British recognition of Estonia

In the last days of February 1918 the British government informed Jaan Tõnisson, head of the Estonian delegation abroad, then in Stockholm, that it was ready provisionally to recognise the Estonian Constituent Assembly as a de facto independent body until the peace conference, at which the future of Estonia should be settled in accordance with the principle of self-determination. The British chronology of the war recorded this under 25 February, the day after the declaration of Estonian independence, and stated that the British were ready provisionally to recognise “the independence of Estonia”. The exact date of the conversation is uncertain, but on 27 February the British embassy in Washington was already informing the American Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, about it. Its letter, published in the American collection of diplomatic documents, also shows that the promise was more cautious than the chronology suggests: it concerned the Estonian constituent assembly, not an independent state.

The Estonians had been seeking London’s support since January. On 23 January Estonian deputies to the Russian Constituent Assembly, among them Jaan Poska and Jüri Vilms, called on the British chargé d’affaires in Petrograd, Francis Lindley. As Lindley reported, they told him that Germany was offering Estonia a guarantee of independence on condition that it accepted a German protectorate, and threatening occupation if it refused. They asked whether they could count on British support at the peace conference. London then proposed the reply that it would do all in its power to prevent the annexation of the Baltic lands by Germany against the will of their inhabitants and to secure international guarantees for the new states. It was stipulated, however, that Britain would not wage war for the Baltic lands alone, and Lindley himself thought it would be best if they remained with Russia, becoming independent only if that proved impossible. The Americans, whose opinion London sought, did not wish to commit themselves.

Tõnisson, a member of the delegation abroad of the Estonian provincial assembly, the Maapäev, arrived in Stockholm on 25 January. With the German invasion approaching, he told the British minister in Sweden, Sir Esme Howard, that the newly elected Estonian Constituent Assembly, due to meet on 28 February, would declare Estonia’s independence. He asked how Britain would receive this. Howard replied in general terms that the aspirations of the Baltic peoples aroused sympathy but could be settled only by the peace conference, and that if Russia became a democratic federation, autonomy might be the more sensible course. Tõnisson explained that the Bolsheviks had turned most Estonians against Russia and had won only 30 per cent of the vote in the elections. If Britain could not recognise independence at once, then let the Western powers at least provisionally recognise the constituent assembly as a de facto independent body, and quickly, before the Germans reached Estonia and confronted the world with a fait accompli. The British government, whose foreign affairs were directed by Arthur Balfour, agreed to this formula.

The gesture was of moral rather than practical significance. The Constituent Assembly never met, because the Bolsheviks had broken off the elections, and on 25 February the Germans, who recognised no Estonian authority, entered Tallinn. London did not establish diplomatic relations with Estonia either. It was, however, the first declaration by a great power of the Entente to which the Estonians could appeal. When Ants Piip, Kaarel Robert Pusta and Eduard Virgo came to London in April, Balfour, in a letter of 3 May 1918, confirmed his readiness to recognise as a de facto independent body, this time the Maapäev, until the peace conference, and agreed to receive Piip as the unofficial representative of the Provisional Government. In May France and Italy took similar steps. Recognition de jure came only in 1921.