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((Short description|none))
((Use British English|date=March 2013))
((Use dmy dates|date=July 2022))
((More citations needed|date=June 2007))
((Lead too short|date=May 2023))
[[File:Frederick Lamb's painting of William Penn IMG 3800.JPG|alt=|thumb|In 1693, [[William Penn]], a [[Quaker]] and Anglo-American colonist, proposed a European Parliament to prevent war.]]

This article aims to cover '''ideas of European unity before 1948'''.

==Early history==
((See also|Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz#Law and Morality))

"[[Europe]]" as a cultural sphere is first used during the [[Carolingian dynasty]] to encompass the [[Latin Church]] (as opposed to [[Eastern Orthodoxy]]).((Citation needed|date=August 2021)) The first mention of the concepts of "Europe" and "European" dates back to 754 in the [[Chronicle of 754|Mozarabic Chronicle]]. The ''Chronicle'' contains the earliest known reference in a Latin text to "Europeans" (''europenses''), whom it describes as having defeated the Saracens at the [[battle of Tours]] in 732..<ref>[[Kwame Anthony Appiah]] (2012), "Misunderstanding cultures: Islam and the West", ''Philosophy and Social Criticism'' '''38'''(4–5) 425–33.</ref><ref>Evert Van De Poll (2013), ''Europe and the Gospel: Past Influences, Current Developments, Mission Challenges'' (Versita), p. 55.</ref>

Military unions of "Christian European powers" in the medieval and early modern period were directed against the threat of [[Islamic expansion]], namely during the [[Crusades]] and [[Reconquista]]. A possible early attempt at European unity can be traced back to the [[Fall of Constantinople]] to the [[Ottoman Empire|Turks]] in 1453, [[George of Podebrady]], a [[Hussite]] king of [[Bohemia]], proposed in 1464 a union of Christian nations against the Turks.<ref>((cite book|last=Wen|first=Shuangge|title=Shareholder Primacy and Corporate Governance Legal Aspects, Practices and Future Directions.|date=2013|publisher=Taylor and Francis|location=Hoboken|isbn=9781136019845|page=109|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eexEAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA109))</ref>

In 1693, [[William Penn]] looked at the devastation of war in Europe and wrote of a "European [[Diet (assembly)|dyet]], or parliament", to prevent further war, without further defining how such an institution would fit into the political reality of Europe at the time.<ref>((cite web|last=Penn|first=William|title=The Political Writings of William Penn|url=http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=893&chapter=77004&layout=html&Itemid=27|publisher=Liberty Fund|access-date=21 August 2012|author2=Andrew R. Murphy|year=2002))</ref>

In 1713, [[Abbot Charles de Saint-Pierre]] proposed the creation of a European league of 18 sovereign states, with common treasury, no borders and an economic union.<ref>((cite book |title=Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe |date=1713 |author= Abbot Charles de Saint-Pierre |author-link=Abbot Charles de Saint-Pierre |language=fr |trans-title=Project for bringing about perpetual peace in Europe |location=Utrecht |publisher=A. Schouten))  (cited in [[The Economist]], 21((ndash))27 August 2021, page 26)</ref>
After the [[American Revolutionary War]] the vision of a [[United States of Europe]], similar to the United States of America, was shared by a few prominent Europeans, notably the [[Marquis de Lafayette]] and [[Tadeusz Kościuszko]].((citation needed|date=August 2021))

Some suggestion of a European union can be inferred from [[Immanuel Kant]]'s 1795 proposal for an "eternal peace congress".
((clearleft))

