NO POINT TREATIES

It would seem that the 26^th January is not the best day for signing treaties. Mostly they deal with land grabbing. Two such treaties are an instance in point, whilst the third was a scam and preliminary to land-grab from the outset.

Negotiation of the Peace of Karlowitz

(note the way the  Ottoman ambassadors

sit with their legs crossed

The various peace treaties entered into by the Grand Sultan Mustapha Han, Sultan of the Turks on the 26^th January 1699 at Karlowitz. The Treaties were mediated by King William III of England and The Lords and States General of the Netherlands. One was concluded with Emperor Leopold of Germany, another with August II, King and the Republic of Poland (a curious monarchy), and yet another with the ‘most Serene Republic of Venice’. Quite a collection of grandees. The group met in November of 1698 and negotiated for 72 days. The Treaty with respect to Austria was the longest lasting (25 years) not so with the other parties.

Kapela mira (Peace Chapel), where the

Treaty of Karlowitz was negotiated

The ‘Treaty of Karlowitz’ was signed on  26^th  January   1699 in Sremski Karlovci (a town in modern-day Serbia), concluding the Austro-Ottoman war of 1683 – 1697 in which the Ottoman side had been defeated at the Battle of Zenta. It marks the end of Ottoman control in much of Central Europe and the beginning of the empire's phase of stagnation, and established the Habsburg Monarchy as the dominant power in Central and South-eastern Europe.

Following a two-month congress between the Ottoman Empire on one side and the Holy League of 1684 (a coalition of the Holy Roman Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Republic of Venice and Peter I of Russia) a treaty was signed on 26 January 1699. The Habsburg Monarchy received Ottoman Egir Province, Varad Province, much of the Budin Province, northern part of the Temeşvar Province and parts of Bosnia Province.

The Principality of Transylvania remained nominally independent but was subjected to direct rule of Austrian governors.

Venice obtained most of Dalmati along with the Morea (the Peloponnesus peninsula in southern Greece). Poland recovered Podolia. The Ottomans retained Belgrade.

A full text of the treaties in English can be found in Volume IV of  ‘A general collection of Treatys of Peace and Commerce, Manifestos, Declarations of War and other Publick Papers, from the end of the Reign of Queen Anne to the year 1731’ published in London, in 1732,  by J. J. and P. Knapton & Ors.

And yet another treaty between the United States and Native American Indian tribes. The Point No Point Treaty was signed on 26^th January, 1855 at Point No Point, on the northern tip of the Kitsap Peninsula. Governor of Washington Territory, Isaac Stevens, convened the treaty council on the 25^th January 2, with the S’Klallam, the Chimakum, and the Skokomish tribes. Under the terms of the treaty, the original inhabitants of northern Kitsap Peninsula and Olympic Peninsula were to cede ownership of their land in exchange for small reservations in Hood Canal and a payment of $60,000 from the federal government. It also required the natives to trade only with the United States, to free all their slaves, and it abjured them not to acquire new slaves. An interesting clause which clearly had its own repercussions six years later in 1861,

Klallam chief Chits-a-man-han
and his wife, ca. 1884

On the first day of the council, treaty provisions were translated from English to the Chinook Jargon for the 1,200 natives who assembled at the sand spit they called Hahdskus, across Admiralty Inlet from Whidbey Island, which is today the site of a lighthouse.

Skokomish leader, Hool-hol-tan, expressed concern about finding sufficient food, and did not like the lands being offered as a reservation. L'Hau-at-scha-uk, a To-anhooch, was afraid he would die if he left his ancestral lands. Others objected that the land was being bought too cheaply, now that they understood what it was worth. The whites played down the importance of the land, but the first day ended without an agreement.

Isaac Stevens

But by the next morning the various chiefs and headmen returned under white flags to add their marks to the treaty, which had been prepared in its final form with no intention of serving as a starting point for negotiations. Fifty-six various chiefs and headman made their mark on the document, which was also signed by Isaac Stevens in the presence of 19 ‘Officials’ for the Washington Territory and the United States. The treat was not ratified by the United States until four years later in March 1859. By then it probably had little meaning. The treaty is aptly named.

Another no point treaty was the The German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact (German: Deutsch-polnischer Nichtangriffspakt; Polish: Polsko-niemiecki pakt o nieagresji ), an international treaty between Nazi Germany and the Second Polish Republic signed on 26^th January, 1934. In it, both countries pledged to resolve their problems through bilateral negotiations and to forgo armed conflict for a period of ten years. It effectively normalized relations between Poland and Germany, which were previously strained by border disputes arising from the territorial settlement in the Treaty of Versailles. As a consequence of the treaty, Germany effectively recognized Poland's borders and moved to end an economically damaging customs war, which existed between the two countries during the previous decade. 

German ambassador, Hans-Adolf von Moltke, Polish leader Józef Piłsudski,

German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and Józef Beck, Polish Foreign minister

Meeting in Warsaw on 15^th June, 1934,

five months after signing the Polish-German Non-Agression Pact.

Three Josephs and one Hans-Adolf, what a collection.  

On a brighter note, there is an Austrian non-alcoholic lager called Null Komma Josef.

"Null Komma Josef is already a beer classic among all alcohol free beers in Austria. And it is the best. According to a beer-test of the ÖAMTC magazine "auto touring" in May 2002, Null Komma Josef was voted for the best alcohol free beer." This is part of the company blurb, however, I can testify that it is quite a good drink, and certainly a much nicer form of Jospeh. There is also a 0.5% alcohol version called Null Komma Fünf. Tee hee.