U.S. engagement with Catalan nationalism in the aftermath of World War I

Abstract

Historiography has assumed that the United States did not pay attention to the Catalan nationalist movement and its demands for self-government at the end of the First World War. The article, on the contrary, demonstrates, using diplomatic documentation from the American embassy in Madrid and the American mission at the Paris Peace Conference, that the Americans had good knowledge of the campaign for autonomy that took place in Catalonia in the fall of 1918 and the winter of 1919. And, likewise, that two trends coexisted within American diplomacy: one favourable to getting involved in Spanish domestic politics to carry out a reform of the monarchy or even promote a republic and guarantee autonomy to Catalonia and other regions, and another in favour of staying on the sidelines. The article opens a field for deeper inquiry into the knowledge and interest of Wilsonian diplomacy in stateless nationalisms.