==19th century==

The concept of "Europe" referring to [[Western Europe]] or [[Germanic Europe]] arises in the 19th century, contrasting with the [[Russian Empire]], as is evidenced in Russian philosopher [[Nikolay Danilevsky|Danilevsky]]'s ''Russia and Europe''.
[[File:Europe 1812 map en.png|thumb|upright=1.35|French-dominated Europe in 1812]]
In the 1800s, a [[customs union]] under [[Napoleon I of France|Napoleon Bonaparte's]] [[Continental system]] was promulgated in November 1806 as an embargo of British goods in the interests of the French [[hegemony]]. Felix Markham notes how during a conversation on St. Helena, Napoleon remarked, "Europe thus divided into nationalities freely formed and free internally, peace between States would have become easier: the United States of Europe would become a possibility."<ref>Felix Markham, ''Napoleon'' (New York: Penguin Books USA Inc., 1966), 257 as quoted in Matthew Zarzeczny, ''Napoleon's European Union: The Grand Empire of the United States of Europe'' (Kent State University Master's thesis), 2.</ref>

The French [[Saint-Simonianism|socialists]] [[Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon|Saint-Simon]] and [[Jacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry|Augustin Thierry]] would in 1814 write the essay ''De la réorganisation de la société européenne'', already conjuring up some form of parliamentary European federation.

[[File:Victor Hugo.jpg|thumb|upright|French novelist [[Victor Hugo]] argued, in 1849, that "A day will come when we shall see... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas."]]
In the conservative reaction after Napoleon's defeat in 1815, the [[German Confederation]] (((lang-de|Deutscher Bund))) was established as a loose association of thirty-eight sovereign German states formed by the [[Congress of Vienna]]. Napoleon had swept away the [[Holy Roman Empire]] and simplified the map of Germany. In 1834, the ''[[Zollverein]]'' ("customs union") was formed among the states of the Confederation, to create better trade flow and reduce internal competition. In spite of the allusion by [[Fritz Fischer (historian)|Fritz Fischer]] in ''Germany's Aims in the First World War'' that an extension of this customs union may have become the model for a unified Europe, the ensuing [[North German Confederation]] established in 1866 drifted away from the inclusive multinational character of the preceding German Confederation and the early [[Kingdom of Prussia]], taking instead the direction of staunch German nationalism and brutal subjugation of other nations living within the borders of the succeeding [[German Empire]]. The then current and influential German ideas of [[geopolitics]] and a [[Mitteleuropa]] later became increasingly degenerated due to their underlying principle of German national hegemony, a process culminating in the abhorrent vision laid out by the national socialists of European unity understood as universal servitude of the European nations to the Germans (''see below''), thus contradicting directly the current intellectual framework for European Union. 

United States of Europe was also the name of the concept presented by [[Wojciech Jastrzębowski]] in ''About eternal peace between the nations'', published 31 May 1831. The project consisted of 77 articles. The envisioned United States of Europe was to be an international organisation rather than a superstate.<ref>((Cite book|title=European Union in 21st century|last1=Pinterič|first1=Uroš|last2=Prijon, Lea|publisher=University of SS. Cyril and Methodius, Faculty of Social Sciences|year=2012|isbn=978-80-8105-510-2))</ref>

Italian writer and politician [[Giuseppe Mazzini]] called for the creation of a federation of European republics in 1843. This set the stage for perhaps the best known early proposal for peaceful unification, through cooperation and equality of membership, made by the [[pacifism|pacifist]] [[Victor Hugo]] in 1847. Hugo used the term ''United States of Europe'' (((lang-fr|États-Unis d'Europe))) during a speech at the [[International Peace Congress]], organised by Mazzini, held in Paris in 1849. Hugo favoured the creation of "a supreme, sovereign senate, which will be to Europe what parliament is to England" and said "A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood ... A day will come when we shall see ... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas." However, he was laughed out of the hall, yet returned to his idea again in 1851. [[Victor Hugo]] planted an [[Oak|oaktree]] in the grounds of his residence on the Island of [[Guernsey]] he was noted in saying that when this tree matured the United States of Europe would have come into being. This tree to this day is still growing in the gardens of [[Hauteville House|Maison de Hauteville]], [[St. Peter Port]], Guernsey, Victor Hugo's residence during his exile from France.<ref>((Cite web |last= |date= 14 July 1972|title=Victor Hugo plants his United States of Europe oak |url=https://history.gg/victor-hugo-plants-his-united-states-of-europe-oak/ |access-date=2022-10-22 |website=On this day in Guernsey))</ref>

