London 1940-1945 , A Europe in Miniature ? The Case of Norwegian , Polish and Czechoslovak Exiles

This paper discusses experience of representatives of three European small powers assembled in the London during WWII Norway, Czechoslovakia and Poland. A common cause, comparable setting and frequent contacts created a promising framework for a new quality of their mutual relations that could, eventually, endorse the European idea. This proved to be at best a partial success: The exiles acted by-and-large as guardians of national interests and identities. As such, and owing to their strained position, they paid considerable attention to status as a principal asset. They subscribed of internalization of their foreign policies and learned or refined their experience with its practices. Yet their visions remained rather regional, with only occasional reference to the idea of European Integration. Albeit the exiles failed to integrate the nations they spoke for, they established closer and better informed transnational ties bound to affect European politics in


DEBATER A EUROPA
A (DES) CONSTRUÇÃO DA EUROPA (1939)(1940)(1941)(1942)(1943)(1944)(1945) (DE) CONSTRUCTING EUROPE (1939)(1940)(1941)(1942)(1943)(1944)(1945) 13 jul-dez 2015 92 communities are born. The European exiles assembled in London during WWII are a perfect example. Ousted from their countries, they found themselves in a very strained position. In most cases they were, as holders of official vestiges, determined to struggle for national and personal causes. Yet on the basis of their severely limited power they had to set out for their quest from a distant periphery. London became their headquarters, from where it should be feasible to 'set Europe ablaze'. The city hosted an emerging international society with both formal platforms and possibly even more important informal meeting-points where exile leaders and activists might socialize and exchange information 1 . The wartime London was a Europe in miniature 2 .
In this paper, I will point out several telling pages from the story of Czechoslovakia, Norway and Poland. As to the choice, a few points are to be made. Firstly, contacts between Norway and the Central Europeans had been limited, free of historical burdens (which would not have been the case once Norway is substituted for Sweden 3 ). Secondly, all three states were rim-states which posed comparable security challenges to them. Finally, a question of cohesion and compatibility is appealing: Was their common interest an operating ʻbridgeʼ, and what were the implications for European integration?

Europe into Pieces
The thrust of the totalitarian or quasi-totalitarian states redrew the map of Europe in the late 1930s and during the ʻphoney warʼ. Albania, Austria, the Baltic States, Czechoslovakia, Poland or Yugoslavia were invaded and occupied while other powers´ sovereignty, like that of France, Greece, or Denmark, was effectively maimed. International bodies, like the League of Nations, entered a kind of a phantom existence. In less than three years, interwar Europe´s international 1 Some nations could co-operate with London-based expats whose associations operated clubs, libraries or churches. Most exiled representations published print media and ran national institutes and societies which should disseminate information. The 'Allied Circle' discussion forum emerged in 1941/42. Reflexions over German aggression appeared in the bookstores. See, for example, HAMBRO, Carl Joachim -I Saw It Happen in Norway, New York: Appleton-Century, 1940, VIII+219 p. Sine ISBN; VAN 3 In the 1640s the Swedes invaded the Czech Lands and conquered several cities, including Prague and Olmütz. Several Swedish-Polish wars were fought in the Modern era and the 1655-56 campaign of Karl X Gustaf became a symbol of a national calamity ('the Deluge') in Poland. 93 structure was dismembered and many national societies did not fare any better. In result, innumerable emigres, including legitimate political leaders who had lost control of the territory they used to govern, set out from home for safe destinations. Their first station was Paris with its cosmopolitan and even exile traditions 4 , and then, following its rapid fall in June 1940, London.
Not only the French Eastern allies sought refuge on the opposite side of the English Channel. The Royal house of Norway and the Labour Nygaardsvold ministry arrived to Scotland on 10 June 1940 and established their headquarters in London. In doing so, the Norwegians followed the Belgian, the Dutch and the Luxemburg examples 5 . Chances of the neutrals seemed to be much worse than in the First World War: In the aftermath of Franco -Hitler meeting at Hendaye (23 October 1940), Armindo Monteiro, the Portuguese minister in London, was alarmed enough to advise that preparations for exile be made in Lisbon 6 . With the war inflagrating the continent, the royal houses of Greece and Yugoslavia followed the path in 1941. In addition, several occupied nations formed the so-called free movements -the Austrians, the Danes, the French -which either had to take a long road to a government-in-exile status or did not intend to act as such at all 7 .

