Danube River Conference of 1948
Encyclopedia
The Danube River Conference of 1948 was held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia
, to develop a new international regime
for the development and control of the Danube in the wake of World War II. It was the first postwar conference pitting the victorious Allies of the west against the Soviet Union
and its allied states of Eastern Europe in which the latter held a majority and were expected to win all points of disagreement between the two sides. As such, it attracted more than the usual share of attention from East and West alike.
The major result of the conference was the ouster of non-Danubian powers from the international agencies that had controlled the commerce and physical care of the river for decades.
that freedom of navigation
should be assured on Europe's inland waterways. Britain and France were concerned with reestablishing their prewar positions as members of the European Commission of the Danube
.
In 1947, the Paris peace treaties
signed with Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria guaranteed free navigation. The foreign minister
s of Britain, France, the USSR, and the United States stipulated that:
The Big Four also decided that a conference should be held within six months after the treaties came into force "to work out a new convention regarding the regime of the Danube." In February 1948 the United States proposed calling a conference, thus averting a multilateral pact that might have been concluded among the Eastern European countries.
Germany, still without a government and under four-power control
, could not be represented, but the United States championed the entry of Austria. That nation, however, was rejected by the eastern bloc on the grounds they were still at war. As a compromise, it was agreed that Austria would attend as a consultant only. The four major powers
, with Yugoslavia (then under the control of Marshal Tito
and the Communist Party), issued invitations.
sessions at Lake Success, New York
. In Belgrade, though, the West was in the minority. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky told the Western delegates: "The door was open for you to come in. The door is open for you to leave, if that is what you wish."
Vishinsky said that the Danubian countries (the USSR now being one of them as a result of reclaiming its old province of Bessarabia
) would draw up a convention and put it into force "regardless of the minority opinion." For this purpose, the Soviet Union introduced a draft convention. So did the United States, but the conference spurned it.
The delegates also rejected a Western attempt to have Austria seated, if not at the conference, then in the international commission that the meeting was developing. The final draft said only that Austria would be become a member after a peace was signed. Germany was left out of the final draft altogether.
A U.S. proposal that the new commission be brought into some kind of liaison with the United Nations, through appeal to the International Court of Justice
in case of dispute and in periodic reports to the Economic and Social Council
, was also defeated.
America came to the table with a full delegation of experienced transportation men, maritime lawyers, and other experts who worked out a detailed draft convention. When U.S. Delegate Cavendish Cannon explained the reasons for each article of the American draft, one State Department official observed,
The United States, he said, was trying to
Britain and France, however, were less idealistic. Ignoring the fact that they had agreed in 1938 to turn the European Commission of the Danube over to the river-bordering powers (headed by Nazi Germany
), they insisted that the Convention of 1921 was still in force and that their rights could not be abolished without their consent.
To illustrate this distinction, the American magazine Life commented that:
The West suffered a slight financial loss in the deal, the new treaty having set up a new Danube Commission
that assumed all the assets of the old international Danube conventions but not of the liabilities — which included loans that Britain, France, and Italy had made. A year later, parallel copies of a note rejecting the new convention were dispatched by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Italy, and Greece to the six Eastern nations, ignoring Ukraine. Six months later, in March 1950, the Soviet Union replied that it did not agree and that the new convention “eliminated previous injustices and established jurisdiction over the river by the countries through which or along which the river actually flowed.”
The river system was thenceforth divided into three administrations — the regular River Commission, a bilateral Romania-USSR administration between Braila and the mouth of the Sulina channel, and a bilateral Romania-Yugoslavia administration at the Iron Gate
. Both of the latter were technically under the control of the main commission, members of which were Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, the USSR, and Yugoslavia.
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
, to develop a new international regime
International regime
International regimes are not subnational actors or non-governmental organizations. They are international actors, and sometimes, when formally organized, many of them can be considered intergovernmental organizations.-Definition and Types:Stephen D...
for the development and control of the Danube in the wake of World War II. It was the first postwar conference pitting the victorious Allies of the west against the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and its allied states of Eastern Europe in which the latter held a majority and were expected to win all points of disagreement between the two sides. As such, it attracted more than the usual share of attention from East and West alike.
The major result of the conference was the ouster of non-Danubian powers from the international agencies that had controlled the commerce and physical care of the river for decades.
