Liberals and nationalism: E. H. Carr, Walter Lippmann and the Baltic States from 1918 to 1944

ABSTRACT

The Baltic states were among the ‘new’ states that were created after the First World War; they were the only states to lose their sovereignty during the Second World War. Most historians explain the birth and demise of the Baltic states in terms of their relative strength vis-à-vis the great powers. This article places the short-lived independence of the Baltic states into the perspective of intellectual history by focusing on two Western thinkers: E. H. Carr and Walter Lippmann. The analysis assumes that ideas matter in international politics. It adds to our understanding of the forces that led to the creation and later to the extinction of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the period of the two world wars.

KEYWORDS:

• E. H. Carr
• Walter Lippmann
• liberalism
• nationalism
• First World War
• Second World War
• Baltic states
• inter-war period

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Estonian Science Foundation under Grant Ermos12.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Times memorandum, 16 January 1942, FO 371/32740, British National Archives, Kew, London (henceforth: NA).

2. ‘Proposed Baltic Confederation,’ British Military Mission to War Office, 25 July 1919, FO 608/186, NA.

3. Minute by Carr, 29 July 1919, FO 608/186, NA.

4. Minutes by Carr on 1 August and 8 August, FO 608/186, NA. Haslam (1999, 30) gives the date of the last minute as 25 July, but actually it was written on 8 August.

5. Autobiographical sketch, p. 4, Papers of E. H. Carr, University of Birmingham Information Services, Special Collections Department, Birmingham, UK (henceforth: UBIS).

6. Ibid, 4.x

7. Ibid, 5.

8. Carr to Austen Chamberlain, 30 October 1926, cited by Haslam (1999, 37).

9. John Hallett, ‘Nationalism, the World’s Bane,’ Fortnightly Review, 133 (new series), January–June 1933, p. 695. Hallett was Carr’s pseudonym.

10. Carr’s minute of 30 January 1936, cited by Haslam (1999, 59).

11. Autobiographical sketch, 8, UBIS.

12. ‘Russian on the Baltic,’ The Times, 25 July 1940.

13. Ibid.

14. Unsigned memorandum, but author identified as Carr by Foreign Office officials, dated 16 January 1942, FO 371/32740, NA.

15. Collier to Barrington-Ward (The Times), 26 July 1940, FO 371/24761, NA.

16. Autobiographical sketch, 9, UBIS.

17. Woodrow Wilson Speech to the Congress, 2 April 1917, http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/usawardeclaration.htm (last accessed: 29 September 2015).

18. ‘Interpretation of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points,’ https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/doc31.htm (last accessed: 29 September 2015).

19. The New Republic, 22 March 1919.

20. The New Republic, 22 March 1919.

21. Review of Lippmann’s work, E. H. Carr, ‘The search for utopia,’ Spectator, 24 December 1937.

22. Today and Tomorrow, 8 March 1941.

23. Halifax to Foreign Office, 6 May 1942, FO 371/32880/N2461/3/38, NA.

24. Today and Tomorrow, 17 June 1942.

25. Lippmann had developed some of these themes already in US Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic (1943).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Estonian Research Council [Grant Numbers: ERMOS12, PUT683, and SF0180050s09].

Notes on contributors

Kaarel Piirimäe

Kaarel Piirimäe completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2009 and has worked as a research fellow at the University of Tartu, professor of military history at the Estonian National Defence College (until 2015) and as a senior research fellow at the Estonian War Museum. He has also been a senior project researcher at the University of Turku since 2014.