Churchill and the Unification of Europe

[Ferran]

Churchill and the Unification of Europe

INSIDE THE JOURNALS
Edited by John G. Plumpton

Mauter, Wendell: "Churchill and the Unification of Europe"
in The Historian, 61(1), Fall 1998, pp. 67-84.

Winston Churchill's call in 1945 for a "United States of Europe," a federation of European states to promote harmonious relations between nations, economic cooperation, and a sense of European identity, has caused him to be regarded as the father of European unity. While in opposition, Churchill argued forcefully at home and abroad that a united Europe was the best means to heal residual hatred from the Second World War. Yet Churchill's rhetoric is sometimes difficult to reconcile with his ambivalence regarding Britain's role in his proposed federation, particularly after he returned to power in October 1951.

This paper explores several questions: What did mean by a United States of Europe? What was to be Britain's role in a unified Europe? How did Churchill's commitment to European unity fit with his deep commitment to preserving Britain's status as a global power? How did Churchill's political ambitions affect his European unification initiative? How did Churchill's beliefs and actions change upon regaining office? Churchill coined the term "United States of Europe" in a Saturday Evening Post article in February 1930. He believed that "obsolete hatreds" could be appeased by the American federalist model, but that Britain would not belong. "We have our own dreams. We are with Europe but not of it. We are linked but not compromised."

The threat of Nazi Germany caused him to put the issue away until he proposed an Anglo-French Union as France was falling to the Germans in June 1940. In December of that year he spoke of a postwar Europe of five Great Powers (United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain and Prussia) and four confederations operating in a Council of Europe to include a "supreme judiciary and a Supreme Economic Council to settle currency questions." Privately he was still determined to maintain close links with the United States and the British Commonwealth, and to maintain Britain as a world power in its own right.

In 1942, expressing concern about "Russian barbarism" threatening Europe's revival, he focused less on the primacy of the English speaking world. "We will have to work with the Americans," he wrote, "but Europe is our prime care." In January 1943 he issued a paper calling for "an instrument of European government formed by units including the great European powers and blocs made up of smaller states." This paper was attacked by the Foreign Office for vagueness.

In the postwar years, his advocacy of European unification served as a forum for reestablishing his status in his own party, in Britain, and on the international scene. Only months after the war ended he advocated a "United States of Europe" to unify the continent "in a manner unknown since the fall of the Roman Empire." The federation would be one of several regional units in the new United Nations. He did not believe the United Nations could prevent a future European war without a united Europe. He gave his most famous speech on this topic in Zurich on 19 September 1946. He now visualized the United States of Europe as one of four U.N. pillars, along with the British Empire and Commonwealth, a .S.-led Western Hemisphere, and a Soviet sphere. The first step would be an alliance between France and Germany. He asked General de Gaulle to "take Germany by the hand and rally her to the West and European civilization", but the French President insisted on British participation at the beginning stage.

In January 1947 Churchill chaired the new organized Provisional United Europe Committee comprised of British political leaders, academics and religious leaders. He also attempted to set up a bipartisan organization, the All Party Group, within Britain to promote a united Europe, but failed to gain the support of Prime Minister Clement Attlee.

The inspirational rhetoric of his public speeches envisioned elements of supranationalism, not just intergovernmental cooperation, though he was still unwilling to jeopardize Britain's privileged relationship with other English-speaking nations by joining in a European federation. In 1947 and 1948 he sought to link the united Europe initiative in Britain with like minded continental groups. He founded the United Europe Movement in Britain, served as its president and sought Labour support for it. He was now placing Britain closer to the heart of European unification than ever before.

At the Congress of the European Movement at The Hague on 7-10 May 1948 Churchill's European unity strategy paid rich dividends. He made several highly publicized speeches and in his keynote address Churchill sketched out his vision of a united Europe and Britain's place in it, emphasizing that it was "impossible to separate economic and defence from the political structure." He called for a European Assembly and spoke of three world pillars in the United Nations--the USSR, the United States and Western Hemisphere--and a Council of Europe that included Britain linked to its Empire and Commonwealth." He hoped to reach a time when people would be proud to say, "I am a European," and would think of themselves as much European as of their native land.

