What if an early European Coal and Steel Community is set up in 1919?

[raharris1973]

What if an early an early European Coal and Steel Community is set up in 1919, with moves towards starting even before the opening of the Versailles Conference, and an initial membership of at minimum, France, the UK, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Italy can be another possible founding member.

What economic and political constituencies in these countries in 1919 and beyond would have benefitted from a hypothetical "European Coal and Steel Community" along the lines of 1951, or a broader common market along the lines of the 1957 Treaty of Rome? What economic and political constituencies in thesecountries would have been most threatened by it and resistant to it?

If the coalition of self-perceived "winners" could dominate their own domestic objectors and establish such an economic community, could this help keep foreign policies aligned and help keep Italy non-Fascist and parliamentary?

If it were established in the early 1920s, what if the offer of membership were extended to European neutrals, like Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, and possibly Germany, on the condition this last one, Germany, pays its reparations, and joins the League?

 

[Redolegna]

Interestingly enough, Jean Monnet (yeah, him) had worked on projects of similar nature during WWI, and the Wheat Executive and the Allied Maritime Transport Council worked to that effect, with merger into the Supreme Economic Council. If the Allies can be convinced to go it even without the Americans (who really didn't want to continue with that), there's something that can emerge.

 

[Nyvis]

What if an early an early European Coal and Steel Community is set up in 1919, with moves towards starting even before the opening of the Versailles Conference, and an initial membership of at minimum, France, the UK, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Italy can be another possible founding member.

What economic and political constituencies in these countries in 1919 and beyond would have benefitted from a hypothetical "European Coal and Steel Community" along the lines of 1951, or a broader common market along the lines of the 1957 Treaty of Rome? What economic and political constituencies in thesecountries would have been most threatened by it and resistant to it?

If the coalition of self-perceived "winners" could dominate their own domestic objectors and establish such an economic community, could this help keep foreign policies aligned and help keep Italy non-Fascist and parliamentary?

If it were established in the early 1920s, what if the offer of membership were extended to European neutrals, like Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, and possibly Germany, on the condition this last one, Germany, pays its reparations, and joins the League?

I expect this would do nothing to stop the "mutilated peace" sentiment in Italy. I'm also not convinced the country would be the one gaining in this considering how much more weight the other members have in finance and industry

Same if it tries to expand to Germany with the perception of it as a tool of enforcing sanctions rather than coming on the back of reconstruction.

France, the UK and Benelux I could see. The Netherlands might be worried about their neutrality, but I'm not sure how likely that is considering Germany looks very much defeated in 1919.I could see that leading to a more coherent preparation against a rearming Germany even if it's just those few countries, which could have its own impact.

 

[raharris1973]

I expect this would do nothing to stop the "mutilated peace" sentiment in Italy. I'm also not convinced the country would be the one gaining in this considering how much more weight the other members have in finance and industry

Same if it tries to expand to Germany with the perception of it as a tool of enforcing sanctions rather than coming on the back of reconstruction.

France, the UK and Benelux I could see. The Netherlands might be worried about their neutrality, but I'm not sure how likely that is considering Germany looks very much defeated in 1919.I could see that leading to a more coherent preparation against a rearming Germany even if it's just those few countries, which could have its own impact.

That solidification of a London-Paris-Low Countries peacetime axis could be a great bonus all by itself, even without any reconciliation/cooperation with Italy or Germany. Especially if those West European countries come to one mind about exactly what they would do and not do relative to the security of places like Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and communicate that unmistakably.

 

[Nyvis]

That solidification of a London-Paris-Low Countries peacetime axis could be a great bonus all by itself, even without any reconciliation/cooperation with Italy or Germany. Especially if those West European countries come to one mind about exactly what they would do and not do relative to the security of places like Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and communicate that unmistakably.

I think they might also be united over what they'd do or not do to get reparations to keep flowing. Which might set that alliance at odds with Germany from the get go. On the other hand, the Netherlands doesn't care, having sat out WW1 so maybe not.

 

[Charles EP M.]