The Italian philosopher [[Carlo Cattaneo (writer)|Carlo Cattaneo]] wrote "The ocean is rough and whirling, and the currents go to two possible endings: the autocrat, or the United States of Europe". In 1867 [[Giuseppe Garibaldi]], and [[John Stuart Mill]] joined Victor Hugo at the first congress of the [[League of Peace and Freedom]] in Geneva. Here the anarchist [[Mikhail Bakunin]] stated "That in order to achieve the triumph of liberty, justice and peace in the international relations of Europe, and to render civil war impossible among the various peoples which make up the European family, only a single course lies open: to constitute the United States of Europe". The French [[National Assembly of France|National Assembly]], also called for a United States of Europe on 1 March 1871.

As part of 19th c. concerns about an ailing Europe and the threat posed by the [[Muhammad Ahmad|Mahdi]], the Polish writer, [[Theodore de Korwin Szymanowski]]'s original contribution was to focus not on nationalism, sovereignty and federation, but foremost on economics, statistics, monetary policy and parliamentary reform. His ''L'Avenir économique, politique et social en Europe'' – The Future of Europe in Economic, Political and Social Terms – published in Paris in 1885<ref>((cite book|author=Théodore de Korwin Szymanowski|author-link=Théodore de Korwin Szymanowski|url= http://www.msz.gov.pl/pl/ministerstwo/publikacje/biblioteka_jednosci_europejskiej/przyszlosc_europy_w_zakresie_gospodarczym__spolecznym_i_politycznym__l_avenir_economique__social___politique_en_europe|title=Przyszłość Europy w zakresie gospodarczym, społecznym i politycznym/L'avenir économique, social et politique en Europe, Ed. H. Marot, Paris 1885|publisher=[[MSZ]] Polish Ministry of foreign Affairs, dual text in French and Polish|editor= Prof. Radosław Żurawski vel Grajewski|date= 2015))</ref> was in effect, a blueprint for a unified Europe with a [[customs union]], a central statistical office, a [[central bank]] and a [[single currency]].

==Between the World Wars==
[[File:Das Neue Europa Mit Dem Dauernden Frieden. Die Unionisierung Mitteleuropas.jpg|thumb|Self-published map of a visionary [[central Europe]]an union, 1920, by an enigmatic Viennese P.A. Maas]]
[[File:Former Flag of the International Paneuropean Union.svg|thumb|1922 [[European flag]] of the [[Paneuropean Union]]]]
[[File:Europa 1928 RV.jpg|thumb|upright|A [[Europa (currency)|1928 Europa coin]] for the hypothetical "Federated States of Europe" (''États fédérés d'Europe'')]]
Following the catastrophe of the [[First World War]], thinkers and visionaries from a range of political traditions again began to float the idea of a politically unified Europe. In the early 1920s a range of internationals were founded (or re-founded) to help like-minded political parties to coordinate their activities. These ranged from the [[Communist International|Comintern]] (1919), to the [[Labour and Socialist International]] (1921) to the [[Radicalism (historical)|Radical and Democratic Entente]] of centre-left progressive parties (1924), to the [[International Agrarian Bureau|Green International]] of farmers' parties (1923), to the centre-right International Secretariat of [[Christian democracy|Democratic Parties Inspired by Christianity]] (1925). While the remit of these internationals was global, the predominance of political parties from Europe meant that they facilitated interaction between the adherents of a given ideology, across European borders. Within each political tradition, voices emerged advocating not merely the cooperation of various national parties, but the pursuit of political institutions at the European level.

