Estonia – Winning Recognition 1918–1921

Estonia – Winning Recognition 1918–1921 John Hiden Emeritus Professor of Baltic Studies at University of Bradford and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at University of Glasgow. Talk given in Tallinn on 24 October 2008 at the conference “For Estonia. 90 years of foreign policy and diplomacy” Declaring independence is one thing; securing it quite another. Estonians declared their independence on 24 February 1918, taking advantage of the single day between the departure of Bolshevik troops from Tallinn and the arrival of German armed forces. How, under such circumstances, could Estonia make independence a reality and win international recognition of its statehood? The fi rst obstacle was, of course, the German occupation. Among other things, it encouraged Baltic Germans to make a fi nal bid to retain their historic control of governance of the Baltic provinces, albeit under the patronage of the Kaiser now that the Czar had fallen. Both Wilhelm II and the German High Command favoured the attachment of the Baltic provinces to the Reich on economic and strategic grounds. This was the background for Germany’s imposition of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on the Soviet regime on 3 March 1918. Paradoxically, the treaty was indirectly helpful to the Estonian cause, in so far as it stipulated for the fi rst time the separation of the Baltic provinces from Russia. Moreover, even the German occupiers could not entirely ignore the popular doctrine of national self-determination. Under the terms of Brest-Litovsk, German troops were to police the provinces until their future could be decided ‘in consultation’ with the wishes of inhabitants. In reality, Baltic German inhabitants were given prominence. A council was convened of mainly Baltic German elites, together with a handful of compliant Latvians and Estonians, and it promptly asked for the provinces to be at- tached to the Kaiser as a ‘Baltic state’. 79 2008 / 2009 ESTONIAN MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS YEARBOOK Estonians therefore looked increasingly towards the Allied Powers for help. In doing so they encountered the West’s continuing chronic uncertainty over its policy towards ‘Russia’. On the one hand, the Allies were anxious not to offend a possible restored ‘White Russia’ by actively promoting independence for the Baltic peoples. On the other hand, the Western powers needed all the help they could get in the East to continue the war against Germany. Eventually they compromised by simply acknowledging the situation created by the Estonians and offered Estonia de facto recognition on 3 May 1918. Estonia, however, was still under German occupation. Only after the Reich’s defeat in November 1918 and the installation of a German republic could key fi gures in the new government and Auswärtiges Amt (German Foreign Offi ce) begin to forge a new Ostpolitik, one that no longer relied on the Baltic Germans. Instead, it had to be based on winning over the friendship of Estonians and Latvians, thereby retaining German infl uence in an area of economic and strategic importance. On 19 November 1918, Berlin followed the example of the Allied Powers and accorded de facto recognition to the government of Konstantin Päts. The overall military situation remained serious, as Bolshevik forces swept into the country behind Wider European develop- the departing German troops, capturing Tartu on ments continued to present 24 December 1918. Although British ships subse- obstacles to securing de jure quently played a part in saving Tallinn, it is impor- recognition. tant to give full credit to the Estonians themselves. A crucial factor was Johan Laidoner’s completion of the organisation and expansion of the Estonian army on a conscript basis. Estonian forces, supplemented by the Estonian German Baltenregiment and aided by Finnish volunteers, managed to clear the country of Bolshevik forces by 24 February 1919. Even so, wider European developments continued to present obstacles to securing de jure recognition. Not the least of these was the situation created by Article 12 of the Armistice of 11 No- vember 1918. The article refl ected Allied worries about the threat from the Bolshevik troops and stipulated that for the time being, German soldiers were to remain in the East to help ‘in the restoration of peace and good government in the Baltic provinces and Lithuania’. They were to return to Germany only when the Allied and Associated Powers thought the moment suitable. However, since the exhausted regular German troops quickly began going home, the German government used Article 12 as the justifi cation for recruiting fresh volunteers for the Baltic arena. Their subsequent ‘Baltic campaign’ was never properly controlled from Berlin, where the overriding preoccupation was with preparations for the coming peace treaty negotiations. As a result, far too much initiative was left to the German Freikorps leaders in the 80 ESTONIA – WINNING RECOGNITION 1918–1921 2008 / 2009 Baltic area. Predictably, such fi gures fully exploited the