Henry Wickham Steed, Robert William Seton-Watson, Arnold Joseph Toynbee and Carlile Aylmer Macartney in/on East-Central Europe and Beyond (1903–1978)
by: Ágnes Beretzky
Helena History Press
ISBN 978 1 943596 41 6
Four Britons and Nationalism:
Henry Wickham Steed, Robert William Seton-Watson, Arnold Joseph Toynbee and Carlile Aylmer Macartney in/on East-Central Europe and Beyond (1903–1978)
Up to this day nationalism has remained a powerful and durable phenomenon: nations in East-Central Europe and beyond have not only survived into but even thrived in the twenty-first century, while their deeply ingrained nationalism has remained incomprehensible to the West. This is despite the fact that the region has been a hotbed of ethnic conflict, where two world wars have started, and where even today (in 2024) there is no peace. The four Britons profiled in this volume were among the few Westerners who made a sincere effort to understand the nationalist spirit which has historically played such an important role in the region.
These influential journalists and scholars were; Robert William Seton-Watson, the much-celebrated historian of East-Central Europe, the influential Vienna correspondent and later editor-in-chief of The Times (London), Henry Wickham Steed, as well as the world-renowned scholar and Director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Arnold Joseph Toynbee, and the British Foreign Office-expert on minorities and Hungary, Carlile Aylmer Macartney. All four lived in East-Central Europe for a time and learned its language(s).
Drawing on a vast amount of archival material, this book outlines Seton-Watson’s, Steed’s and Toynbee’s pre-1920-activities that were rooted in the belief that national self-determination would provide “one cure for all”. The volume then focuses on nationalism within the Successor States of Austria-Hungary during the interwar period and World War II.
In this work, Ágnes Beretzky’s research shows that once post-WWI events demonstrated the weakness of the small nation-state system, only Toynbee came to reconsider his earlier stance, whereas Steed and Seton-Watson remained avowed apologists of the territorial status quo they had helped create.
Beretzky’s valuable book provides us with evidence of the long-term problems caused by the rush to establish small national entities out of the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy at the end of World War I. The resulting destabilization of the “sick Heart of Europe”, created consequences that the world lives with to this day.
Original, insightful and rigorously researched. The balanced assessment of these four Britons will be of interest to both specialists and the general public.
Thomas Lorman, University College London SSEES
Why is an analysis of historians of 20th-century East-Central Europe worth reading today? Professor Beretzky demonstrates the impact, good and bad, that the pre-existing biases of historians can have on the lives of generations when they are trusted by the people who have the power to make geopolitical decisions. It has been said that history is written by the victors, Beretzky shows that historians sometimes write the histories they wish to see and then are left to live with the worlds they helped create. The historical analyses that are now being read in Washington and Brussels, and the actions taken by those reading them, will similarly impact future generations of Central and Eastern Europeans. Let us hope they have the wisdom to recognize biases so that similar mistakes are not repeated.
Andrew Smith, Political Science Professor, Director of University of New Hampshire Survey Center
The present-day borders in Central Europe were drawn not by armies, not even by politicians, but by journalists and scholars. Ágnes Beretzky’s new book presents the activities and achievements, sometimes the disappointments of four Britons who guided the public as well as the political leaders of their times as to how to deal with the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and its successor states in the first half of the 20th century. While the name and role of Wickham Steed and R.W. Seton-Watson is known at least to historians, C.A. Macartney’s is less so, and it is quite new what a strong interest Arnold Toynbee had in monitoring and influencing (Central) European events over four decades.
Géza Jeszenszky, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hungary (1990–1994), Former Hungarian Ambassador to the USA, Norway and Iceland. Author ‘Lost Prestige: Hungary’s Changing Image in Britain 1894–1918’
Ágnes Beretzky obtained her three Masters Degrees in History, English Language and Literature and Scandinavian Studies (Norwegian), and, in 2003 a Ph. D in Modern Hungarian History. She is an Associate Professor currently affiliated with the Institute of English Studies, Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary, Budapest. She has been teaching Modern British History for twenty years at Károli Gáspár University and was instrumental in curriculum development by introducing, among others, the Central European Studies Program for international students, as well as Applied Political Philosophy; the latter as an effective means of fostering critical and reflective thinking.
Her other affiliation: Lecturer at the University of New Hampshire, College of Liberal Arts study-abroad program since 2011. Her fields of research include the assessment of late 19th-early 20th-century Central-European, specifically Hungarian nationalism in Britain and Norway with special attention to Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson’s political journalism as in “Twin Champions of the Slovak Cause” (Central Europe 21(1):1-15). This present work draws from her 2005-book collating the legacies of Robert William Seton-Watson and Carlile Aylmer Macartney (Scotus Viator és Macartney Elemér, Academic Publishing House) and was completed through access to the vast archival source material of the editor of The Times (London) Henry Wickham Steed and Arnold Joseph Toynbee.