Minorities and The League of Nations in Interwar Europe: Mazower

Minorities and the League of Nations in Interwar Europe
Author(s): Mark Mazower

Source: Daedalus, Vol. 126, No. 2, Human Diversity (Spring, 1997), pp. 47-63
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences
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Mark
Mazower
in
and the League of Nations
Minorities
Interwar Europe
YEAR THE NORTHERN GREEK CITY of Thessaloniki
THIS
of Europe.
Capital
one of the most
as Selanik,
Cultural
man Empire. Roughly half its 150,000

as many
as lived
in the whole
ago,
cities
century
fascinating
it was
is the
known
in the Otto
inhabitants then were Jews,

In addition
of France.
to Turks
and
there were
Greeks,
Albanians,
and
also Armenians,
Circassians,
Vlachs,
Bulgarians,
had
the secretive D?nmeh?the
who
crypto-Jews
into Islam in the late
followed Sabbatai Zevi, their falseMessiah,

were
to find boot
century.
Foreign
or
seven
six
and porters on the docks who
languages.
spoke
How
did polyglot
Selanik
turn, in the span of a few generations,
a popu
into a modern
of the Greek
with
nation-state,
metropolis
no
than one million
and
lation of more
Greeks,
Turks,
virtually
visitors
seventeenth
astonished
blacks
fewer
than
in 1912
designation
Eurocrats
two
thousand
Its "liberation"
army
by the Greek
In fact, the city's
is only
of the story.
the beginning
as the Cultural
is perhaps more
Capital
fitting than the
the hellenization
realized:
of Thessaloniki
encapsulates
Jews?
in Europe
in the first half of this century.
the history
of minorities
In 1943, while
the young Wehrmacht
lieutenant Kurt Waldheim
was
and
to the city, its large Jewish

posted
a few months
exterminated
within
But
even
dominantly
variant
of
that point,
Greek
city. Nazi
before
the
international
ethnic minorities
Mark
Mazower
is Reader
Thessaloniki
genocide
had
was
but
experimentation
that had begun with
in History
was deported
community
at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
at the University
the most
a pre
extreme
in policy
towards
turned
into
the disintegration
of Sussex.
47

of the
48
Mark Mazower
Ottoman,
and Romanov
Habsburg,
in the maelstrom
empires
of
I.
World War
more
to turning
contributed
Selanik
into Thessaloniki
Nothing
as
in
than the population
that
took
the Balkans
place
exchanges
In 1919,
the Ottoman
broke
under
the Treaty
of
up.
Empire
the
of
inhabitants
the
and
the
Neuilly,
city
Bulgarian
surrounding
a
with Greeks
from Bulgaria.
This was
region were
"exchanged"
in terms
innovation
striking
thousands
caught
in this
up
small fry compared with

of
exchange
of
international
the tens of
were
transfer
voluntary
supposedly
involved in the compulsory
the millions
that
populations
but
policy,
took
between
place
Greece
and
a few years
between
them stopped
later.
fighting
to
in
1923
of
the
Muslim
residents
Lausanne,
According
Treaty
to Turkey,
Greece
had to leave their homes
and "return"
while
when
Turkey
Orthodox
direction.
of thousands
Hundreds
thus helping
aftermath
Thessaloniki,
the war
of
in the opposite
in and around
moved
of the latter settled
to "hellenize"
in the
Today,
were
from Asia Minor
Christians
Greek
Macedonia.
in Bosnia
and its massive

enforced movements
cleansing
1923 Greco-Turkish
has acquired
agreement
some
to
tidiness
European
seeming
appealed
with
its ethnic
of population,
relevance.
the
new
Its
then,
policymakers
was
it? At the
still does today. But how successful
apparently
level of individual
in?the
de
lives, it wrought?or
acquiesced
homes
it transformed
struction
of centuries-old
and communities;
to the logic of nationalism,
identities
turning Orthodox
according
and
of whom
could not speak Greek,
from Anatolia,
many
villagers
were
into Greeks,
from Crete, many
of whom
the
and Muslims
a
mas
It
into
of Islamized
Turks.
created
descendants
Christians,
these refugees
left behind,
the property
regarding
It also
for several years.
Greco-Turkish
relations
which
poisoned
in
and
with
of
Athens
Ankara
the
burdened
expense
governments
sive
problem
resettling
of
hundreds
thousands
of refugees.
the other hand, both the Greeks and the Turks
On
exchange
as a means
of bolstering
the ethnic mix of
their
new
saw the
nation-states
and
to the
More
their populations.
are
relations
concerned,
policymakers
"homogenizing"
as far as international
point,
did
the two countries
between
before
tions
the Cyprus
are perhaps
dispute
as bad
improve over the next

them once more.
poisoned
as
they
have
ever
been.
twenty
years,
rela
Today,
Thus
the

jury
out on whether
remains
In the
interwar
such
in the
tensions
international
transfers
from
of population
international
the
years,
however,
to draw
reluctant
on
It was
community
the Greco-Turkish
not
of
policy
the Baltic
the South
ease
actually
run.
long
strikingly
proved
as a precedent.
tion exchange
own
and the start of Hitler's
Germans
49
Minorities
popula
until Munich
emulated
the ethnic
repatriating
and
Bessarabia.
states,
Tyrol,
of Wilsonian
the minorities
liberalism,
that, in the heyday
came to be associated,
of Nations
the League
policy with which
seems to me to remain an experiment
inter
of abiding
and which
were
minorities
and
where
involved
est,
they
offering
keeping
of international
them the protection
law, rather than uprooting
Before
and
them elsewhere.
resettling
minorities
The
idea of protecting
edly during World War

and Eastern
of Central
prise. History
seemed
Europe"?whether
law emerged
by
rather
belat
I.The sudden collapse of the great empires

