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Index of Lectures on The Balkans in
the Age of Nationalism by Steven W Sowards
Lecture 16:
The legacies of 1917 and 1919
Balkan nationalism and Balkan politics were neither created nor defined by World War I.
As argued previously in Lectures 13 and 14, the events of 1914-1918 expressed a
continuation of trends, some of long standing, others as recent as the Balkan Wars.
Nevertheless, the war and the postwar settlements had enormous impact for the Balkan
peoples.
In social and economic terms, wartime losses and the radical redrawing of national
borders at the end of the war created dislocations that remain troublesome even today,
after generations of adjustment. In political terms, the Balkan Wars and World War I also
completed the process which replaced the old multi-national, dynastic empires with smaller
states. Greek, Serb, Romanian or Bulgarian leaders could no longer follow simple national
policies based on territorial expansion at the expense of the Ottomans or Habsburgs.
Combined with the stunning cost of the war, this new political landscape made the
region ripe for new views of national life and new solutions to lingering problems.
Into this fertile situation came two new ideas.
The first was Soviet Communism. The Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 replaced Eastern
Europe's most reactionary regime with a new radical state. Vladimir Ilych Lenin's
interpretation of Communism addressed the area's most pressing social, economic and
political problems from novel perspectives.
The second concept was national self-determination, as articulated and championed by
President Woodrow Wilson when the United States entered World War I. Wilson's
reinterpretation of nationalism had a special appeal, coming as it did when old Ottoman
and Habsburg foes no longer defined longterm political strategies.
In the nineteenth century, the Great Powers consistently regarded the young Balkan
states, with their commitment to nationalism and change, with suspicious conservatism.
Lenin and Wilson, on the other hand, could accept revolutionary nationalist ideology,
because they spoke as world leaders whose own countries had been defined by revolutionary
change. Both men also accepted popular political expression, even if they held markedly
different views about what constituted "democratic" forces.
LENIN'S IDEAS
For several reasons, it makes sense to deal with Lenin first. Russia was a belligerent
before the United States. Lenin's pronouncements were influential before Wilson's, mostly
affecting events during the war. Wilson's greatest influence came during the drafting of
the peace treaties.
The Russian Revolutions of 1917 were the most important achievements of Europe's
long-suffering revolutionary socialist movement. First, the March revolution brought down
the last of Europe's absolutist regimes and replaced it with a parliamentary system. In
November (October by the unreformed Russian calendar), the Bolshevik revolution put St.
Petersburg and the Russian heartland into the hands of radical socialists. The radical
Bolshevik wing of Russia's Social Democratic Party applied new theories to the Russian
state. Instead of fearing "the people," the Bolsheviks invoked them as the
source of valid political power so that national populations, not kings and aristocrats,
would make decisions (albeit through the Party). The assumptions behind such a position
contradicted everything expressed by an event like the 1878 Congress of Berlin, for
example, with its high-handed treatment of local wishes and needs.
If Bolshevism meant an attack on traditional elites, it also meant a critique of
traditional nationalist attacks on those elites. While "the people" were not to
be subject to kings or capitalists, neither was nationalism to be the first principle of
politics. Instead, class differences were paramount. Rule by the working class (through
the supreme power of revolutionary socialist parties), not ethnic nationalist revolution,
laid claim to political power on behalf of the population at large.
This concept had profound implications for Balkan affairs, because it both embraced and
side-stepped the tradition of nationalist revolution. Communism could support the
expulsion of foreign rulers like the Ottomans and Habsburgs. It could also propose an end
to inter-ethnic quarrels like the one in Macedonia, because under Communism, ethnic
rivalries were irrelevant to the pursuit of class objectives and a better life for people
of all nationalities.
Lenin's ideas gained appeal from his charisma, and because they followed paths already
established by socialists and other thinkers (Wilson was encountering similar ideas).
