1918: Louise Weiss and the pacifist movement

Even before the end of World War I, a large pacifist movement was taking shape. Deeply affected by the exceptionally bloody battles, the pacifist movement aimed to bring the states of Europe together in order to ensure peace on the continent. Louise Weiss, a noteworthy figure in this movement and a French intellectual, started a weekly newspaper in January 1918 called ‘l’Europe nouvelle’ (New Europe) which advocated peace and understanding between the states of Europe.

November 1922: Creation of the Paneuropean Movement

In November 1922, Austrian Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi published a proclamation, Paneuropa, in which he defends the idea for a pan-European union which would restore the continent to its former standing in the world.   He continued with this work and in 1923 published a book manifesto entitled Pan-Europa (which gave its name to a monthly magazine).

Coudenhove-Kalergi was certain that reconciliation between France and Germany was necessary to maintain peace and he suggested combining German coal and French ore with the aim of creating a pan-European steel industry. Coudenhove-Kalergi developed this idea envisaging that eventually there would be a customs union which would make a United States of Europe possible. This would be a sort of European confederation that would respect the sovereignty of individual states and that also would have common institutions and citizenship, a European currency and a military alliance.

1924: The League of Nations, a platform for Europe

Created in 1919, the League of Nations was an institutional response to the pacifist ideal of reconciliation. However, when the League of Nations was set up in Geneva, it was considered a club for the European victors as neither the United States nor Germany participated in it.  The League of Nations therefore focussed mainly on European problems. As a place for confrontation and a platform for ideas, the League of Nations participated in the construction of the European idea and voted overwhelmingly in favour of truce, disarmament and organising a collective system of security.

During the 5th General Assembly of the League of Nations in 1924, Aristide Briand who was the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, supported French ratification of a protocol on arbitration, security and disarmament. At this event, Louise Weiss referred to Briand as the "Pilgrim of Peace". Nonetheless, due to its weaknesses, the League of Nations ended by disappointing supporters of peace and European cooperation.

October 16th 1925: The Treaty of Locarno, first step to closer Franco-German relations

On the 16th of October 1925, Briand and Gustav Stresemann signed the Treaty of Locarno which guaranteed the borders between France, Germany and Belgium and established a pact of mutual assistance. This treaty enabled Germany to break free of its international isolation and to join the League of Nations in 1926. That same year, the two men’s efforts were recognised when they were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1929, Briand with the support of Stresemann proposed to the League of Nations Assembly the first official project of European union which was primarily concerned with economics and would maintain state sovereignty. He predicted the creation of a common market – a goal that would be taken up again in the Treaty of Rome in 1957. But his references to ‘federalism’ did not rouse the European states, particularly Winston Churchill, then British Chancellor of the Exchequer. The project died with Briand in 1932.

1930: The New Order, for a humane Europe

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 affected European minds. The New Order, a movement founded by French intellectual Alexandre Marc in 1939, rejected the anarchy that the crisis generated.

This movement drew on the concept of personalism as opposed to individualism, meaning that the person is considered an integral part of a community. Personalism led to a federal idea of political organisations in which communities (regions etc.), while linked to each other, are fully autonomous. 

On the basis of this ideology, Marc hoped to bring the populations of Europe together to give Europe a human angle. Swiss intellectual Denis de Rougement also belonged to the New Order. He contributed to the magazine of the same name and to Esprit, Emmanuel Mounier's magazine, from 1931.

1941: The European movement in the Resistance

The European idea was very much a part of the Resistance which emphasised the democratic aspect of a future united Europe. Two documents show this rebirth in the European idea. The Ventotene Manifesto (Towards a Free and United Europe) was written in 1941 mainly by Italian resistance fighter, Altiero Spinelli, with the help of his fellow prisoner, Ernesto Rossi.

The second text, On a Human Scale by French socialist Leon Blum, was secretly circulated from 1941 and was only published at the end of the war. These authors were convinced that a European federation would guarantee peace on the continent, particularly by creating a communal military force.
Non-communist European forces met in Geneva in 1944 and wrote a declaration of European resistance movements. This text, following along the lines of Spinelli's and Blum’s works, proclaimed the need to go beyond state sovereignty and to create a federal union in order to maintain peace.

1942: Winston Churchill writes a memo on the United States of Europe

As a supporter of cooperation between states, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill supported the Declaration of the Anglo-French Union in 1940, which planned for cooperation in the areas of defence, foreign affairs, finances and the economy. This was so that France could avoid signing the armistice.

Following the French refusal, Churchill wrote a memo in 1942 on the United States of Europe Noting that Europe was central to the two World Wars, he proposed putting an end to this inter-state violence by forming a union of the peoples of Europe. In September 1946, Churchill returned to this idea in his speech given at the University of Zurich in which he recognised that Europe shares a common heritage which could serve as a basis for the creation of a "European Family in a regional structure called, it may be, the United States of Europe."

 

 

Last update: Feb 21st, 2010