Europe
by sur
caught most
policymakers
to have vindicated
the dreamers
of a "New
it was Wilson
himself with
his dangerously
of national
for op
crusaders
self-determination,
principle
like
Seton-Watson
Robert
nationalities
and
Arnold
pressed
Toynbee,
or national
But some
leaders
such as Masaryk
and Paderewski.
vague
were
aware
as a policy
could
Years
box of conflicts
and tensions.
open up a Pandora's
before,
Lord Acton
had warned
that "by making
the State and the nation
commensurate
in theory,
with
each other
reduces
[nationality]
a
to
all other nationalities
that may
practically
subject condition
liberals
also well
that nationalism
"I do not myself

the boundary."
noted Robert
believe,"
a European
in the British
in
Office
"that
1917,
Foreign
on
founded
and
without
other
any
only
nationality
provi
or even in all respects
is likely to be desirable
beneficial."1
be within
Cecil,
peace
sions
Similar doubts were

groups
Wars
of
forcefully expressed by Jewish lobbying
in both Washington
1912-1913,
they
the dangers
that "half-crazed
ties
World
and
War
first was
international
and
had
London.
tried
Ever
to alert
nationalists"
posed
in southeastern
stability
movements
I, two national
to wipe
the Turkish
attempt
since
the Great
the Balkan
Powers
to
to ethnic minori
Europe.
During
their point. The
proved
out the Armenians,
which
unfolded in all its horror in 1915 and led to themurder of between

eight hundred thousand and 1.3 million people. This was perhaps

50
the
Mark Mazower
first
of the
example
Arnold
Toynbee
scholar
principle
Ottoman
On
was
that
clashed
under
Poles
of
extermination"
as the result
the Armenian
Poland in 1918-1920.
pure Poland
monwealth
saw
of
tapestry
came
genocide
the
those who
advocated
Polish
leadership.
The
for
problem
Germans,
Jews,
alongside
in the claimed
the problem
territory;
was a rather ambitious
that multiethnic
harmony
Ukrainians
the
the
for
struggle
a multiethnic
lived
of
of
of an ethnically
At Versailles, proponents
with
the British
that
the extension
to the multi-confessional
of nationalism
Empire.2
the heels of
"war
com
the former
and
Lithuanians,
for the latter was
goal for anyone

the
end
of
Polish
1918,
Europe.
By
troops were
for
with
the
Ukrainians.
also
carried out
supremacy
battling
They
a series of pogroms
to
that forced Jews
form self-defense
units.
Balfour worried
that an independent
"so
far
from
Poland,
promot
in postwar
Eastern
peace, would
ing the cause of European
strife."
mid-1919
Poland
European
By
be a perpetual
occasion
of
Polish
only two-thirds
was
an ethnic
point of view. In the disputed

city of L'viv someone
war
an
to
see
the
American
"You
visitor:
pointed
damage
those little holes? We
call them here
'Wilson's
Points.'
have
They
from
out
been made
with machine
guns; the big gaps have been made
are now
We
in self-determination,
grenades.
engaged
knows what
the end will be."3
and when
hand
God
At
the Paris
Peace
the struggle
into
brought
Conference,
Poland
independent
eventually
new international
policy on minority
influential
New
States
rights.
Committee
over
being
Behind
the form
the scenes,
the
for some
Eastern
of Bol
was
the new Polish
protests,
government
a
to
as
certain
its
minorities
condition
rights
shevism.
bitter
Despite
to guarantee
obliged
of recognition:
they included
as well
and religious
freedoms
organization
Minorities
in the
of treatment
under the law
equality
as rights to certain
forms of collec
educational
was
and
cultural
The
spheres.
the League
of Na
could be brought
Treaty
guaranteed
by
meant
that complaints
apparently
not directly
(though
by the minority
the
Council
could
circumstances,
League's
tions, which
to Geneva
certain
of an
the need
recognized
if ethnic civil war was not to spread through
policy
an area already
and destabilize
under
the shadow
Europe
tive
and
an ambitious
such
Polish
with
concerned).
take action.

In
Polish
The
waters.
law into uncharted
international
took
Treaty
51
Minorities
Powers
had often
the Great
the previous
recog
century,
During
on a commitment
to religious
freedom
nized new states dependent
in
in Belgium
such had been the case, for example,
and toleration;
for "national"
rather
collective
rights
international
for
Poland
treaties
Similar
rather
than
rights, for
exclusively
religious
and
the
individual
liberties,
provision
deliberation.
series of minority
for a whole
the model
rights
provided
in Paris drew up for Eastern Europe.
that the peacemakers
on other newly-created
states as,
were
imposed
obligations
tional
tackle
and older states like
like Hungary
as a result of the
territory
acquired
came to stand for a system
that, on
norm
as the
in interna
the nation-state
which
and Greece,
Nations
of
League
Romania
The
the one
the
than
well as on former belligerents

war.
in 1919 was
in 1878. What was new
1830 and Romania

concern
hand,
relations
accepted
and, on the other,

issues that were
the minority
sometimes
encouraging
thereby
haps
collective
a considered
made
the creation
and profile were

their political weight
entities;
of the European
the annual meetings
Congress
through
to
effort
It accepted
of) minorities
thus created.
(per
as
increased
of Na
tionalities, which publicized their plight.