Lenin's call for an end to secret treaties and high-handed diplomacy owed much to the
British Union of Democratic Control. This joint committee of anti-war Liberals
and Labour Party supporters called for a "New Diplomacy" as early as November
1914. Their ideas included consent of the governed before any territory was transferred
from one state to another, an end to secret agreements concluded without the approval of
parliaments, an international mutual security system to replace the old "balance of
power" system, and post-war disarmament as a way to prevent future wars. Socialists
pursued ideas like self-determination and the need for a "league of nations"
well before Lenin or Wilson made them better known.
Lenin's interpretation of a "new diplomacy" was widely publicized in 1917,
when Bolsheviks and the Petrograd Soviet competed with Kerensky's Provisional Government
for support in Russia. Lenin proposed to publish and disavow the secret tsarist treaties
with their territorial claims, called for an armistice, and proposed "the liberation
of all colonies, ... dependent, oppressed and non-sovereign peoples." The Kerensky
cabinet had to declare it's own support of "self-determination of peoples" and a
peace without territorial claims. The Petrograd Soviet appealed to socialists in the
Allied nations to demand peace platforms "without annexations or indemnities, on the
basis of self-determination of peoples," and called on German socialists to sabotage
the German war effort.
When the Bolsheviks ousted Kerensky in November 1917, one of their first acts was a
Peace Decree repeating these formulas: an immediate armistice and peace talks,
ratification of any peace terms by national assemblies, annulment of secret treaties, and
self-determination "even to the point of separating and forming independent
states."
The Peace Decree had two audiences. The first was war-weary Russia. Unlike the
Provisional Government, the Soviets promptly began peace talks, signed the Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk and ended the war on the Eastern Front. The second audience was
international. Trotsky addressed formal notes based on the Peace Decree to all the
belligerent states, and backed it up by publishing all of Russia's secret treaties. The se
Soviet actions were an embarassment for the Allied powers.
At the peace talks at Brest-Litovsk the Soviets repeated their peace platform: no
annexation, plebiscites to determine whether dependent minorities wanted independence, no
war indemnities, no coercive blockades. These ideas were important as abstractions, not as
pragmatic policies. In the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of March 1918, the victorious Germans
took the opposite tack on every point. Russian territory was annexed, there were no
plebiscites, and Russia was forced to contribute goods to the German war effort.
Nevertheless, these Soviet declarations helped prepare a favorable climate for Woodrow
Wilson's ideas about ending the war and creating a stable peace.
WILSON'S IDEAS
Wilson was no socialist, but he was a progressive. He differed from figures like
Theodore Roosevelt, advocates of the "Old " Diplomacy, imperialism, and the use
of force in the national self-interest. In his 1916 re-election campaign, Wilson talked
about a role for America as a mediator in Europe, and about basic principles for peace.
His so-called "creed" included the right of "every people... to choose the
sovereignty under which they shall live," territorial integrity for both large and
small states, and a "universal association of nations" to deter aggression.
Because they hoped to bring the United States into the war, the Allies paid attention
to Wilson's ideas. At an Allied conference of January 1917, the British made the Entente
Powers restate their war aims in terms corresponding to Wilson's creed. Plans for
annexation became calls for the liberation of oppressed minorities, including the French
in Alsace-Lorraine, and the Poles, Italians, Czechoslovaks, South Slavs and Romanians
under Habsburg rule. The post-conference communique was silent about plans to divide up
German colonies, the Turkish heartland, and the Arab world.
Such a restatement appears cosmetic, but had serious consequences. For the first
time, the Allies formally agreed to independence demands by Czech leaders. That step, in
turn, implied the destruction of Austria-Hungary and with it the liberation of Italian,
South Slav and Romanian minorities, reducing a post-war Dual Monarchy to German-speaking
Austria and central Hungary. Thus even vague calls for national self-determination made
the future map of the Balkans dependent on the outcome of the war. If the Central Powers
won, Austria-Hungary would survive and grow, at the expense of Serbia and Romania. If the
Allies won, the Dual Monarchy would be replaced by small national states. Wilson could
speak all he wished about "Peace without Victory," as he did in his state of the
union address in January 1917, but in fact his ideas were already shaping a potential
redistribution of Balkan territories, in which there were clear winners and losers.