With a conservative vision of Europe, the [[Austrians|Austrian]] Count [[Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi]] founded the [[Pan-Europa movement]] in 1923, hosting the First [[Paneuropean]] Congress in [[Vienna]] in 1926, and which contained 8000 members by the time of the [[Wall Street Crash of 1929|1929 Wall Street Crash]]. The aim was for a specifically Christian, and by implication Catholic, Europe. The British civil servant and future Conservative minister [[Arthur Salter, 1st Baron Salter|Arthur Salter]] published a book advocating ''The'' ''United States of Europe'' in 1933.

In contrast the Soviet commissar (minister) [[Trotsky|Leon Trotsky]] raised the slogan "For a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] United States of Europe" in 1923, advocating a Europe united along communist principles.

Among liberal-democratic parties, the French centre-left undertook several initiatives to group like-minded parties from the European states. In 1927, the French politician Emil Borel, a leader of the centre-left Radical Party and the founder of the Radical International, set up a French Committee for European Cooperation, and a further twenty countries set up equivalent committees. However, it remained an elite venture: the largest committee, the French one, possessed fewer than six-hundred members, two-thirds of whom were parliamentarians.<ref>((Cite journal|last=Guieu|first=Jean-Michel|date=2003|title=.Le Comité fédéral de coopération européenne|journal=Organisations internationales et architectures européennes (1929–1939)|pages=73–91))</ref> Two centre-left French prime ministers went further.  In 1929 [[Aristide Briand]] gave a speech in the presence of the [[League of Nations]] Assembly in which he proposed the idea of a federation of European nations based on solidarity and in the pursuit of economic prosperity and political and social co-operation. In 1930, at the League's request, Briand presented a ''Memorandum on the organisation of a system of European Federal Union''.  The next year the future French prime minister [[Édouard Herriot]] published his book ''[[United States of Europe|The United States of Europe]]''. Indeed, a template for such a system already existed, in the form of the 1921 [[Belgium–Luxembourg Economic Union|Belgian and Luxembourgish customs and monetary union.]]

Support for the proposals by the French centre-left came from a range of prestigious figures. Many eminent economists, aware that the economic race-to-the-bottom between states was creating ever greater instability, supported the view: these included [[John Maynard Keynes]]. The French political scientist and economist [[Bertrand de Jouvenel|Bertrand Jouvenel]] remembered a widespread mood after 1924 calling for a "harmonisation of national interests along the lines of European union, for the purpose of common prosperity".<ref>((Cite book|title=Un Voyageur dans le Siècle|last=Jouvenel|first=Bertrand|year=1980|location=Paris|pages=79))</ref> The Spanish philosopher and politician, [[José Ortega y Gasset|Ortega y Gasset]], expressed a position shared by many within [[Second Spanish Republic|Republican Spain]]: "European unity is no fantasy, but reality itself; and the fantasy is precisely the opposite: the belief that France, Germany, Italy or Spain are substantive & independent realities.''”''<ref>((Cite book|title=The Revolt of the Masses|last=Ortega y Gasset|first=José|publisher=Editorial Castalia|year=1998 |orig-year=1929|location=Madrid))</ref> [[Eleftherios Venizelos]], Prime Minister of [[Second Hellenic Republic|Greece]], outlined his government's support in a 1929 speech by saying that "the [[United States of Europe]] will represent, even without Russia, a power strong enough to advance, up to a satisfactory point, the prosperity of the other continents as well".<ref>((cite book |title= Eleftherios K. Venizelos – A Biography |publisher=National Research Foundation "Eleftherios K. Venizelos" |year= 2006  |pages=48–50 |first=Nikolaos |last=Emm. Papadakis))</ref>

Between the two world wars, the Polish statesman [[Józef Piłsudski]] envisaged the idea of a European federation that he called ''[[Międzymorze]]'' ("Intersea" or "Between-seas"), known in English as ''Intermarum'', which was a Polish-oriented version of [[Mitteleuropa]], though devised according to the principle of cooperation rather than subjugation.