But
more
them
itself in this system was

the League
ambiguous.
to bring cases to the League's
and even
attention,
to push them through
and have
the Geneva machine
the role of
It was
difficult
difficult
up by the Council.
Although
cases to the Permanent
Court
to refer
on
rarely
acted
power
Court
and blocked
pion
it. On
governments
few sanctions
repressive
unchecked,
campaign"
in The Hague,
it
of Justice
it
this
hand,
guarded
jealously
to appeal
to the
to allow minorities
see itself as a "cham
did not
Secretariat
League
but more modestly
carry out
the power
the other
proposals
directly. The
of minorities"
had
the League
taken
as an
their own
obligations.
offenders.
against
egregious
behavior
of Yugoslav
gendarmes
as did the Polish
government's
in 1930.
the Ukrainians
against
interlocutor
The
Thus
helping
also had
League
the notoriously
in Macedonia
bloody
went
"pacification
Polish or Serbian intolerance did not much bother the French,

who
were
more
allies
European
bother
the British,
concerned
than
who
about
about
the
minorities.
believed
stability
Nor,
the minorities
of
their
Eastern
did it
increasingly,
hin
treaties were

52
Mark Mazower
the process
of assimilation.
"More harm would
in the end
dering
even
be done by unnecessary
at
interference
the risk of a
than,
to allow these minorities
little local suffering,
to settle down under
a Foreign Office
wrote
their present masters,"
in London
official
can
"So long as these people
that their grievances
imagine
be aired before
the League
to settle
of Nations
refuse
they will
down
and the present
effervescence
will
continue
indefinitely."4
Yet despite
such indifference
from the League's
main
sponsors,
in 1922.
some
groups
pushed
of Gustav
diplomacy
and began
League
an eye
ties" with
across
Eastern
for more
an
stance.
Under
the
Weimar
Stresemann,
Germany
to assume
the role of the "defender
entered
the
to
of
the millions
German
Europe.
activist
of
and
ethnic
Jewish
the lobbying of the European Congress

Stresemann
identified
himself
with
of minori
Germans
groups
scattered
spearheaded
of Nationalities,
the cause
while
of
closely
reforming
a permanent
machinery
by creating
minority
rights
commission.
His
efforts
had limited
because
results,
partly
they
were
to form part of a more
effort to revise the
suspected
general
the Geneva
to convince
merely
managed
at home
never
German
nationalists
that the League
would
ad
Germans
ethnic
abroad.5
protect
equately
as
At the same time, the minorities
treaties were
bitterly resented
a humiliation
were
countries
concerned.
by the
They
particularly
was
no
irritated
there
the
fact
that
universal
by
minority-rights
Versailles
settlement.
Stresemann
no
regime;
why
they wondered
they had been singled out when
on Germany
or on Italy when
such obligations
had been imposed
it persecuted
in the South Tyrol.
the German-speaking
minority
It is true that of the approximately
estimated
thirty-five million
some 8.6 million
in interwar
inhabitants
minority
Europe,
only
one
in
lived inWestern
of
the total popu
twenty
Europe
(roughly
about
million
lived in Central
and
lation) whereas
twenty-five
was
in
Eastern
minorities
Thus
the
(one
four).
Europe
question
in the East. Even so, the lack of a
far more
important
numerically
universal
regime
was
an embarrassment
for the Great
Powers.6
Such an idea had in fact been considered in 1919 in Paris, only

to be rejected. As James Headlam-Morley,
the minorities
noted
guarantees,
behind
issues
of
state
sovereignty
were
one
at the
of
the key figures

time, fundamental
at stake:

53
Minorities
that there should

At first there was, so far as I recollect, a proposal
some general clause giving the
be inserted in the League of Nations
in all countries
the right to protect minorities
League of Nations
of the League. This I always most
which were members
strongly
have involved the right to interfere in the
.for it would
opposed..
of every country in the world. As I pointed out,
internal constitution
the right to protect the Chinese
itwould give the League of Nations
in France, the French in Canada,
in Liverpool,
the Roman Catholics
such as the Irish. This
quite apart from the more serious problems,
not
I
view
of
was,
think,
seriously opposed by any except the
point
to be a sort of
who
the
bodies
unofficial
wished
League of Nations
a
and freedom
super-state with
general right of guarding democracy
...
own
was
view
that any right given to
the world.
My
throughout
the League of Nations must be quite definite and specific, and based
on special treaties entered into because of definite exceptional
cases,
in the case of a new
and that such a right could only be recognized
or immature
state of Eastern Europe or Western

