Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question

Appendix

International Anti-Semitism in 1498

The earliest appearance of the Jewish Question in international European politics—or rather the earliest reference to it in the British State Papers—happened in 1498, shortly after the great expulsion of the Jews from Spain. In that year Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain sent a mission to England on business connected with Prince Arthur’s marriage. The mission was apparently instructed to deal with the Jewish Question. The envoys expressed to the King their sorrow that, while Spain had been purged of infidelity, Flanders and England were infested by that scourge. Thereupon, according to a dispatch from the chief of the mission, Henry VII, laying both hands on his breast, swore that he would persecute without mercy any Jew or heretic that the King or Queen of Spain might point out in his dominions.

DOCUMENT.

De Carta del soprior de Santa Cruza Sus Alts. (Sub-Prior of Santa Cruz to Ferdinand and Isabella, July 18, 1498). Extract.

Acabada nuestra embasada hable al Rey de Inglaterra solo....

Al otro cabo que le dixe que en su Reyno y en Flandes estaban muchos conversos de los Reynos de V.A. y algunos fuydos por miedo de la Inquisicion y quan firmes V.A. estaban en su amistad y hermandad y que los sobredichos siempre procuraban el contrario que le avisaban dello, holgo mucho de tal avis y dixo la mano puesta en los pechos que por la fe de su coraçon que no decia el de marranos mas del mejor de su Reyno si contra lo que yo le decia algo le dixiese, no le oiria ni le ternia por suyo, y que si S.A. le mandaien airsar si en su tierra hay algun judio o herege que por la fe de su corazon et los castigaria bien. Fue esta habla larga y por ser nuevo oficial abrevie, huelga mucho el Rey de Inglaterra en fablar de la Princesa de Gales....

(Record Office: “Spanish Transcripts,” Series I, vol. I, B. 205.)

Footnotes

1 Infra, pp. 57-62 and Appendix.

2 Wolf: Menasseh b. Israel’s Mission to Oliver Cromwell, pp. xviii et seq.

3 The Protocol was accepted by the Dutch King on July 21, 1814. Its text will be found in British and Foreign State Papers, ii. 141-142.

4 Guasco: “L’Église Catholique et la Liberté Religieuse dans l’Empire Chinois” (Revue Générale de Droit International Public, x. 53 et seq.)

5 Verney and Dambmann: Puissances Etrangères dans le Levant, pp. 69-80.

6 Infra, pp. 83 et seq.

7 The historical and juridical aspects of the question have been fully discussed by Professor Rougier in the Revue Générale de Droit International Public, xvii. 468 et seq.

8 Martin: Life of the Prince Consort, iii. 510-511.

9 For a vigorous exposition of the duty of civilised States in such cases, see Prof. A. Dicey’s introduction to Legal Sufferings of the Jews in Russia, p. x.

10 See Straus: The American Spirit (New York). For documentary examples relating to the Jews, see Cyrus Adler: Jews in the Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States.

11 Infra, pp. 63-64.

12 Kayserling: “Menasseh b. Israel” (Misc. Heb. Lit. ii. 29); Harleian Miscellany, vii. 618.

13 Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 29,868, f. 1.

14 Sir Thomas Robinson, “l’infatigable Robinson” of Carlyle’s Frederick, afterwards Lord Grantham.

15 Graetz: Geschichte der Juden, x. 393-394.

16 Emanuel: A Century and a Half of Anglo-Jewish History, p. 9.

17 Graetz: Geschichte, xi. 324-328. See also Kohler: Jewish Rights at International Congresses, pp. 6-20.

18 Diary of Sir Moses Montefiore, 1817, p. 192. (Ramsgate Theological College MSS.) Kohler: op. cit. pp. 25-26.

19 Communication from the late Mr. Leopold de Rothschild. See also Gentleman’s Magazine, Oct. 1819, p. 362.

20 Infra, p. 16. The Protocol does not appear in the Protocols of the Congress published in the British and Foreign State Papers, and is usually excluded from the official records of the Congress. Its text is, however, given in Way’s Mémoires (Paris, 1819) as an unpaginated Appendix.

21 Procès-Verbal des Séances de l’Assemblée Juive (Paris, 1806), pp. 47-49; Actes du Grand Sanhédrin, pp. 65-73, 83, 90-91.

