[1918-1939] The emergence of a new political doctrine: The crisis of the European idea in the 1930's

"Europe became a religion without believers". Henri Hauser.

After a rapid and promising development during the 1920's, europeanism entered into a deep crisis early in the next decade. The economic and financial stability of the continent, which enabled the propagation of the europeanist ideas, was seriously undermined by the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The growth collapse and the burst of unemployment favoured the return of protectionism whereas the partisans of a united Europe were all free-marketeers. The economic union was no longer conceivable, and even less the political union. It was the time of the "tragic Europe"¹.

Worse still, nationalism and fascistic ideologies were gaining ground. The hope of a democratic Europe, promised by the peace Treaties, progressively vanished. Several countries were already under the heel of dictatorships: Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Lithuania and Yougoslavia gave in successively to authoritarianism in the 1920's. The situation worsened in the 1930's: Austria became fascist in 1932, and Germany converted to national-socialism in 1933, when Hitler came to power. Thereafter, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Greece, Spain and Romania turned their backs to democracy. In short, as said the French critic Albert Thibaudet, the dictatorship became the normal state of Europe. From then on, pessimism overwhelmed the europeanists. The nationalist ideologies were stronger than ever, so much that the europeanist voice became inaudible². "An enormous and awful silence fell upon the European genius", wrote gloomily Georges Duhamel in 1933, shortly after the advent of Hitler. Disappointed and powerless, the supporters of the European idea were totally ignored. In the totalitarian States, they were even silenced and pursued. The Italian europeanists Carlo Rosselli and Francesco Nitti were forced into exile to save their freedom. Accross the Rhine, the German section of the Paneuropean Movement was dissolved, despite the concessions of Coudenhove-Kalergi³. Everywhere in the continent, the activities of the europeanists organisations slowed down. The enthusiasm of the Briand years was but a memory.

The decline of democracy in Europe during the interwar period.

Paradoxically, this wave of pessimism did not reach Great Britain⁴, a country known for its traditional anti-europeanism. Throughout the 1920's and until the very late 1930's, Great Britain remained impervious to the European idea, despite the intense propaganda of the British section of Paneuropa led by the Wickham Steed⁵. But since 1938, there was a real commitment to europeanism in the country, for several reasons: the failure of the League of Nations, in which Great Britain was actively involved, was total after the Anschluss in March 1938; a large part of the public opinion was antagonistic to Chamberlain's policy of appeasement, whose objective was to avoid the fight against Hitler; the will to get closer to France appeared, in order to neutralise the German imperialism and to maintain the balance of power.

Two main organisations promoted europeanism in the years 1938-1940: the New Commonwealth Society and Federal Union. The first one was created in 1932 by a Welsh industrialist by the name of Lord David Davies. The latter was a fervent wilsonian who was progressively seduced by the European idea. After years of pro-LN militancy, his opposition to appeasement brought him to defend a European union based on the Anglo-French alliance. In 1940, he wrote A federate Europe which is essentially a European defence project.

The second important organisation in the late 1930's was Federal Union. Founded by three young men in 1938 - Derek Rawnsley, Patrick Ransome and Charles Kimber -, it was affiliated to an American association, Federal Union Inc, directed by the New York Times journalist Clarence Streit⁶. Indeed, federal Union advocated not only the union of Europe, but the union of all the Western democracies to face totalitarianism and dictatorship. This perspective was shared by three distinguished British subjects: the ambassador in the United States Lord Lothian, the theoretician of federalism Lionel Curtis and the economist William Beveridge.

Lastly, we must talk about the action of Winston Churchill. This former influential politician was marginalised in the 1930's, a period in which he corresponded with Coudenhove-Kalergi (who joined Great Britain in 1938). Very anti-German, he wished since the beginning of the policy of appeasement the federation of the European democracies, especially the union between France and Great Britain. He began to work with Lord David Davies and, in 1936, he took over the presidency of the New Commonwealth Society. Logically, he supported the Franco-British project written by Jean Monnet and Arthur Salter in June 1940. This umpteenth europeanist project was a failure, and, without surprise, Europe was going to know another tragedy: World War II put an end to the European dream.

1Gonzague de Reynold, L'Europe tragique, Paris, Spes, 1934.

2Even those who believed in a fascist Europe, like the French writer Drieu la Rochelle, the British politician Oswald Mosley or the participants of the intellectual Unions of Rohan, were isolated. It is a point of fact that fascism was fundamentally anti-European.

3He proposed the revision of the Treaty of Versailles, the organisation of an international conference which would discuss the subjects of the war reparations, and he approved the economic rapprochement between Austria and Germany. 

4 See Christophe Le Dréau, "Un européisme britannique conquérant: les tentatives d'implantation de la New Commonwealth Society et de Federal Union sur le continent (1938-1940)", Les cahiers Irice, 1/2008 nº1, p. 33-48. URL: www.cairn.info/revue-les-cahiers-irice-2008-1-page-33.htm. 

5Founded in 1925, it did not succeed in propagating the federalist vision of Coudenhove-Kalergi. In 1930, London criticised harshly the Briand Plan, giving priority to a global conception of economic and political relations. When the British defended the union of Europe, they maintained they did not want to be part of it. The Empire and the international trade were the main concerns of Great Britain, averall after the start of the Great Depression.

6I wrote an article about Clarence Streit in 2010: http://www.theorie-du-tout.fr/2010/11/clarence-kirshmann-streit-1896-1986.html. I also wrote this blog last year, which deals with the history of atlantic federalism: http://history-of-transatlantism.blogspot.fr/