Asia. Even if the
lead to injustice and oppres
of such a right elsewhere might
sion, that was better than to allow anything which would mean the
of every state in the world.7
negation of the sovereignty
denial
the Great
Thus
affairs
of
affairs.
This
lized"
states
were
Powers
"new"
states
but
happy
allowed
supremely
paternalistic
such as those inWestern
to interfere
Europe
had
dures to facilitate the assimilation of minorities

exist
was
in "immature
easier
states."
for Welsh
or the civil
professions
or Hungarians
Poland
recent. Breton
children
That
or Catalan
service
and villages
their homes
a way of educating
ties were
have
to some
view was,
children
than
in Romania,
suffer
might
burned
in the
internal
no meddling
in their own
stance
assumed
that "civi
to make
it was,
where
evolved
proce
that did not yet

true: it
extent,
careers
in the
in
say, for Ukrainians
were more
hatreds
but they did not

school,
trea
down. The minorities
at
less civilized
nations
in international
deportment.
But the underlying
that assimilation
into the civi
premise was
was
lized life of the nation
and desirable.
As a Brazilian
possible
in 1925,
the goal of the treaties was not
put it in Geneva
delegate
a state of affairs
to perpetuate
in which
certain groups
in society
saw themselves
as "constantly
to
the
establish
alien," but, rather,
conditions
for
"a complete
national
unity."8

54
Mark Mazower
After
1933,
the "assimilation
however,
(as itwas
thesis"
dubbed
by opponents) was spectacularly refuted with the rise of the Third

Reich.
Ethnic
had
limited
that
lowed
as practiced
in Warsaw
for assimilation;
racial nationalism
scope
across
spread
none.
The
Central
rise of
therefore
Germany
approach
ing the assimilationist
the
of
Polish
idea
Nazi
1933,
Germany
Colonel
Beck,
he denounced
premier,
coffin when
League's
the whole
supposedly
in the most
the introduction
gations
"pending
for the protection
of minorities."
the kind
1930s
Europe
anti-Semitism
institutionalized
A
of
in the
Eastern
and
undermined
to minorities.
In October
or Bucharest
nationalism
al
in Hitler's
of the League's
state was
reject
fashion possible.
basis
"civilized"
sweeping
left the League.
drove
another
A year later,
into the
nail
Poland's
minority-rights
of a general and uniform
The number
of minority
obli
system
peti
tions received at Geneva fell sharply from 204 in 1930 to fifteen in

as a
can be taken
drop
minorities
confidence
felt by European
Let us not, however,
be too hasty
In the first
system altogether.
minority
1936.
This
successes
that offered
was
what
have
today
between
with
possible
been
too peaceful
valuable
astute
forgotten,
lessons
barometer
of
in the value
in writing
off
and Finland,
the League's
up a few
it did notch
place,
for the future
and
for instance,
was
islands dispute
resolved
a high
granted
formed
the
compact
source
tension
of
of administrative
degree
that
basis of a solution
between
the two
in
quietly
1921: the islands remained Finnish, but the Swedish

were
showed
If these
government.
far-sighted
it is perhaps
because
only
they were
and
for the history books. The Aaland
Sweden
the waning
of the League.9
islanders
This
autonomy.
a major
removed
countries.
took the remarkable

step of granting
government
to
Latvians
its
the
did
"national
cultural
minorities";
autonomy
in education.
not go quite this far but did offer some concessions
to be sure, were exceptions. More
These,
usually, as in the Lithuanian
Estonian
The
and
Polish
cases,
144
in the
kept minorities
Those who
ponder
creation
promises
made
were
not
kept.
The
number
of
schools in Poland, for instance, dropped from 3,662 to
Ukrainian
interwar
out
Too
period.
of universities
condemn
the alternatives.
of wartime
the League's
Nation-states
Great
Power
numerus
clausus
often,
and the civil service.10
minorities
clauses
also
system might
a reality, not merely
a
of
The conversion
diplomacy.
were

Minorities
into
Empire
be attributed
the Ottoman
could
hardly
made
Kemal
Turkish
treating
the
running
a Turkish
to forces
there,
demonstrates,
"First we kill
example
minorities.
national
outside
not Lloyd
there were
55
state, for instance,

the country; Mustafa
as the
And
George.
several
the Armenians,
other
then
of
ways
the Greeks,
then the Kurds," a Turkish gendarme told a Danish Red Cross

nurse
in July
as the war
1915
Ottoman
accelerated
German
Even
the Turkification
observers
of the
concluded
that,
Empire.
friendly
concern
in border areas,
for military
the professed
security
beyond
aimed for "the planned
the Turks
extermination
of the Armenian
Later
this
would
be
termed
and, later still,
"genocide"
people."
mass
nor
"ethnic
Neither
murder
transfer
cleansing."
population
offered
was
a way
acceptable
of
solving
to liberal
Eastern
ethnic
Europe's
problems
that
opinion.11
If proof was needed of the horrors such alternatives held in

store,
it was
population
new order
formed
use of both mass murder

and
by Hitler's
provided
an anti-liberal
in his own effort to construct
transfer
in Europe.
part of this
The
"final
solution
Nazi
of the Jewish question"

