The viability of small states is often tied to larger issues of regional stability, and this was clearly the case with the First Austrian Republic. Austria needed peace in Central Europe, and the success of the Paris peace settlement depended on a stable Austria. The story of Austria during the 1920s—a story necessary to understand the peaceful period between the wars, as well as to understand the setting for the turbulent era to follow—is told in the collection of documents in the two volumes under review.

Like the earlier volumes in this series, these two are edited by Klaus Koch, Walter Rauscher, and Arnold Suppan, all three of the Austrian Ost- und Südosteuropa-Institut in Vienna. Both volumes contain a selection, quite a thorough selection, of Austrian foreign policy documents from the Austrian state archives. (It would be useful at some point to provide an explanation as to how the selection was made.) Volume 5 covers the period between 7 November 1922 and 15 June 1926 and carries the title: “Unter der Finanzkontrolle des Völkerbundes.” And volume 6 continues from 16 June 1926 to 11 February 1930 and is titled “Jahre der Souveränität.” Together these two volumes tell the story of Austrian international policies for most of the 1920s.

The format of the volumes remains the same as the earlier four. Both of them begin with a useful summary of the major issues discussed in the collection and a chronological index of the documents with short summaries of the major topics discussed in each. The bulk of the volumes, approximately 500 pages in each, contains the documents themselves: presented in a chronological fashion, with no commentary and few footnotes (at least no explanatory footnotes). Both volumes also end with an addendum listing European governmental leaders and foreign ministers during the years under question, as well as indexes of abbreviations and of “places, persons, and things.” These two new volumes, just like the earlier ones, are an excellent reference source.

The story being told, summarized in the introduction and dispersed throughout the documents, is an important one. It presents the history of Austria within the larger European context during the 1920s. Chronologically it is delineated by the activity of the League of Nations and Austria's years of sovereignty, but coincidentally the years under review are also framed by the leadership of Prelate Ignaz Seipel and his Christian Social Party. Seipel, who had occupied various governmental posts since 1918 and held the reins of the Christian Social Party since 1921, served as Austrian chancellor from 1922 to 1924 and again from 1926 to 1929—roughly the dates of these two volumes. He is perhaps best remembered for helping Austria acquire a life-saving loan from the League of Nations in 1922 (which is documented in an earlier volume), but he should also be remembered for maintaining stability in Austria and challenging other states' views of the meaning of nations and minorities.

Reading through government documents can leave the reader wondering what was important. The chancellor and the foreign minister traveled to many foreign capitals., as well as sent and received numerous memoranda concerning public and secret policies. In these two volumes one can begin, however, to discern a couple of major themes that dominated the interests of Austrian foreign policy in the 1920s. The obvious theme is the objective of maintaining peace: accepting the given conditions and moving forward. Seipel commented in October 1926 that he was prepared to negotiate with anyone interested in peace (6:848, pp. 78–79). In addition, the issue of South Tirol, a region separated from Austria at the end of the war and given to Italy, is prominent in the two volumes. Austria tried, without much success, to fight for the interests of the German minority in that part of northern Italy. And Austria never gave up the wish for closer ties to Germany. The Anschluss between Germany and Austria may have been forbidden by the Paris peace treaties and again in the 1922 treaty guaranteeing Austria a loan from the League of Nations, but the idea of Anschluss remained alive.

Italy first appears in volume 5 in connection with Seipel's diplomatic tour in 1923 to many of Austria's neighbors, including a trip to Rome in the early spring of 1923, where Seipel met with Minister President Mussolini, King Viktor Emmanuel III, Pope Pius XI, and a number of other Italian politicians (5:738, pp. 124–34). At this point, South Tirol had yet to become a major obstacle toward good relations between Italy and Austria. At the time, the issue was more about the veracity of Mussolini. Seipel did not believe that Mussolini was as “grandiose” as he was considered abroad and that he was completely dependent on his Party for his position (5:765, pp. 211–14). This meant that Seipel did not put much faith in Mussolini's wish to reorganize Central Europe—establish some kind of Danubian Federation—under Italian leadership. This would, however, have been in the interest of Austria, that is diminishing Czechoslovakia's dominant position in the region, as well as weakening the Little Entente countries in general, but Mussolini was not entirely trustworthy and there were Germans in South Tirol.