The [[Great Depression]], the rise of fascism and communism and subsequently World War II prevented the inter war movements from gaining further support: between 1933 and 1936 most of Europe's remaining democracies became dictatorships, and even Ortega's Spain and Venizelos's Greece had both been plunged into civil war. But although the supporters of European unity, whether social-democratic, liberal or Christian-democratic, were out of power during the 1930s and unable to put their ideas into practice, many would find themselves in power in the 1940s and 1950s, and better-placed to put into effect their earlier remedies against economic and political crisis.

==World War II==
In Britain the group known as [[Federal Union]] was launched in November 1938, and began advocating a Federal Union of Europe as a post-war aim. Its papers and arguments became well known among resistants to fascism across Europe and contributed to their thinking of how to rebuild Europe after the war.

Among those who were early advocates of a union of European nations was Hungarian Prime Minister [[Pál Teleki]]. Hungary had lost over two-thirds of its territory at the end of World War I in the 1920 [[Treaty of Trianon]]. In early 1941 during the [[Second World War]], he was striving to keep Hungary autonomous. Internally, he tried to satisfy national pride which demanded a restoration of the lost territories, which Germany had supported in the [[First Vienna Award]] of 1938 and the [[Second Vienna Award]] of 1940. Externally, he was striving to preserve his country's military and economic independence in the face of Germany's coercive pressure to join in their invasion of Yugoslavia. In the book, ''Transylvania. The Land Beyond the Forest'' Louis C. Cornish<ref>((cite book |title=Transylvania. The Land Beyond the Forest|publisher=Dorrance & Company |year=1947|asin=B000WUMLQO))</ref><ref>((cite book |title=The Evolution of Hungary and its place in European history (Central and East European series)|author=Pal Teleki|year=1923))</ref> described how Teleki, under constant surveillance by the German Gestapo during 1941, sent a secret communication to contacts in America.<ref name=wagner>((cite book|title=Toward a New Central Europe: A Symposium on the Problems of the Danubian Nations|editor=Francis S. Wagner |publisher=Danubian Press, Inc.|location=Astor Park, Florida |year=1970))</ref>

((blockquote|He foresaw clearly the complete defeat of Nazi Germany, and the European chaos that would result from the war. He believed that no future was conceivable for any of the minor nations in Central and Eastern Europe if they tried to continue to live their isolated national lives. He asked his friends in America to help them establish a federal system, to federate. This alone could secure for them the two major assets of national life: first, political and military security, and, second, economic prosperity. Hungary, he emphasized, stood ready to join in such collaboration, provided it was firmly based on the complete equality of all the members states.<ref name=wagner/>))

Journalist [[Dorothy Thompson]] in 1941 supported the statement of others. "I took from Count Teleki's office a monograph which he had written upon the structure of European nations. A distinguished geographer, he was developing a plan for regional federation, based upon geographical and economic realities."<ref name=wagner/> Teleki received no response from the Americans to his ideas and when German troops moved through Hungary on 2–3 April 1941 during the invasion of Yugoslavia, he committed suicide.

