional visit and search if subject to attack. Instead, they would shoot armed belligerent ships – whether civilian or military in character – on sight. The sinking of the Lusitania with the loss of 1,198 lives – including 128 Americans – proved the seriousness of the issue.100 Presciently, the Board had realized the potential complications of its decision. It accompanied its legal opinion with a note counselling against the arming of merchant ships as a matter of policy.101 ‘A ship that fights is less safe than one that runs away,’ it observed.102 Yet it refused to alter its legal interpretation.103 And once proclaimed, a right to travel in safety upon belligerent merchantmen could not easily be withdrawn. Thus, when the House of Representatives introduced a bill to warn Americans from travelling on armed ships in 1916, legal advisers drafted a response arguing that to warn Americans ‘is to take away from them a right which belongs to them.’104 In speaking against the bill, Wilson echoed this reasoning: I cannot consent to any abridgment of the rights of American citizens in any respect. The honor and self-respect of the nation is involved … To forbid our people to exercise their rights for fear we might be called upon to vindicate them would be a deep humiliation indeed … It would be a deliberate abdication of our hitherto proud position as spokesman, even amid the turmoil of war, for the law and the right.105

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Wilson used the same language of rights fourteen months later, when he asked Congress to declare war on Germany. In order to uphold international law, neutrality had to be cast aside.

99 Tucker, Wilson, 136-39. 100 Smith, Lansing, 61. 101 Alice Morrissey McDiarmid, ‘The Neutrality Board and Armed Merchantmen, 1914-1917,’ ajil 69, no. 2 (April, 1975): 377-78. 102 Caruthers, ‘Neutrality Board,’ 28. 103 Tansill, American Goes to War, 259-60. 104 Lester H. Woolsey, ‘Memorandum – House Resolution 147,’ 1916, Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division, Lester H. Woolsey Papers. 105 ‘The President’s Letter of February 24, 1916, Asserting the Right of American Citizens to Travel on Armed Merchant Ships,’ in Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1916 Supplement: The World War (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1929), 177-78.

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Conclusion

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Legal advisers do not bear ultimate responsibility for America’s neutrality policy. The key decisions were made by President Wilson and his counterparts in Europe. But what this analysis has made clear is that international law did not offer a striking alternative. In the hands of its adherents, international law could not be truly impartial, for it contained its own politics. Conscious of America’s new power, legal advisers found it impossible to let what they viewed as an illiberal power conquer the world. Ultimately, the vision of a world governed by law was anything but a ‘neutral’ one.

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4

Spanish Neutrality During the First World War »»

Javier Ponce

Spain’s international policy during the First World War was primarily characterised by its restricted room for manoeuvring. This had both foreign and domestic reasons, both of which can be traced back to the position the country found itself in after the disastrous 1898 Spanish-American War, which had definitely ended Spain’s Great Power ambitions. Internal strife followed, ensuring the country was unsuccessful in repairing the economic, military and naval deficiencies that had become so apparent during the war with the United States. This caused the country to sign defensive treaties with both Britain and France guaranteeing its remaining overseas possessions, which, in turn, gave both countries great leverage over Spain’s foreign policy. When the First World War broke out, the Entente could therefore easily pressure Spain into economic concessions. However, maintaining neutrality was seen both as a key component in quelling national unrest and in Spain’s own attempts to regain something of its lost status. This article will explore the roles of Spain’s successive wartime governments and of its king in maintaining the country’s neutrality.

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Nature and content of Spanish neutrality In the years before the outbreak of war, Spain had only participated in European power politics in a very marginal way. Most importantly, it had signed the Cartagena agreement of 1907, which bound Spain, France and Britain to consult each other when the territorial status quo of their Atlantic or Mediterranean possessions was under threat. However, when the events of July and August 1914 unfolded, Spain was more concerned with its internal conflicts. It was ignored and considered once again as a quantité négligeable by the countries of the Entente, which did not need to take Spain to war, but which they could manipulate without it being an official ally. Once the war started the participation of Spain, with an ill-equipped army, could help little in a war which was presumed to be short. The Spanish government, presided over by the conservative Eduardo Dato, published a decree on 30 July declaring the strict neutrality of the Spanish state. 53

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King Alfonso xiii also supported neutrality, hoping that this would allow him to mediate between the belligerents,1 thereby strengthening Spain’s international reputation. He hoped this would enable Spain once again to play a significant role in world politics. Therefore, at the beginning of the war, the Spanish foreign minister sent a note to the American State Department, bringing up the issue of a possible joint mediation. United States president Woodrow Wilson, however, did not think the time had come to propose a compromise peace, but it did not stop Spain from again emphasizing her mediatory attitude.2 The government and the king had other reasons, however, to remain neutral: the widespread notion of Spain’s ‘impotence.’3 This was exemplified by the country’s relatively backwards economy, but most of all by the weakness of its military and navy. The problems that caused Spain’s dismal performance in the 1898 Spanish-American War were still very much present. Although Spanish military reformers tried to follow the Prussian army’s example by introducing conscription laws in the 1870s and 1880s, the moderately rich could avoid being drafted by paying others to take their place. This resulted in a Spanish army almost exclusively comprised of the poor and uneducated. Moreover, unlike in Prussia, the army did not stimulate a Spanish armaments industry. Instead, it chose to purchase all its needs abroad, and its semi-autonomous status respective of the Spanish state meant that Parliament had very little control over its budget or the way it was spend. Therefore, the army bled the State’s budget dry, but the incompetent army leadership and ill-trained soldiers negated any positive effects of the cash influx. Thus Spain’s backwards economy, deadlocked political system, weak military (which was mostly engaged keeping the Moroccan colony in line) and even weaker navy (considered quite insufficient to defend the country’s own coastline nor its scattered possessions) all warned against participation in a major war. Reforms carried out at the beginning of the twentieth century did little to improve the situation. The deterioration of parliamentarism, coinciding with mass social and regional unrest, led to the 1906 Law of Jurisdiction, which restricted the freedom of expression and of assembly. Transgressions would now be punished by military courts, thus further separating the army from state authority.4 Moreover, unrest in Morocco forced the army to station 76,000 of its total fighting capacity of 140,000 soldiers in Morocco. Further, the Spanish Navy, which had been decimated in

1 2 3 4

See the work by Julián Cortés Cavanillas, Alfonso xiii y la guerra del 14 (Madrid: Alce, 1976). Nils Ørvik, The Decline of Neutrality, 1914-1941: With Special Reference to the United States and the Northern Neutrals (Oslo: Johan Grundt Tanum Forlag, 1953), 91. See the relevant article by Hipólito de la Torre Gómez, ‘El destino de la regeneración internacional de España (1898-1918),’ Proserpina 1 (1984): 9-22. See Gabriel Cardona, El problema militar en España (Madrid: Historia 16, 1990), 121-27.

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1898, was left unattended until a construction programme begun under the 1908 Naval Law, but the situation in 1914 was still highly precarious. In fact, the navy was deemed insufficient to defend the country’s own coastline or its scattered possessions.5 Therefore, if the power of a state in the international arena is measured in terms of military power, the most obvious conclusion which can be drawn is that, taking this situation into account, the Spanish army was definitely not in a condition to take part in alliances based on mutual commitment and, even less, in a war of European dimensions. Therefore, Spain would appear to be placed at the margins of those continental affairs which were occupying the centre of the diplomatic concerns of the time. It counted as a small power of which only its westernmost flank and northern Africa were subjects of France and Britain’s colonial interests. Spanish neutrality in this first total war, however, did bring some unexpected opportunities in the field of foreign affairs. It turned Madrid into a favourable centre for carrying out diverse negotiations: the Spanish diplomatic service took on the representation of a growing number of belligerent countries as the conflict was spreading and the king organised personally an office for the aid and care of war victims, acting as a mediator to obtain guarantees regarding war prisoners. However, could Spain be strictly neutral? Dato´s government had declared it so, but the truth is that as result of the international orientation imposed on Spain, as well as its geographical situation and its commercial interests with France and Britain, its freedom of movement in foreign affairs was extremely limited; Spain was firmly within the Entente powers’ sphere of influence. This was acknowledged by those who had directed Spain’s foreign relations before 1914, and who would continue to do so for the greater part of the war. The Count of Romanones, President of the Cabinet during the majority of the war years, testified before Parliament that Spain had established ‘very close links’ with France and Britain.6 Fernando León y Castillo, another of the main protagonists in Spain’s foreign affairs, was even more explicit about the kind of neutrality that Spain could practise. When he returned to the Spanish Embassy in Paris in 1916, León y Castillo referred to the 1907 treaty – personally signed by him – and added: ‘We are neutral in the Gaceta; but not in spirit, because we cannot await indifferently and impassively the result of this war, with which our most vital interests are so linked.’7 His words certainly reflected the way in which Spanish neutrality was understood by the main liberal leaders who tried to rule the country during the war years.

5 6 7

Fernando de Bordejé y Morencos, Vicisitudes de una política naval (Madrid: Editorial San Martín, 1978), chap. 2. ds (Parliamentary Diaries), Senate, 1918 Parliament, V, 22 January 1919, no. 108, 1811-13. Notes from a draft with no date for a speech in his return in 1916 to the embassy in Paris, Archivo Histórico Provincial de Las Palmas [henceforth ahplp], Fondo Fernando León y Castillo, file 21.

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In fact, the longer the war lasted, the closer Spain’s association with the Entente countries became. The Allies intensified their economic pressure in the ‘cold war’ against the neutrals, which resulted in the countries of the European periphery entering into the Allies’ orbit, becoming neutral Allies. Moreover, Spain’s strategic position guarded both the French rear, the western Mediterranean and the eastern Atlantic. Moreover, Spain exported food and military supplies to both France and Britain. Finally, Spaniards were allowed by law to work in French factories, freeing Frenchmen for military service at the front.8 Germany, for its part, realised that Spain had to appear friendly towards both France and Britain for geographical and economic reasons.9 In fact, according to Polo de Bernabé, the Spanish Ambassador in Berlin, the German Government believed Spain to be an instrument of the Entente, and expected it to take part in the war on the Allied side. However, the attitude of the Spanish government and its population, as well as the impartial way Spain had observed its neutral duties had, according to the ambassador, generated a wave of sympathy for Spain, not only officially, but also publicly.10 Furthermore, the German government believed that King Alfonso xiii was personally on their side, and the Kaiser never stopped mentioning the monarchic solidarity that there was between them.11 This relationship that united Kaiser Wilhelm ii and Alfonso xiii usually helped to keep Spanish-German diplomacy on friendly terms. Thus, on 19 January 1918, in answer to a letter addressed by Kaiser Wilhelm ii to the King of Spain, Alfonso xiii wrote:

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Dear Wilhelm, … it is extremely gratifying to me to see that you have taken note of the eagerness and determination with which I, and my government have maintained the neutrality policy initiated at the beginning of the war; with this I hope to have provided a service to my beloved country by interpreting its aspirations and, besides, have been able to contribute to avoiding new and bloody sacrifices of my people and of others, as you so delicately indicate.

8 9

Jean-Marc Delaunay, ‘España trabajó por la victoria,’ Historia 16, no. 63 (1981): 38-44. Ron M. Carden, German Policy toward Neutral Spain, 1914-1918 (London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1987), 3738. To study the relations between Spain and Germany within the Spanish government’s neutrality policy during the war, see especially Lilian Gelos de Vaz Ferreira, Die Neutralitätspolitik Spaniens während des Ersten Weltkrieges: Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der deutsch-spanischen Beziehungen (Hamburg: Institut für Auswärtige Politik, 1966). 10 Polo de Bernabé, Spanish ambassador to Berlin, to the Marquis of Lema, minister of state, Berlin, 18 Mar. 1915, Archivo del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Madrid [henceforth amae], Guerra Europea, H 2988. 11 Carden, German Policy, 46.

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I should not hide from you that, due to special circumstances, I have had to overcome not a few difficulties in order that this strict neutrality policy should not be altered. Today I can formally assure you that I shall persevere with this because I understand it is the most favourable policy to Spanish interests, and to other people too, and only an aggression to the integrity of our territory or an offence to the honour of our flag could divert us from the imposed rules. I am glad that you know there how to recognise and appreciate the noble behaviour of the Spanish people in relation to your country. … Your most loyal friend, brother and cousin who embraces you. Alfonso xiii12

The strict neutrality of the Spanish state had to be the objective of German diplomacy,13 since, as it had been pointed out by the imperial ambassador, Germany could not hope to expect anything other than neutrality from Spain, since it was defenceless against any Entente attack. If Spain had sided with Berlin, it would immediately have lost the Canary and Balearic Islands, all the important ports and the connection with its troops in Morocco, from which Germany could not protect it.14 As a result, the Central Powers’ diplomacy with regard to Spain was geared towards resisting, as much as possible, Entente political influence and maintaining its neutrality.

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Negotiating neutrality Thus, Spanish neutrality was agreeable to both belligerent blocs, and to Spain itself. For the Spanish government, the theoretical possibility of joining the one or the other party could only be aspired to if it could thereby achieve a significant foreign objective: the possession of Tangiers, Portugal, or Gibraltar. However, these objectives ran contrary to those of France and Britain, and it was felt that, in order to achieve them, Spain should have to promise to provide a real and tangible contribution to the Entente war effort. This possibility never left the realm of the

12 Alfonso xiii to Wilhelm ii, Palace of Madrid, 19 Jan. 1918, Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin [henceforth paaa], Spanien 61, R 12005. 13 The work by Carden, German Policy, mainly deals with the German astute diplomacy that, together with Madrid’s pragmatism, led to Spanish neutrality. 14 Telegram by Ratibor, imperial ambassador, to Auswärtiges Amt, Madrid, 30 Dec. 1915, paaa, Spanien 55 no. 2, R 11950.

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theoretical, however. On the one hand Spain was deemed too weak militarily to contribute to the war, and on the other the Entente powers made it quite clear that Spain was worth more to them as a neutral than as a co-belligerent. Spain provided much needed iron ore and other supplies, and these exports might be interrupted by the Germans if Spain took an active part in the war.15 Even when the Spanish diplomats asked Wilson, in the last phase of the war, what would be offered to Spain if it were to enter the war, American ambassador to Madrid Willard’s only answer was that the United States would support and assist Spain in every practical way in case of war against Germany. At the beginning of October, Secretary of State Lansing clarified that the United States was not anxious to have Spain enter into a state of war with Germany, and considered that little would be gained thereby.16 Siding with the Central Powers against the Entente was considered simply impossible, because the external guarantee of the 1907 Cartegena agreement, deemed vital to secure Spain’s territorial integrity, would be lost. This was known by both Alfonso xiii and the German Auswärtiges Amt, but both nevertheless entered into a hypothetical negotiation regarding a possible Spanish-German alliance. Berlin promised economic aid to Spain in return, as well as political backing in the postwar period, with the intention of emancipating Madrid from the economic and political protection of the Entente. Germany also prudently encouraged Alfonso xiii to continue his efforts as a mediator in the war, in order to keep Spain’s hopes of seeing its international position reinforced and, at the same time, to prevent him from allying too close with the Entente. Equally, the Auswärtiges Amt fuelled the idea that closer Spanish collaboration with Germany would be rewarded with the annexation of several territories on the Spaniards imperial wish list.17 Alfonso xiii even dreamed of annexing Tangiers and Gibraltar, gaining a free hand in Morocco and, if Germany were to succeed in completely annihilating British sea power, a protectorate over Portugal.18 Already in 1914, a communiqué from Ratibor, German ambassador to Madrid, to the king invited him to intervene in volatile Portugal. Alfonso xiii showed himself thankful, stating that, unfortunately, he could not proceed against Portugal (as he very well would have liked), since France and Britain would immediately occupy the islands, bomb all the Spanish ports and would impede communications between Spain and Morocco.19 15 Carden, German Policy, 260-61. 16 Thomas A. Bailey, The Policy of the United States toward the Neutrals, 1917-1918 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1942), 301-3. 17 Víctor Morales Lezcano, León y Castillo, Embajador (1887-1918). Un estudio sobre la política exterior de España (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria, 1975), 147-48. 18 The role of Portugal as a permanent objective of Spanish foreign policy is expounded upon in Hipólito de la Torre Gómez, Antagonismo y fractura peninsular: España-Portugal, 1910-1919 (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1983). 19 Telegram by Ratibor, imperial ambassador, to Auswärtiges Amt, Madrid, 6 Oct. 1914, paaa, Spanien 61, R 11998.

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Therefore, the king stated, Spain must recognise its own ‘impotence’ in international affairs and accept the faits accomplis of the international situation. Interestingly, the king managed to make extensive, and clever, use of Germany’s offers, playing off the Entente (who were fully aware of the Central Powers’ courting) and Berlin against each other. In July 1915, for example, he discussed the German-Spanish relationship with the German military attaché in Madrid. In these conversations, the king emphasised the need of German economic aid to help Spain escape from the French and British yoke. A month later, the German attaché sent a memo to the king in which nothing was directly promised to Spain, but some possibilities were mentioned if it followed a neutral policy which would be benevolent towards Germany.20 Furthermore, in August 1915 the king sent his cousin, Don Alfonso María de Borbón to visit the chief of the German General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, to tour the eastern front. During that visit, Don Alfonso let slip that republican parties in Spain were trying to push the country to the Allies’ side, and therefore Germany should take measures as soon as possible promising support to Spain in peace time for its claim to the Oran province in Morocco and its ambitions in Gibraltar. Only then could the Republicans be persuaded to reaffirm their support for neutrality. To sweeten the deal, Don Alfonso also suggested the possibility of encouraging a revolutionary movement in the French Midi, which the king and the conservative parties could use as a pretext for starting hostilities against France. Don Alfonso stated he spoke for the king, causing Falkenhayn to lose little time in reporting to German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg. He, in turn, tried to confirm Don Alfonso’s claims, but could not.21 His most ambitious efforts having fallen through, the king had little choice but state that Don Alfonso had spoken out of turn and without his approval. Typically, however, his response was ambiguous enough to leave the way open for further German-Spanish secret talks.22

The maintenance of neutrality Alfonso xiii wanted, no doubt, to keep the German promises alive, despite the impossibility of Spain accepting them. This impossibility is reflected in the letter that Marquis of Lema, minister of state for Dato’s government, wrote to the Spanish ambassador in Berlin, in which he explained the reason why Spain was forced to follow neutrality:

20 paaa, Spanien 61, cited in Carden, German Policy, 96-97. 21 Telegram by Bethmann Hollweg to Lancken, Berlin. 29 Aug. 1915, paaa, der Weltkrieg no. 11. geheim, R 21239. 22 paaa, der Weltkrieg no. 11 geheim, cited in Carden, German Policy, 98-99.

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It should not be forgotten that, independently of our lack of strength to repel an aggression from England and even from France, our commercial, industrial and other dependence on these countries is a well known fact, which maybe is not well appreciated in Berlin, but it is clearly seen from Santa Cruz Square [the seat of the Spanish Foreign Ministry] … The number of goods which, if not obtained from England or even France, would make our industry perish and would gravely damage our agriculture, is enormous; and as for those we would have to import from Germany, how would they reach our ports if Britain, and especially France, and even Italy were against it? And how would we export our fruit and other products in the face of their opposition? And how could we supply our army in Africa and keep our communication with it if these nations might propose to impede it?23

In December 1915, however, relations between Berlin and Madrid soured considerably when Dato had to resign due to domestic problems caused by the war. Both Britain and France successfully pressured the king to appoint in his place the Count of Romanones, who was strongly pro-Entente. During Romanones’ government, the Germans tried to counteract his influence. Meanwhile, the king attempted to avoid too close an association with the Entente, a policy he used against the Central Powers in order to try and exact even more concessions than before. However, the realities of war and the domestic and political situation in Spain itself caused the king to significantly scale back his ambitions. Instead, from 1916 onwards, the king focussed exclusively on the new role that Spain might perform as Europe’s premier neutral power. Frequently, however, the king’s personal interference in Spain’s foreign policy clashed with that of the Romanones government. In April 1916, for example, the Spanish Foreign Ministry sent the us State Department a note asking Wilson to issue a joint protest against the attack on neutral vessels by (German) submarines. Meanwhile, however, the king used his access to the United States Ambassador to Spain to start a diplomatic offensive of his own, Alfonso xiii felt that at last the time had come for the neutrals to mediate between the belligerents. He believed that there might now be a chance for peace as both sides were tired of the war because of the great effort made and, admitting that Britain might be opposed to such a mediation, she could not resist the influence of the United States, supported by the Vatican and the other neutral countries. The king wanted to have the president’s views on this question.24 Understandably, Washington was quite confused over which of these two proposals embodied ‘the’ Spanish policy. 23 Private, Marquis of Lema, minister of state, to Polo de Bernabé, Spanish ambassador to Berlin, 2 Nov. 1915, amae, Guerra Europea, H 3055. 24 Ørvik, Decline of Neutrality, 103-6.

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King Alfonso xiii and the ministers of the coalition cabinet headed by prime minister Antonio Maura y Montaner. This cabinet, sworn in on 22 March 1918, would collapse by November 1918 (Patriomonio Nacional, Madrid).

In June 1916, the king’s private diplomacy almost caused an international scandal. He had invited a German submarine, carrying a personal letter from Wilhelm ii, to dock at the port of Cartegena. The Entente reacted to this apparent breach of neutrality by threatening to occupy the Spanish ports. The Spanish government was therefore quick to announce that further submarine visits would be impossible. Emboldened, the British and the French intensified their pressure on Spain during the latter half of 1916. It is worth noting that when Wilson in the middle of December 1916 made an offer to the belligerents to mediate a compromise peace, his efforts were applauded in the neutral Scandinavian countries but not in Spain. There, the Allies had pressured the Spanish government to keep their collective mouths shut. This time, the king did not interfere, perhaps because he refused to accept mediation in the war by anyone else but himself. In 1917, the German submarine war caused further tensions between Madrid and Berlin. Nevertheless, royal determination of having Spain play an active role as a neutral power, was maintained even in the war’s most difficult moments. At

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the beginning of February 1917, Alfonso xiii reassured Willard, the American Ambassador, that Spain would definitively not break off diplomatic relations with the Central Powers, nor would Spain declare war, even if more Spanish ships and lives were lost. The king declared that it was necessary for Spain to remain out of the war in order to represent the interests of the neutral countries. Willard saw this as another indication of the king’s repeated wish to perform the role of intermediary at a future peace conference.25 Since Washington had severed diplomatic relations with Berlin, Alfonso xiii felt that he himself could take over the role previously assumed by President Wilson.26 His policies once again brought the king in conflict with the Romanones government who, after the Spanish steamer San Fulgencio had been torpedoed by a German submarine on 9 April 1917, began to favour breaking off diplomatic relations with the Central Powers. The king’s refusal gave Romanones little choice but to tender his resignation. Romanones’ successor, Antonio Maura, tried to re-establish a more or less strict neutrality, but the continuing German submarine campaign caused such domestic tensions that, in 1918, he felt he had little choice but to argue a diplomatic break with Berlin as well. Moreover, the economic situation, made worse by the submarine war, induced Spain to rely even more firmly on the Entente.27 In August 1918, Maura’s government communicated in a note to the Berlin government that from that moment on they would substitute the Spanish ships which were sunk by the submarines for German ships anchored in Spanish ports. However, the Spanish government did not carry out this measure, since – according to diplomatic information – this would have caused the final break with Germany. Moreover, Berlin tried to pacify the situation by giving Madrid six of the steamers. Controversy remained, however, but before this could come to a head the war ended, in November 1918, in a German defeat.

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Conclusions Spanish ‘impotence’ characterised its response to the challenges of the First World War. It’s army was ineffective and weak, and the Spanish government lacked the financial or the political tools to close the tactical, technological and strategic gaps that existed between Spain and the Entente and Central powers. The feeling of ‘impotence’ was widespread in Spain, which was only barely able to keep its Afri-

25 Carden, German Policy, 166. 26 Bailey, Policy of the United States, 22. 27 Albert Mousset, in La política exterior de España, 1873-1918 (Madrid: Bib. Nueva, 1918), distinguishes in Spanish neutrality a static neutrality in the first part of the war and a dynamic one in its final stage. Dynamic neutrality means pro-allied neutrality.

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can colonies under control. During the Great War, social unrest and political instability combined with military ‘impotence’ limited Spain’s capability to effectively resist Great Power pressure even further. Even when the conflict seemed to offer real opportunities to Madrid’s diplomatists, their scope was necessarily limited. Neither party believed that Spain could effectively resist Entente pressure, nor put together an effective fighting force which would bring real pressure to bear on the Western Front. Nevertheless, the king’s ‘palace diplomacy’ helped create the illusion that Germany could, through negotiation, keep Spain from too close an association with the Entente. The Entente were very well aware that both from an economic and a military point of view Spain was heavily dependent on them. Thus, they continued negotiations to maximise its contribution to economic warfare. However, the king’s ‘palace diplomacy’ seems like a crucial, and distinguishing, factor in Spain’s neutrality. In his private ventures, the king relied on Spanish diplomats in all the belligerent countries, who all supported Alfonso xiii’s mediation. The king, whose mother was an Austrian archduchess and who had married a British princess, firmly believed in the concept of European monarchical solidarity, and felt that its rupture had been one of the root causes of the war. In this context, the arrangements of the Spanish business representative in Saint Petersburg with the Bolshevik government in order to obtain the freedom for the Tsar’s family, also supported by the Dutch representative, should be mentioned. The letter that princess Victoria of Battenberg – sister to the Tsarina – addressed to the Spanish king on 22 September 1918, when they had already lost hope of saving the Tsarina and her daughters, is very representative: The sovereign with the most direct influence on the revolutionary government of Russia, the one that had met my sister when she was a child, the one that had her own blood in his veins and who never stopped to recognise her nationality, I am afraid that on this occasion abandoned her to her own misery, while you, for whom she and her family were, in comparison, strangers, made an effort to help them. I will never forget the gratitude that I owe you for this. I remain affectionate and most deeply obliged. Aunt Victoria.28

Moreover, Alfonso xiii organised humanitarian action through an office he set up in his own palace, in order to reduce the impact of the war to both sides of the trenches, with dealings which also included prisoner exchanges, channelling correspondence between the inmates and their countries of origin, or the guar28 The letter is included in Carlos Seco Serrano, ‘Alfonso xiii y la diplomacia española de su tiempo,’ in Corona y diplomacia: La monarquía española en la historia de las relaciones internacionales (Madrid: Escuela Diplomática, 1988), 183-211.

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Alfonso xiii and French general Philippe Pétain visiting Verdun (1919) (Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid).

antee of free passage of hospital-ships. It was an effort in which the king spent a great deal of his own resources and which generated a voluminous documentation which has only been partially explored until today. It should be pointed out that Polo de Bernabé, the Spanish Ambassador to Berlin, was in charge of the interests of the Entente, because they could not represent themselves through their closed embassies. And although the king’s dream of mediating peace fell through, his humanitarian actions and perceived selflessness earned him the recognition and gratitude of all the belligerent governments, to whom he wanted to appear as Europe’s foremost neutral. Undoubtedly, continued Spanish neutrality could, in no small part, be considered the result of the king’s meddling. His actions would even be rewarded after the war, when Spain was invited, as the sole neutral alongside Allies and Associates, to become a member of the first League of Nations Council.29

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.

29 Fernando María Castiella, Una batalla diplomática (Madrid: Planeta, 1976).

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We can conclude that the Spanish neutrality, along with those other European neutrals, was only official. After its idealistic and juridical beginnings, as early as November 1914, the Allies, especially the British, forced the interpretation of the duties of Spain in favour of their war interests, in relation with the use of ports and telegraph communications by the belligerents.30 If we keep in mind the heavy Spanish dependence on the Entente, in all senses, and that Spain, unlike Denmark, Holland or Switzerland, shares no border with Germany, one question arises: why was Spain not an official ally? The answer to this question is in the limitations and the clear perception of impotence, as reflected in November 1915 by the Marquis of Lema, minister of state, when he wrote to the Spanish Ambassador in Berlin, explaining the kind of neutrality that Spain could practice, which had already started to raise suspicion in Germany, who considered Spain inclined to the Allies: The old maxim is already alive: ‘Primum vivere, deinde philosophari.’ Before thinking in exaltation and the realisation of ideals, which one always keeps in the heart, one has to survive: it is necessary to leave this terrible fire without being reached by the sparks and the responsibility that the contrary might happen would not be attributed by the Spanish nation to the prince of Ratibor nor to any other ambassador, but to the president of the council and his minister of state who, under delusions of future grandeur and allowing themselves to be influenced by partial advisers or by only seeing one side of things, had put their country on a road to ruin or embarrassing humiliation.31

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Indeed, it was a question of survival, also for the monarchist regime.

30 See F. Javier Ponce Marrero, Canarias en la Gran Guerra, 1914-1918: estrategia y diplomacia: Un estudio sobre la política exterior de España (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Ediciones del Cabildo de Gran Canaria, 2006). 31 Private, Marquis of Lema, minister of state, to Polo de Bernabé, Spanish ambassador to Berlin, 2 Nov. 1915, amae, Guerra Europea, H 3055.

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5

Britain’s Global War and Argentine Neutrality

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»»

Philip Dehne

Historians who study neutrality during the First World War have long focused on European neutrals and the United States. However, recent writings attempting to create a history of globalization, one that traces the transnational connections critical to historical change over the past few centuries, suggest that it would be worthwhile to attempt to also globalize our history of a war whose name in English, after all, indicates a ‘world’ focus.1 The World War affected the South American republics in a variety of ways, changing their foreign trade and investment patterns and calling upon the distant loyalties of populations largely comprised of European immigrants. Perhaps the most important decision that any South American government could make between 1914 and 1918 was its stance towards the European war. Not only did each republic have to decide between neutrality and a declaration of war, they also worked at defining exactly what neutrality or belligerency meant in practice. Some, like Brazil, joined the Allied war effort, others, like Uruguay, broke off relations with Germany without declaring war. In its never-ending rivalry against Brazil, prosperous early twentieth century Argentina could make fair claim to being the greatest or at least the most quickly rising power in South America. This paper examines why this critical republic remained neutral throughout the war, and suggests that the British commercial war was the most crucial determinant in how Argentine authorities confronted the ‘world war.’ The decision of Argentine leaders to join or remain neutral in the European war was integrally related to the war they lived through, the one fought in their country by Britain against local Deutschtum.

1

For examples of the history of globalization, see Globalization in World History, ed. A.G. Hopkins (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2002); C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914: Global Connections and Comparisons (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004).

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Irritating Argentina into maintaining its neutrality For Britain, the relationship with Argentina had long been its most important in Latin America. Since obtaining independence from Spain in the early nineteenth century, prosperous and booming Argentina became a prime venue for British foreign investments and for British exports. As the historians Peter Cain and Anthony Hopkins famously argue, the British had so penetrated Argentina’s economy by the early twentieth century that Argentina should be described as the ultimate example of British informal imperialism, where de facto dominance proved preferable to the less lucrative direct control they wielded in Africa and Asia.2 Argentine leaders traditionally held a close relationship with Britain. Initially, of course, Argentina was not alone in staying out of the war. The United States notably refused to get involved until the German submarine war in February 1917 made American retaliation inevitable. Neutrality was not a significant issue under president Victorino de la Plaza, as Germany refrained from attacking Argentine ships and the British economic war had not yet intensified. Things changed when Hipolito Yrigoyen and his Radical Party came to power in October 1916. A modest-living man in a country accustomed to rule by a virtual aristocracy, his leadership gave the Radical Party a moralizing, ethical, anti-corruption flavour. His party was largely made up of middle class interests rallying together other classes under a banner of patriotism, a ‘Tory democracy’ according to the historian of Argentine radicalism, David Rock.3 At times this meant he was allied with the old rural elite, but it also meant he could pander to the growing urban working classes increasingly inclined towards trade unionism, socialism, and anarchism. This caused much fear among Britons in Buenos Aires and Rosario, where large British enterprises such as shipping lines and railroads employed many of the restive workers. In the eyes of the British government, Yrigoyen was reasonably classified as a mysterious man, an unknown factor. It is impossible to determine whether Yrigoyen and the members of his government were ideologically anti-British. Some Britons believed that he was more anti-American than anything else, that he chafed more at the Monroe Doctrine than at the economic dominance of London.4 His foreign minister claimed to Maurice de Bunsen, an ambassador-at-large for Britain’s wartime Foreign Office, that Argentina was ‘the most pro-British country in South America.’5 But it was always apparent 2 3 4 5

P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688-2000, 2nd ed. (London: Longman, 2002). David Rock, Politics in Argentina, 1890-1930: The Rise and Fall of Radicalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 63-66. Department of Information 1918 report on South America, British National Archives, Kew [henceforth bna], inf 4/6. De Bunsen diary while on Mission to South America, 1 June 1918, Bodleian Library, Oxford, De Bunsen papers, Box 12, mb/iii, a.

