Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1945, General: Political and Economic Matters, Volume II

Council of Foreign Ministers Files: Lot M–88: CFM London Minutes

Record of the Eleventh Meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, Lancaster House, London, September 19, 1945, 11 a.m.

London, September 19, 1945, 11 a.m.

C.F.M.(P) (45) 11th Meeting

Present

U.K.	U.S.A	U.S.S.R
Mr. Bevin	Mr. Byrnes	M. Molotov
Sir R. I. Campbell	Mr. J. Dunn	M. F.T. Gousev
Sir A. Clark Kerr	Mr. B.V. Cohen	M. K. V. Novikov
Mr. A. Duff Cooper	Mr. J. F. Dulles	M. S. A. Golunski
Sir N. Charles	Mr. C. E. Bohlen	M. V. N. Pavlov

France	China
M. Bidault	Dr. Wang Shih Chieh
M. Couve de Murville	Dr. Wellington Koo
General Catroux	Dr. Hollington Tong
M. Alphand	Mr. Yang Yun Chu
M. Fouques-Duparc

1. Italian Peace Treaty: Yugoslav-Italian Frontier and Trieste

(Previous Reference: C.F.M.(P) (45) 10th Meeting, Minute 2)

The Council discussed the question of the Yugoslav-Italian frontier and Trieste in the light of the views expressed at the meeting on the previous day by the Governments of Yugoslavia, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Mr. Bevin said that the problem for the Council was to devise a settlement which would secure for the population of the Julian March the means of peaceful development. He hoped that the Council would accept the principle that the peace settlement should be so designed that no nation could use racial differences to promote further conflict. He found it difficult to believe, from his experience of working people over the last 35 years, that the people themselves wished for these conflicts; and he believed that it should be possible to find a solution of this particular problem which would enable the two peoples in this area to live peacefully together.

As regards Trieste, after hearing the views expressed to the Council on the previous day, he still felt that it would be wrong to remove this city from the control of Italy. Trieste should continue to form part of Italy, and handle the Italian transit trade, but it could at the same time, as a free port, serve as a transit port for central Europe. The proposals put forward by the British Delegation (paragraph 5 of C.F.M.(45) 3⁹¹) were designed to maintain the connection of Trieste with both Italy and central Europe, so that the products of industry and commerce in North Italy could continue to flow through Trieste and at the same time the trade of central Europe could have an outlet to the Adriatic under proper control. This proposal should not be rejected on the basis of Trieste’s history between the two wars, because this was due to the deliberate policy of Germany. One should now be able to assume that the Great Powers would refrain from arousing bitterness between the two peoples which would hinder the natural development of the port of Trieste.

The views put before the Council by the Governments whose representatives had been heard on the previous day did not lead him to suggest any modification of the proposals originally put forward by the British Delegation.

M. Molotov said that the Soviet Delegation were not bound by any document submitted or decision taken before hearing the views of the countries concerned. Nor were they bound by any obligations assumed without the knowledge of the parties concerned. The Council should consider this problem impartially. From the statements made to the Council on the previous day he had derived the impression that the Governments of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa favoured the Yugoslav claims rather than those of Italy. He himself felt that if the Yugoslav representatives had advanced only half the arguments which they had put forward, these would have given sufficient reason for the Council to view their claims with sympathy.

The Soviet Delegation felt that in seeking a settlement of this problem the Council should be guided by two principles:—(a) Their task, in accordance with the Atlantic Charter, was to secure to every nation conditions enabling it to live according to its wishes and with its national interests unimpaired. (b) Their task was to lay the foundations of an enduring peace, not merely to meet the passing needs of the moment.

After the last war this territory was ceded to Italy. It was now clear that this action could not be justified, since the territory was not truly Italian. Any British or American soldier who had spent a month in this area could say that even now the population was not Italian, in spite of Mussolini’s efforts to increase the number of Italians living there. Nor could Italy claim the territory because of a shortage of ports; Italy had enough ports without Trieste, which under Italian” control had fallen into an economic decline. Arguments based on Italy’s need for coal and bauxite were not convincing, since these could be obtained by international trade and trade agreements.

