Baltic states

“ For instance, Poland can supply all the other States with her coal, and Lithuania can supply the corn which Finland needs. Undoubtedly, there are common interests between all the above-named States in the trade of the Baltic Sea. Each one of them has a natural Hinterland, and, consequently, is vitally interested in the guarantee of freedom of trade in the Baltic Sea. Besides, the mere political interest of common defence is a strong enough basis for an alliance of all the Baltic States, for they are under the double menace of Germany on one side and Russia on the other. ”

“ These countries have existed economically, flourished, and been able to defend themselves against Germany, England, and France. And they have existed now for nearly a hundred years as separate entities. Why should not Baltic Sea states get along as North Sea states? The Baltic Sea already has little states less extensive in territory and some of them less populous than the new Baltic Sea republics.
But Lithuania, Latvia, and Esthonia, by asking for the recognition of their independence, did not close the door upon the possibility of a Russian federation among themselves. ”

“ Despite the political confusion of the last six years, the new Baltic Republics have succeeded remarkably well in establishing their claim to230 recognition as independent states on a permanent footing. What may happen when Germany and Russia again become powerful none can predict. It is hardly possible, however, that any of these states will return to Russia unless German policy demands this solution of the Baltic question, which is most unlikely. Because of their higher level of civilization and their literacy, the Baltic peoples survived Russianization in the old Romanoff Empire. ”

“ BALTIC PROVINCES, a term which comprehends the three former Russian governments bordering on the Baltic, viz., Courland, Livonia, Esthonia. Since the European War they are independent states. The Baltic provinces once belonged to Sweden, except Courland, which was a dependency of Poland. ”

“ The preliminary cultural conditions are available everywhere, and the German Reich will be able to guarantee the right to a later emigration to all those who have distinguished themselves in this war, to the descendants of those who gave their lives during the war, and also to all who fought in the Baltic campaign never once lost courage, fought on in the hour of despair and delivered Baltic civilization from Bolshevism. For the rest, the solution of the colonization problem is not a Baltic question, but one which concerns Greater Germany, and it must be settled on these lines. ”

“ The capital of the government is Riga.
Coins of the time of Alexander the Great, found on the island of Oesel, show that the coasts of the Baltic were at an early period in commercial relation with the civilized world. The chronicle of Nestor mentions as inhabitants of the Baltic coast the Chudes, the Livs, the Narova, Letgola, Semigallians and Korś. It was probably about the 9th century that the Chudes became tributary to the Varangian-Russian states. ”

“ This Baltic race has for centuries occupied the British Isles, the northern plains of Germany, and the North European peninsulas, being found in its purest state in Norway, Sweden, and Scotland. The people of this sub-race, asserts the writer of an admirable article on racial characteristics, are mentally “enterprising and persevering, and cheerfully dedicate most of their time and thought to work.... They are liberally gifted with those moral instincts which are highly favorable to the creation and growth of communities, altho not always so favorable to the individual who possesses them ”

“ As maritime commerce 555 extended and the security of the sea became established, it was felt more and more that claims to a hampering sovereignty and jurisdiction were incompatible with the general welfare of nations; and as the states interested in this commerce had the greatest power, the assertion of a wide dominion was gradually abandoned, surviving only in remote regions or in enclosed seas, like the Baltic. ”

“ Russia would not have succeeded as quickly as Latvia in freeing herself from the preponderating influence on the shores of the Baltic. That is why Russia’s interests will in no way suffer if the intermediary’s rôle is played neither by her nor Germany, but by those who are familiar with the Baltic, whom nature has attached to it, and who consequently have natural rights to it. ”

“ Latvia reestablished its independence in August 1991, a few months prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union; the last Russian troops left in 1994. The status of ethnic Russians, who make up 30% of the population, is an issue of concern to Moscow. Unemployment has become a growing problem and Latvia hopes to receive an invitation to begin EU accession talks by the end of 1999.
Geography
Location: Eastern Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea, between
Estonia and Lithuania
Geographic coordinates: 57 00 N, 25 00 E
Map references: Europe
Area:
total: 64,589 sq km
land: 64,589 sq km
water: 0 sq km ”