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that Yrigoyen recognized the opening in Argentina for an anti-British, anti-globalization politics.6 Although at heart Yrigoyen may have accepted the existence of Argentine dependence upon Britain’s markets, at face value Yrigoyen’s rhetoric and actions marked, in the words of Joseph Tulchin, ‘a significant departure in Argentine foreign policy,’ striking ‘an aggressive posture in relations with nations outside Latin America.’7 This aggression appeared in Yrigoyen’s stance toward British capital. The domination of Argentine railroads by British capital and management lent an antiBritish aura to labor agitation and strikes that erupted in July and August 1917. When layoffs racked the British-owned Central Argentine Railway in Rosario, British managers faced actual physical confrontation with their unhappy workers, who destroyed train tracks and threatened their lives. British-owned businesses depended upon the goodwill of the police and the Argentine government for their protection, but Yrigoyen was slow to call in troops to quell the violent riots, and he sided with the workers in demanding concessions from the foreign owners.8 However, he later reversed his stance towards railway strikers, coming down on the side of the owners and even calling out troops in February 1918. And it should be noted that Yrigoyen was hardly the first Argentine ruler to have a tense relationship with British railroads. Even as the oligarchic, rancher-led Argentine governments supported railway expansion since the 1860s, they also passed legislation regulating their activities. Most notably, after the Baring Crisis in 1890, an unhappy government dropped the whole system of profit guarantees that had propped up earlier investment.9 By looking at his eventual compromises to foreign railroads in Argentina, Yrigoyen’s anti-foreign sentiment might seem as more bark than bite. Yet one place where his wariness towards Britain really did bite was in his consistent and ardent support for maintaining Argentine neutrality. There were plenty of reasons for Argentina to go to war. The us was not the only American country whose ships were indiscriminately sunk by U-boats, as German torpedoes likewise sank a number of Argentine steamers during the war. Many Britons hoped that the German submarine war in early 1917 would push Argentina to join the Allies; in the hopeful words of one Anglo-Argentine reporting on Argentine protests against attacks on their ships, ‘the advantages to our after-war trade with the Argentine of

6 7 8 9

Bill Albert, South America and the First World War: The Impact of the War on Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Chile (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 246-55. Joseph S. Tulchin, Argentina and the United States: A Conflicted Relationship (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990), 38. Rock, Politics in Argentina, 134-42. Alejandro Bendaña, British Capital and Argentine Dependence, 1816-1914 (New York: Garland Publishing, 1988), chap. 4; Also Colin Lewis, British Railways in Argentina, 1857-1914 (London: Athlone, 1983), 79-86, 97-123.

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the present trend of events are obvious and considerable.’10 Yet Yrigoyen accepted German reparations for sunken Argentine merchant ships, rather than using these as pretexts to join the war like Brazil and the United States.11 In an even more notorious episode in September 1917, the United States released intercepted telegrams that the German minister in Buenos Aires, Count Carl von Luxburg, attempted to send to Berlin. Luxburg pegged Foreign Minister Pueyrredón as ‘a notorious ass and an anglophile,’ and recommended to his superiors that all Argentine ships leaving European ports should be ‘sunk without a trace,’ despite his earlier promise to Yrigoyen that no further Argentine ships would be attacked. Luxburg’s telegrams led to the revocation of his diplomatic credentials and his ejection from the republic, but not even the ensuing uproar in the Congress for action against Germany and the smashing up of the Deutscher Klub by a pro-Allied mob could shake Yrigoyen to declare war against the obviously two-faced Germans.12 British officials at the highest levels consistently recognized the possible benefits of an Argentine alliance. In December 1917, Lord Carson persuaded the War Cabinet to spend £20,000 on an unknown but undoubtedly spurious scheme, suggested by Admiral Hall of Naval Intelligence, on the hope that it would secure Argentine intervention in the war.13 Yet despite British cajoling and corruption, Argentina remained neutral. Many contemporary Britons, like the British Consul in Rosario, were certain ‘that it is enemy activity which is behind the pro-neutrality cry.’14 At the time the British minister in Buenos Aires, Sir Reginald Tower, worried particularly about the threats from German agents sabotaging food shipments and riling up strikers. A few years later he claimed ‘the Allied Secret Service discovered that Dr. Pueyrredón had, like President Irigoyen, a most compromising account at the German Transatlantic Bank.’15 However, historians have since downplayed the importance of German agents provocateurs or bribery in influencing Yrigoyen’s neutrality. Some historians following the assumptions that pre-war imperialism simply intensified under Britain’s total war, or focusing on the long-term structural dependence of Argentina on Britain, explain that Argentina’s neutrality never bothered

10 Letter from E.S. Jones in Buenos Aires to George R. Clerk in the fo, 5 Feb. 1917 no. 53708, 13 Mar. 1917, bna, fo 368/1690. 11 Percy A. Martin, Latin America and the War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1925), 212-5. 12 Ronald C. Newton, German Buenos Aires, 1900-1933: Social Change and Cultural Crisis (Austin & London: University of Texas Press, 1977), 49. 13 Minute of War Cabinet meeting, 4 Dec. 1917, 290A, bna, cab 23/4. 14 Dickson to fo no. 146, 26 Oct. 1917, bna, fo 118/438. 15 Sir Reginald Tower, ‘Argentina: Notes for H.R.H. The Prince of Wales’ Visit 1925,’ written in June 1925. Mss. 813, University of London Library, 220-21.

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Britain.16 Argentine historians have followed another track, recognizing the link between the maintenance of Argentine neutrality and the ideologies of Argentine leaders. To Ricardo Weinmann, Argentine neutrality was the result of Yrigoyen’s intense and stubborn nationalism and anti-imperialism, his unwillingness to bend to outside pressure.17 In the eyes of Raimundo Siepe, Yrigoyen’s neutrality was rooted in a principled pacifism that he would carry into post-war work at the League of Nations. Yrigoyen believed that only by maintaining neutrality could Argentina speak up for international rights and humanitarianism.18 By giving agency to Yrigoyen, these Argentine historians have certainly improved on the economic determinists. Yet in praising Yrigoyen’s professed desires for peace or national power, they overlook another primary reason for maintenance of Argentine neutrality, namely the existence of the British economic war, which pushed Argentines away from Britain at the same time as ship sinkings and Count Luxburg pushed Argentina away from Germany. Since the beginning of the war in August 1914, Anglo-Argentines waged increasingly persistent efforts to destroy the livelihoods of as many local Germans as possible. They particularly hoped to destroy German-run businesses established in Argentina, and believed that doing so might open new opportunities for locally based British companies. By early 1916 this desire had become an official war aim of the British state, which began to publish the Statutory Blacklist of companies in neutral states around the world (but especially in South America). Blacklisted companies were prohibited from utilizing the British banking, transportation, and communication resources critical to early twentieth century global trade, and British law empowered the new Foreign Trade Department (f.t.d.) to help British competitors take the place of blacklisted Germans.19 British economic warriors clearly hoped that Argentina would revoke its neutrality and enter the war. If Argentine authorities decided to do so, they could simply sequester and sell off local German businesses.20 But the Statutory List was always despised by Argentines, who could little imagine joining a campaign they disliked. Most Argentines had even before Yrigoyen’s presidency recognized

16 E.g. Roger Gravil, The Anglo-Argentine Connection, 1900-1939 (Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1985), chap. 5. 17 Ricardo Weinmann, Argentina en la Primera Guerra Mundial: Neutralidad, transicion politica y continuismo economico (Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblos, 1994), part 3; Luis C. Alan Lascano, Yrigoyen y la Guerra Mundial (Buenos Aires: Editorial Korrigan, 1974). 18 Maria Monserrat Llairo and Raimundo Siepe, Argentina en Europa: Yrigoyen y la Sociedad de las Naciones (19181920) (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Macchi, 1997); Also Raimundo Siepe, Yrigoyen, la Primera Guerra Mundial y las relaciones económicas (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1992), 9-10. 19 For more on the British war in South America, see Phillip Dehne, On the Far Western Front: Britain’s First World War in South America (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009). 20 f.t.d. memorandum, ftd 110156, 16 Feb. 1917, bna, fo 833/18.

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Argentine firms with suspected links to the Central Powers or their agents abroad added to the Statutory Black List in April 1916.

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the legality of the British commercial war. In a coherent summary of the generally accepted position, La Nacion recognized that firms in Argentina had a right to conduct commerce with whomever they desired, and thus had a right to follow the Statutory List.21 Such ‘spontaneous collaboration’ was not ‘an infringement of the jurisdiction’ of Argentina, as such collaboration could not be overtly mandated by a British law. Yet the Statutory List obviously did intrude on Argentine life, and the Argentine Government always opposed it. De la Plaza’s conservative administration at the start of the British trade war was to most appearances pro-British, yet even they clandestinely sponsored attacks on the British economic campaign. In August 1916 Foreign Minister Jose Luis Murature denied that the Argentine Government had any influence over an anti-Statutory List bill that was introduced in the Chamber of Deputies by a pro-German parliamentarian. However, after the opposition Radical Party took the reins of government, Murature admitted to Tower that he had personally helped to draft the bill.22 Compared to the relative acquiescence of the Conservative government to the existence of the Statutory List in early 1916, condemnations of the Statutory List increased in number and stiffness under Yrigoyen.23 Yrigoyen’s unpredictability exacerbated the difficulties Britons faced in waging their economic war, and appeasing him became a significant British goal that transformed the Statutory List. After he took over as foreign minister in early 1917, Honorio Pueyrredón, the forty-one-year-old lawyer and Radical Party politician, proved a particularly pushy opponent at meetings in which he sparred with Sir Reginald Tower, himself a formidable man known as the most serious and respectable of all the foreign diplomats stationed in Argentina. The issue of the Crespo brothers and the Hansa Mining Company proved particularly contentious. Arturo Crespo, an Argentine lawyer, was placed on the Statutory List in February 1917 for acting as a cloak for Heinlein & Co., which received 2000 flat-irons from a British ship. When Crespo came to Tower to complain, his attitude was exceptionally casual, laughing that he was a free Argentine citizen and could trade with whom he pleased. But Eduardo Crespo, his brother, came soon to apologize, and Tower recommended dropping Arturo from the Statutory List – in his words, it was not worth provoking the resentment of more Argentine lawyers. However, Eduardo, as president of the newly blacklisted Hansa Mining Company, had his own bone to pick with Tower, when Tower showed him proof that Hansa had three German directors, and that they sold wolfram and tungsten to Primos Chemical Co. of Pennsylvania, a known pro-German firm on the Statutory List for the United States. Crespo was

21 Tower to f.t.d. no. 75, 5 Feb. 1918, bna, fo 118/468. 22 Tower to f.t.d. no. 328, 17 Aug. 1916, bna, fo 118/391. Also Tower to f.t.d. no. 443, 11 Oct. 1916, bna, fo 118/392. 23 Tulchin, Argentina and the United States, 36.

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indignant, and soon Pueyrredón summoned Tower to his office and issued a protest. Pueyrredón worried that the mine, which employed 1500 people, might be crushed by its inclusion on the Statutory List. Tower retorted that it was obviously German. A flurry of meetings with Crespo over the next few days led Tower back to Pueyrredón, who again asked Tower to remove the mine from the Statutory List, even though it was obviously mostly owned by German capital and directed by Germans. Crespo also persuaded the Argentine Legation in London to support the company’s case directly to the British government.24 Tower recognized the question was one of general principle: ‘Is the representation of the Argentine Government of sufficient weight to induce H.M. Government to remove the name from the Statutory List, in the particular case of an Argentine national industry being concerned?’25 Soon the answer returned, a barely qualified yes. Although Hansa was not officially taken off the Statutory List until April 1919, the British government in August 1917 suspended the prohibition on British subjects trading with the company, acknowledging their own desire to gain wolfram ore for the war effort and the need expressed by Pueyrredón to maintain employment for the hundreds of mine workers.26

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Argentine neutrality and the threat to Britain’s food supply Yrigoyen’s refusal to give in to the warring Britons, indeed his seeming love of spurning them, mixed with the general animosity felt toward the British economic war to poison Britain’s efforts to purchase food in Argentina. Wheat gave Argentina significant strategic importance to Great Britain.27 Since jettisoning agricultural protectionism by repealing the Corn Laws in the middle of the nineteenth century, British consumers relied on foreign-produced grains. When Argentina became a large-scale producer around 1900, Britain ate an ever-greater amount of wheat and corn from the River Plate. At the same time, the advent of freezing technology and improvements in livestock breeding allowed Argentina and Uruguay to become important exporters of beef and mutton, and Great Britain became their main purchaser. By 1914, the River Plate region had become an irreplaceable source of food for the United Kingdom. During the war, the British government 24 Tower to f.t.d. no. 360, 23 June 1917, bna, fo 118/433. 25 Tower to f.t.d. no. 107, 23 Feb. 1917; no. 108, 23 Feb. 1917; no. 140, 10 Mar. 1917; no. 142, 11 Mar. 1917; no. 149, 14 Mar. 1917, bna, fo 118/432. 26 Tower to f.t.d. no. 508, 31 Aug. 1917, bna, fo 118/433. 27 Avner Offer highlights the importance of international sources of food for the United Kingdom during the war, but he focuses attention solely on the Dominions and the us and expressly admits that his ‘agrarian interpretation’ of the war fails to examine ‘non-Anglo suppliers’ like Argentina. Offer, The First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 7.

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needed to do whatever was necessary to ensure that these foods continued to flow to the United Kingdom during the war. Early during Britain’s war in Argentina, it appeared that the importance of Britain as a wheat consumer might be a source of leverage for Britain, helping to get Argentina to sell it on favourable terms or even to revoke its neutrality. In June 1916 the Argentine minister of agriculture, worried about a surplus of two million tons of unsold wheat, proposed that the British government purchase it through bankers and merchant houses in Buenos Aires, with payments to be made after the war.28 ‘In view of the fact that there is no other apparent outlet for the crop,’ the War Office believed it could buy the grain at a low price.29 The Treasury noted that such a purchase would be ‘extremely advantageous from a financial standpoint.’ Obtaining funds in Argentina would help exchange, which had gone against the United Kingdom due to the tremendous rise in Britain’s trade deficit with the republic. It would also conserve cash that otherwise would have been used to buy grain from the United States. But such purchases from Argentina meant longer journeys than comparable purchases from the United States, and therefore less efficient use of limited freighter space. One remedy, the Treasury noted, would be for Argentina to requisition the German steamships that were being interned in their ports.30 British officials began an unabashed effort to persuade Argentina to requisition German ships interned in the republic’s ports.31 A bounty of between twelve and nineteen German merchant ships, with a gross tonnage of at least 62,000 tons, had taken refuge in Argentine harbors at the start of the war rather than risk capture by the British navy on the high seas.32 Various ministries in London drooled over these ships and schemed to persuade Argentina to put them into use. The Board of Agriculture, which at that point conducted Britain’s wheat purchases, agreed that if the Argentine government would use the German vessels, then British authorities would buy everything they could ship.33 But Argentina believed that by requisitioning the ships, they would breach their neutrality, as Germany would consider the loss of the ships a virtual declaration of economic war by Argentina. 28 Tower to fo telegram no. 194 commercial, 2 Jun. 1916, no. 106489 of 3 June 1916, bna, fo 368/1479. 29 From War Office Contracts Dept. to fo, 16 June 1916, no. 117498 of 19 June 1916, bna, fo 368/1479. 30 Copy of Treasury letter to the Board of Agriculture, 24 June 1916, no. 122631 of 26 June 1916. Tower explained these conditions to Dr. Becú, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as note Tower to fo telegram no. 394, 26 Oct. 1916, no. 215299 of 27 Oct. 1916, bna, fo 368/1479. 31 Tower to fo telegram no. 194 commercial, 2 June 1916, no. 106489 of 3 June 1916; Copy of Treasury to Board of Agriculture, 24 June 1916, no. 122631 of 26 June 1916, bna, fo 368/1479. 32 Undated (probably late 1916) memo entitled ‘List of German Steamers in Neutral Ports,’ bna, adm 137/2914; A French list in the same Admiralty file, entitled ‘Liste des bâtiments allemands et autrichiens réfugiés dans les ports neutres,’ lists 19 German ships in Argentine ports with a gross tonnage of 79,900 tons. 33 From Board of Agriculture to Treasury, 7 July 1916, in Treasury to fo, 20 July 1916, no. 141658 of 21 July 1916, bna, fo 368/1479.

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Tower recognized that it was unlikely that President de la Plaza’s government, so soon before a hotly contested election, would do anything so drastic as revoking his nation’s neutrality.34 The radicals under Yrigoyen who took office in October 1916 brought a stark change in the official stance toward Argentine grain, becoming more offensive and belligerent and yet cannier in utilizing the leverage possessed by Argentina in their bilateral relationship with Britain. The first radical foreign minister, Carlos A. Becú, signalled in his first meeting with Tower that Argentina would no longer be willing to extend credits to Britain to finance British grain purchases.35 The change of heart infuriated the British. The Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies proclaimed that any reluctance of Argentina to grant financial facilities to Britain would be met with ‘a corresponding reluctance to provide the tonnage’ necessary for Argentina’s foreign trade.36 Yet the British hunger for food quickly stifled their threats. Rumors had spread for weeks that Argentina might prohibit wheat exports for fear that the new crop was smaller than usual and would be needed for home consumption, but it was still a shock on 27 March 1917, when Tower learned that such a prohibition would begin the next day. In a panic, the Royal Commission demanded that the 310,000 tons of wheat that they owned in Argentina be loaded as soon as ships en route to Argentina arrived. The commission urged Tower to threaten that Britain might curtail its coal exports to Argentina.37 Historian Bill Albert has argued that coal was the British import ‘most widely and sorely missed’ in Argentina, which had no pits of its own, as shortages led to a rise in fuel prices.38 But coal shortages did not cripple the Argentine economy, as the railways and power plants increasingly operated on native wood, us coal, and newly developing domestic sources of oil. Over the six months ending on 28 February 1917, more than twice as much us coal was consumed in Argentina than British coal.39 And most of the coal imported into Argentina was needed by British companies, in particular by British-owned railroads. The British government was unlikely to hold over the heads of Argentine officials the possibility of discontinuing coal supplies if such an embargo would merely hurt enterprises owned by London investors.40 Foreign Office officials regretted the lack of other obvious reprisals. They could not threaten to stop buy34 35 36 37

Tower to fo no. 244 Commercial, 12 July 1916, no. 154255 of 7 Aug. 1916, bna, fo 368/1479. Tower to fo no. 346 Commercial, 9 Nov. 1916, no. 247559 of 7 Dec. 1916, bna, fo 368/1479. Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies to fo, 28 Dec. 1916, no. 263542 of 29 Dec. 1916, bna, fo 368/1479. Tower to fo telegram no. 124 commercial, 27 Mar. 1917, and fo to Tower telegram no. 107, 28 Mar. 1917, no. 64894 of 28 Mar. 1917, bna, fo 368/1690. 38 Albert, South America, 74. 39 Tower to fo no. 86 commercial, 30 Mar. 1917, no. 91025 of 4 May 1917, bna, fo 368/1690. 40 Tower to fo no. 128, 29 Mar. 1917, and minutes from the Foreign Office no. 66522, 30 Mar. 1917, bna, fo 368/1690.

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ing other Argentine products, because the Allies clearly needed food. By 1916 the Allied governments took the majority of their meat imports, 570,783 tons out of 969,275 total, from the River Plate and Patagonia.41 Although Britain would have preferred to ship beef and mutton from Australia or New Zealand (both of which overproduced during the war), the far shorter route between the River Plate and Europe made Argentine and Uruguayan suppliers preferable, as it allowed more efficient use of the fifty-one available British refrigerated steamers. Argentina held the upper hand.42 The resulting British response was to meekly dispute that a shortage of wheat existed, to speculate on the basis of flimsy evidence that German commercial houses had forced the Argentine government to embargo wheat by purchasing and storing large supplies of grain on the account of the German government, and to note that Argentina continued to allow grain exports to Brazil and thus was not treating all countries equally.43 Argentine authorities probably truly feared a wheat shortage, and the overspeculation and rising prices that such a shortage might bring in their wake, especially at a time when war-related inflation had already hurt many Argentine workers.44 But it was also reasonable to see the Argentine moratorium as a demand that Britain take Argentina seriously. It is notable that this heightened tension between Britain and Argentina occurred at virtually the same time as the United States revoked its neutrality and joined Britain in the war versus the Central Powers. Argentina was proclaiming its independence from both Britain and the United States. An agreement was eventually reached the next month, allowing the Britishowned grain to be shipped, but only after the British promised to ship wheat from Australia to Argentina if it was needed.45 To be forced to fulfil this would tie up valuable shipping in southern oceans far from the war zone, but Britain had to gamble, as the immediate need for wheat in Europe made the much closer Argentine supplies a great deal more valuable than those from Australia. Yrigoyen initially accepted the British proposal. Then, in May, as the British ships were plying the seas toward Argentina to pick the wheat up, he reinstituted the ban on exports. It was a startling move. Tower warned that if the ships arrived and could not load their cargoes, it would bring a permanent rerouting of shipping 41 Memoranda from bt to War Office about meat, 2 Feb. 1917, folder no. E31325, bna, bt 13/74/E31640. 42 Tower to fo telegram no. 128 commercial, 29 Mar. 1917, and minutes by various officials in the Foreign Office through 7 Apr. no. 66522, 30 Mar. 1917, bna, fo 368/1690. 43 fo to Tower telegram no. 123, 5 Apr. 1917, no. 71374 of 5 Apr. 1917; Note from William Morley-Alderson to fo, 12 Apr. 1917, no. 76968 of 14 Apr. 1917; Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies to fo, sent from fo to Tower telegram no. 180, 5 May 1917, no. 91900 of 5 May 1917, bna, fo 368/1690; Also, adm Intelligence Division to fo, no. 115664 of 11 June 1917, bna, fo 368/1691. 44 Tower to fo no. 233 commercial, 11 June 1917, no. 139071 of 14 July 1917, bna, fo 368/1691. 45 Tower to fo telegram no. 160 commercial, 19 Apr. 1917, no. 80942 of 20 Apr. 1917, bna, fo 368/1690.

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away from Argentina. In London, Foreign Undersecretary Eyre Crowe contemplated the abandonment of all wheat purchases in Argentina.46 But Britain needed the food. Only in October was Britain finally allowed to ship the remainder of the wheat that they had purchased the previous season.47 Not only had the British failed to persuade Argentina to augment the grain fleet by taking over German ships in its harbors, but Britain was forced to tie up a number of its own ships. Argentine authorities never needed to call on the supplies from Australia, but their ability to wring advantages out of Britain was well noted, even as their neutrality remained intact. Finally in late 1917, the British negotiated what many have considered a huge concession from Yrigoyen. To finance that season’s grain shipments, Yrigoyen extended a loan from the Argentine government to the BritHipólito Yrigoyen (1852-1933), ish of 200 million gold pesos, worth Argentine president from 1916-1922. about £40 million sterling.48 Historians have seen this unprecedented loan convention as a de facto breach of Argentine neutrality, a moment when Argentina came down squarely on the side of Britain. Roger Gravil argues that Argentine officials were forced to offer the loan. With buyers in Central Europe cut off by blockade, the Argentines had nowhere else to sell their grain, and thus had to accept woefully low prices from the Allies. To Gravil, ‘the Argentine grain trade in wartime was subjected to the most draconian foreign manipulation in the republic’s history up to that time.’49 Carl Solberg agrees that the British had their way in negotiations for grain purchases, with the threat to curtail coal supplies to Argentina and the lack of alternative markets for

46 Tower to fo telegram no. 21 commercial, 19 May 1917, and Crowe’s minute of 21 May, no. 101671 of 20 May 1917, bna, fo 368/1691. 47 Tower to fo telegram no. 424, 4 Oct. 1917, no. 191831 of 5 Oct. 1917, bna, fo 368/1691. 48 ‘First Report of the Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies,’ p.p. 1921., xviii, Cmd. 1544, appendix 5, 27. 49 Gravil, The Anglo-Argentine Connection, 126.

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Argentine produce allowing the Allies to buy grain at rates below those deserved by the farmers in the pampas.50 Hew Strachan suggests that the United States pushed the Argentines to accept the deal.51 A few others note, more evenhandedly, that the deal had some benefits for Argentina including the stabilization of exchange and the promise of obtaining coal from Britain.52 H.S. Ferns suggests that in general, trade for Argentine supplies of food and raw materials during the war occurred ‘on commercial terms generally of advantage to themselves.’53 In fact, all these historians undervalue the ways the grain finance scheme favored the republic. Sir Reginald Tower, for one, recognized that the scheme was ‘of great benefit to Argentina.’ After the war, he wrote that ‘Argentina [which] was then making money hand-over-fist from exports to the Allies, could well afford it, and the arrangement was certainly a sound proposition from her point of view.’54 The set prices and quantities of grain shipped under that agreement gave the Argentine government an unprecedented sense of security in the future of the grain industry, allowing it to levy a tax on agricultural exports in January 1918.55 Despite the scarcity of British shipping, and the earlier sense that Britain might only conduct a wheat purchase if the Argentine government requisitioned the German ships in its ports, the loan agreement was concluded without mention of these ships; Britain could not use wheat to force Argentina to break its relations with Germany. Perhaps most importantly, the British need for loans must have been psychologically delightful for Argentine leaders. The need for Britain to obtain the wheat called into question the financial hegemony of London, suggesting to the Argentines that their relative financial strength was improving. In the relationship between Argentina and Britain, the traditional roles of borrower and lender had been reversed, and Argentina had reason to hope that this change would be permanent.56 Clearly the Argentines were not forced into anything by Britain, and did not consider their neutrality breached; rather they were profiting from the war despite their neutrality, and despite the desire of the British to change Argentine behaviour.

50 Carl Solberg, The Prairies and the Pampas: Agrarian Policy in Canada and Argentina, 1880-1930 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987), 156-64. 51 Hew Strachan, Financing the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 216. 52 Albert, South America, 66-67. 53 H.S. Ferns, ‘Argentina: Part of an Informal Empire?,’ in The Land that England Lost: Argentina and Britain, a special relationship, ed. Alistair Hennessy and John King (London: British Academic Press, 1992), 50. 54 Tower, ‘Argentina: Notes for H.R.H.,’ 119-20. 55 Rock, Politics in Argentina, 106-9. 56 Frederick A. Kirkpatrick, South America and the War: Being the substance of a course of lectures delivered in the University of London, King’s College under the Tooke Trust in the Lent Term (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1918), 57-65.

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What the loan agreement also did was completely change the dynamics of the Argentine grain trade, to the detriment of Britain’s economic war. In 1917-18, the Wheat Commission bought 45% of the total Argentine wheat crop. Its purchases guaranteed that Argentine exports would remain at high levels, thus undermining the ability of the Argentine Government to argue that the Statutory List restrictions wrecked the republic’s foreign trade. Yet the convention also indicated that the British government would no longer attempt to foster the growth of Britishrun wheat companies. After the loan convention with Argentina was signed at the end of 1917, a commissioner was appointed in Buenos Aires to oversee the details of wheat purchase, including inspection of shipments, storage at the ports, and control of the jute bags in which Plate grain was shipped. Herbert Gibson, a partner in the sheep-rearing concern Gibson Brothers, and the brother of the president of the local British Chamber of Commerce, was named the Wheat Commissioner, eventually receiving a knighthood for his services.57 Many local British subjects (including a number of women) joined his staff as clerks, and Gibson even requisitioned the services of Powell-Jones, the secretary of his brother’s Chamber of Commerce. But this system was far from what was intended by the concept of a ‘constructive’ commercial war, as British grain firms found their permanent growth stunted by the centralization of grain purchase. Under the Wheat Commissioner, Allied cereal firms were transformed into mere buying agencies, given fixed allowances and brokerage fees on purchasing goods from producers at prices whose lowest level was fixed by the loan convention.58 The Wheat Commissioner also wielded a heavy hand in all the business conducted by these Allied firms; when one English exporter was offered a contract to purchase wheat to send to Spain, the Wheat Commission requested that the English exporter refuse, as it would breed competition with the Commission. Of course there was a Statutory Listed wheat trader available to pick up the Spanish contract instead.59 The wheat sale in effect brought an end to the attempts of Britain’s war machine to gird Anglo-Argentine grain exporters for continued success post-bellum, when it was assumed that free trade in wheat would resume. The wheat sale also created new troubles for Britain’s attempts to destroy the large enemy-tainted grain companies, which after all were the central target of the overall economic war. During the visit of Maurice de Bunsen’s mission to Buenos Aires in 1918, Foreign Minister Pueyrredón described to de Bunsen the many ways that Argentina had acted in an ostensibly pro-British manner, with the creation of the wheat deal and the expulsion of Luxburg. But according to de Bunsen, ‘Sr. Pueyrredón, in conversation, was chiefly preoccupied with the effect of our Statu57 Tower, ‘Argentina: Notes for H.R.H.,’ 101. 58 ‘First Report of the Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies,’ p.p. 1921., xviii, Cmd. 1544, appendix 5. 59 Department of Information 1918 report on South America, bna, inf 4/6.

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tory List policy, which he thinks in some cases is calculated to do our cause more harm than good.’60 Pueyrredón’s growing obsession with the British trade war was apparent to Reginald Tower soon thereafter when he looked into reports of the enemy proclivities of the Werner Mills, a large flour producer in Rosario. Tower actually went twice to Rosario to speak with the British Chamber of Commerce there, and also to meet with Emil Werner. The mill owner admitted he was German and that that the former German minister, the notorious Count Luxburg, had attended his son’s wedding. Werner also admitted that he had purchased German war bonds, that a few of his managers were German, and that his partner, Jorge Boehming, was not just a German but was also the president of the local German Club. On top of all of this, Werner was also known by the f.t.d. as someone who had assisted the strikers during a contentious walkout against a handful of British-owned railways earlier in the year. Undoubtedly the Werner Mills were an ideal candidate for the Statutory List. According to Tower, there was no way that anyone could claim that the mills were a vital source of flour in local markets. Yet that is just what the local national deputy claimed, raising a minor agitation that led Foreign Minister Pueyrredón to request of Tower that the mills remain off the Statutory List. In deference to Pueyrredón, Tower recommended that the Werner Mills not be added to the Statutory List, and the f.t.d. complied.61 Likewise in July 1918 the Argentine government succeeded in pressuring Tower and the Foreign Office to remove Florencio Martinez de Hoz from the Statutory List. From early 1916, Foreign Minister Murature and his radical successors Carlos Becú and Honorio Pueyrredón had repeatedly complained about de Hoz’s blacklisting. As a propagandist for the German cause and an intermediary for German companies receiving European goods, de Hoz was placed on the Statutory List in May 1916. De Hoz was an obstinate German partisan. Despite the fact that his business undoubtedly suffered due to his listing, unlike many other Argentine firms ‘he did not … knock at the door of the British Legation offering his books for examination, financial guarantees, etc.’62 But after a series of complaints from Pueyrredón, de Hoz escaped the list in July 1918 without signing a written commitment not to trade with Statutory List firms. Tower told Pueyrredón that he was letting de Hoz off solely out of ‘deference to the verbal representations made by His Excellency,’ the foreign minister.63 Yrigoyen’s government found other new ways to actively oppose the Statutory List, such as by extending laws intended to thwart the British war. As companies whose operations faced specific local regulations, British-owned railroads had

60 61 62 63

De Bunsen to Balfour, 13 June 1918, bna, fo 800/200 Tower to f.t.d. no. 360, 9 July 1918, bna, fo 118/469. Tower, ‘Argentina: Notes for H.R.H.,’ 225-27. Tower to f.t.d. no. 388, 20 July 1918, bna, fo 118/469.

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never fallen under the restrictions of the Statutory List and had to carry goods for firms on the blacklist as they would for anyone else. In March 1918, Yrigoyen extended this doctrine to the seas by decreeing that Argentine Navigation Company (a British-registered coastal steamship line operated by the Mihanovich family) must carry goods to other Argentine ports for firms on the Statutory List. According to reports in La Nacion, the ruling had been championed by the German Chamber of Commerce, which made known to Pueyrredón their unhappiness at their inability to use the steamship line even for trade within Argentina. Tower explained to the f.t.d. that Britain should back off from pressuring the steamship line through the withholding of coal supplies; to demand compliance with the Statutory List ‘in their coasting trade must bring them into conflict with the local law, and I fear their action could not be successfully defended.’64 In effect, this new law reopened a route for trade among Germans in Argentina, in growing cities like Bahia Blanca and Rosario, significantly weakening the strictures of the Statutory List which relied so heavily on British command of shipping and coal in the South Atlantic.

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Successfully opposing the British economic war Clearly the British war against Germans in Argentina would have had a much greater chance of success if the Argentine government could have been persuaded to join the Allied cause. Instead, the Argentines fortified their very favorable form of neutrality as the war progressed, even while successfully undermining the British war against Germans in the republic. Britain’s commercial war faced significant opposition from many Argentines, the resulting spite and mistrust penetrating all aspects of the official relationship between the two countries during the war. The republic did not hold all the cards in their bilateral relationship during the war, and had not even truly broken from its long-term state of economic dependence on the United Kingdom. However, Britain’s tremendous wartime needs for Argentine food forced British authorities to listen to Argentine concerns and even to act before the Argentines could complain. Not only did the British increasingly respect Argentina’s inherent power, the complaints further weakened British resolve in their war against German commerce. As the diplomatic advantage tilted to the Argentine government, increased moderation marked the British economic war in Argentina. British trade warriors grew wary of provoking controversy, while the Argentine government tested out the increased power it held in its relationship with the British Government. British grain purchases occurred, but only after the

64 Tower to f.t.d. no. 193, 27 Mar. 1918, bna, fo 118/468.

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Argentines felt assured that they were not giving in to British demands or otherwise compromising their sovereignty or their neutrality. Up through the end of the war, Argentines undoubtedly felt, as one AngloArgentine financial journalist wrote, that the republic would continue to profit ‘from the troubles of European nations.’65 Far from suiting the needs of the British Empire, Argentine neutrality taunted the British. Argentine neutrality may have been founded on Yrigoyen’s ideals, or his pandering to local anti-foreign sentiments, but the British trade war also proved an insuperable barrier to an Argentine-British alliance. By the end of the war, their need for trade with Argentina meant the British government could do little but prostrate itself at Yrigoyen’s feet.

