Divided like a pizza: this utopian map was supposed to bring peace to Europe

The First World War, the original catastrophe of the twentieth century, not only destroyed millions of lives and gigantic material values, but also shook the self-image of the European bourgeoisie and destroyed many things that should have been taken for granted. The traditional course of events lost its legitimacy because it could not have prevented this devastating war.

New paths and new thoughts were needed. Utopias flourished, especially in the area of ​​political order. For example, the League of Nations – the predecessor of the UN – founded in 1920 was intended to guarantee lasting peace in Europe. On the political left there was hope for a world revolution after the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia.

But utopian plans to reshape the European world also flourished in more conservative circles. Particularly influential was Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi’s proposal for a “Pan-Europe”. The Austrian nobleman, who received Czechoslovakian and later French citizenship after the First World War and is buried in Gstaad, viewed the world war “as a civil war between Europeans: a catastrophe of the first order”. In 1923 he published the pamphlet ‘Paneuropa’, in which he promoted the unification of the European states.

His pan-European movement, founded in 1924 and supported by numerous leading European politicians – such as French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand and Austrian Chancellor Ignaz Seipel – is considered the oldest surviving European unification movement and a forerunner of the European Union. It was explicitly based on a Christian values ​​foundation and was intended to prevent further intra-European conflict between France and Germany, to counterbalance the rising economic power of the US, and to combat Bolshevism with a united, conservative Europe.

Coudenhove-Kalergi’s “Pan-Europe”, which he often referred to as the “United States of Europe”, was intended to consist of 26 nation-states in continental Europe and their colonies in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America. The unification of Europe would have ensured the further exploitation of the colonies. According to Coudenhove-Kalergi, Great Britain could not become part of this pan-European Union because the British Empire was an independent world empire. Turkey, which is mainly located in Asia, should also not be included.

Much more bizarre than Coudenhove-Kalergi’s ideas is the proposal for the reorganization of Europe by a certain PAM, which he put forward in 1920 in his work “The Unionization of Central Europe! A Guide to Lasting Peace” was being thrown around. The author is never clearly identified; It is probably a son of Otto Maas, the Viennese printer of the 24-page pamphlet.

PAM quickly discusses the peace treaties concluded on the outskirts of Paris in 1919 that ended the state of war between the Entente and the defeated Central Powers – mainly the Treaty of Versailles with the German Empire and the Treaty of Saint-Germain with Austria. The author complains:

In fact, the Treaty of Paris did not bring the hoped-for peace; just twenty years later, another world war would devastate stricken Europe. However, it is highly questionable whether the utopian construction that PAM had in mind would really have prevented a new war in Europe.

But it is even more doubtful whether this radical reorganization of Central Europe would ever have had the slightest chance of being realized. It ignored any historical development of European political entities and broke with almost all traditional ideas about the political structure of a state. As the author himself put it:

The map accompanying the pamphlet illustrates how PAM envisioned this fracturing of the nation states and the common roof for the newly created sub-regions:

The future unitary state includes France, the Benelux countries, Germany, northern Italy, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, the southern part of the Baltic states, western areas of Belarus and Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Moldova and the northern part of Yugoslavia. The Iberian Peninsula, Great Britain and Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, Russia, Turkey and Greece are not included, as are most of Italy, Albania, Serbia and Bulgaria.

Noteworthy: a significant part of Italy will be added to the Papal States. The approaches to the Mediterranean Sea – i.e. the Strait of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal – should constitute neutral areas. The same applies to the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, the entrances to the Black Sea. Greece also includes Sicily and Calabria, while Sardinia belongs to Spain. The so-called Hebrew empire in Palestine also catches the eye.

If this political division of Europe seems extraordinarily adventurous, this is even more so with the internal structure of the unitary state. It is said to consist of 24 cantons, each representing elongated, narrow sectors of a huge circle, with St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna at its center. A circular area around Vienna should not belong to the cantons, but rather form the territory of the “Union Capital of Saint Stephen”.

The 24 cantons, which are shaped like a slice of cake or a piece of pizza, are all named after a major city that lies on their territory and is also the capital. Most of Switzerland would therefore belong to the “Canton of Geneva”, which would also include Austrian and southern German areas, as well as important parts of central and southwestern France.

The strange wedge-shaped structure is intended to serve a purpose: to ensure that the traditional disputes between the peoples of Europe are ‘resolved and buried forever’. According to the car’s ideas, only four ‘nations’ would be recognized in the entire Union, namely Romans, Germanic peoples, Slavs and Magyars (Hungarians).

Members of at least two nations must live in each of the cantons – in the “Canton of Geneva” meaning Germanic and Romance peoples. According to the author, this prevents them from waging war against each other.

The office of president of the unitary state should rotate among these four nations. The term of office is three years. Everyone over the age of twenty has the right to vote – with one extremely strange exception: married women should not have the right to vote.

To promote coherence and facilitate internal communication, the planned language Esperanto will be introduced as a new standard language:

It must have been clear to the author, PAM, that his utopian proposal would not necessarily cause storms of enthusiasm. At the end of his pamphlet he admits:

To date, however, the “four most important countries of the Union” have not expressed any public opinion on the work – and there was and is no institution that could speak on their behalf. The author’s name has never been made public.

The lack of success of the proposed reorganization of Europe by PAM or by Coudenhove-Kalergi did not prevent other amateur geographers from coming up with new proposals. A good example is the Dutch beer magnate Alfred (“Freddy”) Heineken, who in 1992 proposed dividing the EU into 75 regions. These regions would then form the United States of Europe.

The project, which became known as ‘Eurotopia’, was inspired by Austrian economist Leopold Kohr, who advocated the decentralization of social organizations and groups to a size that still allows functionality but at the same time makes the members manageable.

Heineken commissioned Leiden historian Henk Wesseling to design a map for the European Union on which regions would form the member states. These regions have relatively small populations – typically between 5 and 10 million – and some basis in historical tradition. They are also said to have a largely homogeneous ethnic composition.

Heineken’s proposal was also never realized. Only the resistance of major EU states such as France or Germany to the division into smaller entities would have reliably put an end to the Eurotopia project.