When the United Stated declared war on Germany in April 1917, Wilson targetted the
militaristic German government, but absolved the German people of responsibility, calling
for joint peace efforts and the liberation of all nations from tyrants. The United States
did not declare war on Austria-Hungary or Bulgaria. However, Wilson's talk of liberation
and national self-determination once again had Balkan and East European implications far
beyond his ambiguous rhetoric. Peace on Wilson's terms was inconsistent with the
preservation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
If Wilson himself was apparently blind to the implications of his statements, the U.S.
State Department was not. An internal memorandum of June 1917 supports an independent
Poland, an independent Serbo-Croatian state, and an independent Czech state in Bohemia. It
was nearly a year before Wilson came to these conclusions, but those around him were
already seeing the future.
So were Europeans. When Nikola Pasic appealed to the State Department in September 1917
for an independent Yugoslavia, he specifically cited Wilson's views on self-determination.
The Romanian government made a similar pitch in August, worried because Wilson had never
mentioned the Romanian irredenta in Tranyslvania in any of his addresses. In fact, Wilson
and the State Department knew little about Transylvania: one visit by the Romanians was
followed by hasty American efforts to find some facts.
By the end of 1917, Wilson no longer distinguished between Prussian militarists and the
actual united forces of the Central Powers as the enemy. In December 1917 Wilson asked
Congress to declare war on Austria-Hungary. His intentions remained ambiguous: there was
still no declaration of war against Bulgaria or Turkey. Wilson also explicitly stated that
he had no wish to interfere in Austro-Hungarian internal affairs. In other words, he
cautioned against revolutions inside the Monarchy, despite his own talk of national
self-determination.
THE FOURTEEN POINTS
Wilson also responded to the Soviet Peace Decree and similar Russian proclamations.
Wilson wanted to offer a competing moral program to justify his actions and those of the
Allies, and to rally the people of Europe behind the Allied cause. The result was the
Fourteen Points speech of January 1918. The speech mixes high principles for the reform of
international relations, with practical suggestions for territorial changes that Wilson
believed necessary for a stable, fair peace. The high principles influenced future
diplomatic practice. The practical suggestions suffered from Wilson's usual ambiguity,
inconsistency, and ignorance about Eastern Europe.
Wilson's prescription for international relations replaced the Old Diplomacy with
"open covenants..., openly arrived at;" freedom of the seas; fair trade;
disarmament measures; and a League of Nations to guarantee the peace. He also called for
certain territorial arrangments outside the Balkans: Belgium, Poland, Alsace-Lorraine, and
colonial claims.
The inconsistencies in dealing with Balkan measures concern us here. There were four
such points.
Point IX called for changes in Italy's borders "along clearly recognizable lines
of nationality." Wilson failed to say whether this meant only Italy's border with
German Austria, or also the Dalmatian coast, which was claimed by Serbia too and had no
"clearly recognizable" ethnic borders.
Point X called for "the freest opportunity of autonomous development" for the
peoples of Austria-Hungary. But the same point called for Austria-Hungary to retain its
"place among the nations." Wilson failed to say how he hoped to fulfill the
first part of the point without giving up on the second.
Point XI called for evacuation of conquered Montenegrin, Serbian and Romanian lands,
and a future in which Balkan relations were ordered "along historically established
lines of allegiance and nationality." Such a statement merely opened the door for the
repetition of old regional claims before a new international audience.
Finally, Point XII proposed neutralization and internationalization of the Turkish
Straits, and the "absolutely unmolested opportunity for autonomous development"
in all former Ottoman lands. There was no indication how competing autonomies might be
reconciled.
Italy was unhappy with the speech, because it undercut Italian territorial claims in
Trentino, South Tyrol, Trieste, Fiume and Dalmatia, areas of mixed ethnicity. Serbia was
also disappointed. Point X contradicted Serbian plans to unite with Croatia and Slovenia.
The Serbian government also had strategic and economic claims on the Dalmatian coast, not
merely ethnic ones. An appeal by Pasic persuaded the President to reserve judgement on the
future of Bosnia, Croatia and the other Habsburg South Slav lands.
