19-9-2022
LEUSL2043
History of European integration. From
the interwar period to the present
LLN, 20 September 2022
Jan-Willem BROUWER
& Wim WEYMANS
Today (and next week)
Introduction to the course
The idea of Europe in history
From the interwar years to the start of the
Cold War
1. View on the course
First half – Before 1985
I Introduction, the idea of Europe in history, World War I and the
interwar years
II From the interwar years to the start of the Cold War
III 1950-1958 – The formative years of the “Six”
IV 1959-1972 – A troublesome household
V 1973-1984 – Enlargement, crises and Eurosclerosis
Introduction to the course
1. View on the course (and the exam)
2. The return of History?
3. Literature
An introduction in European integration history within
framework of “Master120 in European Studies”
• Before 1940
• European integration since WW 2
• Crises
• Politicians, treaties and institutions
• Public opinion
• Geopolitical situation
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Hidden agenda The exam

• Written, “closed book” exam in January (see syllabus

on Moodle soon)
• The role of History in international relations in general
and in European politics in particular • Notes & PP + possible other texts (see Moodle for
each lecture)
• LLN: rigorous but fair
• The importance of the English language

Chronology !

• The single most important unifying factor of history

• French Revolution in 1889 ?? Then: Waterloo in 1915, 2. The return of History ?
unification Germany in 1971 and First World War in
2014-2018 !
• Charles de Gaulle; Helmut Kohl; Margaret Thatcher
etc. etc.

New Cold War ? Gary Brookins,

The Richmond
Times, 12 Aug.
2008

• 2008 conflict with Georgia

(Abkhazia and South Ossetia)
• 2013 turmoil in Ukraine
• 2014 annexation Crimea &
downing flight MH17
• 2015 operations in Syria
• 2022 invasion Ukraine
Siegfried Woldhek, NRC
Handelsblad, 7 Sept.
2014

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Strasbourg, 14 Sept. 2022. State of the Union “Problem Germany” – “Some problems are difficult to put
Address president Ursula von der Leyen into the fridge”, Algemeen Handelsblad, 23 July 1955

“One lesson from this war is we should have listened to those

who know Putin. To Anna Politkovskaya [1958-2006 Russian
journalist] and all the Russian journalists who exposed the
crimes, and paid the ultimate price. To our friends in Ukraine,
Moldova, Georgia, and to the opposition in Belarus. We
should have listened to the voices inside our Union – in
Poland, in the Baltics, and all across Central and Eastern
Europe. They have been telling us for years that Putin would
not stop.”

The Economist, 13 April 2013

The Economist,
17 May 2014

Fritz Stern: “Die Deutschen wollen an die Zukunft denken, aber ihre Nachbarn denken an die Vergangenheit.”

23 June 2016 UK
referendum

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A new era of nationalism?

“Europe’s walls are going back up –

it’s like 1989 in reverse”
(Timothy Garton Ash, The Guardian, 29 Nov. 2015)

Angela Merkel, 28/5/2017 (following first NATO & G-7 meetings with new US
The Economist, 7 Nov. 2019 president Trump): “We Europeans truly have to take our fate into our own hands.”

De Volkskrant, 15 June 2021 – “Biden visits

Europe” (and cleaning up after Trump)
Tom
Janssen,
Trouw, 21
Aug. 2021

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May 2022 Conclusion: EU shaken to its

foundations

• If there ever was a time to start European studies, it is

now !
• Not a bad idea to take a closer look at those
foundations

European integration as seen by an historian “Göttingen” (1964)

• No “finalité historique”: no clear goal - Barbara (1930-1997)

• Familiar themes /long-term patterns: - Hymn of Franco-German
- Geopolitical situation: between the US and Russia reconciliation
- National interests - On moodle

- German question
- British aloofness
- Franco-German co-operation

3. Literature

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Brussels-based European affairs website

(and weekly newspaper)

The Guardian.com

Stefan Zweig (1881-1942) The World of Yesterday (1942)