to redraw
the
attempt
thoroughgoing
A policy
racial map
of the continent.
based on international
law
was replaced
one
and state sovereignty
that
the
very
by
repudiated
foundations
of both: Nazi
theorists
attacked
Geneva's
legal
of international
in
relations
and its pathetic
belief
"juridification"
a "common
to peoples
rule of law" applicable
of differing
racial
worth.12
The
Third
doctrine
that
fairs of other
to replace
a
international
law with
proposed
in
German
intervention
the internal
af
legitimized
states on behalf of ethnic Germans
abroad. The state,
Reich
the expression
of the racial Volk.
is
"Blood
all, was merely
a
a
wrote
than
in
stronger
passport,"
prominent
pan-Germanist
1937.13 The German
minorities
in Eastern
"racial
Europe were
comrades"
of Reich Germans.
could be protected
They
through
after
inAustria
and the Sudetenland?or
through the "trustee
in
that Germany
its
Danubian
client states in the
acquired
Vienna
accord
of August
1940. German
commentators
on
this last step as a vast
the
old League
improvement
invasion?as
rights"
second
hailed
These
"laws
system of minority
protection.
the folk-group"
gave the "mother
country"
for the protection

of
the right to intervene
directly with the host government on behalf of the minority. They

56
Mark Mazower
turned
the entire
looked
legislation
it did a mere
than
power
had
been
into a collective
Such
legal entity.
at the height
of German
later. By 1945 collective
justice
"folk-group"
a lot more
on
turned
attractive
four years
as millions
its head,
of ethnic
were
Germans
westwards.
expelled
the war
came
the League's
record towards minorities
its
too
of
been
scrutiny.
protection
policy
by treaty
or
not
ambitious
ambitious
it failed because
Had
the
enough?
was
or
to
unworkable
because
the
will
operate
machinery
political
to replace
a
it was
As plans
absent?
the League
with
emerged
During
under
itself,
Had
successor
these questions
could not be shirked. The
organization,
racial basis of Nazi
and Germany's
abandonment
of
jurisprudence
the accepted
of
international
law
had
been
principles
regarded
as among
causes of the break
the principal
in Europe.
down
of order
Nazi
had undermined
the
aggression
same
of an "international
At
the
very existence
time,
community."
treatment
Nazi
of the Jews persuaded
that if the
many
people
since
the
late
was
to be protected
of state
sovereignty
revival
and
individual
doctrine
1930s
reconsidered.
thus
as the natural
emerged
in particular,
international
peace
and,
"Effective
Quincy
against
against
in domestic
of human
for the safeguarding
rights.14
wrote
is not possible,"
organization
it protects
basic human
"unless
rights
States."
unlike Poland or Czechoslovakia,

a minorities
to conclude
that
of Nations
"there was
state, the traditional

affairs would
have to be
law
of international
reinvigoration
to
concern
world
liberal
for
adjunct
in 1943,
Wright
encroachments
by national
the result
the
Wright
observed
that
Germany had not been obliged
treaty with
no formal
the League
of Nations,
with
on
which
the
ground
League
the beginning
of the persecutions
could
protest
against
a general
It was
that a State was
free to
principle
as it saw fit."15
in its own territory
its own nationals
persecute
But the protection
of human
the
of a
existence
rights required
in Germany.
body
superior
recourse.
The
consists
tional
only
law]
to
the
Austrian
state
to which
jurist Hans
the
Kelsen
individual
insisted
could
that
to invoke a court....
in the legal possibility
can confer rights on individuals
only under

have
"a right
[Interna
the condi
Minorities
tion
individuals
that
His
colleague
of human
protection
the relations
of the
drastic
interference
access
to an international
warned
that
the
court."
international
Lauterpacht
as it does
upon
rights "touching
intimately
.
a more
State and the individual.
.implies
with
the sovereignty
of the State
than the
of war."
renunciation
direct
have
Hersch
57
in his aptly-named
But
Peace
through
Law,
Kelsen argued that only people who believed in a "theology of the

to be bound
by
a
red
"We can
Sovereignty
simply
herring.
else
derive from the concept
of sovereignty,"
he went
on, "nothing
than what we have purposely
put into its definition."16
State"
to recognize
refused
The
rather than
then, reflected
sovereignty,
political
or philosophical
But who was go
considerations.
states acknowledge
the supremacy
of international
in the
to respect
Charter,
war
in other
state,
period
had
of world
be required
the Allies'
was
matters
interwar
its confi
reposed
to
human
public opinion
safeguard
a
more
that
effective
instrument
of enforce
thought
in the pressure
It was obvious
rights.
ment would
for all states
was
of
limits
jurisprudential
ing to make
law? Liberal
dence
the need
law.
international
in the postwar
period. What
complicated
as enshrined
in the Atlantic
commitment,
traditional
ideas of state
The post
sovereignty.
to
in some measure
asked
was
words,
being
own
in
its
like Kelsen
acquiesce
Experienced
weakening.
lawyers
saw no other realistic way
to persuade
and Lauterpacht
individual
to
a
states
make
their international
part of domestic
obligations
was to push for some form of world
law. The alternative
state, but
this
At
as Utopian.
they regarded
the heart of this debate
was
the question
of whether
the
in the new postwar
order should be
This was where
the post-1945
order would
to be enshrined
human
individual
rights
or collective.
deviate
most
Nations
had
from Geneva's
The
sharply
approach.
the latter in its system of protection
chosen
The war had done