65 Gordon Ross, Argentina and Uruguay (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1917), chap. 2.

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6

not Neutrality



The Dutch government, the Netherlands Oversea Trust Company and the Entente blockade of Germany, 1914-1918

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»»

Samuël Kruizinga

From the second half of the nineteenth century, Dutch international politics and economics moved in opposing directions. Politically, the Netherlands pursued a course of strict neutrality, its leaders deciding that this was the only politically realistic option open to them which would safeguard both their European homeland and their vast Asian colonial possessions from the jealous eyes of the surrounding Great Powers. Dutch foreign policy before the First World War therefore consisted, in the words of one contemporary observer, of being decent neighbours to all of its neighbours, but good friends with none of them.1 Dutch attempts to stay aloof from European power politics contrast sharply, however, with its active participation in the pre-1914 global world economy. Importing massive amounts of foodstuffs, feeding stuffs and fodder from the Americas, the Dutch agricultural sector was heavily geared towards export. The most important market for Dutch vegetables, meat and dairy products was Britain, after the German market had been closed to the Dutch due to a series of protective tariffs.2 But Holland was not just an agricultural powerhouse; its economy was quite varied, especially for a country so small in size. The river Rhine, which linked the German Ruhr industrial basin with the North Sea, allowed the Netherlands to become a trading hub, and Rotterdam the gateway to Central Europe. The 1868 Rhine Shipping Treaty between the Netherlands and Germany cemented the symbiotic relationship between Rotterdam and Ruhr, by eliminating all tariffs on the river Rhine and making all transit trade to and from the North Sea via the Netherlands permanently ‘free’ from government interference.3 The Netherlands

1 2 3

Johan den Hertog, Cort van der Linden (1846-1935): Minister-president in oorlogstijd. Een politieke biografie (Amsterdam: Boom, 2007), 410-13. J.L. van Zanden and Arthur van Riel, Nederland, 1780-1913: Staat, instituties en economische ontwikkelingen (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Balans, 2000), 362-70. André Beening, ‘Onder de vleugels van de Adelaar: De Duitse buitenlandse politiek ten aanzien van Nederland in de periode 1890-1914’ (PhD Diss., University of Amsterdam, 1994), 16, 100-119, 355.

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East Indies were an important source of trade as well. From 1904 onwards, prices of Indies goods on the world market rose, production expanded and investment returns were very high.4 Amsterdam became a staple market for Indies goods such as sugar and tobacco, and a host of new trading houses and industries was set up to pack, distribute and / or process the colonial goods, often for re-export to another country. The Dutch had experienced a slow industrialisation process, but by the early twentieth century, the pace had quickened. It depended heavily on the import of raw materials the Netherlands itself lacked, and was mostly geared towards the home market, major exceptions being those companies processing agricultural and colonial produce, mostly for German or British consumption, and the textile industry in the east of the country.5 By 1904, the Dutch Foreign Office awoke to the possibility that these economic developments might pose a threat to the country in the case of a major European war, and commissioned a series of strategic studies to consider the effects economic warfare between any combination of Holland’s trading partners would have on the country. One of these concerned a war between Britain and Germany, whereby the former would close off the Rhine to all ships travelling to and from Central Europe. The chance that the Dutch would be drawn into the conflict was considerable, the report stated, because international law defining the rights and duties of both belligerents and neutrals regarding trade war and blockade was quite unclear and could therefore easily lead to conflict.6 However, the early twentieth century offered the Dutch ample opportunity to help expand upon international law, and, as Johan den Hertog’s chapter has already shown, this gave the Dutch a splendid opportunity to solidify the grounds for their neutrality by minimizing the risk of conflict with a belligerent power. The Dutch therefore became very active participants in the drafting of a new International Prize Code relating to wartime trade.7 The resulting Declaration of London was hailed in the Netherlands as a definite step in the right direction, as it protected most forms of neutral trade, unless belligerents could prove that the trade goods in question were only meant for combat or were shipped to agents of an enemy’s government or armed forces.8 The Dec4 5 6

7 8

Van Zanden and Van Riel, Nederland, 1780-1913, 400. Arjen Taselaar, De Nederlandse koloniale lobby: Ondernemers en de Indische politiek, 1914-1940 (Leiden: Research School cnws 1998), 4, 22-27. Blaine F. Moore, Economic Aspects of the Commerce and Industry of the Netherlands, 1912-1918 (Washington, dc: Government Printing Office, 1919), 41-61. Minister of Foreign Affairs jhr. D.A.W. van Tets van Goudriaan to Minister of War H.P. Staal, 20 Sept. 1906 no. 103, with enclosed report by major H.L. van Oordt, n.d., Dutch National Archives The Hague [henceforth dna], Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European War A-250 (2.05.23), file 196, 13839. See e.g. Dutch delegate jhr. J.A. Roëll to Minister of Foreign Affairs jhr. R. de Marees van Swinderen, 31 July 1909, dna, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, A-files (2.05.03), file 202, 16050. Bernard Semmel, Liberalism & Naval Strategy: Ideology, Interest and Sea Power during the Pax Brittannica (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1986), 106-9; Eric W. Osborne, Britain’s Economic Blockade of Germany, 1914-1919 (London: Cass, 2004), 32-35.

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laration was signed in 1909, but needed to be ratified by all the signatories’ parliaments before coming into effect. This proved to be no more than a formality when the British House of Lords blocked ratification in 1911.9 The Dutch government was kept closely informed of the goings-on in the British Houses of Parliament, and was consistently reassured by Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey that ratification would be postponed at worst, but certainly not abandoned.10 And, indeed, as late as June 1914 the British government assured the House of Commons that it would reintroduce the bill in question.11 The Balkan crisis of July 1914 and the subsequent outbreak of the First World War, however, delayed ratification indefinitely. Once Britain had entered the war on the side of her Entente partners Russia and France against the Central Powers Germany and Austria-Hungary, its government quickly decided to embark on a limited campaign of economic warfare, using its naval superiority to remove the Central Powers’ trading vessels from the high seas and blocking direct access to enemy ports.12 Soon, however, reports reached London that the Germans were replenishing their supplies through the port of Rotterdam using neutral ships, and leading Cabinet ministers saw an opportunity to capitalise on the apparent failure of the German high command to secure enough provisions to deal a crushing blow to the advancing enemy by stopping these transports. Doing so would be in direct contravention of the rules of the Declaration of London, however, which still bore the signature of the British Government’s most senior members. Worse, perhaps, was the prospect of angering the Americans, who were feared to be most susceptible to any foreign infringements on their neutral rights. The Cabinet therefore used legal trickery in an attempt to kill two birds with one stone. On 20 August 1914, it released a statement that it would abide by the Declaration of London, ‘subject to certain modifications […] rendered necessary by the special conditions of the present war.’ The Americans were made to understand that the ‘special conditions’ consisted primarily of the fact that Rotterdam had, since the start of the war, acquired something of a dual nature: a neutral port on the one hand, and an enemy base of supplies on the other, an explanation which the Woodrow Wilson administration accepted.13

9 Avner Offer, The First World War, an Agrarian Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 281-82. 10 Dutch envoy in London to De Marees van Swinderen, 5 Nov. 1911 no. 2765/1862, dna, Dutch legation London (2.05.44), file 527, folder ‘Zeerecht-conferentie te Londen 1908-1913,’ 2765. 11 Hansard (official records of the British Upper and Lower House): hc debate 29 June 1914 vol. 64 cc32-33. Available online at http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons. 12 Marion C. Siney, The Allied Blockade of Germany, 1914-1916 (Ann Arbor (mi): University of Michigan Press, 1957), 20; Paul G Halpern, A Naval History of World War i (Annapolis, md: Naval Institute Press, 1994), 65. 13 Arthur Marsden, ‘The Blockade,’ in British Foreign Poliy under Sir Edward Grey, ed. F.H. Hinsley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 488-531, on 489-491; John W Coogan, The End of Neutrality: The United States, Britain and Maritime Rights, 1899-1915 (Ithaca / London: Cornell University Press, 1981), 146-162.

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The modifications the British Government saw fit to introduce in the Declaration of London consisted of the re-introduction of certain parts of British national prize law into the international code, enabling Britain to freely extend the list of contraband goods susceptible to capture by a belligerent on board neutral ships. Using this ‘new and improved’ version of international law, the British government demanded that the Netherlands government prohibit all transit trade of contraband goods to Germany.14 As this would constitute a breach of the Rhine Shipping Treaty (and a casus belli for Germany), the Dutch government refused.15 Therefore, from the end of August 1914 onwards, all Dutch ships en route to Holland were subject to searches and stopped if they carried contraband cargo to Dutch ports, for they might very well be shipped to Germany. Dutch colonial and overseas trade were brought to a standstill, and soon food supplies were running dangerously low.16 Despite the fact that events on the Western Front proved that the reports regarding the German soldiers’ poor nutrition were patently false, the British Government decided to intensify the economic pressure on both their enemies and the neutrals, hoping to deny the Germans and their allies key raw materials and thus hamper their war efforts.

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The Netherlands Oversea Trust Company In August 1914, the Netherlands’ strategic nightmare, predicted by the Foreign Office a decade earlier, had come true. Interestingly, given the attention that the Foreign Office paid to the development of international law regarding the rights of neutral merchants in wartime, the influential government ministers of trade (M.W.F. Treub) and foreign affairs (J. Loudon) never seriously considered contesting British ‘modifications’ to the Declaration of London. Both felt that Germany gained ‘unneutral’ advantages by using Dutch traders as a means to defeat the Allied blockade, and felt that a conflict between the Allies and the Netherlands would not be in the Dutch national interest.17 Loudon mentioned to the British 14 Foreign Office to the British envoy to the Netherlands, A. Johnstone, 25 Aug. 1914, British National Archives, Kew [henceforth bna], adm 116/1233, 15498. 15 Coded telegram from the Dutch envoy to Germany, W.A.F. baron Gevers, to the foreign minister, 20 Aug. 1914 in Bescheiden betreffende de buitenlandse politiek van Nederland 1899-1919, ed. C. Smit (The Hague: Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, 1957-1974) [henceforth bbbp], 4: 53 (no. 81) The bbbp series contain copies of diplomatic letters and reports relating to Dutch foreign policy. 16 See for ministerial warnings about wheat supply Minutes of the Council of Ministers, 21 Aug. 1914, dna, Council of Ministers (2.02.21.02), file 134, no. 57 and a speech by the trade minister in Nieuwe Courant, 27 Aug. 1914. For declining trade levels, see Marc Frey, Der Erste Weltkrieg und die Niederlande: Ein neutrales Land im politischen und wirtschaftlichen Kalkül der Kriegsgegner (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1998), 113-14. 17 Koen Koch, ‘Nederland en de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Of het geluk van de onverdiende voorspoed,’ in Aan het slagveld ontsnapt: over oorlogen die niet plaatsvonden. Een liber amicorum voor Hylke Tromp, ed. André W.M. Ger-

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envoy in The Hague that although he could not consent openly breaching the Rhine Shipping Treaty, he hoped for ‘any sort of arrangement, which could be kept secret’ on the issue of the transit trade of contraband goods.18 His colleague Treub therefore tasked a Committee of five influential businessmen, headed by his banker friend C.J.K. van Aalst, with keeping the British government informed of all Dutch business dealings, in the hope that they could discern which of those were for bona fide Dutch, and which for German benefit.19 The British Commercial Attaché to The Hague, Francis Oppenheimer, picked up on this idea and suggested to his superiors in London that the Committee could perhaps give the Allies what they wanted (a means of discerning which imports were for ‘home consumption,’ and which were merely on their way to Germany) without the Dutch government being openly involved and thus without the risk of German belligerency.20 The British government, who, during the war, would coordinate Entente blockade policy vis-à-vis Holland, agreed, and so did Loudon, as long as his government’s involvement remained a strict secret.21 The agreement between Oppenheimer and the two ministers was put into operation by Treub’s Committee, who in turn founded the Netherlands Oversea Trust Company (not), limited.22 Officially, the not was financed and run by a small group of Dutch bankers and shipping companies, furthering the illusion that the company was born purely of private initiative. The not was to serve as a clearing house for overseas imports. Those wanting to import overseas goods had to sign a contract with the not promising not to export the goods to Germany, and pay a sizable deposit. In case of a breach of contract, the deposit (roughly equal to the worth of the goods in question) would be confiscated by the not. Regular checks would be performed to make sure no

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18

19

20

21 22

rits and Jaap H. de Wilde (Zutphen: Walburg Press, 2000), 95-115, on 100-103. Cf. Coded telegram from the Dutch envoy to Germany, W.A.F. baron Gevers, to the foreign minister, 20 Aug. 1914 in bbbp, 4: 53 (no. 81). Telegram Johnstone to Foreign Secretary Sir E. Grey, 5 Sept. 1914 in bbbp, 7: 128 (no. 93); Cf. telegram Grey to Johnstone, 6 Oct. 1914 no. 53 commercial, bna, fo 368/1027, 56792; Telegram Johnstone to Grey, 9 Oct. 1914 no. 83 commercial, bna, fo 368/1027, 57821. C.J.K. van Aalst, Aanteekeningen van Dr. C.J.K. Van Aalst ten tijde van den Wereldoorlog, 1914-1918 (n.p.: Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, n.d.), 12 Sept. 1914, 6-8; 14 Sept. 1914, 8-9; 16 Sept. 1914, 9 [henceforth Diary Van Aalst]. The Van Aalst diaries are available online at http://magnum.inghist.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/vanaalst. Oppenheimer, ‘Biographical Notes, 1959,’ draft chapter xii, 12, Bodleian Library, Oxford, Oppenheimer mss [henceforth Oppenheimer], box vii, folder ‘First World War. The Blockade.’ Oppenheimer’s Biographical Notes form the (unedited, and therefore much more useful) basis for his autobiography Stranger Within (London: Faber and Faber, 1960). Cf. telegram A. Johnstone to Grey, 26 Oct. 1914, in bbbp, 7: 157 (no. 118); Telegram Johnstone to Grey, 18 Oct. 1914 no. 99 commercial, bna, fo 368/1027, no. 60793. Telegram Johnstone to Grey, 5 Sept. 1914 in bbbp, 7: 128 (no. 93); Oppenheimer to Sir Eyre A. Crowe of the Foreign Office Contraband Dept., 28 Dec. 1914 ‘private,’ bna, fo 368/1028, no. 88814. Note that in the official full name of the not, the Dutch word ‘overzee’ has been too-literally translated as Oversea, instead of the correct Overseas.

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not contract stipulating that the freighter Ternate, owned by the Dutch shipping company Rotterdamsche Lloyd, will carry only contraband goods covered by the not guarantee that they will not be transhipped to Germany (Maritiem Museum, Rotterdam).

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goods had been fraudulently exported to Germany.23 Satisfied with these controls, the Allies allowed goods imported via the not a free pass through the North Sea blockade. The not businessmen did want an Allied favour in return for their cooperation: the exemption of several luxury Indies goods from the Allied contraband lists, allowing them to be sold via Holland to Germany at great profit.24 These exemptions suited the majority of the founding companies of the not, heavily engaged in the Indies trade, quite well. Van Aalst, who became chairman of the not, for example, retained his position as president of the Dutch Trading Company, which had extensive trade and financial links to the Indies.25 He quickly came to dominate the Executive Committee, the not’s bureau which handled dayto-day affairs on behalf of the Board of Directors, and steered it in the direction he felt was in the national interest, which, of course, coincided with his own private and business interests. In March 1915, however, the economic war between the Allies and the Central Powers intensified. Reacting to Germany’s declaration of unrestricted U-boat-warfare, London declared that it would henceforth deem all German trade (not just contraband imports) suspect. This invalidated the accords between the British government and the Trust Company, but Van Aalst was quick to tell Oppenheimer that ‘the people behind the Trust Company’ were quite willing to negotiate.26 In the end, it was agreed that the not would extend its tasks to check all incoming and outgoing traffic for goods of German origin or destination, although Van Aalst did manage to win a couple of concessions: coffee, tobacco and cinchona from the Indies would still get a free pass through the blockade, goods of German origin which were urgently needed in the Indies could still be moved there, and Dutch goods which contained a maximum of 25% German labour or materials would count as ‘Dutch,’ not ‘German’ exports.27 The new agreement nearly overburdened the not. Despite an extremely rapid growth of its personnel it could not possibly hope to police all Dutch trade, especially since the continuing blockade had greatly increased prices for goods under not supervision in Germany.28 The Executive Committee was therefore forced

23 G. Keller, De Nederlandsche Overzee Trustmaatschappij: Haar oorsprong en werkwijze beschreven (Amsterdam: n.v. v/h. Ipenbuur & Van Seldam, 1916), 9-12, 16, 29-38. 24 C. Smit, ‘De Staat en de n.o.t.,’ in Tien studiën betreffende Nederland in de Eerste Wereldoorlog, ed. C. Smit (Groningen: H.D. Tjeenk Willink bv, 1975), 80-98, on 90-91. 25 See, for example, T. de Graaf, ‘Dr. Johannes Karel van Aalst, een Amsterdams zakenman en bankier,’ in Amstelodamum: Maandblad voor de kennis van Amsterdam 85 (1998), 7-14. 26 Diary Van Aalst, 2 Mar. 1915, 103. All translations from Dutch in this article are by the author. 27 H.G. Chilton to Van Aalst, 11 April 1915 reg. nos. 112-5a and 112-5b, dna, crisisinstellingen 1914-1926 (2.06.079), file 1216, folder X. 28 The not workforce grew from 6 in January 1915 to over 600 in September 1915. Memorandum ‘Note aperçu des frais et dépenses du trust néerlandais d’outremer et de la surveillance exercée par le Trust’ [n.d., early Sep-

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to improvise. When it found out, for example, that margarine factories had been importing four to five times their pre-war average of raw materials, hoping to secretly export the margarine surplus they produced to Germany, it threatened that they would no longer be able to use the not to import raw materials such as oils, fats and copra, unless they promised to stick to the pre-war average and submit to rigorous controls. Thus ‘rationed,’ the chance of them producing a large surplus which carried a great risk of being sold to Germany was significantly reduced.29 The British government was extremely satisfied with these measures to curb fraud, and in a third and final Anglo-not agreement (dated 19 July 1915), provisions regarding the ‘rationing’ of all Dutch imports were included. London demanded, however, that all rations were to be mutually agreed between itself and the not. Finally, the July agreement included the provision that all goods produced from overseas imports would be subject to the same not controls and limitations as the overseas imports themselves.30 The not’s negotiations had seriously confined the freedom of action of Dutch traders. The original December 1914 accords made upstream transit trade in contraband goods impossible whilst leaving other options wide open. The July 1915 Agreement, on the contrary, restricted almost all re-exports for German benefit save for a few exceptions. The not Board of Directors agreed to these measures because they themselves felt that stricter controls were necessary for the not to survive. The original December agreement, for example, bound the not to restrict the transit trade to Germany of any goods the British government declared contraband. However, the Entente regularly extended their contraband lists, prompting the not to take hasty actions to prevent Dutch merchants from exporting said contraband goods to Germany. Naturally, this caused a great deal of tension between the not and the rest of the Dutch business world. By dispensing with the concept of contraband altogether in the July 1915 accords, the not could avoid these altercations with Dutch merchants whilst also removing a major cause of strife with the British government. Meanwhile, the home-grown innovations it introduced to curb fraud were seen as equally necessary to prevent the not succumbing to massive fraud, leaving the British government no choice but to abandon its support for it and once again stopping all ships heading into the Netherlands. Finally,

tember 1915], annexed to Minutes Executive Committee [hencefort: ec], 28 Sept. 1915, dna, crisisinstellingen (2.06.079), file 1240. 29 not to oil and fat processing industries, 4 June 1915, dna, crisisinstellingen (2.06.079), file 1229, folder ‘Commissie voor den Nederlandschen Handel. Dossier n.o.t. i’; Drafts of plans for a joint supervision and control over the importation of raw materials for the Dutch margarine industries, n.d. [July 1915], dna, crisisinstellingen (2.06.079), file 1229, folder ‘Map Commissie voor den Nederlandschen Handel. Dossier n.o.t. ii.’ 30 ‘Memorandum of meeting at Foreign Office July 6th at which M. van Vollenhoven was present to discuss new n.o.t. arrangement,’ 8 July 1915, bna, fo 382/207, 92086.

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the not Board Members, especially those in the Executive Committee who were highly visible to the public and their peers in the Dutch trading community, felt that having the not collapse rather than sign a new agreement would be fatal to their own reputation, especially since they had, since December 1914, been able to cast themselves as the saviours of the Dutch economy. Despite the not’s far reaching concessions to the Entente, the Netherlands government remained strictly neutral. Officially, the Dutch government had nothing to do with the not. Foreign Minister Loudon was asked in a private capacity whether he felt the agreements were acceptable (and he did), but he made clear that he could not officially comment on the actions of a private company.31 Unofficially, however, the Dutch government helped the not carry out its new burdens. The Transportation Minister allowed not personnel to inspect cargo trains on their way to Germany, and Minister Treub, who in November 1914 had moved from the Trade to the Finance Ministry, allowed the Dutch Customs Office to share information on German exports with the Trust Company. Both measures were indispensible to combat fraud, and without them, the not would most probably not have been able to carry out the tasks with which it had burdened itself.32 There were limits to how far the Dutch government could go in assisting the not, however. In Summer 1915 Treub introduced, on the behest of the not, legislation whereby Dutch customs officials could ask exporters for very detailed information regarding the composition of the goods about to cross the border. The measure was presented to the Dutch Second Chamber as an administrative measure, but was actually designed to curb the fraudulent export of not-imported oils and fats to Germany. Since oils and fats could easily be hidden or disguised as (for example) candles or even Buddha statues (!), the new law was a great help to the not.33 Loudon, who was not informed beforehand of Treub’s plans, strongly disapproved of the new law, promulgated by Royal Decree of 7 August 1915. He felt that the open support of not measures, and the fact that the new law was very much directed against unwanted trade with Germany (as opposed to inconveniencing both sides equally), could not be reconciled with strict neutrality. Worse, the new law was causing a major stir in Berlin.34 So, early in 1916, the decree of 7 August was revoked, but not before two measures took its place: the so-called ‘Storage Law’ which prevented merchants from storing any kind of goods near the border (which helped the not combat fraud, but looked more ‘neutral’), and a secret agreement between the not and the Dutch Army command. In future, the Army would coop-

31 32 33 34

Diary Van Aalst, 9 Mar. 1915, 108; 13 July 15, 160. ec 26 Jan. 1915, 47-48; idem, ec 3 Apr. 1915, 182, dna, crisisinstellingen (2.06.079), file 1238. ec 3 Aug. 1915, 279-81, dna, crisisinstellingen (2.06.079), file 1239; Diary Van Aalst, 3 Aug. 1915, 164. ec 1 Oct. 1915, 565, dna, crisisinstellingen (2.06.079), file 1240; ec 26 Nov. 1915, 148-49, dna, crisisinstellingen (2.06.079), file 1241.

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erate with the not in combating fraud in the border areas of the country, which had been placed under its administrative control.35

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The Agricultural Agreement A year after the outbreak of war, the Entente blockade was changing from a series of ad hoc measures to hurt the German army to a comprehensive system of economic measures designed to cripple the German war economy and permanently undermine German capacity for overseas trade. And since the Entente armies seemed unable to break through at either the western, the eastern or the Turkish fronts, Army and Naval command began to clamour for ever more draconian efforts on the economic front.36 The British government agreed, and decided to escalate its Dutch campaign by targeting all German-Dutch trade. This trade had changed in character thanks to the not, but had not disappeared. With most overseas supplies unavailable, German buyers had turned to those products the Dutch produced or grew themselves. The German government lifted the pre-war tariff barriers and German merchants poured into the Netherlands buying everything they could get their hands on. Especially Dutch farmers made a very healthy profit by selling to Germany and Austria, almost completely abandoning their old markets in the uk in the process. The Entente hoped to use the not as a lever in order to stop Dutch agricultural trade with Germany. The Executive Committee was made to understand that Dutch exports were a breach of the Anglo-not agreement, since imports from overseas (fertilizers, fodder) were being used to ‘produce’ goods that were exported to Germany.37 The Committee agreed that some reduction of agricultural exports was necessary, although for wholly different reasons. They feared that the huge exports would cause Dutch prices to rise as well and cause local shortages. Moreover, they were very sensitive to the argument that the British market would be lost forever, and that, when the Germans had once again erected agricultural trade barriers after the war, Dutch farmers would have no place to sell their exportable sur-

35

Report of a meeting between the Supreme Commander of the Dutch Army, the Minister of War and the Executive Committee, 19 Nov. 1915, annexed to ec 19 Nov. 1915, dna, crisisinstellingen (2.06.079), file 1241; Diary Van Aalst, 3 Dec. 1915, 202. 36 John Jellicoe (Commander British Grand Fleet) to Admiralty, 1 Sept. 1915 no. 1851/h.f. 020, bna, adm 137/1915; Sir John French (Commander of the British Home Forces) and Sir William Robertson (Imperial Chief of Staff), ‘ Note on the blockade of the North Sea,’ 21 Mar. 1916, bna, adm 137/1915. 37 Joost van Vollenhoven, ‘Verslag over mijn reis naar Londen Oct./Nov. 1915,’ n.d. [circa 8 November 1916], 4-5, dna, crisisinstellingen (2.06.079), file 1449. Van Vollenhoven was the not’s chief negotiator, and often travelled to London (especially during 1915-1916) to discuss trade-related matters, such as the rationing agreements.

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plus.38 F.E. Posthuma, who had succeeded Treub as minister for farming, industry and trade in November 1914, saw things quite differently, however. He feared that after the war, the British Empire would form a closed economic bloc, and Britain would prefer Australian and Canadian foodstuffs over Dutch produce. Germany, he felt, was the natural outlet for Dutch agriculture.39 Table 1

Dutch agricultural export to Germany, 1914-1916 (tons) First six months of 1914

Butter

7,671

Cheese

First six months of 1916

17,335

19,026

6,312

24,772

45,969

Potatoes / potato-meal

20,985

49,305

51,201

Fish

24,841

34,613

?

Meat

5,820

28,500

40,248

Fruit

58,291

25,288

?

Eggs

7,868

?

20,328

Source:

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First six months of 1915

Johnstone to Grey, 29 July 1915, bna, fo 551/2/103903; A. Parker, ‘Memorandum respecting Holland as a base of enemy supplies,’ 28 Sept. 1916, bbbp 7: 298-99 (no. 217).

The not tried to force the issue by refusing to import agricultural supplies, whereupon Posthuma, without consulting the Foreign Office, decided that the government would buy and transport the supplies themselves, sidestepping the not altogether.40 However, the Dutch government remained a party to the Rhine Shipping Treaty and could therefore offer insufficient guarantees that the cargoes they imported would not end up in Germany. Indeed, the Allies soon found out that large shipments of maize had ended up in German-occupied Belgium, and threatened blockade if the government did not back down.41 Loudon was forced into a very uncomfortable position by all of this. He could not sanction using force to influence the free agricultural market and divert a substantial part of the surplus to Britain, as both London and the not advocated: he felt such an action on behalf

38 Joost van Vollenhoven, memorandum ‘De positie van Nederlands handel onder den invloed van de handelsoorlog der groote mogendheden,’ 25 Nov. 1915, enclosed in not to Loudon, 26 Nov. 1915 in bbbp, 4: 483-85 (no. 473). 39 For a post-war apologia of Posthuma’s agricultural policies, see ‘Rede van dr. F.E. Posthuma gehouden te Zierikzee op 7 Juli 1937 ter gelegenheid van de Algemeene Vergadering der Zeeuwsche Landbouw Maatschappij: “De Toekomstmogelijkheden van onze landbouwexport, speciaal in verband met de verminderde afzetmogelijkheden van onze producten naar Duitschland”,’ dna, collectie Posthuma (2.21.026.07) file 369. 40 ‘Overzicht,’ n.d., annexed to ec 12 Sept. 1916, dna, crisisinstellingen (2.06.079), file 1247. 41 Oppenheimer to J.C.A. Everwijn of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Trade, and Industry, 21 June 1916, ‘confidential,’ dna, crisisinstellingen (2.06.079), file 5572.

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of one of the belligerents to the detriment of the other would not be neutral.42 On the other hand, he strenuously opposed Posthuma’s defiant stance, fearing that this would lead to an Anglo-Dutch confrontation over a subject closely related to the thorny matter of contraband, something he had from the beginning of the war tried very hard to avoid.43 To make matters even more complicated, Posthuma was egged on in his fight against both the not and the Entente by a powerful businessman, A.G. Kröller. Kröller, who had vast business interests in the Central Empires, and Van Aalst had been professional competitors and personal enemies even before the war, and each feared that the other would abuse his position of power to gain the upper hand.44 Echoing Van Aalst and Treub’s close friendship, Kröller had offered his services to Posthuma. Kröller feared that the not’s refusal to import any more agricultural supplies would hurt his own extensive business dealings in Chilean nitrates and Argentinean maize, and therefore supported his move to bypass the not and uses government ships instead.45 Meanwhile, the not attempted to negotiate an agricultural settlement whereby the British would buy up about half of the Dutch surplus at prices just as high as the Germans had been willing to pay. To sell the proposal to the sceptical British Treasury, who were very hesitant to add to the Empire’s wartime financial burden, Van Aalst organized a huge loan by Dutch bankers which would cover the costs of the agricultural purchases.46 The farmers, fearing an end to fodder and feeding stuffs imports, agreed, and formed, on 29 June 1916, the Agricultural Export Bureau, charged with carrying out the provisions of the Agricultural Agreement negotiated by the not.47 The British, however, still held up government ships loaded with supplies, whilst Posthuma remained obstinate. Kröller, however, had changed his mind: he cleverly sensed that the establishment of the aeb and the agricultural agreement meant that the not could resume importing supplies, and therefore made peace between Posthuma and the Executive Committee. He argued that, in order for the minister to save face, the not should let him control half the imports of agricultural supplies. However, the minister had to sign not 42 Minutes War Trade Advisory Committee, 18 Oct. 1915, bna, cab 39/5. 43 Report of a meeting with Foreign and Trade Ministry representatives, 28 Dec. 1915, annexed to ec 28 Dec. 1915, 5-6, dna, crisisinstellingen (2.06.079), file 1241. 44 Petra de la Lande Cremer, ‘Kröller, Anthony George,’ in Rotterdamse ondernemers, 1850-1950, ed. Mathijs Dicke et al. (Rotterdam: Uitgeverij de Hef / Centrum voor Bedrijfsgeschiedenis, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, 2003), 127-29. 45 Dutch General Staff to Everwijn, n.d., ‘Telefoongesprek op 21 Juli 1916 tusschen Sir Francis Oppenheimer (a) en den Franschen Gezant (b),’ dna, Ministry of Trade (2.06.001), file 5572; Cf. Johnstone to Eyre Crowe, 16 Jan. 1915, bna, fo 382/211, 690622. 46 A. Parker, H. Rew, ‘Memorandum by Mr. Parker regarding the Purchase Schemes in Scandinavia, Iceland, and Holland,’ 15 May 1915, bna, cab 17/162. 47 ‘Verslag van de werkzaamheden van het Landbouw Export Bureau van de oprichting tot 1 mei 1917,’ n.n., n.d., 1-4, dna, crisisinstellingen (2.06.079), file 1812.

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contracts for ‘his’ half, thus making sure they would not find their way into German hands. Kröller manipulated the minister to make sure ‘his’ half of the supplies would be drawn from Kröller’s companies in South America!48 The British acquiesced, released the government ships and promised, if the Dutch farmers delivered them their due, not to interfere in the shipment of agricultural supplies to the Netherlands, either via the government or via the not. However, not all went according to plan as the aeb proved unable to hold up its end of the Anglo-Dutch agricultural bargain. Although representatives of the different farmers’ organisations had pledged to support the aeb, individual farmers had not. Worse, the aeb had officially no ways of imposing its policy on them!49 Loudon, however, found a way to fix that. He supported the aeb, hoping it would solve the thorny agricultural issue without the government having to officially involve itself. In order to bolster the aeb, he enacted a law which created a new ‘Assistance Committee’ with broad executive powers over farmers and their stocks and which would force them to heed to the aeb’s demands. In order to get Posthuma on board, it was decided that his new best friend Kröller would head the committee. There was, however, one more problem plaguing the aeb: Germany.50 The Germans were obviously none too pleased that the Anglo-Dutch agricultural accord roughly halved the amount of foodstuffs they could buy from the Netherlands. Militant factions within Germany advocated using U-boats to torpedo the agricultural transports from Holland to Britain, thereby invalidating the agreement. Others, most notably industrials in the Ruhr whose workers depended on Dutch supplies, argued that, in retaliation, the Germans should seize vital deliveries of raw materials such as steel, iron and coal to Holland. German bankers finally noticed that a year and a half of buying up every neutral’s excess agricultural supplies had had disastrous financial results. Moreover, by summer 1916 the British had finally succeeded to cut off the Germans from the New York money market, making foreign lending to cover deficits increasingly difficult. This paved the way for a Dutch-German accord. Van Aalst was instrumental in rallying the Dutch banks for a second time, providing the Germans with a loan equal in size to that which they had granted the Allies. This financial deal was complemented by an accord, early in December 1916, between Kröller’s new Assistance Committee and a German delegation, in which the Central Powers were offered the remaining half

48 Loudon to Johnstone, 7 Aug. 1916 in bbbp, 4: 607 (no. 604). 49 Minutes of meetings of the General Assembly of the aeb, 20 July, 24 July, 2 Aug., 30 Aug. 1916, dna, crisisinstellingen (2.06.079), file 1809. 50 Paul Moeyes, Buiten schot: Nederland tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog, 1914-1918 (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij de Arbeiderspers, 2001), 276-77; Bas van Dongen, Revolutie of integratie: De Sociaal Democratische Arbeiders Partij in Nederland (sdap) tijdens de Eerste Wereldoorlog (Amsterdam: Stichting beheer iisg, 1995), 361.

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of the Dutch produce. Moreover, the Dutch promised that deliveries to Germany would be monopolised by the German Trade Board, eliminating competition and lowering prices. In return, the Germans promised to continue, and in some cases even increase, deliveries of coal, steel, iron, and other vital supplies.51 Ostensibly, the 1916 agricultural accords with Britain and Germany were enormous diplomatic victories for the Dutch. The British government managed to reduce agricultural exports to Germany, but did not dare demand that they would be cut off entirely. Doing so would require them to play a very dangerous game, the stakes of which included sacrificing Dutch neutrality, and the British leadership dared not pursue its course to that extreme. Table 2

Export of agricultural surplus to Germany after 1 January 1917 (% of total)

Pork

Before the war

Agreement / Provisorium

Negligible

50

Livestock and beef

25

50

Cheese

25

66.6

Butter

50

75

Vegetables and fruit

50

75

Flax

10

50

Source:

dna 2.06.079/1834: Memorandum by the aeb: ‘Export van landbouw-producten,’ n.d.