• Fascinating account of Europe’s history 1900-1940
• Austrian novelist, journalist and biographer
• Pre-war youth and studies in Vienna
• In his time one of the most popular writers in
• Downfall of Austro-Hungarian Empire
the world
• Rise of Hitler
• 1934 left Austria for England
• “It remains an undisputable law of History [ein
• 1940 to New York, then to Brazil
unumstößliches Gesetz der Geschichte] that
• Die Welt von Gestern. Erinnerungen eines contemporaries are denied a recognition of the
Europäers (The World of Yesterday) was early beginnings of the great movements which
completed 1942 shortly before he committed determine their times.”
suicide

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I The idea of Europe in history Desire for unity is much older

• Story of European integration begins in 1945 – WW II

was watershed
1. Early ideas of Europe
• Recurring theme since Middle Ages: maintenance of
2. World War I and its consequences peace & outside threats
3. The Interwar years up to Locarno
• How to overcome Europe’s extreme political
fragmentation

Etymology ‘Europe’

• Possibly derives from Phoenician word

1. Early ideas of Europe “Erob”, meaning “where the sun sets”
(i.e. west of Phoenicia, west of the
Bosporus)
• Zeus enamoured of Europa; seduced
her by transforming himself into a
beautiful white bull

Christendom / threat of Islam

Pierre Dubois (c. 1255 – c. 1321)
• 732 Charles Martel at Poitiers
• Crusades: conquer Jerusalem • French publicist under Philip the Fair
• No identification Europe / Christendom • 1306 treatise De recuperatione terrae sanctae
• Outlines conditions necessary to a successful crusade:
• 1453 Fall of Constantinople peace among the Christian nations
• 1492 Reconquista
• 1529 First siege of Vienna (1683)
• Identification Europe / Christendom

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Balance of power George Podiebrad (1420 –1471)

• Machiavelli’s Il Principe (1532): political ends justify the
means
• Stability and (religious) freedom
• Balance between Spanish Habsburgs and French Valois
(16th century), between Protestants and Catholics (17th
century)
• Main players: England, France, Austria, Prussia and Russia
• King of Bohemia, leader of the Hussites
• 1464 attempt to secure peace with Rome: establish common
institutions and supranational insignia among all Christian
powers, incl. common parliament
• First historical vision of European unity?

Enlightenment & French revolution
• Europe becomes associated – not only with
Christendom & peace – but also with civilisation
• Montesquieu: continent free of despotism
• Principles of civil law
• Napoleon’s expansion:
- spreading ideas and institutions on continent
- breeding ground for nationalist movements
1849 Victor Hugo - United States of Europe
• Speech at the International Peace Congress in Paris
• ‘A day will come when all nations on our continent will
form a European brotherhood. [...] A day will come
when we shall see [...] the United States of America and
the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out
for each other across the seas.’

18 Jan. 1871 - Palace of Versailles

1848-1914 Rise of nationalism
• 1860’s Italian unification
• 1871 unification Germany
18 Jan. 1871, Hall of Mirrors Versailles Palace

• Growing competition between the European states

(colonies!)
• “Sousentendu”: belief in European supremacy
• National self-interest
• Culminating in First World War

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Alsace-Lorraine between France and

Three Franco-German wars
Germany
• 1870-1871
• 1914-1918
• 1939-1945

• Robert Schuman (1886-1963) born a German?

Ian Kershaw: major elements of the crisis

in Europe after 1914

• Explosion of ethnic-racist nationalism

• Bitter and irreconcilable demands for territorial
2. World War I and its consequences revision
• Acute class conflict (esp. after Bolshevik
Revolution 1917)
• Crisis of democracy

Norman Angell (1872-1967) World War I

• British writer and MP • 28 June 1914 Assassination Archduke Franz Ferdinand
• The great illusion (1910) • 26 July – 4 Aug. declarations of war
• “The great illusion” = the idea that • 1914-1918 Trench warfare
nations would/could gain by war or • April 1917 American intervention; US Expeditionary Force, arrived in
conquest
large numbers on the Western Front in the summer of 1918
• The interdependence of the economies
of European countries had grown to such • 11 November 1918 Armistice
a degree that war between them would
be entirely futile, making militarism
obsolete