chance to remain in the East even after Germany’s defeat. Their actions, carried out mainly in Latvia and tacitly supported by Reichswehr leaders and a handful of political fi gures, seriously impeded preparations for Berlin’s proposed new Ostpolitik by fostering a mood of ‘wait and see’ over Baltic questions. The mood was self-evidently harmful to the Esto- nian case for independence and the recognition More decisive action was re- thereof. More decisive action was required on the quired on the part of the Allied part of the Allied Powers to end the policy drift Powers to end the policy drift towards the Baltic. A Baltic German coup against towards the Baltic. the Latvian government in April 1919 prompted the Allies to call for the withdrawal of German troops and to send their own military and economic missions to the Baltic arena. The head of the British military mission, General Gough, was instructed ‘to establish our infl uence in the countries between Germany and Russia.’ He and other Allied mission leaders soon joined the chorus advising de jure recognition of Baltic independence. One result of the fl ow of new information available to the Allied Powers about the real situation in the Baltic countries was that Estonia’s political leaders could hope for a better hearing at the Paris Peace Conference, despite the fact that the Russian question was not part of the offi cial agenda. For too long, the Estonian socialist Martna rightly observed, the Allies had behaved as though ‘the existence of independent Baltic countries was secondary to the fi ght against Bolshevism’. He and others called urgently for the West to stop regarding ‘the defensive struggle of our country as some sort of intervention’ against Russia. It was not so easy, however, to overcome the West’s habit of fusing the ‘Baltic problem’ with the ‘Russian problem’. Throughout 1919 and 1920 the Allied Powers continued to display schizophrenia over Baltic issues. The French government, anxious to secure pre-war debts from Russia, resisted a premature break-up of the country by recognising the Baltic states. British offi cials repeated the mantra that Britain’s attitude to the Baltic peoples ‘has always been one of sympathy’. For all its good will, London’s position remained that it could not give de jure recognition of Estonia ‘while the civil war is being fought in Russia’. There was one gleam of light on the horizon, in that economic considerations were beginning to have an impact on Allied attitudes towards de jure recognition. Once the last German troops had left the area in December 1919, Berlin could more effectively pursue its new Ostpolitik, exploiting Germany’s economic weight to win over Esto- nian and Latvian trade. The policy directly challenged Britain’s commercial ambi- 81 2008 / 2009 ESTONIAN MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS YEARBOOK tions in the region, where the head of the British commercial mission, Stephen Tallents, had been Market forces now reinforced instructed ‘to start commercial dealings between the argument in favour of de Britain and the new countries’. Market forces now jure recognition, which, as reinforced the argument in favour of de jure recog- Stephen Tallents stressed, nition, which, as Stephen Tallents stressed, was was vital to the restoration of vital to the restoration of banking and the fl ow banking and the fl ow of credit. of credit. One major result of the developing Anglo-German trade rivalry in the Baltic was a heightened awareness of the new countries, Estonia in particular, as stepping stones to the markets of Russia – whether Russia turned out to be ‘White’ or Soviet. And by the beginning of 1920, what ‘Russia’ might become was much clearer. White Rus- sians, who opposed Baltic independence, were disorganised and discredited. The Bolsheviks, also against Baltic independence, were too weak to prevent it – witness Lenin’s acceptance of the Tartu Peace Treaty of 02 February 1920. Despite the uncertainty caused by the Soviet-Polish confl ict in 1920, the strong likelihood was that Soviet Russia was there to stay. What was effectively a new Russia was viewed in the West as an unknown but po- tentially limitless market. Hence the growing enthusiasm of British and European entrepreneurs for the idea of independent, non-communist border states like Estonia as transit areas to the East. Yet even now the door to de jure recognition was not fully open. The British government took the line that it was illogical to recognise Estonia and Latvia without also recognising Lithuania, which the French, patrons of the new Poland, refused to do because of the Vilnius confl ict. Furthermore, doubts persisted in London about the ability of the Baltic countries to survive for long on their own. In a memorandum of April 1920 by John Duncan Gregory, head of the Northern Department of the Foreign Offi ce, we read: ‘This vast country [Russia] from the western boundaries of Poland to the Urals forms a single economic area, and its future prosperity depends on the recognition of this fact.

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