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The Day the Great War Ended, 24 July 1923: The Civilianization of War Jay Winter
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The Last Great War of Antiquity James Howard-Johnston
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To the memory of Fritz Stern, my teacher
Acknowledgments
There are many debts I have incurred in the many years it has taken to write this book. The first is to my students at Jerusalem, Cambridge, and Yale who, unbeknown to them, were almost always the first to hear my thinking about war and peace in the twentieth century. Now in retirement I am even more deeply aware of just how much research depends on teaching, and teaching depends on research.
This is a dialogic book in a host of ways. History, I believe, is a never-ending conversation, and there are those with whom I have been talking about these themes for decades. Among them are my colleagues at the Historial de la Grande Guerre at Péronne, Somme, France, where I have spent so much of my academic life since it opened in 1992. In particular John Horne has been a kind and courteous companion and colleague. At almost every point in writing this book, I could hear myself saying ‘would John agree with this?’ Even when the answer was probably not, his assistance, corrections, and patience with my stubbornness have left their mark on this book. I hope I have managed to convey even a fraction of the wisdom and humility he brings to our craft.
Two of my younger colleagues have gone out of their way to bring to this project their knowledge of archives and sources I would not have been able to master. Gurol Baba has mined the Turkish archives; without him, I could not have even begun to unravel the Turkish story. With wit and patience, Vanda Wilcox has opened up the Italian story for me; she did so even when moving her family from Paris to Milan. Both Gurol and Vanda heard me out time and again, and helped me shape this book in myriad ways. Working with young colleagues is one of the delights of our profession. I look forward to reading their scholarship in the future. Any errors that remain in this book are mine alone.
Many colleagues who have published in this field have taken the time to comment on chapters. On Turkey, I have learned much (and deleted much) due to the comments of Hans-Lukas Kieser. I look forward to reading his account of the Treaty of Lausanne, and hope that mine reaches his rigorous scholarly standards. On Geneva, Davide Rodogno has offered shrewd comments and enjoyed several memorable dinners. Sharing his musical tastes, in particular for the art of Tom Waits, I found we shared similar views on the League of Nations and the humanitarian predicament as well. My student Sara Silverstein helped me see much about the League I had not understood before. Leonard Smith took time to help me clean up my treatment of Paris and London, and my understanding of the vexed problem of sovereignty. Boris Adjemian helped me time and again to navigate the Armenian story and the wonderful archives in the Nubar Library in Paris. Elli
Lemonidou helped me smooth out my account of the Greek disaster and recovery. I have relied on the wisdom of Antoine Prost, as I have done over the 40 years of our friendship. Kolleen Guy read all the chapters, and unerringly told me when I had hit the right note and when I didn’t. Harvey Mendelsohn, a master of prose and much more, and a friend of 60 years, unwrinkled my writing with wit and precision. Covid made it impossible for me to do what I had become accustomed to do; that is, to present the arguments in this book in embryo as lectures and seminar papers in many parts of the world. Before Covid, a period of time as a Visiting Scholar at the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University in Canberra helped me begin the writing of this book. Thanks are due to Rae Frances for making it possible, and for Bruce Scates, Robert Dare, Rai and Yael Gaita, and Bill and Jan Gammage for making it delightful. The earliest pistes, pre-Covid, out of which this book emerged took place in other university settings all over the world. I am grateful for the valuable questions and objections offered by those who heard me speak in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, Auckland, Wellington, Singapore, Kunshan, Tokyo, St Petersburg, Lviv, Vienna, Graz, Berlin, London, Antwerp, Brussels, Edinburgh, Warwick, Wolverhampton, Dublin, Haifa, Philadelphia, and Chicago. My thanks to you all; you may not realize how a chance phrase or comment on these occasions triggered thoughts that wound up in this book.
Students and colleagues make history necessary; archivists make history possible. My thanks go to the staff of many archives who went out of their way to help me. Many individuals on the staff of the United Nations Archive in Geneva, the Nubar Library in Paris, the Archives Nationales in Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, the Archives of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs in La Courneuve, the French military archives in Vincennes, the National Archive in Kew, the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the British Library in London, and the Churchill Archives Centre at Churchill College, Cambridge were particularly helpful in the course of my research for this book. They too were hampered by Covid restrictions, and I am grateful for their efforts on my behalf.