22 Emanuel: op. cit., p. 66. The facts are given more fully by Loeb: Biographie d’Albert Cohn (Paris, 1878), pp. 48-49.

23 Loeb: op. cit., p. 49 (supplemented by private sources), Holland: The European Concert in the Eastern Question, p. 330.

24 Holland: op. cit., pp. 233-234, 251.

25 British and Foreign State Papers, xlviii. 78.

26 Loeb: Situation des Israélites en Turquie, en Serbie, et en Roumanie (1877), p. 200.

27 The Jews and the War, No. 1 (1917), pp. 15-16. (Privately printed by Jewish Conjoint Committee.)

28 British and Foreign State Papers, xlviii. 97.

29 Ibid. p. 113.

30 Ibid. p. 120.

31 Jews and the War, No. 1 (1917), pp. 15-16.

32 The Hatti-Humayoun (see next document).

33 This alinéa did not appear in the scheme drawn up by the Bucharest Commission, but was inserted by the Conference.

34 Loeb: Situation, pp. 139-196. Narcisse Leven: Cinquante ans d’histoire, pp. 93-146.

35 British and Foreign State Papers, lxii. p. 705.

36 Infra, pp. 25-33.

37 Jews and the War, p. 29.

38 Infra, p. 33.

39 Infra, p. 32. Extract from Protocol No. 17.

40 “Le Traité de Berlin,” writes M. Suliotis in the Journal du droit international privé (xiv. 563), “a cru faire merveille en faveur des étrangers, mais la Roumanie a su habilement éluder les inconvénients qui pouvaient resulter de l’application de l’article VII. dans le sens du Traité de Berlin, qui n’a eu d’autres résultats que de rendre plus difficile la situation des étrangers.”

41 Dated June 13, 1901. It is not printed. Its argument is largely reproduced in the Memorandum of the Conjoint Committee of November 1908, for full text of which see Jews and the War, pp. 14 et seq.

42 Private information and documents.

43 For a detailed and documented account of the American intervention, but without the full texts of the Notes of Secretary Hay (infra, pp. 38-45), see Kohler and Wolf: Jewish Disabilities in the Balkan States (the American Jewish Committee, 1916), pp. 80-83, 108-137.

44 Semi-official communiqué to the newspapers through Reuter’s Agency, September 23, 1902. The fact was also privately communicated by Lord Lansdowne to Lord Rothschild at the time.

45 This is a reference to Russia. Infra, pp. 69-70.

46 “Memorandum on the Treaty Rights of the Jews of Rumania” (November 1908). Printed for confidential use, 16 pp. fcp. Reprinted in Jews and the War, pp. 14-30. Also in the Annual Reports of the Board of Deputies and Anglo-Jewish Association (1909), and in Kohler and Wolf, op. cit.

47 Infra, p. 47.

48 Infra, p. 51. For a fuller text of the correspondence, see Annual Report of the Board of Deputies (1913), pp. 54-74.

49 The United States was a conspicuous exception. See especially Mr. Blaine’s despatch of February 18, 1891. (Foreign Relations of U.S. 1891, p. 737.)

50 Wolf and Dicey: Legal Sufferings of the Jews in Russia (London, 1912). Semenoff and Wolf: The Russian Government and the Massacres (London, 1907).

51 The story is told by M. Ernest Daudet in his Histoire Diplomatique de l’Alliance Franco-Russe, pp. 261-262, but the present writer is able to confirm it from other sources.

52 The famous “Nikky-Willy” correspondence (see Times, September 4, 1917; Daily Telegraph, September 4, 27 and 29, 1917; and Morning Post, September 15, 1917.)

53 Infra, pp. 57-62.

54 The statement in the Memorandum that Messrs. Rothschild had been excluded by the Russian Government from these loan operations is inaccurate. The exclusion had come from the other side, and at the very time that the Memorandum was being prepared Count Witte had sent representatives of the Finance Ministry to London to endeavour to overcome Lord Rothschild’s reluctance.

55 This Protocol is published in vol. vi. of the Secret Documents published by the Russian Revolutionary Government in February 1918.

