Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, Russia, Volume II
File No. 861.00/2972
The Ambassador in Russia (Francis) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 15.]
Sir: I have the honor to enclose herewith at the request of the Lettish Provisional National Committee, Department of Internal [Foreign?] Affairs, at Petrograd the following documents:
- (1)
- Protestation du Conseil National Letton;
- (2)
- Politique allemande générale en Lettonie et Conseil National Letton, with one appendix;1
- (3)
- Situation économique de la Lettonie, with two appendixes.1
I have [etc.]
The Lettish National Council to the American Ambassador in Russia (Francis)
protest of the lettish national council
Possessing an unshakeable faith in the final victory of right and justice, the Lettish people have sacrificed without stint their wealth and their best sons in the struggle against the subjection and oppression of nations by Germany. Nevertheless, in the month of February, the enemy accomplished the occupation of all Latvia. Its young and flourishing economic culture is in ruins and its very intense intellectual life is checked. Its rich and picturesque farms are burned and its bustling cities are plunged in a profound silence. About 70 per cent of the inhabitants of Latvia have voluntarily left their hearths or have been forced to do so and have since then been wandering the roads of immense Russia. Before the war Courland numbered 800,000 inhabitants; after the German invasion there remained only 200,000; the city of Riga numbered 520,000 inhabitants before the war; at present it numbers only 210,000.
The peace of Brest inflicted the most terrible blow on ruined Latvia. Courland and the city of Riga with its district are given over to the protectorate of Germany; the rest of Lettish Livonia, namely, the districts of Wenden, of Wolmar, and of Walk, are subjected to German occupation until peace and order shall have been reestablished in agreement with the wishes of the population; the fate of Latgalia, comprising the districts of Rezekne, Dvinsk, and Ludza of the government of Vitebsk, remains undecided.
[Page 834]In this way the territory of Latvia, inhabited by a people united by a particular civilization, by a community of political and national aspirations, and by economic interests, is artificially dismembered and partitioned between two states under quite different political conditions. The treaty of Brest is a crime directed against the national, political, and economic existence of the Lettish people in the future; it is a violation of the principles of democracy, an offense against the right of a people to dispose of itself.
The German occupying power has forged for Latvia heavy chains shackling the economic and intellectual life of the country. The Germanization of the administration and the schools has already commenced. The military authorities have replaced most of the mayors of the rural communes, all the mayors of the cities, and municipal councilors by functionaries devoted to the local nobility. Teachers conscientious in their duties have likewise been replaced by ill-educated masters whose sole merit is their pro-Germanism. All freedom of speech in the press and in social life is prosecuted and prohibited. Social and intellectual life is completely stopped; travel, even local, is strictly regulated and limited.
Espionage and informing are penetrating into private life as well as into public life and prevail everywhere; the repatriation of war refugees is disorganized and impeded in every way.
The Letts now living in Latvia, as likewise those who have just returned or who are still wandering in the plains and cities of Russia, would never desire the annexation of Latvia by Germany, nor the personal union with the King of Prussia. The two countries, Latvia and Prussia, have neither political or national aspirations nor economic or cultural interests in common; they are not even contiguous enough to have sufficient organic ties. For that reason, relying upon armed force, the occupying power is trying to subjugate Courland to German imperialism and militarism; the fate of Posen and Alsace-Lorraine threatens Latvia.
In order to create a juridical and moral basis for these acts of violation of justice within the dismembered portions of Latvia, the military authorities have hastened to form Landesrats composed of the mayors of rural communes and cities and of the representatives of the great landlords of German origin. The resolutions passed at the sessions of these Landesrats give an absolutely false idea of the political tendencies and the will of the Lettish people. The Landesrats are usurping the right of the people to political self-determination, masking the final annexation of Latvia to Prussia. Thus, on March 8, 1918, the Landesrat of Courland passed a resolution setting up the province of Courland as a duchy and offering the crown to the Hohenzollern dynasty; on April 12, 1918, the “United Landesrat,” composed of representatives of the municipality of Riga, of Livonia, of Ösel Island, and of Esthonia, decided to set up the Baltic provinces as a monarchy joined with Prussia by a personal union through its king, and to offer the crown of the new monarchy to the German Emperor. The German Government has just given the order to conclude military and economic conventions between the Duchy of Courland and Germany.
The Landesrats created by the occupying power have no right whatever to discuss and decide, in the name of the Lettish people, the fate of Latvia. Their members have not been elected, but appointed by the German administration; they are not representatives of the Lettish people, but of the Baltic nobility, carrying out the annexationist aims of the Pan-Germanists. In order [Page 835] to get an idea of the way in which these Landesrats look after the interests of Latvia, it is enough to recall the resolution pledging Courland, the blood of its sons, and all its riches, to German imperialism. In order to perceive how deeply the members of this Landesrat have taken to heart the vital needs of the working class, the historic phrase uttered at Berlin by M. Bernewitz must be quoted: “You ask for lands, but the lands of Courland ask for colonists,” although 70 per cent of its rural population is landless, demanding lands for centuries.
In view of the great importance of the coast of the Baltic Sea, the problem of Latvia has become an international problem of world importance. The Baltic Landesrats created by the occupying power have neither the qualifications nor the competence to solve it. It must be solved by the Lettish people themselves, in accord with the interests of world democracy, at the general peace conference.
The Lettish National Council, uniting all national political parties, central communal institutions, and most important social organizations’, excepting the extremist parties—the maximalist-internationalists on the one hand and the little group of monarchists on the other—on April 4, 1918, submitted a vigorous protest to the German Imperial Chancellor, Count Hertling, and the Zemstvo of Livonia took a similar action with respect to the German Imperial Chancellor and the Commander in Chief of the army of occupation. The two protests have had no result.
The Lettish National Council, supported by the unanimous national will of an undivided and indivisible Latvia, in this historic moment addresses to the governments and nations of the entire world its energetic protest against the dismemberment of the territory of Latvia and against the falsification of the will of the Lettish people, and it declares categorically and firmly the will of the Lettish people:
- 1.
- The treaty of Brest of March 3, 1918, dismembering the territory of Latvia, is an act of violence against the right of the people to self-determination and must be regarded as null and void.
- 2.
- The Lettish people do not desire the annexation of Latvia to Germany nor the personal union of Latvia with Prussia.
- 3.
- The decisions of the Landesrats are gross falsifications of the wishes of the population of Latvia.
- 4.
- The military and economic conventions which the German Government is about to conclude with the Landesrats of Latvia will not be recognized nor carried out by Latvia and the Lettish nation.
- 5.
- The Lettish National Council protests against the violation of the freedom of the press, of speech and of assembly, of personal liberty and of travel, against the arbitrary replacing of the mayors of communes and cities by the occupying power.
- 6.
- It deems an urgent necessity the recognition of the Lettish National Council as the supreme institution of the Lettish state until the war refugees shall have returned to their homes and the political constitution of Latvia shall have been drawn up and put into effect.
- 7.
- It demands the creation of an independent and indivisible Lettish state under international guarantee.
- J. Goldmans
- Secretary, J. Seskis