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The Germans, too, had very little alternative but to accept the new arrangement. Financial difficulties would have necessitated a reduction of Dutch purchases anyway, and the monopolization of all food purchases, together with the Dutch loan, helped cut costs. And since torpedoing Dutch ships would invalidate the Dutch agreement with the British, resulting in a complete stop of all overseas imports of fodder and fertilizer and thus, necessarily, a stop to all Dutch agricultural exports to Germany, leading German politicians decided against such a policy.

Shipping stalemate Early in February 1917, another German U-Boat-campaign caused a final escalation of the economic war between the Central Powers and the Entente, whose

51

Hendrik Pruntel, ‘Bereiken wat mogelijk is. Besluitvorming in de Brits-Nederlandse betrekkingen, 1914-1916’ (PhD Diss., Twente University, 1994), 304-17; Marc Frey, ‘Deutsch-niederländische Wirtschaftsbeziehungen im Ersten Weltkrieg, 1914-1918,’ in Deutsch-niederländische Beziehungen in Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft: iv. Symposium, 27./28. November 1998 in Berlin (Berlin: Deutsch-niederländische Gesellschaft, 1999), 95-113, on 100-106.

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numbers were significantly boosted by the entrance of the United States into the war. Fearing that German submarines would discourage European neutrals from trading with Britain, the Admiralty forbade neutral ships from leaving British or Dominion ports unless guarantees were given that the Anglo-neutral trade would continue.52 Extra pressure was exacted by withholding bunkering coal from neutral ships in the extra-European trades: since the British and the Americans together controlled all coaling stations on the routes to the Dutch Colonies, South-east Asia and the Americas, this was an extremely powerful bargaining chip.53 Finally, the United States decided to halt all export to neutral Europe, unless the neutrals stopped all trade with Germany.54 Allied and us actions did not only impact the not but also the Dutch government, which had sequestered ships to carry both food and feeding stuffs, bypassing the ever growing freight rates demanded by Dutch shipping companies. The not began negotiating a release of the ships and a resumption of bunker facilities in exchange for a lending agreement whereby part of the Dutch merchant fleet would come into Entente service. However, both Loudon and Posthuma were adamant that an agreement only be signed when the American embargo was partially lifted, as ships without supplies to carry in them were useless, which greatly impacted upon the not’s ability to negotiate.55 Moreover, the British and the Americans were less and less inclined to deal with both the not and the Dutch government separately. The Americans believed the not to be a purely British invention, and contended that the Trust Company had hurt American interests during the first two years of the war by promoting British and Dutch business interests above those of the us.56 The British, on the other hand, became fed up by the fact that the Dutch government could hide behind the fact that the not was a private company, and therefore its decisions did not formally bind it or its individual ministers.57 Needless to say, Dutch-Entente negotiations to settle the questions regarding the embargo, bunker supplies and the release of the Dutch ships in Entente and us harbours moved very slowly. 52 Memorandum by ‘d.p.h.h.,’ ‘German Blockade and Neutral Shipping,’ 26 Mar. 1917, bna, cab 21/6; Admiralty Memorandum ‘The German Blockade and Neutral shipping,’ 2 Feb. 1917, bna, cab 21/6. 53 Telegram Van Vollenhoven to Knatchbull Hugessen, 16 Apr. 1916, bna, fo 382/724; Public Statement Issued by the Exports Administrative Board, 5 Oct. 1917 in Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917 Supplement: the World War (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1933) [hencefort frus 1917], 2: 958. The frus document series can be found online at http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/frus. 54 Thomas A. Bailey, The Policy of the United States toward the Neutrals, 1917-1918 (Gloucester [Mass.]: Peter Smith, 1966 [1942]), 34-45. 55 First, third and fourth meeting at the Foreign Office on ‘Neutral Tonnage,’ 9, 13 and 14 Nov. 1917, bna, cab 21/6. Cf. ‘Memorandum. Neutral Shipping,’ 10 Nov. 1917, idem; Oppenheimer to Van Aalst, 8 Sept. 1917 no. 3808, with annexed ‘Memorandum on Dutch Shipping,’ n.d, dna, collectie Van Aalst (2.21.261), file 37. 56 Oppenheimer Diary entry for 21 Dec. 1917, Oppenheimer, file 3. 57 E.g. W. Hines Page to Robert Cecil, 2 Jan. 1918, bna, fo 382/1855, 2364.

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A group portrait of the not Executive Committee. The central figure, holding a piece of paper, depicts the not President C.J.K. van Aalst (1866-1939). Painting by Antoon van Welie, 1922 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).

However, a breakthrough of sorts occurred in the second half of 1917. The not loaned one of its own to the government, who named him the head of the Dutch delegation in the United States negotiating the release of Dutch ships and a partial lifting of the embargo.58 His mission failed, but did lead to a follow-up conference in London, where, for the first time, representatives from all the Entente countries, the us, the Dutch government and the not would be present to seek a solution whereby Dutch tonnage and a further reduction of Dutch-German trade would be exchanged for bunker facilities and a resumption of imports from the u.s. It was decided to draft a ‘flexible’ accord: more Dutch concessions to the Allies would correspond to more imports from America.59 In Holland, representatives from the not and the government quickly decided that only the bare minimum of Dutch 58 The ‘Committee for American Trading Relations,’ headed by Van Vollenhoven, to the Dutch government, 3 Nov. 1917, Oppenheimer, file 4. 59 ‘Proposed General Agreement with the Netherlands,’ n.d., Oppenheimer, file 4.

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concessions would be acceptable to Germany, and sent a negotiator to Berlin.60 Loudon, however, decided that the only ‘neutral’ course of action was to let the Germans have the full picture, and leaked the complete set of Allied demands to the German envoy in The Hague, which included the maximum set of concessions. He probably meant to let the Germans know how valiantly the Dutch had fought against Allied pressure, but his gamble backfired. The Germans believed that the Dutch were about to give the Entente everything it wanted, and, even when this miscommunication was cleared up, it left Berlin with the distinct impression that the Dutch were trying to double-cross them, and they threatened repercussions if the Dutch signed any agreement.61 Although the not believed that the Germans were bluffing and wanted to sign the ‘minimum’ agreement, the Dutch Government did not, which led to a paralyzing institutional deadlock.62 Tired of waiting, the Americans and the British simply took matters into their own hands and, on 21 March 1918, requisitioned every Dutch ship in their harbours so they could use them to transport food from the us to Europe.63 The institutional paralysis was seemingly swept away in September 1918, however, when a new government took office after scheduled elections. By then, the fortunes on the battlefield had turned decisively in the Allies’ favour. The new foreign and trade ministers, therefore, took steps to reopen negotiations with the Allies for a new General Agreement, roughly on the basis of the results of the negotiations that were held in December 1917-January 1918. To coordinate these new talks, incumbent Foreign Minister H.A. van Karnebeek created a Committee Assisting the Foreign Office, in which Van Aalst as not president was accorded a prominent place.64 With Germany defeated, the Dutch, the Allies and the Americans were finally able to conclude a General Agreement replacing the existing not- and Agricultural Agreements.65

60 ‘Memorandum by Oppenheimer,’ 8 Jan. 1918, bna, fo 382/1855, 4142. 61 Telegram Townley to Balfour, 6 June 1918 no. 2056, bna, fo 382/1845, 100823. Cf. ‘Een bladzijde uit onze geschiedenis,’ 10-19, Oppenheimer, file 5. This document, which will be expanded upon in my PhD-thesis, is most likely a ‘tell-all’ book written by Kröller, who wanted to see it published to expose the government’s mishandling of the negotiations with both the Entente and the Central Powers. 62 C. Smit, Nederland in de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Derde deel: 1917-1919 (Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1973), 73. 63 Ibid. 64 Minutes of the first meeting of the Committee, 5 Oct. 1918, dna, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Raad van Bijstand’ (2.05.32.05), file 1. 65 Memorandum of Agreement between the Royal Netherlands Government and the Associated Governments, 14 Nov. 1918, bna, fo 382/1856, 189127.

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not neutrality?

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Among all the neutral countries in Europe Holland was, from our point of view, the most dangerous on account of her economic intimacy with Germany, on account of the treaties which bound these two countries, on account of the active German elements in the Dutch ports; yet His Majesty’s Government have, I believe, met with fewer difficulties in Holland in insisting upon our interpretation and application of international law than in other neutral countries. […] The geographical frontier between Holland and Germany is an imaginary line of demarcation, following neither waterways nor crests of hills. On one side of this line is a country of plenty; on the other, a country devoid of the necessaries of life. And yet this fictitious frontier has been effectively preserved. The machinery to which we owe the result is the Trust.66

Francis Oppenheimer rightly credited the Netherlands Oversea Trust Company, which he had helped to create, with closing a crucial gap in the British blockade. At the height of its power, the not formed a ‘state within a state,’ employing more than a thousand employees whose primary task consisted of policing, on behalf of the Entente, Dutch trade.67 The Central Powers were obviously none too pleased, and at times attempted to subvert the Trust’s work. Van Aalst’s role as intermediary for the Dutch bankers (whom the Germans desperately needed), and leading German politicians’ correct assessment that without the Trust, the Netherlands would be blockaded and would therefore have very little to offer the Central Powers in the way of exports, probably kept the Germans from lodging official protests. The not was the result of two government ministers’ attempts to reconcile British blockade policy with neutrality. Although the Dutch government had, in the years leading up to the war, expressed a very keen interest in the developments leading up to and including the Declaration of London, minister Loudon knew perfectly well that the Declaration’s status as de jure international law was uncertain at best. Moreover, he and Treub felt conflict with the Entente was inevitable if the Dutch defended the right to free transit trade with Germany. However, the Dutch government, Loudon decreed, was to remain completely uninvolved in the not, as it was feared that opening a breach in the Rhine Shipping Treaty could lead the Germans to invade. The not therefore independently developed schemes to curb fraud and negotiated with the Entente on various

66 Townley to Balfour, 1 Feb.1917, no. 1040 Commercial, with annexed ‘A Summary of the War Aspect – past, present, and future – of the Economic Relations between the United Kingdom and Holland,’ memorandum by Oppenheimer, n.d. [Jan. 1917], 18, Oppenheimer, file 1. 67 N. Japikse, Die Stellung Hollands im Weltkrieg: politisch und wirtschaftlich (Den Haag / Gotha: Martinus Nijhoff / F.A. Perthes a.g., 1921), 91

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rationing agreements. And although the Dutch government did not officially comment on these dealings, it did come to the not’s rescue by allowing the customs office and the army to secretly spy on behalf of the not. However, the not’s independence and its self-asserted authority over all importrelated matters caused it to come into conflict with other interest groups or, in the case of the Agricultural Agreements, minister Posthuma. The rift between the two very nearly caused a breakdown in Dutch-Entente relations, but self-serving Kröller managed to save the day. The incident did prove, however, that the Dutch official ‘no policy’ policy on the not had serious drawbacks: while some ministers helped the not perform its duties, others actively impeded its workings. Worse, the not came into conflict with other powerful businessmen (such as Kröller) with interests not compatible with those of its most important directors. When, from February 1917 onwards, the combined Entente coal and food embargoes, combined with the ‘kidnapping’ of Dutch ships in Entente harbours, necessitated new rounds of negotiations with both Britain and the newly belligerent United States, the relationship between not and the government, which had been intentionally undefined, came to be a serious drawback. The Americans did not trust the Trust, whilst the British harboured similar feelings for the Dutch government. When negotiations finally did get underway in December 1917, they were first complicated by the fact that the Dutch Government refused to discuss rations, and later sabotaged by Loudon; two telling examples of the government’s disjointed policy regarding both the not and economic warfare in general. The new government, which came into office in September 1918, managed to remedy this situation rather neatly by creating an advisory council to the Foreign Office with a heavy not representation, resulting in a more synchronized foreign trade policy and, in December 1918, a General Agreement with the Entente. The not was not a neutral institution in any sense of the word. It did not confirm to international law, was staunchly pro-Entente and represented a specific section of Dutch business interests. Its complicated relationship with the Dutch government reveals how difficult it was to incorporate it into other aspects of the Dutch neutrality. Nevertheless, without the not the Netherlands would have most probably been drawn into the war at an early stage.

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7

From Parasite to Angel



Narratives of neutrality in the Swedish popular press during the First World War »»

Lina Sturfelt

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‘For who can be neutral in his heart, except the very ignorant or the very indolent? We are far too involved for that.’1

In the highly emotional and politically polarized climate of the First World War, where the war was seen as an absolute, righteous fight between Good and Evil, neutrality became increasingly inconceivable and suspicious. The very possibility of staying neutral was in fact questioned. Both belligerent parties accused the neutrals of secretly collaborating with the enemy, and neutral actors like the Red Cross and the Vatican were said to have hidden, partial agendas.2 In cultural terms, neutrality was also dubious, connoting lack of character, cultural castration and national sterility. It was deemed unmanly, a sign of national weakness and decay, a position taken up by cranks, cowards and traitors. In Italy, for example, the debate about war participation in 1914 and 1915 was fuelled by gender anxieties and fears of the nation’s increasingly ‘feminized’ image. Warring seemed necessary to prove Italy’s manliness.3 Furthermore, the position of the neutrals deteriorated over time. The war saw a metamorphosis in attitudes towards neutrality in the international public sphere: if at the beginning seen as the moral arbiters to be won over, by the end of it most belligerents regarded neutrality as anachronistic, sanctimonious and immoral and the neutrals were subsequently degraded from ‘neutral judges’ to ‘selfish non1 2

3

Annie Åkerhielm, ‘Krigssommar,’ Idun, 1915, no. 23. Note: All translations from Swedish in this article are mine. Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker, 14-18: Understanding the Great War (New York: Hill & Wang, 2002), 120-21, 139; Ian Ousby, Vägen till Verdun: Frankrike och första världskriget (Stockholm: Nordstedts, 2003), 102, 268-73; and Annette Becker, Oubliés de la Grande Guerre: Humanitaire et culture de guerre (Paris: Noêsis, 1998). Barbara Caine and Glenda Sluga, Europas historia, 1780-1920: Ett genusperspektiv (Stockholm: Natur och Kultur, 2003), 174, 203-14.

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combatants.’ As sacrifice increasingly came to determine the meaning of war, and since the neutrals were said not to have sacrificed, they were denied any opinion regarding the moral values in the war, let alone the peace conditions.4 The aim of this article is to investigate the shifting narratives and images of neutrality in Sweden during the First World War, primarily focusing on its identity dimensions. Historian Mikael af Malmborg criticizes earlier research on the topic for being either too occupied with neutrality as a mere legal or political doctrine, or concentrating too much on the military aspects. Rather, af Malmborg considers neutrality as a form of pursuing sovereignty, and a cornerstone of Swedish national identity. Representing a certain idea of Sweden, intimately related to modernity, democracy and welfare, many Swedes developed a kind of ‘emotional tie’ with neutrality. It was not only associated with abstention from war, but also with safeguarding the Swedish model in the future. This national grand narrative begins in the early nineteenth century, when King Jean Baptiste Bernadotte broke with Sweden’s belligerent past, brought peace to the country and initiated a tradition of durable neutrality that lasted through the upheavals of the twentieth century. At least up to the end of the Cold War, this remained the official doctrine of continuity in time and autonomy in space. As such, it served as a way to reconcile and mitigate the glorious belligerent Swedish past with the prospects of a likewise glorious, albeit peaceful, future.5 In recent years, however, a wave of revisionist research and debate has questioned this ‘truth,’ allowing for more diversified and complicating assessments of neutrality.6 Mostly, though, the overwhelming focus has been on the Second World War and the Cold War. Historians Bo Stråth and Alf W. Johansson, for example, stress the importance of feelings of guilt and shame after 1945 – especially towards the other Nordic countries – for constructing the ‘neutrality myth,’ which served as a sort of national ‘collective therapy’ to conceal and justify the collaboration and compromises made during the war. Under the guise of neutral peace-lovers, the Swedes could restore their shattered self-confidence. To Stråth and Johansson, the idea of a ‘mental’ continuity dating back to the early nineteenth century is more or less a part of this early Cold War narrative.7 Hence, the possible impact of the First World War on a Swedish neutral identity has not yet been addressed. 4

5 6 7

Ismee Tames, Oorlog voor onze gedachten: Oorlog, neutraliteit en identiteit in het Nederlandse publieke debat, 19141918 (Hilversum: Verloren, 2006), 287, 296; Mikael af Malmborg, Neutrality and State-Building in Sweden (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 127, 132. af Malmborg, Neutrality, 6, 84, 146, 189203. af Malmborg, Neutrality, 3, 148, chap. 6; Fred i realpolitikens skugga, ed. Magnus Jerneck (Lund: Studentlitteratur, 2009); Den svenska framgångssagan?, ed. Kurt Almqvist and Kay Glans (Stockholm: Fischer & Co, 2001). Bo Stråth, Folkhemmet mot Europa: Ett historiskt perspektiv på 90-talet (Stockholm: Tiden, 1993); Bo Stråth, ‘Neutralitet som självförståelse,’ in Den svenska framgångssagan?, ed. Kurt Almqvist and Kay Glans (Stockholm: Fischer & Co, 2001), 165-79; Alf W. Johansson, ‘Neutralitet och modernitet: Andra världskriget och

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Furthermore, according to af Malmborg, when the Swedish neutrality is scrutinized – and especially when compared to Swiss and us policies of neutrality, built on promulgated principles – it looks more like ‘a series of coincidences that gradually came to carry the weight of tradition,’8 a flexible and adaptive concept rather than a fixed, continuous doctrine. It was not until the late nineteenth century that that neutrality gained more explicit peace connotations in the self-understanding of the neutrals and became an integral part of the national identity constructions in small countries such as the Nordic States and the Netherlands. In Sweden, neutrality developed into a ‘national tradition’ from 1814 to 1914, but it was not a linear evolution. Rather, neutrality emerged ad hoc, and the choice between neutrality and belligerency were at times exceedingly fine. For a long time it remained an oft-contested principle. For example, proposals of permanent neutralization were repeatedly rejected in both parliament and the press in 1883, 1889, 1902 and 1912, also with the strongly emotional argument that permanent neutrality would be humiliating, degrading and beneath national dignity. Only self-imposed, sovereign neutrality was acceptable.9 At this time, the state of the nation also began to be measured by its male citizens’ perceived masculinity. Associating the rapid modernization process and its results with feminization, the European societies’ lack of war and warrior values was to many a sign of degeneration. As pacifism was deemed female, war was seen as the way to reassure and recreate both national and individual virility, as a means to rejuvenate, vitalize and purify the rotten state of ‘over-civilized’ Europe, and to unify socially, politically and culturally split societies. The active, virile and heroic soldier became the male ideal.10 Inevitably, this also affected perceptions of neutrality. Influenced by Social Darwinism and a new military self-esteem, Swedish military leaders and politicians began to view internationally imposed and guaranteed neutrality as unmanly, looking down on countries like Switzerland and Belgium. By the time of August 1914, neutrality had gained certain female connotations.11 Accordingly, the German attack on neutral Belgium was commonly referred to as a ‘rape.’12 It was Sveriges nationella identitet,’ in Horisonten klarnar: 1945 – Krigsslut, ed. Bo Huldt and Klaus-Richard Böhme (Stockholm: Probus förlag, 1995), 203-25; Alf W. Johansson, ‘Vill du se monument, se dig omkring! Några reflektioner kring nationell identitet och kollektivt minne i Sverige,’ in Den svenska framgångssagan?, ed. Kurt Almqvist and Kay Glans (Stockholm: Fischer & Co, 2001), 197-210. 8 af Malmborg, Neutrality, 84. 9 Ibid., 91, 101-7. 10 Caine and Sluga, Europas historia, chaps. 4, 5, 6; George L. Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). 11 af Malmborg, Neutrality, 101-7; Gunnar Åselius, The ‘Russian Menace’ to Sweden: The Belief System of a Small Power Security Élite in the Age of Imperialism (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1994). 12 Sophie de Schaepdrijver, ‘A Signal Service: Neutrality and the Limits of Sacrifice in World War One Belgium,’ in Small Nations: Crisis and Confrontation in the 20th Century, ed. Madelon de Keizer and Ismee Tames (Zutpen: Walburg Pers/Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, 2008), 64-82, on 71.

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in this political and cultural climate that the Swedes now had to define and assess their role as neutrals. When the war broke out, the Scandinavian countries issued a joint declaration of neutrality. The real nature of this neutrality is a debated subject. In the eyes of af Malmborg, Sweden was Germany’s neutral ally up till 1917, as Norway was Britain’s.13 Clearly, the Swedes were deeply divided in their attitudes towards the war and the belligerents. According to historian Bertil Mårald, contours of a stable national consensus around self-imposed, pragmatic neutrality could be seen already in 1914, but was challenged by vociferous pacifists and proponents of war.14 Neutrality was still a contested posture, and the cultural affinity for Germany was strong. As noted by historian Sverker Oredsson, Sweden was the only neutral country to openly defend exceptional German atrocities such as the violation of neutral Belgium, the subsequent deportation of civilians, the unlimited submarine warfare, and the sinking of Lusitania.15 The most prominent pro-German warpropagandists were the activists (aktivisterna), a group of intellectuals who urged Sweden to join the German struggle against Russia and ‘eastern barbarity.’ Most of the activists belonged to the political right, but some prominent social democrats were also among them (and consequently expelled from the party in 1915).16 Members of the court, King Gustav v, and last but not least, his German-born wife Queen Victoria also openly expressed their support for Germany and toyed with the idea of a more ‘active’ Swedish role in the war. In contrast, other prominent Swedes, like for example the social democratic leader and later-to-be Prime Minister Hjalmar Branting, were fierce defendants of the Entente. During the second half of the war, the support for Germany, and especially for an active Swedish participation in the war on their behalf, weakened, partly due to food shortages. After the replacement of the highly unpopular administration of Hammarskjöld (commonly nicknamed ‘Hungerskjöld’) by the liberal administration of Edén in 1917, Sweden gradually approached the Entente.17 However, the key issue here is not to make a legal assessment of the Swedish neutrality during the war, but to discuss neutrality as a collective narrative 13 af Malmborg, Neutrality, 113. 14 Bertil Mårald, Den svenska freds- och neutralitetsrörelsens uppkomst: Ideologi, propaganda och politiska yttringar från Krimkriget till den svensk-norska unionens upplösning (Göteborg: Esselte Studium, 1974), 274-75. 15 Sverker Oredsson, Svensk rädsla: Offentlig fruktan i Sverige under 1900-talets första hälft (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2001), 88. 16 Nils-Olof Franzén, Undan stormen: Sverige under första världskriget (Stockholm: Bonniers, 1986), 138-52; Lars M. Andersson, En jude är en jude är en jude: Representationer av ‘juden’ i svensk skämtpress omkring 1900-1930 (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2000), 440-72; Ulf Zander, Fornstora dagar, moderna tider: Bruk av och debatter om svensk historia från sekelskifte till sekelskifte (Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2001), 137-44. 17 Franzén, Undan stormen, 51-281, 322-63; Andersson, En jude, 440-72; Oredsson, Svensk rädsla, 79-87, 94-95; af Malmborg, Neutrality, 110-15; Steven Koblik, The Neutral Victor: Sweden and the Western Powers 1917-1918 (Lund: Scandinavian University Books, 1972).

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of self-understanding, a way of imagining Sweden in relation to war and peace. In wartime neutrality was also experienced at an everyday level. The question of neutrality, and what it meant to be neutral, became crucial. The usually abstract doctrines became morally charged. At the same time, Sweden’s uneasy transition from a belligerent great power to a peripheral small state was highlighted. Thus wishing to focus on the broader, more popular discourses of neutrality, the main source of this article is the contemporary Swedish popular press, namely the four leading weekly magazines Allers Familj-Journal [‘Aller’s Family Journal’], Hvar 8 Dag [‘Every 8th Day’], Idun [‘Idun’] and Vecko-Journalen [‘The Weekly Journal’].18 Filled to the brim with war photographs and texts, these highly-read illustrated magazines were a vital source of news and knowledge – but also of speculations and fantasies – about the ongoing world war.19 In the popular press, the subject of neutrality and its content, how it should be interpreted and whether it should last, was a matter of constant debate. What did it mean to be neutral in this emotionally polarized conflict? What did it imply to be a mere bystander, a passive spectator of total war and suffering? Was neutrality immoral or was it a sign of superior morale? And how was neutrality as a legal, political, and military concept connected to Swedish national identity and history?

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The sleeping nation – Indifferent Swedes and dreams of war During the war years, a couple of partially-conflicting narratives of neutrality coexisted in the popular press. At the outbreak and beginning of war, what I chose to call the Parasite Narrative dominated. In this narrative, neutrality equalled passivity, indifference, ignorance, selfishness, cowardice, femininity, and degeneration, a disgraceful testimony to the nation’s decay since its heyday as a great power. The Swedes were represented as greedy war-profiteers and hollow souls, missing out on a historically unique event. ‘A shadow of contempt, shame, and distrust hangs over us, lining our pockets at the belligerents’ expense,’ Idun wrote in 1917, and further underlined that the Swedes did not dare or bother to protest against the war crimes since they actually profited from the war and did not want to jeopar-

18 In the foot-notes, the established abbreviations Allers for Allers Familj-Journal, h8d for Hvar 8 Dag, and vj for Vecko-Journalen will be used. vj praktupplagan refers to a special edition. 19 For a more elaborate discussion on this, please see Lina Sturfelt, Eldens återsken: Första världskriget i svensk föreställningsvärld (Lund: Sekel Bokförlag, 2008). For a comprehensive account of the Swedish authors (of whom Ossiannilsson, Wägner and Stjernstedt wrote extensively in Idun and Vecko-Journalen) and the war, see Sofi Qvarnström, Motståndets berättelser: Elin Wägner, Anna Lenah Elgström, Marika Stiernstedt och första världskriget (Hedemora: Gidlunds, 2009) and Claes Ahlund, Diktare i krig: K. G. Ossiannilsson, Bertil Malmberg och Ture Nerman från debuten till 1920 (Hedemora: Gidlunds, 2007).

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dize their favourable position.20 Here, as in numerous other articles, the neutrals were pictured as immoral, decadent and frivolous. They were likened to spoilt and ignorant children, obsessed with partying and sex while the rest of Europe bled to death. The Swedes were called parasites, who let other nations pick their fights and defend their honour and peace. They did everything they could to stay out of the war, and then reinterpreted this sign of cowardice and convenience as having chosen for eternal peace.21 According to the fiercely pro-Entente writer Marika Stjernstedt in Vecko-Journalen, it was this dishonourable fear of war, rather than the love of peace, that had become the most prominent feature of the Swedish national character.22 In the popular press, the dark sides of neutrality were most frequently elaborated in the short stories, where doubt, shame, guilt and inferiority complex were prominent themes. Fictional stories like ‘The Baron’s Journey,’23 ‘Neutrals,’ ‘War Profits,’ ‘The Little Swede’ and ‘A Dream of War’ pictured a neutral nation lacking true passion, devoid of suffering and sacrifice, with no sense of community, solidarity or even meaning. The average Swede was portrayed as a materialistic, egoistic, greedy, shallow and naïve figure, at once ignorant of and yet obsessed with the sensations of war. Desperately seeking a sense of ‘real life,’ many of these fictional characters committed suicide, enlisted as volunteers – or simply emigrated to Germany.24 Metaphorically, Sweden was frequently referred to as ‘the sleeping nation.’25 Already an established cliché in nationalistic rhetoric well before the war, the peaceful Swedish history after 1814 was thus not a tale of progress and civilization, but a story of a century of decay, humiliation, and lost opportunities, of a nation in a coma. Sweden was likened to an old, impotent civil servant, in contrast to the virility of the warring nations.26 Peace was said to have grown like a cancer in the Swedish national body, being far more lethal than the most devastating war.27 People without enemies (like the Swedes) will be extinct due to ‘over fattening’ just 20 Marika Stjernstedt, ‘Min broder,’ Idun, 1917, no. 51. 21 Hugo Öberg, ‘Sprängskottet,’ h8d, 1915, no. 9; Marika Stjernstedt, ‘Ett svenskt konstnärligt arbete om Belgiens konstskatter,’ Idun, 1915, no. 30; Erik Norling, ‘Svensk lifsglädje,’ Idun, 1915, no. 14; Annie Åkerhielm, ‘Åska,’ Idun, 1917, no. 5; E.N. Söderberg, ‘I ödestimman,’ Idun, 1914, no. 42. 22 Marika Stjernstedt, ‘När det blev fred …,’ vj, 1919, no. 3. 23 Gulaschbaron (literally ‘goulasch baron’) was colloquial for a war profiteer at the time. 24 Bo Bergman, ‘Baronens resa,’ h8d, 1916, no. 17; Ulla Linder, ‘Neutrala,’ h8d, 1916, no. 37; Hjalmar Bergman, ‘Krigsvinster,’ h8d, 1916, no. 27; ‘Lilla svenskan,’ Idun, 1914, no. 46; Hilding Barkman, ‘En dröm om kriget,’ Idun, 1914, no. 34; Beatrice Zade, ‘Expressionism,’ h8d, 1918, no. 48; and Hugo Öberg, ‘Sprängskottet,’ h8d, 1915, no. 9. 25 Sigrid Elmblad, ‘Stormringning,’ Idun, 1914, no. 37; John Landquist, ‘Det fria Finland,’ Idun, 1918, no. 3; Ernst Högman, ‘Det röda våldet,’ Idun, 1918, no. 7. 26 Hugo Öberg, ‘Sprängskottet,’ h8d, 1915, no. 9. See also ‘Hurudan skall er man se ut?,’ vj, 1915, no. 16. 27 Sigrid Platen, ‘Tidens allvar,’ Idun, 1915, no. 1.

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like the brontosaurus, warned author K. G. Ossiannilsson in Vecko-Journalen.28 To always choose the safe, peaceful way was in fact to choose death, not real life; by the end of the day it was the sacrifices of war alone that could renew the nation. Neutrality – and perhaps peace – were ideas that belonged to the detested nineteenth century. The days of international law, arbitration, Hague conventions and ‘all that greyish cosmopolitanism’ were over, Idun stated in the excitement of 1914, praising the purifying force of war: ‘Let us admit it: we are all barbarians.’29 The message for those who still slept was quite clear: war was the only possible salvation for the Swedish nation. Sweden’s true place was among the warriors, not the spectators. Subsequently, the belligerent Swedish history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was idealized. The Swedes were called an ancient warrior people, the proud descendants of Gustav ii Adolf and Charles xii, but during the greatest war in history sadly ‘sentenced to the despair of passivity.’30 When the coffin of King Charles xii was opened in 1917 in order to scientifically examine his remains, the press coverage was intense, immediately interpreting the opening as a symbolic resurrection at a very special historical moment. For some reporters the sight of the king’s body – and especially his distinctively male profile – was yet another indication of the terrible degeneration and feminization of the contemporary Swedes; for others it was a reminder of the nation’s true spirit and a promising sign that the long period of deterioration was finally about to come to an end.31 Racial thinking, linking Sweden’s fate to Germany’s and invoking images of a Germanic ‘community of blood,’ often infused the war argument. From this perspective, the world war was a fatal struggle between two binary opponents, a racial crusade for Kultur and western civilization against eastern (or even Asian) barbarism. For example, the magazines spoke of ‘Nordic Teutons’ instead of Scandinavians, and called Sweden ‘Germania’s favourite, most fair-haired daughter.’32 Idun’s correspondent in Berlin, Annie Åkerhielm, praised the ordinary German soldiers for their cause of ‘making more Lebensraum in this world for us Teutons.’33

28 K. G. Ossiannilsson, ‘Kriget är en omöjlighet att avskaffa,’ vj, 1914, no. 40. 29 Annie Åkerhielm, ‘Kriget,’ Idun, 1914, no. 39. 30 Hilding Barkman, ‘En dröm om kriget,’ Idun, 1914, no. 34. See also Sebardt, ‘Hjälteminnets makt,’ Idun, 1914, no. 45; ‘Lützen den 6 november,’ h8d, 1914, no. 8; ‘Lützen den 6 november,’ Idun, 1914, no. 48; Max Waldheim von Schürer, ‘Carl xii-minnet,’ h8d, 1918, no. 9; ‘Vid Karl xii:s staty den 30 november,’ vj, 1918, no. 50. 31 ‘Karl xii på lit de parade,’ Allers, 1917, no. 33; Oswald Kuylenstierna, ‘En vecka med Karl xii,’ vj, 1917, no. 31; Max Waldheim von Schürer, ‘Undersökningen av Karl xii:s stoft,’ h8d, 1917, no. 44. 32 Quotes from ‘Ledarna af Nordens utrikespolitik,’ h8d, 1915, no. 14 and Hilding Barkman, ‘En dröm om kriget,’ Idun, 1914, no. 34 respectively. See also ‘Lützen den 6 november,’ h8d, 1914, no. 8; Erik Norling, ‘Svensk lifsglädje,’ Idun, 1915, no. 14; K.G. Ossiannilsson, ‘Mitt läger i kostallet och en sömnlös natts fantasier,’ vj, 1914, no. 39; Carl Larsson i By, ‘Ut i kriget,’ Idun, 1914, no. 34. 33 Annie Åkerhielm, ‘Soldater bakom fronten,’ Idun, 1916, no. 38.