In 1943, the German ministers [[Joachim von Ribbentrop]] and [[Cecil von Renthe-Fink]] eventually proposed the creation of a "[[European Confederation (1943)|European confederacy]]" as part of a [[New Order (Nazism) |New Order]] on the continent. The proposal, which attracted little support from the Nazi leadership, would have had a single currency, a central bank in Berlin, a regional principle, a labour policy and economic and trading agreements, but left all states clearly subordinated to [[Nazi Germany]].<ref name="lipgens">((cite book |last1= Lipgens |first1= Walter |title= Documents on the History of European Integration: Continental Plans for European Union 1939–1945|publisher= [[Walter de Gruyter]] |year= 1985 |isbn= 3-11-009724-9))</ref> The countries proposed for inclusion were Germany, Italy, France, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Sweden, Greece and Spain. Such a German-led Europe, it was hoped, would serve as a strong alternative to the Communist Soviet Union and the United States.<ref name="lipgens"/> It is worth noting that Austria, the [[Benelux]] countries, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia and Switzerland, the [[Baltic states]], [[Russia]], [[Belarus]] and [[Ukraine]] were omitted from the list of proposed countries: plans or ''faits accomplis'' already existed for their integration into a [[Greater Germanic Reich]] or for colonial status (((lang | de | [[Generalplan Ost]]))). The later Foreign Minister [[Arthur Seyss-Inquart]] (in office: April to May 1945) said: "The new Europe of solidarity and co-operation among all its people will find rapidly increasing prosperity once national economic boundaries are removed", while the [[Vichy France |Vichy]] French Minister [[Jacques Benoist-Méchin]] said that France had to "abandon nationalism and take place in the European community with honour".  These pan-European illusions from the early 1940s were never realised because of Germany's defeat. Neither [[Hitler]], nor many of his leading hierarchs such as [[Goebbels]], had the slightest intention of compromising absolute German hegemony through the creation of a European confederation. Although this fact has been used to insinuate the charge of fascism in the EU, the idea is much older than the Nazis, foreseen by John Maynard Keynes, and later by [[Winston Churchill]] and by various anti-Nazi resistance movements.<ref>[[Mark Mazower]], [[Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century | ''Dark Continent'']], 1.30</ref>

[[File:Spinelli Ventotene.JPG|right|thumb|upright=0.9|Imprisoned by the [[Fascist Italy (1922–1943)|Italian fascist regime]] in 1937, [[Altiero Spinelli]], considered as a [[Founding fathers of the European Union|founding father of the EU]], wrote with [[Eugenio Colorni]] and [[Ernesto Rossi (politician)|Ernesto Rossi]] in prison on the island [[Ventotene]] the [[Ventotene Manifesto]], becoming the programme of the 1943 in Milan founded [[European Federalist Movement]].]]
((Quote box|width=246px|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=right|quote="A one sided Prussian militarism must never again be allowed to assume power. Only in large-scale cooperation among the nations of Europe can the ground be prepared for reconstruction...Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the protection of individual citizens from the arbitrary will of criminal regimes of violence – these will be the bases of the New Europe."|source=''Aufruf an alle Deutsche!'' pamphlet by the [[White Rose]], January 1943))

One of the most influential figures in this process was [[Altiero Spinelli]],<ref name="auto">((Cite web|url= https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/history/eu-pioneers_en|title=EU Pioneers|date=16 June 2016|website=European Union))</ref> author of the [[Ventotene Manifesto]] entitled "Towards a Free and United Europe"  and smuggled out of an internment camp – on the island of [[Ventotene]] – as early as 1941, well before the outcome of the war was safely predictable, and widely circulated in the resistance movements. Spinelli, Ursula Hirschmann and Colorni, Rossi and some 20 other<ref name="auto"/> established, as soon as they were able to leave their internment camp, the [[European Federalist Movement|Movimento Federalista Europeo (MFE)]]. The founding meeting, secretly held in [[Milan]] on the 27/28 August 1943, adopted a "political thesis" which, ''inter alia'', stated: "if a post war order is established in which each State retains its complete national sovereignty, the basis for a Third World War would still exist even after the Nazi attempt to establish the domination of the German race in Europe has been frustrated". In 1943, [[Jean Monnet]] a member of the National Liberation Committee of the [[Free French]] government in exile in [[Algiers]], and regarded by many as the future architect of European unity, is recorded as declaring to the committee: "There will be no peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty ... The countries of Europe are too small to guarantee their peoples the necessary prosperity and social development. The European states must constitute themselves into a federation ...". [[Winston Churchill]] called in 1943 for a post-war "Council of Europe".<ref>((cite book |last=Klos |first=Felix |title=Churchill's Last Stand: The Struggle to Unite Europe |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |date=2017 |pages=51 |isbn=978-1-78673-292-7))</ref><ref>((cite web |last=Churchill |first=Winston |title=National Address |url=https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1941-1945-war-leader/national-address/ |website=The International Churchill Society|date=21 March 1943))</ref> 