Pre-conference maneuvering
Postwar discussion of the Danube River was begun by the United States in 1945 when President Truman proposed at the Potsdam ConferencePotsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
that freedom of navigation
Freedom of Navigation
Freedom of Navigation is a principle of customary International Law that, apart from the exceptions provided for in international law, ships flying the flag of any state shall not suffer interference from other states. This right is now also codified as article 87a of the 1982 United Nations...
should be assured on Europe's inland waterways. Britain and France were concerned with reestablishing their prewar positions as members of the European Commission of the Danube
Commissions of the Danube River
See Internationalization of the Danube River for events before 1856.The Commissions of the Danube River were authorized by the Treaty of Paris after the close of the Crimean War...
.
In 1947, the Paris peace treaties
Paris Peace Treaties, 1947
The Paris Peace Conference resulted in the Paris Peace Treaties signed on February 10, 1947. The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of treaties with Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland .The...
signed with Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria guaranteed free navigation. The foreign minister
Foreign minister
A Minister of Foreign Affairs, or foreign minister, is a cabinet minister who helps form the foreign policy of a sovereign state. The foreign minister is often regarded as the most senior ministerial position below that of the head of government . It is often granted to the deputy prime minister in...
s of Britain, France, the USSR, and the United States stipulated that:
Navigation on the Danube shall be free and open for the nationals, vessels of commerce and goods of all states, on a footing of equality in regard to port and navigation charges and conditions for merchant shipping. The foregoing shall not apply to traffic between ports of the same state.
The Big Four also decided that a conference should be held within six months after the treaties came into force "to work out a new convention regarding the regime of the Danube." In February 1948 the United States proposed calling a conference, thus averting a multilateral pact that might have been concluded among the Eastern European countries.
Germany, still without a government and under four-power control
Four Power Agreement on Berlin
The Four Power Agreement on Berlin also known as the Berlin Agreement or the Quadripartite Agreement on Berlin was agreed on 3 September 1971 by the four wartime allied powers, represented by their Ambassadors...
, could not be represented, but the United States championed the entry of Austria. That nation, however, was rejected by the eastern bloc on the grounds they were still at war. As a compromise, it was agreed that Austria would attend as a consultant only. The four major powers
Great power
A great power is a nation or state that has the ability to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength and diplomatic and cultural influence which may cause small powers to consider the opinions of great powers before taking actions...
, with Yugoslavia (then under the control of Marshal Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
and the Communist Party), issued invitations.
East Versus West
The conference caught the attention of the Eastern and Western press immediately. For months, Russia and Eastern Europe had been on the losing side of nearly every vote of importance in the United NationsUnited Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
sessions at Lake Success, New York
Lake Success, New York
Lake Success is a village in Nassau County, New York in the United States. The population was 2,934 at the 2010 census.Lake Success is in the Town of North Hempstead on northwest Long Island. Lake Success was the temporary home of the United Nations from 1946 to 1951, occupying the headquarters of...
. In Belgrade, though, the West was in the minority. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky told the Western delegates: "The door was open for you to come in. The door is open for you to leave, if that is what you wish."
Vishinsky said that the Danubian countries (the USSR now being one of them as a result of reclaiming its old province of Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
) would draw up a convention and put it into force "regardless of the minority opinion." For this purpose, the Soviet Union introduced a draft convention. So did the United States, but the conference spurned it.
The delegates also rejected a Western attempt to have Austria seated, if not at the conference, then in the international commission that the meeting was developing. The final draft said only that Austria would be become a member after a peace was signed. Germany was left out of the final draft altogether.
A U.S. proposal that the new commission be brought into some kind of liaison with the United Nations, through appeal to the International Court of Justice
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands...
in case of dispute and in periodic reports to the Economic and Social Council
United Nations Economic and Social Council
The Economic and Social Council of the United Nations constitutes one of the six principal organs of the United Nations and it is responsible for the coordination of the economic, social and related work of 14 UN specialized agencies, its functional commissions and five regional commissions...
, was also defeated.
America came to the table with a full delegation of experienced transportation men, maritime lawyers, and other experts who worked out a detailed draft convention. When U.S. Delegate Cavendish Cannon explained the reasons for each article of the American draft, one State Department official observed,
some of the satellite Eastern European delegates seated round the table may have recognized the weight of those arguments. Indirectly, they may reach the people of those countries. . . . Nations for which the Danube is a principal route to world markets can scarcely feel happy, in the long run, about a system which puts control of that route in the hands of a single Great Power. . . . All the western Powers could hope to do at Belgrade was to show that their plans for the Danube were conceived to benefit the Danubian nations themselves as well as non-riparian states, and to prove that the charge of imperialismImperialismImperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
in the Danube basin lay not against the West but against Russia.