56 Secret letter from the Kaiser to the Tsar published in the Soviet organ Inviestia, December 19, 1917.

57 Actual Privy Councillor Nelidow’s despatch of December 1-14, 1905.

58 Communicated by Emil Deschamps in the Journal de St. Pétersbourg, of December 23, 1905.

59 Despatch from the Imperial Ambassador at the Hague of October 24, 1905, No. 22.

60 Despatch from the Imperial Ambassador at Rome of November 29, 1905, No. 23.

61 According to the rules of French Freemasonry, promotion to the eighteenth degree makes the recipient automatically a member of the “Alliance Israélite Universelle,” while out of the nine members of the Secret Supreme Council of Freemasonry five must be Jews.

62 Levy: Don Joseph Nasi, Herzog von Naxos und seine Familie (Breslau, 1859). See also Graetz: Geschichte, vol. ix. passim.

63 The text of the Sultan’s letter is preserved in the rare Lettere di Principi (Venice, 1581), iii. 171.

64 Graetz: Geschichte, ix. 361, and 571-572.

65 Transactions, Jewish Historical Society, iv. 478 et seq. The plea has been revived during the present war, but with less success. It was largely used by Russian Jews in order to escape conscription under the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1916. (See Petition of Foreign Jews Protection Society, Herald, July 22 and 29, 1916.) See also the case of the prosecution of Henry Samuel, Times, September 19, 1918.

66 Infra, p. 71.

67 Brisac: Ce que les Israélites de la Suisse doivent à la France (Lausanne, 1916), pp. 9-13. Infra, pp. 71-72.

68 Brisac: op. cit., pp. 14-15, 16-17.

69 Jewish disabilities still existed in England, Germany, Austria, Russia, the Italian States, Spain and Portugal.

70 May 28, 1841. A full report of the debate will be found in the Moniteur, May 29, 1841.

71 Stroock: “Switzerland and American Jews,” in Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, xi. 7-8, 15.

72 Brisac: op. cit., p. 27-33.

73 Infra, pp. 73-74.

74 Stroock: op. cit., p. 15.

75 Brisac: op. cit., p. 37.

76 Stroock: op. cit., pp. 24-32.

77 Lord Clarendon on December 17, 1857, instructed the British Minister at Berne to make representations to the Swiss Government (Stroock: p. 36). The bulk of the official correspondence of the United States on the subject is printed by Cyrus Adler in Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, xv. 25-39.

78 Infra, p. 73.

79 This was not in the Commercial Treaty but in a separate Treaty of Establishment signed the same day.

80 Sanctioned by the Referendum of January 14, 1866 (Brisac, p. 54).

81 Parl. Paper, Russia, No. 4 (1881), p. 21. Infra, pp. 81-82.

82 Parl. Paper, Russia, No. 3 (1881), pp. 17-18.

83 Parl. Paper, Russia, No. 4 (1881), pp. 21-22. Infra, p. 82.

84 Letter from Sir T. H. Sanderson on behalf of the Marquis of Salisbury, January 29, 1891.

85 “Memorandum on the grievances of British subjects of the Jewish faith in regard to the interpretation of Articles I and XI of the Anglo-Russian Treaty of Commerce and Navigation of January 12, 1859” (August 2, 1912). Printed for confidential use, 9 pp. fcp. The text together with further correspondence has been reprinted in the Annual Reports of the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association for 1912.

86 Infra, pp. 82-83.

87 Cyrus Adler: Jews in the Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, pp. 73-74. See also dispatch from Mr. Foster, October 18, 1880, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1881, p. 991.

88 See dispatches quoted by C. Adler, op. cit., pp. 75-96 from Foreign Relations 1880 and 1881.

89 Infra, pp. 76-78.

90 Infra, pp. 79-80.

91 Cyrus Adler: op. cit., pp. 7-19. See also infra, p. 103 (note).

92 Infra, p. 83.

93 Confirmed by Art. XIII of the Treaty of Passarowitz, July 21, 1718.

94 Supra, pp. 3-4.

95 Piggott: Exterritoriality (Lond. 1907), pp. 67-68.

96 Bernhardt: op. cit., pp. 947, 957.

97 Infra, p. 86. Further details will be found in Mr. Finn’s Records from Jerusalem Consular Chronicles (Lond. 1878), i. 112-114.

98 Infra, p. 87.

99 Infra, p. 87.

100 Memoir of Sir John Drummond Hay (Lond. 1896), pp. 322-323. See also stipulations of French Treaty (infra, p. 88).

101 For details of these cases see Leven: Cinquante Ans d’Histoire, pp. 158 et seq. Annual Reports of the Anglo-Jewish Association.