Towards the end of World War II, the [[Allies of World War II|Three Allied Powers]] discussed during the [[Tehran Conference]] and the ensuing [[Moscow Conference (1943)|1943 Moscow Conference]] the plans to establish joint institutions. This led to a decision at the [[Yalta Conference]] in 1945 to include Free France as the Fourth Allied Power and to form a [[European Advisory Commission]], later replaced by the [[Council of Foreign Ministers]] and the [[Allied Control Council]], following the German surrender and the [[Potsdam Agreement]] in [[1945]].

==Postwar developments (1945-1948)==
((EU history|timeline))
((main|Hertensteiner Cross|Treaty of Dunkirk))
After the war on 19 September 1946 Churchill went further as a civilian, after leaving his office, at the [[University of Zürich]], calling for a [[United States of Europe]].<ref>((cite web|url=http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=%2FAboutUs%2Fzurich_e.htm|title=Speech of Sir Winston Churchill|date=19 September 1946|website=PACE website|publisher=[[Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe]]|location=Zürich, Switzerland|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131005094047/http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=%2FAboutUs%2Fzurich_e.htm|archive-date=5 October 2013|access-date=18 November 2013|url-status=dead))</ref>  Coincidentally<ref name="Union of European Federalists (UEF)">((cite web | title=Union of European Federalists (UEF): Churchill and Hertenstein | website=Union of European Federalists (UEF) | url=https://www.federalists.eu/uef/our-achievements/churchill-and-hertenstein | access-date=2022-05-17))</ref> parallel to his speech the [[Hertensteiner Cross|Hertenstein Congress]] [[Weggis|in the Lucerne Canton]] was being held, resulting in the [[Union of European Federalists]].<ref>((Cite news|url=http://www.zeit.de/reden/die_historische_rede/200115_hr_churchill1_englisch|title=Ein britischer Patriot für Europa: Winston Churchills Europa-Rede, Universität Zürich, 19. September 1946|newspaper=Zeit Online|access-date=13 January 2010|trans-title=A British Patriot for Europe: Winston Churchill's Speech on Europe University of Zurich, 19 September 1946))</ref> [[Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi]], who successfully established during the [[interwar period]] the oldest organization for European integration, the [[Paneuropean Union]], founded in June 1947 the [[European Parliamentary Union]] (EPU). To ensure Germany could never threaten the peace again, its heavy industry was partly dismantled (See: [[Allied plans for German industry after World War II]]) and its main coal-producing regions were either awarded to neighbouring countries ([[Province of Silesia|Silesia]]), managed as separate directly by an occupying power ([[Saarland]])<ref>((Cite web|last=Encyclopaedia Britannica |date=2019-09-12 |title=Saarland |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Saarland| access-date=2021-08-19))</ref> or put under international control ([[Ruhr area]]).<ref name="yoder">((cite journal|last=Yoder|first=Amos|date=July 1955|title=The Ruhr Authority and the German Problem|url=https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670500014261|journal=Review of Politics|publisher=Cambridge University Press|volume=17|issue=3|pages=345–358|doi=10.1017/S0034670500014261|s2cid=145465919 ))</ref><ref>*[http://www.ena.lu?lang=2&doc=6584 French proposal regarding the detachment of German industrial regions] 8 September 1945<br />[http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/saar.htm France, Germany and the Struggle for the War-making Natural Resources of the Rhineland][http://www.ena.lu?lang=2&doc=465 Letter from Konrad Adenauer to Robert Schuman] (26 July 1949) Warning him of the consequences of the dismantling policy. (requires Flash Player)<br />[http://www.ena.lu?lang=2&doc=16822 Letter from Ernest Bevin to Robert Schuman] (30 October 1949) British and French foreign ministers. Bevin argues that they need to reconsider the Allies' dismantling policy in the occupied zones (requires Flash Player)</ref>