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In splendid isolation – The self-sufficient Sweden

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However, from the very beginning, but especially from 1916 onwards – as the terrible aspects of modern warfare were increasingly known to the Swedish public – the Parasite Narrative was challenged and largely replaced by other, more positive narratives of neutrality. What I call the Bystander Narrative was the story of a small, isolationist, self-sufficient nation far away from horrors and suffering. A Swedish war scenario was repeatedly said to be something unimaginable, unlikely, almost a joke. Both the highly covered experiences of mobilization in 1914 and the activities of the permanent military defence forces, at this time actually known as Neutralitetsvakten – i. e. ‘the Neutrality Watch’ – were represented as basically idyllic adventures.34 But at the same time the Swedish mobilization was also seen as a tribute to the inherent unity, defence will and manliness of the Swedish nation; a proof of a perhaps less prominently expressed but much more deeply felt patriotism than the chauvinistic hysteria seen in the belligerent countries, Germany included. In the shadow of war, all political controversies were forgotten and the Swedes stood as one.35 In 1916 Vecko-Journalen even ran a series of optimistic articles under the headline ‘How Sweden profits from the war,’ that focused on the booming Swedish economy and the immense economic, demographic and racial advantages of splendid isolation. The moral, spiritual and physical superiority of the neutral Swedes was said to be statistically verified by the war.36 In the Bystander Narrative, Sweden was imagined as a small but strong state internationally respected for its stern neutrality. Furthermore, neutrality was seen as a substantial part of the national identity. ‘We do not wish to take part in this battle. We demand the right to be and remain ourselves,’ Hvar 8 Dag wrote,37 thus implying that ‘to be ourselves’ was to remain neutral and non-aligned. Still, this was ‘a dark age for the neutrals,’ Allers stated.38 Articles headlined ‘We, the others’ and ‘We, the bystanders’ evoked an imagined community of a couple of small European states including Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands,

34 K. G. Ossiannilsson, ‘Klockorna kalla,’ vj, 1914, no. 36; K. G. Ossiannilsson, ‘Mitt läger i kostallet och en sömnlös natts fantasier,’ vj, 1914, no. 39; Erik Sparre, ‘När mobiliseringsordern nådde Gåsholma,’ vj, 1914, no. 45; ‘Våra käcka landstormsmän,’ Idun, 1914, no. 36; ‘Friskt mod i gossar blå,’ vj, 1916, no. 20; ‘Vackra mobiliseringsbilder,’ vj, 1914, no. 34; ‘Ett par bilder från vår neutralitetsvakt,’ vj, 1915, no. 11. 35 ‘Vid mötesvägen,’ Idun, 1914, no. 38; ‘Världskriget,’ h8d, 1914, no. 45; Johan Nordling, ‘Samlad låga,’ Idun, 1914, no. 33; ‘Vi andra,’ Allers, 1914, no. 34; ‘Kriget,’ h8d, 1914, no. 47; K.G. Ossiannilsson, ‘Söner av ett folk som blött …,’ vj, 1914, no. 40; Ester Lundquister, ‘När kallelsen kom …,’ Idun, 1914, no. 34. 36 ‘Vad Sverige vinner på kriget,’ vj praktupplagan, 1916, no. 43; ‘Vad Sverige vinner på kriget,’ vj praktupplagan, 1916, no. 44; Gunnar Frostell, ‘Svenska folkstammens kraft,’ vj praktupplagan, 1916, no. 45; and Gunnar Frostell, ‘Svensken söker sin like,’ vj praktupplagan, 1916, no. 47. 37 ‘Världskriget,’ h8d, 1914, no. 45. 38 ‘Mörka tider för de neutrala,’ Allers, 1917, no. 20.

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and Switzerland. This peaceful, freedom-loving league of nations was portrayed as innocent victims or potential victims at the great powers’ mercy.39 Belgium was the small state, a neutral martyr in ‘her’ futile yet admirable resistance fight. Specific metaphors and references connected Belgium to Swedish history and memory.40 On other occasions, however, Belgium served as a warning example of entrusting one’s peace and security to the great powers, stressing the necessity of a strong, independent Swedish defence41 – or in other words, favouring an armed neutrality policy over a legally, internationally bound one. Some articles even emphasized the essential difference between the Swedish and the Belgian nation, pointing at the modern, artificial, and weak nature of Belgium in contrast to the age old, independent, and ‘natural’ kingdom of Sweden.42 As in its Parasite counterpart, the Bystander Narrative embraced fears of national feminization. In 1915, Vecko-Journalen expressed outrage at a French symbolic war map of Europe, portraying neutral Sweden and Norway as two sweet maidens, indifferent to the suffering of their fellow Europeans. Offended, the magazine urged its readers to ‘correct’ the French map. The published Swedish war maps turned out to be a totally different picture: rising above the continental chaos of grim beasts and luring dark types, Scandinavia stood out as the shielded peninsula, on constant guard against this threatening Europe, with Sweden pictured as a proud Carolean, a roaring lion, a fierce Amazon and a bold home guard protecting the Maid of Finland.43 Two years later, in 1917, Vecko-Journalen conducted a special survey, ‘Is the Swede a weakling?’ in order to examine the present state of courage and fitness among the male population, knowledge said to be highly relevant in times of war. A line of dentists, doctors, headmasters and officers were interviewed in order to establish whether the Swedes, not yet tested in ‘the tough ordeal of war,’ had degenerated or still upheld some of the manly warrior qualities that ‘made our

39 ‘Vi andra,’ Allers, 1914, no. 34; Elin Wägner, ‘Vi utomstående,’ Idun, 1916, no. 1. See also ‘Belgien,’ Idun, 1914, no. 35; Marika Stjernstedt, ‘Korallrefvet,’ Idun, 1914, no. 46. 40 See for example headlines like ‘The Caroleans of Belgium’ and ‘A Belgian Lotta Svärd.’ ‘Belgiens karoliner,’ h8d, 1914, no. 3; ‘En belgisk Lotta Svärd,’ h8d, 1915, no. 21. Note: Carolean (karolin) is the term for the eighteenth century Swedish elite soldiers of Charles xii. Lotta Svärd is a legendary female character in Johan Ludvig Runeberg’s canonical epos Fänrik Ståls sägner (The Tales of Lieutenant Stål), a story of the war of 1808-9, when Finland was lost to Russia. Originally published in 1848 and 1860, the book was compulsory reading in Swedish primary schools for over a century. In 1924, Lotta Svärd also gave name to Lottarörelsen, a Swedish voluntary auxiliary paramilitary organization for women. 41 K. G. Ossiannilsson, ‘Mitt läger i kostallet och en sömnlös natts fantasier,’ vj, 1914, no. 39. 42 ‘Nya bilder av de demolerade forten vid Liège,’ h8d, 1914, no. 41. 43 ‘Skandinavien i en fransmans ögon,’ vj, 1915, no. 9; ‘Vem ritar den bästa krigskartan över Europa?,’ vj, 1915, no. 14; ‘Europas karta just nu,’ vj, 1915, no. 16; ‘En krigisk karta över Europa,’ vj, 1915, no. 20; ‘Europas krigskarta just nu,’ vj, 1915, no. 25; ‘Vecko-Journalens krigskartor,’ vj, 1915, no. 36.

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ancestors respected all over Europe.’44 The vast majority of experts asserted that the Swedes were not weaklings but Vikings, still physically and mentally unchallenged in Europe, with an instinctive dislike of ‘unmanly business.’ The long lack of war experience had thus not weakened, damaged or feminized the Swede – he was in fact said to be tougher, stronger, and manlier than ever.45

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The angels of Europe – Neutrality as moral superiority Parallel with the Bystander Narrative ran another, more prominent positive narrative of neutrality, which I call the Angel Narrative. It likewise stressed the greatness of neutral Sweden, a nation that claimed its superiority not from its history as a great military power, but from its long record of peace, cooperation and neutrality. This was the perspective of a moral vanguard, the true and maybe last forerunner of civilization, a nation destined to spread the message of peace to the bleeding world. It was the voice of a neutral judge, a defender of law and justice who struggled to uphold the values of impartiality, objectivity and reason, not to mention compassion and empathy – traits that the belligerents were believed to have largely lost. Neutrality was thus endowed with a higher purpose than merely keeping the Swedes safe and sound. In the Angel Narrative, the very values of neutrality were opposed to its Parasite counterpart: instead of indifference and passivity, neutrality stood for detachment, rationality, truth and independence. The neutrals were simply more sober, sensible and clear-eyed than the pathetic belligerents. They had ‘kept their heads cool and their blood healthy,’ avoiding the war fever, Idun wrote.46 In positive words, Sweden was likened to an impartial, calm and collected gentleman who had to civilize the fighting children of Europe in order to build a new world order based on international law and justice instead of violence and force.47 In short, the main lesson of the world war was that Sweden no longer had anything to learn from Europe – a continent of chaos, barbarism, and brutality, whose people were ruled by primitive emotions and stuck in the past. Curiously resembling and reversing contemporary imperial discourse, the belligerent Europeans were perceived as emotional, irrational and infantile creatures, characterised by excitement, hyste-

44 ‘Är svensken klemig?,’ vj, 1917, no. 5. 45 ‘Svenskarna ett klemigt folk?,’ vj, 1917, no. 6; ‘Skäm ej bort vårt folk med pjunk och klemighet!,’ vj, 1917, no. 7; ‘Till ett kärnfriskt släkte växer vår ungdom upp,’ vj, 1917, no. 8. 46 Lydia Wahlström, ‘En glimt genom världsmörkret,’ Idun, 1917, no. 1. See also Gunnar Frostell, ‘Svenska folkstammens kraft,’ vj praktupplagan, 1916, no. 45; Gunnar Frostell, ‘Svensken söker sin like,’ vj praktupplagan, 1916, no. 47. 47 Lydia Wahlström, ‘Psykologi i krigstider,’ Idun, 1915, no. 2.

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ria and over-sensibility – qualities that at the time were also defined as typically female. Thus implicitly it was instead the neutrals that represented ‘the real men.’ In the Angel Narrative, the belligerent history of Sweden was but a distant past, a fading memory. ‘We have no thirst for revenge left against those who we used to fight. We have no claim for lost provinces whatsoever. At the present, most of our former enemies have good reason to envy us,’ Idun stated.48 War was described as totally alien to the modern Swedes, a spectacle as distant, exotic and unreal as mastodons, gorillas, trolls and ghosts,49 thus signifying something irrational and superstitious; something belonging to an earlier stage in human evolution. According to the magazines, the world war had also strengthened the already strong sense of Scandinavian unity. Swedes, Norwegians and Danes were called ‘the people of the future,’ unselfish, forgetting, forgiving, always working for the common best. Having left their rivalries of the past behind them, the former enemies represented an ideal for the twentieth century, a Nordic model of peaceful cooperation and consensus against a continental model of conflict. Referencing Christian language with its frequent apocalyptic allusions, Scandinavia was described as the chosen, spared one, an ‘Arch of salvation’ in the midst of Flood, protected by divine providence.50 Allers published a poem about grief-stricken angels finally singing with joy when they reached Scandinavia, the only place on earth where their celestial message of peace was cherished.51 However, in this Nordic band of brothers (as well as in relation to Finland), Sweden was regarded the big brother and the ‘natural’ leader.52 Neutrality was a sign of a higher level of development, but this also meant that Sweden had a special duty to carry the burden of civilization and enlightenment. Literally called the chosen people living in the land of milk and honey, the blessed ones enduring eternal peace, the Swedes were endowed with a special mission to lead and save the misguided and condemned, those ‘who walk in the valley of death.’53 It is this remarkably unselfish will to heal and help, Hvar 8 Dag wrote in 48 Knut Barr, ‘Skymmer det? Eller vakna andarna?,’ Idun, 1919, no. 6. 49 Lydia Wahlström, ‘Bland fredsfrågans svårigheter,’ Idun, 1917, no. 26; K. G. Ossiannilsson, ‘Klockorna kalla,’ vj, 1914, no. 35; ‘I de ryska flyktingarnas Stockholm,’ vj, 1914, no. 33. 50 ‘Trekungamötet i Malmö,’ Idun, 1915, no. 1; ‘Ministermötet i Köpenhamn,’ Idun, 1916, no. 12; ‘Det nordiska tre-konunga-mötet,’ h8d, 1914, no. 13; ‘Första nordiska ministermötet,’ h8d, 1916, no. 25; ‘Tre konungar tillhopa,’ vj, 1914, no. 52. 51 ‘Fred på jord,’ Allers, 1918, no. 21. 52 ‘Tre konungar tillhopa,’ vj, 1914, no. 52; ‘Trekonungamötet i Malmö 1914 – Trekonungamötet i Konghäll 1101,’ Idun, 1915, no. 1; ‘Minne af nordiska konungamötet i Kristiania,’ h8d, 1918, no. 47; ‘Finland,’ h8d, 1918, no. 23. 53 ‘Delegerade för Röda korset i Tyskland, Österrike och Ryssland samlade till konferens i Stockholm,’ Allers, 1915, no. 52. See also ‘För freden!,’ Idun, 1916, no. 33; ‘Hur krigsbarnen ha det i Sverige,’ Allers, 1919, no. 27; Erik Nyblom, ‘De lefvande spillrorna,’ Idun, 1917, no. 1; Anna Lenah Elgström, ‘De som räddade, när andra förstörde,’ Idun, 1919, no. 49; Lydia Wahlström, ‘En glimt genom världsmörkret,’ Idun, 1917, no. 1.

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Swedish nurse Elsa Brändström, the ‘Angel of Siberia’, caring for German pows in Russian captivity (Vecko-Journalens praktupplaga no. 5, 1916).

1915, that for all times to come will put Sweden’s name in the Great Book of the Great War, ‘… not on the same pages as ‘Big Bertha’, the submarines and the Zeppelins, but on the pages, where it one day will be written what was done during these dark ages in the service of the Good cause.’54

54 Birger Mörner, ‘Hos svenska samariter i Wien,’ h8d, 1915, no. 50.

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The heroes of the Angel Narrative represented an ideal conceptualization of Sweden not connected to war and conquest. Given the emphasis on gender, it is worth noticing that the most treasured Swedish hero was indeed a heroine: Elsa Brändström – commonly known as ‘the Angel of Siberia’ but here also referred to as the Swedish sun in the age of darkness – a nurse who took care of German pows in Russia.55 Thus making the name of Sweden honoured across the globe, Brändström became a personification of a new Swedish role in the international arena, as champion on the fields of mercy instead of battle. Although terrible, the war offered a unique opportunity to once again prove the greatness of Sweden to the rest of the world, albeit in a peaceful manner. The altruism, generosity and humanity of the Swedes were the leading theme of the numerous articles about the war invalid transports in 1915-1920. This prisoners of war exchange program between Germany, Austria, the Ottoman Empire and Russia, which was administered by the Swedish Red Cross and meant that roughly 63,000 invalids were transported by train and boat through Sweden, could according to one magazine be considered ‘the biggest act of compassion during the whole war.’56 The press dwelled upon how Sweden must seem like ‘a glimpse of paradise’ to the poor invalids, and repeatedly stressed the correct and equal treatment of all invalids, with no partial feelings toward either the Russians or the Germans. Toward the victims of war, ‘the Swedish heart is totally neutral, albeit warm.’57 Additionally, the terrible sight of the war invalids was said to have unified the whole of Sweden behind the idea of neutrality and made everyone, even the last few hopeless war romantics, come to their senses and finally learn to value peace.58

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Different wars, different narratives, different neutralities Despite the apparent varieties, there was a recurring duality in the neutrality narratives of the popular press during the war, usually constructing a progressive, civilized Swedish We against a barbaric, brutal and threatening European Other. In the Parasite Narrative, the roles were somewhat reversed, but the Swedes were nevertheless singled out as different from the rest, as bystanders. The distinction between neutral and belligerent, between participant and spectator, was the fun55

Eth. K., ‘I karolinernas fotspår,’ Idun, 1919, no. 19; ‘En uppoffrande svenska,’ vj praktupplagan, 1916, no. 5; ‘Syster Elsa,’ h8d, 1918, no. 27. 56 ‘Delegerade för Röda korset i Tyskland, Österrike och Ryssland samlade till konferens i Stockholm,’ Allers, 1915, no. 52. 57 Erik Nyblom, ‘De lefvande spillrorna,’ Idun, 1915, no. 34. 58 Herbert Ericson, ‘“Hälsa lilla mor”,’ vj, 1917, no. 33; Gunnar Frostell, ‘Där krigets krymplingar helas,’ vj praktupplagan, 1916, no. 3; Erik Nyblom, ‘De lefvande spillrorna,’ Idun, 1915, no. 34.

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A photograph of a Swedish soldier guarding the Stockholm archipelago (Front cover of VeckoJournalen no. 35, 1916).

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damental dividing line in the Swedish identity discourse, more significant than taking sides in the actual conflict. To put it differently, the popular press was more occupied with entangling the meanings of neutrality than with openly supporting one opponent. In this respect, too, the magazines actually strived to stay ‘neutral.’59 Another similarity worth underlining is the gendering of neutrality. All three narratives revealed a recurring anxiety regarding the state of the Swedish men, a persistent fear that the international community might regard Sweden as a feminine, impotent, and weak nation, not proving its manliness in the world war. In a different way, the narratives struggled to confirm or redefine the delicate relation between masculinity, war, neutrality and national character. The gender dimension of neutrality demands further investigation, especially in comparison to historian Sophie de Schaepdrijver’s conclusions regarding Belgium’s changing status in the discourse of the Entente. As De Schaepdrijver states, the shift in allegorical representations of Belgium from the heroic to the victimized, entailed a strongly genderized vision. The representation of Belgium as a violated woman, a raped victim, was commonplace and remained remarkably persistent throughout the war and afterwards.60 The Swedish neutrality discourse of the popular press showed a similar obsession with national victimization and feminization. The contemporary Swedish popular press conveyed both an intense longing for war and a fervent rejection of it. In 1914 and 1915, neutrality evoked feelings of disgrace, guilt and self-contempt, and a fear of missed opportunities. But as the war dragged on, neutrality was increasingly seen both as a source of national safety and independence, and of a boosted international self-confidence. With some notable exceptions – in particular resurfacing during the civil war of Finland in 1918 – the Parasite Narrative about the neutral Swedes as a bunch of immoral, selfish warprofiteers did not strike a tune after 1915. On the contrary, neutrality became an inclusive concept, a rallying point for what it meant to be Swedish. The role of the popular press in general, and in times of crisis in particular, is often defined as to communicate national loyalty, consensus and unity, to include the readers in a common ‘we.’61 By repeating the mantra of Sweden as the safe haven, the idyllic Eden of cooperation, consent and security in the midst of worldwide violence and disorder, the popular press denied or at least diminished other possible narratives 59 Seldom explicitly favouring or defending one part, the magazines scored fairly well. Still, the underlying support for Germany remained quite strong to the end, especially in Hvar 8 Dag. See Sturfelt, Eldens, 209-15. Further, German sources dominated (but certainly did not monopolize) the foreign press material published in Sweden during the war. Regarding the Swedish press and the war, see Jarl Torbacke, ‘The German Infiltration of the Swedish Press during the Early Stages of the First World War,’ in Mellan örnen och björnen: Sverige och Östersjöområdet under det första världskriget, 1914-1918, ed. Johan Engström and Lars Ericson (Visby: Gotlands fornsal, 1994), 73-80; Franzén, Undan stormen, 137-38. 60 De Schaepdrijver, ‘A Signal Service,’ 69-77. 61 Sturfelt, Eldens, 37-43, chap. 7.

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about the war-torn Swedish society. Both foreign threats and domestic conflicts were thus silenced and appeased in a story of a spared, chosen people with a common mission in an otherwise dark and dangerous world. In the end, the shocking experiences of the First World War favoured a selfassertive, more activist narrative, one where neutrality equalled moral superiority. Sweden was discursively and mentally distanced both from its warrior past and from continental Europe, which was associated with backwardness, barbarism, and chaos, while peaceful Sweden (and Scandinavia) represented modernity, progress and civilization. This by 1918 dominating Swedish narrative of neutrality precluded the Swedish self-understanding cherished after the Second World War. The impact of the among Swedish historians often overseen First World War in rejecting a bellicose Swedish identity and instead fostering a collective self-understanding based on neutrality and modernity, a phenomenon commonly associated with the period after 1945, should thus be stressed. In this respect, to the Swedes, the First World War was not the end of neutrality, but rather the beginning. Interestingly, the Swedish development here discussed run almost contrary to historian Ismee Tames’ findings concerning the Dutch public debate on the position and identity of the neutral Netherlands during the First World War: as the Swedish parasite turned into an angel, the Dutch fell pinioned from their moral high grounds. During the course of war, the Dutch opinion makers lost their initial self-confident belief in the neutrals as the arbiters of law and justice, and in 1918 they were left with a great uncertainty about the Dutch identity and the role of the Dutch nation in the world. Tames describes the Dutch public debate as highly receptive and responsive to the spin-off from cultural mobilization in the belligerent countries, especially the British.62 Perhaps Sweden, for reasons yet to be investigated, was less sensible to international judgements. Sustaining a higher degree of self-sufficiency, Sweden came out of the war better off regarding the average welfare, industrial capacity and infrastructure than most neutrals, let alone the belligerents.63 Accurately, Sweden was at times called ‘the neutral victor.’64 It is also worth noting that the negative neutrality narrative peeked at Germany’s initial victories and remarkably rapid advances before the war turned into a war of attrition and before its horrors were fully known. In any case, these contrary findings regarding the identity of the neutrals in the Netherlands and Sweden, respectively, stress the importance of a comparative perspective on the different and changing national meanings of neutrality during the First World War, and the obvious limitations of regarding ‘the neutrals’ as a generic category.

62 Tames, Oorlog, 282-96. 63 af Malmborg, Neutrality, 114; Koblik, The Neutral Victor. 64 See Koblik, The Neutral Victor.

8

Colour-blind or Clear-sighted Neutrality?



Georg Brandes and the First World War

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»»

Bjarne S. Bendtsen

During the First World War the great Danish critic and scholar Georg Brandes (1842-1927) took part in a host of debates, at home in Denmark as well as abroad, about the war and neutrality. From his unshakable neutral, anti-war point of view, he criticised the belligerents for conducting the war on false premises, pretending to fight for ideals like civilisation and culture, when what was at stake was really commercial and imperialistic interests. This neutral anti-war position was not an easy one to hold. When he criticised one of the belligerent parties, he was immediately blamed for supporting the other; when he kept quiet, even his silence was interpreted as a tacit acceptance of one or the other party’s policy. His position in neutral Denmark was also rather isolated as most other intellectuals here took a definite stand and publicly chose sides. If Brandes today is hardly known outside Denmark or maybe Scandinavia in a wider public, he was undoubtedly the most internationally noted Dane at the time. His opinions were respected and his name figured regularly in the columns of the international press. He had visited the United States on a successful lecture tour just a couple of months before the war broke out, travelling there as an invited guest on the German ocean liner ss Vaterland’s maiden voyage – accompanied part of the way by the only other contemporary Danish international star possibly eclipsing him: the actress Asta Nielsen. The American Brandes scholar Doris R. Asmundsson gives an explanation as to why ‘he for too long [has] been unjustly neglected in the English-speaking world’ in the preface to her monograph Georg Brandes: Aristocratic Radical (1981): ‘Only the vagaries of public taste can account for the decline in reputation of a man who was world-famous, even infamous, as recently as the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.’1 Asmundsson’s title points towards the one thing he might 1

Doris R. Asmundsson, Georg Brandes: Aristocratic Radical (New York: New York University Press, 1981). Besides from Asmundsson’s rather psychologising book, other critical work on Brandes in English include Bertil

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still be remembered for: making Nietzsche known to the world.2 But aside from the essays translated into English as Friedrich Nietzsche (1914), he is the author of major critical works like Hovedstrømninger i det 19de Aarhundredes Literatur3 (187187) and substantial biographies and studies of e.g. Søren Kierkegaard (1877) and William Shakespeare (1895-96). Between 1914 and 1918, when he was in his seventies, he published Wolfgang Goethe (1915), François de Voltaire (1916), Napoleon og Garibaldi (1917) and Cajus Julius Cæsar (1918), in addition to the many critical articles on the war. During his lifetime, he corresponded with leading intellectuals like John Stuart Mill (whose Utilitarianism (1861) and The Subjection of Women (1869) he translated into Danish), Edmund W. Gosse, Pierre Kropotkine, Anatole France, Romain Rolland and Friedrich Nietzsche, to mention just some of the most prominent names.4 In a letter of 2 December 1887, Nietzsche called him ‘ein solcher guter Europäer und Cultur-Missionär’5 – the missionary part he strongly objected to, but this was nevertheless a telling characteristic of his activities and a striking example of the way he was interpreted by a fellow intellectual giant. The fact that he was regarded as a controversial and infamous figure relates to his demands for radical realism in literature, biblical criticism and atheism, his support of women’s rights and suffrage and of the stateless and oppressed peoples’ rights as such. ‘He never lacked courage in denouncing tyranny and violence,’6 but his doing so made him many enemies – even among former friends like the Polish, whose pogroms at the beginning of the war he strongly criticised.7 Later on,

2 3 4 5 6 7

Nolin, Georg Brandes (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976) and the contemporary, uncritically admiring Julius Moritzen’s Georg Brandes in Life and Letters (Newark, n.j.: D.S. Dolyer, 1922). In Danish, Brandes’ wartime articles are treated by Jørgen Stender Clausen, Det nytter ikke at sende hære mod ideer (Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzels Forlag, 1984); Hans Hertel, ‘Den storpolitiske Georg Brandes: nationalisme, kommunisme og fascisme, 1900-1927,’ in Georg Brandes og Europa, ed. Olav Harsløf (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 2004), Jesper Düring Jørgensen, ‘Georg Brandes og Peter Nansen omkring “Verdenskrigen”,’ Fund og Forskning 22 (1976): 223-42, Jesper Düring Jørgensen, ‘Tyske forsøg på kulturpropaganda i Danmark under Den Første Verdenskrig,’ Fund og Forskning 26 (1982): 125-52, Jørgen Knudsen, Georg Brandes: Uovervindelig taber, 191427 (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2004), and, in German, Harald Wolbersen, Brandes und der Erste Weltkrieg. Zur Positionierung eines europäischen Intellektuellen im ‘Krieg der Geister’ (Tönning: Der Andere Verlag, 2009). The Danish title of one of his Nietzsche essays, printed in Tilskueren August 1889, was ‘Aristokratisk Radikalisme.’ Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature (1901-05) Cf. Georg Brandes, Correspondance de Georg Brandes, lettres choisies et annotées par Paul Krüger i-iv (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1952-66). Brandes, Correspondance iii, 1966, 441. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 16 Nov. 2009. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/77694/GeorgBrandes Cf. the articles ‘Conditions in Russian Poland’ and ‘Poland’ in Georg Brandes, The World at War (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1917), 93-137. His support to the Jews inevitably led to anti-Semitic attacks on himself – he was of Jewish descent.

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in May 1917, he wrote about the Armenian Genocide with indignant empathy, but not without criticising the Armenian volunteers in the Russian army who in 1915 ruthlessly revenged the Ottoman massacres of 1894-96.8 Despite his unshakable anti-war stance – and his courage – he refused to sign a manifesto against the war suggested by Romain Rolland in September 1914 and, in October, to contribute to Hall Caine’s King Albert’s Book referring to Denmark’s neutrality, which he feared might be endangered by his actions.9 His refusal was probably also based on his belief that both sides were equally guilty of starting the war, and of conducting it with fierce brutality. This article shall focus on two international debates, which hopefully can shed light on the difficult situation of being stuck between the belligerents intellectually and trying to see things from more than one side – as in the case of the Armenians. The first of these was instigated by Brandes’ old friend, the former and future French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, who demanded, in February 1915, that Brandes chose sides and condemned Germany as bearing sole responsibility for the war. A year later, Brandes was attacked by the Scottish critic, playwright and translator10 William Archer for calling upon all the belligerents to put an immediate end to the slaughter and start peace negotiations. Archer’s open letter to Brandes, Colour-Blind Neutrality, has inspired the article’s title. The matter of colour-blindness underpins what was at stake – for Archer probably in an unintended manner: the way the situation was perceived might not be directly false, just coloured differently in the perceptions of those with an ordinary view of the world. But still, as Archer undoubtedly would state, colour-blindness makes you unable to see certain patterns and thereby potentially unable to tell right from wrong. Furthermore, colour-imagery is not found only here and in Archer’s later use of the same rhetoric of colour-blindness in the open letter Six of One and Half-aDozen of the Other (1917), which was part of another polemic over neutrality with the Dutchman Leo Simons, but also in the case of the many white-, red-, blue-, and grey books in which the belligerents tried to assert their innocence and prove the ill-will of their enemies; ‘the whole policy of making the enemy appear the aggressor,’ as Archer bluntly described this strategy.11 The German historian and socialist Dr. Max Beer published – in neutral Bern – the book Die europäischen

8

Georg Brandes, Verdenskrigen, (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1917), 357-75. The latter parts of the enlarged Danish fourth edition of the book were never translated into English. 9 Cf. Asmundsson, Aristocratic Radical, 348-49 and Knudsen Uovervindelig taber, 135-39. 10 He translated Brandes’ book on Shakespeare in 1898. 11 William Archer, Colour-Blind Neutrality: An Open Letter to Dr. Georg Brandes (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1916), 25. Archer naturally claimed that only the Germans employed this strategy.

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‘A man whose head is swimming after devouring all the Blue, Red, Yellow, Orange, and White Books.’ Cartoon by Alfred Schmidt in the 1915 edition of Blæksprutten (‘The Cuttlefish’), an annual satirical magazine.

Kriegsverhandlungen. Das Regenbogen-Buch (1915), in which he meticulously compared these books to gain a clear view of the diplomatic negotiations that took place up to the outbreak of war. The book’s telling subtitle might be interpreted in the direction of the genre’s fictitious, propagandistic tendencies; exposing something seemingly clearly defined but highly unstable, like a rainbow. Likewise, Georg Brandes attempted to see through all the colourful phrases being bandied about and find the crux of the crisis, the reasons why the war broke out and thereby a means to ending it. As his American translator, Catherine D. Groth, characterised his approach to the war: ‘Brandes fearlessly and with a burning sense of justice uncovers various aspects of the war, never allowing himself to be biased.’12 His attempts were, however, welcome neither at home nor abroad.

12 Catherine D. Groth, ‘Preface,’ in Georg Brandes, The World at War (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1917).

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Brandes’ articles on the war, the polemics about neutrality and, after the war, his articles on the catastrophic effects that the Treaty of Versailles would inevitably have, were published in the periodical Tilskueren (‘The Spectator’) and the newspaper Politiken (‘Politics’), the latter of which was closely connected to the Danish social liberal government.13 In that sense, his opinions were deeply involved with the government’s policy of neutrality and maybe not as unbiased as his translator claimed – at least as conservative commentators saw it. They were collected and published in the books Verdenskrigen (‘The World War,’ 1916) and Tragediens anden Del: Fredsslutningen (‘The Second Part of the Tragedy: The Peace Treaty,’ 1919). The first of these books was translated into English as The World at War in May 1917; a translation which was, however, only published in the usa. The lack of access to the public in the different belligerent countries was an aspect of the wartime debate, which deeply worried Brandes, and he often complained about the way his thoughts and opinions were quoted out of context or even deliberately distorted, particularly by censorship and as a propaganda tool. One instance worth noting is that the articles in Verdenskrigen, which drew parallels between pre-war and wartime British and Russian intervention in Persia and the German violation of Belgian neutrality, were translated and published in Germany as Das Verbrechen Englands und Russlands an Persien in 1918. However, this edition left out the book’s critical sections on German militarism and imperialism. The very beginning of this article, ‘Fortsat Polemik’ (‘Continuing Polemic’) as it was called in Politiken, 6 July 1916, or ‘Belgium–Persia’ in the English translation, explicitly addressed this concern: A Danish writer is at a great disadvantage in polemics with foreigners. For even if they have seen the detached article which caused their displeasure and even if they have read it carefully – which scarcely ever happens – they know nothing whatsoever of the other statements he has made on the same subject and to refute him they use the very same arguments which he himself has used again and again. They credit him with intentions which not only are foreign to him but which he has distinctly combated. In their excitement they create such a confusion that he finds himself involved as in a barbed wire net of absurdities which must first be cleared away before he can begin to argue with his opponent.14

13

The French literary public would have been quite well informed on both Tilskueren and Politiken and of what was published in them as Mercure de France in April 1915 printed P.-G. La Chesnais’ article on ‘Lettres Danoises,’ i-iv-1915, 802-9. In May, La Chesnais summed up the Brandes-Clemenceau feud, Mercure de France, i-v-1915, 144-49. 14 Brandes, The World at War, 242.

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The positions of the Danish intelligentsia during the war Among the Danish intellectuals, attitudes toward the war varied largely: from Johannes Jørgensen’s violently pro-Entente – or to be precise: pro-Belgian and pro-Catholic – bestseller Klokke Roland (1915), via Kristoffer Nyrop’s pro-French but thoroughly sceptic view on the war in his Er Krig Kultur? (‘Is War Culture?,’ 1916), to the pro-German Karl Larsen, who accepted a German invitation to visit the front and enthusiastically described what he experienced there in the book Fronten (1916) and before that Set og tænkt under Den store Krig (‘Seen and Thought During the Great War,’ 1915); a collection of his newspaper articles on the war. These books appeared in translations, but only in as far as they matched the translators’ sympathies and thus did not exactly contribute to a new understanding of the war – if this was ever their intention.15 In December 1914, the future Nobel Prize winner Johannes V. Jensen among other things treated the question of sympathising with one side or the other in the article ‘Det nordiske Forspring. Evropa før og efter Krigen’ (‘The Nordic Lead. Europe Before and After the War’). Jensen readily admitted to sympathizing with Germany, even though he basically saw the war as utterly meaningless, not least because the two logical racial allies in his mind, Great Britain and Germany, were now fighting each other in a kind of European civil war. ‘I do not polemicise,’ he said in the article:

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Anybody will be able to see that I feel myself more closely attached to the German than to the Allied cause … the present article is not meant to ‘support’ any of the parties, a terrible thought during peacetime and ridiculous during a war, where blood and iron settle the equilibrium of power between nations; it is only meant to clear my thoughts regarding these questions that are of concern to the entirety of civilized humanity. Moreover, as an enlisted man, I belong to the Danish army.16

However terrible and ridiculous a thought supporting one or the other party appeared to Jensen, this was exactly what most of the Danish intellectuals did. Like Jensen, Brandes strongly criticized his colleagues of being partial. In three 15

English translations of Klokke Roland as False Witness (1916) and Er Krig Kultur? as Is War Civilization? (1917). These books were also translated into French and the surprisingly successful Klokke Roland into many other languages. It even came out in German­, but in Paris – it was banned in Germany. Here, the two parts of Larsen’s Set og tænkt under Den store Krig were published as Deutschlands Nationalmilitarismus und anderes (1915) and Arbeit-Dienst (1916). 16 Johannes V. Jensen, ‘Det nordiske Forspring. Evropa før og efter Krigen,’ Tilskueren, December 1914, 536-54, on 545. Reprinted in Johannes V. Jensen, Introduktion til vor Tidsalder (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1915). My translation.