Seven institutions helped by providing permission to reproduce images. Thanks are due to the Rare Books and Manuscript Library at Columbia University for permission to use one image from the William S. Moore Photograph Collection. I am grateful to Dr Marc Tiefenauer, Conservateur de la Réserve précieuse de la Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire de Lausanne for permission to reproduce the caricatures in their possession of Derso and Kelèn on Lausanne. The images of the Armenian letter and seal of credentials are reproduced through the kindness of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. I am grateful to the Bibliothèque Nubar for permission to cite extensively from their rich archives, and to use a map of Armenia. Iryna Kotlobulatova, of the Lviv Centre for the Urban History of East Central Europe, kindly permitted me to use an image of a synagogue destroyed in Lviv in 1918. A photograph of İsmet and Montagna
appears by courtesy of the İnönü Foundation. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France’s Gallica site was the source of a number of photographs that appear in this book. I thank all these institutions for their assistance.
Thanks are due to the Journal of Modern European History for permission to publish material that appeared in their journal. In addition, I would like to acknowledge the generosity of Marilena Papadaki, who sent me a copy of her doctoral dissertation on Nikolaos Politis when the library of the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales was closed. I look forward to reading the published version of her work. Jonathan Conlin was kind enough to introduce me to the Lausanne project and to share his own rich collection of materials concerning Lausanne, including the marvelous Derso and Kèlen political drawings and sketches.
In the course of writing this book, my first teacher of history and lifelong friend, Fritz Stern, died. It was in his undergraduate seminar in 1965 at Columbia University that I began my journey into the history of World War I. What has followed is all due to him and his exemplary life as a scholar. I dedicate this book to Fritz Stern, my teacher.
PART 1. THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
List of Abbreviations
Adm Admiralty papers (National Archives, Kew).
ATASE Turkish Ministry of National Defense Archives, Ankara.
CAB Cabinet papers (National Archives, Kew).
DBFP Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939.
DDI Documenti diplomatici italiani
DSAAR Archives of the Presidency of the Turkish Republic, Ankara.
Ardaha n So nahin Je lglogl u Ka raklis No vo Bo iazet Na kh itch ev an Ju lf a Or du ba d Sh uska Akhalkalak Kars Sarikamish Ka ghizma n Ig di r Alex androp ol Samsun
Tr ebiz on d Ha rp ut
Amasi a To ka t Ma rsivan
Kastamun i Sivas
Ango ra
ARMENI A,claimed by Delega ti on Inte gral Armenia, in a memo rand um to Pe ace Co nfer ence, Fe br ua ry 1919
Supr eme Co uncil, San Remo Ap ril 25,1920, in Prov inces Erzerum, Tr ebizond, Va n and Bi tlis Ar ea, 40 Sq .M. Pr eWa r Po pu la tio n,1,800,000; pr esen t, 200,000, of which 65,000 Tu rk; Armenian refugees f rom same ar ea, ov er 300,000.
Ai nt ab Bireji k Alex andret ta Mt. Ar arat
PRE-W AR BO UN DA RY ,between Tu rkish and Ru ssian Armenia.
ARMENI AN REPUBL IC ,(f or merly Ru ssian Armenia) declared independence, Ma y 28, 1918, then re cognize by German y, Ru ssia and Tu rk ey and in 1920, by Amer ica and Allies. Ar ea, 26,491 Sq . M. Po pu la ti on2.159,000: Ru ssian elemen t, 3%. In Se pt ember 1920, Ke mal, inco nspirac y wi th Mo sc ow, at tack ed it . Ligi tima te gove rnme nt wi thdr ew on Dece mb er 2nd. By tr ea ties, da te d Marc h 16th, and October 13th, 1921 between Mo sc ow and Tu rk ey divided in to the fo ll ow ing fo ur parts. SO VIET REPUBLI C OF AEMEN IA ,a member of Ru ssian Co nfeder at io n, wi th op ti on to wi th-dra w. St ruct ur e of go ve rnme nt Armenian, No fo re ign re la ti on s. Area, 15,127 Sq .M. Po pu la ti on1,200,000.
lAhsadreug Anti oc h Alep po Ad an a
Si gh er t Mo ks Ma rash Ta rsus Me rsin
CEDED to Tu rk ey AN AU TONOMOUS DISTRICTunder suzerain ty of Azerbaid ja n. AN AU TONOMOUS DISTRICTunder suzerain ty of Azerbaid ja n. Ma jo ri ty po p ula ti on Amenian, nu mb ering 34,000 Armenian refugees, and thos e su rv iving in Tu rkey 800,000. re fu ge es and others who will go to Armenia, ov er 1,500,000. Armenian s in the wo rld, 3,069,000. Area of Armenian Republic and Wi lson Armenia, 66,000 Sq M.