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Zweig: the summer of 1914 “All quiet on the Western front”

Oscar Best Picture 1930
“In Le Coq, the small seaside resort near Ostend where I had planned to stay for
two weeks […], the same unconstraint reigned as elsewhere. The happy
vacationists lay under their coloured tents on the beach or went in bathing, After the novel by Erich Maria Remarque, Im
children were flying kites, and the young people were dancing in front of the cafes Westen nichts Neues (1929)
on the digue. All nationalities were peacefully assembled together, and one heard a
good deal of German in particular, for vacationists from the nearby Rhineland had
long shown a preference for the Belgian seacoast. The only disturbance came from
the newsboy who, to stimulate business, shouted the threatening captions in the
Parisian papers: ‘L’Autriche provoque la Russie’, ‘L’Allemagne prépare la
mobilisation’. We could see the faces of those who bought copies grow gloomy, but
only for a few minutes. After all, we had been familiar with these diplomatic
conflicts for years; they were always happily settled at the last minute, before
things grew too serious. Why not this time as well?”

Dec. 1918 Versailles Peace Conference: David Lloyd

“Mitteleuropa” George, Georges Clemenceau and Woodrow Wilson

• Friedrich NAUMANN
(1860-1919)
• Liberal politician
• 1915 Mitteleuropa
• Central Europe under
German leadership
• Economy would be driving
force of integration
• Central European common
market

Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points Zweig on Woodrow Wilson

• 8 Jan. 1918 speech to the US Congress
• Principles for world peace: a “just and secure peace”, not
merely “a new balance of power”
• Free trade, democracy and self-determination for national
minorities
• A world organisation to guarantee the “political independence
and territorial integrity [of] great and small states alike”
“For we were confident – as was the whole world – that
this had been the war to end all wars, that the beast
which had been laying our world waste had been tamed
or even slaughtered. We believed in president Wilson’s
grand program which was ours too. We were foolish I
know. But we were not alone. Anyone who lived through
that time will remember how the streets of all the great
cities echoed to cries of jubilation, hailing president
Wilson as the saviour of the world.”

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June 1919 Treaty of Versailles Europe in 1914

• Germany substantial territorial concessions &

pay reparations
• German army: “stabbed in the back”
• End of three other empires: Tsarist Russia, Habsburg
monarchy and Ottoman Empire
• New states created; a.o. Poland, Czechoslovakia and
Yugoslavia
• League of Nations

German territorial losses after World War I

3. The Interwar years up to “Locarno”

After 1918, Kershaw’s four major elements
were…
• Enhanced by consequences WW1 and by the 1929
economic crisis
• Present in extreme form in Germany
• Reinforcing each other with explosive effect
League of Nations - a powerless organisation
• 1920 intergovernmental organisation in Geneva (1935 58
members)
• Maintain world peace through collective security
& disarmament
• US not a member
• Incapable of preventing aggression Axis powers in 1930s
• Germany withdrew (1933) as did Japan, Italy, Spain

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Briand and Stresemann – architects of

5–16 Oct. 1925 Locarno Treaties
Locarno
• Germany, France, Belgium, the UK and Italy • Reconciliation between
Germany and France
• Germany recognised new western borders
(Versailles) • Gustav STRESEMANN (1878–
1929) liberal politician in
• Ger., Fr. & Bel. undertook not to attack each Weimar republic, PM and
other, with UK & Italy as guarantors Foreign Minister 1923–1929
• In the event of aggression, all other parties • Aristide BRIAND (1862-1932),
socialist politician, PM 1925-
were to assist the country under attack 1926, 1929; Foreign Minister
• “The spirit of Locarno” 1925-1932
• 1926 Nobel peace prize

Literature
• Desmond DINAN, Europe Recast. A History of European Union
(London 2014 2nd edition)
• Robert Kagan, The return of History and the end of dreams (London
2008)
• Ian KERSHAW, To hell and back. Europe, 1914-1949 (London 2015)
• Stefan ZWEIG, Die Welt von Gestern. Erinnerungen eines Europäers
(Stockholm 1942) (The world of yesterday. Memories of a European)

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