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feature articles in Politiken in November 191417 he even hinted that certain authors’ sympathies had been bought by the Germans, an accusation that raised a storm of protests in Denmark. Still, he also recognized the central problem neutral observers faced. A publicist of his acquaintance, he wrote, had been asked to write a piece on the war by successively a German, an Austrian and a British newspaper. All of them turned him down, however, because they felt his writing had not been strongly enough pro-German, -Austrian or -British. ‘In other words, no side cares to hear the truth – or what the writer believes to be the truth; both sides seek nothing but encouragement, praise, flattery.’18 To understand the particular Danish situation at the time, perhaps a short step back in time is required, or, to be precise: a step 50 years back in time. 1864 is no doubt one of the most significant years in Danish history, as this year marked the end of Danish aspirations to being a power of any rank in Europe when the country was defeated by Prussia and Austria at Dybbøl, and Denmark consequently – not least due to unrealistic nationalistic leaders – had to cede Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg to their conquerors. The anniversary of this tragic war – as seen from the Danish perspective – had been marked less than half a year before the outbreak of war in August 1914, and a logical mix of revanchism and fear of being completely absorbed by Germany was widespread. Thus, especially as the initial danger of a German occupation lifted, the revanchism and old hatred towards the Germans became outspoken among the Danish intellectuals and authors. This explains why most of the older Danish writers were pro-Entente or at least anti-German. Many of the younger ones, however, who had not experienced the shocking defeat of 1864, were not as negative toward Germany; some were even to varying degrees pro-German. And many of these younger intellectuals openly admired Brandes, as the older ones had done in their youth; an admiration that can be seen in a short portrait of him in the German paid19 periodical Sort paa Hvidt (Black on White) sometime in the late summer 1918 – there are no dates on the issues at this point: It is characteristic that Georg Brandes now stands isolated in European literature. For Germany, not German enough, for the Entente not anti-German enough. He has always been admired south of Denmark, but now people are probably a little afraid to show their admiration for him. In France, he was loved before the war – Clemenceau, the ever blood-thirsty tiger, whose teeth, long replaced by dentures, still itch for human flesh, told him his famous, his notorious: Adieu, Brandes. It was an old faithful friend whom he kicked out because he 17 Printed in The World at War as ‘Different Points of View on the War.’ 18 Brandes, The World at War, 80. 19 Cf. Düring Jørgensen, ‘Tyske forsøg på kulturpropaganda,’ 144.

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Open letter warfare with Georges Clemenceau The sparks that ignited the Brandes-Clemenceau feud were the fact that Brandes, in a private letter to Clemenceau, did not condemn the German violation of Belgium, and a remark by Clemenceau, printed in his paper L’Homme enchaîné (‘The Chained Man’)21, about the Danes being a nation without pride because of their neutrality. Clemenceau, the furious Tigre and to-be Père-la-Victoire, claimed that the Danes ought to have declared war on Germany to revenge their defeat of 1864, and hinted at commercial interests being the cause of their neutrality. His barbed comments might be interpreted as a reaction to the German submarine blockade of Great Britain from 4 February 1915 that would consequently involve neutral ships in acts of war, and hence increase the strain of the blockade on the Entente, which in its turn might have tightened the view upon and limits of the neutrals. Clemenceau’s words, from the article ‘L’Ennemi du Genre humain’ in the 9 February 1915 edition of L’Homme enchaîné, were:

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S’il est autre chose qu’une fanfaronnade, – et cela n’est pas impossible, – le blocus de l’Angleterre par les sous-marins de l’Allemagne peut mettre en mouvement tout le monde de la neutralité – sauf peut-être quelques peuples dépourvus de fierté, comme ces Danois, qui, n’ayant pu oublier la mutilation de leur territoire par l’Allemagne, trouvent moyen, dans leur terreur d’une résistance armée, de s’enrichir en se mettant au service de leur ennemis.22

‘Your remark about the Danes,’ Brandes replied in Politiken, 28 February 1915, ‘that they are a nation without pride, has made bad blood in this country and has wounded me personally.’23 Clemenceau’s statement was not only an example of a stereotypic way of thinking that Brandes thought Clemenceau ought to be far above – ‘A writer of your rank should refrain from derogatory expressions about a

20 Anon., Sort paa Hvidt, no. 1, vol. 2, 1918. Ellipse from original, my translation. 21 Originally L’Homme libre (The Free Man), the paper was renamed after it had been tied down by censorship and banned for being too belligerent, even for the French authorities. 22 Quoted after Brandes, Correspondance iv, 103. Krüger reprints Clemenceau’s articles of the strife, 103-26. 23 Brandes, The World at War, 153. Italics copied from original.

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whole nation, especially since such generalisations never hit the truth …’24 – , but also a direct attack on Brandes himself and his intellectual integrity. To make a deliberate end to their exchange of opinions, it seems, Clemenceau retorted with an open letter to Brandes, published in L’Homme enchaîné on 29 March 1915 and reprinted in Politiken the following day. This open letter started, and ended, with the phrase ‘Adieu Brandes,’ signifying that Clemenceau did not seek a compromise nor even to try to understand Brandes’ position. Clemenceau’s motives behind the aggressive confrontation and eventual adieu might have been a desire to mark Brandes as pro-German,25 thereby obstructing any possible influence of Brandes’ ideas of pacifism and impartiality, and particularly his interpretation of who started the war on the other neutral countries. From a German perspective, Brandes’ neutral approach was probably the best obtainable: better have him criticize the Entente as well as Germany, rather than risk having him as a regular enemy.26 Regarding the matter of neutrality, Brandes’ two open letters to Clemenceau are printed under the joint title ‘Neutrality’ in the American version of Verdenskrigen, which makes the neutral focus even more explicit – this joint title, however, was used neither in the Danish original, nor in Politiken. Still, Brandes explicitly dealt with the matter in the second letter, the ‘Reply to Georges Clemenceau’ in Politiken, 18 March: ‘When the war broke out Denmark declared herself neutral, and a proclamation from the king, calling upon the population to refrain from any demonstration which would increase the difficulties of the Danish Government, was posted on the street corners.’27 Brandes furthermore stated that he never for a moment doubted that he ‘personally, must obey the command.’ And then went on to answer one of Clemenceau’s strikes below the belt: You seem to imply that it was of importance to me to have my brother retain his ministerial portfolio [his brother Edvard was minister of finance in the social liberal government]. Personally I have not the slightest interest in whether my brother remains cabinet minister or not … What had importance in my eyes, however, was not to create difficulties for the Danish Government … The most trifling act could do so, and create confusion abroad. And this might happen very easily as my brother and I have the same name. It might be thought that I was speaking for my brother, or that he shared my views.28

24 25 26 27 28

Brandes, The World at War, 153. Cf. Clausen, Det nytter ikke, 61. Düring Jørgensen, ‘Georg Brandes og Peter Nansen,’ 231. Brandes, The World at War, 157. Brandes, The World at War, 157-58.

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It was not, as his critics scornfully pointed out, usual for the great Georg Brandes to be this humble nor this cautious and considerate: usually he would speak his mind at all costs. An example of this critique can be found in the conservative nationalistic newspaper Vort Land (‘Our Country’), where illustrator Axel Thiess 15 March ridiculed Brandes on the front page as a scared old woman, hiding behind his brother, and Clemenceau sternly looking down on him. Aside from caution toward the mighty neighbour, possible consideration for his brother, and contempt of stereotypic thinking, what was really at stake when Brandes refused to support the side in the war that must have been closest to his heart and ideals – the French and British – was the possibility that this support would include Russia. ‘You want me to look forward to the Allies’ victory,’ he wrote in the reply of 18 March:

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The problem is too complex. I could … not rejoice at Russia’s victory and still less at Japan’s. Not that I have any prejudices or any feeling against Japan. I admire the great qualities of the Japanese, whose form of religion, to begin with, is much superior to that of Europeans. But the Japanese, who are racially kin to the Chinese, will probably as a result of such victory eventually dominate the white race, after having wrenched away all its Asiatic colonies. And as Japan’s culture is not founded on Greece and Rome like ours but is different and foreign to ours, I would consider such an issue intensely tragic.29

Consequently, the British and French alliance with czarist Russia and the racially foreign, expansive Japanese were the crucial points in Brandes’ critique of the Entente and what would be the outcome of the war. This passage furthermore constitutes a clear example of Euro-centrism, which is not at all surprising to find at this time, but still rather surprising in the writings of an otherwise liberal and un-dogmatic writer like Brandes. The final adieu was left uncommented by Brandes. Clemenceau himself interpreted this as a clear sign that Brandes had had no choice but to concede, an interpretation he did not keep to himself, but published a derisive article about the following year. Brandes, he wrote, had been nailed to the wall by his questions last year, and thus ‘the poor fellow had no other way out than to shut his mouth. Never ever before has a silence been so eloquent.’30 However, before this, Brandes probably aimed at Clemenceau’s simplified black and white view on the war in the deeply sarcastic article ‘De store Nationers Omsorg for de smaa’ (‘Protectors of Small Nations’) from October 1915: 29 Brandes, The World at War, 163. 30 From Clemenceau’s article ‘Dans sa bange,’ quoted in Politiken in the article ‘Fejden mellem Georg Brandes og Clemenceau,’ 6 July 1916, 5-6. My translation.

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The inhabitants of all the belligerent countries are convinced that in this world war their country is in the right and the enemy in the wrong. When the writer from a neutral country does not use these qualifications taken from an ethical or jurisprudential vocabulary, but remarks that the whole immense war is beyond right and wrong, the leading men in belligerent countries call out, so as to show up his lack of judgment and his superculture: ‘Answer! Which side is in the right, which side is the wrong?’31

Besides from Clemenceau’s attack on Brandes, there were other fierce French reactions to his attempt to be unbiased, for instance journalist and playwright Paul Hyacinthe Loyson’s open letter of 30 March 1915 titled ‘St. George Tamed by the Dragon.’ Loyson, who had been a big admirer of Brandes’ as well as a pacifist and an advocate for Franco-German reconciliation before the war but had offered his services to the French government propaganda bureau after August 1914, harshly criticised Brandes for stating in his reply to Clemenceau: ‘If I were obliged to draw up protestations every time there happens in the world an event of which I disapprove, I should have nothing else to do.’32 Loyson rightly claimed that this was exactly what Brandes’ had always done, and the attack by an unscrupulous great power (Germany) on an unsuspecting and innocent neutral (Belgium) would, in normal times, have made him see red with rage.

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In the verbal barbed-wire entanglements with William Archer Unlike the irreparable break with Clemenceau, Brandes and Archer kept up appearances during their strife, maybe because they – their seemingly total disagreement notwithstanding – both fought for rationality and reason against for instance the quasi-religious forces of nationalism and militarism. As regards the alliance with Russia, Archer actually commented on this at the very beginning of the war in keeping with Brandes’ opinion on the matter. In a letter to his brother Charles Archer, 6 August 1914, he wrote about his hopes that it might be ‘the final flare-up of militarist madness in Western Europe,’ resulting in ‘a federation of West European states, with vastly reduced armaments maintained for the purpose of keeping Russia in check until she is civilized enough to stand in.’33 Shortly afterwards, however, he joined Wellington House – the secret British Propaganda

31 Brandes, The World at War, 183. 32 Later published in the book Êtes-vous neutres devant le crime? (1916), quotation from the English translation: Paul Hyacinthe Loyson, The Gods in the Battle (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1917), 54. 33 Lieut. Colonel C. Archer, William Archer. Life, Works and Friendships (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1931), 354.

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Bureau – and thus seemed to have given up this critical view on the Russian ally and the reasons for fighting the war. More than a decade later, Charles Archer described his efforts at Wellington House: It is hard to say what the effect of a single voice, and one which strove to speak the language of reason, may have been in the hurly-burly of passionate polemic which at that time filled two hemispheres; but it is probable that the pamphlets were not without effect, at all events in the Northern Kingdoms and America, where their author was known.

Particularly Colour-Blind Neutrality was effectual and important, Charles Archer stated, because Georg Brandes’ ‘utterances in the character of Mr. Facing-BothWays were doing harm.’34 Brandes’ appeal for peace, published in Politiken 17 May 1916, then must have been considered extremely harmful – maybe because it was intended as part of Henry Ford’s ill-fated peace mission in 1915-16 and no fewer than 500 million copies were to be printed and distributed internationally. Even though the appeal was translated into French and German, this number was not reached; but still Archer considered it influential and possibly dangerous enough to write a 53 page open letter against it. The appeal begins as follows:

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Each of the Great Powers declares that the war it is waging is a war of defence. They have all been attacked; they are all fighting for their existence. For all of them murder and lies are necessary means of defence. But since none of the Powers, by their own showing, wanted war, let them make peace! After twentytwo months’ war, however, peace seems farther off than ever. The fighting nations each and all must first win the victory of civilisation over barbarism – and call civilisation their conception of higher culture, right, justice, or democracy as opposed to militarism.35

Brandes then sarcastically sneers at this central concept of and reason behind the war in the belligerents’ vocabularies: ‘Civilisation! The first fruit of this civilisation has been to spread over the earth the truth-killing Russian censorship. The second is that we have come back to the days of human sacrifice.’36 Brandes’ pessimistic view upon the possibilities of peace was not least due to the fact that

34 C. Archer, William Archer, 347. 35 Brandes, The World at War, 213. Parts of the appeal was furthermore published in The New York Times, 24 June 1916; interestingly enough translated from ‘recent issues of German newspapers.’ The introductory paragraph to this article states that Brandes ‘indicates that he is neither pro-German nor pro-Ally, but anti-Russian.’ 36 Brandes, The World at War, 213.

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even in the neutral countries the ‘public opinion does not consider it seemly to discuss peace. Public opinion is usually on the level of the shop girl who ‘sympathises’ with one side or the other and thereby forgets to add her bit to the scale of justice.’37 Thus, he hardly seemed to believe in the Ford peace mission’s project of mediation by the neutral states as the solution to the conflict. As further evidence of this interpretation, Brandes did not even bother to mention the peace mission in his appeal. Eventually, Brandes bitterly – and prophetically – concluded the appeal by stating that ‘The longer the war lasts, the shorter the coming peace will be.’ And he foresaw that a shift of world power was going to take place: ‘Europe is committing hari-kari for the benefit of Japan, and the adaptable and clever Asiatic people, with an eye on the future, undoubtedly look upon Europe’s suicidal mania with considerable astonishment and not little satisfaction.’38 Archer began his open letter by stating that Brandes’ appeal was a disappointment to his admirers and friends: in spite of his age-long fight for freedom of thought and against political tyranny, his appeal betrayed the Allied cause, fighting for these ideals: ‘You have carried the art of neutrality to a very high pitch. You stand indifferent between truth and falsehood, between humanity and inhumanity, between right and wrong.’39 Brandes was simply ‘[n]eutral, all too neutral,’ as the heading of the following section stated, because he believed that all parties were equally to blame for starting the war, not least as a result of their decade-long imperialistic and commercial competition. On the contrary, Archer asserted that ‘the whole of this responsibility [of arming Europe to the brink of war] rests with the Central Empires, and that it is not neutral impartiality which would deny it, but blindness to a long series of incontrovertible facts.’40 Germany’s claim to being the attacked part acting in self-defence – the whole policy of making the enemy appear the aggressor – is almost too ridiculous to bear in Archer’s mind. As proof, he makes a rather long recapitulation of German aggression and militaristic tradition, which he concludes with the following: ‘I cannot conceive it possible for you to deny that the balance is overwhelmingly on our side. We come to the bar of history with clean hands, and we say that it is not neutrality but disloyalty to truth to talk as though they were as black – or as red – as Germany’s.’41 Archer had already treated the matter of who was guilty of starting the war – and attacked Brandes’ appeal – in the pamphlet To Neutral Peace-Lovers. A Plea for Patience (1916). The title of this pamphlet clearly expresses his business: to urge

37 38 39 40 41

Brandes, The World at War, 215. Brandes, The World at War, 219. Archer, Colour-Blind Neutrality, 1-2. Archer, Colour-Blind Neutrality, 10. Archer, Colour-Blind Neutrality, 31.

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Georg Brandes, aged 76, standing beside his writing table with the weekly amount of mail piled up in front of him – a pile that, on top of a desperate weariness about the war, would make anybody look tired. Photo dated September 1918 (Det kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen).

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the neutrals to be patient and bear with the Entente’s temporary harsh restrictions imposed on democratic and civil rights as these restrictions are the means to defeat the autocratic Central Powers. He states that ‘the truth as to the origin of the war is beginning to soak into the German mind’ – i.e. the truth that Germany was not the party attacked. ‘This truth,’ Archer stated, ‘is slowly forcing its way through the barbed-wire entanglements of prejudice and authority-worship, in which the German intelligence is enveloped.’42 Thus, his disappointment that a highly respected neutral intellectual like Brandes continued to claim that both sides were to blame for starting the war is the more outspoken. He even suggests that Brandes has suffered an attack of neurasthenia since he, and many others in the neutral countries, seem to be becoming more war weary than the belligerents – except naturally the ones suffering from the blockade, i.e. the Central Powers. Brandes answers to Archers accusations were published in a five article series in Politiken during June-July 1916, the first of which was printed as ‘Ideals or Politics?’ in The World at War – a title that in its turn clarified Brandes’ position. At this point, after twenty-two months of war, he was disillusioned and regarded politics as ruthless realpolitik, and was not so naïve as to believe that politicians were acting on the grounds of high ideals or that they actually believed their own phrases; this, on the contrary, was what Archer and many other intellectuals at the time seemed – or pretended – to believe. The chapter ‘Atrocity at Sea’ from Colour-Blind Neutrality illustrates how Archer attacked Brandes. Here, he lists the German misdeeds in the theatre of war, sarcastically guessing at Brandes’ presumably neutral attitude towards submarine warfare: No doubt you are sufficiently neutral to hold that, as submarine warfare was not clearly foreseen in international law, Germany was justified in acting as if there were no law, and allowing no consideration of humanity to interfere with her convenience. But I think you will admit that the sinking of the Lusitania – to say nothing of other exploits – was not a pretty incident, not one which any human nation would rejoice to inscribe in its annals. Even if it can be formally justified on the assumption of a state of utter anarchy at sea, it was at best a terrible, a heartrending catastrophe.43

He compares the sinking of the Lusitania with the Titanic disaster – this time, however, the catastrophe was man-made, and even celebrated by a special medal

42 William Archer, To Neutral Peace-Lovers. A Plea for Patience (London: Sir Joseph Causton & Sons Ltd, 1916), 14. In his reply to Colour-Blind Neutrality, Brandes would use the exact same barbed-wire imagery, as quoted above, very likely ironically hinting at this passage. 43 Archer, Colour-Blind Neutrality, 35.

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in Germany.44 This, and rumours of incidents in which German civilians tortured allied prisoners of war, lead Archer to conclude that ‘[i]t is things like these that will make it hard – terribly hard – to resume human relations with the German people.’45 A stereotypical way of thinking that must have driven Brandes to despair: when even intelligent people like Archer said things like that, there was not much hope for the future. On the other hand, Brandes seems to forget his cynical view upon idealism when he vents his irritation with censorship and the British practice of opening letters from one neutral to another. To his complaints over this inconvenience (minor when compared to the many others caused by the war), Archer replies:

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Still more amazing is it to find a Dane, or any Scandinavian, talk bitterly of England’s opening of letters, and breathe no word of Germany’s sinking of ships and slaughter of sailors. You are outraged because private letters, ‘even between two neutrals,’ are opened. May I remind you of two facts: first, that every neutral country swarms with ‘neutrals’ who are active German agents; second, that it is impossible to know, until a letter is opened, that it is from a neutral to a neutral.46

Amid these rather far-fetched excuses, Archer fully admits that ‘the exercise of any censorship is an unpleasant and degrading necessity, and quite naturally annoying to neutrals.’ But this seeming apology to the neutrals only returns to and is answered by his introductory placing of war guilt: ‘Let them [the neutrals] blame the people who made the war!’ And then he plays his trump card: ‘What astounds and bewilders us in England is not that you neutrals should be concerned about your letters, but that you should be (to all appearance) so unconcerned about your ships and your lives.’ This polemic statement is underpinned by an account of the amount of neutral ships lost: ‘[B]etween August, 1914, and, March, 1916, 136 Scandinavian and Dutch ships have been sunk by German U boats, to say nothing of 66 wrecked by mines, most of them certainly German.’47 Here, Archer’s conjectural argumentation shows a typical trait of the war time debate: you can make willful assumptions on supposed German atrocities, while attacking the enemy’s similar

44 The medal was a private initiative and only struck in 180 copies before the authorities banned it to avoid bad press abroad. Cf. Alan Kramer’s article in Enzyklopädie Erster Weltkrieg, ed. Gerhard Hirschfeld, Gerd Krumeich and Irina Renz (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2009), 690. Towards the end of the war, Brandes wrote all but an apology for the German attack on the Lusitania: She was, he wrote, part of the British reserve navy and was carrying ammunition, and thus as legal a target as any other­ – if killing people could be legal at all. Cf. his preface to the Danish translation of Georg Fr. Nicolai’s Biologie des Krieges (1918), reprinted in Tragediens anden Del as ‘Kejser Probus.’ 45 Archer, Colour-Blind Neutrality, 37. 46 Archer, Colour-Blind Neutrality, 43-44. 47 Archer, Colour-Blind Neutrality, 44-45.

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assumptions as downright lies. Furthermore, the British used mines as well, so there is no objective proof of Archer’s assumption. Still, he continues thus: ‘What protest do I find in your ‘Appeal’ against this wanton slaughter, as repugnant to the laws of war as to the laws of humanity? I find not a single syllable.’48 Finally, Archer states that not taking sides ‘is a shirking of a clear responsibility that rests upon every intelligent human being. The neutrality which declines to distinguish black from white is simply a disease of the moral vision.’ And he ends the letter thus: ‘Whatever sorrow the war has brought upon or may bring me, I would not for the world be a neutral.’49

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Conclusion Brandes’ skirmishes with Clemenceau and Archer seem to prove how difficult it was maintaining a neutral approach to a full scale conflict like the First World War. Maybe they even can be seen as the embodiment of the new view on neutrality in the age of total war, where the unbiased and clear-sighted neutrality of a public intellectual like Brandes no longer could be accepted. His neutrality, however, might not have been as unbiased as he himself claimed it to be – at least not towards the end of the war. His approach was often interpreted as pro-German; this was Archer’s and especially Clemenceau’s polemic conclusion, it was definitely seen as such in the conservative, nationalistic Danish press at the time, and even the social liberal government became increasingly uncomfortable with his loud critique of Clemenceau and later of Lloyd George as well. However, there might be a very simple explanation: Brandes seemingly always preferred to be an outsider, always to being on the weak and the loser’s side – if you can call Imperial Germany weak. Accusations against Brandes for being pro-German would have been fiercely denied in Germany before the war: he was a sharp critic of German rule in Northern Schleswig, lost to Denmark after the 1864 war with Prussia and Austria, especially its Prussian governor’s statutes against practicing Danish language and culture in public. This critique continued during the war: in the American periodical The Atlantic Monthly of December 1915, he published the article ‘A Scandinavian View of the War’ in which he among other things critically commented on the situation in Northern Schleswig. Thus, his attempts to cut a way through the barbed wire net of absurdities did not result in many useful breakthroughs, and the war and his participation in the intel48 Archer, Colour-Blind Neutrality, 45. 49 Archer, Colour-Blind Neutrality, 52-53. Archer continued the polemic in the beginning of the following year with the open letter Shirking the Issue (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1917).

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lectual battles only increased his tendencies for misanthropic pessimism. This can be seen in the finale of Verdenskrigen, in the enlarged Danish fourth edition from 1917, wherein he wrote about the stupidities of a war in which he saw nothing great: The great war would, for instance, be the struggle to tame the Niagara Falls for the benefit of mankind, whereas the World War ‘is the petty war, a miserable leftover from the Middle Ages, a relic of the past, stupid and vicious and detestable.’50 Or, after the war, in an article in The New York Times of 6 November 1921, he simply stated that ‘Europe is finished!’ and that ‘[t]he age of American domination of the world has begun.’51 This was due not only to us domination of world trade because Europe was financially bankrupt, but also and especially to Europe’s moral bankruptcy and atmosphere of hateful jingoism, as had already been evident in the Treaty of Versailles.

50 Georg Brandes, Verdenskrigen, (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1917), 448. My translation. 51 The article ‘Europe is Finished’ by T.R. Ybarra.

9

The Hottest Places in Hell?



Finnish and Nordic neutrality from the perspective of French foreign policy, 1900-1940 »»

Louis Clerc

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Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. John F. Kennedy1

What better introduction could we find to our subject than this (mis)quote of Dante Alighieri by us President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, pronounced in 1963 in relation to the creation of the German Peace Corps? Indeed, from the point of view of a great power engaged in the Cold War, the neutrality of smaller states can easily appear to be a dangerous liability, a crack in the armour to be used by the enemy. The moral tinge of Kennedy’s remark is also interesting: when good and evil, democracy and authoritarianism fight, how can one remain neutral? This opens the debate of why and how neutrality is conceived, respected, or violated by other states, especially by great powers. Although the concept gained legal definition during the eighteenth and nineteenth century, neutrality was and remains construed by the general context of international relations. The goal of this article is to concentrate on this vision of neutrality from the outside. The specific case we will examine is the French vision of Nordic neutralities, especially Finland’s, during the years 1917-1940. For various reasons linked with language and a perceived lack of substance, French policy in the north of Europe remains a blind spot in historical research both in French and in English. To be sure, France in the first half of the twentieth century did not have the same presence in the region as Great Britain or Germany. The French, however, were far from inactive, and their relation with Nordic neutrality presents interesting features for the researcher. In

1

Kennedy’s remarks in Bonn, West Germany, at the signing of a charter establishing the German Peace Corps, 24 June 1963 (John T. Woolley and Gerhard Peters, The American Presidency Project [online]. Santa Barbara, ca: University of California (hosted), Gerhard Peters (database). Available from World Wide Web: http://www. presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9294).

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many ways, the French vision of Nordic neutrality gives us a textbook example of the ambiguities surrounding external visions of neutrality.

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Scandinavian neutrality before 1914 ‘Scandinavian neutrality’ became an issue for the French foreign policy leadership at the turn of the century, between the forging of the Russian alliance (1891-1892) and the beginning of World War i.2 From Paris, Northern Europe and the Baltic Sea appeared to be distant regions where French foreign policy moved between the warding off of German influence, the preservation of the Baltic as an open sea, and attempts at organizing co-operation, mostly between Russia and England. However distant the region seemed from a French perspective, Xavier Fraudet, for instance, has shown how surprisingly active the French were in these countries.3 After 1890, the main thrust of this French activity was to move especially Sweden and Denmark closer to England, France, and Russia, and further from the perceived dominant influence of Germany. Denmark appeared important because of the Danish straits and to keep them open in case of crisis. Sweden on the other hand was the inevitable pivot point of the Nordic region, seen as a hotbed of German influence to be brought closer to France. In this context, the ‘neutralisation’ of Scandinavian countries was increasingly perceived as a facade for their welcoming of German influence. In April 1904, the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs drew the line on Danish neutrality in a note: France and its ally Russia had no interest in the neutralization of Denmark, while France was well aware that in the case of a crisis, Berlin would have to divert troops to guard its border with Denmark.4 France thus exerted active, if discrete, pressure on especially the Danish government to alter its position. ‘Financial diplomacy’ and other indirect tools of influence were primarily used in this attempt to turn Denmark into a partner for France and Russia. France was at the turn of the century Europe’s second financial power, topped only by Britain. Money and its circulation remained private matters, but as René Girault has shown in the case of Franco-Russian financial relations at the time, the French government tried to complement its political influence through financial and eco-

2 3

4

On French foreign policy from 1870 to 1914, see René Girault, Diplomatie européenne: nations et impérialisme, 1871-1914 (Paris: Payot, 2004). Xavier Fraudet, Politique étrangère française en mer Baltique (1871-1914): De l’exclusion à l’affirmation, Acta Universalis Stockholmiensis 77 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell international, 2005). There is a glaring lack of scientific research on the relations between France and the Nordic countries in the twentieth century. Fraudet’s book is one of the rare exceptions to this rule. Fraudet, Politique étrangère française, 173-83.

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nomic influence (via the authorization of state loans, for example).5 As Fraudet reminds us, precise data for the early years of the twentieth century is difficult to obtain. In 1897, however, the Revue des deux Mondes estimated the amount of French direct investments in Scandinavian countries through loans, French ownership of companies, and investments in infrastructure at 300 million francs.6 Cultural influence was also heavily linked with politics in the mind of the French representatives. Various attempts were made at bettering the image of a nation defeated by Germany in 1870.7 For the French, cultural links always had a strong political backdrop, even if they often tended to overestimate the role and efficiency of the cultural diplomacy they tried to deploy in the North of Europe. Diplomatic contacts were also used in order to directly influence the policy of Scandinavian states. In 1902, for example, the French President Emile Loubet paid a visit both to the Tsar in Saint-Petersburg and to Denmark, showing the obvious link that was made in France between cooperation with Russia, keeping the Baltic Straits open, and increasing contacts with Denmark. A few months later, however, these efforts were responded to with an official visit of the German Emperor to Copenhagen, and the French support for those forces inside Denmark opposed to neutrality amounted, under the circumstances of Danish political life, to very little. French ambitions and resultant modes of action were the same regarding Sweden. The country was important from a logistical point of view, since contact with Russia was difficult without passing either near Germany or through Norway and Sweden. Considered very early to be dominated by German influence, the Swedes however needed money to modernize their infrastructures, and some of it was found on the French loan market. The financial links, cultural lobbying and diplomatic contacts did not bring the results expected by the French leadership. Sweden needed money, but on its own terms and while trying to avoid the domination by any one country of its financial and economic system. Denmark, too, aimed at keeping its liberty, and thus the French had little success in finding support from Scandinavian societies and political forces. Writing in 1969, the late historian Raymond Poidevin adeptly summarized the way the French leadership saw the position of Sweden sixty years before: ‘… French finance had provided funds to Sweden, even while this state rejected all French influence and fell into German orbit.’8 The difficulties of French influence 5

6 7 8

René Girault, Emprunts russes et investissements français en Russie, 1887-1917, 2nd ed. (Paris: Comité pour l’Histoire économique et Financière de la France, Ministère de l’Economie, des Finances et de l’Industrie, Imprimerie Nationale, 1999). Fraudet, Politique étrangère française, 146-61. Fraudet, Politique étrangère française, 169-71. Raymond Poidevin, Les relations économiques et financières entre la France et l’Allemagne de 1898 à 1914 (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1969), 713.

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did not automatically mean that German influence predominated, but the notion of a German-dominated Nordic and Baltic region remained strong in France from 1900 to 1914. In October 1904, shots fired accidently by Russian military vessels on a group of British trawlers in the North Sea, over the Dogger Bank, suddenly inflamed relations between London and Saint-Petersburg. The French worked hard to deflate these tensions and renew the contacts between two potential allies against German influence. Things improved as Paris pitched in to defuse the incident and to orchestrate a defensive cooperation between Britain and Russia in the Baltic Sea.9 Denmark and Sweden, however, remained outside these arrangements, and the declaration of Danish neutrality in 1914 was, although expected, seen in Paris as a failure of the French attempts at influencing the Scandinavians.

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‘Sticking to neutrality and doing business’ After 1914, the French leadership considered Scandinavian neutrality to be a regrettable, for some even a despicable, but nonetheless mostly an irreversible development. In the summer of 1916, the French representatives in Norway and Sweden sent a joint message to Paris: in the context of the war, the Scandinavians were eager to simply stick to their neutrality and to do business. Nothing could be expected from them, although pressure on them should be maintained in order to avoid their complete alignment with Germany. Especially Swedish neutrality was seen as deeply biased toward Germany, and it looked to be very difficult to force a change of policy on the part of any of these Scandinavian countries. Hopes existed in France that the Scandinavians would choose the side of the Entente in the war, but as early as 1915 press rumours in London and Paris about the possibility of a German-backed Swedish operation against Russia had been met with disbelief in the higher echelons of the French foreign policy leadership.10 As late as 1917, the French foreign minister shared the feelings of his representative in Stockholm, who described Swedish neutrality as a fact of international life that France could not change and that did not directly affect or threaten its war effort.11 However passive the reactions towards Nordic neutralities seem to have been, the French leadership closely followed Nordic developments. Signs of German domination or possible breaches in the fortress of Nordic neutrality were noted and commented upon. In October 1917, the end of Hjalmar Hammar-

9 Fraudet, Politique étrangère française, 184-215. 10 Bernard Auffray, Pierre de Margerie (1861-1942) et la vie diplomatique de son temps (Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck, 1976), 328-29; Fraudet, Politique étrangère française, 129-40. 11 Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, La grande guerre des Français, 1914-1918, 2nd ed. (Paris: Perrin, 1998), 267, 273, 277.