Europe.
of the problem
of ethnic strife. Indeed,
in Eastern
minorities
the gravity
coined the term "genocide"

Europe,
for the
Occupied
machinery
groups
against
55
u17
and
called
international
extermination
little
of
League
for ethnic
to diminish
Raphael
Lemkin
in his 1944 study of Axis Rule
in
for
the development
of "adequate
of national
and ethnic
protection
attempts
and
oppression
peace.

in time
of
58
Yet
Mark Mazower
the obvious
despite
strong arguments
than improving
President
League.
nounced
shown
of safeguarding
minorities,
importance
in favor of demolishing
advanced
rather
were
the
collective-rights
approach
pioneered
by
in exile
Benes
and the Czech
government
the League
it had
that
on
system
actually
will
the grounds
that experience
had
their
national
security.
jeopardized
find
ultimately
the states of Eastern
"Every protected minority

one observer.
In addition,
its Henlein,"
warned
resented
Europe
fact that they had been singled out for special obligations
their minorities,
had
Germany,
the Great
whereas
not
to suffer
had
same
Benes
as the protectors
posed
were
Rather
really democratic."
Benes
system,
League
suggested
minorities
should
be based upon
time
the
towards
Powers,
including
Italy and
an indignity.
"In the end,"
to such an extraordinary
pass
such
in 1942,
"things came
and dictator
that the totalitarian
states?Germany,
Hungary,
in their own territories
minorities
the
and
Italy?persecuted
wrote
the
de
and
at the
in states which
of minorities
to restore
the
attempting
to
the postwar
approach
"the defense
of human
demo
than
that
rights."18
rights and not of national
to this opposition
In addition
from Eastern
the major
Europe,
the
States?also
and
United
showed
Allied powers?Britain,
France,
a system that had succeeded
in inter
for reviving
little enthusiasm
in Europe without
serious source of tension
the most
nationalizing
cratic
in
As the postwar
settlement
of resolution.
adequate means
was
in
main
interest
of
the
the
would
powers
show,
major
Europe
to minor
that they too
their obligations
states; this meant
limiting
to
were happy
to bury the League's
collective
rights. The
approach
finding
result was
that
the UN's
eventual
to
commitment
an expression
of passivity
rights was as much
a
means
was
It
of
the Allies.
avoiding
problems,
so few
fact helps us understand
them. This
why
man
for a reinvigoration
hopes
the rhetoric,
Behind
of
international
the UN's
law were
commitment
individual
as of resolve
not
of
hu
by
of
solving
the wartime
to be realized.
to minority
rights
In terms of
politics.
as its overall
as weak
in power
position
a definite
the UN Charter
of minorities,
the protection
represented
Declaration
of
The
Universal
from
the
backwards
step
League.
was
Human Rights of 1948 underlined the new status of the individual

in international
doctrine
of
law
state
and
revealed
supremacy,
but
a lasting mistrust
of the Nazi
no provisions
it contained
for

Minorities
enforcement.
was
and their study

scarcely mentioned,
Sub-Commission
of the Human
Rights
to an obscure
Committee. A UN
sharp distinction
the new "general
59
were
Minorities
confined
Secretariat study of 1950, which provided a
between
the League's
outmoded
and
approach
and universal
of
human
protection
rights," has
one
as
commentator
been described
"disastrous
for
the interna
by
tional protection
of minorities."19
was
More
in its implications
the 1948 Genocide
far-reaching
a
one-man
after
remarkable
crusade by Raphael
Convention?passed
at
who
had
been
the
refusal
of the Interna
Lemkin,
disappointed
tional Military Tribunal at Nuremberg
to judge acts committed by
had seen the war-crimes

as an opportunity
to secure world
the
peace
by increasing
to
under
international
law
take action against
individuals
powers
as well
as states. The Genocide
Convention
added an important
new crime
to those recognized
under
international
law and im
states
to
or
act
to
upon ratifying
posed obligations
prevent
punish
the Nazis
1939.
before
Lemkin
and others
trials
its commission.
But
the international
back
the UN's
world
society
the convention's
and
community,
confident
assertion
has been ignored

potential
there has been little evidence
that
"the
feeling
will
by
to
grow
in
that by protecting
the national,
and
racial, religious
we
in
our
the
world
will
be
everywhere
protecting
a series of
four decades,
went
genocides
unpunished
ethnic
groups
selves." Over
in 1992 that indifference extended
outside Europe;
to Europe
itself.20
the Cold War,
During
Europe's
minorities
much
problems?already
reduced by the dramatic shifts of populations
that took place in
simply put into a deep freeze. On each side of the