The growing rift among the Four Powers became evident as a result of the rigged [[1947 Polish legislative election]] which constituted an open breach of the [[Yalta Agreement]], followed by the announcement of the [[Truman Doctrine]] on 12 March 1947. On 4 March 1947 France and the United Kingdom signed the [[Treaty of Dunkirk]] for mutual assistance in the event of future military aggression in the aftermath of [[World War II]] against any of the pair. The rationale for the treaty was the threat of a potential future military attack, specifically a Soviet one in practice, though publicised under the disguise of a German one, according to the official statements. Immediately following the [[1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état|February 1948 coup d'état]] by the [[Communist Party of Czechoslovakia]], the [[London Six-Power Conference]] was held, resulting in the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] boycott of the Allied Control Council and its incapacitation, an event marking the beginning of the [[Cold War]]. The remainder of the year 1948 marked the beginning of the institutionalised modern European integration.

== See also ==
* [[Continental System]]
* [[European integration]]
* [[Federal Europe]]
* [[History of the European Union]]
* [[Pan-European identity]]
* [[Universal Monarchy]]

== References ==
((Reflist))

==Further reading==
* Dedman, Martin. ''The origins and development of the European Union 1945-1995: a history of European integration'' (Routledge, 2006).
* [[Catherine E. de Vries|De Vries, Catherine E.]] "Don't Mention the War! Second World War Remembrance and Support for European Cooperation." ''JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies'' (2019).
* Dinan, Desmond. ''Europe recast: a history of European Union'' (2nd ed. Palgrave Macmillan), 2004 [https://www.rienner.com/uploads/53aae65db9769.pdf excerpt]. ((webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161021131211/https://www.rienner.com/uploads/53aae65db9769.pdf |date=21 October 2016 ))
* Heuser, Beatrice. ''Brexit in History: Sovereignty or a European Union? '' (2019) [https://www.amazon.com/Brexit-History-Sovereignty-European-Union/dp/1787381269/ excerpt] also see  [https://www.wsj.com/articles/brexit-in-history-review-lets-not-get-together-11580428449 online review]
* Kaiser, Wolfram, and Antonio Varsori, eds. ''European Union history: themes and debates'' (Springer, 2010).
* Patel, Kiran Klaus, and Wolfram Kaiser. "Continuity and change in European cooperation during the twentieth century." ''Contemporary European History'' 27.2 (2018): 165–182. [https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/E478ABB55246FBA32276D13F27818903/S096077731800005Xa.pdf/continuity_and_change_in_european_cooperation_during_the_twentieth_century.pdf online] ((webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200601030038/https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/E478ABB55246FBA32276D13F27818903/S096077731800005Xa.pdf/continuity_and_change_in_european_cooperation_during_the_twentieth_century.pdf |date=1 June 2020 ))
*((cite book|last1=Pasture|first1=Patrick|title=Imagining European unity since 1000 AD|date=2015|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|location=New York|isbn=9781137480460))
*((cite book|editor1-last=Stirk|editor1-first=P.M.R.|title=European Unity in Context: The Interwar Period|date=1989|publisher=Pinter Publishers|location=London|isbn=9780861879878|edition=1st))
*((cite book|editor1-last=Smith|editor1-first=M.L.|editor2-last=Stirk|editor2-first=P.M.R.|title=Making The New Europe: European Unity and the Second World War|date=1990|publisher=Pinter Publishers|location=London|isbn=0-86187-777-2|edition=1st UK))

((European Union topics))

((DEFAULTSORT:Pre-1945 Ideas on European Unity))
[[Category:History of the European Union|1944]]

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