The United States, he said, was trying to
focus the debate on the major points of difference between the Soviet and the American drafts. . . . The United States was convinced . . . that the Soviet convention was designed not to guarantee freedom of navigation but to give a legal basis for the existing system of Soviet control over the river. To prove this point, it framed its amendments and concentrated its arguments on a few main issues.
Britain and France, however, were less idealistic. Ignoring the fact that they had agreed in 1938 to turn the European Commission of the Danube over to the river-bordering powers (headed by Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
), they insisted that the Convention of 1921 was still in force and that their rights could not be abolished without their consent.
To illustrate this distinction, the American magazine Life commented that:
U.S. Delegate Cavendish Cannon often talked and acted as though merely technical matters were involved and, in the words of one correspondent, showed "all the brilliance of a cigar-store IndianCigar store IndianThe cigar store Indian or wooden Indian is an advertisement figure, in the likeness of an American Indian, made to represent tobacconists, much like: barber poles advertise barber shops; Show globe for an apothecary; or the three gold balls of the pawn shop. The figures are often three-dimensional...
." . . . Only Britain's Sir Charles Peake put up a strong and vigorous fight for the Western cause.
The decision
The seven Danubian nations voted to adopt the Soviet draft, with a few changes proposed in the conference by Vishinsky. Britain, France, the U.S., and Austria announced their refusal to sign. The U.K. and France took no part in the final vote, on the grounds that the whole thing was illegal. The U.S. abstained in individual article votes and voted against the document as a whole. The conference closed on August 18.The West suffered a slight financial loss in the deal, the new treaty having set up a new Danube Commission
Danube Commission
The Danube Commission is concerned with the maintenance and improvement of navigation conditions of the Danube River, from its source in Germany to its outlets in Romania and Ukraine, leading to the Black Sea. It was established in 1948 by seven countries bordering the river, replacing previous...
that assumed all the assets of the old international Danube conventions but not of the liabilities — which included loans that Britain, France, and Italy had made. A year later, parallel copies of a note rejecting the new convention were dispatched by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Italy, and Greece to the six Eastern nations, ignoring Ukraine. Six months later, in March 1950, the Soviet Union replied that it did not agree and that the new convention “eliminated previous injustices and established jurisdiction over the river by the countries through which or along which the river actually flowed.”
The river system was thenceforth divided into three administrations — the regular River Commission, a bilateral Romania-USSR administration between Braila and the mouth of the Sulina channel, and a bilateral Romania-Yugoslavia administration at the Iron Gate
Iron Gate (Danube)
The Iron Gates The gorge lies between Romania in the north and Serbia in the south. At this point, the river separates the southern Carpathian Mountains from the northwestern foothills of the Balkan Mountains. The Romanian, Hungarian, Slovakian, Turkish, German and Bulgarian names literally mean...
. Both of the latter were technically under the control of the main commission, members of which were Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, the USSR, and Yugoslavia.
See also
- Commissions of the Danube RiverCommissions of the Danube RiverSee Internationalization of the Danube River for events before 1856.The Commissions of the Danube River were authorized by the Treaty of Paris after the close of the Crimean War...
, authorized in 1856 to manage and improve the shipping channels of the Danube - Nazi rule over the Danube River (1938–1945)Nazi rule over the Danube RiverNazi rule over the Danube River was brought about by force of arms, through annexation of Austria, invasion of Yugoslavia and of the Soviet Union and treaties with the Kingdom of Romania and Hungary, but a legal cover was provided through moves that resulted in a new international order on the...
- Danube Commission (after 1945)Danube CommissionThe Danube Commission is concerned with the maintenance and improvement of navigation conditions of the Danube River, from its source in Germany to its outlets in Romania and Ukraine, leading to the Black Sea. It was established in 1948 by seven countries bordering the river, replacing previous...
- International Commission for the Protection of the Danube RiverInternational Commission for the Protection of the Danube RiverThe International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River is an international organisation with its permanent secretariat in Vienna. It was established by the Danube River Protection Convention, signed by the Danube countries in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1994.The commission became active in 1998...
, organized in 1998 for conservation, improvement, and rational use of Danube waters