Iron Curtain,
bi
potentially
destabilizing
disputes were managed
under
the gaze of the presiding
Neither
laterally,
superpower.
the 1940s?were
Austro-Italian
over
differences
the
over Transylvania
disputes
cohesion.
The German
problem
Romanian
bloc
ties?as
it had
been
between
South
nor Hungarian
Tyrol
to jeopardize
allowed
no longer one of minori
were
was
the wars?but
country. The brutal stability the Cold War

disguised
the fact
that
the
international
regime
rather
of
a divided
brought to Europe
on minority

rights
Mark Mazower
60
after the interwar years. In the

rather than advanced
regressed
to the outbreak
in
as the international
of war
response
1990s,
to
start
on
from
had
showed,
minority
rights
thinking
Yugoslavia
scratch again.
had
is a striking
international
There
of
dence
contrast
between
the
in the
1920s
policy
transfer
style of the 1990s.
Population
have
the 1923 Greco-Turkish
may
exchange
as they tried to manage
Western
policymakers
none
remains
instead
peace
As for a fully developed
appealed
the war
uncertain,
the lines of
to
some
to offer
one possible
the Dayton
obfuscation,
along
confi
in Bosnia,
as a solution.
It
it explicitly
of
of that masterpiece
interpretation
the assurance
had
the
and
reactive
but
and
ambition
accords.
international regime of minority
rights
seem from today's perspective

effort must
the League's
activist
and idealistic
of an almost
po
unimaginably
half a continent
of their right to reshape
litical elite, confident
to the tenets of Western
Their
effort remains
liberalism.
according
protection,
the product
of
as
interest
solve
the most
the dilemmas
sustained
attempt
of nationalism
looks very different.

the map
today
and the Jews,
the Germans
1918,
also generally
minorities
eliminated;
in Europe's
international
through
two
The
have
form
to
history
law. But
of
great minorities
in different
been
ways
a smaller proportion
of
than
Eastern
Europe
today
populations
as
in history
the war. At the same time, liberal confidence
before
for
an engine of ethnic assimilation
has disappeared,
good.
perhaps
in
in size and shrunk
has grown
The
international
community
in Central
national
and
seems unlikely.
There may be
therefore
Geneva
resolve;
emulating
for good be
some talk of rewarding
countries
Eastern
European
Croatia
admits
of Europe
the Council
but when
Tudjman's
havior,
as a member,
it is hard
eventually
Yugoslavia
Cooperation
to take
this very seriously.

the Conference
impelled
The
on
breakup
Security
of
and
in Europe (CSCE) to appoint a High Commissioner
of the
the publication
and it accelerated
Minorities,
on the Rights
of Persons
"Declaration
belated
Belong
So
or Ethnic, Religious
and Linguistic Minorities."
ing to National
the League's
remain
these initiatives
tentative;
poli
far, however,
as
in comparison.
and coherent
cies look forceful
Internationally
more
as though
about
is
as domestically,
it seems
well
history
on National
UN's
own
forgetting
the past
than
about
learning
from
it.

Let me
a paradigm
then, with
conclude,
61
Minorities
of forgetting.
The
island
of Ada Kaleh was the site of a Turkish fortress on the Danube
just
a library, and a small

in the
slackened
the Balkans
a mosque,
It contained
the Iron Gates.
above
the Ottoman
grip on
village. When
was overlooked.
Ada
Kaleh
nineteenth
century,
It was apparently
at the Congress
of Berlin and remained
between
the newly
stranded midstream
In 1919
its three hun
of Serbia and Romania.
by the diplomats
Turkish
anomaly,
forgotten
a curious
created kingdoms
dred Muslim
inhabitants
used
row
to
across
drink
curiosities,"
were
from
their
over
handed
the mainland
coffee,
buy
to Romania.
to view
their
figs and
Tourists
these
"human
rose-water
and
Turkish delight, and peer inside the last remaining harem in Eu

rope.
At
time when
these
Turkey,
ways. Today
lies beneath
few
a secular
state
in
creating
Ottoman
the traditional
preserved
in vain on the map
It
for Ada Kaleh.
Atatiirk
islanders
one will
search
the waters
of
the ambitious
was
to
in the 1950s
the Danube,
sacrificed
communist
rulers.
plans of Romania's
hydroelectric
Kaleh
just as appropriate
this century
with minorities
Is not Ada
dealing
a symbol
of our manner
of
as any of Europe's
Cultural
Capitals?
ENDNOTES
1
Acton,
quoted
by C. A. Macartney,
National
States
and National
Minorities
(New
York: Russell & Russell, 1968), 17; Robert Cecil inVictor H. Rothwell, British
War Aims and Peace Diplomacy, 1914-1918
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971),
159.
2See especially Arnold Toynbee's deliberately titled The Western Question

in
Greece and Turkey: A Study in the Contact of Civilizations (London: Constable
and Company,
Ltd.,
1922).
3SeeMark Levene, Wars, Jews and the New Europe: The Diplomacy of Lucien
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); Israel Cohen, Trav
Wolf 1914-1919
els in Jewry (London: E. Goldston, 1952), 87.
4Cited by P. B. Finney, "'An Evil For All Concerned': Great Britain andMinority
Protection After 1919," Journal of Contemporary History 30 (1995): 536-537.
5C. Fink,
"'Defender
of Minorities':
1933," Central European History
Germany
in the League
of Nations,
1926
5 (4) (1972): 330-357.
6Figures from Otto Junghann, National Minorities