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skjöld’s government, considered pro-German, was warmly welcomed in Paris as a possible pro-Entente turn in Swedish policy. Hopes were entertained for a while that Sweden would actually become a point of stability in the region, possibly even replacing a Russian empire that seemed in the process of irremediably falling apart. In October 1917, almost a month before the Bolshevik revolution, the Third Bureau of the Chief of Staff’s Groupe de l’Avant proposed to compensate Sweden for its possible help against Germany. The Åland archipelago and even the Grand Duchy of Finland could be given to a neutral Sweden, providing this was able to stabilize the region against German influence.12 However, with George Clemenceau becoming prime minister in November 1917, the French vision of Sweden reverted to the traditional one of defiance. That was clearly to be seen in the debates over the December 1917 Finnish declaration of independence. Recognizing Finland on 4 January 1918, Clemenceau’s foreign minister Stephen Pichon justified the decision by the desire to act before Sweden did: behind Stockholm stood Germany, and the most important point at stake was to recognize Finland before the Germans and the Swedes did.13 In the context of the war, Nordic neutrals thus appeared to the French as a contested no man’s land between the Central Powers and the Entente. In the Nordic region, however, Britain led Allied action and was the main force of pressure on the neutrals. From the battle of Jutland in May–June 1916 to the various pressures exerted on Norway in 1916-1918, France was merely an accomplice to British actions in the region.14

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Between Germany and bolshevik Russia, 1917-1920 Immediately after 1918, the emergence of Finland, Poland and the Baltic states, the German defeat, and the crumbling of Tsarist Russia altered the face of the Nordic-Baltic region. In this profoundly changed context, accepting various forms of Nordic non-engagement was still difficult for the French. Germany’s influence

12 The Groupe de l’Avant was the état-major of the French Chief of staff. Dealing with ‘operational matters,’ its Third Bureau was important as a source of policy on Russian and eastern-European affairs during the mandate of George Clemenceau. See Michael Jabara Carley, Revolution and Intervention: The French Government and the Russian Civil War, 1917-1919 (Kingston and Montreal: MacGill Queen University Press, 1983), 15-17 and endnote 70. The plan we mention here is ‘Note au sujet de l’attitude qu’il convient d’adopter à l’égard de la Russie’, 3ème Bureau A, 11 Oct. 1917, in Service Historique de la Défense, Vincennes Paris [henceforth shat], 16N3021. 13 Stephen Pichon to embassies, 4 Jan. 1918, archives diplomatiques françaises, Ministère des Affaires étrangères, salle de lecture Paris [henceforth mae Paris], Guerre 14-18, Russie, file 710. 14 Nils Ørvik, The Decline of Neutrality, 1914-1941: With Special Reference to the United States and the Northern Neutrals, 2nd ed. (London: Franck Cass & Co. Ltd., 1971 [1953]).

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in the Baltic was still considered dangerous, and Bolshevism in Russia formed a new danger for the French to worry about. Sweden and Finland, who refused to associate officially with the French intervention plans in Russia, were also suspected of welcoming German influence. In the first years of Finnish independence, these problems made relations between France and the newly independent Finnish state difficult. The new state had emerged in 1917-1918 from the rubble of Russia, only to plunge into civil war in January 1918. German intervention in the conflict and the orientation of the country in the summer of 1918 had eventually pushed Paris to suspend its official relations with Finland. In 1919, Finland slowly stabilized into a republican regime emphasizing a cautious foreign policy regarding Russia. This Finnish non-interventionist policy, stabilizing after July 1919, unnerved a French leadership already suspicious regarding the Finns’ links with Germany. While Paris was busy trying to coordinate various military forces against the Bolsheviks, envoys in the region worked hard in the last months of 1919 to push the Finns into intervening alongside the White Russians. The French were especially interested in the prospect of Finnish support to the offensive led in the autumn by General Nikolai Youdenitch against Petrograd.15Although it is difficult to see a general trend in French policy at the time, the September–October Youdenitch project saw the French suddenly warmer towards Sweden and more stilted towards Finland. At the end of September, the French representatives asked their allies via a note for pressures to be exerted on Finland in the question of the Åland archipelago: Paris was obviously looking, by this and other means, for ways to bully the Finns into siding with the White Russians against Lenin.16 The image of Sweden, on the other hand, seemed to improve: on 29 September, during a meeting of the Heads of Delegations at the Peace Conference, the Assistant Director of Political and Commercial Affairs in the French Foreign Office Jacques Seydoux reminded everybody that Sweden seemed to acknowledge the existence of a blockade of

15

General elements on this subject in Anne Hogenhuis-Seliverstoff, Les relations franco-soviétiques, 1917-1924 (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, ihric, 1981); Michael Jabara Carley, Revolution and Intervention; Juhani Paasivirta, The Victors of World War i and Finland: Finland’s Relations with the English, French and us governments, 1918-1919 (Turku, Helsinki: Finnish Historical Society, Turun sanomalehti ja kirjapaino, 1965). 16 James Barros is the first researcher to mention this note given by French diplomatic representatives to Allied delegations, in his The Åland Islands Question: Its Settlement by the League of Nations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 196-98. This note is not mentioned in the transcripts of reunions of the conference as published, for example, in the Foreign Relations of the United States series, and it is not in the French diplomatic archives. However, a translation in English has been found in the American National Archives [henceforth ana]. See Translation Bureau, French Delegation, Note on the Åland Islands Question, 2542, dated 29 September 1919, ana, Group 256, General Records of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace, 1918-1931, file 462, 860D.014/63. The origin of this document is unclear.

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Soviet-controlled territory.17 Hopes were high that Stockholm, with all its talks of neutrality, could be brought fully on board in surrounding Russia. A few days before, George Clemenceau had proposed in the French Parliament that the injustice done to Sweden in the Åland islands case be repaired.18 In the same speech, Denmark as well was presented by Clemenceau as a victim of Germany which would be vindicated by France.19 Thus, while Sweden and Denmark were cajoled to join the blockade of Russia and help effect a reorganization of the Baltic Sea excluding Germany, Finland was pressured into helping Youdenitch. In October, the pressure on Finland increased as the White Russian general launched his offensive from Estonia. The French civil servants in contacts with Finnish representatives started talking about a ‘moment psychologique.’ The Finns were pressed to help the White Russians in their anti-Bolshevik campaign, unless they were willing to face the wrath of a new Russia born from the White Russians’ efforts.20 Far more important to the French than Swedish neutrality or Finnish proclaimed non-engagement in the Russian civil war was the place of these countries in the new equilibrium they wanted to see in the Baltic. Helsinki, however, stood firm while Youdenitch’s offensive failed to take Petrograd from the Bolsheviks. A year later, when the Finns started negotiations on a border arrangement with the Bolsheviks, talks of neutrality for Finland evoked in Paris nothing more than the possibility of a power vacuum in the region, rapidly filled in times of crisis by either Germany or the Bolsheviks.21 French suspicions were quickly aroused by talk of non-engagement going against the prevalent vision of France’s national interest. Sweden was again accused of taking advantage of the Russian chaos or of acting as a safe haven for the German ‘war criminals’ whom the French wanted to prosecute. The Finnish restraint in the Youdenitch affair

17 Compte-rendu réunion Conférence de Paix du lundi 29 septembre, Bibliothèque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine [henceforth bcid], Fonds Conférence de Paix Première Guerre mondiale, F delta rés. 801 (2)/17/03; See also Foreign Relations of the United States, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, 8: 366 for the draft note to neutral governments, and 429-55 for the meeting of 29 September. 18 Barros, The Åland Islands, 196. 19 The commission for Danish Affairs of the conference was led by André Tardieu, who compared in 1919 the lost duchies of Schleswig-Holstein with the Alsace-Lorraine region. Clemenceau had the same attitude toward Norway, promising Spitsbergen to the Norwegians as reparation for their merchant navy’s help during the war. See Bâtir une nouvelle sécurité: la coopération militaire entre la France et les Etats d’Europe Centrale et Orientale de 1919 à 1929, actes du colloque organisé en décembre 1999 par le centre d’études d’histoire de la Défense en collaboration avec le Service Historique de l’Armée de Terre et avec le concours du Centre d’Histoire du monde germanique et danubien de l’université de Paris iv (Vincennes: cehd et shat, 2001), 60. 20 ‘Le point de vue du gouvernement français est que la Finlande risque en mettant à son action sur Petrograd des conditions dont la conclusion ne peut être immédiate, de laisser passer le moment psychologique …,’ Pichon to embassies, 25 Oct.1919, mae Paris, Europe 1918-1940, urss, file 283. 21 Carl Enckell to Helsinki, report 46, Feb. 1920, Ulkoasiainministeriönarkisto, uma, R.5. Os. C, 6.

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was also interpreted in Paris not so much as one of the logical decisions under consideration by the Finnish leadership, but as the result of German influence. In what can be only described as diplomatic paranoia, the hand of the Germans was seen in all places in which the French or the British were not considered dominant.

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Positive neutrality? The cooling-down of European relations in the 1920s seemed to provide, from a French perspective, some breathing space for accepting Nordic neutralities as a contribution to European diplomacy. As French policy evolved from the enforcement of the Versailles treaty to a policy of collective security relying on the League of Nations and appeased relations with Germany, the Nordic countries gained a reputation as a group of small, worthy states working for peace and the strengthening of collective security. A debate emerged in France at the end of the 1920’s on these states and their international position: in a stabilized Europe, could small, neutral states from the Nordic and Baltic region help in strengthening collective security and the League of Nations?22 French feelings were ambiguous, as these small states were mostly asked to support the League while keeping a low profile. The 1927 session of the League saw heated discussion on this subject, especially surrounding a speech by the Lithuanian minister for foreign affairs, Feliks Cielens, in which he denounced the unwillingness of the League’s great powers to strengthen the structures of the organization. This speech and the question of small states’ neutrality provoked especially strong reactions in France. The question split the French political field in two. On the left of the political spectrum, advocates of collective security were particularly eager to embrace the image of small states strengthening the League’s system. They reminded the French public of the Norwegian Parliament’s speaker Carl Joakim Hambro’s call to great powers (‘Let the small states guide you on the way to progress’), and considered the Nordic policy as an attempt to strengthen the League and make international relations a more ’civilized’ affair.23 To some, the small states of Northern Europe could appear as models of democratic, pacific, moral international comportment. More conservative forces heavily criticized the ‘annoying habit’ of the Nordics and the Balts to take the moral high ground, as well as their criticisms of the Great Powers’ passivity in Geneva. This was the same old criticism of small neutrals one

22 Julien Gueslin gives an excellent account of this public opinion debate in his PhD: ‘La France et les petits Etats baltes’, which is available online at http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/12/63/31/PDF/TheseCorrigIllust-06-2005.pdf, 390-427. 23 See for example G. Cudenet, ‘A Genève,’ L’ère Nouvelle, 7 Sept. 1927.

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League of Nations representatives discuss a solution to the Åland archipelago question on 27 June 1921. From 1920 onwards, Swedish and Finnish delegates met with League members to discuss the fate of the archipelago, strengthening their contacts with the burgeoning international community and gaining a reputation for supporting the idea of collective security. Lithograph by F. Rackitz (Museovirasto, Helsinki).

could read during World War One, for example in the writings of Eugène Lautier for L’Homme Libre, who explicitly denounced Sweden as a country which had ‘hidden in a mouse hole’ during the war.24 Neutrals were criticized as disloyal and indecisive, taking advantage of a victory won by the French in 1918 and unwilling to help France reorganize Europe. For others, like the influential journalist Pertinax (André Géraud) or L’Action Française’s writer-historian Jacques Bainville, the small states had finally shown the weaknesses of the League’s architecture: their critics were right, but the instrument they defended had to be broken instead of reformed. Disdain for neutrality and small, unstable states mixed here with a general criticism of Aristide Briand’s policy of collective security. 24 ‘A Genève, le vieux-neuf,’ L’Homme Libre, 8 Sept. 1927; ‘A la sdn, Coup manqué,’ L’Homme Libre, 12 Sept. 1927.

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These 1927 debates very clearly demonstrated the confusion over the position of small states and the proclaimed neutrality of the Nordic countries. Neutrality was respectively seen in the frames of what each French political grouping thought about French foreign policy and European diplomacy. While the left and the radicals seemed ready to embrace the idea of neutral small states defending the essence of the League of Nations, conservatives were either criticizing them or using them to emphasize the weakness of the League.25 The Nordic states could be described either as defenders of European peace or as selfish states unwilling to take sides while nonetheless lecturing great powers on their legal and moral obligations.26 Ultimately, the question was linked to the French relations with the League of Nations and the slow shift in the focus of French foreign policy from collective security to damage control in the face of an increasingly assertive Germany. In parallel to that, Nordic neutrality became more assertive, emphasizing a will to withdraw from the commitments of the covenant in times of crisis.27 From a French point of view, the activities of the Oslo group in 1936-1938 cast a shadow on Nordic neutrality. Through declarations amounting to a withdrawal from their obligations under Article 16 of the covenant, the Nordic countries, Belgium and the Netherlands seemed in the eyes of French leadership to weaken collective security. Neutrality became a negative concept when the emphasis was no longer on building stability but on forming coalitions able to stand up to a resurgent German danger. However, despite the hostility and the suspicions relayed by the French press, official reactions to the declarations of the Oslo group remained distant, and at times critical. In 1938-1939, for the Minister for Foreign Affairs Yvon Delbos and his successor Georges Bonnet, the Oslo group’s ‘absolute neutrality’ was an ambiguous concept. It could possibly serve as a means to lower tensions in Europe; however, it also created a power vacuum in the Baltic region that Germany could easily fill. Delbos regretted this, denouncing at the same time the incapacity of the French to act against this development.28 The Ministry for Foreign Affairs was the most bitter, as nobody amongst the French diplomatic elite seemed to appreciate the irony of small states threatening the League of Nations while demanding a strengthening of its architecture. Above all, the impression dominated that Ger25 Gueslin, La France et les petits États baltes, 400-410. 26 Patrick Salmon, Scandinavia and the Great Powers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 76-85. 27 On 27 May 1938, the states of the Oslo group announced their withdrawal from Articles 15 and 16 of the covenant. The Oslo group had been created in 1930 as an organization of economic cooperation between neutral states. See S. Shepard Jones, The Scandinavian States and the League of Nations (New York: Greenwood Press, 1969); Ger van Roon, Small States in Years of Depression: The Oslo Alliance, 1930-1940 (Assen/Maastricht: Van Gorcum, 1989). 28 Delbos to embassies, 22 Jan. 1938, Documents Diplomatiques Français 1932-1939, 2me série 1936-1939 (Paris: Ministère des Affaires étrangères, 1963-1986) 8: 39-41 (no. 20).

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many, ultimately, would not respect Nordic neutralities. The diplomat Roger Maugras summarized this widely spread notion in 1936: ‘(Rickard) Sandler reminded us that the common policy of the Oslo states in case of a great powers’ conflict, is … to stay out of the fight. But to simply wish for that does not mean it will happen in reality.’29 Nordic neutrality kept the sympathies of some, eager to acknowledge the Nordic states’ role as international appeasers and advocates of the League.30 Yet, the dominant feeling was increasingly negative as tensions grew in Europe. As Robert Frank put it, ‘All of a sudden, the neutrals no longer symbolized peace, but seemed to emphasize national selfishness, going so far as to refuse to wage war on war.’31 With Hitler at the gates, the neutrality of countries like Sweden was once more seen as a liability. If there were differences as to how different sectors of French society saw Nordic neutrality, there were also differences in how the neutralities of different Nordic countries were considered: Sweden was particularly singled out by French critics, while Finland for example was long considered loyal to the basic tenets of the League.

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Forcing the neutrals to choose sides, 1939-1940 The years 1939-1940 saw a rapid demonization of neutrality in French perceptions. The French feared the transformation of the Baltic Sea into an ‘inner sea of the German race,’ as the ambassador André François-Poncet put it in 1937.32 Three years before, the secretary general of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Alexis Léger, was already worried about armament reductions in Sweden and Denmark.33 With Germany rising and war approaching, the negative appraisal of Nordic neutrality came to increasingly dominate French foreign policy. French society turned also against Nordic neutrals, L’Illustration describing in November 1937 a Baltic Sea dominated by Germany, with Denmark and Finland falling under Hitler’s yoke.34 When Sweden and Finland started talks on a common limited remilitarization of the Åland archipelago in January 1939, official French reactions remained

29 Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, La Décadence, 1932-1939, 3rd ed. (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1979), 269-76; Maugras to Paris, 6 May 1938, mae Paris, Questions Internationales, Bureau français de la sdn, file 41. 30 See Louis Tissot, La Baltique, situation des pays riverains de la Baltique, importance économique et stratégique de la ‘Méditerranée du Nord’ (Paris: Payot, 1940), 104-108. 31 ‘La neutralité: évolution historique d’un concept,’ in La neutralité dans l’histoire, actes de la conférence sur l’histoire de la neutralité organisée à Helsinki les 9-12 septembre 1992, ed. Jukka Nevakivi (Helsinki: shs, 1993), 25-31, on 28. 32 François-Poncet to Paris, 15 Apr. 1937, mae Nantes, Archives des postes diplomatiques français à l’étranger, Helsinki série A, file 4, sous-dossier eu-9-C-5. 33 Léger to Ministry of Defense, 5 Feb. 1934, shat (Paris) 7N3569, ema/3-Fonds sdn, 32-33. 34 Jacques Sorbets, ‘Extrémismes et antagonismes dans l’Arctique,’ L’Illustration, 27 Nov. 1937, 4943, 358-61.

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extremely cautious. The archipelago seemed a tempting target for Germany, and Paris wanted to keep it demilitarized. In conversations, the French representatives clearly spelt out to the Finns the difficulties they had in accepting the very concept of neutrality. The treaty of non-aggression signed in May 1939 between Denmark and Germany did nothing to alleviate French fears or lighten their criticism of the inherent weakness hidden behind Nordic neutralities.35 During the summer, while France and Great Britain negotiated with the ussr about guarantees to be given to countries on the western border of Russia, Nordic neutrality seemed even more problematic for the French.36 If discussions with Russia focused mostly on Poland, meanwhile the Baltic States and Finland, as well as Denmark, were criticized by the French press and officials alike for their stubbornness and Harri Holma (1886-1954) worked tirelessly to improve his unwillingness to acknowledge a Gercountry’s image in the eyes of the Frenchmen during his tenman danger. ure as Finnish envoy to France (1927-1943). Photo by the Criticism took a moralistic turn Rembrandt picture studio (Museovirasto, Helsinki). when the French press denounced small states as unwilling to side with democracy against tyranny. For those most engaged in an active policy against Hitler’s Germany, Nordic neutralities appeared irrelevant, obsolete. In the interest of building a common front against Hitler, summarized Gustave Hervé in La Victoire, small states should be forced to pick a side. Paul Peysan in Ce soir voiced this view clearly: if Finland, Estonia, and Latvia did not refuse a guarantor pact with France, Britain and the ussr, they must then be considered allies to Germany.37 On 9 September, the socialist leader Léon

35 Harri Holma to Helsinki, report 20, 25 May 1939, uma, R. 5, Os. C, 6. 36 On these conversations, Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, L’Abîme, 1939-1945 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1982) and Michael Jabara Carley, ‘End of the ‘Low, Dishonest Decade’: Failure of the Anglo-Franco-Soviet Alliance in 1939,’ Europe-Asia Studies 45, no. 2 (1993): 303-41. 37 Holma to Helsinki, report 24, 6 June 1939, uma, R. 5, Os. C, 6.

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Blum, asking whether or not the neutral states would be able to defend their neutrality, also denounced their ‘fake impartiality.’ Eventually, concludes Blum, Hitler will violate Nordic neutrality before the ussr does.38 At the level of French leaders, finally, several conversations with the Finns ended with the French lecturing their interlocutors on the German danger and the necessity of compromises with Russia. After the beginning of the war and the fall of Poland, the suspicions regarding the capacity of the small states to defend their independence added a new urgency to the French vision of Nordic neutrality. Civil servants in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs went as far as to emphasize a possible revival of the Russian alliance of 1892-1917: accepting an extension of Russian influence in the Baltic would mean securing the region against German influence. According to them, Nordic neutrals, especially Finland, would have to accept certain compromises with the Russian power.39 Starting in November 1939, this French ambiguity between a positive and a negative vision of neutrality culminated in the Finnish-Soviet war . While Finland appeared as the incarnation of violated neutrality and triggered a wave of enthusiasm in France, the Scandinavians, especially Norway and Sweden, became the villains of the play.40 Selfish states unable to see their interests in accepting the protection of the Allies, they refused stubbornly to let allied troops and material cross their territories. In this heated context, Norwegian and Swedish neutrality appeared in JanuaryMarch 1940 to the French public to be a deadly sin: these countries were, they believed, unwilling to help France and its allies against Germany, the country that had invaded neutral Belgium at the beginning in 1914. The refusal of Norway and Sweden to allow Allied material and troops into their territories triggered bitter reactions from the head of the French state, in Parliament and in the press. Neutrality was good enough when violated by autocratic neighbors, but bad when it stood in the way of the Allied conduct of war. It was even immoral, as it seemed to play into the hand of an autocratic, warmongering Nazi Germany. The pressures increased steadily from January to March 1940, every little incident used to pressure the Nordic neutrals into siding with the Allies. In March, his plan blown out of the water by the Finnish-Soviet peace declaration of 13 March, Edouard Daladier had to resign from his post. A few months later, Hitler chose to violate Nordic neutralities by invading both Denmark and Norway.

38 Léon Blum, ‘Tableau de l’Europe,’ Le Populaire, 7 September 1939. 39 Note from the Political department, 1 Oct. 1939, Documents Diplomatiques Français 1939-1944 (Paris: Ministère des Affaires étrangères, 2002-) 1: 285-288 (no. 174). 40 For this, see, for example, Louis Clerc, ‘La guerre d’hiver et le comité français d’aide à la Finlande, janvier– septembre 1940,’ Historiens et géographes, no. 382 (4/2003): 403-12.

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Heavy pressure was exerted in France against Norway and Sweden. Patrick Salmon is certainly right when he writes that ‘in this respect Soviet behaviour towards Finland (in October 1939) was little different from that of Great Britain and France towards the Nordic countries in the winter of 1939-1940.’41 Yet in the face of a stubborn Nordic refusal and despite the extreme pressure on the French government to intervene, the French ultimately fell short of the military intervention Hitler launched in April 1940. The pressures exerted by France, if strong, remained within the boundaries of respect for national sovereignty. Sir Alexander Cadogan, then the British foreign minister, expressed this rather bluntly as early as May 1940: ‘We may have had a hundred plans for intervention in Scandinavia. The point is that – rightly or wrongly – unlike the Germans – we drop our plans if they are distasteful to the wretched little neutral country concerned. That might be foolish and old-fashioned, but it is fairly respectable.’42 Foolish and old-fashioned as it may have been, the Allies’ policy was also based in common conceptions of what was strategically sound. France and Great Britain, emphasizing in their fight against Germany a discourse of peace and democracy, needed to stay reasonable in the hope of galvanizing other neutrals, especially the United States. Finally, as Salmon points out in the case of Britain, the question of resources and the uses to be made of them was as important for France as it was for Britain. In a country where the official strategy was overwhelmingly defensive, the difficulties met in putting together an expeditionary corps for Northern Europe were, in the beginning of 1940, proof enough that resources were scarce and difficult to muster.43 To back their pressure on the Nordic neutrals, the French leaders lacked the frame of mind, the tactical thinking, and the military tools that made Hitler able to conceive of and eventually carry out the seizure of Norway and Denmark in the space of a few weeks. They also lacked the British capacity to actually exert pressure directly in Norwegian waters. This question of the capacity to influence remained at the heart of the French relations with Nordic neutralities from the beginning of the twentieth century through World War Two. On the other hand, one could certainly argue that, from a French perspective, neutrality as a legal notion had never carried that much weight. The legal apparatus used to stabilize neutrality and define it was met with little interest in France before 1914, and never prevented the French leadership from trying to pressure the neutrals. State sovereignty, the general European and French context, and the means available to the French for their policy were the elements that

41 Salmon, Scandinavia, 356. 42 Cited in Patrick Salmon, ‘British Attitude Towards Neutrality in the Twentieth Century,’ in La neutralité dans l’histoire, ed. Nevakivi,130. 43 See Louis Clerc, ‘La guerre d’hiver de Finlande, novembre 1939-mars 1940,’ Revue Historique des Armées, no. 231 (2/2003): 77-90.

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mattered most. French society, on the other hand, saw neutrality through the prism of domestic debates on foreign policy and, to quote Geoffrey Vickers, entertained competing visions about the world as it should be.44 Neutrality was constantly tested, and often sorely criticized when tensions rose and battle lines were drawn. Should we conclude, as does René Girault, that Nordic neutrality was possible only after 1945, when Northern Europe was itself ‘neutralized’ by the equilibrium of the Cold War?45 It wouldn’t be far off the mark, even if the Nordic equilibrium of the Cold War was constantly disputed and Nordic neutralities tested also after 1945. We could also emphasize the way French-Nordic relations during the Interwar period show the possibility for neutrality to be acknowledged in times of low international tension.46 The reception of neutrality in France was a function of French debates, the definition of French national interests and objectives by the country’s leadership, and the means available to attain these objectives. The result of this equation was an ambiguous and quickly evolving French conception of Nordic diplomacy. Under specific circumstances, mostly as seen during the 1920s, Nordic neutrality could find a place in the French vision of European politics. When collective security seemed to redraw the contours of European diplomacy, French leaders and opinion could accept neutrality and the policy of small states in the League of Nations as a valuable contribution to the building of peace. Most of the time however, neutrality was seen, at best, as a vague notion strictly enclosed in diplomatic realities, at worst as the immoral attitude of small, selfish states.

44 Decisions, Organizations and Society: Selected Readings, ed. F.G. Castles et al. (New York: Penguin Books, 1978), 129-41. 45 René Girault, ‘En guise de conclusion,’ in La neutralité dans l’Histoire, ed. Nevakivi, 331-35. 46 See for example Christine Ingebritsen, ‘Norm Entrepreneurs: Scandinavia’s Role in World Politics,’ Cooperation and Conflict 37 (2002): 11-23.

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10

The Other End of Neutrality



The First World War, the League of Nations, and Danish neutrality

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»»

Karen Gram-Skjoldager1

In his seminal 1953 work The Decline of Neutrality, 1914-1941, the Norwegian historian Nils Ørvik noted about the First World War that ‘… neutrality became a luxury that could no longer be afforded. Therefore, it had to disappear.’2 This crucial weakening of neutrality, in Ørvik’s view, formed part of a general and basically linear development in the nineteenth and twentieth century, where isolationist neutrality disintegrated and was succeeded by a system of international military alliances and collective security. There is much truth to Ørvik’s interpretation. The concept of neutrality was undoubtedly critically weakened by the developments of the First World War. Still, the idea of neutrality survived as a basic point of orientation in the foreign policies of the small Western European states.3 And in Denmark, neutrality was upheld as more than a foreign policy cornerstone. In contradistinction to other small states in Europe, significant intellectual efforts were made to reinterpret and reinvent the concept of neutrality after the war and to maintain its status as a prominent political concept compatible with the new principle of collective security embedded in the League of Nations. This deliberate attempt at maintaining and developing the idea of neutrality, termed ‘neo-neutrality’ by its leading advocate, the legal advisor to the Danish Foreign Ministry Georg Cohn, was closely related to strands of American neutral thinking and to that of legal expert Phillip C. Jessup in particular.4 However, albeit similar to contemporary American ideas of neutrality, it was not primarily 1 2 3 4

The author would like to thank the participants in the conference as well as the two editors for their many helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. Nils Ørvik, The Decline of Neutrality, 1914-1941: With special reference to the United States and the Northern Neutrals (Oslo: Johan Grundt Tanum Forlag, 1953), 17. This is something Ørvik himself realized when he wrote a new closing chapter for the 1973 edition of the Decline of Neutrality. Karen Gram-Skjoldager, Fred og Folkeret: Internationalismens status og rolle i dansk udenrigspolitik, 1899-1939 (Århus: Aarhus University (unpublished PhD dissertation), 2008), 210-12.

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an import of American ideas. Rather, it was the product of a deeply rooted foreign political ideology linked to the Danish Radical Liberal Party (Det Radikale Venstre) and, to a lesser extent, to the Social Democratic Party. As such it was met with criticism from the liberal and conservative parties, which traditionally had a narrower and more strictly legal understanding of neutrality and now subscribed to the dominant European view that the concept of neutrality was losing its relevance as a political and legal concept. Danish foreign policy debates on whether neutrality was a concept in decline or, rather, one that was evolving and expanding not only mirror the broader conflict between the dominating European and American views on neutrality but also that between deeply rooted Danish foreign policy ideologies.5 In both interpretations however, the experience of the First World War played a central role. Consequently, the interaction between the pre-existing Danish notions of neutrality and the experience of the First World War is at the centre of this article. However, it does not focus its attention on the war-time years. In Denmark, as in the small neutral states in general, foreign political debates were severely restricted by the need to maintain a neutral image to the outside world. In Denmark this was particularly true for the leading radical liberal politicians, who were bound by their position in government and therefore did not engage in general foreign political discussions. Instead, the intellectual processing of the war and its consequences for neutrality formed part of and was intertwined with the reactions to the other major challenge Danish neutrality faced in the inter-war years: the League of Nations and the new concept of collective security. Therefore this article will attempt to show how existing Danish views on neutrality and the experience of the First World War were intertwined and how they reflected upon and shaped Danish attitudes toward the League. Placing a particular focus on the argument of the left side of parliament and especially the radical liberal left, it offers a critical engagement with Ørvik’s generalised narrative on neutrality through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the eroding effects of the First World War in particular.

Concepts of neutrality: An analytical framework In this first section of the article, two different, recent typologies of international legal arguments and concepts will be introduced. They serve to clarify the argument of the article and to present the Danish debates on neutrality in an internationally recognizable terminology.

5

Gram-Skjoldager, Fred og Folkeret, 187-212.

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The first of the two typologies has been developed by the Finnish international lawyer Martti Koskenniemi in his 1989 book From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument. According to Koskenniemi, modern arguments about international law are always situated in the tension field between two contradictory lines of argument. On the one hand, international law must base itself, in order to be efficient in regulating state actions, on something concrete – that is the actual behaviour, will, and interests of states. This is what Koskenniemi terms an ‘ascending’ line of argument. On the other hand, to be valid as law and not a mere reflection of the political preferences of the states that are the subject to the law, a distance must be created between the law and actual state behaviour. This can be done only by reference to general normative principles. This means that international law also contains what Koskenniemi terms a ‘descending’ line of argument referring to moral principles, peace, the international community or similar phenomena and that international legal arguments are always moving between two mutually logically exclusive patterns of arguments.6 That this also holds true for the concept of neutrality has recently been demonstrated by the British sociologist Stephen C. Neff. Although he is seemingly unaware of Koskenniemi, Neff makes the same basic argument in his book The Rights and Duties of Neutrals. A General History (2000). Neff shows how the First World War marked a shift from a dominantly ascending, state based view of neutrality, to a mainly descending, moral view of neutrality. In other words, he does not only take Koskenniemi’s argument from a general to a concrete level, he also adds a temporal dimension to his argument. In Neff’s interpretation, political and theoretical discourse on neutrality in the nineteenth and early twentieth century was dominated by what he terms the ‘code-of-conduct’ school of neutrality. In this period, according to Neff, neutrality had come to be viewed essentially as a negotiated compromise between the national interests of belligerents and neutral states. It was the central tenet of this view that a distinct and symmetrical set of rights and duties of neutral and belligerent states sprang into being when a state of war occurred, and that this state constituted the concept of neutrality. However, with the devastating effects of the First World War and the introduction of Wilsonian internationalism, a new idea of neutrality arose, dubbed the ‘community interest’ school by Neff. Within this new approach, the rights and duties of belligerents and neutrals were no longer to be balanced against one another but to be measured against the interest of the international community at large. As it became a new objective of the international – at least the European – political system to fight war through international coercive measures, the community interest school was char-

6

Martti Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument (Helsinki: Finnish Lawyers’ Publ. Co., 1989), 2-8, 40-51.

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acterized by a stern suspicion of the very idea of neutrality.7 As may have become clear, the intellectual developments described by Neff fit well into Ørvik’s general narrative about the diminishing status and role of neutrality. However, as we shall see, the Danish pattern of development did not fit into the general picture drawn by Neff either before, nor after the war.

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Danish ideas of neutrality before the First World War Before the outbreak of the First World War, the Danish foreign political debates were structured around a major dividing line between the left and right side of parliament. On the right side were the conservative and liberal parties, on the left side the social democrats and the Radical Liberal Party. The Radical Liberal Party was the smaller of the two left-wing parties, representing primarily academics, teachers and smallholders. However, it was the more influential of the two in the field of foreign policy. In particular its party leader, P. Munch, who was minister of defence from 1913 to 1920 and foreign minister from 1929 to 1940, played a defining role in Danish foreign policy making. As Georg Cohn, who had strong personal and ideological ties to Munch, occupied the key position as legal advisor to the Danish Foreign Ministry throughout the inter-war period,8 there was a continuous line of radical influence in Denmark’s foreign policy from the years before the First World War to the outbreak of the Second World War. In the years prior to the First World War, a consensus had emerged between all the political parties that Denmark should pursue a policy of neutrality. However the two sides of Parliament clashed on the nature of that neutrality. The liberal and conservative parties subscribed to the dominating ‘code-of-conduct’ understanding of neutrality. They believed it to be a simple legal contraption defined by impartiality, passivity and a strong military defence that would make the impartial position and the integrity of the Danish territory credible to the belligerent countries. In opposition to this view, the left side of parliament understood neutrality in a broader and more positive sense as a principle that was closely related to international peace and cooperation. The Radical Liberal Party had strong ties to the Danish antimilitaristic peace movement, which had heavily influenced its foreign political ideology. Thus, neutrality was viewed by the Radical Liberal Party as basically a principle of non-violence. As the neutral position was seen as one of moral superiority, it was also a basic tenet of the radical liberal position that

7 8

Stephen C. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 48-52, 86-108, 145-90. For a closer investigation of the relationship between Cohn and Munch, see Gram-Skjoldager, Fred og Folkeret, 209-210.