As time went on, all discussions between Italy and Austria focused on the German minority in South Tirol. In early 1926 Seipel's successor, Rudolf Ramek, who had become chancellor in November 1924, spelled out Austria's policy regarding South Tirol. The anti-German assimilation activity of Mussolini's Italy had to be stopped, and Ramek proposed that Austria focus its attention on saving the small (225,000 individuals) German minority that Austria lost to Italy (5:822, pp. 483–89). The question of South Tirol was discussed with many political leaders during the 1920s. One of the last documents in volume 6, however, demonstrates that in February 1930, after Johann Schober had become Austrian chancellor, Austria signed a treaty with Italy, thereby pushing the question of South Tirol into the background, without ever solving it (6:1004, pp. 484–89).

The other main area of Austrian interest remained tied with Germany. In March 1924 the German chancellor Wilhelm Marx and his foreign minister Gustav Stresemann traveled to Vienna, the first time German statesmen had visited a foreign country since the end of the war. The Anschluss was not a topic of conversation, instead discussions focused on trade and cultural questions (5:770–71, pp. 221–24). Stresemann was cautious of the idea of enlarging Germany by adding more Catholics, but at the same time he allowed funds to flow to Anschluss-friendly parties and found ways to move money from the German foreign ministry to the pro-German press in Austria. During a reception, Stresemann emphasized, “we are sons of one Volk” (5: p. 17). Germany remained interested, but so was Austria.

In March 1926, Chancellor Ramek met with Stresemann in Berlin and was convinced that relations with Germany, including a possible future Anschluss, were more important than moving ahead with a recent Czechoslovak proposal for closer relations between Czechoslovakia and Austria (5:833, pp. 520–33). Seipel continued this position when he returned to the Chancellery in October 1926. He made it clear that there would be no alignment without Germany (6:848, pp. 78–79). And during discussions concerning the permanent location of the League of Nations, Seipel argued that Vienna could not serve such a role, as the presence of the League in Vienna would preclude the establishment of a Greater Germany or even a Greater Austria in the future (6:894, pp. 205–07). The Anschluss must always be thought of, even if never mentioned.

Austria's interest in the German minority in Italy and its continued wish for closer ties to the Germans of the German Reich is characteristic of Austria's (and Seipel's) interest in establishing Austria's position as a leader and a protector of Germans in Europe. (This is a story that still waits to be told, and the documents in these volumes only begin to highlight some of the key points of that story.) The German foreign minister, Stresemann, is often thought of in connection to German minorities during the interwar years. It was Stresemann who presented himself and Germany as the protector of all Germans. Yet Seipel also fought for Germans and a clarification in the League of Nations as to the position of national and ethnic minorities. Volume 6 contains a very important speech given by Seipel in September 1928 when he took on the position of Vice President of the League of Nations Assembly (6:945, pp. 366–70).

Seipel warned the League that the increase in “national feeling” within majority nations and national minorities could cause a threat to peace. (His real focus was on the German minorities in Austria's neighboring states, again with an emphasis on the Germans in the South Tirol.) Seipel pleaded with the League to clarify the meaning of nation and minorities. He argued that progress would not be made until everyone realized that there were two different meanings of “nation” in Europe—what we today might call a civic and ethnic sense. Seipel drew a line through Europe, where on one side “the state” is everything and on the other side culture, language, and blood relations dominate. This argument was highlighted in C. A. Macartney's classic text National States and National Minorities from 1934, and the distinction came to dominate early explanations of nationalism, such as the work of Friedrich Meinecke, Hans Kohn, and A. D. Smith. Therefore, this 1928 speech is not only important to understand Seipel and Austrian foreign policy, but early understandings of civic and ethnic nationalism as well, a point often overlooked in the historiography.

The audience for these volumes remains the researcher. The reader will need to be familiar with European international history, basic Austrian history, and be competent to find his or her way through a collection of primary sources. Those who are will benefit greatly from this material. The non-Austrian specialist will also learn of the crucial role that Austria played in Europe in the 1920s, one that should not be forgotten in the larger European story. These volumes are a welcomed addition to collections of foreign policy documents from European states. This reader awaits with anticipation the next volume in the series.