Europe Since 1918

by Herbert Adams Gibbons

CHAPTER XI
THE NEW BALTIC REPUBLICS

Without laying stress upon the influence of the Entente promises to free and defend small nations, none can understand the situation that has arisen since the armistices in the territories of the former Hapsburg, Romanoff, and Ottoman Empires. These were the alternatives before the Paris peacemakers: treating all subject nationalities alike, in a spirit of impartial justice, with the idea of establishing a tolerable new world order; or blowing hot or cold upon the aspirations and claims of subject nationalities, with the aim of advancing the particular selfish interests of the strongest members of the conference.

The inability of President Wilson to resist the pressure brought to bear upon him by his European colleagues made the latter choice inevitable. Had it been possible for Great Britain, France, and Italy to agree upon a common policy by mutual sacrifices and compromises and a delimitation of spheres of influence, they could have played favorites among the small nations and emancipated races, and played them to win. The political organisms would have endured as Entente statesmen created them, and the frontiers as Entente statesmen drew them. But because those whose combined forces alone could have established peace have followed divergent and conflicting policies and do not play the same favorites, not a single new frontier line in central and eastern Europe and in western Asia is as yet definitely settled.

The first examples of independent action, in defiance of the treaties and the agreement to act together, was the seizure of Fiume by the Italian irregulars soon after the Treaty of St.-Germain was signed. Gabriele d’Annunzio demonstrated how easy it was to resist both Supreme Council and League. Then General Gouraud, officially responsible to France, violated spirit and letter of Article XXII of the Covenant by seizing Damascus. The unwillingness of members of the Council of the League to abide by the Covenant led to other breaches of good faith and disturbances of the precarious peace. For lawlessness breeds lawlessness. How can the great powers expect smaller states to respect principles of international equity which they themselves ignore? Refusing to recognize the authority of the League and the binding character of an armistice entered into by his own government, the Polish General Zeligowski invaded Lithuania in October, 1920, took possession of the capital, Vilna, and gave battle merrily to the Lithuanians. Because he knew that he had Poland and France behind him, Zeligowski had no fear of being called to account. The Poles did the same thing in Upper Silesia a year and a half later. The Lithuanians in January, 1923, made a coup d’état in Memel, against which the Poles cried loud and long.

The Zeligowski escapade accelerated the whirl of the international whirlpool more than those of d’Annunzio and Gouraud. For this refractory general mixed things up and discredited the League in the most dangerous spot in Europe. Differences between Jugoslavs and Italians, and between Arabs and French, did not threaten so seriously the general peace as events in the border-land of Germany, Russia, and Poland. The support Poland gave to Zeligowski—or, at least, her failure to suppress him, as Italy finally did d’Annunzio—jeopardized the existence of Poland. For among the border states of the Romanoff and Hohenzollern Empires it is either live and let live or repartition. Unless one believes that the German and Russian races have been crushed into impotence, Occidental Europe will play a losing game in establishing Poland as the lone sentinel, at the expense of her neighbors, between Germany and Russia. In debating the permanent success of France’s occupation of the Ruhr, Russia is the unknown factor. And whether Russia will or can help Germany depends fully as much upon the new Baltic republics as upon Poland.

Finland had a good start over her less fortunately situated sister republics. During the war she was not a battle-ground, and when the Petrograd revolution precipitated the collapse of the Russian Empire the Finns were able to proclaim and maintain their independence. They were off in a corner by themselves and not on the path to the place where the Bolshevists wanted to go. No other state laid claim to any portion of their territory other than the Aaland Islands. They were able to harp back to the Treaty of Vienna, which had stipulated the preservation of the integrity and autonomy of the Duchy of Finland, and had sanctioned only a personal union with the Russian Empire. The Czar was to be Duke of Finland. The Finns argued with reason that the disappearance of the Czar annulled ipso facto the union with the Russian Empire. This paved the way to a speedy recognition of the independence of Finland by the Entente Powers and neutrals, and the admission of Finland to the League of Nations.

The successive revolutionary Governments in Russia made no objection to the secession of Finland from the empire, but the compelling motive of speedy Entente recognition was the fact that Germany recognized Finland and had a powerful propaganda there. Before the revolution the Entente Powers had been bitterly hostile to Polish and Finnish aspirations, and this fact won Finnish sympathy for Germany. Unlike Poland, Finland had no terre irredente to claim from the Central Empires, and she therefore saw in the victory of the Central Empires her chance of breaking away from Russia. After the revolution, the Entente Powers conveniently forgot the pro-Germanism of Finland. Being able to recognize Finland without offending Russia, they promptly did so, and began to intrigue to induce the Finns to attack the Bolshevists.

Prussian influence had been strong in the Baltic countries north of the frontier of 1795 ever since the Middle Ages. Memel and Libau and Riga were German-built cities. Almost to Petrograd a nobility of Germanic origin constituted the land-owning class along the coast, and German merchants abounded in the ports. The Baltic barons fell in readily with the extension of Russian sovereignty to the Baltic Sea in Esthonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and became loyal servitors of the Russian Government and co-oppressors of the subject races. As readily, when the Russian armies were beaten in the World War, the Baltic barons welcomed their invading kinsmen and worked for the King of Prussia. The Russian revolution did not give the other Baltic races the opportunity it gave the Finns. The Lithuanians were under German military domination. The Latvians were in the field of military operations until the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed. The Esthonians soon had to cope with the Bolshevist movement, of which Reval, their capital, became a center.

At the end of 1917, Lithuania, like Poland, was offered independence by the Austro-Germans in exchange for a political alliance, economic advantages, and military coöperation against the Entente. Intrigue and intimidation failed. The Lithuanians not only resisted with success the pressure of their conquerors, who tried to disguise themselves as liberators, but held a national council at Vilna on February 16, 1918, which proclaimed the independence of Lithuania, declared against special favors either to the conqueror or to the former master, and set up a provisional Government. Kaiser Wilhelm first, and the King of Saxony later, tried to beguile the Lithuanians into forming an alliance with Germany. Is it conceivable that the Lithuanian leaders, who defied Germany in her hour of triumph and when their country was held by a German army, have been in connivance with defeated Germany?

Real liberation and the hope of statehood came to the Baltic Sea republics only after the defeat of Germany. At Vilna for Lithuania and at Riga for Latvia independence was formally proclaimed and governments set up before the Germans withdrew. The Esthonians at Reval were already under a regularly constituted independent government. There was no more reason to doubt the genuineness, permanence, and legitimacy of these national movements than in any other part of Europe. The Baltic Sea republics, ethnographically and historically, had as much right to expect from the victory of the Entente the revival of their nationhood as Poland and Bohemia.