Romania gained no reassurance about her claims on Habsburg Transylvania. Hard-pressed
and without such promises, Romania left the war in March 1918. When Romanians took up arms
again in the fall, they felt no obligations to Wilson.
Bulgaria read Wilson's prose, and hoped for revision of her past losses in Macedonia.
Only at the end of the war did Bulgarians find that the claims of America's Greek and
Serbian allies would overrule the Fourteen Points.
In Spring 1918 it became clear that Austria-Hungary would never make a separate peace.
Wilson now endorsed the Czechoslovak, Polish and Yugoslav separatist movements, as
concerns for stability and preserving the Dual Monarchy were sacrificed to total victory.
Military matters took center stage until the collapse of the Central Powers in November.
The fate of the Balkans then moved to the conference table.
NOVEMBER 1918
Inside the Habsburg Empire, national independence movements proceeded on their own,
without obligation to Wilson or the Allies. Czech, Polish and Croatian National Councils
organized new state structures. In Czechoslovakia and Poland, new regimes had to be built
from scratch, but in the Balkans the existing Romanian and Serbian governments soon
stepped in. After Romania reentered the war and occupied Transylvania, local leaders there
arranged union with Romania. Something similar happened in Bessarabia.
A National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs met in Zagreb and called for the
unification of all the South Slavs in the Habsburg lands. The Croatian Sabor combined with
the National Council. Fearful of Italy, the National Council then pledged allegiance to
Serbia. In this manner a unified Yugoslav state came into existence before the formal
peace talks began.
The peace conference itself became an arena for competing forces: Leninism, Wilson's
Fourteen Points, the old-style diplomatic demands of the European allies, and the new
national regimes created on the ground.
THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE
The Paris Peace Conference began in January 1919, and dragged on for more than a year.
Each of the defeated states was dealt with in a separate treaty: Versailles for Germany,
Trianon for Hungary, Saint-Germain for Austria, Neuilly for Bulgaria, and Sevres for
Turkey (altered in 1923 by the Lausanne Treaty). The defeated states were not allowed to
negotiate. The minor Allied states, including Greece, Serbia and Romania took part in some
sessions; Russia was absent. The major decisions were made by the Big Four (Britain,
France, Italy and the United States) under the personal leadership of their heads of
state, including Wilson, who encountered substantial challenges from his own allies.
First among the complicating factors were the existing secret treaties. Britain,
France, Italy and the other signatories considered them binding (Russia forfeited its
treaty rights). The United States on the other hand was not a signatory and Wilson
abhorred the treaties. As a result, Wilson sometimes was able to overturn prior
commitments. For example, Dalmatia was awarded to Yugoslavia, not Italy, thanks to his
notion of national self-determination and despite the Treaty of London. However, absolute
principles had to compromise with political horse-trading: in this case, the city of Fiume
was internationalized, and ultimately fell into Italian hands, despite Yugoslav claims.
A second factor was public opinion. The Old Diplomacy allowed negotiatiors to act
without public pressure: the results were not always moral, but neither were the results
of negotiations accompanied by popular demonstrations and newspaper editorials. Wilson
mistakenly expected popular opinion to be progressive. During the Fiume dispute, Wilson
appealed to the Italian people for moderation, only to encounter unyielding Italian
nationalism.
A third factor was the Bolshevik menace. If the losses forced on the defeated states
became excessive, radical political forces capitalized on popular resentment. In the
Balkans, the clearest example of this was Hungary, about which more later.
Fourth, accomplished fact sometimes anticipated, ignored or contradicted the plans of
the Great Powers. Where national councils had already come to power, the Balkan states
were loathe to give up new territories unless forced to do so.
