[1918-1939] The emergence of a new political doctrine: Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, a precursor

"The whole European query culminates in an either... or: War or peace! Anarchy or organisation! Arms race or disarmament! Rivalry or cooperation! Collapse or fusion!" Richard Count Coudenhove-Kalergi.

On 11 November 1918, the armistice between the allies and Germany was signed. After four years of butchery, the worst in the history of the world, the war was finally over. It was a real trauma for the peoples of Europe: the scale of the mobilisation, the "total" character of the conflict, its terrible demographic consequences (around 9 million Europeans perished, and millions of others became disabled, disfigured or insane) rattled the consciences and weakened the faith in progress of civilisation. Everybody on the continent had the feeling that Europe was no longer what it used to be. Its decline was clearly perceptible.

Yes, it is true that the theme of European decadence was not new - Baudelaire or Nietzsche already discoursed on it in their times - but at the wake of the war, the impression of a moral regression, of a "crisis of the mind" has never been stronger¹. "We later civilisations … we too know that we are mortal" wrote magnificently Paul Valéry². He was absolutely right, especially as the new international order set up by the treaty of Versailles was as fragile as a sand castle. The peace was neither just nor lasting: the continent remained divided and Germany, militarily occupied and territorially reduced, conserved its state unity, that is the political capacity to take its revenge³. Concerning the young League of Nations, dreamed by the American President Woodrow Wilson, it was weak and powerless as far as it did not dispose of its own armed force. 

Europe in 1919. The Russian empire, The Second Reich and the Austro-Hungarian
empire disappeared. In the name of respect of the principles of nationalities, several
states were created or ressurected: Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary,
Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.

Richard Nikolaus von Coundenhove-
Kalergi (1894-1972). 

Against the heralded decline of Europe and the risk of a new fratricide war, several intellectuals campaigned for the creation of a European union. Among them was an Austrian philosopher by the name of Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi. This son of an Austrian diplomat and of a Japanese mother was borned and raised in a cosmopolitan environment, at a time when the interbreeding was not common at all. Dismayed by the horrors of the war, he defended very early the idea of a European federation. After publishing several articles in the Austrian and German press, he wrote in 1923 an important manifesto, Paneuropa, where he formulated his main idea: faced with the rising power of the United States and the Bolshevik danger, Europe had no choice but to unite diplomatically, then economically and finally politically. It consisted in a pure continental project, without Great Britain which was already a very powerful empire⁴. At the institutional level, Coudenhove wished the creation of a court responsible for resolving the conflicts, a military alliance and a common currency. He wanted this union to move beyond the nationalisms by bringing together the Europeans on the Christian, democratic and liberal values. Thus, a strong Europe could bring peace and prosperity to the peoples.

In order to spread his europeanists ideas, Coudenhove-Kalergi founded the Paneuropean Movement (also called International Paneuropean Union or Pan-Europa Movement), which published a journal: Paneuropa. Its first congress, held in Vienna in 1926, was a great success: it gathered 2 000 delegates from 24 different countries and was hailed by famous intellectuals like Stefan Zweig, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Heinrich and Thomas Mann, Jules Romain, Paul Valéry … This initiative also reveived the support of Aristide Briand, Tomáš Masaryk and Edvard Beneš⁵ and the financing of the banker Max Warburg. It certainly contributed to the formation of a European awareness within the elite, in spite of the criticisms and the reluctance of some.

The paneuropean flag: the Red Cross is the symbol of the
Christian identity of Europe; the sun reprensent the sun of 
Apollo, symbol of the prestige of the European civilisation.

Coudenhove-Kalergi was not only europeanist. He was also, in some ways, internationalist. Indeed, he was in favour of a global governance within the framework of the League of Nations (LN). In a report to the LN written in 1925, he advocated a certain form of world federalism. His project was to divide the world into "political continents" (the paneuropean union, the panamerican union, the British Commonwealth and the panasian union), which would be integrated into a "federation of federations", in other words a world federal government⁶. Although it was a pure utopia in the interwar, this ambition was shared by many federalists: European federalism and world federalism often go hand in hand⁷.

The leader of the Paneuropean Movement was a precursor. Partly thanks to his action, political europeanism grew rapidly during the 1920's, so much that we can speak of a true "golden age" of the European idea since the middle of the decade.  

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For more informations on Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi and the Paneuropean movement, here is a conference by the French historian Anne-Marie Saint Gille, Professor at the University of Lyon and author of La "Paneurope": Un débat d'idées dans l'entre-deux-guerres: http://webtv.picardie.fr/video3511

1In the immediate post war period, a series of books and articles were devoted to Europe's decline. We can quote in particular Der Untergang des Abendlanded (The Decline of the West) by Oswald Spengler, Le déclin de l'Europe by Albert Demangeon, Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain) by Thomas Mann or L'avenir de la civilisation by Jacques Bainville.

2Paul Valéry, Crisis of the Mind, 1919.

3See Jacques Bainville, Les conséquences politiques de la Paix, Paris, Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, 1920 and James L. Garvin, "The peace Treaty", The Living Age, 28 June 1919. 
4According to Coudenhove, the Paneuropean union would be unmanageable if it included the British Empire. Nonetheless, Great Britain should enjoy privileged relationships with the continent.

5Bernard Bruneteau, Histoire de l'idée européenne au premier XX^e siècle à travers les textes, Paris, Armand Colin, 2006, p. 50.

6Anne-Marie Saint Gille, La "Paneurope": un débat d'idées dans l'entre-deux-guerres, Presse de l'université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2003, p. 130-131.
7See Jean Francis Billion, Mondialisme, fédéralisme européen et démocratie internatinale, Église-Neuve d'Issac, Fédérop, 1997.