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The Other End of Neutrality

Defence minister P. Munch on his way to the Foreign Ministry (Det kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen).

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the neutral states could not be expected to engage in equal negotiations with the belligerent countries on their rights and duties during war or oblige themselves to defend their territory with military means. In the case of Denmark, it was even believed that the presence of a significant military defence would render Denmark more vulnerable to a British or German attack because the great powers would want to get hold of the military resources in the strategically important Danish territory.9 In summary, the left side of parliament were promoting a descending, community-interest based concept of neutrality that distinguished itself from the dominant contemporary code-of-conduct understanding of the concept. Liberal peace movements and peace activists, particularly in small states around Europe, were generally favourable to the idea of neutrality, but none of them gave the concept the same absolute, moral and antimilitaristic character as Danish radical liberals did.10 As we shall see, it was this broad and idealistic understanding of neutrality that enabled the Danish foreign political environment to maintain its relevance despite the erosion of its legal aspects during the war and allowed them to fuse it with the new idealistic system of the League.

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Denmark during the First World War Denmark, like other European small states, felt the corroding effects of the world war on neutrality. Due to its small size and its strategically important position as a bridge from the continent to Norway and Sweden and as a gate keeper of the Baltic Sea, Denmark was in a very vulnerable position. The international nature of the Danish economy, with Great Britain and Germany as major trading partners made sure Denmark felt the full effects of economic warfare. As a result, the Danish government was faced with threats to Denmark’s security as well as problems and pressures in relation to Danish foreign trade throughout the war. To cope with these problems, the radical liberal government developed a set of different strategies. In the field of economic relations, Foreign Minister Erik Scavenius performed a daring balancing act, using Great Britain and Germany’s dependence on Danish supplies to maintain trade with both parties. In terms of defence, a ‘national compromise’ was struck in 1915, in which Munch refrained from pursuing Danish disarmament during the war, while the right-wing opposition desisted from demanding an increase in military spending. Both of these strategies were, however, framed by an overall orientation toward Germany. The radical liberal government, ever mindful of the disastrous defeat Denmark had 9 Gram-Skjoldager, Fred og Folkeret, 53-79, 106-118. 10 Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals, 99-108; Gram-Skjoldager, Fred og Folkeret, 46-79.

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endured at the hands of the Prussians in the war of 1864, believed it would be fatal if Denmark would be forced to join the Allies against Germany. As a consequence it engaged in an increasingly pronounced pattern of adaptation toward Germany to prevent this from happening. Nonetheless, Denmark managed to uphold its neutral status and its foreign trade.11 Set in this light, even if Danish foreign policy makers recognised the damaging effect of the war to the concept of neutrality, they still considered neutrality a successful Danish security political strategy and a cornerstone in future Danish foreign policy.12 However, as we shall see there were major differences between the two sides of parliament as to the precise status and nature of neutrality after the war.

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The creation of the League of Nations During the First World War, political discussions on the fundamental character of Danish neutrality had been suspended. However, in the immediate post war years, two developments made sure the topic was reintroduced to the political agenda: the creation of the League of Nations in 1919 and the laws on the reorganisation of the Danish military and naval forces that were under debate in parliament from 1920 and passed in 1922. The position of the right side of parliament in these debates was characterised by a striking complementary pattern. In the debates on Denmark’s accession to the League, the conservative and liberal parties took no interest in the Danish experience during the war and adopted a critical view of the future prospects for neutrality. In the debates on Danish defence, on the contrary, wartime experience played a central role in their arguments and neutrality was viewed as an important political strategy for security. In the debates on Denmark’s accession to the League of Nations in March 1920, the liberal and conservative parties pointed to the consequences of League membership for Danish neutrality. They claimed that the League, and in particular article 16 of the covenant on economic and military sanctions, was fundamentally at odds with the idea of neutrality. Viewing the League as an important step in the development toward international order and justice, they claimed that the era of war and neutrality was drawing to an end. Their claim that the League’s system of

11

Carsten Due-Nielsen, ‘Denmark and the First World War,’ Scandinavian Journal of History 10 (1985): 1-18; Bo Lidegaard, Overleveren. vol. 4 of Dansk Udenrigspolitiks Historie, ed. Carsten Due-Nielsen, Ole Feldbæk, Nikolaj Petersen (Copenhagen: Gyldendal Leksikon, 2003), 42-104. 12 Lidegaard, Overleveren, 162-63.

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sanctions was both vital and incompatible with neutrality was upheld throughout the inter-war period.13 Thus, it is evident that the right side of parliament shared the new – and sceptical – ‘community interest’ approach to neutrality that had gained international prominence with the advent of Wilsonian internationalism. However, the liberal and conservative view of the League was also in keeping with the ‘code of conduct’ understanding of neutrality they had subscribed to before the war; logically, a concept of neutrality such as theirs that pertained to a situation of war and was defined mainly by its legal and military aspects could have no place in an internationalist enterprise such as the League. During the parliamentary debates regarding the Danish defence force, which raged from 1920 to 1922, similar arguments came to the fore.14 In this case, however, the specific Danish experience of neutrality during the First World War played a central role. The liberal and conservative parties claimed that a key element in the successful Danish policy of neutrality had been the relatively strong military defence and that this would therefore also have to be an important element in a future Danish policy of neutrality.15 However, the conservative and liberal positions on the League and Danish defence were connected by a consistent wish to maintain a relatively strong Danish military defence and to balance Danish dependence on Germany with strong ties to the Western powers.16 A very different pattern can be identified in the radical liberal and social democratic positions in the two debates. In the arguments concerning Danish League membership, the two parties presented a principled conceptual challenge to the narrative of decline and discontinuity in the concept of neutrality. Instead, they argued, the concept of neutrality was still a valid and important concept in Dan-

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13

Møller in lower house, Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger, 1919-20, 3857-58; Krag in upper house, Rigsdagstidende, Landstingets Forhandlinger, 1919-20, 1182-83; Pürschel in lower house, Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger, 1921-22, 7111; Moltesen in lower house, Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger, 1924-25, 513; Brorsen in lower house, Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger, 1924-25, 1742; Andersen in lower house, Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger, 1924-25, 1951; Brorsen in lower house, Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger, 1928-29, 1863; Andersen in lower house, Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger, 1929-30, 1924. 14 When it still made sense to discuss neutrality after the creation of the League of Nations, it was because the concept was still efficient outside the framework of the League. There was a general political realisation that in the case of legal wars – that is wars breaking out after the procedures and deadlines laid down in the League had been adhered to and wars fought between two or more states that were not members of the League – the concept of neutrality still existed in the form it had been given in the Hague conventions from 1907 (See for instance Petersen and Møller in the lower house, Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger, 1919-20, 3835 and 3857). 15 The positions of the conservative and liberal parties in relation to the defence laws of 1922 have been scrutinised by Knud Larsen in: Forsvar og Folkeforbund: En studie i Venstres og Det konservative Folkepartis forsvarspolitiske meningsdannelse, 1918-1922 (København: Institut for samfundsfag, Københavns Universitet, 1976). 16 Cf. Lidegaard, Overleveren, 215-17.

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ish and international politics. In this argument, the First World War and its effect on neutrality played a central role. In the white paper on Denmark’s accession to the League from February 1920, Georg Cohn claimed that membership of the new organisation did not have consequences for Danish neutrality and military defence.17 This viewpoint was repeated by radical liberals and social democrats during the debates over Danish accession in the following months.18 The supposed compatibility between League membership and neutrality was based on the Danish experience of economic warfare during the First World War. Georg Cohn and radical liberal and social democratic members of parliament claimed that the widespread use of economic blockade had demonstrated that the neutral states would become part of the economic warfare in future wars, whether they wanted to or not. Therefore, so they argued, economic impartiality could no longer be considered part of the concept of neutrality. And therefore, according to them, being a member of the League was no different from standing outside the organisation and thus not at odds with neutrality. As participation in military sanction was optional under the covenant, the obligations Denmark accepted on her entry into the organisation were of a primarily economic character – and these were no longer to be viewed as irreconcilable with the concept of neutrality. In summary, the left side of parliament claimed that it was exactly because of the reduction of the concept of neutrality during the First World War that it could be reconciled with and developed within the League of Nations. To support this claim, it pointed to Switzerland: a member of the League with an obligation to participate in economic sanctions but still recognised as a neutral state by the League’s founding members.19 The weak point of this claim – as liberal and conservative members of parliament did not fail to point out – concerned the so-called ‘right of passage’ clause. Under article 16 of the covenant all members were obliged to allow passage to military, naval and air forces partaking in official League sanctions. This deprived the neutral states of their territorial immunity and made them part of a military operation.20 Arguing, however, that all member states had a right to veto passage through their territory because all League members were granted ad hoc membership of the Leauge Council in matters of special interest to them21 and that parlia-

17 White paper published in Rigsdagstidende 1919-20, Appendix A, 5399-5430. 18 Bramsnæs in upper house, Rigsdagstidende, Landstingets Forhandlinger, 1919-20, 1191; Borgbjerg and Petersen in lower house, Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger, 1919-20, 3821 and 3833. 19 Rigsdagstidende, 1919-20, Appendix A, 5422; Petersen in lower house, Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger, 1919-20, 3636-37 and Bramsnæs in upper house, Rigsdagstidende, Landstingets Forhandlinger, 1919-20, 1196. 20 Cf. white paper on Denmark’s accession to the League of Nations, Rigsdagstidende, 1919-20, Appendix A, 5422. 21 See the comments on the resolution on Denmark’s accession to the League: Rigsdagstidende, 1919-20, Appendix A, 5391.

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ments could overturn their governments’ decision to grant passage, Cohn was able to get round these objections.22 This unorthodox view of the possibility of maintaining neutrality within the League was in harmony with, and possibly also partially a consequence of, the descending, moral and positive view of neutrality held by radical liberal quarters before the war. As has been demonstrated, the left side of parliament had never attributed much significance to the legal aspects of neutrality, and there was a principled compatibility between the internationalist system of the League and the radical liberal understanding of neutrality as a representative of peace and the common international good. Viewed from this perspective, it would seem possible and meaningful to integrate the two systems into one intellectual construction based in the experience of the First World War. The same antimilitaristic concept of neutrality was also present in the defence debates. Here, radical liberal politicians addressed the question of Denmark’s strategic position during the war and argued that Denmark’s neutral status had been upheld not because of, but rather in spite of the military defence that the government had been forced to maintain due to the liberal and conservative opposition.23 However, these radical liberal and social democratic views were not only results of conceptual abstractions. In both debates they were also – and probably mainly – formulated with a view to Denmark’s present military and strategic position. The left side of parliament held a strong belief that Danish security political strategies would have to take into account that Germany would eventually regain its status as the dominant continental great power, and the positions on the League as well as the defence laws served to support the idea of a disarmed Denmark with a strong orientation towards Germany.24 However, in the radical liberal and social democratic analysis, this ulterior motive did not contradict or work against the internationalist views of the two parties. Quite to the contrary, it was argued that a disarmed, neutral Denmark held an ideal position for promoting international détente, disarmament, and arbitration.25

Georg Cohn and the concept of neo-neutrality After the defence laws were passed in 1922, Denmark’s relationship with the League of Nations attracted fairly little political attention. However, while political interest was low, Georg Cohn took the idea of uniting the systems of neutrality and

22 23 24 25

White paper on Denmark’s accession to the League of Nations, Rigsdagstidende, 1919-20, Appendix A, 5416f. Lidegaard, Overleveren, 162-63 Lidegaard, Overleveren, 159-62, 215-17. Gram-Skjoldager Fred og Folkeret, 205-7.

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League membership to a new level; in his article Neutralité et Société des Nations, published in 1924, he introduced the ideas he would later collectively dub neoneutrality.26 The idea of neo-neutrality consisted of three main elements: 1) an elaborate argument supporting the view that it was possible to combine the two legal systems of neutrality and the League covenant; 2) a strong and absolute rejection of war in all forms and under all circumstances; 3) a programme for internationalist activities corresponding with these views. In arguing that Danish neutrality and League membership need not be at odds with each other, Cohn expanded upon the legal argumentation he had developed in relation to Denmark’s entry into the League. Most importantly, he claimed that the activation of articles 16 and 17 (relating to the imposition of sanctions) of the covenant did not create a state of war but merely instituted attempts to fight war with peaceful means and that therefore the covenant did not touch on or conflict with existing laws of neutrality.27 To support this view he pointed to the League’s own stance on the imposition of sanctions. In 1921, the League Assembly passed a number of directives softening the collective security system of the League in several regards, among other things by stressing that military sanctions were a last resort only to be applied after economic sanctions had been activated.28 Cohn claimed that the 1921 directives proved that article 16 was fundamentally of an economic nature and that military sanctions were no more than mere instruments to support economic sanctions. As the Hague conventions did not oblige the neutral state to maintain economic relations with belligerent states Cohn claimed that articles 16 and 17 were compatible with the law on neutrality and – perhaps even more surprising – that the concept of neutrality was also compatible with participation in military sanctions.29 Just as interesting in our context are however the two other aspects of his idea of neo-neutrality as they link him closely to the antimilitarist radical liberal neutrality thinking of the pre-war period. It was a crucial point for Cohn that to be efficient, internationalist activities would need to be based on an absolute disqualification of war. In accordance with the traditional radical antimilitarism, he viewed war as morally and legally unacceptable no matter its causes and regardless of whether it was a war of defence or aggression. This view he developed in great detail in his Kriegsverhütung und Schuldfrage from 1931. Here he claimed, as other radical 26 Georg Cohn, ‘Neutralité et Société des Nations,’ in Les origines et l’œuvre de la Société des Nations ed. P. Munch (Copenhagen: Rask-Ørstedfonden, 1924), 2: 152-204; Cohn, Neo-Neutralitet. The thesis on neo-neutrality was published in English in 1939 under the title Neo-neutrality. 27 Cohn, Neutralité et Société des Nations, 192. 28 F.P. Walters, A History of the League of Nations (London, New York, Toronto: The Royal Institue of International Affairs, 1952), 148. 29 Cohn, Neutralité et Société des Nations, 175-91.

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liberal politicians had done before him, that the causes of war were to be found in economic, social and mental structures transcending questions of guilt and punishment. Consequently, according to Cohn, a general obligation existed for all states, and for the small neutral states in particular, to put economic, political, and if necessary military pressure on warring states to bring an end to war, no matter who or what had caused it. In doing so, Cohn had not only made internationalist involvement and neutrality compatible, he had also dissolved the distinction between neutrality and internationalism as the two concepts were now interpreted to mean the same thing.30 In accordance with his international diagnosis, Cohn claimed that efforts to prevent war should be focused on international economic, social and intellectual cooperation, disarmament, arbitration and the development of international law.31 However, by claiming that neutral states should participate in collective international sanctions, he had pushed the traditional radical views of neutrality a significant step further. On this point, his ideas were more closely related to the new activist understandings of neutrality promoted by Phillip Jessup and the German international legal expert and peace activist Hans Wehberg.32 In summary, it seems fair to argue that he had created a matrix that integrated traditional radical liberal views of neutrality with the new organizational and intellectual framework of the international political system after the war.

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The League of Nations and Danish neutrality in the 1930s In insisting on using the concept of neutrality as a positive, activist concept that also denoted the internationalist activities of small states, Georg Cohn did not have broad political backing in the parliamentarian setting. Danish internationalism was generally characterised by a strong ‘small state exceptionalism,’ viewing small states as particularly apt to promote international peace and cooperation. But in general parliamentarians and members of government – including radical liberals – did not use the term neutrality to describe this positive, transformative role of the small states in relation to the League of Nations.33 They simply used the term ‘small states.’ This notwithstanding, the political establishment still believed that if she returned to a cautious neutrality, Denmark would, in new times of danger, be

30 Georg Cohn, Kriegsverhütung und Schuldfrage. Frankfurter Abhandlungen zum modernen Völkerrecht 23 (Leipzig: Robert Noske, 1931), 182-83 31 Cohn, Kriegsverhütung und Schuldfrage, 183-86. 32 Gram-Skjoldager, Fred og Folkeret, 210-12. 33 Gram-Skjoldager, Fred og Folkeret, 171-86.

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able to fare just as well as she had done in the First World War. And the left side of parliament still believed that League membership and neutrality were compatible concepts. In this final section we will briefly investigate how these views and interpretations were articulated in relation to the crisis of the League of Nations in the 1930’s. Throughout the 1920’s, the question of collective security and neutrality was not brought to a head. By the beginning of the 1930’s, however, international tensions were rising and the collective security provisions of the League took on a new strong topicality. Japan’s invasion of the Chinese province of Manchuria in 1931 represented the first direct attempt at overthrowing the international territorial order after the First World War. And in 1935 the League’s sanctions system was finally put to the test when Italy invaded Abyssinia. This immediately explicated the particular radical liberal notion of neutrality and League membership. When in October of 1935 the League Assembly decided to institute sanctions against Italy, Denmark supported this decision. However, Munch – now foreign minister in a radical liberal and social-democratic coalition government – took great care in shaping his arguments in favour of Danish participation in the sanctions in a way that made it possible to claim that Denmark was still neutral while participating in sanctions. When presenting the bill on Danish participation in the sanctions in the lower house of the Danish parliament on 13 November 1935, he eschewed all reflections on the patterns of interests among the great powers that were underlying the sanctions against Italy. Helped by the conciliatory official rhetoric of the League, he did not place any responsibility in the conflict and he did not state which outcome he considered desirable. He also made sure to state with great precision that Danish participation in the sanctions did not mark a breach with neutrality and did not prevent Denmark from staying neutral in a future conflict involving the League. In his speech he stressed the right of the individual state to decide whether a breach of the covenant had occurred, and he pointed out that Switzerland, while being a declared neutral, took part in the sanctions.34 At the same time he repeated the axiom that the League’s collective security system had only changed, not annulled, the concept of neutrality.35 This was a view also stressed by Georg Cohn in a meeting on the sanctions in the Foreign Ministry on 25 October 1935 in which he stated that ‘it is not necessary to give up neutrality in order to fight war.’36 34 Munch in the lower house 13 Nov. 1935, Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger, 1935-36, 65-72 cf. Ole Karup Pedersen, Udenrigsminister P. Munchs opfattelse af Danmarks stilling i international politik (Copenhagen: Gads Forlag, 1970), 199-201. 35 Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger, 1935-36, 102. 36 [‘… at man ikke er nødt til at opgive Neutraliteten fordi man bekæmper Krigen’], minutes of meeting in the Foreign Ministry 25 Oct. 1935, Danish National Archives Copenhagen [henceforth dana], Archive of the Danish Foreign Ministry, 5.Q.16.Dan.a, parcel ii.

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In the implementation of the sanctions against Italy, measures were also taken to ensure that this claim was substantiated. While sanctions seem to have been generally implemented loyally, Cohn ensured that Denmark would not follow the League’s guidelines regarding arms exports, in case need arose, because he believed it would endanger Danish neutrality to allow the sale of weapons to Abyssinia while prohibiting their export to Italy.37 He argued that it was important for Denmark to uphold the embargo equally, because it made it possible ‘at a later stage to claim that we have not deviated from the line of neutrality and are therefore qualified for being treated as a neutral by present or potential future belligerents.’38 This view was upheld in the following years when the disintegration of the League caused the small ex-neutral states to return to their traditional policies of neutrality. After the unsuccessful sanctions against Italy in 1935-36, it was evident that the League had lost its role as a serious international player. In combination with growing international tensions, this led the small ex-neutral states to announce their withdrawal from the League’s collective security system in two joint statements in 1936 and 1938. In the first of the two statements, the ex-neutrals expressed their doubts as to whether the conditions under which they had accepted the obligations of the covenant were still present. Further, they declared that they had to take this fact into consideration in case the sanctions system would again be activated. The statement was somewhat ambivalent: it referred to the 1921 directives as the legal basis of this position, thereby indicating that the signatory states believed to be within the boundaries of the covenant when taking this position. Nonetheless, it was evident that the little group of Western European states were trying to rebuild their common profile as a group of neutral states.39 However, in Denmark this was not how it was portrayed by the government. Munch repeated that membership of the League and a policy of neutrality had always been compatible and that that the Danish position in relation to the League was the same after the statements as it had always been. As he put it in a meeting in the Danish parliamentarian foreign policy committee in July 1936, this declaration ‘… did not express a new policy of neutrality in opposition to a previous policy.’40 37 See for instance memorandum of 11 Nov. 1935, dana, Archive of the Danish Foreign Ministry, um 5.Q.16. Dan.a, parcel ii. 38 [‘… senere at indtage det Standpunkt, at vi ikke har fraveget Neutralitetslinien og derfor er berettiget til at behandles som neutrale af de nuværende eller eventuelle fremtidige Krigsførende’], Memorandum by Georg Cohn 15 Oct. 1935, dana, Archive of the Danish Foreign Ministry, 5.Q.16.Dan.a, parcel i. 39 Gram-Skjoldager, Fred og Folkeret, 375-77. 40 [‘… ikke var Udtryk for nogen ny Neutralitetspolitik i Modsætning til en tidligere’], Minutes from meeting in the parliamentarian foreign policy committee 13 July 1936, dana, Archive of the Danish Foreign Ministry, 3.E.92, parcel.7.

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‘Sorry Doctor, we are all done here.’ Cartoon from the 1936 issue of the satirical magazine Blæksprutten (‘The Cuttlefish’). The cartoon refers to Munch’s insistence that Danish membership of the League still made sense in the late 1930s, despite the changing political reality.

It seems likely that this view was also a contributing reason why Denmark, amongst all the other neutrals, was most hesitant to sign the 1938 declaration. While Munch supported the 1936 statement, he worked actively against the 1938 declaration which had a more absolute character; unlike the 1936 declaration it did not claim that the position of the small states was in line with the 1921 directives. Instead, it presented the position of neutrals as a new position it had proven necessary to take after the breakdown of the collective security provisions. And it claimed that not only the ex-neutral states but all member states were entitled to take up this distanced position towards the League. Nonetheless, even after the 1938 declaration had been issued, Munch did not acknowledge that a change had occurred in Denmark’s international legal position.41 Munch’s views and his cautious and conciliatory line towards the League were strongly opposed by the liberal and conservative opposition. When sanctions were

41 Gram-Skjoldager, Fred og Folkeret, 375-82.

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implemented against Italy in 1935, it opposed Munch’s interpretation of the Danish participation in the sanctions system, claiming that it marked a break away from the policy of neutrality.42 And immediately after the 1936 declaration, the right wing parties claimed that the declaration had caused a decisive break in Danish foreign policy, which had ‘… turned around from being a definite League of Nations policy to be the old policy of neutrality.’ Over the next years they demanded with increasing intensity that the government acknowledge this.43 This intense debate over Denmark’s relation to the League in the late 1930s was a reflection of the sharp political differences over what kind of defence policy Denmark should adopt in order to repeat the success of the First World War in the increasingly hostile international environment. Munch, who believed that increasing Danish military resources merely meant increasing Denmark’s attraction as a military target, had good reason to maintain that Denmark was still part of the League’s system of collective security and that it therefore could still rely on the League as a safety net.44 For the liberal and conservative parties on the other hand, it was crucial that the Danish military defence, which had been reduced substantially during the inter-war period, would be built up again in order for it to have the same deterrent effect as they believed it had during the First World War. They felt that the collapse of the League’s collective security meant that Denmark should adopt alternative methods of safeguarding itself from attack.45 In summation, the late 1930’s discussions on Denmark’s position in relation to the League of Nations may be seen as the product of the different concepts of neutrality in the two sides of the Danish parliament as well as their different interpretations of the experiences of the First World War. However, nowhere did the distinctive character of the radical liberal idea of neutrality make itself more visible than when Denmark was attacked by Nazi-Germany on 9 April 1940. In accordance with the long-standing assumption that Denmark held no international legal obligations to defend her neutral status and in accordance with the belief that any military defence of Denmark was futile, the Danish government put up hardly any military resistance. Although Munch never contradicted the German claim that the occupation was executed in order to protect Danish neutrality, it has been documented that he most probably did not believe Denmark still possessed 42 See for instance Oluf Krag in lower house: Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger, 1935-36, 89 and 192. 43 [‘… svinget over fra at være en afgjort Folkeforbundspolitik til at være den gamle Neutralitetspolitik’], Christmas Møller in the lower house 14 Oct. 1936, Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger, 1936-37, 84. See also Holger Andersen in the upper house, Rigsdsdagstidende, Landstingets Forhandlinger, 1936-37, 2140-41 and Harte, Pürschel and Kraft in lower house, Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger 1936-37, 3549, 4908, 5957; Christmas Møller and Kraft in lower house, Rigsdagstidende, Folketingets Forhandlinger, 1937-38, 101 (Christmas Møller), 317, 1433-34, 1437-41, 1452 (Kraft). 44 Gram-Skjoldager, Fred og Folkeret, 379. 45 Gram-Skjoldager, Fred og Folkeret, 388-89.

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the legal status of a neutral state after the attack. What he did believe, however, was that it was still possible – and a critical political goal – to maintain the moral neutrality of the Danish nation during the German occupation. In other words, while he believed that neutrality as a legal attribute of the state had been lost, he thought it was still possible for the Danish people to uphold neutrality as a moral concept.46 In this exact standpoint lies the essence of the radical liberal concept of neutrality. To Munch, and other politicians sharing his viewpoints, neutrality was always primarily an ideological and moral concept that negated war and represented peace. As such it could not be eliminated even by the most drastic political and legal developments in the international system – be it the creation of the League of Nations or two world wars.

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Conclusion This article has investigated how Danish views on neutrality dating back to the preFirst World War period and the experience of that war interacted in the post-war years and how they reflected on Danish attitudes toward the League of Nations. Placing a particular focus on the radical liberal left which argued that neutrality was still alive and well after the First World War, I have shown that Ørvik’s generalised narrative about the decline of neutrality and the critical weakening of the concept by the First World War does not tell the whole story about the status of neutrality in the first half of the twentieth century. Using Martti Koskenniemi’s and Stephen C. Neff’s conceptualisations of international legal arguments and concepts as an analytical framework, I have argued that a moral and antimilitarist ‘community interest’ concept of neutrality developed among the two major left wing parties before the war. The conservative and liberal parties, on the other hand, promoted a ‘code of conduct’ concept of neutrality based primarily on military and legal qualities. Based in these different conceptions of neutrality, the two sides of parliament developed very different interpretations of the First World War. The liberal and conservative parties were focused primarily on the military aspects of Danish neutrality. They saw the successful attempt to keep Denmark out of the war as evidence of the fact that substantial military resources were necessary to maintain Danish neutrality. The left side of the parliament on the other hand was primarily focused on the consequences of economic warfare for neutrality and related this to Denmark’s membership of the League of Nations. The two left wing parties claimed that the 46 Svenningsen, Nils, ‘Danmarks status efter 9. april 1940 og dr. Munchs politik,’ Historisk Tidsskrift 12, v (1971): 343-70.

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new aggressive forms of economic warfare, and the reduced scope for neutrality that followed from it, could be viewed as a resource in relation to the future development of the concept of neutrality: combining it with their moral, antimilitarist conception of neutrality, they claimed that the idea of neutrality was compatible with participation in the collective security system of the League. This view was taken to an extreme by the legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry, Georg Cohn, who added an absolute rejection of war and a variety of peace political strategies and termed this construction ‘neo-neutrality.’ Though the liberal and conservative parties had a different opinion of this matter, claiming that neutrality was irreconcilable with League membership, the radical interpretation became defining for the Danish attitude towards the League of Nations. Based in the particular, moral understanding of neutrality and the axiom of compatibility between League membership and neutrality, Munch was able to present Danish League of Nations policies in terms of continuity throughout the interwar period. Neither Denmark’s entry into the League nor its active involvement in the organisation during the inter-war period constituted, in the radical liberal analysis, a principled change from Denmark’s policy of neutrality before and during the First World War. And when Denmark, along with the other small ex-neutral states, returned to a traditional policy of neutrality by the late 1930s, this did not, according to P. Munch, represent a qualitatively different position from the one Denmark had held as an active member of the League. In sum, the article has demonstrated that the radical liberal notion of neutrality was a very flexible concept, capable of surviving major international legal and political changes and therefore also incongruent with Ørvik’s narrative about the decline of neutrality.

About the Contributors

Johan den Hertog is a postdoctoral researcher. He obtained his PhD in 2007 from Leiden University with a dissertation on P.W.A. Cort van der Linden, Dutch minister-president during the First World War. In March 2008 he started a new project, with a two-year grant as a guest researcher at the Free University of Berlin, on the political and diplomatic history of the Great War. He is now preparing further research on neutrality in small countries, 1900-1925. Samuël Kruizinga is a PhD student at the University of Amsterdam, currently in the final stages of writing his dissertation on the Netherlands Oversea Trust Company. He studied European History at the universities of Leiden, Paris-I and Oxford, and has published several articles relating to Dutch neutrality during the First World War and on economic warfare.

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Benjamin Coates is a PhD student in History at Columbia University in New York. He is completing his dissertation, ‘Transnational Advocates: American International Law and us Foreign Relations, 1898-1919,’ under the supervision of Anders Stephanson. For 2009-2010, he holds a Jennings Randolph Peace Scholarship from the United States Institute for Peace. Benjamin earned his b.a. from Stanford University and received Richard Hofstadter and Dorothy Quinn Fellowships from Columbia University during his graduate studies. His scholarly interests include us political and intellectual history, international relations, Pan-Americanism, and empire. Javier Ponce studied Contemporary History at the University of Salamanca, and obtained an ma in European Civilization: Ethnicity, Culture and Society at the University of Leuven (Belgium), and the PhD at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Since 1993 he has been Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Las Palmas, where his current teachings include the History of Contemporary International Relations, the History of European Integration, the History of Africa in the Contemporary World and the History of Spanish foreign policy in the xix and xx centuries, alongside some postgraduate courses. He also has lectured on Spanish Contemporary History at the University of Sussex and he has been coordinator of international relations and vice-dean of the Faculty in Las Palmas. His research interests are Spanish foreign policy and the international role of the Canary Islands since the end of the xix century, and especially during the First World War. He has been done research in various centres in Spain, Belgium, the

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United Kingdom, Germany and the United States, and he also has participated in diverse conferences in Spain, Greece, the United Kingdom, the United States, Holland, Portugal and Russia. Some of his recent publications are Canarias en la Gran Guerra, 1914-1918: estrategia y diplomacia. Un estudio sobre la política exterior de España (2006), ‘La defensa de Canarias entre la crisis finisecular y la Guerra Civil’ (2006), ‘Logistics for Commerce War in the Atlantic During the First World War: the German Etappe system in action’ (2006), ‘Military History of Modern Spain: World War i’ (2007), ‘La política exterior española de 1907 a 1920: entre el regeneracionismo de intenciones y la neutralidad condicionada’ (2007), ‘La neutralidad española durante la Primera Guerra Mundial: una aproximación’, and ‘Commerce War in the Mid-East Atlantic during the First World War: German Submarines, 1916-1918’ (forthcoming).

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Phillip Dehne is an Associate Professor of History at St. Joseph’s College in New York. He is the author of On the Far Western Front: Britain’s First World War in South America (Manchester University Press, 2010), along with various articles related to the economic conflict during World War One. He is currently working on a book describing the role played at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 by Lord Robert Cecil, the one-time British Minister of Blockade and a critical supporter of the League of Nations. Lina Sturfelt obtained her PhD in history from Lund University, Sweden, and is an Associate Professor at the Department of Human Rights Studies at Lund University. Her dissertation Eldens återsken. Första världskriget i svensk föreställningsvärld (‘Reflections of Fire. Images of the First World War in Sweden’) (Lund 2008) concerns the cultural history and memory of the First World War in Sweden, focusing on the popular media narratives of war and neutrality 1914-39. She has published several articles on the subject of Sweden and the First World War and is the editor of two anthologies, one on immigration and integration in Sweden and Denmark, the other on the political and cultural history of the nineteen-seventies. She is currently affiliated with the Swedish National Defence College in Stockholm as a postdoctoral researcher on a project about the Swedish Army’s perceptions and images of future war during the Cold War. She lectures on human rights studies, peace and conflict research, and contemporary history at Lund University. Bjarne Søndergaard Bendtsen obtained his ma in Nordic Languages, Literature and English from the University of Aarhus, and is currently a Ph.D. student at the Institute of History and Civilization at the University of Southern Denmark (Odense), researching different cultural-historical aspects of Denmark during the First World War. He has published extensively on subjects including war and the Scandinavian avant-garde and modernist movements, and on the mythos surrounding monuments. In early 2009, he was a guest researcher at the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation in Amsterdam. Louis Clerc graduated in Strasbourg, France, from the Institut d’Études Politiques and the Institut des Hautes Études Européennes. He started his PhD work under the supervision

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of Professor Jean-Christophe Romer, and defended his PhD thesis in June 2007 in Strasbourg. The work dealt with the place of Finland in French foreign policy (1917-1940), and is now being prepared for publication by Peter Lang in 2010. Clerc has been an associated researcher for the Paris-based Centre d’Etudes d’Histoire de Défense, and has published on Franco-Nordic relations in French, English and Finnish. He is currently a University Lecturer for the University of Turku, Finland. He is the coordinator of a teaching program on the History and Politics of European Integration which was chosen in 2007 as a Jean Monnet module. Clerc recently contributed to the book ‘Les îles Åland en mer Baltique’

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Karen Gram-Skjoldager is a postdoctoral Jean Monnet Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute, working on the project ’The Transnationalisation of Danish Foreign Policy – Human Rights, Democracy, and Institutional Culture in Danish Foreign Policy since the Second World War’. In 2008, she earned a Ph.D. from the Department of History at Aarhus University, Denmark, for a dissertation on Danish liberal internationalism and the League of Nations. The dissertation is currently being published by Museum Tusculanums Forlag/Copenhagen University Press. She has published articles in Danish and international journals on Danish foreign policy issues, including Denmark during the First World War, Denmark and the League of Nations and Danish-German relations in the inter-war period.

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