KEMALIST TURKE Y,Ar ea 320,000 Sq M. Po pu la ti on 5,000,000, of which 4,000,000 Tu rkish.
Plate 3 Map of Armenia, 1919–24, by the American Committee for the Independence of Armenia, 1926.
Source : Bibliothèque Nubar, Paris.
Plate 4 Poincaré addressing the French delegation.
Source: Derso and Kelèn, Guignol à Lausanne (Lausanne: Arts Graphiques Lithos A. Marsens, 1923), p. 21.
Plate 5 Garroni meeting Mussolini at Lausanne.
Source: Derso and Kelèn, Guignol à Lausanne (Lausanne: Arts Graphiques Lithos A. Marsens, 1923), p. 15.
Plate 6 Boxing match between Venizelos and Riza Nur at Lausanne. İsmet in Riza Nur’s corner; Montagna in Venizelos’s corner.
Source: Derso and Kelèn, Guignol à Lausanne (Lausanne: Arts Graphiques Lithos A. Marsens, 1923), p. 35.
Plate 7 İsmet signing the Treaty.
Source: Derso and Kelèn, Guignol à Lausanne (Lausanne: Arts Graphiques Lithos A. Marsens, 1923), p. 44.
Plate 8 On ferme. Detail, the Turkish delegation leaves Lausanne. İsmet, first from right on the elephant; Riza Nur, third from right.
Source: Derso and Kelèn, Guignol à Lausanne (Lausanne: Arts Graphiques Lithos A. Marsens, 1923), p. 49.
Introduction
War and Peace, 1918–23
Over the years of the centennial of the Great War, there have been two fundamental changes in its historiography. The first is to move the centre of gravity of the conflict east, from Paris to Warsaw, and from London to Lvov (now Lviv). The second is to shift the chronological limits of the war from 1914 to 1918 outward, both to incorporate the armed conflicts of 1911–14 and those that raged from 1918 to 1923.
This book aims at contributing to this new history of the ‘Greater War’, and to a new understanding of the meaning of the terms war and peace. It is also a response to John Horne’s plea for a greater degree of integration of political history within the cultural history of World War I and its aftermath.1 My fundamental premise is that as war changes, so does peace, and in the period 1914 to 1924, both war and peace took on new and, in some ways, deeply disturbing features.
Decentered War
The first of these features is that war bleeds into peace. The Great War did not end, as the textbooks insist, on 11 November 1918 with the Armistice on the Western front, nor on 28 June 1919 with the signature of the Paris Peace Treaty. Instead, in 1917–18, the World War fragmented into a series of decentred wars, which between 1918 and 1923 devastated large parts of Estern, Central, and Southern Europe. The nature of this new cluster of wars differed from that of 1914–18, which was essentially a war of imperial powers fought to determine imperial hegemony both in Europe and throughout the world. Britain, France, and their allies won that war. Germany lost it, as did its allies Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire.
After 1918, a new kind of decentred warfare emerged, based at times on state power but at other times on the contest between regional, ethnic, and confessional groups in some areas, and simultaneous class conflicts in these and in other areas. The key element separating the first phase of the Great War from the
1 John Horne, ‘End of a paradigm? The cultural history of the Great War’, Past & Present, ccxlii, 1 (February 2019), pp. 155–92.
violence of 1918–23 was the fragmentation of national or imperial war efforts into domestic and trans-national conflicts dividing populations which between 1914 and 1918 had fought for their nation or empire.2
The decentring of warfare marked the aftermath of the Great War in another way. The collapse of empires, mixed with the commitment of the Allies, under American pressure, to the principal of self-determination, produced what Erez Manela termed the ‘Wilsonian moment’.3 What mattered most, he argued, was not what Wilson said, but what colonized people all over the world made of what he said. Wilson’s language provided legitimacy to many movements that were developing entirely independently of American or European liberalism. Self-determination was a phrase offering respectability to policies and ideas that emerged on their own long before the Great War. There were many other sources to the surge in anti-colonial sentiment at the end of the Great War. After all, subject peoples had no need for instruction from President Wilson about the injuries of empire.
And yet Wilsonian rhetoric added force to the pleas of those in many parts of the world who believed that it was time violently to oppose the perpetuation of the imperial system which had been both reordered and undermined by the first Great War. The reordering gave to Britain and France more imperial power than they had ever had before; the undermining of that augmentation of imperial power arose from the fact that the war had impoverished both Britain and France, whose war debts, especially to the United States, had to be paid off.