The transfer of the Julian March to Italy would be annexation by a foreign power, in pursuance of that policy of eastward expansion at the expense of the Slav peoples which had been followed by both Germany and Italy. This was the policy, long followed by the rulers of Germany, which had culminated in Hitler’s seizure of the Ukraine and had further expression in Mussolini’s plans to expand at the expense of the Slav peoples in Europe. This policy was based on the false doctrine of superior and inferior races, which had been utterly discredited in the course of this war. It was no accident that this war had been won by those who rejected this racial theory. It was no accident that this Council of Foreign Ministers consisted of representatives of the five nations who had not smeared their hands with this racial fallacy, which amounted in fact to no more than a policy of territorial aggrandisement through aggression.

After the last war Italy had, for the part she had played, received more territory than she needed. What claim could she found on her part in this war, in which she had fought for the most part against the Allies? He was ready to believe that the spokesman of the Italian Government who had appeared before the Council the previous day represented a democratic Italy which had rejected the racial policy and the policy of aggression adopted by Fascist Italy. Why, then, should Italy now pursue, in respect of the Julian March, the path of territorial ambition which Mussolini had followed?

It was no accident that both in the last war and in this Yugoslavia had been on the side of the Allies. Yugoslavia had no aggressive designs and claimed only what rightly belonged to her people. Yugoslavia had a rightful place among those who defended the independence of nations. The services rendered by Italy after she broke away from Germany could not be compared with those of Yugoslavia. No single country had made more sacrifices than Yugoslavia in the struggle against Germany.

As regards Trieste, he did not think it possible that this town should be detached from the Yugoslav hinterland, whose population was predominantly Slovene and Croat. When Trieste had been detached from this hinterland, it had fallen into an economic decline; and its detachment could not therefore be justified on economic grounds.

Any preliminary decisions reached by the Council on this matter must be fully checked in detailed study, as must the statements and claims made by the Yugoslav and Italian Governments; and in the light of this further study it might be found necessary to modify any preliminary decisions now taken. He felt, however, that in reaching such preliminary decisions the Council should be guided by three considerations:—(a) that, as provided in the Atlantic Charter, human rights and self-government must be restored to those who had been forcibly deprived of them; (b) that the Council must strive to establish good relations between Yugoslavia and Italy, in the interests both of these two countries and of all peace-loving nations; and (c) that any decision reached should be designed to establish a lasting peace, both in this particular area and in Europe as a whole.

M. Bidault said that France had no major material interest in this problem and approached it from a disinterested point of view. Both the Yugoslav and Italian peoples were friends of France. In his view the solution of this problem should be based on the requirements of a lasting peace, common-sense, a spirit of conciliation, and the rights of nations as laid down in the Atlantic Charter.

The Council appeared to be already agreed on the following points:—

(i) They recognised the heroic courage of the people of Yugoslavia in resisting invasion and liberating their territory.

(ii) They would take into account the grievous mistakes made in this area by Fascist Italy over a long period.

(iii) The frontier should be based on ethnical data, viz., the nature of the population, the language and the will of the people, economic considerations being secondary.

(iv) Trieste had a large Italian majority, but there was a large Slovene and Croat majority in the hinterland.

(v) The port of Trieste should be a free port, equally accessible under international control to all countries.

There were two outstanding points on which the Council were not yet in agreement:—

(i) The actual line of demarcation between Yugoslavia and Italy. This could not be settled in detail at the present Conference. Could they not agree, however, in principle that the line should be determined on ethnical data?

(ii) The question of political sovereignty over the city of Trieste. Here the facts were clear. The population of Trieste had been predominantly Italian for a long time and, subject to provision for the freedom of the port, there should be no question that political control of the city of Trieste should remain with Italy. The minimum number of Yugoslavs should be left in the city and adjustments might therefore have to be made. The Council should seek a solution which would leave as few Italians as possible in Yugoslavia and as few Yugoslavs as possible in Italy. That was both their interest and their duty.

Mr. Byrnes said that the United States Delegation were not committed to any fixed view on this matter. They had not discussed it with representatives of any other country and he only knew the views of other countries as he had heard them at the Conference on the previous day and in various communications which had been addressed to him. Like his colleagues, he sympathised with the views of Yugoslavia and could readily believe that under Mussolini’s regime Yugoslavs in Italy had been badly treated. Nor could the Yugoslavs be expected to forget the wrongs which had been done to them before the war or the sufferings which they had endured during the war. But none of the Governments represented on the Council wanted to reach a settlement based on a spirit of revenge. He agreed with M. Molotov that they should be guided by the interests of the two countries concerned and by the needs of an enduring peace. While he agreed that ethnical factors were of primary importance, he thought it essential that some consideration should be given to the economic factors. The difficulty was to find any line that did not leave Yugoslavs on the Italian side and Italians on the Yugoslav side.