He next faced the task of organizing formal institutions for a united Europe. He hoped a Council and Assembly of Europe would provide a forum for his views while Labour was in power and would hasten the reentry of Germany into the European family. Creating the institutions gave him a sense of purpose and combative enjoyment he had not felt since the war, but it tested his convictions versus his rhetoric. It was also like squaring a circle trying to maintain close relations with the U.S. and the Commonwealth while drawing closer to Europe. Politically, he received no support from Attlee and the fault lines within his own party were widening. Toward the end of 1948 divisions between intergovernmental and federal organizations continued to grow.

Churchill acknowledged these two visions of European unity but tried not to define the organizational structure at this stage. At the opening meeting of the European Assembly in July 1949, he addressed the intergovernmental-federal debate by suggesting that all possibilities be explored. His main goal was to foster a Europeanism which would include Germany. At his own party conference in October he left Britain's relationship with a united Europe undefined and thus received only two dissenting votes.

Until his return to office, Churchill's strategy of building confidence and sentiment for European union without rigid constitutions clashed with continental wishes to construct just such arrangements. Treaties to pool coal and steel and to establish a European Army severely tested Churchill's delicate balancing act of engaging Britain with its Atlantic, Empire and Commonwealth responsibilities on acceptable terms.

After Churchill's motion creating a European Army--though not a supranational one--was passed by the European Assembly, he faced the problems of promoting the idea and spelling out the structure. Constructing a European Army brought Churchill back to the role of national sovereignty. Privately, he hoped for national divisions under a "SHAEF-like command with a civilian Defence Chief responsible to existing national governments acting together." He believed that a European Army without national contingents would not have a fighting spirit. Publicly, he preferred to comment on proposals of others rather than present schemes of his own.

In London, President Eisenhower gave an impassioned speech on European unification. Although Churchill called the speech "one of the greatest speeches by an American in my lifetime," he and Eisenhower differed on the extent of unification and it soon became evident both men were moving in opposite directions on the issue, setting the stage for a rocky future relationship.

Did Churchill manipulate the European Movement for political gain or did he sincerely accept is implications for Britain and the continent? Though he never expressed unqualified support for a federal Europe, favouring instead an intergovernmental approach, he fully exploited his status while out of power to avoid making hard choices. His public utterances appear closer to accepting a federal Europe than he was prepared to do in office. An enthusiastic group of younger, soon-to-be-Conservative Party ministers fully expected a new era of British leadership in Europe once Churchill returned to power. Less than two months after resuming office, Churchill crushed their hopes. In a Cabinet memorandum 29 November 1951, Churchill said unequivocally that Britain should not become an "integral part of European integration" as it would "forfeit our insular or commonwealth wide character."

What did Churchill's more than two decades of involvement in European unity ultimately mean? Was it simply political partisanship, an egotistical need to possess an international public forum a display of innovative thinking, a means of maintaining Europe's balance of power with minimum British commitments, a last-ditch attempt to preserve Britain's global status in a superpower world or some combination of the above? Historians have divided into two camps on the issue. Some do not see Churchill statements as inconsistent with his action, since there never was a real chance, under Churchill, for Britain to participate in a supranational European organization. Others insist Churchill sincerely believed in the progressive merging of continental sovereignty but was unsure of Britain's membership in it in the immediate or near future.

We can, however, draw the following conclusions: Whatever his intentions, Churchill's words inspired and energized continental sentiment for a solution to Europe's postwar weakness and lack of recovery. Providing legitimacy with his prestige, Churchill gave continental proponents of a united Europe political cover and helped them create forums to convert public sentiment into governmental policy. Churchill's rhetoric also began debate, which continues to this day within Britain, about it's future as a world power and the role Europe could play in that endeavour. Though in guarding Britain's independence Churchill may have looked to the Victorian past to solve the problems of the present, it would not be the first time in history that ideas and goals form the past propelled a nation, and a continent, into the future.



Source: Churchill and the Unification of Europe - The Churchill Centre

[Marulus]

Winsteon Churchill was one of the biggest war criminals of the 20th century...