“ In the middle of the 16th century the ancient order of the Knights of the Sword, whose territory embraced Esthonia, Livonia, Courland, Semgallen and the islands of Dago and Oesel, was tottering to its fall. All the Baltic powers were more or less interested in the apportionment of this vast tract of land, whose geographical position made it not only the chief commercial link between east and west, but also the emporium whence the English, Dutch, Swedes, Danes and Germans obtained their corn, timber and most of the raw products of Lithuania and Muscovy. ”

“ The Hanseatic League, though they were frequently involved in disputes, and sometimes in wars, with France, Flanders, Holland, Denmark, England, and other powers, and though they undoubtedly aimed at, not only the monopoly, but also the sovereignty of the Baltic, and encroached where-ever they were permitted to fix themselves, yet were of wonderful service to civilization and commerce. "In order to accomplish the views of nature, by extending the intercourse of nations, it was necessary to open the Baltic to commercial relations ”

“ It is, then, not the mere conquest of the Baltic provinces which separates the policy of Peter the Great from that of his ancestors, but it is the transfer of the capital which reveals the true meaning of his Baltic conquests. Petersburg was not like Muscovy, the centre of a race, but the seat of a government; not the slow work of a people, but the instantaneous creation of a man; not the medium from which the peculiarities of an inland people radiate, but the maritime extremity where they are lost ”

“ As we view the armies marshaling along this upper section, along the Baltic shore, southward, including part of East Prussia as well as Baltic Russia, we look upon the ancient abode of the Lithuanians, supposed to be the first of the Slavic tribes to appear in Europe. Hardly any part of Europe has a more forbidding aspect than this region. There the armies must pass over a flat, undulating country, almost as low in level as the Baltic, and therefore occupied in large part by marshes and lagoons through which they must struggle. In all parts the soil is unproductive. ”

“ The spot where Petersburg now stands had been for a thousand years past contested ground between Fins, Swedes, and Russians. All the remaining extent of coast from Polangen, near Memel, to Torrea, the whole coast of the Black Sea, from Akerman to Redut Kaleh, has been conquered later on. And, as if to witness the anti-maritime peculiarity of the Slavonic race, of all this line of coast, no portion of the Baltic coast has really adopted Russian nationality. Nor has the Circassian and Mingrelian east coast of the Black Sea. ”

“ It is only in quite modern times that the union of the crowns, though not of the kingdoms, of Sweden and Norway, has created a power wholly peninsular and equally Baltic and oceanic." The Germans and Scandinavians spread their dominion over the Aryan and non-Aryan tribes on the south and east of the Baltic. Finland, inhabited by a Turanian or Scythic people whose language is akin to that of the Hungarians, was long under Swedish dominion. Now Finland and the east of the Baltic are in Russia, while the southern and south-eastern shore of the Baltic is German. ”

“ The sixteenth-century struggle for the possession of the Baltic was a dispute over an inheritance. This inheritance had been left by the Hansa, that great political and commercial confederation which the discovery of the New World ruined and left defenceless in the hands of its greedy neighbours. It was a formidable struggle, both as to the competitors—Sweden and Denmark, Muscovy and Poland—whose enmity it stirred, and as to the interests—industry and commerce, religion and culture—it involved. ”

“ In the German text, the original of which we have here, it is at Pages number 2 and 3:
“The aim of a Reich Commissar for Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and White Ruthenia”—last two words added in pencil—“must be to strive to achieve the form of a German protectorate and then transform the region into part of the Greater German Reich by germanizing racially possible elements, colonizing Germanic races, and banishing undesirable elements. The Baltic Sea must become a Germanic inland sea under the guardianship of Greater Germany.” ”