Fifth and finally, there were sometimes valid reasons to violate the Wilsonian
principles of national self-determination and autonomy. The larger goal of international
stability required that the new successor states be economically viable and militarily
defensible. The trick was in deciding when valid strategic concerns deserved to override
ethnic principles. Romania, for example, demanded certain cities in northern and western
Transylvania in order to control key railroad lines. The result was better military and
economic communication within Romanian territory, but subjugation of additional Magyars to
Romanian rule. Might stability have been better served by reducing Hungarian losses and
the attractions of rejectionism in Budapest? Similar questions arose along the
Serb-Bulgarian border. The Serbs insisted on placing the border on a defensible mountain
crest; doing so separated 100,000 ethnic Bulgarians from their country.
COMMUNIST HUNGARY
No situation better illustrates the contrasting appeal of Wilson's and Lenin's ideas
than the history of Hungary at the end of the war. When the Trianon Treaty was presented
to Hungarians in March 1919, Magyar mistreatment of their minorities came home with a
vengeance. Each ethnic group carved off a piece of historic Hungary. The Croatians took
Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia; the Serbs took Voyvodina and Banat for Yugoslavia.
Romanian troops seized Transylvania. 71 percent of Hungary's land and 63 percent of its
population were lost, including 3 million out of 11 million Magyars.
When the war was ending, a liberal government under Count Mihaly Karolyi came to power.
Karolyi hoped to use Wilson's principles to reform Hungary. When the Trianon Treaty showed
that national self-determination would be applied in Hungary only for the benefit of the
victors, not the vanquished, he resigned rather than sign the treaty. By analogy with
Russia, Karolyi was Hungary's Kerensky. His new republic promised ethnic autonomy,
universal suffrage, civil liberties, the 8-hour day, and land reform. But Karolyi was
unable to revive the economy or save Hungary at the peace conference after military
defeat.
No traditional party would take power, because doing so meant either accepting, or
resisting, the treaty. Instead the Hungarian Communist Party came to power: when Wilson's
ideas failed, those of Lenin remained.
The party's leader was Bela Kun, a minor official and journalist in the pre-war
socialist party. After the Russian Revolution, he worked in Moscow as head of the
"Federation of Foreign Groups" for the Bolsheviks.
In November 1918 Kun returned to Hungary to create a Bolshevik movement. His new
Communist Party attracted radical prisoners-of-war returning from Soviet Russia, left-wing
Social Democrats, dissatisfied intellectuals, landless peasants and unemployed workers,
and also soldiers and patriots hoping to resist the terms of the treaty. In March 1919 Kun
declared Hungary to be a Soviet Republic. Kun's program combined Communism and
nationalism. He organized idle factory workers into a Red Army which expelled Slovak
forces from northern Hungary. A rubber-stamp assembly of workers, soldiers and peasants
councils (on the soviet model) replaced the Diet. Banks, companies with more than twenty
employees, large estates, and even personal residences became the property of the state.
Education and marriage were removed from the control of the Catholic Church and
secularized. Revolutionary tribunals replaced the old court system.
Most Hungarians put up with these radical measures as long as Kun's armed forces held
off the Slovaks and Romanians. When the outnumbered Red Army retreated in June 1919, the
opponents of Bolshevism returned. Royalist army officers in exile made deals with the
Romanian army to set up a rival cabinet, while the traditional trade unions confronted the
workers' councils. Kun fled the country ahead of Romanian forces which occupied Budapest
and ended the Soviet Republic after 133 days. A reactionary "White" government
supported by the Allies took over. During the "White Terror," 5,000 people were
killed. Another 70,000 suspected Communists, activist workers and Jews were arrested
(a high proportion of the Communist leadership was Jewish, fueling popular prejudice).
This episode set the stage for military rule in various forms during the interwar period.
After 1919, there was no government on Leninist principles in the Balkans until the end
of World War II. However, the application of Wilsonian and Western European ideas proved
difficult, often impossible. The next lecture looks at some of the issues involved.
This lecture is a portion of a larger Web site, Twenty-Five Lectures on Modern
Balkan History (The Balkans in the Age of Nationalism); click here to return to the Table of Contents page.
This page created on 25 February 1997; last modified 3 November 1998.
URL=http://www.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/lect16.htm
Copyright 1996 by Steven W. Sowards |
Document compiled by Dr S D Stein