A Bunch of Status Seekers?
The quality of mutual contacts from the interwar period which the exiles were to build upon varied greatly. Beside (not always friendly) neighbours, many occasional acquientances from the international arena met in London. Physical proximity and common agenda opened new venues between nations, encounters of which had been infrequent. If recent traumas were comparable, the shape and conditions of each and every representation appeared to be unique. The legitimacy of exiles is vulnerable due to the mere fact of operating from outside the territory they claim to represent. Several relationships are at stake: with the nation at home as a rule being addressed by alternative pretenders, within the often dispersed exile community and with the foreign hosts and notion undermined his authority and engraved the shape of the Czech and Slovak exile, which he began to organize in the spring of 1939. The road to full recognition of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile was a thorny one, by stages including a rather exceptional one of a 'provisional government', and took more than two years of concerted political activity (18 July 1941). 12 Perceptions of each other were acutely relevant for the exiles and they were aware of it. 13 First and foremost, status perceptions which were bound to emanate from starting points genuine for each and every representation. It is safe to argue that these troubled relations between the exiles and made efforts for an integrated community of 'brothers-in-arms' rather tentative.
Norwegian experience conveys evidence here.  Austro-Hungarian nationals both of them, announced the design "to enter as independent and sovereign states into a closer political and economic association, which would become the basis of a new order in Central Europe". On 19 January 1942 they confirmed the intention to establish a Polish-Czechoslovak confederation 25 . These efforts were to fail for several reasons. However, the main disagreement was about the Soviet Union, before and definitely after it was invaded on 22 June 1941 and joined the Allies: Where Beneš was thinking of co-operation, even alliance, Sikorski aimed at co-existence 26 . Content that Beneš would listen attentively to their wishes, the Soviets, after quite a long period of signalling, issued a veto once they rose to a geopolitical heavyweight in 1943 27 (and to this effect they used the notorious Katyń Affair 28 ). Besides, the Norwegian claim that the main concern was to please the British cannot be ignored. 29 Baltic. The Norwegian confirmed that closer ties to Britain were much debated. 32 However, London was not only place where exiles were talking foreign policy. Many of them found refuge in Stockholm. The Norwegians constituted the most populous community.
Martin Tranmael, possibly the most influential Norwegian Labour politician of the pre-war era, played the central role 33 . He and his colleagues (one of them was Willy Brandt, then a Norwegian citizen 34 ) joined the lively international socialist society in its thinking about post-war order 35 .
Operating in a neutral country, the Stockholm emigres´ perspective differed from that of their London-based compatriots. Sweden was the centre of the Nordic federalist debate (despite limited subscription in the higher political echelons) 36  Thus, the London Poles tried to break through as a steering element of numerous Inter-Allied initiatives. As the principal adviser to Trygve Lie noted: "The Czechs and the Poles are very interested in the International Assembly Commission … partly because they are interested in binding us all together tight to the European continent". 46 It was this continental linkage the London Norwegians were seeking to avoid (whereas, as Nils A. Røhne pointed out, Tranmael´s inclination towards regional federalism as displayed in Basic Foundations "was close to an echo of the Polish plans") even at the price of questioning geopolitical subjectivity of Europe as such 47  Learning from a small power ally?
The Soviet-Polish relations, brought at a diplomatic standstill, continued deteriorating after Sikorski´s death. In the same way, the distance between the Norwegians and the Poles was growing. The Norwegian footage on Poland appears to refer to its foreign policy as an example of how not to deal with the Soviets. Looking for the right modus operandi, based on a rather modest Norwegian-Soviet treaty, to be drafted on the Soviet-Czechoslovak precedent.
As the war was approaching its end, the so-called 'Polish question' was culminating. On 4 January 1945 Lie invited Szathmáry to a conversation and asked him about Czechoslovak viewpoints. Since Norway and Czechoslovakia were the only ʻlittle Alliesʼ having concluded Civil Affairs Agreements with the Soviets, Lie stated that "quite a lot spoke in favour of some coordination … in this matter". The minister reported enthusiastically: "It is Lies opinion that, for Norway, it is no use wasting time by delaying the recognition of the provisional Lublin government, especially now when north-eastern Norway is being gradually liberated by bravery of the Red Army" (emphasis added). Szathmáry consulted with Hubert Ripka, the secretary of state for foreign affairs, who, owing to Masaryk´s frequent, sometimes long absence from London, often actually ran the foreign ministry. Afterwards Szathmáry reported that the matter was suspended as long as the Lublin Poles would not accept the pre-Munich frontiers of Czechoslovakia, including Teschen which Poland had seized in October 1938. 64 The Norwegians went on with a wait-and-see policy. 65 Whereas Czechoslovakia recognised the Lublin Poles at the very end of January 1945, Norway postponed the matter was until 5/6 July 1945 with the British in the lead 66 .
These episodes confirmed it once again: When the Norwegians took contact with an Allied small power, they did so because they sought an ad-hoc collaboration while safeguarding good bilateral relationship with a great power. Might closer ties to a small power compromise a relationship with a great power, they were relaxed. Integration of any kind except the United Nations appeared to be no option for a 'bridge-building' Norway. Occasionally we find "a

A Europe of Nation-States in Miniature
The story sketched here reveals how difficult it was for small European nations, despite a common enemy and a shared meeting-place, to find solid ground for mutual understanding. On the one hand, their representatives learned about each other much more than ever before, which contributed to their enhanced European experience. More comprehensively informed, they could draw lessons from each otherʼs achievements and misfortunes, which affected their policies.
There, wartime London, especially for the Norwegians, was a classroom: Where states, employing past analogies, "draw heavily on their individual experiences [and] pay little attention to those of other states in the same formative event" 69 , they are more receptive of current developments in the states of the same category. On the other hand, their interests were often specific and diverged more than one could have originally expected. If and when they managed to build a community, it was necessarily a very tentative one. The activities of the exiles were first and foremost directed to the preservation of their threatened nationsʼ identity. A wider European idea, the message of which to some degree conflated with those of the United Nations and the Free World, found only a limited audience. Seen through the lens of wartime exiles, London was a Europe in miniature, a Europe of nation-states. As far as the three studied representations are concerned, apart from Retinger the atmosphere did not generate a European advocate in line with Paul-Henri Spaak, Johan Willem Beyen, or Robert Schuman 70 . This appeared to be a rather ominous sign for a European integration project, at least in the foreseeable future. Soon, the paths of the 'little Allies' were to take part: while the Poles, the Czechs and the Slovaks, were deprived of a say through integration into 'Pax Sovietica', the Norwegians choose to observe the European project with utmost caution 71 . Even though it might not seem likely, a