THE RISE OF THE DOUBLE DIPLOMATIC CORPS IN ROME N.V. VAN DE GARDE & CO'S DRUKKERIJ, ZALTBOMMEL UNIVERSITE DE GENEVE INSTITUT UNIVERSITAIRE DE HAUTES ETUDES INTERNATIONALES THE RISE OF THE DOUBLE DIPLOMATIC CORPS IN ROME A STUDY IN INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE (1870-1875) THEsE PRESENTEE A L'UNIVERSITE DE GENEVE POUR OBTENIR LE GRADE DE DOCTEUR ES SCIENCES POLITIQUES PAR ROBERT A. GRAHAM, S.]. (ETATS-UNIS D'AMERIQUE) THESE No. 82 LA HAYE MARTINUS NI]HOFF 1951 ISBN 978-94-015-0409-6 ISBN 978-94-015-1023-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-1023-3 La Commission Mixte, composee des Doyens des Facultes de Droit, des Lettres, et des Sciences economiques et sociales, et des Directeurs de l'Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Interna tionales, sur Ie preavis de M. Maurice Bourquin, professeur a l'Universite et a l'Institut Universitaire, et de MM. Paul Mantoux et Hans Wehberg, professeurs a l'Institut, autorise l'impression de la presente these, sans entendre par la exprimer d'opinion sur les propositions qui y sont enoncees. Geneve, Ie 19 juillet 1951. Pour la Commission Mixte WILLIAM E. RAPPARD Directeur de 1'1 nstitut Un iversitaire These No. 82 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE •••••• IX I. INTRODUCTION II. THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS AND THE CRISIS OF SEPTEM- BER • • • • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • S III. ITALY'S ASSURANCES TO THE GOVERNMENTS. 10 IV. THE POLICY OF FRANCE • • • 20 V. BISMARCK AND THE HOLY SEE 33 VI. THE POLICIES OF THE OTHER STATES S2 VII. THE TRANSFER OF THE ITALIAN CAPITAL TO ROME 6S VIII. THE LAW OF GUARANTEES AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO DIPLOMATIC PRACTICE 81 CONCLUSION 97 BIBLIOGRAPHY 102 INDEX 107 ABBREVIATIONS EMPLOYED A.E.Fr. Archives du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres. Paris. A.E.It. Archivio Esteri. Roma. A.M.A.E.B. Archives du Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres. Bruxelles. F.O. Public Record Office. (Foreign Office General Correspondence). London. H.H.St.A. Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv. Wien. PREFACE So many books, monographs and articles have been written around the "Roman Question" that a word of explanation or even of apology for the present study may be called for. Before as well as after 1929, the year in which the Lateran Treaty declared resolved the conflict which had divided Italy and the Papacy for nearly sixty years, professors and their students in a dozen lands have one after the other committed to the learned world their particular analysis of the international position of the Papacy. The variety of opinions which can be found in these studies is itself a remarkable testimony to the unique cha racter of the Holy See in the modern organization of international society. Even today, more than two decades after the dispute between the Quirinal and the Vatican had been finally resolved, it cannot be said that perfect uniformity of views yet prevails among writers in international law. Even today, when partisan passions have had time to cool and to leave the court clear for objective studies, there are many questions that cannot be adequately explained by any of the conventional criteria. Perhaps, indeed, the reason for the apparent futility of many of these writings has been the belief that the Papacy could really be forced into everyone of the categories developed by modern international law. The attempt to systematize if not to codify international law has led to the creation of concepts and the establishment of principles that do not always correspond to the needs and realities of international intercourse. The contention so current before the first World War that "only states" could be considered as international persons might be instanced as a case in point. This principle, the fruit of an almost a priori concept of the international community made up exclusi vely of entities called states, died hard in the face of the exigencies of modern times. Another juridical concept which has been x PREFACE a stumbling block is that of sovereignty. Here again, taking a theoretical position for granted, writers soon found themselves in a quandary when they attempted to apply the concept to the position of the Papacy. This quandary, caused by the refusal of the facts to correspond to the theory, has been partcularly conspicuous on the Continent. In the Anglo-Saxon countries, where the juridical spirit is more pragmatic, a more realistic position has generally been adopted in regard to the Papacy. In Great Britain, for example, the views of writers have tended to be less doctrinaire. This is due, in part, to the fact that Britain has remained aloof from the conflicts that rage across the channel over religious questions. But it is also due to the fact that in England more attention is paid to fact and less to theory. There is no other way of explaining why, from 1870 to 1929, and even afterwards, juridical opinion on the subject of the international position of the Pope was in flat contradiction with the practice of governments. At a time when virtually all writers asserted that the Temporal Power had come to an end, the states nevertheless continued to treat the Pope as if nothing had been changed in his status of sovereign. And, on the other hand, at a time when all juridical writers, including and especially the partisans of the papal cause, scoffed at the notion of "spiritual sovereignty" as a juridical monstrosity, the foreign ministries showed in their actions that, if they continued to have official relations with the Pope after 1870 it was not because they regarded him as a territorial sovereign. The present study is an attempt to depict the diplomatic practice of the governments in the crucial years immediately following the crisis of 1870. At this period it was in the foreign ministries and not in the faculties of law that decisions had to be reached and reached quickly. The foreign ministers did not think they were violating old laws or creating new ones. Theirs was a far more practical task, which was to find some modus vivendi by which they could balance the powerful factors of a difficult international situation the governments could not ignore. If their solution was a unique one that did not make. it any less an authentic expression of the laws that govern the modern organization of international society. Diplomatic prac- PREFACE XI tice in such matters is more decisive than a priori maxims. In 1879, Professor E. R. N. Arntz, one of the editors of the Revue de Droit International et de Legislation Comparee, wrote in a sharply critical review of a pseudo-juridical thesis on the diplomatic prerogatives of the Pope: "The law of nations has for principal source history and the usages and the practice of civilized nations. International law has not been created by general and broad formulae nor can it be summarized by such". The present inquiry has been made with this advice, or rather reproach, in mind. May it contribute toward unraveling the tangled problems connected with the international juridical position of the Holy See, at least in the sector of diplomatic relations. * * * Studies of the present kind are never possible without the friendly and distinterested help of literally dozens of librarians, archivists, government officials, active and retired diplomats and others who deserve something better than to be grouped together in anonymity for a general expression of appreciation. But so it must be. May these good friends in the United States, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Germany and the Italian peninsula allow me to express in these lines my gratitude to each of them. I should, nevertheless, recognize the special debt lowe to the directors of the archives of the foreign ministries in Rome, Paris, London, Brussels and Vienna. And here I must include Doctor Mario Pastore of the Archivio Storico, Mr. E. K. Timings of the Public Record Office and Dr. A. H. Lambotte of the Belgian Foreign Ministry Archives. I am indebted also to Mon signor Giuseppe de Marchi, archivist of the Secretariat of State of His Holiness, for his friendly interest and suggestions. Finally my especial appreciation is owing to Professor Paul Mantoux, co-director of the Graduate Institute of International Studies of the University of Geneva, and to his colleagues, Professors Paul Guggenheim and Maurice Bourquin who, with patience and objectivity, read the successive drafts presented to them for comment and correction. It is only proper to add