The onset of economic depression from 1920 on affected imperial countries more than non-imperial countries, and the cost of paying war pensions turned declining returns on international trade into annual budget crises in both Britain and France. Thus the great imperial powers increased their holdings at precisely the moment they could not continue indefinitely to pay for them.
Here is the context of the war-related flaring up of anti-colonial movements throughout the world. This wave of protest started in Korea, with massive demonstrations against the Japanese Empire. It spread to Amritsar in India, where the massacre of demonstrators at Jallianwala Bagh dissolved lingering imperial sentiment in the sub-continent. In China, enraged students burned down the telegraph office where they received word that the Western powers had decided that the province of Shandong—Confucius’s birthplace—would be in the hands of the Japanese. In short, a series of anti-colonial confrontations disturbed the peace that had supposedly broken out on 11 November 1918.
2 Jochen Böhler, Civil war in Central Europe, 1918–1921: The Reconstruction of Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018); Peter Gatrell, ‘War after the war. Conflicts, 1919–23’, in John Horne (ed.), A Companion to World War I (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2010), pp. 558–75; Robert Gerwarth, The Vanquished: Why the First World War failed to end, 1917–1923 (London: Allen Lane, 2016); Robert Gerwarth and John Horne (eds), War in peace. Paramilitary violence in Europe after the Great War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
3 Erez Manela, The Wilsonian moment: Self-determination and the international origins of anticolonial nationalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
If anyone mistook these developments as remote from Europe, they could look to Ireland, where a civil war continued until 1923, or to Morocco, where an indigenous rebellion continued until 1928, or to Egypt from 1918 to 1922. Insurrections or the threat of insureections marked the imperial world from 1916 on, and continued to do so in the decades that followed.
Uprisings, unrest, insurrections, civil wars, class conflicts, and ethnic violence reached a level after 1918 not registered in the first years of the war. Once the states and empires constituting the Central Powers were delegitimized—either by being unable to deliver victory or to feed their people—the monopoly central forces held over the lawful use of physical force collapsed. In its place came competing groups asserting their authority through violence both expressive and instrumental, both symbolic of their claims and effective in destroying those who challenged them. Paramilitary groups fought alongside armies, and intensified the suffering civilians faced in this period throughout Eastern Europe.
One example illustrates a general trend towards intercommunal violence. Before the Armistice, there had been no major anti-Semitic violence in the Habsburg city of Lemberg (now Lviv) in today’s Ukraine. In the first weeks of ‘peace’ in November 1918, during fighting between Polish and Ukrainian units for control of the city, about 150 Jews were killed and 500 injured. One of the city’s prominent synagogues was burned to the ground. Polish militiamen were responsible for these outrages.4 In a vacuum of power, violent incidents broke through legal, cultural, and political constraints. (See Fig. 1.)
This series of decentred wars were necessarily chaotic and involved sporadic rather than continual violence. In the Russian Civil War, different anti-Bolshevik groups worked either against each other or without coordination, thereby dooming Allied intervention in support of them. Those who hated Bolshevism often saw a Jewish conspiracy behind it, adding an additional element to the toxic brew of brutality that spread throughout Eastern Europe at the time. Brigandage, warfare, ethnic violence, and class conflict overlapped, returning parts of Eastern Europe to conditions of banditry and pillage of earlier centuries.
To return to our central argument, as war mutated, so did peace. The so-called Armistice Day of 11 November 1918 did not mark the beginning of a period of peace, or even the suspension of violence. In the four years following the Armistice, more people died in zones of armed conflict than perished between 1914 and 1918.5 If we take into account the toll taken by disease and hunger,
4 See Christoph Mick, Lemberg, Lwów, L’viv, 1914–1947: Violence and ethnicity in a contested city (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 2016); William W. Hagen, ‘The Moral economy of ethnic violence: The pogrom in Lwow, November 1918’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, xxxi, no. 2 (Apr.–Jun., 2005), pp. 203–26, and Jeffrey Veidlinger, In the midst of civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918–1921 and the onset of the Holocaust (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2021), pp. 83–8.
5 Jay Winter, ‘The Second Great War, 1917–1923’. In Burkhard Olschowsky, Piotr Juszkiewicz, and Jan Rydel (eds), Central and Eastern Europe after the First World War, trans. Sarah Patey et al. (Oldenbourg: de Gruyter, 2021), pp. 81–96.