102 Memoir of Sir J. D. Hay, pp. 321-323.

103 Ibid., p. 323.

104 Infra, pp. 90-91.

105 Infra, p. 93.

106 Infra, p. 92. See also Wolf: Sir Moses Montefiore (Lond. 1884), pp. 213-232, and Loewe: Diaries of Sir M. Montefiore, ii. 148-153.

107 Infra, p. 97.

108 Infra, p. 98.

109 Cf. supra, p. 89.

110 Fuller: A Pisgah Sight of Palestine (Lond. 1650), bk. iv. p. 194.

111 D’Israeli: Genius of Judaism, pp. 200-201.

112 The Restoration of the Hebrews to Jerusalem by the Year of 1798 under the Revealed Prince and Prophet (Lond. 1794). A letter from Mr. Brothers to Miss Cott with an Address to the Members of His Britannic Majesty’s Council (Lond. 1798). The Curious Trial of Mr. Brothers... on a Statute of Lunacy (Lond. 1795).

113 Mr. Halhed’s Speech in the House of Commons... on Monday, May the 4th, 1795 (Lond. 1795).

114 Law Reports: 4 De Gex & Smale, 467.

115 For details see infra, pp. 104-106.

116 Finn: op. cit., i. 106. The passage is worth quoting: “In 1839, Lord Palmerston’s direction to his first Consul in Jerusalem was ‘to afford protection to the Jews generally.’ The words were simply those, broad and general, as under the circumstances they ought to be, leaving after events to work out their own modifications. The instruction, however, seemed to bear on its face a recognition that the Jews are a nation by themselves and that contingencies might possibly arise in which their relations to Mohammedans should become difficult, though it was impossible to foresee the shape that future transactions might assume upon the impending expulsion of the Egyptians from Syria.”

117 See text of Firman in Loewe: Diaries of Sir M. Montefiore, i. 278-279.

118 Infra, pp. 119-124.

119 Memoir of Laurence Oliphant, ii. 179. As late as January 1888 Mr. Oscar Straus, the United States Minister in Constantinople and himself a Jew, assured the Grand Vizier, with regard to the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine, “that no such purpose actuated the Jews throughout the world” (Foreign Relations of U.S., 1888, p. 1559).

120 Anabaptisticum et Enthusiasticum Pantheon (1702), Novus in Belgio Judaeorum Rex, p. 25.

121 Graetz: Geschichte, x. 207.

122 “Re-establishment of the Jewish Government, with a letter from a Jew to his Brethren; copied from the Courier, June 10, 1798.”

123 Lemoine: Napoléon et les Juifs (Paris, 1900), p. 72.

124 Infra, p. 107. There is no trace of this scheme in the Foreign Office papers except in the reference here quoted from the Russian Memorandum, but Tatistcheff, who saw the Russian set of these papers in the Petrograd Foreign Office, describes a scheme submitted by Guizot to Palmerston and Metternich which seems to be the one referred to here. (Kamarowsky: “La Question d’Orient,” in Revue Générale de Droit International Public, iii. 423.)

125 Infra, pp. 107-109.

126 Infra, pp. 111-113.

127 Infra, p. 113.

128 Infra, pp. 114-116.

129 Covering despatch from Baron Bülow, infra, p. 116.

130 Despatch from Lord Beauvale and draft of reply by Palmerston, infra, pp. 116-117.

131 Kamarowsky, op. cit., p. 423.

132 Memoirs of Bunsen (London, 1868), i. 593 et seq.

133 Memorandum of July 15, 1841, presented to Palmerston by Bunsen (F.O. 64/235 Prussia).

134 Letter from Bunsen to his Wife (Memoirs, i. 608-609).

135 Bishop Alexander was before his conversion Minister of the Jewish Synagogue at Plymouth.

136 Holland: European Concert in Eastern Question, p. 93.

137 British and Foreign State Papers, lxix. 1342-1353; lxxiii. 438.

138 Infra, p. 124.

139 Infra, pp. 124-125.

140 This was probably the scheme suggested by Guizot (supra, p. 105).

141 This Memorandum is identical with the Austrian Memorandum of October 1840, which at the time was only communicated to the Prussian Government (supra, pp. 111-113).