October 5, 2013

FINEST HOUR 102, SPRING 1999

BY JOHN G. PLUMPTON

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One of the missions of Finest Hour is to bring its readers the best and latest in Churchill scholarship. Some scholarship is first published in scholarly and even popular journals, and to cover that area we offer abstracts. Readers should bear in mind that abstracts represent the author’s view but not necessarily that of the editor, Mr. Plumpton or of Finest Hour.

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EUROPEAN UNION

Mauter, Wendell: “Churchill and the Unification of Europe” in The Historian, 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 he 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 his 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, Churchill’s 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 U.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 newly 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. (See his Commons exchange with Willie Gallacher on this subject, page 37.)

The inspirational rhetoric of his public speeches envisioned elements of supranationalism, 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 USA and the Commonwealth while drawing closer to Europe.

Churchill acknowledged these two visions of European unity but tried not to define the organizational structure at this stage. At 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.

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 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.

Did Churchill manipulate the European Movement for political gain or did he sincerely accept its 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. In a 29 November 1951 Cabinet memorandum, 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 die above? Historians have divided into two camps on the issue. Some do not see Churchill’s 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 its 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 from the past propelled a nation, and a continent, into the future.