I think Nyvis is right about Italy and opposition to the ECSC would be a big cause of Italian fascism. "Only strength will keep that club from doing us over"

Same for Germany, if the ECSC is being used as a tool for reparations. But if you don't include Germany, it's not really an ECSC as wd we understand it: a tool for reducing the risk of another war. Under the circumstances of 1919, where France wantd Germany reduced and there's no Soviet threat near the border, I see either:

A) an ECSC equivalent mostly used to defang Germany, and seen as such rather than a European project. Exiting is a key focus in German politics

B) a Treaty of Rome and market for some countries in western europe, probably including Britain, for peace and trade and general nice things between already friendly nations. Germany isn't in. But maybe it wants to be and applies in the late 1920s

 

[Nyvis]

I think Nyvis is right about Italy and opposition to the ECSC would be a big cause of Italian fascism. "Only strength will keep that club from doing us over"

Same for Germany, if the ECSC is being used as a tool for reparations. But if you don't include Germany, it's not really an ECSC as wd we understand it: a tool for reducing the risk of another war. Under the circumstances of 1919, where France wantd Germany reduced and there's no Soviet threat near the border, I see either:

A) an ECSC equivalent mostly used to defang Germany, and seen as such rather than a European project. Exiting is a key focus in German politics

B) a Treaty of Rome and market for some countries in western europe, probably including Britain, for peace and trade and general nice things between already friendly nations. Germany isn't in. But maybe it wants to be and applies in the late 1920s

Yeah I can't see a way for this not to be antagonistic with the losers and sore winners of WW1. Not even trying to include them is probably the only way it'd be successful. Though exploring a more thorough attempt at leashing Germany would be interesting too.

 

[raharris1973]

Same for Germany, if the ECSC is being used as a tool for reparations. But if you don't include Germany, it's not really an ECSC as wd we understand it: a tool for reducing the risk of another war. Under the circumstances of 1919, where France wantd Germany reduced and there's no Soviet threat near the border, I see either:

A) an ECSC equivalent mostly used to defang Germany, and seen as such rather than a European project. Exiting is a key focus in German politics

Yeah I can't see a way for this not to be antagonistic with the losers and sore winners of WW1. Not even trying to include them is probably the only way it'd be successful. Though exploring a more thorough attempt at leashing Germany would be interesting too.

The way I see it, even these versions of the ECSC, as the antagonistic, anti-German, continuation of the Entente by other means, would be an improvement over OTL.

They would offer the prospect of improving the western economies and harmonizing their security strategies in order to provide security to deter war by intimidation rather than by being nice, and to win any war if that fails.

It provides more *security* than the OTL model, where Britain and France started disagreeing by the time of the Ruhr crisis, even though they already knew by that point that Italy was a loose cannon, that Russia was no longer an ally, and that America had abandoned them. At least here they would be sticking together. The strategic divergence between London and Paris by the mid-20s in OTL was really bad, with France trying to guarantee the Central European status quo, and Britain deliberately trying to say it would not guarantee it, and only protect the western, via the Locarno Pact. Such divergence was so bad it probably allowed Hitler the delusion at the time he was writing Mein Kampf to believe that Germany, as long as it foreswore colonies and a navy, could ally with Britain and Italy against France and Russia.

That persistence divergence continuing into the 1930s led the French to try to boost their eastern pacts then, while the British tried to undermine them and went off signing the Anglo-German Naval Agreement.

Western European economic and strategy would have been better even at the cost of a bit more antagonism.

Now the other approach is mutual peace of reconciliation, where you try to bring Italy and Germany into your economic and security arrangements like the ECSC as equal partners. If you try, and it works, two big ifs, that's a great, and it is a superior result to OTL.

And the hybrid is to start with security first, the western union first, because that's all you might realistically get, and you need to rebuild France and Belgium. And I don't see why you shouldn't invite your wartime ally Italy to be in, whether you've met all their wartime claims or not (and of course it would have been smarter to honor all the Italian claims over the Yugoslav - who's more important?). With that foundation, as patronizing and antagonistic as it may be, I think it's fine, even enlightened to hold out, as a light at the end of the tunnel, membership to Germany as an equal, after it "pays its debt to European society"

B) a Treaty of Rome and market for some countries in western europe, probably including Britain, for peace and trade and general nice things between already friendly nations. Germany isn't in. But maybe it wants to be and applies in the late 1920s

 

[Aznavour]

Could such an arrangement survive 1929, even ameliorate the situation for its members, or would the strain drive the members apart and consign this to the “Precedents to the EU” tab in the Alt EU Wiki Page?