Friede, 1932), 116, 119.
in Europe
(New York: Covici,

62
Mark Mazower
7JamesWycliffe Headlam-Morley, A Memoir

(London: Methuen, 1972), 112-113.
of the Paris Peace Conference,
1919
8S.Sierpowski, "Minorities in the System of the League of Nations," in Paul Smith,

ed., Ethnic Groups in International Relations (New York: New York University
Press, 1991), 27.
9Cited by Inis Claude, National Minorities: An International Problem
Mass.:
Harvard
Press,
University
30; numbers
1955),
(Cambridge,
inMacartney,
of petitions
National States and National Minorities, 504, and Jacob Robinson et al., Were
theMinorities Treaties a Failure? (New York: Institute of Jewish Affairs of the
American Jewish Congress and theWorld Jewish Congress, 1943), 252.
10A. J. Motyl,
1921-1939,"
in Inter-War Poland,
Political Violence
"Ukrainian Nationalist
East European Quarterly 19 (1) (March 1985): 46.
nManoug J. Somakian, Empires inConflict: Armenia and the Great Powers, 1895
1920 (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1995), 137, 86; Arnold J. Toynbee,
in Greece and Turkey, 2d ed. (London: Constable,
The Western Question
1923), 16-17.
"The National
12J.Herz,
Doctrine
Socialist
of International Organization,"
1939): 536-554.
13Cited
in United
States,
of
Law
International
Political Science Quarterly
Department
of
State,
Division
and
the Problems
44 (4) (December
of European
Affairs,
Na
tional Socialism: Basic Principles, Their Application by theNazi Party's Foreign

Organization and the Use of Germans Abroad for Nazi Aims (Washington,
D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1943), 70.
14Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied
Endowment
tion
for International
of European
Civilization
Peace,
and
Europe
(Washington, D.C.: Carnegie
1944),
xiv; W.
Friedman,
of International
the Future
"The Disintegra
Modern
Law,"
Law Review (December 1938): 194-214; J.Herz, "The National Socialist Doc
trine of International Law," Political Science Quarterly (December 1939): 536
554.
15WorldCitizens Association, World's Destiny and the United States (Chicago, 111.:
World Citizens Association, 1941), 102-105.
16Ibid., 113; Hersch Lauterpacht, An International Bill of the Rights ofMan (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1945), vi; Hans Kelsen, Peace through Law
(Chapel Hill, N.C.: The University of North Carolina Press, 1944), esp. 41-42.
17Lemkin,Axis Rule inOccupied Europe, xiii.
18E.Benes, "The Organization of Postwar Europe," Foreign Affairs 20 (1) (January
1942): 226-242; Claude, National Minorities: An International Problem,
55-59.
19I. Szabo,
ments,"
"Historical
in Karel
of Human
Foundations
Vasak,
ed.,
The
International
and
Rights
Dimensions
Develop
Subsequent
of Human
Rights
(Paris: UNESCO, 1982), 11-42; Hersch Lauterpacht, International Law and

Human Rights (New York: F. A. Praeger, 1950), 353; Hersch Lauterpacht, Re
port: Human Rights, the Charter of the United Nations and the International
Bill of the Rights of Man (Brussels: n.p., 1948), 22; P. Thornberry, "The UN

Minorities
Declaration:
Background,
Analysis
63

and
Observations,"
in Alan
Phillips
and
Allan Rosas, eds., The UN Minority Rights Declaration

(Turku, Abo: Abo
Akademi University, Institute for Human Rights; London: Minority Rights
Group, 1993), 15.
20Nehemiah
Robinson,
The
Genocide
Convention:
Commentary
(New
York:
Institute of Jewish Affairs, World Jewish Congress, 1960), 52; see also Hans
Kelsen, "Collective and Individual Responsibility in International Law with Par
ticular Regard to the Punishment of War Criminals," California Law Review
XXXI (December 1943): 530-571; Hersch Lauterpacht, "The Subjects of the
Law of Nations," Law Quarterly Review LXIII (October 1947): 438-460; Law
Quarterly Review LXIV (January 1948): 97-116.


Minorities and The League of Nations in Interwar Europe: Mazower

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and the League of Nations

YEAR THE NORTHERN GREEK CITY of Thessaloniki

man Empire. Roughly half its 150,000

inhabitants then were Jews,

into Islam in the late

followed Sabbatai Zevi, their falseMessiah,

to the city, its large Jewish

that had begun with

This content downloaded from 99.0.118.126 on Sun, 5 Jan 2014 20:12:21 PM

small fry compared with

involved in the compulsory

of the latter settled

from Asia Minor

and its massive

the other hand, both the Greeks and the Turks

improve over the next

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and the League of Nations

edly during World War

I.The sudden collapse of the great empires

"I do not myself

Similar doubts were

forcefully expressed by Jewish lobbying

unfolded in all its horror in 1915 and led to themurder of between

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goal for anyone

point of view. In the disputed

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law into uncharted

and the League of Nations

and older states like

well as on former belligerents

in 1878. What was new

1830 and Romania

and, on the other,

and profile were

tionalities, which publicized their plight.

itself in this system was

Polish or Serbian intolerance did not much bother the French,

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the lobbying of the European Congress

for the Great

Such an idea had in fact been considered in 1919 in Paris, only

the key figures

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and the League of Nations

that there should

state of Eastern Europe or Western

dures to facilitate the assimilation of minorities

that did not yet

but they did not

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by opponents) was spectacularly refuted with the rise of the Third

tions received at Geneva fell sharply from 204 in 1930 to fifteen in

1921: the islands remained Finnish, but the Swedish

for the history books. The Aaland

took the remarkable

schools in Poland, for instance, dropped from 3,662 to

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and the League of Nations