“ It was regrettable that the Ministry for Eastern Affairs had not given clear'directions from the beginning, so that up to date and in spite of our efforts the situation in the Baltic provinces is not clear. ”

“ In fact the nature of the League, the relations of the cities to one another, geographical as well as political, hindered the Hansa from ever becoming a territorial power like Switzerland{495} and the United Provinces. In the history of the Baltic lands it takes for some ages a position at least equal to that of any kingdom. But it is only casually and occasionally that its triumphs can be marked on the map. ”

“ With the exception of the Lithuanians, who erected a considerable kingdom in the Middle Ages, only to share the unhappy fate of Poland, the Baltic peoples have played little part in history. In a backwater of civilization, retaining in extraordinary measure the primitive forms of their tribal organization, their mode of life, their religion, and their language,5 they were no match for those who sought to subdue them, though they fared less hardly at the hands of the Slavs than at those of the Germans. ”

“ Russia’s defence will thus in no way be prejudiced by the shores of the Baltic not being guarded by herself but by a more watchful sentry, of whom one could not expect any aggressive tendency, but who would nevertheless oppose himself, in the name of his own interests, to any aggression coming either from the West or East.
The Lettish people claims the realisation of its natural right to an independent existence and free development. ”

“ While they were running after the dainty worm, all Europe saw clearly that this exclusion from the Baltic Sea was general for all armed vessels, whether American or English; but Russia was too wise to begin by speaking of English vessels. It is, nevertheless, curious to consider the nature of the right alleged [182] by the Courts of Petersburg, Stockholm, and Copenhagen, to arrogate to themselves the dominion of the Baltic; a dominion no mention of which is made in any treaty existing, and of which no one ever heard any mention made. ”

“ If part of her annexations lasted only a few years, she made her Baltic coast continuous for ever. But Prussia and Austria alike, by joining to wipe out the central state of the whole region, have given themselves a mighty neighbour. Russia has wholly cast aside her character as a mere inland power, intermediate between Europe and Asia. She has won her way, after so many ages, to her old position and much more. She has a Baltic and an Euxine seaboard. Her recovery of her old lands on the Duna and the Dnieper, her conquest of new lands on the Niemen, have brought her into the heart of Europe. ”

“ Wherever the Baltic people hold their conquests in Asia, Europe, or America, a nation arises of mixed blood from their marriages with black-haired natives or fellow emigrants. A few centuries after the settlement, four hundred years or so, the austere republic, or monarchy of free men with a king as Leader, blossoms into a grand empire, ablaze with genius, rich, corrupt, decaying. ”

“ Good-bye, Mr Baltic. I am glad to have met you; original people always attract me,' and with a handshake and a kindly nod the little doctor bustled off.
So, in his turn, Baltic departed from Beorminster, and lost himself in the roaring tides of London. It is yet too early to measure the result of his work; to prognosticate if his peculiar views will meet with a reception likely to encourage their development into a distinct sect. But there can be no doubt that his truth and earnestness will, some day—and perhaps at no very distant date—meet with their reward. ”

“ She represented to them, with abundance of eloquence and address, the advantages that would accrue from the consolidation of the three nations into one kingdom. That it would put an end to the frequent wars that desolated them; render them entire masters of the commerce of the Baltic; keep in awe the Hanse towns, grown powerful by the divisions of her people; and acquire for them, all the conveniences which result from a perfect conformity of customs, laws and interest. ”

“ Its shallowness and narrowness, its numerous islands and reefs, the shoal coasts of Prussia on the one side, and the rocky coast of Sweden on the other, make the navigation of the Baltic very dangerous. ”

“ But to establish Russian power on the Baltic at all was as great a mistake as ever has been committed by so shrewd a statesman as Peter the Great. The predominance of Russia in the Baltic with her strong navy threatened the interest of the commerce and carrying-trade of the English and Dutch. Hence it was natural enough that England and Holland, two great maritime powers, 102should have joined to protect their interest in the Baltic as well as the integrity of Sweden against Russian aggression. ”