Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 37. (1984)
ORDE, Anne: France and the Genoa Conference of 1922
France and the Genoa Conference of 1922 335 industry in 1912 by acquiring interests of the Paris Rothschilds. More than half the capital in the Russian industry was foreign, approximately 130 million dollars out of a total of about 214 million dollars; and about two thirds of the foreign capital, 86 million dollars, was British, with 26 million dollars French, and smaller amounts of German, Dutch, and Belgian capital. American interests before the war were very small. Only about 10 per cent of Russian production was exported43). After the Bolshevik Revolution a decree of the Council of People’s Commissars in June 1918 nationalised the oil industry, expropriating it without compensation. But Baku and its oilfields were occupied by the Turks in September of the same year and by the British in November; and the former owners were restored. Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia set up independent nationalist governments, which were given de facto recognition by the Allies in January 1920; and for most of the period of the civil war south Russia was under White control. The Bolsheviks regained Azerbaijan, with Baku, in May 1920 and again decreed nationalisation. Armenia fell at the end of 1920. Georgia survived with a Menshevik government until February 1921, a few weeks after the Allies recognised it de jure. Even in 1920, with the fate of the Soviet regime still uncertain, Russian oil companies attracted buyers: in that year Standard Oil acquired a large block of Nobel shares, and Royal Dutch Shell a portion of the Russian General Oil Corporation49 50). French holdings increased after the revolution through acceptance by banks of shares owned by Russian refugees as security for loans51). The war brought home to both the British and the French governments the importance of oil supplies and their countries’ almost complete dependence on foreign sources. It became the basis of British oil policy to control sources of supply and oil companies (including Royal Dutch Shell which had a majority Dutch shareholding). The French were equally concerned about ownership. Anglo-French oil negotiations after the war mainly concerned Mesopotamia, but the San Remo agreement of April 1920 contained a clause stating that in the territories which belonged to the former Russian Empire (a term that presumably covered the Transcaucasian republics and more besides) the two governments would jointly support their respective nationals in joint efforts to obtain petroleum concessions and export facilities. Royal Dutch Shell was given a controlling interest in the French company set up to hold the 25 per cent share of the Turkish Petroleum Company’s assets now transferred to France, until the arrangement was cancelled by Poincaré’s government in 192252). 49) Heinrich Hassmann Oil in the Soviet Union (Princeton 1953) 26-32. 50) Hassmann Oil in the Soviet Union 32-33; Carr Bolshevik Revolution 1 (London 1950) 339-350, 394-396. 51) E. H. Davenport - Sidney Russell Cooke The Oil Trusts and Anglo-American Relations (London 1923) 128. 52) Kent Oil and Empire chapter 8; G. Gareth Jones The British Government and the oil companies 1912-1924: the search for an oil policy in Historical Journal 20 (1977) 670.