Assuming it holds while not exactly being much of a fix, there’s the issue of figuring out how this scheme fits with Britain’s own relationship with its colonies and France’s own in Eastern Europe. Can all those interests be reconciled or are the Eastern European nations ignored by the West, as they usually are?

Also, I wonder if this pushes Weimar and Moscow closer together.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

Gustav Stresemann and Aristide Briand sought to reconcile France and Germany and even desired a European Union in 1929. Its worth noting that in the Kellogg Treaties, Germany recognized only its *Western* borders (ergo, those directed towards France and Belgium) as defined by Versailles.

Treat the Germans more nicely, and Italy-Hungary-Bulgaria will be isolated in their revanchist attitudes.

• Poland had an alliance with France
• Poland had an alliance with Romania, with France liked
• Romania was allied with Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia against Hungary in the Little Entente, and was supported in this endeavor by France
• Romania was allied with Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey against Bulgaria

Britain hoped that by reconciling Britain and France, France would cut the Cordon sanitaire system of alliances (mentioned above. Britain hoped Poland, without French support, would yield Upper Silesia, Kashubia, and Danzig to Germany. I think something narrower might have been possible - Poland could pledge to return Danzig upon the completion of an alternative port at Gdynia and give the Germans an extraterritorial railroad and highway. Poland will want something in exchange though ... maybe France could cajole Czechoslovakia into ceding disputed lands to Poland. A three way exchange (Germany abandoning any claims to Czech German lands, Poland ceding Upper Silesia if Poles get linguistic rights and minority protections, and Czechoslovakia ceding land to Poland) could possibly work out.

For Poland to ceded all of Kashubia to Germany would require additional guarantees ... like a German pledge to support a Polish Lithuania and maybe a Polish exclave at Gdynia (similar to how there was the Republic of Danzig under Napoleon) which Poland has free access to (and probably including extraterritorial connections). But I'm very skeptical such a thing would work out.

Alternatively - why not turn Upper Silesia (German and Polish) and Danzig-Kashubia into German-Polish Condominiums? The arrangement could be supervised by a third power, such as France, who would happily play intermediary and further entrench itself into the two nations it has tied to itself.

 

[rfmcdonald]

The critical problem with this precocious scheme for European integration, as much as I think it could have produced much better outcomes than OTL, is that Germany was still a revisionist power. It was able to tolerate its losses to France and Belgium and Denmark, but its losses to Poland particularly but also Czechoslovakia and Lithuania were intolerable. Germany expected independent Poland to be a Saisonstaat, a state that would exist for only a period before it fell apart. Germany was fully ready to take advantage of this, even to try to trigger it as with the tariffs war.

This revisionism would not sit well at all with a France that could be expected to not want to liquidate its allies against Germany, especially powerful ones like Poland. For France to do this, you will need to find some way for Germany to accept its eastern frontiers.

 

[Ricardolindo]

The critical problem with this precocious scheme for European integration, as much as I think it could have produced much better outcomes than OTL, is that Germany was still a revisionist power. It was able to tolerate its losses to France and Belgium and Denmark, but its losses to Poland particularly but also Czechoslovakia and Lithuania were intolerable. Germany expected independent Poland to be a Saisonstaat, a state that would exist for only a period before it fell apart. Germany was fully ready to take advantage of this, even to try to trigger it as with the tariffs war.

This revisionism would not sit well at all with a France that could be expected to not want to liquidate its allies against Germany, especially powerful ones like Poland. For France to do this, you will need to find some way for Germany to accept its eastern frontiers.

Were Germany's losses to Czechoslovakia really intolerable? They weren't really losses. The Sudetenland were part of Austria-Hungary, not Germany.

 

[rfmcdonald]

Were Germany's losses to Czechoslovakia really intolerable? They weren't really losses. The Sudetenland were part of Austria-Hungary, not Germany.

The idea that lands populated by Germans could be kept from Germany by an upstart Czech state was unpopular enough. (There was also a small Silesian territory that was directly ceded by Germany to Czechoslovakia.)