[Ferran]

Originally Posted by prometheus

Winsteon Churchill was one of the biggest war criminals of the 20th century...

I completely agree, but as he said:

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."

[Gladstone]

Churchill coined the term "United States of Europe" in a Saturday Evening Post article in February 1930. He believed that "obsolete hatreds" could be appeased by the American federalist model, but that Britain would not belong. "We have our own dreams. We are with Europe but not of it. We are linked but not compromised."

The United States has been promoted as a model for Europe for a very long time.

From a late March 1848 issue of The London Times ...italics in original.

"Let them [ed. Europe] observe the working of federalism in America. The most complete national unity is there preserved as regards foreign nations; complete freedom of trade, complete uniformity of action in all respects essential to national life; while, at the same time, the inestimable habit of self government is created and retained, and the power of adapting local institutions to local wants exercised so fully, that no American citizen has to complain that the interests of his locality suffer by the distance or neglect of the legislative centre. The German in Pennsylvania, the Frenchmen in Louisiana, the Spaniard in Florida, had no need, when they came to participate in the advantages of the great American Union, of sacrificing one iota of the local institutions to which they were attached. So wonderfully elastic and expansive is this principle of government, that the entire American continent might, as it appears to us, be absorbed in one vast federation, with but little inconvenience or danger resulting from its extent and diversity of characteristics.

At the end of the Times article Littel's Living Age [the US Journal the Times article appeared in] editorializes...

"Suppose these European nations to have settled their governments, and then to have made a Federal Union of the whole, within which peace and free trade should be perpetual, as they are between our states. And then suppose the United States of America were invited to join with the United States of Europe, not in political connection, but on the basis of peace and free trade! We desire to prepare our readers for such a question. It may not soon happen, but almost all Christian people think it has been clearly revealed in the Bible that it will come to pass. Who is ready to welcome the time?"

Those last few lines might indicate a bit of British Israelism...as might certain of the statements by Churchill from this threads main article

May 13, 1848 Littel's Living Age article entitled 'The London Times Praising America' pg 322-324

Cornell University Making of America

[Ferran]

Originally Posted by Gladstone

The United States has been promoted as a model for Europe for a very long time.

Of course, and there's no doubt that the European Union has indeed the fingerprint of America, wheter the Betsy Ross was actually the first official flag of the United States from 1777 to 1795 or just a myth promoted by William Canby in the late XIX century.



The Birth of Old Glory (1917), by Moran


Betsy Ross(?) and two girls showing United States flag to George Washington and three other men.

As I said, I don't know if this history is reality or myth, but the presence of George Washington in the creation of this flag would not only make sense, but would also be of much importance because it will show what the European Union agenda actually is.

According to him:

"Some day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe." -- George Washington.

Also, don't miss the admiration a head of the "European" Movement shows towards George Washington and the United States of America:

http://forum.stirpes.net/politics/83...plishment.html

[Gladstone]

Originally Posted by Ferran

"Some day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe." -- George Washington.

It would be interesting to find the source of that quote...that is to verify it.

Probably is from a letter stored in an old museum somewhere.

[Ferran]

Originally Posted by Gladstone

It would be interesting to find the source of that quote...that is to verify it.

Probably is from a letter stored in an old museum somewhere.

I assume you want me to name a serious source... However, the nearest I can find to such a thing is a famous quote-compilator website in which this sentence appears.

George Washington quotes

There are also many blogs and websites using this quote, but I think that they all took it from there, so now the thing would be to ask this site where did they find it.

[Gladstone]

Originally Posted by Ferran

I assume you want me to name a serious source... However, the nearest I can find to such a thing is a famous quote-compilator website in which this sentence appears.

George Washington quotes

There are also many blogs and websites using this quote, but I think that they all took it from there, so now the thing would be to ask this site where did they find it.

It wasn't necessary to go to all the trouble.

Thanks for the research on it though.

The interesting quote is probably real. The person at the article below uses a quote much like it and says it was from a letter between George Washington and Lafayette.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/content...es/PDF/344.pdf