Part 1 (1/2)

Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question.

by Lucien Wolf.

PREFACE.

The substance of this volume was read as a Paper before the Jewish Historical Society of England on February 11, 1918. It has now been expanded and supplied with a full equipment of doc.u.ments--Protocols of Congresses and Conferences, Treaty Stipulations, Diplomatic Correspondence and other public Acts--in the hope that it may prove useful as a permanent record, and serviceable to those of our communal organisations whose duty it will be to bring the still unsolved aspects of the Jewish Question before the coming Peace Conference.

Besides helping to indicate the lines on which Jewish action should travel in this matter, the State Papers here quoted may also serve to remind the Plenipotentiaries themselves that the Jewish Question is far from being a subsidiary issue in the Reconstruction of Europe, that they have a great tradition of effort and achievement in regard to it, and that this tradition, apart from the high merits of the task itself, imposes upon them the solemn obligation of solving the Question completely and finally now that the opportunity of doing so presents itself free from all restraints of a selfish and calculating diplomacy.

It is not only that the edifice of Religious Liberty in Europe has to be completed, but also that some six millions of human beings have to be freed from political and civil disabilities and social and economic restrictions which for calculated cruelty have no parallels outside the Dark Ages. The Peace Conference will have accomplished relatively little if a shred of this blackest of all European scandals is allowed to survive its deliberations.

This collection does not pretend to be complete. The aim has been only to ill.u.s.trate adequately the main lines of the theme with a view to practical questions which may arise in connection with the Peace Conference. American doc.u.ments have been only sparely quoted, for the reason that the American Jewish Historical Society has already published a very full collection of such doc.u.ments. (Cyrus Adler: ”Jews in the Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States.”) The many generous interventions of the Vatican on behalf of persecuted Jews have also been omitted partly for a similar reason (see Stern: ”Urkundliche Beitrage uber die Stellung der Papste zu den Juden”) and partly because they have very little direct bearing on the diplomatic activities of the Great Powers during the period under discussion.

My grateful acknowledgements are due to the Foreign Office for kindly permitting me to copy the doc.u.ments relating to Palestine, which will be found appended to Chapter IV, and to Lieut. J. B. Morton, who was good enough to relieve me of much of the work of reading the proof-sheets. I have also to thank Mr. D. Mitrani for the generous help he gave me in preparing the Index.

L. W.

GRAY'S INN, LONDON.

_December 1918._

NOTES ON THE DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF THE JEWISH QUESTION.

I. INTRODUCTION.

ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS LIBERTY GENERALLY.

The Jewish Question is part of the general question of Religious Toleration. Together with the questions relating to the toleration of ”Turks and Infidels,” it raises the question of Religious Liberty in its most acute form. It is both local and international. Locally it seeks a solution through Civil and Political Emanc.i.p.ation on the basis of Religious Toleration. Internationally it arises when a State or combination of States which has been gained to the cause of Religious Toleration intervenes for the protection or emanc.i.p.ation of the oppressed Jewish subjects of another State. There have been, however, at least two occasions when the interventions have taken the contrary form of efforts to promote the persecution or restraint of Jews as such.[1]

As an altruistic form of international action the principle of intervention has been of slow growth. It required an atmosphere of toleration on a wide scale, and, before this atmosphere could be created, Christian States had to learn toleration for themselves by a hard experience of its necessity. They had, in the first place, to secure toleration for their own nationals and the converts of their Churches in heathen countries where the people could not be coerced or lectured with impunity. In the next place they had to achieve toleration among themselves.

Toleration among the Christian Churches--the so-called peace of Christendom--became necessary owing to the struggle between the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation; but it took the Thirty Years'

War to prove its necessity. The proof is embodied for all time in the Peace of Westphalia--chiefly in the Treaty of Osnabruck, which was signed in 1648, at the same time as the famous Treaty of Munster. The ostensible effect of the Peace of Westphalia was to place Roman Catholicism and Protestantism on an equal legal footing throughout Europe. A secondary effect was to give a very marked stimulus to the cause of Religious Liberty generally. We may recognise its first fruits in, among other things, the campaign for unrestricted religious toleration during the Commonwealth in England, and its application to the Jews.[2]

It was not until 1814 that this principle was extended by Treaty beyond the pale of Christendom. This was in the Protocol of the four allied Powers--Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria--by which the union of Belgium with Holland was recognised. The return of the House of Orange to the Netherlands after the fall of Napoleon had entailed the promulgation of a new Const.i.tution, which, in view of the democratic traditions of the French occupation, was necessarily of a liberal type.

Among its concessions was an article granting the fullest religious liberty. When the Powers were called upon to sanction the union with Belgium, they did so on condition that the new Const.i.tution should be applied to the whole country, and, in view of the religious differences prevailing, emphasised the article on Religious Liberty. This is the form in which it appears in the Protocol:--

Art. I.--Cette reunion devra etre entiere et complete, de facon que les 2 Pays ne forment qu'un seul et meme etat regi par la Const.i.tution deja etablie en Hollande, et qui sera modifiee, d'un commun accord, d'apres les nouvelles circonstances.

Art. II.--Il ne sera rien innove aux Articles de cette Const.i.tution qui a.s.surent a tous les Cultes une protection et une faveur egales, et garantissent l'admission de tous les Citoyens, quelle que soit leur croyance religieuse, aux emplois et offices publics.