As regards Trieste, Mr. Byrnes said that the prosperity of the port had declined in the period between the wars, not because it had been separated from Yugoslavia in 1919, but because it had lost its commercial hinterland on the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Since 1918 it had acquired an alternative commercial hinterland in north-east Italy, which it would lose if it were now to be transferred to Yugoslavia. Yugoslav trade could not support adequately both Fiume and Trieste. Trieste was not dependent on its immediate hinterland, which was mountainous and not industrialised, and it must inevitably depend on long-range traffic from north-east Italy, Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. It could therefore live under Italian rule with a narrow hinterland if it were made into an international port and trade and commerce through it became free. Such a solution would be in accordance with what M. Bidault had said about placing the greatest emphasis on ethnic factors, and would also serve to reduce the irritation which was bound to result from any settlement of this problem.

As regards the frontier, Mr. Byrnes said that he would put in a map^91a showing a line drawn to carry out as far as possible the views which he had expressed. From the north the line would follow the western boundary of the province of Venetia Giulia to a point just north of Gorizia, leaving that town to the Italians. The line would then go south-east along the mountains, leaving Trieste to Italy. It would then divide the Istrian Peninsula, leaving the larger part of it to Yugoslavia and reaching the sea-coast at Fianona. This line would leave the areas which were solidly Yugoslav in Yugoslavia and the areas which were solidly Italian in Italy, with a few slight adjustments which on balance would be more favourable to Yugoslavia than to Italy.

M. Molotov said that he would study Mr. Byrnes’s proposal carefully. He also wished to put forward for consideration the following preliminary proposals:—

(i) The frontier between Italy and Yugoslavia should be based on ethnical principles in such a manner as to leave the smallest number of Italians in Yugoslavia and the smallest number of Yugoslavs in Italy.

(ii) As Trieste was the centre of a territory with a Slovene and Croat population, and had vital interests in Yugoslav territory, the city should be ceded to Yugoslavia on condition that it became a Federal unit of that country with full protection for the rights of the Italians.

(iii) The port of Trieste should be a free port administered by an international commission, including representatives of Yugoslavia, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and other countries concerned.

(iv) The Yugoslav Government should be invited to submit to the next session of the Council of Foreign Ministers a list of economic, transport and customs measures designed to safeguard international trade through Trieste and adequate transport facilities onwards.

Mr. Bevin said that, like other members of the Council, he wished to make it clear that his Government had not discussed this question with any other country and were not committed in any way. The Yugoslav Ambassador had left with him an aide-mémoire setting out the attitude of the Yugoslav Government, mainly on the lines which the Council had heard on the previous day. He had thought it his duty to study this aide-mémoire as he had decided to put draft proposals before the Council and he had put his proposals as clearly as he could in paragraphs 5 and 6 of the draft heads of a Treaty with Italy (C.F.M.(45) 3). He must also make it clear that the British Government were not bound by any secret treaties concluded during the last war. The British Labor Party had prophesied at the time that Italy was advancing her frontier too far into Yugoslavia and would produce the situation with which they were now confronted. He was anxious that no similar error should be made this time.

Mr. Bevin said that all the members of the Council were agreed that the line should be determined by reference to the ethnical principle and it only remained to establish the facts. The only question remaining for settlement was that of the future of the city of Trieste, since they were all agreed that the port of Trieste should be a free port under international control. The only remaining potential cause of an irredentist movement was the city and area of Trieste. As the population of the town had been mainly Italian for so long, the British Delegation took the view that the city should remain part of Italy, provision being made for securing that the Yugoslav area of the city would be as far as possible an autonomous area so that friction might be avoided and the minority problem reduced to a minimum. On the previous day they had heard little or no evidence of differences between the Yugoslavs and Italians in Trieste. Most of the outrages had occurred in the country districts where the Italians had been trying to extend their influence.

The Council agreed to resume their discussion of this question at their next meeting.

91. September 12, p. 135.
92. The proposed Italo-Yugoslav frontier line discussed by the Secretary at this meeting of the Council was drawn for his use by the American delegation on a sketch map obtained from the Research Department of the British Foreign Office. The map is reproduced facing this page. A more detailed map of the proposal was subsequently prepared by the American delegation but was not distributed to the Council.