Rights without Ratification: How the US Government Found Its Way to Peace with Austria in the 1920s

Abstract

Abstract After the US Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles in 1920, the US government needed to find an alternate, politically viable route to a legal termination of its state of war with Germany, Austria, and Hungary. This was necessary to reopen diplomatic and trade relations, end domestic wartime legislation in the United States, settle a range of war-induced property claims, and, in Austria, to secure a League of Nations economic restructuring plan. In the Knox-Porter Resolution, or July Resolution, Congress claimed rights based on November 1918 armistices and the subsequent Paris treaties, even as they refused to ratify those actual treaties. This resolution formed the basis of the 1921 US treaties with Austria, Hungary, and Germany. The process of settling property claims dragged on until the end of the decade. The coverage in the New York Times reveals the importance of conflicts between the executive and legislative branches, partisanship and debates over the future of US foreign policy, US politicians’ focus on Germany rather than on the particular circumstances facing Austria, and a commitment to protecting private property rights as elements that shaped and prolonged the process of reaching a US-Austrian peace.