Lucien Wolf - Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question

NOTES ON THE DIPLOMATIC HISTORY
OF THE JEWISH QUESTION

BY

PUBLISHED BY THE
JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND
Mocatta Library and Museum
U niversity C ollege
(University of London)
GOWER STREET, LONDON, W.C. 1
1919
All rights reserved

T he substance of this volume was read as a Paper before the Jewish Historical Society of England on February 11, 1918. It has now been expanded and supplied with a full equipment of documentsProtocols of Congresses and Conferences, Treaty Stipulations, Diplomatic Correspondence and other public Actsin the hope that it may prove useful as a permanent record, and serviceable to those of our communal organisations whose duty it will be to bring the still unsolved aspects of the Jewish Question before the coming Peace Conference.

Besides helping to indicate the lines on which Jewish action should travel in this matter, the State Papers here quoted may also serve to remind the Plenipotentiaries themselves that the Jewish Question is far from being a subsidiary issue in the Reconstruction of Europe, that they have a great tradition of effort and achievement in regard to it, and that this tradition, apart from the high merits of the task itself, imposes upon them the solemn obligation of solving the Question completely and finally now that the opportunity of doing so presents itself free from all restraints of a selfish and calculating diplomacy. It is not only that the edifice of Religious Liberty in Europe has to be completed, but also that some six millions of human beings have to be freed from political and civil disabilities and social and economic restrictions which for calculated cruelty have no parallels outside the Dark Ages. The Peace Conference will have accomplished relatively little if a shred of this blackest of all European scandals is allowed to survive its deliberations.

This collection does not pretend to be complete. The aim has been only to illustrate adequately the main lines of the theme with a view to practical questions which may arise in connection with the Peace Conference. American documents have been only sparely quoted, for the reason that the American Jewish Historical Society has already published a very full collection of such documents. (Cyrus Adler: "Jews in the Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States.") The many generous interventions of the Vatican on behalf of persecuted Jews have also been omitted partly for a similar reason (see Stern: "Urkundliche Beitrge ber die Stellung der Ppste zu den Juden") and partly because they have very little direct bearing on the diplomatic activities of the Great Powers during the period under discussion.

My grateful acknowledgements are due to the Foreign Office for kindly permitting me to copy the documents relating to Palestine, which will be found appended to Chapter IV, and to Lieut. J. B. Morton, who was good enough to relieve me of much of the work of reading the proof-sheets. I have also to thank Mr. D. Mitrani for the generous help he gave me in preparing the Index.

L. W.

Gray's Inn, London.
December 1918.